Reflections on Deuteronomy 21

Deuteronomy 21 (Contemporary English Version)

1. Suppose the body of a murder victim is found in a field in the land the LORD your God is giving you, and no one knows who the murderer is.
   
2. The judges and other leaders from the towns around there must find out what town is the closest to where the body was found.
   
3. The leaders from that town will go to their cattle herds and choose a young cow that has never been put to work.
   
4. They and some of the priests will take this cow to a nearby valley where there is a stream, but no crops. Once they reach the valley, the leaders will break the cow's neck. The priests must be there, because the LORD your God has chosen them to be his special servants at the place of worship. The LORD has chosen them to bless the people in his name and to be judges in all legal cases, whether property or injury is involved.
   
5. (SEE 21:4)
   
6. The town leaders will wash their hands over the body of the dead cow
   
7. and say, "We had no part in this murder, and we don't know who did it.
   
8. But since an innocent person was murdered, we beg you, our LORD, to accept this sacrifice and forgive Israel. We are your people, and you rescued us. Please don't hold this crime against us." If you obey the LORD and do these things, he will forgive Israel.
   
9. (SEE 21:8)
   
10. From time to time, you men will serve as soldiers and go off to war. The LORD your God will help you defeat your enemies, and you will take many prisoners.
    
11. One of these prisoners may be a beautiful woman, and you may want to marry her. But first you must bring her into your home, and have her shave her head, cut her nails, get rid of her foreign clothes, and start wearing Israelite clothes. She will mourn a month for her father and mother, then you can marry her.
    
12. (SEE 21:11)
    
13. (SEE 21:11)
    
14. Later on, if you are not happy with the woman, you can divorce her, and she can go free. But you have slept with her as your wife, so you cannot sell her as a slave or make her into your own slave.
    
15. Suppose a man has two wives and loves one more than the other. The first son of either wife is the man's first-born son, even if the boy's mother is the wife the man doesn't love. Later, when the man is near death and is dividing up his property, he must give a double share to his first-born son, simply because he was the first to be born.
    
16. (SEE 21:15)
    
17. (SEE 21:15)
    
18. A father and a mother may have a stubborn and rebellious son who refuses to obey them even after he has been punished.
    
19. If a son is like that, his parents must drag him to the town gate, where the leaders of the town hold their meetings.
    
20. The parents will tell the leaders, "This son of ours is stubborn and never obeys. He spends all his time drinking and partying."
    
21. The men of the town will stone that son to death, because they must get rid of the evil he brought into the community. Everyone in Israel will be afraid when they hear how he was punished.
    
22. If a criminal is put to death, and you hang the dead body on a tree,
    
23. you must not let it hang there overnight. Bury it the same day, because the dead body of a criminal will bring God's curse on the land. The LORD your God is giving this land to you, so don't make it unclean by leaving the bodies of executed criminals on display.
    

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    God's instructions to Israel through Moses seek to cover all areas of life. If a life with God is to give us a better life than what we have without Him, we must allow his teaching to impact every area of our lives. Israel's lifestyle had to be different than what was true for other nations if they were to enjoy a life of blessing. These instructions show the way.
    
    Instructions had already been given for dealing with a murderer, but in the case of an unsolved murder, the situation could not simply be ignored.  The guilt of this sin remained upon the land and the people. A procedure of animal sacrifice was prescribed to atone for the sin. It involved the elders of the town nearest the crime breaking the neck of a heifer and proclaiming their innocence of the shedding of blood or of witnessing the crime. To have witnessed it but fail to punish the murderer would bring guilt on their own heads. God teaches through such procedures the value He places on human life which we should also place on it.
    
    It is the dignity of human life that also lies at the heart of the next topic. However, since God had instructed Israel to annihilate the Canaanites, this does not apply to those people. Women were treated attrociously by victors in battle but these instructions do not permit such action by Israel. If an Israelite man saw a woman captive to whom he was attracted, he was not to violate her or make her his slave. He was to marry her. In doing so, he was to allow her time (one month) to mourn the loss of her family before consumating the marriage. She was therefore to be treated with human dignity.
    
    Polygamy has never been God's ideal. Though He allowed it, there were always issues that accompanied it. Verses 15-17 address one of those issues. A man with more than one wife is bound to love one more than the other. This not only casused problems in the marriage but with the children of the marriage. This passage instructs those in such situations to honor the laws regarding the inheritance of the firstborn.  Such men will be inclined to favor the children of the wife he loves most. But if a son born to the unloved wife should be the firstborn son, he was not to be denied the inheritance of the firstborn.
    
    The next instructions concern a rebellious son. They acknowledge that despite good parenting there will be children who are rebellious and will go their own way. Allowing a rebellious son to go his own way and do what he wanted was detrimental to society and therefore could not be allowed. There was to be a cooperation of parents and societal leaders to deal with the rebellious son. The parents were to bring the son to the city elders and they were to examine the situation and stone to death the rebellious son. Not only was such action a deterrent to rebelliousness on the part of children, it was a deterrent to irresponsible parenting. Not only is permissive parenting irresponsible to the children involved, it is irresponsible to society.
    
    The final instruction concerned the execution of a criminal. Though hanging was not the means of execution used by Israel, they would sometimes hang the body on a tree as a warning against anyone committing the crime. In doing this, however, they were not to leave the body hanging overnight. Those committing a crime worthy of death were under God's curse. Leaving their body hanging overnight was considered a defilement the land.