Yehovah’s seventh commandment is a prohibition against adultery which simply reads,

“You shall not commit adultery. (Exo 20:14)

While this commandment may seem simple to most, I have found that few people even understand what adultery really is. The reason for this confusion is that most define adultery in light of the doctrines and traditions of men instead of what our Father actually said through Moses and His Prophets. The same words that Yeshua, Paul, Peter, James John and Jude all taught from.

Most of us have gotten our ideas of what adultery is from our parents, pastors, teachers, the media and the New Testament. Yes, that is correct, I am including the New Testament commentaries with the others listed above. It is incumbent upon all of us to be just like the Bereans who listened to what Paul, Peter, Michael, even what they say that Yeshua said and then search the scriptures to see if what  he said is actually so.

And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. (Act 17:10-11)

There was no NT at this time. But unfortunately, most of us have made the New Testament the scriptures and completely tossed-out the very words of the Creator who spoke through Moses and the Prophets. The same words that my sovereign Lawmaker and Judge says are not to be added to or subtracted from.

You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of Yehovah your Elohim which I command you. (Deu 4:2)

“Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it. (Deu 12:32)

Even Paul speaks of the words, the oracles, of our Father that were given to us through Moses at Sinai.

Act 7:38-39  This is he [Moses] who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the Angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers, the one who received the living oracles to give to us, whom our fathers would not obey, but rejected. And in their hearts they turned back to Egypt

So here I am,  wanting to discuss “adultery” but instead, using almost 500 words to help us understand which parts of what we call the “Bible” really are the scriptures. Why do I feel I need to do this? The answer is this; I was so entrenched in what I thought the New Testament was saying that I could not receive the truth of Torah.

Here is a great example.

Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to Yeshua a woman caught in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst, they said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do you say?” This they said, testing him, that they might have something of which to accuse him.  (Joh 8:3-6)

This was a test! A test that Yeshua passed because he knew his sovereign’s instructions. Based on the information that Yeshua received he had no choice but to let the woman go.

It says the scribes and Pharisee brought a woman who “they said” was caught in adultery. There are several questions that a righteous judge, one who actually knows and does Yehovah’s laws, must consider.

So, what is adultery?

• Was this woman married?

“If a man is found lying with a woman married to a husband, then both of them shall die–the man who lay with the woman, and the woman; so you shall put away the evil from Israel. (Deu 22:22)

‘The man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, he who commits adultery with his neighbor’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress, shall surely be put to death. (Lev 20:10)

If this woman was truly caught in adultery, why was the man not there with her?

• Was this woman engaged to someone?
  
• Was she a virgin before the incident?
  
• Did she cry out?
  
• Were they found in the city or the country?

“If a young woman who is a virgin is betrothed to a husband, and a man finds her in the city and lies with her, then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones, the young woman because she did not cry out in the city, and the man because he humbled his neighbor’s wife; so you shall put away the evil from among you.”
“But if a man finds a betrothed young woman in the countryside, and the man forces her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die. But you shall do nothing to the young woman; there is in the young woman no sin deserving of death, for just as when a man rises against his neighbor and kills him, even so is this matter. For he found her in the countryside, and the betrothed young woman cried out, but there was no one to save her. (Deu 22:23-27)

• Who specifically were the witnesses?

According to Torah the witnesses must cast the first stones. Torah teaches that before anyone can be put to death for a capital offense, there must be at least two witnesses who saw the same event and have identical testimony about that event.

Whoever kills a person, the murderer shall be put to death on the testimony of witnesses; but one witness is not sufficient testimony against a person for the death penalty. (Num 35:30)

“One witness shall not rise against a man concerning any iniquity or any sin that he commits; by the mouth of two or three witnesses the matter shall be established. (Deu 19:15)

Whoever is deserving of death shall be put to death on the testimony of two or three witnesses; he shall not be put to death on the testimony of one witness. The hands of the witnesses shall be the first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. So you shall put away the evil from among you. (Deu 17:6-7)

Yeshua had no choice but to let the woman whom these false witnesses said was “caught in adultery” go; the evidence simply did not support their claim. It is actually the ones that brought this woman, without the man, to Yeshua that committed the sin. They bore a false witness and they are the ones that should have been but to death.

If a false witness rises against any man to testify against him of wrongdoing, then both men in the controversy shall stand before Yehovah, before the priests and the judges who serve in those days. And the judges shall make careful inquiry, and indeed, if the witness is a false witness, who has testified falsely against his brother, then you shall do to him as he thought to have done to his brother; so you shall put away the evil from among you. (Deu 19:16-19)

The supposed act of adultery has destroyed many marriages and families, when it did not have to, because the very definition of adultery has been perverted by the doctrines and traditions of men. I fear that many women who have left their husband are in fact the “false witnesses” who truly believe, albeit ignorantly,  that their husbands have committed adultery.

In part 2 we will find out what “adultery” actually is and what it is not; this will require that we put away our doctrines and traditions of men and turn wholly to what Yehovah actually says. You may be surprised.

Go to Polygyny Is Not Adultery Or Polygamy

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