Before we continue our study of the latter half of Deuteronomy 22 dealing with a variety of human sexual relationships, we need to define a couple of important terms.
Let’s first deal with the Biblical definition of “virgin” since it often appears in Scripture.
In our day and age, the meaning of “virgin” is pretty clear-cut.
It simply means a woman who has never had any sexual relations with a man.
On the other hand, the Biblical definition is slightly different.,
According to Scripture, a “virgin” is a woman who has never been married.
However, it’s important to understand that in the Biblical era, part and parcel of a woman never having married is that she had never had sex AND…
…was still living in her father’s home under his authority.
In those days, Hebrew girls married really young.
When I say young, I mean from around the age of 15 years old.
It was actually VERY RARE for a Hebrew girl in her twenties to still be single and living with her parents.
The Hebrew word for virgin is BETULAH or בְּתוּלָה.
Here are a couple of places in Torah where this word appears.
The woman was very beautiful, a virgin; no man had ever slept with her. She went down to the spring, filled her jar and came up again.-Genesis 24:16
“If a man seduces a virgin who is not pledged to be married and sleeps with her, he must pay the bride-price, and she shall be his wife.”-Exodus 22:16
“A widow, or a divorced woman, or profane, or an harlot, these shall he not take: but he shall take a virgin of his own people to wife.”-Leviticus 21:14
“If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered…”-Deuteronomy 22:28
Incidentally, in the following verse that the Christians just loooooooooooooooooove to quote to establish the idea that Yeshua was born of a virgin, a different Hebrew word is used.
“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign:
The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son,
and will call him Immanuel.”
-Isaiah 7:14
The Hebrew word here is ALMAH or עַלְמָה and it just means a “young woman”.
While an ALMAH or young woman can be a virgin, in its strictest sense, this word only conveys age and gender.
In Hebrew, if you want to specifically in its strictest technical sense refer to a young woman who has never had sex before in her life, it would be best to use the word BETULAH.
You are treading dangerous waters…..
This blog has been treading dangerous waters since its very inception. I’m used to it.
Are you saying that marry was not a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus?
No.
For Isaiah 7:14, the Septuagint translated “almah” as “parthenos,” a word which means virgin. Perhaps that generation of translators were given additional insight as to the coming Messiah. The fact that 70 (or 72) Jewish scholars independently produced identical translations of the Tanakh into Greek is a miracle in and of itself.
I have seen too many errors in the Septuagint to take it very seriously in matters of importance. However I can address this comparison, “almah and “betulah”:
There are a couple principles (of the many) of understanding scripture, that apply herein.
1) It is a consistent pattern in YHWH’s dealings with humanity, that He is continually upping the stakes, upping His deeds, increasing the odds and then meeting the challenge to make the victory even less likely and thus more amazing than before.
And the more important the prophecy, the more times it is fulfilled, AND each time is bigger and grander than the time(s) before.
For an example, see the prophecy that the descendants of Abraham will return to their Land from other place(s). I can easily think of at least 3 “returns”.
Thus we have the words chosen, fitting into this pattern.
2) we ALSO have the principles of PaRDeS — derived from the Hebrew words P’shat, Resh, Drash, and Sod. (Forgive my mispellings, I am not Jewish nor a scholar, I just read a lot.) These are the 4 levels of scripture. All of scripture has the initial level of meaning, the “P’shat” meaning “plain” or “simple”. What it says is just what it means. Noah built a big boat and it would up full of animals. Simple. It really happened.
an excellent teaching on this method of understanding scripture can be found here:
http://www.yashanet.com/studies/revstudy/pardes.htm (that site is messianic, as I am)
The thing to remember is, NO LEVEL WILL CONTRADICT ANOTHER. For example, The ark Noah built was a way to rescue people; you will not find anywhere in the other levels, that it was a place of death. God/YHWH is utterly reliable in all His communications with mankind.
Now, then: regarding virgins:
Earlier in recorded history, at the time Isaiah was writing, he said an unmarried woman would bear a son and call him by a specific name.
In the culture of the time, the woman got to name the children. And we all know how woman can change their minds; we all know some decisions are just hard to make. So to announce, many months ahead of time, a coming conception/healthy pregnancy/nae-giving/AND gender of the child, was nearly a miracle in itself.
So this was an early or “simple” fulfillment of the prediction. It was highly unlikely that a woman would marry, conceive, bear the stated gender of a child, AND name him as predicted. But it happened.
The second fulfillment was to be harder and thus more glorious when fulfilled. When Miryam was speaking with the angel, she admitted she was a betulah. It is true that in the LEGAL sense she was a “betulah”, but in the physical sense she was a Betulah. This, the conception, birth, and naming of the child in that event was even more unlikely and even more of a miracle.
September 23rd 2017 was the night when in the heavens, the planet Jupiter appeared to exit the abdomen of the constellation Virgo (“the virgin”) despite the presence of the planet Saturn (“the dragon”) nearby in that part of the sky. There are other aspects which indicate this does qualify to be the miraculous fulfillment described in Revelation 12: 1-6 but I will not be addressing that here.
yet another fulfilment will occur at the end of recorded history, as described in Revelation 19:7-9 and hinted at in Rev.21: 2, 9 and similar. For what is more miraculous than to restore virgin status to one who was defiled? and we were all defiled by sin; we were none of us qualified to marry a Prince or serve a King.
yes, BOTH words — “betula” and “almah” will be fulfilled, at the proper times, to give the proper glory to the One Who deserves it all.
p.s. — pardon — I wrote
It is true that in the LEGAL sense she was a “betulah”–
should have read “almah”, since betrothal was a legally binding status like marriage.
my apologies.
Mary was betrothed to be married unto God by stating “as you say” so it will be and was! She who bore within her the now human life of God, King of Kings. Human marriage is by consummation not by word. At that time God knows all things and stated it correctly, He is never wrong, He knew her and she was perfected to be the young women to birth His Son. He always had His eyes on her!