Deuteronomy 22:22-30

Inappropriate sexual behavior

22 If a man is found having sex with a woman who is married to someone else, both of them must die—the man who was having sex with the woman and the woman herself. Remove such evil from Israel!
23 If a young woman who is a virgin is engaged to one man and another man meets up with her in a town and has sex with her,
24 you must bring both of them to the city gates there and stone them until they die—the young woman because she didn't call for help in the city, and the man because of the fact that he humiliated his neighbor's wife. Remove such evil from your community!
25 But if the man met up with the engaged woman in a field, grabbing her and having sex with her there, only the man will die.
26 Don't do anything whatsoever to the young woman. She hasn't committed any capital crime—rather, this situation is exactly like the one where someone attacks his neighbor and kills him.
27 Since the man met up with her in a field, the engaged woman may well have called out for help, but there was no one to rescue her.
28 If a man meets up with a young woman who is a virgin and not engaged, grabs her and has sex with her, and they are caught in the act,
29 the man who had sex with her must give fifty silver shekels to the young woman's father. She will also become his wife because he has humiliated her. He is never allowed to divorce her.
30 A man cannot marry his father's former wife so that his father's private matters are not exposed.

Deuteronomy 22:22-30 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO DEUTERONOMY 22

In this chapter are various laws, concerning care of a neighbour's cattle gone astray or in distress, and of anything lost by him, De 22:1-4, forbidding one sex to wear the apparel, of another, De 22:5 and the taking away of the dam with the young found in a bird's nest, De 22:6,7, ordering battlements to be made in a new house, De 22:8, prohibiting mixtures in sowing, ploughing, and in garments, De 22:9-11, requiring fringes on the four quarters of a garment, De 22:12, fining a man that slanders his wife, upon producing the tokens of her virginity, De 22:13-19 but if these cannot be produced, then orders are given that she be put to death, De 22:20-21, then follow other laws, punishing with death the adulterer and adulteress, and one that hath ravished a betrothed damsel, De 22:22-27, amercing a person that lies with a virgin not betrothed and she consenting, and obliging him to marry her, and not suffering him to divorce her, De 22:28-29 and another against a man's lying with his father's wife, De 22:30.

Footnotes 3

  • [a]. See 19:4–7.
  • [b]. 23:1 in Heb
  • [c]. Or so that he doesn’t uncover his father’s skirt
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