Commentaire sur Le Lévitique 19:20

נחרפת לאיש [AND WHOSOEVER LIETH CARNALLY WITH A WOMAN THAT IS A HANDMAID] GIVEN OVER TO A MAN — נחרפת signifies: destined and designated to a man. I do not know of any similar use of it (the root חרף) in Scripture. — And it is of a Canaanitish handmaid who is partly a שפחה and partly a free-woman and who is betrothed to a Hebrew servant who is permitted to marry a שפחה, that Scripture is here speaking (Sifra, Kedoshim, Chapter 5 2; Keritot 11a).

AND WHOSOEVER LIETH CARNALLY WITH A WOMAN THAT IS A BONDMAID, ‘NECHEREPHETH’ FOR A MAN — “‘Destined’ for a man. I know not of a similar usage of this root [choraph] in Scripture.” This is Rashi’s language. It appears to me that it is associated with the expression, as I was in the days of ‘chorpi,’¹³⁷Job 29:4. meaning, in the days of my youth. Similarly, my heart shall not ‘yecheraph’ me so long as I live,¹³⁸Ibid., 27:6. meaning that I will not have the heart of a youth [who has not yet matured in wisdom]. The days of youth are called “the days of choreph” [a term which means “winter”], since the winter is at the beginning of the year, while the days of old age correspond to the summer which are the days of gathering in. Scripture, then, is stating here that she is a bondmaid, a young girl designated for a certain man, for a concubine who ministers to a man and with whom he has sexual relations, is called “his maiden,” just as every ministering person is also called [the master’s] lad. It is very common in the language of the Sages to say of a woman who has sexual relations with a man, that she is “an attendant to him.” And it is this [relationship that is here called] necherepheth, meaning that she has become a maiden [— attendant] to a man, and is known to him, called in the vernacular [i.e., in Spanish] mancipada (designated to a man). In the language of the Sages likewise we find the expression:¹³⁹Sanhedrin 58 b. “that slave’s girl” [assigned to him by his master]. Thus the meaning thereof is that she is not completely as his wife, but he has betrothed her and she is to him a maiden-attendant.

It is a fact that most of the statutes listed appear to forbid only things which appear opposed to what we are familiar with as “laws of nature.” The prominent exception to this is the legislation involving the שפחה הנחרפת לאיש. Surely, the fact that the male partner does not become subject to the penalty of 39 strokes whereas the female partner does, appears hard to understand and to reconcile with what logic dictates. Furthermore, the fact that the male partner in the sin is required to offer a guilt offering, איל אשם, although he committed the sin knowingly, seems completely at variance with what we know about the function of such offerings.
Nonetheless, the Torah herself provides a partial answer to this unusual legislation by writing כי לא חופשה, his sin is viewed as somewhat less serious seeing that she had not been legally capable of entering a binding marriage, the requisite financial token signifying her betrothal to the man being legally meaningless as she could not “own” anything, still being enslaved to one of her former masters. His principal sin consists of desecrating the institution of marriage, a Divine institution, hence a desecration of G’d’s name when ignored. Engaging in sexual intercourse with a woman who is still partially a slave is a form of practicing promiscuity. [my words. Ed.] The scenario described by the Torah denigrates in the first instance the dignity of the active partner, the male, not that of the passive partner the female. It is most likely, that she, the “passive” partner had seduced him and is therefore deserving of the penalty decreed for her by the Torah. The deliberate nature of the sin, as far as the male is concerned, is the fact that he knowingly demeaned himself. This makes it akin to an inadvertent sin, qualifying for the guilt offering decreed.