What Does Deuteronomy 22:26 Mean?
But to the young woman you shall do nothing. There is no falling short in the young woman worthy of death, for as when a man rises against his neighbor and crushes his living soul, so is this word.
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
But unto the damsel thou shalt do nothing; there is in the damsel no sin worthy of death: for as when a man riseth against his neighbour, and slayeth him, even so is this matter:THE KEY
The verse places the guilt in the man who rises against another and keeps it from passing to the woman he harms.
THE MEANING
When violence is done to you, the guilt belongs to the one who inflicts it. The verse names the man as rising against another and says the woman has no death-worthy guilt. What is done to you does not become your crime.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that being sexually assaulted makes you guilty of what was done to you is dissolved here.
THE ROOT
חֵטְא
ḥēṭʾ
GROWS FROM
חטא
To miss; to err or incur fault.
“falling short” in this verse is ḥēṭʾ. The word belongs to the root for missing or wrongdoing, but the verse says that missing is not in the woman. English can make “sin” sound like a general label; the root keeps the question focused on where the fault lies.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāṭāʾ: To miss, err, or do wrong.
חָטָא
The root verb names the wrongdoing the verse explicitly refuses to attribute to her.
ḥaṭṭāʾt: Wrongdoing; also an offering for wrongdoing.
חַטָּאת
The same word family can name both the fault and an offering associated with it; here the text first makes clear that the fault is not hers.
יָקוּם
yaqum
GROWS FROM
קום
qum
To stand or rise.
The verse describes the man as the one who rises against his neighbor, giving the violence an actor and a direction. The woman is not made a participant in that act or its guilt.
ALSO GROWS
qûm: To rise or stand.
קוּם
This is the basic action in the verse: the man rises against another person.
māqôm: Place or standing place.
מָקוֹם
This related word links the root’s sense of standing with a place; here, “against his neighbour” gives the rising its direction.
THE PATTERN
An act’s guilt remains attached to the one who commits it; it does not become the guilt of the one harmed.
And she answered him, Nay, my brother, do not bend me low, for it is not done so in Israel. Do not do this vile thing.He who aligns the wicked, and he who convicts the aligned one, both are loathed by the LORD.Jesus answered, Neither has this man missed the mark, nor his parents, but that the works of God might be brought into the light in him.THE THREAD
But if a man finds the pledged young woman in the field, and the man grips her and lies down with her, then the man alone who lay down with her shall die.The preceding verse says that the man who forces her alone is to die. This verse makes the boundary clear from her side: the assault does not make her guilty.
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