Deuteronomy 22:25

But if a man find a betrothed damsel in the field, and the man force her, and lie with her: then the man only that lay with her shall die:

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

22:13-30 These and the like regulations might be needful then, and yet it is not necessary that we should curiously examine respecting them. The laws relate to the seventh commandment, laying a restraint upon fleshly lusts which war against the soul.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

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.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

13-30. If a man take a wife, &c.—The regulations that follow might be imperatively needful in the then situation of the Israelites; and yet, it is not necessary that we should curiously and impertinently inquire into them. So far was it from being unworthy of God to leave such things upon record, that the enactments must heighten our admiration of His wisdom and goodness in the management of a people so perverse and so given to irregular passions. Nor is it a better argument that the Scriptures were not written by inspiration of God to object that this passage, and others of a like nature, tend to corrupt the imagination and will be abused by evil-disposed readers, than it is to say that the sun was not created by God, because its light may be abused by wicked men as an assistant in committing crimes which they have meditated [Horne].

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The man force her; which was to be examined and determined by the consideration of all the circumstances.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

But if a man find a betrothed damsel in the field,.... Alone, and where she might cry out, and none hear, nor were any to help her:

and a man force her, and lie with her; or "take fast and strong hold on her" (b); so that she is not able to get out of his hands, and make her escape, he being stronger than she, and so commits a rape upon her:

then the man only that lay with her shall die; he being guilty of adultery, in lying with a woman espoused to another man, but not she, because she consented not to it.

(b) "et apprehenderit (in) eam", Pagninus, Montanus; "et apprehendens eam", Piscator.

Geneva Study Bible

But if a man find a betrothed damsel in the field, and the man force her, and lie with her: then the man only that lay with her shall die.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

25. But if in the field the man find, etc.] So the emphatic Heb. order. Field here in its wider and probably earlier sense, of the uncultivated, therefore uninhabited, land. So Deuteronomy 22:27, Deuteronomy 21:1.

force] Rather, seize, lay hold of, as in Deuteronomy 25:11.

Deuteronomy 22:25

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

If, on the other hand, a man met a betrothed girl in the field, and laid hold of her and lay with her, the man alone was to die, and nothing was to be done to the girl. "There is in the damsel no death-sin (i.e., no sin to be punished with death); but as when a man riseth against his neighbour and slayeth him, even so is this matter." In the open field the girl had called for help, but no one had helped her. It was therefore a forcible rape.