Tanak Foundations-Concepts in Deuteronomy-Chapter 22

Deut 22.1-30 tells us about restoring lost property; assisting animals in need; differences in apparel of the sexes; sparing a mother bird; fences on rooftops; sowing two kinds of seeds together; yoking an ox and a donkey together; wearing material with a mixture of wool and linen; wearing twisted cords on four cornered garments; slander against a bride; punishing adultery; lying with a virgin not betrothed; lying with his father’s wife.

v 1…”You shall not see your countryman’s ox or his sheep straying away (lost, driven away frightened, etc), and pay no attention them, you shall certainly bring them back to your countryman (be kind to your neighbor).

v 2…And if your countryman is not near you, or if you do not know him, then you shall bring it home to your house, and it shall remain with you until your countryman looks for it, then you shall restore it to him (take care of it till then).

v 3…And thus you shall do with his donkey, and you shall do the same with his garment, and you shall do likewise with anything lost by your countryman, which he has lost and you have found. You are not allowed to neglect them.

v 4…You shall not see your countryman’s donkey, or his ox fallen down on the way, and pay no attention to them (ignore it), you shall certainly help him (we are to help him, not do it for him, or do his work for him).

v 5…A woman shall not wear man’s clothing (Hebrew “keli” and Strong’s #3627 renders it as “armor” 24 times; and the Targum Onkelos renders this as “armor” and forbids a woman to wear military clothes and going to war with men, which was done by eastern countries; Josephus says, “Take heed, especially in war, that a women do not make use of the habit of a man, or a man that of a woman”), nor shall a man put on women’s clothing, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God (there is a distinction between the sexes).

v 6…If you happen to come upon a bird’s nest, and the mother is sitting on the young or on the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young;

v 7…you shall certainly let the mother go (because of kindness to animals, you can’t catch a bird and she stayed because of her young; thus sparing her the feelings of loss; this commandment would cause a person to leave the nest alone; this was seen as one of the “least of the commandments” Yeshua refers to in Matt 5.19), but the young you may use for yourself, in order that it may be well with you, and that you may prolong your days (this alludes to the sanctity of motherhood in the fifth commandment).

v 8…When you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for your roof (kindness to visitors), that you may not bring blood guilt (be at fault) on your house if anyone falls from it.

v 9…You shall not sow your vineyard with two kinds of seed (like wheat and barley sown between the rows of the vines; this did not apply to other trees), lest all the produce of the seed which you have sown, and the increase of the vineyard become defiled (burnt, unfit for use; this alludes to the fact that Ha Satan has tried to mix his seed into the pure seed of the word of God-Gen 3.15; Matt 13.24-30 Dan 2.31-43; 2 Sam 6.23; 2 Cor 6.14; 2 Thes 3.6)

v 10…You shall not plow with an ox and donkey together (different natures and strength; unequally yoked-2 Cor 6.14; 2 Thes 3.6).

v 11…You shall not wear a material mixed with wool and linen together (in a singular garment-Lev 19.19; only the priests were allowed to do this).

v 12…You shall make yourself tassels (Hebrew “gedilim” and the same as “tziztzit”) in the four corners of your garment with which you cover yourself.

v 13…If any man takes a wife and goes into her and turns against her,

v 14…and charges her with shameful deeds and publicly (in a court) defames her, and says, ‘I took this woman, but when I came near her, I did not find her a virgin,’

v 15…then the girl’s father and her mother shall take and bring out the evidence of the girl’s virginity to the elders of the city at the gate (courts were in the gates; this evidence was the bed sheet she lay on when the marriage was consumated and kept by the parents, to prove her virginity).

v 16…And the girl’s father shall say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man for a wife, but he turned against her;

v 17…and behold (see), he has charged her with shameful deeds, saying, “I did not find your daughter a virgin.” But this is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity.’ And they shall spread the garment (bed sheet) before the elders of the city (a marriage had two witnesses called the “friend of the Bridegroom” and the “friend of the Bride.” One of their jobs was to deliver this bedsheet to the parents. John, a type of Elijah, was the friend of the groom who introduces the groom to the bride; Moses introduced the bride to the groom at Sinai; these two people were a type of the Law and the Prophets who are two witnesses for the bride and Messiah-Rom 3.21)

v 18…So the elders of that city shall take the man and chastise him (corporal punishment of 39 stripes-Talmud),

v 19…and they shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give it to the girl’s father, because he publicly defamed a virgin in Israel. And she shall remain his wife, he cannot divorce her all his days (kindness to your bride).

v 20…But if the charge is true (no tokens of her virginity), that the girl was not found a virgin,

v 21…then they shall bring out the girl to the doorway of her father’s house (where she continued in her engagement until she was taken to the house of her husband), and the men of the city shall stone her to death because she has committed an act of folly in Israel (she knew the truth and committed the act after she was engaged, which had the status of marriage, otherwise it would have been fornication and this was not punishable by death) by playing the harlot in her father’s house, thus you shall purge the evil from among you.

v 22…If a man is found lying with a married woman, then both of them shall die, (not the case in John 8.4), the man who lay with the woman, and the woman; thus you shall purge the evil from Israel (Lev 20.10-the type of death is not specified).

v 23…If there is a girl who is a virgin, engaged to man (and considered married-v 24), and another man finds her in the city and lies with her (with her consent).

v 24…then you shall bring them both out to the gate of the city (a court) and you shall stone them to death; the girl because she did not cry out in the city (so someone could hear her), and the man, because he has violated his neighbor’s wife. Thus you shall purge the evil from among you.

v 25…But if in the field (she could have cried out but nobody heard her) the man finds the girl who is engaged, and the man forces her and lies with her, then only the man who lies with her shall die.

v 26…But you shall do nothing to the girl, there is no sin in the girl worthy of death, for just as the man rises against his neighbor and murders him, so is this case.

v 27…When he found her in the field, the engaged girl cried out, but there was no one to save her.

v 28…If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged (a wife), and seizes her and lies with her and they are discovered,

v 29…then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver (a bridal price/dowry for the abuse of his daughter) and she shall become his wife because he has violated her, he cannot divorce her all his days.

v 30…A man shall not take his father’s wife (step-mother) so that he shall not uncover his father’s skirt (idiom for marital relations; a covering-Deut 27.20; Ruth 3.8; Ezek 16.9).”

Posted in All Teachings, Articles, Idioms, Phrases and Concepts, The Festivals of the Lord, The Tanak, Tying into the New Testament

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