What Does Deuteronomy 22:29 Mean?
Then the man who lay down with her shall give fifty shekels of silver to the father of the young woman, and she shall be his wife, because he has brought her low. He may not send her away all his days.
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 the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days.THE KEY
The law blocks the man from turning the sexual violation into a temporary encounter he can end by sending the young woman away.
THE MEANING
The verse binds the man who has sexually violated the young woman to a lifelong marriage and directs fifty shekels to her father. It gives her no spoken choice in the arrangement: the payment goes to her father, and the stated restraint is that the man cannot send her away.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that he may violate her and then discard her; the sentence makes his obligation lifelong.
THE ROOT
עִנָּהּ
ʿinnah
GROWS FROM
ענה
To afflict, abase, or humiliate; in this sexual context, to violate.
“brought her low” in this verse is ʿinnah. Here the root names affliction, not merely a lowering of pride, and the same root can name both suffering and the afflicted person. The word keeps the injury present inside the law’s response: payment and marriage follow what was done to her.
ALSO GROWS
ʿani: Afflicted, brought low; also poor.
עָנִי
This form names a person in an afflicted state, carrying the root’s force beyond a moment of humiliation.
ʿoni: Affliction, misery.
עֳנִי
This noun names the suffering itself and makes the force of “humbled” more concrete.
שַׁלְּחָהּ
shalleḥah
GROWS FROM
שלח
To send forth or release.
“send her away” in this verse is shalleḥah. The root carries the concrete act of sending someone out. Here it marks a power the man is forbidden to exercise for the rest of his life, making the final clause a binding limit on dismissal.
ALSO GROWS
shaliach: One sent; a messenger.
שָׁלִיחַ
This form makes the root’s basic image of sending concrete; in this verse, the man is barred from sending her away.
Shiloach: Sent forth; the name of the waterway of Siloam.
שִׁלֹחַ
The name preserves the root’s sense of something sent out, while here the same root marks an act the man may not carry out.
THE PATTERN
The text treats a husband’s dismissal of a wife as a consequential act, bounded by obligations, procedure, or explicit restraint.
And if he does not do these three for her, she goes out free without silver.When a man takes a wife and marries her, and if she finds no favor in his eyes, because he finds some nakedness in her, then he writes her a writ of cutting away, places it in her hand, and sends her out of his house.He said to them, Because of the stiffness of your hearts, Moses allowed you to send away your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.THE THREAD
When a man takes a wife and marries her, and if she finds no favor in his eyes, because he finds some nakedness in her, then he writes her a writ of cutting away, places it in her hand, and sends her out of his house.Both verses use שלח (shalach, send forth or release): Deuteronomy 22:29 bars the man from sending her away, while Deuteronomy 24:1 describes the formal act of sending a wife from the household. The shared root makes the restriction concrete, while the passage still gives no recorded choice or voice to the woman.
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