Troublesome Topic: What Was up with Marrying a Captive Woman?

Was This Consistent, or Inconsistent on God’s Part?

In the cultures around them at that time, a soldier could choose a woman from among the captives that he wanted to take home as a wife. There were usually no rules governing what he could or couldn’t do to her. You can imagine how ugly this became for the women.

In ancient Israel it was different, more different than most people realize. The regulations translated and paraphrased above were written for all God’s people but would only have been followed by the God-fearing members of the community. Therefore, it is my assumption that the soldier being addressed here wanted to be a faithful follower of YHVH (read Adonai) and was willing to do everything according to the law. If not, he would not follow any of these stipulations anyway; he would do whatever he wanted just like the pagans did. With that in mind, I conclude that he would not rape the woman after the battle, rather he kept her safe from others who would do that. I also conclude that she must become a convert to Judaism because that is the only way this scenario could play out without violating other aspects of the Law.   

The signs involved in converting to Judaism and mourning the loss of loved ones were very similar. This is because conversion involved leaving behind what one had known in the past and mourning involves leaving family behind. While the text does not tell us specifically that the woman had to convert to Judaism, that is the only way that this could work and remain in agreement with the rest of the Law. Based on that assumption, and since the signs were almost the same, I have rendered the signs in the paraphrase column as being for both mourning personal losses and converting to Judaism. If she became a proselyte (a convert), the rest of this could be done in a way that did not violate any of the regulations of the Law.

Why wait 30 days? First of all, that was a customary length of time for mourning. In this way God was showing kindness to the captive by giving her time to mourn. It would also allow her time to calm down and carefully consider her new situation. If the man had not raped her up by then and was trying to do everything in the right way, she should realize that he would probably be a good husband and staying with him would be her best option. A third thing it would accomplish is that it would give both the man and the captive woman a chance to get to know each other.

After the 30-day waiting period, and after she presumably became a follower of the God of the Hebrews, they could be married and do what married couples do.

If he became displeased with her as a wife, he was allowed to divorce her. Notice that no indication of time is given here. Whether this turn came quickly or after considerable time does not seem to be the issue. The point is, if the man wanted a divorce at some point, he had the option of going there. Jesus explained that God instructed Moses to include divorce in the law as a safeguard because God knows that men’s hearts are bent toward evil.

However, if he did divorce her, she had certain rights that should not be violated. After having her as a wife, he could not demote to the position of a simple slave; that would be a form of using her and then casting her aside. It was seen as a source of shame for a woman to have sex with a man and then not be, or not remain, his wife. Sex was either filled with honor or filled with shame; there was no middle ground. Neither could he sell her to make money from her. That would bring the same result because he had already had sex with her, so selling her would bring shame on the sexual acts of the past. He had to let her go free with a certificate of divorce, as one would a woman who was an Israelite from birth.

Where would she go? That is a good question. Most women would work very hard to please their husband because being on their own usually meant subsisting by begging or prostitution. Since she had no family in Israel she could not go to her family unless she returned to her home country to see what was left of it. And that was an option she had.

The point of all this is that God seems to have been very gracious toward a foreign captive woman, giving her more rights than most would have expected under the circumstances.

What Did This Teach?

This taught God’s people about compassion and about holiness. The man had to constantly be aware of God’s laws and keep his passions in check until the proper time and until all the prerequisites were met. He also had to keep her rights in mind. This was an extremely gracious considered in those days.

The next lesson in the full series on Covenants is: Crossdressing Is Deception.

The next lesson in Why Is That in the Bible? is: Old Testament Motivation to Abstain from Sexual Misconduct