Text -- Deuteronomy 22:25-30 (NET)

22:25 But if the man came across the engaged woman in the field and overpowered her and raped her, then only the rapist must die. 22:26 You must not do anything to the young woman– she has done nothing deserving of death. This case is the same as when someone attacks another person and murders him, 22:27 for the man met her in the field and the engaged woman cried out, but there was no one to rescue her. 22:28 Suppose a man comes across a virgin who is not engaged and overpowers and rapes her and they are discovered. 22:29 The man who has raped her must pay her father fifty shekels of silver and she must become his wife because he has violated her; he may never divorce her as long as he lives. 22:30 A man may not marry his father’s former wife and in this way dishonor his father.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Deu 22:25

¹ tn Heb “found,” also in vv. 27, 28.

² tn Heb “lay with” here refers to a forced sexual relationship, as the accompanying verb “seized” (חָזַק, khazaq) makes clear.

³ tn Heb “the man who lay with her, only him.”

NET Notes: Deu 22:26

¹ tn Heb “his neighbor.”

NET Notes: Deu 22:27

¹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the man who attacked the woman) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

NET Notes: Deu 22:28

¹ tn Heb “lies with.”

NET Notes: Deu 22:30

¹ sn Beginning with 22:30, the verse numbers through 23:25 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 22:30 ET = 23:1 HT, 23:1 ET = 23:2 HT, 23:2 ET = 23:3 HT, etc., through 23:25 ET = 23:26 HT. With 24:1 the verse numbers in the ET and HT are again the same.

² tn Heb “take.” In context this refers to marriage, as in the older English expression “take a wife.”

³ sn This presupposes either the death of the father or their divorce since it would be impossible for one to marry his stepmother while his father was still married to her.

⁴ tn Heb “uncover his father’s skirt” (so ASV, NASB). This appears to be a circumlocution for describing the dishonor that would come to a father by having his own son share his wife’s sexuality (cf. NAB, NIV “dishonor his father’s bed”).