What Does Deuteronomy 22:29 Mean in the King James?
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 analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
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.
“humbled” 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.
“put 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 do not these three unto her, then shall she go out free without money.When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house.He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.THE THREAD
When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send 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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