Deuteronomy 22:28-30 - A man is not to marry his father's wife

22:28,29

We then have the case of a man taking a woman who was not betrothed and having sex with her. The ruling here goes against our society’s mores. Instead of this being treated as rape, the man has to pay a penalty and is forced to marry the woman. As mentioned earlier, a much more practical, as opposed to romantic, approach towards marriage is taken. There are also a couple of other points to note. The first is that all the responsibility is put on the man. The second is that the rules expect men to take responsibility for their actions, this is a significant issue which is a problem in our society.

22:30

“A man shall not take his father’s wife, so that he does not uncover his father’s nakedness.” The phrasing here seems rather odd to us, it almost certainly means not to bring dishonour to his father. It is also likely that the wife here is not the man’s mother, but what we would refer to as his stepmother. As noted earlier, a man having more than one wife was quite common in those days, or it may be that the first wife had died. Step children and parents is very common in our society, and what we can learn from this is that step parents and children should have respect for each other.