Matthew1:19

The principles that form the foundation of the Old Testament laws about sexual issues are the following:  Lines of authority, the type of relationship, and God’s design for human sexuality.

(You can read much more about these issues under Troublesome Topics starting with What Made Sexual Sins Wrong? and continuing from there to other related topics.)

The issues involved in sexual deviations involving individuals who were betrothed are the following:

1. Authority – She was betrothed, which means she was still under the authority of her father, and yet partially under the authority of Joseph, who was now considered her “husband”, even though the marriage had not yet been consummated. It was a type of shared authority but we can be sure that the father held most of it.
2. Virginity – A young girl’s greatest possession was her virginity; thus she was not likely to give it away or throw it away. Later, a married woman’s greatest possession was her ability to have children; that is why women who were barren were seen as having been cursed.

3. Punishment for improper pregnancy –  The fact that she turned up pregnant meant one of two things in the minds of the people, either she had been promiscuous with another man, or had engaged in sexual intercourse with her betrothed prior to their wedding.

The situation in this specific story involved a betrothed girl who got pregnant, so it was assumed that she had engaged in sexual intercourse with someone, right? Because she was betrothed (engaged to be married), having sex with another man was considered adultery which was punishable by death. If the betrothed husband formally accused her of having sexual relations with another man, and if he could convince the town fathers acting as judges that his accusation was valid, she would be stoned. If the man who got her pregnant could be identified in a way that would convince the town fathers, he would be stoned along with the girl. If the other man could not be identified and if the town fathers were convinced it was not the betrothed husband who got her pregnant, the girl would be stoned by herself – in front of her parent’s house!

4. The Romans had withheld from the Jews the power of capital punishment. On paper and in formal, very visible matters, the Jews could never exact the death penalty. However, I recall two occasions when the crowds tried to stone Jesus (Jn 8:59 & Jn 10:31, both in Jerusalem, and possibly the time in Nazareth when they tried to throw him over a cliff (Lk 4:29) because that is how a stoning often started. I think that sometimes the people got themselves into an emotional state and just did something without asking permission. Maybe the Romans sometimes considered a Jewish stoning a favor that took another troublemaker off their hands, so they looked the other way. This legal matter made it a little less likely that Mary would be stoned, but it did not protect her completely, the risk was still there.

As this situation developed, Mary was well aware that she might be stoned. Yet it appears that she trusted God to protect her, and He did.

The procedure for stoning was this: First the charges of wrongdoing and the evidences of the act were brought before the proper leaders of the community, and the opportunity of giving a defense was also granted. Witnesses were called as well, for the law required two or more witnesses. However, some things were so private as to have no eyewitnesses, thus other evidence was considered. If the city leaders determined the party was guilty, and if the Law called for the consequence to be stoning, then off they all went to make that happen. It was immediate. There was no jail time involved.

To carry out a stoning they would usually take the guilty party to the edge of a cliff, bind him, throw him over the cliff and then each one who was making the accusation, and those convinced of his guilt, would get one chance to throw a stone. The stone could be of any size, but only one was allowed per person. If the thrower missed, he missed, no second chance was given. If the person being stoned lived through it, he lived; if he died, he died.

In the case of a bride who got pregnant by a man who was not her bertothed, she was stoned in front of her father’s house, with the betrothed husband being the one to bring the accusation and cast the first stone. The members of the community who were convinced by the evidence also cast stones upon her. The location was intended to bring great shame to the father for not protecting his daughter properly while under his authority. If she lived, she would stay in her father’s house the rest of her life, living in disgrace, with a very unhappy father whom she had caused to suffer unspeakable shame.

I am aware of only four cases of improper sexual relations in which the Law did not command the guilty parties be stoned. 1) If there was a rape in a desolate place where even if the girl screamed, no one could hear her, she was not considered guilty; only the guy was stoned, if they could determine who it was and find him; 2) if a man had sex with a virgin that was not betrothed to any man, and he married her and paid the fine and bride-price as prescribed by the law, and he could never divorce her; 3) if a man who was betrothed to a woman had sex with her before marriage and he agreed to follow through with the marriage, neither one was stoned, but he had to pay the father of the girl whatever the father demanded, which usually meant being riddled by debt for a long time; 4) if the girl was a slave that had not yet been ransomed with a ransom payment, she would not die because the authority that had been violated was that of an owner, not a father or husband.

Short answer: 1) Divorce her publicly (with formal accusations), 2) divorce her quietly (no accusations), 3) marry her.

His first option was to accuse her of sexual misconduct with another man. Because Joseph was already called her husband, her sexual deviance was considered adultery, which would result in both the offenders being stoned, if they could determine who the other man was (Dt 22:22). If she had sexual relations with another man, it was a violation of the “husband’s” authority, therefore he and his father would be in charge of finding evidence to prove it was another man, and present that evidence to the town fathers. If they could lay hands on the girl when she was not guarded by her father, they would likely use any means possible (think torture) to get the truth from her. Then the one who brought the accusations and was considered the “first witness” against her (the “husband”), would be the first one to throw a stone at each of them. In this scenario, the girl’s father would be seen as the one who violated the betrothal agreement because he did not protect her from other men, therefore, the bride price would have to be returned to the betrothed husband’s father who could use it to secure a different wife for his son.

But if they were unable to find out who the man was, the community would still stone the girl – I think it was done in front of her parents’ house in order to show that the father had not done a good job of training and protecting his daughter (Dt 22:20-21). No one could remove the pile of stones from in front of the parents’ house without becoming defiled by proximity to a dead body.

The preference of the girl’s father would be to prove that it was the betrothed husband who had gotten her pregnant and convince him to follow through with marrying her. If he could prove this, he would not have to return the bride price and his daughter would not be stoned. He would suffer some shame, but the betrothed husband would suffer more shame. Therefore he (the girl’s father) would be looking for convincing evidence that it was the soon-to-be husband who had gotten her pregnant.

Thus two investigations would be going on simultaneously if the betrothed husband accused her of having sex with another man.

But Joseph had no stomach for this. He never dreamed that Mary would actually be that rebellious and do such a thing. She had never shown any hints of being that kind of girl. There had always been something special about her, or so he thought. He did not want to see her killed and he definitely did not want to take the lead in making that happen. Plus he had no “evidence” he could present of another man in the picture and did not know of any witnesses that could bolster his case. So he put that option out of his mind as unacceptable.

His second option was to divorce her “quietly” meaning without public accusations or formal charges. It would be assumed by many that the young man’s silence in the matter meant that he had gotten her pregnant.

Even if the betrothed husband did not make any accusations, the girl’s father would be looking for witnesses that could help prove that the betrothed husband had violated the betrothal agreement. If the betrothed husband was found guilty and if he refused to marry the girl, he would be stoned along with the girl, and the bride price would not be returned to the “husband’s” father.

If the girl’s father failed to convinced the town fathers that the betrothed husband got his daughter pregnant, the young man was not stoned, only the girl. I’m not sure what happened with the bride price in this situation.

This option was risky for the would-be-husband since her father would be trying to prove that he was guilty and should be stoned.

This type of thing had the potential to tear apart a small town or village with people taking sides on the matter.

So his third option was to accept her as his wife.

If a betrothed husband got his betrothed wife pregnant before their wedding, it was a violation of the authority of the girl’s father.

If the betrothed husband decided to marry her, no one would be stoned.

In such a case, the girl’s father had the authority to call off the wedding, but a father would seldom do that because they lived in a culture that placed a huge priority on virginity and she was no longer a virgin. She was no longer desirable in the eyes of a father with a son of marriageable age.

By agreeing to marry her, the betrothed husband was basically admitting to being the father of this “illegitimate baby.” If he was willing to accept the guilt of his act, marry the girl and care for her, the “husband” would have to pay whatever was necessary to satisfy the wrath of her father, which could be a very large sum of money, possibly the bride-price paid all over again, or even more. The young man’s father would not help him pay it; he had to pay it alone. It usually meant that the young man was in debt to his father-in-law and making payments to him as long as the father-in-law was alive.

How much was a bride price? One source says that, in those days a normal bride-price was often their equivalent to what modern Americans might pay for a house (Ray Vander Laan). Obviously, the people in the upper class would pay more for a house and for a bride than those of the lower classes. Another way to measure it is in the number of years needed to save that much money. That is not easy to calculate, but an attempt to do so has brought me to a figure between 10 and 20 years’ worth of wages back them. This penalty by an angry father against a recalcitrant young man could be much more than that.

Therefore the young man could expect to be weighed down with heavy payments to the girl’s father as long as her father lived.

This would put a huge strain on the relationship between this young man and his own father. His father and his family would also suffer irreparable shame because of what had happened. It was understandable if the father disowned his son over something like this.

It would also ruin the young man’s reputation. He would be considered irresponsible and undisciplined by the community; this would likely hurt his business dealings. He would not be able to find work locally and would have to walk to a larger city every day.

In Joseph’s case it would mean lie and take the blame for something he did not do.

He could not bring himself to do this either. He did not want a miserable marriage. He did not want their oldest child to be a constant reminder that their marriage started off on the wrong foot. He did not want to constantly wonder if she might do this to him again. Besides that, he tried to follow the Torah faithfully, therefore he wanted a wife that was pure. This option was also unacceptable to him.

In summary, when Matthew 1:19 says that “Joseph, being a righteous man and not willing to expose her publicly …” we have often taken it to mean that he did not want to see Mary harmed and was trying to protect her. I have come to think that his decision had very little to do with her and was mostly a weighing of the options open to him, none of which were good. I think that statement means that he followed the Torah carefully. He could not marry a woman who had committed sexual immorality with another man while they were engaged. That would condone the wrongdoing. He knew it wasn’t his child because he had kept his tools in the box and kept the box locked. So why should he admit to something he had not done? Thus, the option of accepting her as a wife was not acceptable to him. The part about not being willing to expose her publicly meant first of all that he could not envision an investigation turning up conclusive evidence about the “other guy’, secondly, that if the community decided to stone her, there was little he could do to prevent that, short of marrying her, and he did not want to do that, and thirdly, he did not want to actually cast the first stone at Mary’s stoning. Therefore, he concluded that divorcing her without making any accusations would be the least costly thing to do – that is, until the angel changed his mind.