Deuteronomy 22:23
If a man have espoused a damsel that is a virgin, and some one find her in the city, and lie with her,
Open Deuteronomy 22:23 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Si puellam virginem desponderit vir, et invenerit eam aliquis in civitate, et concubuerit cum ea,
- Septuagint (Swete)
- Ἐὰν δὲ γένηται παῖς παρθένος μεμνηστευμένη ἀνδρί, καὶ εὑρὼν αὐτὴν ἄνθρωπος ἐν πόλει κοιμηθῇ μετ᾽ αὐτῆς·
- Hebrew (WLC)
- כִּ֤י יִהְיֶה֙ נער בְתוּלָ֔ה מְאֹרָשָׂ֖ה לְאִ֑ישׁ וּמְצָאָ֥הּ אִ֛ישׁ בָּעִ֖יר וְשָׁכַ֥ב עִמָּֽהּ
The Fathers on this verse
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Amandus
4. I have not been able quite to determine what it is that she means by the words “has found herself compelled” to marry again. What is this compulsion of which she speaks? Was she overborne by a crowd and ravished against her will? If so, why has she not, thus victimized, subsequently put away her ravisher? Let her read the books of Moses and she will find that if violence is offered to a betrothed virgin in a city and she does not cry out, she is punished as an adulteress: but if she is forced in the field, she is innocent of sin and her ravisher alone is amenable to the laws. …
St Jerome The Perpetual Virginity of Blessed Mary
4. Let us take the points one by one, and follow the tracks of this impiety that we may show that he has contradicted himself. He admits that she was betrothed, and in the next breath will have her to be a man’s wife whom he has admitted to be his betrothed. Again, he calls her wife, and then says the only reason why she was betrothed was that she might one day be married. And, for fear we might not think that enough, “the word used,” he says, “is betrothed and not intrusted, that is to say, not yet a wife, not yet united by the bond of wedlock.” But when he continues, “the Evangelist would never have applied the words, before they came together to persons who were not to come together, any more than one says, before he dined, when the man is not going to dine,” I know not whether to grieve or laugh. …