Deuteronomy 22: Lost animals, clothing, mixed kinds, and laws about marriage and sex

In plain English: If you see your brother's ox or his sheep wandering off, you must not hide yourself from them (or: ignore them). Be sure to take them back to your brother.

Good to know: Exodus 23:4 to 5 give a like rule for the ox or donkey of an enemy.

In plain English: If your brother does not live near you, or you do not know who he is, then bring the animal home to your house. It is to stay with you until your brother comes looking for it, and then you are to give it back to him.

In plain English: Do the same with his donkey, with his clothing, and with anything your brother loses and you find. You must not hide yourself (literally: you are not able to hide yourself).

In plain English: If you see your brother's donkey or his ox fallen on the road, you must not hide yourself from them. Be sure to help him lift them up again.

In plain English: A woman is not to wear a man's things (or: a man's clothing), and a man is not to put on a woman's clothing, because anyone who does these things is detestable (this Bible: an abomination) to Yahweh your God.

The Hebrew words: "Men's clothing" is keli gever. Keli is a general word that the dictionary gives as "any apparatus (as an implement, utensil, dress, vessel or weapon)". Gever is a word for a man that the dictionary gives as "properly, a valiant man or warrior; generally, a person simply". For the man, the verse uses the everyday word for clothing (simlah).

How it is translated: In the whole Bible this Bible says "vessel" or a longer form in 124 of the 276 verses that use keli, "armor" or a longer form in 27, and "weapon" or a longer form in 24. In Deuteronomy it is in only 3 verses: here, "weapons" in 1:41, and "container" in 23:24.

What changes: Read as "clothing", the verse forbids each from wearing the other's clothes. Read as "a man's things" or "gear", it may forbid a woman to carry what belongs to a man, such as his weapons. The Hebrew allows both, and readers differ on what the verse forbids.

In plain English: If you happen to find a bird's nest along the road, in a tree or on the ground, with young birds or eggs, and the mother bird sitting on the young or on the eggs, you are not to take the mother along with the young.

In plain English: Be sure to let the mother go, but you may take the young for yourself, so that it may go well with you and you may live long (literally: lengthen your days).

In plain English: When you build a new house, you are to make a railing around your roof, so that you do not bring blood guilt on your house if anyone falls from it.

In plain English: You are not to sow your vineyard with two kinds of seed, or the whole crop will be defiled (literally: become holy), both the seed you have sown and the fruit of the vineyard.

The Hebrew words: "Two kinds" is kilayim, found only here and in Leviticus 19:19, which also forbids two kinds of seed in a field and cloth of two kinds. "Be defiled" is qadash, the usual word for "to be holy".

How it is translated: This Bible says "sanctify", "sanctified" or a like form in 77 of the 154 verses that use qadash, "holy" in 58, and "defile" or a longer form in only 2, one of them this verse.

What changes: Read as "defiled", the crop is spoiled and may not be used. Read as "become holy", the crop is given over to the sanctuary and lost to the owner. The text does not say more.

In plain English: You are not to plow with an ox and a donkey together.

In plain English: You are not to wear cloth of wool and linen woven together.

The Hebrew word: "Wool and linen woven together" is sha'atnez, which the dictionary gives as "cloth of linen and wool carded and spun together". It is in only 2 verses of the Bible, here and Leviticus 19:19.

In plain English: You are to make tassels (this Bible: fringes) for yourselves on the four corners of the cloak you wrap yourself in.

The Hebrew word: "Fringes" here is gedil, which the dictionary gives as "thread, i.e. a tassel or festoon". The only other verse with this word is 1 Kings 7:17, where this Bible says "wreaths". Numbers 15:38 gives a like rule with a different word, tsitsit, and adds a cord of blue.

In plain English: If a man takes a wife, goes in to her, and then hates her,

In plain English: and accuses her of shameful things (literally: lays deeds of words against her) and gives her a bad name, saying, "I took this woman, and when I came near her, I did not find in her the signs of virginity,"

The Hebrew word: "Tokens of virginity" is betulim, which the dictionary gives as "virginity; by implication and concretely, the tokens of it". Verse 17 says the parents spread out "the cloth". The text does not say more about what it showed.

Good to know: Verses 13 to 29 give these laws plainly, with the punishments the text sets. Readers differ on how to read them.

In plain English: then the young woman's father and mother are to take the signs of the young woman's virginity and bring them out to the elders of the city at the gate.

In plain English: The young woman's father is to say to the elders, "I gave my daughter to this man as his wife, and he hates her.

In plain English: Look, he has accused her of shameful things, saying, 'I did not find in your daughter the signs of virginity.' But these are the signs of my daughter's virginity." They are to spread out the cloth before the elders of the city.

In plain English: The elders of that city are to take the man and punish him (or: discipline him).

In plain English: They are to fine him a hundred shekels of silver (the Hebrew says: a hundred of silver) and give it to the young woman's father, because he has given a virgin of Israel a bad name. She is to stay his wife, and he may never send her away as long as he lives.

Good to know: The Hebrew says only "a hundred of silver", and in verse 29 "fifty of silver". The word "shekels" is not in the Hebrew of these two verses. This Bible supplies it.

In plain English: But if the charge is true, and the signs of virginity were not found in the young woman,

In plain English: then they are to bring the young woman out to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city are to stone her to death, because she has done a shameful thing (this Bible: folly) in Israel by acting as a prostitute while in her father's house. So you will remove the evil from among you.

The Hebrew word: "Folly" is nevalah, which the dictionary gives as "foolishness, i.e. (morally) wickedness; concretely, a crime". It is the word used when Dinah was taken in Genesis 34:7. This Bible says "folly" in 11 of the 13 verses that use it.

The Hebrew word: "Play the prostitute" is zanah, which the dictionary gives as "to commit adultery", and "less often of simple fornication". Here it is used of a young woman in her father's house.

In plain English: If a man is found lying with a woman who is married to a husband, both of them are to die, the man who lay with the woman and the woman. So you will remove the evil from Israel.

Good to know: Leviticus 20:10 also gives death for both the man and the woman in adultery. Exodus 20:14 is the command "You shall not commit adultery."

In plain English: If a young woman who is a virgin is engaged to a man, and a man meets her in the city and lies with her,

In plain English: then you are to bring them both out to the gate of that city and stone them to death: the young woman because she did not cry out for help, though she was in the city, and the man because he humbled his neighbor's wife. So you will remove the evil from among you.

In plain English: But if the man meets the engaged young woman in the field, and the man takes hold of her by force and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her is to die.

The Hebrew words: "Forces her" is chazaq, which the dictionary gives as "to fasten upon; hence, to seize, be strong". In verse 28 the word is a different one, taphas, "to manipulate, i.e. seize".

What changes: Verse 25 is plainly force, and the text compares it to murder (verse 26). In verse 28 readers differ on whether "grabs her" also means force, or only that he took her. Exodus 22:16 to 17, a like law, says "entices" and lets the father refuse the marriage.

In plain English: You are to do nothing to the young woman. She has no sin that deserves death. This case is like a man who attacks his neighbor and kills him,

In plain English: because he met her in the field, the engaged young woman cried out, and there was no one to save her.

In plain English: If a man meets a young woman who is a virgin and is not engaged, takes hold of her (or: seizes her) and lies with her, and they are found out,

In plain English: then the man who lay with her is to give the young woman's father fifty shekels of silver (the Hebrew says: fifty of silver). She is to be his wife, because he has humbled her. He may never send her away as long as he lives.

In plain English: A man is not to take his father's wife, and is not to uncover his father's skirt (the edge of his father's garment).

The Hebrew words: "Skirt" is kanaph, which the dictionary gives as "an edge or extremity", and of a garment "a flap". It is the same word as "corners" in verse 12. To uncover it means to lie with the father's wife, as Leviticus 18:8 says in other words.

Good to know: The Hebrew text and the Greek Old Testament number this verse as 23:1, so there the verses of chapter 23 are one number higher than in this Bible.