--Deuteronomy 25:11-12, NIV
So many people who have encountered these two verses either respond with confusion or volatile anger. They can appear puzzling, especially in the random context of a chapter regulating corporal punishment, circumstantial marriage, and honesty in dealings with others. And they can also appear unjust and outright evil to many people.
There are actually two possibilities for the type of punishment debated by theologians: cutting off the woman's hand or shaving her pubic hair. Some teachers say severing the woman's hand served as an extension of the "eye for eye" laws because the woman does not have the same genitals and therefore sacrificed her hand instead; some say that since she sexually humiliated a man she was sexually humiliated by public groin shaving.
I will address each option below.
Nothing To Do with Lex Talionis
First of all, it makes no sense at all to label this law a part of the Lex Talionis ("eye for eye") laws because there is no indication in the text whatsoever that the woman injured the man's penis at all, only that she seized it. Nowhere does it say or even slightly imply that any sort of injury was sustained, much less a permanent one. Even if amputation of the hand is the true penalty, it is applied for simply seizing the man's genitals and therefore would apply to any offense greater, such as if the woman castrated or physically abused (which is different than mutilating or removing) or injured the man's sensitive body part. I will compare this to the Biblical laws on kidnapping for an analogy. Kidnapping someone deserves the death penalty (Exodus 21:16, Deuteronomy 24:7), but so does kidnapping and forced enslavement for multiple years. If just kidnapping someone deserves death or just aggressively seizing a man's male organs deserves removal of the hand, then more severe sins that follow would still be punished with either execution or amputation respectively. So if the amputation translation is correct, the woman seizing the man's sex organs or doing anything beyond that would receive the loss of her hand. This has nothing to do with Lex Talionis, obviously.
Even the "humiliation for humiliation" interpretation (where the woman's pubic hair is shaved) isn't true mirror punishment. For physically and violently seizing a man's penis and possibly inflicting great pain in the process, the woman is subjected to involuntary removal of her vulva hair. Little about these two actions is the same, except for how they both target the sex organs. While the shaving would likely be intended to sexually humiliate a woman who sexually humiliated a man, calling this "mirror punishment" is dishonest, misleading, and not specific enough. It is sexual humiliation used to punish a type of sexual assault; a significant difference exists. According to the vulva shaving theory, God never allowed for sexual assault on the woman's groin area in the way she assaulted the man, only a form of sexual humiliation. For a fuller dissection of Lex Talionis and how God actually never said to punish someone by returning whatever abuse or evil they inflicted on the victim, see here [1].
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| Besides grabbing a man's penis to overpower him, the only crime the Bible prescribes the amputation of a woman's (or man's) hand for is if she cuts off the hand of a man or woman. |
However, some scholars and apologists would concur that the pubic hair shaving translation is superior and correct due to a Hebrew word other than the one for hand used to refer the "hand" that must be cut off. Involuntary depilation is their favored understanding. The true translation, according to these scholars, would be more like this:
"If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, you shall shave the hair of her groin. Show her no pity."
So if a woman intervened in a fight by illicitly seizing or assaulting a man's penis, she would be convicted by a judge on the testimony of at least two witnesses (probably the two men who were fighting) and would very likely be briefly stripped naked and have her pubic hair publicly shaved from her vulva as punishment--according to this minority view. This punishment would be humiliating but swift. It would seem that this law would hold were the genders in the scenario reversed; if a man aggressively grasped a woman's groin to overpower her in a fight he would likely have his own pubic hair shaved off in public too (or his hand cut off). If so, this translation submits an improved legal response over foreign contemporary laws of the time, which possibly prescribed mutilation of the eyes for a similar act by a woman. Honestly, I don't really appreciate either legal penalty, as I don't like mutilation or sexual humiliation, but I must respect God's civil justice; my preferences do not reveal or dictate what is good or evil.
Shaving Theory Contradicted
Now I will explain why I don't think the original translation implies shaving. The Jewish Rabbis thought the punishment was amputation and softened the penalty from mutilation to a severe financial penalty. Every translation I have ever seen in person or online clearly states that the judges must remove the woman's hand, not shave her groin. I have also searched the original Hebrew translation [2] and noticed the Hebrew word for cut/cut off (כָּרַת, karath) present instead of the word for shave/shave off (גָּלַח, galach). I am not arguing that the shaving theory is incorrect simply because it is new and does not align with the normal understanding and commentaries (you will certainly find no appeals to tradition, authority, or novelty on this blog), but I am explaining why the new theory seems quite impossible and absurd from a translational and linguistic standpoint. Another factor that must be considered is that Deuteronomy 25:3 takes great care to prohibit any punishment--even types of flogging--that causes someone to be "degraded" or in some translations "humiliated [3]", yet the alternative penalty suggested by some scholars would certainly humiliate the woman in a sexual manner to a great extent and would be somewhat degrading. This seems to contradict Deuteronomy 25:3 in the very same chapter as the case law in question. God assigns punishments for sexual assaults and offenses such as rape, bestiality, and adultery in non-sexualized manners elsewhere (Deuteronomy 22:25-27; Exodus 22:19, Leviticus 20:15-16; Deuteronomy 22:22, Leviticus 20:10), and it is quite likely that the Jews correctly understood the action of the woman seizing a man's penis in a fight as a type of unjustified sexual assault, not identical to a woman raping a man (which is possible and has happened) but a degrading sexual assault nevertheless. They may have compared her behavior to rape because both actions sexually violate the victim. Seeing that God never used sexual humiliation in punishment of sexual offenders elsewhere [4], it would be an anomaly for him to here punish a sexually violating act with another. God hates all forms of sexual assault and never permitted something resembling it to be used as a punishment.
Summary of observations:
1. If this law does prescribe amputation of the hand, it is the one single law besides the "hand for hand" legislation that authorizes mutilation as punishment for any crime.
2. Some recent scholars have disagreed with the traditional translation and believe that the law does not say to "cut off her hand" but instead says to "shave the hair of her groin".
3. If the alternative translation is correct, this law is the only example of sexual humiliation used as a punishment. It would be the only time other than physical mutilation that a punishment for a crime would be identical to or very similar to the original offense.
[Edit (3/7/11): I just watched the movie Deadpool for the first time several evenings ago. While watching I noticed something that likely exemplifies hypocrisy shown towards sexualized assault depending on the gender of the aggressor. During a scene in a bar where Wade Wilson (who becomes Deadpool) meets his future fiancé Vanessa, a large man slaps Vanessa's butt and turns around when Wade places a hand on his shoulder. At this point Vanessa swiftly grabs his penis or testicles or both until "fat Gandalf" apologizes, and this aspect of the scene clearly seems intended for comedic value. No matter how many Americans laughed at this part during theatrical or home viewings, I highly doubt that they would have reacted the same if a man grabbed a woman's groin or vulva to pressure her into apologizing for something. The individuals who laughed likely would have experienced revulsion towards a male character who grabbed at a woman's genitalia to exert power over her--yet they laughed when a female sexually assaulted and humiliated a male in this manner for comedy value. Hypocrisy such as this is unacceptable and despicable, but unfortunately this is not the only way that my American society tolerates female aggression towards males while harshly condemning the slightest abuse of women by men.]
[1]. Not only was Lex Talionis ("eye for eye, tooth for tooth") something that is explicitly not applied in even certain injuries or mutilations described in passages like Exodus 21, but it applied to nothing other than permanent physical injuries or mutilations. As explained in the link below, sins like assault, kidnapping, forced slavery, rape, and certain forms of torture were specifically not assigned "mirror punishment" and are objectively, universally wrong.
--http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/07/eye-for-eye-part-1.html
[2]. http://qbible.com/hebrew-old-testament/deuteronomy/25.html
[3]. The ISV (International Standard Version) uses this word, and several others such as the Good News Translation also use it or a variant of the verb.
[4]. There are theologians who point to Hosea 2:3 and Ezekiel 16:39 as evidence that part of the punishment for adultery was involuntary public stripping and forced nudity and therefore did involve a sexually humiliating aspect, but Mosaic Law never includes this detail. It merely demands execution, not ritual humiliation.
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