Year 1, Day 173: Deuteronomy 22

Am I My Brother’s Keeper?

Deuteronomy 22 has a couple of great laws in the midst of this first set of “various laws.”  The first of which is the set of laws concerning the property of another.  The thing that I love about this set of laws is that it is the direct rebuttal to the claim of Cain in Genesis 4:9.  There Cain says to God, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”  Here in Deuteronomy, God definitively answers this question: Yes.  Not that I am responsible for my brother.  But I am responsible for making sure that my brother’s stuff doesn’t necessarily go away when he’s not there to take care of it himself.

Who is My Brother?

Notice, however, that God does not define “brother” along bloodlines.  I find it hard to believe that one might “not know” one’s blood brother as is suggested in verse 2 of this chapter.  No, the thrust of this verse is that our brothers and sisters are those within our community, those that live beside us, those that God has called us to love.  When Jesus Himself was questioned about his brothers and sisters he says that those around him – bloodline or not – are His brothers and sisters.  (Matthew 12:46-50)

You see, this passage is ultimately about community.  We are to look out for one another.  We are to care about our neighbors and our neighbor’s stuff.  We are to protect our community, even if it means taking something into our possession and keeping it safe until the lost possession is sought out.  In many respects, I think of Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan as flowing right out of this law (Luke 10:25-37).  The Samaritan comes upon a wounded person he does not know.  He loves the wounded person, picks him up, cares for him, and does all of these things at his own expense.  The Good Samaritan is a great example of the fulfillment of this law.  We should care for our communities and love people whether we know them or not.

Miniscule Laws in the Middle

I’m going to skip over the rest of the various laws.  I think they are fairly self-explanatory and it would take up too much space to handle them all one-by-one.  Instead, let’s move forward and speak to the law of sexual purity.

Laws about Virginity

This passage about “virginity” is confusing in many translations because the word virginity can be translated a number of different ways – although all of them revolve around sexuality and chastity.  From what I can tell, the best way to interpret the word “virginity” is “evidence of not being pregnant” – in other words, menstruation.  If we take this word in this connotation, the passage becomes much clearer and makes a whole lot more sense.  If a man takes a woman and she is pregnant, there will be no evidence of menstruation and the elders could know for a fact that she was not a virgin when married.  However, if there is evidence of menstruation then the elders could know that she was at least not pregnant when she was married.

Of course, this still does not prove her virginity but it does prove that any children coming from her would belong to her husband and nobody else.  Assuming that there hasn’t been any infidelity after the marriage had been consummated.  This interpretation focuses on establishing the purity and the genuineness of the relationship and the offspring.

There is another possible interpretation of this passage which also makes sense.  Many believe that a married couple would consummate the marriage behind a curtain with both sets of parents outside the curtain as “witnesses.”  The bedclothes would then be collected by both sets of parents and brought forth as evidence that the marriage was properly consummated.  This interpretation focuses on the propriety of the wedding and establishes that the marriage was consummated in case a divorce would be desired later.  In other words, this is a legal interpretation. 

While this interpretation is certainly possible, I personally tend to fall in line with the first interpretation I gave.  That one seems to be more in line with what God is concerned about – purity and faithfulness – rather than legality and the hardness of human hearts.

Extra-marital Sex

The next law of sexual conduct is pretty clear.  If any man has sex with a married woman, they both are to be stoned.  It is adultery.  There is no wiggle room, nor is there room for “colorful interpretation.”  If a woman is married, the only one who is to have sex with her is her rightful husband.  End of story.  Yet, we’ll see as we move through this post how the laws actually develop to protect women.

Moving along, we encounter two laws towards the end that draw a very interesting distinction.  One involves sex within a town’s limits while the other involves sex out in the country.  The important distinction is that of guilt. 

It is assumed that if a woman is taken unwillingly within a city that she could cry out and someone would hear it.  Someone would could come to her rescue and witness to her desire to not be a part of such an event.  Her cry would be evidence of her innocence – or at least her unwilling participation of the act.  Thus, if two people are caught having sex within a city and there is no cry for help, it is considered consensual and both are punished according to the overarching law of sexual infidelity. 

However, notice that if the woman is taken in the country – even if it was consensual – her innocence is presumed because she could have cried out and nobody was likely around to hear her.  Here we see that the Law is actually overcompensated in the direction of grace when it comes to women.  Here we see more evidence that God is not truly a misogynist God but rather a God of grace and a respecter of womenkind.

I find this law incredibly grace filled – or at the very least in a status of erring on the side of grace.  In any case of extra-marital sex, the man having sex with a married or betrothed woman is stoned.  Men having sex with married women are killed.  Period.  There is no grace for them. 

But the punishment of the woman depends on both her actions and the location.  She is guilty – and thus stoned – only if it happened in a city and she did not cry out for help.  To me, this is a law that gives a great amount of evidence of grace towards women.

Unmarried Women and Sex

Now let’s tie up a loose end.  All the situations we’ve talked about up until now involve a married or betrothed woman – and the automatic stoning of the male participant.  What about when an unmarried woman is involved?  Well, if an unmarried woman is caught having sex with a man, the rule is simple.  She becomes his wife.  They may never get divorced.  End of story.

In all of this, what I think is important is the sanctity of the wedding relationship.  This sanctity rests on so many levels.  First, in many ways we who follow God are thought of as God’s “spouse.”  How many times in the Old Testament are the people of Israel considered God’s bride?  How many times in the New Testament is the church considered the “bride of Christ?”  Our relationship with God is more often compared to that of a marriage in the Bible than any other kind of relationship.  So the way we treat marriage speaks very closely to the way that we think about our relationship with God.  If our heart is adulterous in a sexual manner, then we are more than likely also adulterous in a spiritual manner.  If our heart is pure in a sexual manner, then we are also much more likely to be pure in our relationship with God.

 But sex is important on a communal level as well.  Sex is an intimate act.  It is the foundation of a bond between people that is deep and fruitful.  When that intimate relationship is given away multiple times through sex with multiple partners, that special bond and relationship is tarnished and it becomes cheapened.  We take what God gave for our enjoyment and fulfillment and trample on it until it becomes common.  We take the fundamental building block of our society and discard its importance.

Thus, sexuality is an important concept for us to consider and discuss.  It has much to say about our spirituality as well as our perspective on community.  And unfortunately, it is one of the things that our modern world frequently gets wrong.  I apologize for the length of this blog, but I thought these were important concepts worth spending a little extra time on today.

<><