Deuteronomy 22:25-30

25 "But if the man finds the young engaged woman in the field and the man overpowers her and {he has sex with her}, then the man only must die who lay with her.
26 But you shall not do anything to the young woman, [for] there is not [reckoned] against the young woman {a sin deserving death}; {it is similar to when} a man rises up against his neighbor and murders him, {a fellow human being}, [just] so [is] this {case},
27 for he found her in the field, the engaged young woman cried out, but there was no rescuer {to help her}.
28 "If a man finds a young woman, a virgin [who] is not engaged, and he seizes her and {he has sex with her} and they are caught,
29 then {the man who lay with her} shall give to the father of the young woman fifty [shekels] of silver, and she shall become {his wife} {because} he violated her, and he is not allowed to divorce her {during his lifetime}.
30 A man may not take the wife of his father, and [so] {he may not dishonor his father}.

Deuteronomy 22:25-30 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 18

  • [a]. Literally "he lies down with her"
  • [b]. Or "alone"
  • [c]. Or "slept"
  • [d]. Hebrew "a thing"
  • [e]. Hebrew "to"
  • [f]. Literally "a sin of death"
  • [g]. Literally "for as that"
  • [h]. Literally "a soul/individual person"
  • [i]. Literally "thing/matter"
  • [j]. Hebrew "there was not"
  • [k]. Literally "for her"
  • [l]. Literally "he lies with her"
  • [m]. Literally "the man the [one] lying with her"
  • [n]. Literally "for/as a wife"
  • [o]. Literally "in place of"
  • [p]. Literally "all [of] his days"
  • [q]. Deuteronomy 22:30-23:25 in the English Bible is 23:1-26 in the Hebrew Bible
  • [r]. Literally "not he may reveal the skirt of the garment of his father"
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