“If a man is found sleeping with a woman who has a husband, both of them must die — the man who went to bed with the woman and the woman too. In this way you will expel such wickedness from Israel. If a girl who is a virgin is engaged to a man, and another man comes upon her in the town and has sexual relations with her; you are to bring them both out to the gate of the city and stone them to death — the girl because she didn’t cry out for help, there in the city, and the man because he has humiliated his neighbor’s wife. In this way you will put an end to such wickedness among you.”-Deuteronomy 22:22-24
We are continuing to slog through the latter half of Deuteronomy Chapter 22 where we encounter the death penalty being handed down left and right for the various sexual offenses listed.
The first case presented to us in verse 22 is pretty straight forward.
If a man has sex with a married woman who is not his wife, both parties are executed, no questions asked, no going to jail, and no favoritism.
Second, from verse 23 we’re presented an example whereby a girl has sex with a man who she is NOT engaged to.
The outcome of this ordeal is the same as the previous one: BOTH the man and woman are executed.
We can see here that under the law, except for the bride and bridegroom coming together in a sexual union, there is practically no difference between being engaged to be married and actually being married.
Notice some of the caveats listed here.
If a man has sex with a woman who is engaged or married to another man who did not cry out when the man came upon her AND…
…the event takes place in a city, both the man and woman are to be executed.
Why?
Because the idea is that if a man attacked a girl with aggressive sexual intentions in a city, there is no way in hell she wouldn’t have been heard had she properly cried out for help.
Her crying out would have been the sure-fire indication that this was a situation of rape and NOT a willing act of cooperation that resulted in an unauthorized sexual union.
Someone who heard her may have been able to come to her rescue or at the very least testify on the girl’s behalf during a court trial.
Let me offer up a quick explanation about how cities were laid out in ancient times.
In those days, the location of a city was determined by the availability of water.
Several families would settle themselves around a central water source and then as time passed on, roads would be built and the town would grow into a city with quite a dense population.
In fact, just to give you an idea of just how crammed things got, the walls of one home were normally built using the walls of neighboring homes.
So we can readily see the connection to verse 23 which says the girl will be considered innocent if she cries out when attacked by a rapist in a city.
On the other hand, if no one hears her screams, that means she did not try hard enough to protest and therefore will be considered guilty of willingly entering into a forbidden sexual union with another man.
Again, both the man and the woman in this case will be sentenced to death.
Now verses 25-27 are interesting.
“But if the man comes upon the engaged girl out in the countryside, and the man grabs her and has sexual relations with her, then only the man who had intercourse with her is to die. You will do nothing to the girl, because she has done nothing deserving of death. The situation is like the case of the man who attacks his neighbor and kills him. For he found her in the countryside, and the engaged girl cried out, but there was no one to save her.“
If the location of the very same crime takes place out in the countryside, where houses are spaced far apart from each other which means the likelihood of a girl’s screams being heard is quite slim, then in this case, the girl’s word will be taken for it.
Whatever she says in a court of law will stand and in that case she will go free but the man who she lay will with will be executed.
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