What Does Deuteronomy 22:24 Mean?
Then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them with stones until they die, the young woman because she did not cry out in the city, and the man because he has brought low his neighbor's wife. So you shall burn out the evil from your midst.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour’s wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you.THE KEY
The verse’s “humbled” names affliction and violation, while its verdict makes the woman’s silence in the city a cause for death.
THE MEANING
The verse assigns death to both: the man for violating his neighbor’s wife, and the woman because she does not cry out within the city. Its reasoning treats the city as a place where a cry could summon help, and her silence there as evidence against her.
THE ROOT
עִנָּה
ʿinnāh
GROWS FROM
ענה
ʿānāh: afflict, oppress, bring low; in this context, violate.
“brought low” in this verse is ʿinnāh. The root holds more than loss of status: it names inflicted affliction and, in this context, sexual violation. The word joins the man’s act to harm done to another.
ALSO GROWS
ʿānî: afflicted one; poor
עָנִי
This word describes a person marked by being pressed down, preserving the root’s force of affliction.
ʿŏnî: affliction; misery
עֳנִי
It names the suffering itself, keeping the man’s act tied to harm rather than mere embarrassment.
צָעֲקָה
ṣāʿăqāh
GROWS FROM
צעק
ṣāʿaq: cry out, call for help.
“did not cry out” in this verse is ṣāʿăqāh. The verb describes an audible outcry. The sentence makes whether a cry is raised within the city part of its reasoning about blame.
ALSO GROWS
ṣāʿaq: cry out; call for help
צָעַק
This is the verb’s basic action, emphasizing a cry directed outward.
ṣĕʿāqāh: outcry; cry for help
צְעָקָה
The noun makes the cry an event others can hear, echoing the verse’s focus on the city.
וּבִעַרְתָּ
ūḇiʿartā
GROWS FROM
בער
bāʿar: burn, consume; in this construction, clear or remove.
“burn out” in this verse is ūḇiʿartā. The closing command carries the language of clearing or consuming evil from the community. It places the deaths within a communal purge logic, not just a private judgment.
ALSO GROWS
bāʿar: burn; consume
בָּעַר
This basic sense gives the command its forceful image of removal.
biʿēr: clear away; remove
בִּעֵר
This form appears in commands to remove evil, tying the verse’s ending to its stated communal purpose.
THE PATTERN
The text uses a cry’s reach to reveal who suffers and whether help is available.
For he found her in the field, and the pledged young woman cried out, and there was no one to deliver her.And the LORD said, I have surely seen the bending low of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their drivers. For I know their pains.Look, the wages of the workers who mowed your fields, stripped away by your fraud, cry out, and the cries of those who reaped have gone into the ears of the LORD of hosts.THE THREAD
And when Shechem, son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the land, saw her, he took her, and lay with her, and bent her low.The same root, עָנָה (ʿānāh, afflict or violate), describes Shechem’s act against Dinah, rendered “defiled” here. That usage reveals the force inside “humbled”: the word carries the weight of inflicted violation.
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