Restitution, Not Romance: The Law of the Violated Virgin Text: Deuteronomy 22:28-29
Introduction: Justice in a World Without Guardrails
We live in an age that prides itself on its sexual liberation, which is really just another name for sexual chaos. We have thrown away the guardrails that God, in His wisdom, established for our protection. We have told our young men that their appetites are supreme and our young women that their vulnerability is a form of oppression. The result is a world awash in confusion, heartache, and injustice. When things go wrong, as they inevitably do, our culture has only two responses: therapeutic platitudes or vindictive rage. We either tell the victim she is a survivor and must find her own truth, or we seek to destroy the man utterly, with no thought to restoration or true justice.
Into this sentimental and barbaric mess, the case laws of Deuteronomy speak with a bracing and masculine clarity. These are not laws for a therapeutic state. They are laws for a real world, a fallen world, where sin happens and damage is done. And because the damage is real, the remedy must also be real. God is not interested in symbolic gestures. He is interested in restitution. He is interested in making things as right as they can be made on this side of glory.
The passage before us is one that makes moderns, and particularly modern evangelicals, very uncomfortable. It seems harsh, archaic, and utterly foreign to our romantic notions of marriage. But our discomfort is a measure of our distance from biblical thinking, not a measure of the law's deficiency. We want justice to be an abstract principle. God insists that it be a concrete transaction. This law is not about forcing a woman to marry her "attacker" in the modern, anonymous sense. It is a law that assigns responsibility, protects the victim's future, and places the entire burden of the sin squarely on the man who committed it. It is a deeply patriarchal law, and for that reason, it is a profoundly protective law.
To understand this law, we must first set aside our 21st-century sentimentality. We must understand that in the ancient world, a woman's virginity was her primary marital asset. It was the sign of her covenantal faithfulness to her future husband, and it was under the protection of her father. For a man to violate that was not just a sin against her, but a profound act of theft against her and her father. It damaged her reputation and severely diminished her future prospects for a stable, godly marriage. The law, therefore, is not primarily punitive, though it contains a penalty. It is primarily restorative. It seeks to repair the damage the man has done in the most practical way possible.
The Text
“If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her and they are found, then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall become his wife because he has violated her; he cannot divorce her all his days.”
(Deuteronomy 22:28-29 LSB)
The Crime and Its Context (v. 28)
We begin with the description of the offense:
"If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her and they are found..." (Deuteronomy 22:28)
Notice the specific details. This is case law. It is not a sweeping philosophical statement but a specific scenario from which we are to derive principles. The girl is a virgin, meaning her covenantal honor is intact. She is not engaged, which distinguishes this case from the one just prior (vv. 23-24), where the act would be adultery and a capital crime. The man "seizes her and lies with her." The word for "seizes" can imply force, but it is not the same word used for a violent rape in the field (v. 25). This scenario likely envisions something akin to what we would call seduction or date rape, a situation where the lines of consent are blurred by male aggression and female vulnerability, but not a violent stranger assault.
This is important. The law distinguishes between different kinds of sexual sin. A violent rape of a betrothed woman in the country was a capital offense for the man (vv. 25-27). Adultery with a married or betrothed woman was a capital offense for both parties (vv. 22-24). This case is different. It is a grievous sin, but it does not carry the death penalty. The context is likely a community where the man and woman are known to each other. He has taken advantage of her, violated her, and now "they are found." Their sin has come to light.
The fact that "they are found" is crucial. This is not a private matter to be sorted out by the individuals. It is a public matter that affects the whole community. Sin is never truly private. It always has social consequences. The modern idea that what two (or more) consenting adults do is their own business is a lie from the pit. It is an attempt to escape God's public standards of righteousness.
The Restitution and Responsibility (v. 29)
Verse 29 lays out the threefold remedy, and it is here that our modern sensibilities are most challenged.
"...then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall become his wife because he has violated her; he cannot divorce her all his days." (Deuteronomy 22:29 LSB)
First, the man must pay. He is to give the girl's father fifty shekels of silver. This was a significant sum, the standard bride price for a virgin. He has stolen a precious commodity, her virginity, and he must pay for it in full. This is a financial penalty that acknowledges the economic and social damage done to the father's house. The father was the guardian of his daughter's honor, and the man's sin was an offense against his headship and protection.
Second, she shall become his wife. This is the part that causes the most consternation. But we must understand this from the perspective of the woman and her family. Her marital prospects have been severely damaged. Who will marry her now? The man who created the problem is now legally obligated to provide the solution. He broke it, so he bought it. This is not a romantic proposal. It is a sentence. He is sentenced to a lifetime of providing for, protecting, and honoring the woman he dishonored. It is crucial to understand that this was a protection for the woman, not a requirement forced upon her. The parallel passage in Exodus 22:16-17 makes it clear that the father has the right to refuse the marriage. If he determines that this man would be a brutish and ungodly husband, he can say no. But the choice is his, as the head of the household, acting in his daughter's best interest. The man has no choice in the matter. If the father agrees, the man is bound.
Third, he can never divorce her. This is the final lock on his responsibility. In a culture where divorce was permitted for other reasons (Deut. 24:1), this man forfeits that right. He has proven himself to be a cad, a man who acts on selfish impulse. The law therefore strips him of any future opportunity to act selfishly toward this woman again. He cannot violate her and then discard her when he grows tired of her. He made his bed, and now he must lie in it, for life. This provision turns the tables completely. The man who sought a moment of illicit pleasure is now bound to a lifetime of covenantal duty. The price of his sin is not a short prison term, but a permanent, lifelong responsibility. This is a powerful deterrent.
Principles for a Chaotic Age
So what do we do with a law like this today? We are not under the Mosaic civil code. The state of Israel was a typological kingdom, and its specific civil penalties are not binding on Gentile nations. However, the moral principles that undergird these laws, what the Puritans called the general equity, are timeless, because God's standard of justice is timeless.
First, this law teaches that sin has a price, and justice demands restitution. Our modern justice system is almost entirely punitive. We punish the criminal, but we do little to restore the victim. The Bible's focus is always on making the victim whole. The man's sin created a tangible loss, and he is required to make a tangible restoration. Forgiveness from God does not negate our responsibility to make things right with those we have wronged. Zacchaeus understood this. When Christ came to his house, he didn't just say he was sorry; he promised to pay back everyone he had defrauded fourfold (Luke 19:8).
Second, this law establishes male responsibility. In our feminist age, we are told that women are strong and independent, and any suggestion that they need protection is patronizing. The Bible disagrees. It recognizes that men are initiators, and women are responders. Therefore, in sexual sin, the primary burden of responsibility falls on the man. He is the one who "seizes" her. He is the one who pays. He is the one who is bound. This is the essence of true patriarchy. It is not the right to dominate, but the responsibility to protect, provide for, and, if necessary, lay down one's life. When a man fails in this duty and becomes a predator instead of a protector, the law holds him to account.
Third, this law shows that marriage is a covenant, not a consumer product. We view marriage as the culmination of romantic love, something to be entered into when it meets our emotional needs and discarded when it doesn't. The Bible sees it as a public, legal, and lifelong covenant. This law forces a marriage as a judicial sentence. This is shocking to us, but it reveals that the essence of marriage is the public vow of commitment, not the private feeling of affection. The commitment is what makes the marriage, and the feelings are expected to follow the commitment, not the other way around.
The Gospel of Ultimate Restitution
Ultimately, this law, like all of God's laws, points us to our need for a Savior. For in a spiritual sense, we are all like this violated virgin. The human race was created as the bride of God, intended for covenantal union with Him. But we were seduced. Satan, the great aggressor, seized us and lay with us in the sin of the garden. We were defiled, our honor was lost, and our future was ruined. We were left shamed and unmarriageable.
But God, in His infinite mercy, did not abandon us to our shame. He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to be our kinsman-redeemer. He came to the one who had violated us. But instead of simply paying a price, He became the price. He who knew no sin became sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21). He took our violation, our shame, and our penalty upon Himself on the cross.
And then He did what the law required of the man in our text. He took us to be His bride. The Church is the bride of Christ. He found us in our sin and shame, and He did not cast us aside. He bound Himself to us in an everlasting covenant. He said, "I will take you to be my wife forever." And just like the man in Deuteronomy, He can never divorce us. "I will never leave you nor forsake you" (Hebrews 13:5). He has bound Himself to us for all His days, which are eternal days.
This is the ultimate restitution. Christ did not just repair the damage; He made us more glorious than we were before the fall. He took our sin and gave us His righteousness. He took our shame and gave us His honor. He took our ruin and gave us an eternal inheritance. The justice of God's law is bracing and good. But the grace of God's gospel is scandalous and glorious. Let us therefore submit to His law, recognizing its wisdom, and flee to His gospel, receiving its mercy.