seekeroftruth
Well-Known Member
Deuteronomy 22:13 If a man takes a wife and, after sleeping with her, dislikes her 14 and slanders her and gives her a bad name, saying, “I married this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find proof of her virginity,” 15 then the young woman’s father and mother shall bring to the town elders at the gate proof that she was a virgin. 16 Her father will say to the elders, “I gave my daughter in marriage to this man, but he dislikes her. 17 Now he has slandered her and said, ‘I did not find your daughter to be a virgin.’ But here is the proof of my daughter’s virginity.” Then her parents shall display the cloth before the elders of the town, 18 and the elders shall take the man and punish him. 19 They shall fine him a hundred shekels(b) of silver and give them to the young woman’s father, because this man has given an Israelite virgin a bad name. She shall continue to be his wife; he must not divorce her as long as he lives.
20 If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the young woman’s virginity can be found, 21 she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done an outrageous thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father’s house. You must purge the evil from among you.
20 If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the young woman’s virginity can be found, 21 she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done an outrageous thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father’s house. You must purge the evil from among you.
b. Deuteronomy 22:19 That is, about 2 1/2 pounds or about 1.2 kilograms
The commentary starts with the easy English this morning.
Women were usually rather young when they agreed to marry a man. But they stayed in their parent’s house until they actually married. In this example, the husband married the girl and he had sex with her. Then he said that she was not a virgin. If he accused her falsely, the leaders whipped the man. Then he had to pay 100 silver coins as a punishment. That was twice the amount that people usually paid for a bride. He could never divorce his wife. If he were telling the truth, the men from the city would throw stones at the girl to kill her. Most societies today would not kill someone because of this sin. But the law shows this: It is important to God that his people should not have sex in a wrong way. Strong families are important because they make a strong society. But the man who accused the girl had to produce evidence. If there were none, they would punish the man himself.
These comments are from GodVine.
This was a perfectly possible case in all places where girls were married at ten, twelve, and fourteen years of age, which is frequent in the East. I have known several instances of persons having had two or three children at separate births before they were fourteen years of age. Such tokens, therefore, as the text speaks of, must be infallibly exhibited by females so very young on the consummation of their marriage.
A usage of this kind argues a roughness of manners which would ill comport with the refinement of European ideas on so delicate a subject. Attempts have been made to show that the law here is to be understood metaphorically; but they so perfectly fail to establish any thing like probability, that it would be wasting my own and my reader's time to detail them. A custom similar to that above is observed among the Mohammedans to the present day.
The fine was to be paid to the father, because the slander was against him principally as the head of the wife's family. If the damsel were an orphan the fine reverted to herself. The fact that the penalties attached to bearing false witness against a wife are fixed and comparatively light indicates the low estimation and position of the woman at that time.
A usage of this kind argues a roughness of manners which would ill comport with the refinement of European ideas on so delicate a subject. Attempts have been made to show that the law here is to be understood metaphorically; but they so perfectly fail to establish any thing like probability, that it would be wasting my own and my reader's time to detail them. A custom similar to that above is observed among the Mohammedans to the present day.
The fine was to be paid to the father, because the slander was against him principally as the head of the wife's family. If the damsel were an orphan the fine reverted to herself. The fact that the penalties attached to bearing false witness against a wife are fixed and comparatively light indicates the low estimation and position of the woman at that time.
Well, after no big discussion on yesterdays verses.... these verses should bring no discussion at all.....
IMHO... Based on the fact children as young as 10 or 12 years old were having babies.... I can imagine a father giving his daughter away as a virgin and once she proved to be too young to get pregnant, being returned. That would set up this kind of scenario. I can't imagine a child of 10 being much of a wife.... but then again.... society has changed a lot since then.
