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Journey of a Passage

Deuteronomy 22:28–29

Seizing an unbetrothed woman: what the words say

The same Hebrew stands in every witness checked. The questions are what its verbs mean and what the law required of the woman. The Greek translator understood force; the Hebrew uses a different verb from the assault law just before it.

Same letters, different readings: the consonants agree, but ancient readers vocalized or interpreted them differently

The family tree

Each row is a language or text tradition. Witnesses in the same row may share ancestry, revise one another, or have an uncertain relationship; the line under each box says which. A solid arrow appears only where direct copying or a documented revised edition is established. Order by date never implies copying. Scroll sideways on a phone.

✓ contains it · ✕ does not · ❝ quotes part of it · ⓘ reports on manuscripts · ▢ pages lost · – no copy survives

  • Same line, through lost copies
  • Translation
Hebrew
  1. Original DeuteronomyUnknown (debated)
  2. Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)AD 1008Descends, through lost copies, from Original Deuteronomy
Samaritan
  1. Samaritan PentateuchAncient tradition; medieval copiesDescends, through lost copies, from Original Deuteronomy
Greek
  1. SeptuagintTranslated c. 3rd century BCTranslated from a Hebrew text of the 3rd century BC
Latin
  1. Jerome's Vulgatec. AD 400Translated from Hebrew texts of Jerome's day
English
  1. King James Bible1611Translated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

Readings

Force
Tafas means to seize; 'innah describes violation; the Greek says "using violence." On this reading the law binds a woman to her rapist.
Seduction
Tafas is not chazaq (22:25); the law parallels Exodus 22:16–17, which concerns seduction and lets the father refuse the marriage.
What is certain
The woman's wishes are not mentioned. The man pays fifty shekels to her father and may never divorce her.

Every witness, in order

  1. Unknown (debated)

    Original Deuteronomy

    – No copy survives

    No original survives.

  2. Translated c. 3rd century BC

    Septuagint

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from a Hebrew text of the 3rd century BC

    How the site knows this: Known here only through a translation.

    if, using violence, he lies with her… she shall be his wife, because he has dishonored her

    Giguet's French: "si, usant de violence, il a commerce avec elle." The Greek reads the act as forced.

  3. c. AD 400

    Jerome's Vulgate

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from Hebrew texts of Jerome's day

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Clementine Vulgate (1592 edition).

    et apprehendens concubuerit cum illa

    and taking hold of her he lies with her

    "Taking hold."

  4. AD 1008

    Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)

    ✓ Contains this passageDescends, through lost copies, from Original Deuteronomy

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.

    וּתְפָשָׂהּ וְשָׁכַב עִמָּהּ… תַּחַת אֲשֶׁר עִנָּהּ

    and seizes her and lies with her… because he has humbled (violated) her

    tafas, "seize, take hold"; 'innah, "humble, violate." Compare chazaq, "overpower," in 22:25.

  5. Ancient tradition; medieval copies

    Samaritan Pentateuch

    ✓ Contains this passageDescends, through lost copies, from Original Deuteronomy

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Samaritan Pentateuch, Kennicott's 1780 text digitized by A. Sigalov.

    ותפשה ושכב עמה

    and seizes her and lies with her

    The same consonants as the Masoretic Text.

  6. 1611

    King James Bible

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: King James Version (1769 text).

    and lay hold on her, and lie with her… because he hath humbled her

    Follows the Hebrew.

What changed, and why

This is not a manuscript difference; the words are the same. It is a question of meaning with serious ethical weight, and the site does not resolve it by softening either reading.

What the evidence shows

  • Independently documentedAll witnesses checked have the same Hebrew in 22:28.
  • Independently documentedThe Septuagint renders the act as forced. Through Giguet's French translation.
  • DisputedThe law describes rape rather than seduction.

Sources

  • E. Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 3rd ed. (Fortress, 2012)

Related lessons

  • Neighbors, Clothing, Sexual Violence, and Marriage →Return a neighbor's lost animal. Build a parapet on your roof. Let the mother bird go. No mixed seed, no ox and donkey yoked together, no linen and wool woven together. Then a series of laws on accusations against a bride, adultery, and sexual assault, which must be read carefully and without softening.
  • How Deuteronomy Came to Us →Moses on the plains of Moab; a scroll found in Josiah's Temple; an Assyrian loyalty oath; thirty-odd Dead Sea Scrolls, some with readings no modern Hebrew Bible has; a Samaritan Torah that names a different mountain; a Greek name taken from one verse; and a nineteenth-century "manuscript" that vanished. How Deuteronomy reached us, and what is still debated.