Deuteronomy22chapter 22

Deuteronomy 22:1-4

The chapter opens on lost property, and the phrase thou mayest not hide thyself falls in the middle of it. Exodus 23:4-5 gave the same duty about an enemy's ox and his ass, and here the animal belongs to a brother, so the obligation covers both ends of that range. Verse 2 adds the case where the owner is unknown, and the finder keeps the animal at his own cost until it is claimed.

Deuteronomy 22:5-8

Four rules with little in common on the surface, and the last of them shows what kind of law this is. A battlement on a new roof is required so that thou bring not blood upon thine house if any man fall from it, which makes building safety a question of guilt rather than of prudence. The bird's nest rule lets the mother go and takes the young, and it carries the promise attached to honouring parents at Exodus 20:12, that it may be well with thee and thou mayest prolong thy days.

Deuteronomy 22:9-12

Divers seeds in a vineyard, an ox and an ass under one yoke, wool and linen in one garment, and then fringes on the four quarters of the vesture. The first three keep kinds distinct and the text gives no reason for any of them, which is also how Leviticus 19:19 leaves them. Numbers 15:38-40 does explain the fringes, as a reminder of the commandments, and Matthew 9:20 and 14:36 have people reaching for the hem of Jesus' garment.

Deuteronomy 22:13-21

A husband who accuses his bride is answered by her parents bringing evidence to the elders in the gate, so the case is tried in public and the first burden falls on the accuser. If the charge fails he is chastised, fined a hundred shekels of silver, which is twice the fifty of verse 29, and he may never divorce her, so the woman is left provided for by the man who tried to be rid of her. If the charge holds the penalty is death, and the phrase used for the offence, wrought folly in Israel, is the one Genesis 34:7 used first and Judges 20:6 and 2 Samuel 13:12 use again.

Deuteronomy 22:22-24

Adultery is capital for both parties and verse 22 names both of them twice. A betrothed woman is treated as married, and the city case turns on the fact that she cried not, being in the city, where a cry would have been heard. The next three verses take the same reasoning and run it the other way.

Deuteronomy 22:25-27

In the field the man only dies. The statute says outright that there is in the damsel no sin worthy of death, and it gives its reason, that she cried and there was none to save her, so the absence of witnesses is read in her favour. It then classes the act with murder in so many words, as when a man riseth against his neighbour, and slayeth him, even so is this matter.

Deuteronomy 22:28-30

The unbetrothed case ends in fifty shekels to the father and a marriage the man may never dissolve, and Exodus 22:16-17 sets beside it a father's right to refuse the match outright. Commentators differ over how far the two passages govern each other and over the force of the Hebrew verb rendered lay hold on her. The chapter closes on the prohibition of a father's wife, which is the case 1 Corinthians 5:1 finds in a church.