Deuteronomy 22:13-30--Laws Concerning Sexual Immorality

Deuteronomy 22:13-30
English Standard Version

Laws Concerning Sexual Immorality
13 “If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and then hates her 14 and accuses her of misconduct and brings a bad name upon her, saying, ‘I took this woman, and when I came near her, I did not find in her evidence of virginity,’ 15 then the father of the young woman and her mother shall take and bring out the evidence of her virginity to the elders of the city in the gate. 16 And the father of the young woman shall say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man to marry, and he hates her; 17 and behold, he has accused her of misconduct, saying, “I did not find in your daughter evidence of virginity.” And yet this is the evidence of my daughter's virginity.’ And they shall spread the cloak before the elders of the city. 18 Then the elders of that city shall take the man and whip him, 19 and they shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give them to the father of the young woman, because he has brought a bad name upon a virgin of Israel. And she shall be his wife. He may not divorce her all his days. 20 But if the thing is true, that evidence of virginity was not found in the young woman, 21 then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has done an outrageous thing in Israel by whoring in her father's house. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

22 “If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.

23 “If there is a betrothed virgin, and a man meets 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 with stones, the young woman because she did not cry for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbor's wife. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

25 “But if in the open country a man meets a young woman who is betrothed, and the man seizes her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die. 26 But you shall do nothing to the young woman; she has committed no offense punishable by death. For this case is like that of a man attacking and murdering his neighbor, 27 because he met her in the open country, and though the betrothed young woman cried for help there was no one to rescue her.

28 “If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, 29 then the man who lay with her shall give to the father of the young woman fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he has violated her. He may not divorce her all his days.

​30  “A man shall not take his father's wife, so that he does not uncover his father's nakedness.

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I'll be honest and say that I don't completely understand verses 13-17 other than to say that it is wrong for a man to accuse a woman of being unfaithful before marriage as a reason for divorcing here just because he no longer desires to be married to her (there was no "no fault divorce" back in those days, and I personally don't believe there should be today--though divorce is not the main topic of this passage).  Apparently there was evidence that the parents could present (and I guess they were to save) to prove that she was a virgin when she got married.  If they could present this evidence to the city elders to show the husband's accusations to be false, then he would be whipped and fine the husband 500 shekels of silver that was to be paid to the father of the bride since the bride's reputation and virginity which were in question was his to protect so this is an accusation against him too.  And the husband must keep his bride and may never divorce her for any reason from that day forward.

If however she was found to not be a virgin when she married the man but claimed she was at the time of the wedding then she would be brought out of her father's house and outside the city and would be stoned to death because she had prostituted herself while living in her father's house.

Again, I don't pretend to completely understand this passage, but I do think we should value and honor virginity and sexual purity and we should not sully someone's reputation in these matters just because we don't like them or we don't think they are attractive to us.  There are too many boys and men that would be quick to call a girl or woman something like a "whore" when perhaps she didn't deserve it and God does not take that lightly and doesn't think it's funny even if the boy or man or his friends think so.  Think of this in the context of the Father presenting the Church to the Son and there being some accusation that we have prostituted ourselves to other gods or have we "saved ourselves" for Christ and Him alone when the wedding day comes and it is time for consummation? Will he find us faithful? (Good thing our salvation is based off of His faithfulness and His purity the he clothes us with and not our own).

Adultery is strictly forbidden and it is the death penalty for both parties involved when they are caught.  That makes the passage in the New Testament where the religious leaders brought the woman caught in adultery to Jesus interesting because they seem to have not seized the man at the same time to stone him too.  This applies to any sex outside of marriage that the woman may have while she was betrothed (a stronger commitment than what we call engagement, because this was the first phase of their marriage and they were considered to be married without being allowed to consummate the marriage until the wedding ceremony happened--we are in the betrothal period right now with Christ as we are married to Him but He is building a place for us in His Father's house and one day soon He will come for His bride and the marriage ceremony and consummation will happen quickly upon His return for us). 

If she was attacked in the city and cried out for help, she would not be guilty, but if she did not cry out then it would be presumed to be consensual because in the city she should have been able to call for help.  If she was attacked in the open country where there would be no one to help her if she cried for help, then only the man would die--she is not responsible to be heard at that point.  Such an act was premeditated on the part of the man to lure her away from the city to attack her in much the same way that someone would be guilty of premeditated murder, and the LORD says that both the murderer and the rapist, as well as any fornicator or adulterer should die.

If unmarried people meet to have premarital sex which is something only married people should do, then the man must pay the girl's father 50 shekels of silver, the price of her virginity, and must marry her and may never divorce her.  He has taken her virginity from her so that no one else would marry her and the two of them wanted to act like married people, so the LORD says that they must be married at that point.  I think we'd have a lot less premarital sex today if there was this kind of price to pay and the two were forced to marry, but it is not for me to say if these laws should be applied to our people in the USA today because we are certainly not living under a theocracy under the Law today--though that doesn't mean that Law doesn't have something to teach us and isn't good.

The last prohibition here is what we would probably call incest today.  It prohibits the son from violating the father's marriage vows with his wife.  Notice it does not specifically say that a son should not have sex with his mother, but that it says he should not have sex with his father's wife.  This would include the possibility of children by adoption or blended marriages (as we see in the book of 1 Corinthians that Paul uses this commandment to judge the man that is having relations with his step-mother because she is still his "father's wife.")

God intended both the man and the woman to remain pure for each other and that one man to be married to one woman forever and this covenant of marriage was to help picture the intimacy that we would have in the New Covenant of Christ when the Church and Christ would be made one as the Father and the Son are one (see Jesus' High Priestly Prayer in John 17).  Anything we do to mess up sex and marriage messes up the picture that God made of what His love for us is like--though His love is not sexual, it's even more of a commitment and a stronger bond than that which we find in marriage--it is a price that Jesus paid with His own blood.  That is just one of the best pictures we have at this time, and its no wonder that the devil wants to mess it up so badly so that we can't point to it to help people understand the gospel better.