Deuteronomy 22:18-28

18 Then the elders of that city shall take the man, and they shall discipline him.

19 Then they shall fine him [a] hundred [shekels of] silver, and they shall give [them] to the father of the young woman, for {he defamed an Israelite young woman}, and {she shall become his wife}; he will not be allowed {to divorce her} all his days.

20 "But if {this charge} was true, {and the signs of virginity were not found} for the young woman,

21 and [then] they shall bring out the young woman to the doorway of the house of her father, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones, and she shall die, because she did a disgraceful thing in Israel {by playing the harlot} [in] the house of her father, and so you shall purge the evil from your midst.

22 "If a man is found lying {with a married woman}, then they shall both die; {both of them}, the man who lay with the woman and the woman [also], so you shall purge the evil from Israel.

23 "If it happens [that] a young woman, a virgin, [is] engaged to a man, [and] a man finds her in the town and lies with her,

24 then you shall bring out {both of them} to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them with stones so that they shall die, the young woman because she did not cry out in the town, and the man because he violated his neighbor's wife; and so you shall purge the evil from your midst.

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,

Deuteronomy 22:18-28 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

• [a]. Literally "for he brought out a bad name against the virgin of Israel"
• [b]. Literally "and for him she shall become as wife"
• [c]. Literally "to send her out"
• [d]. Literally "the thing"
• [e]. Literally "and they were not found [evidence of] virginity"
• [f]. Literally "to play the harlot/to prostitute [herself]"
• [g]. Literally "with a woman, a young woman of a husband"
• [h]. Literally "also/even the two of them"
• [i]. Literally "the two of them"
• [j]. Literally "because of the fact that"
• [k]. Literally "he lies down with her"
• [l]. Or "alone"
• [m]. Or "slept"
• [n]. Hebrew "a thing"
• [o]. Hebrew "to"
• [p]. Literally "a sin of death"
• [q]. Literally "for as that"
• [r]. Literally "a soul/individual person"
• [s]. Literally "thing/matter"
• [t]. Hebrew "there was not"
• [u]. Literally "for her"
• [v]. Literally "he lies with her"