Deuteronomy 22:22

Of Adultery. Both guilty parties shall die; so H, Leviticus 20:10. By inference from Deuteronomy 22:21; Deuteronomy 22:24the death was by stoning; so Ezekiel 16:38-40; John 8:5.

So in Arabia to this day; Burton, Pilgr. to Mecca, ii. 19, Musil, Ethn. Ber.210; among the Arabs of Sinai the man alone is killed, the woman may be divorced and pays the bride-price. (Jennings-Bramley, PEFQ, 1905, 214, 216). By § 129 of Ḫammurabi both parties were strangled and cast into the water, but the wife's husband might save her and the king his servant (?); by § 131 a wife accused by her husband but not caught in a guilty act might swear her innocence and return to her house; but by § 132 if suspicion was raised against her, though not caught in the act, she should plunge into the sacred river (ordeal by water). Other cases deal with the wife's resorting to another husband in consequence of her husband's captivity, §§ 133 135. In Israel, as at the present day in Syria, cases of adultery were often due to the absence of husbands on a journey, Proverbs 7:19. The whole subject is discussed in several artt. in Hastings" Dictionary of Religion and Philosophy, Vol. 1.

married to an husband Heb. be-ulath-ba-al, only here, Deuteronomy 21:13, and Genesis 20:3. But cp. Hosea 2:16.