by erika haveman
“Deuteronomy can be summed up in these five words: “Devote yourselves wholeheartedly to God.”” – description from SourceView Bible Study App.
The reality is, if you are following this series, you are going to start to realize that the general message of what God has to say is the same. Loving Christ means looking different in the eyes of the world. Deuteronomy sums up what the rest of the Pentatuech (Genesis through Deuteronomy can be referred to as the Pentateuch) has been saying: Be holy becaues God is holy (Lev. 19:2). But it is also the point of this study to get more specific, so let’s see where that attempt takes me today.
If I was to vote, I’d say that the most confusing passages in Deuteronomy, in regards to sexuality, show up in chapter 22, and again in chapter 24. These passages can get you all up in arms (as they did with me) because it talks about a man being “displeased” with his wife. In Deut. 22:13-21 it has to do with the man thinking that his wife wasn’t a virgin before he married her he is punished and then must stay married to her (romance and date nights weren’t quite the priority of the Israelites; keep in mind their culture and way of doing life was good for them and tremendously different than our cultural norms). If the man’s statement proves false (and she was a virgin). If the man’s statement proves true (she wasn’t a virgin) she must be stoned.
Deut. 22:23-24 addresses consentual sex outside of marriage. What happens to the people, then? They love each other, it’s something they’ve both agreed to. This is how our culture defines an acceptable expression of sexuality. But what does the Bible say here? “Both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge this evil from Israel.” Hmmm…dramatic? Out of date? Irrelevant? Not so when you consider the ultimate message of “be holy as God is holy.” Be set apart as God is set apart. Having sex with someone you love, outside of marriage, is not being set apart. It never has been and never will come a day when it will be. You also need to consider the basis sin at stake here: adultery.
Deut. 22:25-27 addresses rape. In this instance, the victim is not killed, just the one at fault. This instance is also interesting. The rapist is only killed if the woman raped is betrothed or pledged to be married. He is killed because he can in no way marry her because she belongs already to someone else. The next passage, Deut. 22:28-29 is a bit more confusing, and probably in our minds offensive. This has to do with a man raping a virgin who is not betrothed. Because she is not pledged to be married, the man is to instead take her as his wife. After all this you are probably asking the question – why is he also not killed? Isn’t it pure evil of God to make a raped woman marry her rapist?
Realize these things:
1The women in all of the circumstances, up until Deut. 22:28-29, are pledged to be married. The one in Deut. 22:28-29 is not pledged to be married.
2God made concessions in the Old Testament to ensure people would always be provided for.
In the past I’ve used the argument that sex outside of marriage is unacceptable because one of the commandments is “do not commit adultery” (Ex. 20:14, Deut. 5:18). If the person you are sleeping with is not your spouse, you are commtting adultery. I would still say this is true. I would say “do not commit adultery” is the foundational understanding of the laws being listed off in Deut. 22 -24. We apply the commandments to our culture; we do not apply our culture to the commandments. For the nation of Israel, the laws in discussion would apply to their culture and structure of doing things would look like this: a woman who is pledged to be married is as good as married. A woman not pledged to be married is not married, obviously. No woman has rights to choose her husband. Parents choose her spouse. If she was to have consentual sex outside of marriage and she was not pledged to be married, this would fall under dishonouring her parents, and the man with whom she slept with would be required to marry her. That is why we see the result of rape in the case of Deut. 22:28-28 to be marriage. This, to us, may be seen as evil and unfair, but in Israelite culture it would have been the only way to salvage the honour of the woman violated. If we don’t understand it’s because their culture is not our culture.
In Genesis we have an example of this law actually having played out, before it was a part of the law (of course, because the law wasn’t given until after the Israelites were freed from Egypt, which was in Exodus). The fact that Jacob’s children responded by giving their violated sister in marriage actually shows God’s consistency, and gives us insight into God’s expectations for His people long before they were written in stone (no pun intended). In Genesis 34 there is an incident where Dinah, the daugher of Jacob and Leah, is raped by a man from Shechem. Dinah’s brothers find out, and demand the man of Shechem marries their sister (they also forced all the men of Shechem to be circumcised and then after the men were circumcised, some of the sons of Jacob slaughtered all the Shechemite men. That wasn’t okay. But it’s also beyond the scope of the point I am making). Dinah’s brothers were not forcing her to live in shame and fear her whole life, but to actually give her a life. You see, if an unpledged woman was raped, she was tainted (through no fault of her own, I know), but the culture wouldn’t see a victim the same way we’d see a victim. They would feel sorry that this woman will no longer be given in marriage, and thus not being provided for she was likely to die. As a way to help her situation, they created the concession that the man who had violated her would now become responsible for her. I know it sounds horrible to us, but remember that the commandment applies to the culture, not the culture applies to the commandment.
That is what I’m leaving you with this week. Something (lots?) to consider. Deuteronomy is just too big to cram in to one day, so I’m stopping here and will finish next week. I challenge you, though, to read Deuteronomy this week through the filter of mercy and you’ll see God in ways you’ve never imagined before. It is a book jam packed with amazing truth and clear expressions of God’s mercy for His people. Then come back next week and learn more about these weird, could-be offensive laws and how we can make peace with them in light of God’s mercy.
This is part of a series going through the entire Bible to offer you a bigger picture on God’s standards for sexuality. The opening post can be found here.
the rambling missionary 