What Does Exodus 22:17 Mean?
If her father flatly refuses to give her to him, he shall weigh out silver according to the bride-price of virgins.
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
If her father utterly refuse to give her unto him, he shall pay money according to the dowry of virgins.THE KEY
The father’s emphatic refusal ends the marriage, but the man’s obligation remains, measured out in silver.
THE MEANING
The father’s refusal blocks the marriage, and the man still owes money measured against the bride-price of virgins. The verse gives the refusal to the father and leaves the woman’s own consent unspoken.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A refused marriage means nothing more is owed. Here the refusal changes the form of the obligation; it does not erase it.
THE ROOT
מָאֵן יְמָאֵן
ma’en yĕma’en
GROWS FROM
מאן
ma’an
Refuse, decline, be unwilling.
“flatly refuses” in this verse is ma’en yĕma’en. The Hebrew intensifies refusal by using the same root twice: an infinitive absolute followed by the finite verb. That emphasis makes the father’s refusal decisive, while the man’s obligation carries forward as measured silver.
ALSO GROWS
ma’en: To refuse; the infinitive absolute form in this phrase.
מָאֵן
Its repetition adds emphasis to the refusal.
yĕma’en: He refuses; the finite verb completing the emphatic phrase.
יְמָאֵן
Together, the two forms convey the force of “utterly refuse.”
יִשְׁקֹל
yishqol
GROWS FROM
שקל
shaqal
Weigh, weigh out.
“weigh out silver” in this verse is yishqol. What the KJV renders “pay money” is literally “weigh silver”: the phrase names a physical act of measuring. The payment is tied to a stated bride-price, making the obligation concrete.
ALSO GROWS
sheqel: Shekel; a weight-based unit and currency measure.
שֶׁקֶל
The same root links weighing silver with the named unit used to measure it.
mishqal: Weight; a weighing or measure.
מִשְׁקָל
This related form keeps the idea of measured weight visible beneath the payment.
THE PATTERN
A changed outcome does not erase the concrete obligation created by an earlier act.
If a man shall steal an ox, or a sheep, and slaughter it, or sell it; he shall make whole five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep.And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, "Look, Lord, I give half of what I have to the emptied, and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I give back fourfold."THE THREAD
And Abraham heard and responded to Ephron, and Abraham weighed out to Ephron the silver, which he had spoken in the ears of the sons of Heth, four hundred weights of silver, passing from hand to hand with the merchant.Both passages use שקל (shaqal, “weigh”) for silver payment. Genesis makes the measure explicit, opening the phrase “pay money” here as the concrete act of weighing out silver.
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