Chapter Twenty-Two

Laws: concerning the preservation of another’s property; concerning the clothing of the sexes; concerning the treatment of animals; concerning precautionary measures in construction; concerning the mixing of kinds; concerning the tassels of the outer garment; concerning a husband’s public slander of his wife; concerning various forms of fornication.

Deuteronomy 22:1. If you see your brother’s ox or his sheep going astray, do not ignore them, but return them to your brother; Deuteronomy 22:2. and if your brother is not near you, or you do not know him, then you shall bring it into your house, and it shall be with you until your brother seeks it; then you shall return it to him; Deuteronomy 22:3. so you shall do with his donkey, so you shall do with his garment, so you shall do with any lost thing belonging to your brother that he has lost and that you find; you may not neglect it. Deuteronomy 22:4. If you see your brother’s donkey or his ox fallen down by the road, do not ignore them, but help him lift them up again. Cf. Exod 23:4-5.

Deuteronomy 22:5. A woman shall not wear men’s clothing, and a man shall not dress in women’s clothing, for everyone who does such things is an abomination to the Lord your God. Cf. Deut 22:9-11. The lawgiver’s purpose is to protect the people from every kind of harmful unnatural mixing (cf. Lev 18:22-24). The custom of cross-dressing in clothing of the opposite sex for the purpose of enjoying unnatural forms of depravity was practiced among many pagan peoples of the ancient world.

Deuteronomy 22:6. If you come across a bird’s nest in the road, in any tree or on the ground, with fledglings or eggs, and the mother is sitting on the fledglings or on the eggs, do not take the mother along with the young: Deuteronomy 22:7. let the mother go, and take the young for yourself, so that it may go well with you, and that your days may be prolonged. Cf. Exod 23:19; Lev 22:28; Deut 14:21: prescriptions of humane treatment toward animals that serve for the benefit of humanity. “The mother left alive,” remarks St. Ephrem the Syrian concerning the passage under commentary, “can have other fledglings. But if you leave the young, taking their mother — they will die a wretched death. And if you take both the mother and the young, you will deprive the land of a bird” (Commentary on Deut., ch. XXII).

Deuteronomy 22:8. If you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for your roof, so that you do not bring guilt of bloodshed upon your house if someone falls from it. Cf. Exod 21:29-34. Precautionary prescriptions in conduct.

Deuteronomy 22:9. You shall not sow your vineyard with two kinds of seed, lest the whole yield become forfeited — the seed that you have sown and the fruit of the vineyard. Deuteronomy 22:10. You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together. Deuteronomy 22:11. You shall not wear clothing made of two different materials, wool and linen together. See the note on Deut 22:5. Explaining the meaning of verse 11, St. Ephrem the Syrian remarks: “The lawgiver wanted the people, in their very clothing (cf. the following v. 12), to be set apart from pagan peoples” (Commentary on Deut., ch. XXII).

Deuteronomy 22:12. You shall make yourself tassels on the four corners of the cloak with which you cover yourself. Cf. Num 15:37-41.

Deuteronomy 22:13. If a man takes a wife and goes in to her and then hates her, Deuteronomy 22:14. and brings charges against her and spreads a bad report about her, and says: “I took this woman, and when I went in to her I did not find evidence of her virginity, Deuteronomy 22:15. then the father of the young woman and her mother shall bring out the evidence of the young woman’s virginity to the elders of the city at the gate; Deuteronomy 22:16. and the father of the young woman shall say to the elders: “I gave my daughter to this man as a wife, and he has come to hate her, Deuteronomy 22:17. “and now he is bringing shameful charges against her, saying: ‘I did not find evidence of your daughter’s virginity’; but here is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity.” And they shall spread out the garment before the elders of the city. Deuteronomy 22:18. Then the elders of that city shall take the man and punish him, Deuteronomy 22:19. and they shall fine him one hundred shekels of silver and give them to the father of the young woman, because he has spread a bad report about a virgin of Israel; and she shall remain his wife, and he may not divorce her all his days. This probably codifies one of the customs of antiquity.

Deuteronomy 22:20. But if the thing is true and evidence of virginity is not found for the young woman, Deuteronomy 22:21. then they shall bring the young woman to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death, because she has done a shameful thing in Israel by being immoral in her father’s house; so you shall purge the evil from among you. Deuteronomy 22:22. If a man is found lying with a married woman, both of them shall be put to death — the man who lay with the woman, and the woman; so you shall purge the evil from Israel. Deuteronomy 22:23. If a young woman who is a virgin is betrothed to a man, and someone comes across her in the city and lies with her, Deuteronomy 22:24. then you shall bring both of them to the gate of that city, and stone them to death: the young woman because she did not cry out in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbor’s wife; so you shall purge the evil from among you. Deuteronomy 22:25. But if a man meets in the field a young woman who is betrothed and seizes her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall be put to death, Deuteronomy 22:26. but you shall do nothing to the young woman; the young woman is guilty of no offense worthy of death: for this case is like that of a man who rises up against his neighbor and kills him; Deuteronomy 22:27. for he met her in the field, and though the betrothed young woman cried out, there was no one to save her. Deuteronomy 22:28. If a man meets a young woman who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, Deuteronomy 22:29. then the man who lay with her shall give to the young woman’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he has violated her; he may not divorce her all his days. Cf. Exod 22:16; Lev 18:20; John 8:5. A young woman who lost her honor in her parents’ house (vv. 20–21), both participants in an act of voluntary adultery (vv. 22–24), and the perpetrator of a violent act (vv. 25–27) were subject to the death penalty by stoning, “for,” remarks St. Ephrem the Syrian, “the sword (not in the literal sense here) thirsts for the blood of one who drinks the water of theft from a foreign spring (Prov 9:17)” (Commentary on Deut., ch. XXII). One who committed violence against a free young woman was obligated to pay a monetary fine to her parents and to become the lawful husband of the one he had dishonored, without the right of divorce (vv. 28–29).

Deuteronomy 22:30. No one shall take his father’s wife or uncover his father’s garment. Cf. Lev 18:7-8. In the Hebrew text this verse was assigned to chapter XXIII.