What Does Exodus 22:16 Mean?
If a man lures a virgin who is not betrothed, and lies down with her, he shall surely give the bride-price for her to be his wife.
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
And if a man entice a maid that is not betrothed, and lie with her, he shall surely endow her to be his wife.THE KEY
The verse makes a man’s persuasion and sexual access answerable through an emphatic material obligation: he must pay the bride-price, and she is to be his wife.
THE MEANING
Read now, this verse places the consequence of a man persuading an unbetrothed young woman and lying with her on him: he owes a bride-price, and the stated outcome is marriage. The encounter carries an obligation beyond the moment. The rule names the man’s obligation while leaving the woman’s voice absent.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a man can persuade a woman into sex and leave her to carry the consequences alone is overturned: the verse places a required material obligation on him.
THE ROOT
מָהֹר יִמְהָרֶנָּה
māhōr yimharenāh
GROWS FROM
מהר
Pay a bride-price; here the repeated root makes the payment emphatic.
“give the bride-price” in this verse is māhōr yimharenāh. The Hebrew repeats מהר in the phrase translated “he shall surely endow her,” stressing that the payment is required. The root also appears as the concrete noun for bride-price, making visible the material obligation inside the English “endow.”
ALSO GROWS
māhar: To pay a bride-price
מָהַר
The verb names the payment required of the man in this verse.
mōhar: Bride-price or marriage payment
מֹהַר
This noun appears in the next verse, where payment remains due even if the marriage is refused.
יְפַתֶּה
yĕpattēh
GROWS FROM
פתה
Be open or simple; in the Piel form, persuade, allure, or entice.
“lures” in this verse is yĕpattēh. The root’s word-family links enticement with being open or susceptible to influence, keeping the force of persuasion in view before the verse names the sexual act. Here that persuasion is not treated as consequence-free: it leads into the man’s binding obligation.
ALSO GROWS
peti: A simple or inexperienced person
פֶּתִי
This related form places openness to influence in the same word-family as the act of enticing.
pātāh: To entice or allure
פָּתָה
This verb form shows the persuasive force carried by the word used for the man’s action.
THE PATTERN
Sexual intimacy creates consequences and obligations that outlast the act itself.
If her father flatly refuses to give her to him, he shall weigh out silver according to the bride-price of virgins.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.Or have you not seen that the one glued to a seller of bodies is one body? For, he says, the two will be one flesh.THE THREAD
If her father flatly refuses to give her to him, he shall weigh out silver according to the bride-price of virgins.The verb translated “endow” in verse 16 comes from מהר, the same root as מֹהַר (mōhar), “dowry,” in this verse. If her father refuses the marriage, payment still stands: the obligation survives the proposed union.
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