Page 67 - The Marriage Covenant

woman betrothed is described as a virgin. Paul said that he had betrothed the church to
Christ that he might present her to him “as a chaste virgin.” The passage just cited from
Deuteronomy 22 speaks of “a virgin betrothed.” The will and design of Yahweh is revealed
in these words. He intended for a young woman to remain a virgin until her wedding night.
This alone constitutes righteous behavior.
As we have seen in previous chapters of this series, the first experience of sexual
intercourse for a woman fulfills the types and patterns of a blood covenant. It is an
aberration, an unseemly and entirely inappropriate action for a young woman to give her
virginity to one man and then to marry another. It is unthinkable that she should cut a
blood covenant with a man that is not her husband for life.
Consider the example of two men cutting covenant with one another. It would be
considered an act of treachery to go through all the forms of the blood covenant, signifying
that two souls are joined as one, while there is no intent in the heart of those joined to
honor the covenant. You cut covenant with a person to whom you are committed for life,
binding yourself in blood. Yet men and women commit such absurdities and unseemly and
treacherous actions without batting an eye. Such ones are testifying that they have no
regard for the righteous and holy ways of God.
It was so important that a woman remain a virgin in order that she might enter into
the blood covenant with her husband on her wedding night, that severe penalties were
associated with any man who would dare to violate a virgin. If a man forced a virgin to lie
with him before she were betrothed, he was required to marry her and could never divorce
her? Why? He had entered into a blood covenant with the virgin.
If a man violated a virgin who had been betrothed, the man was to be stoned to death.
He had robbed another man of the opportunity to cut covenant with his own bride. From
antiquity, the knowledge of the great evil of defiling a virgin and robbing her of the
opportunity to cut covenant with her husband, was well known. The oldest book in the Bible
is Job, and we read his confession in the following words.

Job 31:1
"I Have made a covenant with my eyes; How then could I gaze at a virgin?”

The writer of the book of Job uses the Hebrew word “bethulah,” meaning “virgin” to
describe this covenant that Job made with his eyes. Job is not saying that he made a
covenant to not look upon a woman with lust, although I am sure that he walked in integrity
in this matter as well. What he specifically states is that he will not look upon a virgin with
lust.
Job is testifying that he has covenanted to not commit great wickedness in the eyes
of Yahweh. It would be a great wickedness for him to take a pure virgin to himself and to
lie with her. Though many men with the wealth he had may consider doing such things, he
would not violate a virgin in this way, destroying her one opportunity to cut covenant with
a man. Although it was wrong for a man to commit any act of fornication, it was especially
reprehensible to do so with a virgin. God would see, and He would judge.
I know that many who read these words have transgressed in this area. There are
women who gave their virginity to one who was not their husband. They cut covenant with
a man that they did not marry. They deprived their future husband of the opportunity to
establish a blood covenant with themselves. Many men have taken away the virginity of a
woman that they had no intention of marrying. These are great transgressions, destroying