Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Deuteronomy · About this commentary
In the City and in the Field
Deuteronomy 22:13-30
13 If any man takes a wife, and goes in to her, hates her, · WEB
A husband who slanders his wife is fined and loses the right to divorce her, and a woman who could not be heard is held guiltless.
These are the hardest laws in the code for a modern reader, and they should be read for what they are doing rather than for what they leave undone.
The first case is a husband who tires of his wife and attacks her reputation to be rid of her Deuteronomy 22:13–14. The motive is stated plainly — he hates her — and the accusation is the cheapest weapon available, because it cannot be disproved by argument.
Her parents bring the evidence to the elders, and her father speaks for her Deuteronomy 22:15–17. If the charge is false the man is punished, fined a hundred shekels paid to her father, and — the significant clause — she shall be his wife. He may not put her away all his days Deuteronomy 22:19.
He wanted out. He is required to stay, and to support her permanently. In a world where a discarded woman had no livelihood, that is the protection she actually needed, and the man who tried to escape maintenance is locked into it for life.
The corresponding penalty if the charge is true is death Deuteronomy 22:21, and the law is not evenhanded here in a way any modern reader will feel. What can be said is that the surrounding cases show the same code taking real trouble over women's protection, and that the trouble is unusual for its time rather than sufficient for ours.
The adultery ruling puts both parties under the same sentence: they shall both die, the man who lay with the woman and the woman Deuteronomy 22:22. Whatever else is true of it, the code does not let the man walk away from a shared act.
The two cases that follow are distinguished by location, and the distinction is entirely about evidence. In the city, both are punished; in the open country, only the man who lay with her shall die, and to the lady you shall do nothing Deuteronomy 22:25–26.
The reasoning is given in full, and it is the most humane passage in the chapter. She is presumed to have cried out and there was no one to save her Deuteronomy 22:27. The absence of witnesses is read in her favor rather than against her.
And the crime is classified: as when a man rises against his neighbor and kills him, even so is this matter Deuteronomy 22:26. Rape is put in the same category as murder — an assault on a person, not an offense against property or reputation. That is a judgment few ancient codes made, and this one makes it in a single sentence.
held with reason What this mark means