Deuteronomy 22:13-29

Laws on Morality

13 "¹If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and then turns against her,

14 and charges her with shameful deeds and publicly defames * her, and says, 'I took this woman, but when I came near her, I did not find her a virgin,'

15 then the girl's father and her mother shall take and bring out the evidence of the girl's virginity to the elders of the city at the gate.

16 "The girl's father shall say to the elders, 'I gave my daughter to this man for a wife, but he turned against her;

17 and behold, he has charged her with shameful deeds, saying, "I did not find your daughter a virgin." But this is the evidence of my daughter's virginity.' And they shall spread the garment before the elders of the city.

18 "So ²the elders of that city shall take the man and chastise him,

19 and they shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give it to the girl's father, because he publicly defamed * a virgin of Israel. And she shall remain his wife; he cannot * divorce her all his days.

20 "But if this ³charge is true, that the girl was not found a virgin,

21 then they shall bring out the girl to the doorway of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death because she has ⁴committed an act of folly in Israel by playing the harlot in her father's house; thus ⁵you shall purge the evil from among you.

22 "⁶If a man is found lying with a married * woman, then both * of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman; thus you shall purge the evil from Israel.

23 "⁷If there is a girl who is a virgin engaged to a man, and another man finds her in the city and lies with her,

24 then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city and you shall stone them to death; the girl, because * * she did not cry out in the city, and the man, because * * he has violated his neighbor's wife. Thus you shall purge the evil from among you.

25 "But if in the field the man finds the girl who is engaged, and the man forces her and lies with her, then only the man who lies with her shall die.

26 "But you shall do nothing * to the girl; there is no sin in the girl worthy of death, for just as a man rises against his neighbor and murders him, so is this case.

27 "When he found her in the field, the engaged girl cried out, but there was no one to save her.

28 "⁸If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her and they are discovered,

29 then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall become his wife because * he has violated her; he cannot * divorce her all his days.

Deuteronomy 22:13-29 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.

Cross References

• 1. Genesis 29:21; Deuteronomy 24:1; Judges 15:1
• 2. Exodus 18:21; Deuteronomy 1:9-18
• 3. Deuteronomy 17:4
• 4. Genesis 34:7; Leviticus 19:29; Leviticus 21:9; Deuteronomy 23:17, 18; Judges 20:5-10; 2 Samuel 13:12, 13
• 5. Deuteronomy 13:5; Deuteronomy 17:7; Deuteronomy 19:19
• 6. Leviticus 20:10; Ezekiel 16:38; Matthew 5:27, 28; John 8:5; 1 Corinthians 6:9; Hebrews 13:4
• 7. Leviticus 19:20-22; Matthew 1:18, 19
• 8. Exodus 22:16

Footnotes

• [a] Lit "hates her"
• [b] Lit "causes an evil name to go out against her"
• [c] Lit "hated her"
• [d] Lit "these are"
• [e] Lit "caused an evil name to go out against a virgin"
• [f] Lit "send her away"
• [g] Lit "matter"
• [h] Lit "with stones so that she dies"
• [i] Lit "with stones so that they die"