 Does the Bible really say that if a woman is raped she has to marry her rapist? Or does the Bible even condone rape? No. Absolutely not. In the Old Testament under the law there is a series of passages that have caused a little bit of confusion and I think we need to look at it to see that no the Bible is not saying that a woman who is assaulted by a man has to marry that man. There's a couple words we need to look at and then the bigger picture is what does God actually feel about rape? And then even bigger picture what is being stated here? Well as we look at this remember during this time God has set up a system whereby he wishes that the children of Israel would be devoted towards him and would be separate from the people that are not which is why you see certain dietary laws and things like that. It's not that the food that God is telling them to eat that the animals are themselves not clean he says they are unclean to you because he wants it to be a division he wants Israel to be a holy nation and if a nation or if any other people want to become part of them they would simply adhere to what God is asking them to do to worship God as God and serve him. So as we go to this particular passage when we start off a little earlier than the the passage in question we'll see that what God is really speaking of obviously is keeping Israel separate but in this case he's speaking about how to protect women and so as we start in Deuteronomy chapter 22 verse 13 says if a man takes a wife and goes into her and then turns against her and charges her with shameful deeds and publicly fames her and says I took this woman but when I came near her I did not find her to be a virgin so in this day there was what's called this little bedding sheet and at the at the consummation of the marriage the man would know as well as the wife her family would also know being sure that this man received a virgin and so without getting too graphic and so forth just the sheet below them would give an indication of that and so this is what he's speaking of so if a man says that wait a minute you gave me a woman a daughter a wife a virgin who was not a virgin and so this is how this is rectified so verse 15 says then the girl's father and her mother shall take and bring out the evidence of the girl's virginity to the elders of the city at the gate and the girl's father shall say to the elders I gave my daughter this man for a wife but turned against her so this is in case this person is given sort of false accusation or how to deal with these accusations and behold verse 17 he has charged her with shameful deeds saying I did not find your daughter to be a virgin but this is the evidence of my daughter's virginity and they shall spread the garment before the elders of the city so the elders of that city shall take the man and chastise him and they shall find him a hundred shekels of silver and give it to the father because he publicly defamed a virgin in Israel and she remained his wife he cannot divorce her all day and so in this way we're seeing that there's a provision for her uh want her integrity to be protected as well as Israel and so to keep a man from doing anything because obviously in this culture uh the men in terms of rank in terms of order were over the women but you could not just abuse them so here's a way to protect her protect her honor and if you were to do such a thing if you were to lie well then you can never divorce her and you've got to pay a pretty hefty fine now the converse is true also that if it's true if the allegation is true well then now we've got a young lady who is playing the part of a harlot and and so she can be stoned so this is a pretty serious allegation this is pretty serious and it's going to be taken and treated seriously but now what happens if not just an allegation is being brought up but something happens something where the where the girl is violated in verse 22 he says if a man is found lying with a married woman then both of them shall die the man who lay with the woman and the woman thus you shall purge the evil from Israel that's the whole point getting rid of separating evil from the camp of Israel God is not pleased with that which is why he goes through all these great links to keep Israel purified to keep Israel holy to keep Israel unlike the other nations and so if these things are happening there well obviously what else could be happening you are laying with your neighbor's wife and so both of you are to be killed and so God is clear that these sort of things will not be tolerated so as we're moving forward we're kind of seeing a picture of how God thinks that these things ought to be dealt with in particular with women so verse 23 if there is a girl who is a version engaged to a man and another man finds her in the city and lies with her then you shall bring them both out to the gate of the city and you shall stone them to death the girl because she did not cry out in the city and the man because he has violated his neighbor's wife thus you shall purge the evil from among you so here's the whole point purging evil from among you and so God is not God is not interested in evil at all being in the presence of the camp remember we talk about a story about AI where Akin steals or keeps what should have been destroyed he takes it and what does God say there's evil in the camp get rid of this evil that's in the camp and so the same things happen here God God wants to make sure that there is no evil no sin in the camp and so in this case here we have a situation where there is a man laying with a virgin engaged to another woman and he says that then you shall bring them both and so the point is here if she is is engaged in some sort of relationship is being treated as though she is married even being betrothed now there is a provision what if she did not consent to this well verse 25 but if the man in the field finds a girl who is engaged and the man forces her and lies with her then only the man who lies with her shall die but you shall do nothing to the girl there is no sin in the girl worthy of death for just as a man rises against his neighbor and murders him so it is in this case when the when he found her in the field the engaged girl cried out but there was no one to save her so here it is if a woman were to be attacked or in this case were to be raped we're gonna look at the word in just a second that's used for this word rape and she is supposed to make sure that she's not consenting in any way so she's to cry out to resist and if there is no one around the benefit of that goes to her still because if there's no one around and she cries out well then who's gonna hear who's gonna know and so the benefit of that goes to her even still and this man should be treated as even as someone murdering someone so he is to be put to death nothing has happened to her her honor is restored now this is the passage where it begins to get a little bit tricky and this is where the issues come at verse 28 and 29 if a man finds a girl who is a virgin who is not engaged and seizes her and lies with her and they are discovered then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl's father 50 shekel of silver and and she shall become his wife because he has violated her and cannot divorce her all his days and so in this case it seemed like wait a second you mean all i have to do if i want a woman and she didn't want me to say go and and seize her and take her and violate her and i pay a fine those have to be fine but she's my wife now the penalty is for him the fine and also he could never divorce her but what's missing here is the thought that this might be a rape now the problem is some versions might allude to this being rape revenge or transit this is rape for example the niv in the niv we see in verse 25 but if out in the country a man happens to meet a young woman pledged to be married and rapes her so obviously we understand what's happening here but the problem is when we go down to verse 28 the same thing stated if a man happens to meet a version who happens who is not pledged to be married and rapes her well the problem is the word that's used here are two different words so what i want you notice here is in the niv this is why the niv the translation the niv is probably not the better translation because there's two different words of use here in this particular passage in verse 25 the word that's used here is the word kazakh which is to rape to defile is forcefully whereas we go drop to the bottom and we go to where it says that he meets his version who is not pledged and married and the word that's used here is to rape her it's not the same word the word that's used here is the word look look the bottom is the word to fuzz this word right here is to fuzz in this way this word is more like kind of a coercing maybe he said something nice to her she liked it would have you but she was not um he is to be married she hadn't been trolled it's still going to kind of it's still going to be considered a violation but not a forceful rate there is a parallel passage that goes with this that that discusses this not as in depth but still the same thing is occurring here in x's 2216 says if a man seduces a version who is not engaged in lies with her he must pay a dowry for her to be his wife so the same thing has been spoken of here and so in this case we see that if he seduces her if he says something nice to her she likes it would have you but they're not married the same treatment you have to pay this dowry and you can never ever divorce her under any circumstances and so it's incumbent upon the man to make sure that if you're going to do this there's some serious consequence that goes with this so this cannot be taken if this is a woman who was raped more more to the point she was seduced she was overcome by his charm what have you and then they he legally according to the law had sex and so now she has to marry him he has to marry her the father has to be paid a dowry father has to be paid shekels because the father didn't get the opportunity one to patrol with her but then also uh the honor and integrity of of that family as well as israel is at stake it has always been taken serious in israel if the rape of a woman occurs think back to the story of dyna this is the daughter of jacob who was raped and the two brothers simian and levi decided to take matters in their own hand and they go and they kill the canaanites for this well the issue the greater issue with them wasn't what was done the issue was the vow that was made the vow is taken very seriously it wasn't so much the penalty the penalty for them was the killing of the men they should just went ahead and just killed them for that but the issue more to the point was you made a vow you deceive these people and god holds his word to be true god holds his words in high regard and expects you to do the same thing and so here we see in other cases where when these things happen they're going to be serious consequences so does god what's the penalty for raping someone whether they're betrothed or not it's death if the person is coerced if they're seduced if they you know the man said some nice things to her and she fell for it and they and he ended up laying with her well then they are going to be married forever and so no god is not saying that if a woman is raped whoever she is that she's forced to marry him that's not the word that's been spoken of and so now by the way more to the point this is under the old covenant and certainly it has no bearing going forward but still it's an interesting question people bring up and so I wanted to go ahead and give some time and answer this question amen