Bible Strands
Deuteronomy 22:21
she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house, and there the men of her city will stone her to death. For she has committed an outrage in Israel by being promiscuous in her father’s house. So you must purge the evil from among you.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The covenant lawgiver addresses the assembled Israelites, prescribing capital punishment when a bride’s premarital virginity is conclusively disproven.
The words — וְהוֹצִיאוּ (ve-hoṣî’û) and וּסְקָלוּהָ (u-səqālûhā) denote the forced removal of the young woman to her father’s entrance and the subsequent stoning by the city men.
The thread — The command to purge evil through execution appears in Deuteronomy 13:5 for false prophets, while the public, communal nature of the judgment echoes the retribution described in Genesis 34:7 and Judges 20:6.
Why it lands — The text requires the community to execute the woman at her father’s door to remove sexual immorality from Israel, demanding recognition that covenant boundaries carry irreversible legal consequences.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die: because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the whore in her father’s house: so shalt thou put evil away from among you.
Cross-references
- Genesis 34:7 When Jacob’s sons heard what had happened, they returned from the field. They were filled with grief and fury, because Shechem had committed an outrage in Israel by lying with Jacob’s daughter—a thing that should not be done.
- Deuteronomy 13:5 Such a prophet or dreamer must be put to death, because he has advocated rebellion against the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery; he has tried to turn you from the way in which the LORD your God has commanded you to walk. So you must purge the evil from among you.
- Judges 20:6 Then I took my concubine, cut her into pieces, and sent her throughout the land of Israel’s inheritance, because they had committed a lewd and disgraceful act in Israel.
- Leviticus 21:9 If a priest’s daughter defiles herself by prostituting herself, she profanes her father; she must be burned in the fire.
- Deuteronomy 17:7 The hands of the witnesses shall be the first in putting him to death, and after that, the hands of all the people. So you must purge the evil from among you.
- Deuteronomy 19:19 you must do to him as he intended to do to his brother. So you must purge the evil from among you.
- Deuteronomy 21:21 Then all the men of his city will stone him to death. So you must purge the evil from among you, and all Israel will hear and be afraid.
- Judges 20:10 We will take ten men out of every hundred from all the tribes of Israel, and a hundred out of every thousand, and a thousand out of every ten thousand, to supply provisions for the army when they go to Gibeah in Benjamin to punish them for the atrocity they have committed in Israel.”
- 2 Samuel 13:12 “No, my brother!” she cried. “Do not violate me, for such a thing should never be done in Israel. Do not do this disgraceful thing!
- Leviticus 24:16 Whoever blasphemes the name of the LORD must surely be put to death; the whole assembly must surely stone him, whether he is a foreign resident or native; if he blasphemes the Name, he must be put to death.