Deuteronomy22:29

Translation

then the man who had sex with her shall give the father of the young woman fifty shekels of silver,

Go to footnote number

and she shall become his wife because he has caused her shame. He is not permitted to divorce her all his days.

Paraphrase

The man who raped her must give the young lady’s father a restitution penalty of one year’s wages, before she can become his wife because he has caused her to be seen shamefully by the community. He is not permitted to divorce her the rest of his life.

Footnotes

1

Someone has shared calculations that lead me to believe that in Old Testament times, 50 shekels of silver would be 1 year’s wages for an average wage earner. However, others make calculations which are much lower than that. It seems to me that the 50 shekels of silver was shooting for something significant, and when I heard the 1 year theory, it sounded about right. But I cannot be sure about any of this.

WHY WAS THERE NO DEATH PENALTY IN THIS CASE?

Here the line of authority violated was that of the father because there was no husband.

Fifty shekels of silver is thought by some to have been close to one year’s wages for an average wage-earner (think poor laborer).

A guy could not use a girl and throw her away. He had to marry her (unless her father refused), and he could not divorce her the rest of his life.

Exodus 22:16 sheds some light on this subject by indicating that “if a man seduces or deceives a virgin who is not promised to a man, and has sex with her, he must certainly pay the bride-price for her to be his wife.” By putting these two passages together we learn that the penalty listed in the Deuteronomy passage is above and beyond the bride-price.

In cases like this, there was no negotiation, the girl’s father could set the bride-price a significant amount higher than was normal for his economic status  and the guilty young man had no choice but to pay both the penalty and the bride-price and take her as his wife. What’s more, in the case of rape it was the young man, not his father, who paid the bride price.

Fathers liked to be involved in the arrangement of a bride price and choose the family the girl came from. For the son to avoid the established process and rape a girl would cause most fathers to say, “You did this on your own, you can pay the bride-price on your own.” This means the young man was indebted to his father-in-law for many years.

This means the young man was indebted to his father-in-law for many years. When he should have been saving money to pay the bride-price that his own sons would require, he was still paying for his own marriage. This was especially problematic if his first child to be married was a son, or if he had more sons than he did daughters.

This was also incentive for the father to protect his daughter from undesirable young men so that he would not end up with a son-in-law he did not like.

These were the reasons why guys did not see rape as a easy way to get a wife. It wasn’t worth it. The total price to be paid was enough that rape was very rare in ancient Israelite culture. Most young men controlled themselves so they could do this the right way with their father paying the bride price for them.

Because a girl’s virginity was seen as her greatest treasure, she would protect it at all costs. Very few girls in ancient Israel would agree to premarital sexual intercourse and they would attempt to fight off an attacker with everything they had. The girls would go places in groups whenever possible to be able to protect each other.