Deuteronomy 21: 1 - 23
Unsolved Crimes
21 “If anyone is found slain, lying in the field in the land which the LORD your God is giving you to possess, and it is not known who killed him, 2 then your elders and your judges shall go out and measure the distance from the slain man to the surrounding cities. 3 And it shall be that the elders of the city nearest to the slain man will take a heifer which has not been worked and which has not pulled with a yoke. 4 The elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a valley with flowing water, which is neither plowed nor sown, and they shall break the heifer’s neck there in the valley. 5 Then the priests, the sons of Levi, shall come near, for the LORD your God has chosen them to minister to Him and to bless in the name of the LORD; by their word every controversy and every [a]assault shall be settled. 6 And all the elders of that city nearest to the slain man shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley. 7 Then they shall answer and say, ‘Our hands have not shed this blood, nor have our eyes seen it. 8 Provide atonement, O LORD, for Your people Israel, whom You have redeemed, and do not lay innocent blood to the charge of Your people Israel.’ And atonement shall be provided on their behalf for the blood. 9 So you shall put away the guilt of innocent blood from among you when you do what is right in the sight of the LORD. 10 “When you go out to war against your enemies, and the LORD your God delivers them into your hand, and you take them captive, 11 and you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and desire her and would take her for your wife, 12 then you shall bring her home to your house, and she shall shave her head and trim her nails. 13 She shall put off the clothes of her captivity, remain in your house, and mourn her father and her mother a full month; after that you may go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife. 14 And it shall be, if you have no delight in her, then you shall set her free, but you certainly shall not sell her for money; you shall not treat her brutally, because you have humbled her. 15 “If a man has two wives, one loved and the other unloved, and they have borne him children, both the loved and the unloved, and if the firstborn son is of her who is unloved, 16 then it shall be, on the day he bequeaths his possessions to his sons, that he must not bestow firstborn status on the son of the loved wife in preference to the son of the unloved, the true firstborn. 17 But he shall acknowledge the son of the unloved wife as the firstborn by giving him a double portion of all that he has, for he is the beginning of his strength; the right of the firstborn is his. 18 “If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and who, when they have chastened him, will not heed them, 19 then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city, to the gate of his city. 20 And they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ 21 Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones; so you shall put away the evil from among you, and all Israel shall hear and fear. 22 “If a man has committed a sin deserving of death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, 23 his body shall not remain overnight on the tree, but you shall surely bury him that day, so that you do not defile the land which the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance; for he who is hanged is accursed of God
In college I took for some of my elective courses a few criminal justice classes. One in which I enjoyed but did not do well was a course in ‘unsolved crimes’. I received an ‘F’ in the course. That was the only failing grade I had ever received. You might be wondering why I failed the course. You might not like my answer but it was because of the instructor. Oh, I have been challenged on this remark but in all truth that was the reason.
Sometimes in life you come across people who do not like you right off the bat. The trouble with many people like myself is that although this fact rings out loud and clear you ignore the warning and continue to try to win over this person’s attitude of you. It does not work my friends.
I guess this guy wound up hating me was because I showed him up. This instructor was a State of New Jersey State Trooper. Pride and ego dominated his estimate of himself. At the beginning of the class he let everyone know that he was in control of the class. He gave out the tests dates and informed everyone that it did not matter if they showed up to class or not. However, everyone must be there for the tests. He went on to say that without showing up and hearing his lectures you would probably fail the course. Some members of the class took him up with the challenge and did not come to class but only came in for the tests. Remarkably they passed the tests. The instructor did not like to be shown foolish.
I was interested in the course write-up and so I showed up for every class.
The instructor put together some crime scene situations and made it a game for the class to determine what actually happened. The way it worked everyone could ask questions. However, if you felt you knew the answer and was wrong you were out of that round. Here is one of his criminal cases.
A man was found dead at a base of a tree with a hole in his head near his temple. What happened?
Questions were asked and here were his answers;
. No autopsy was performed.
. No sign of any weapon
. No signs of foul play
. No other visible markings on the body
. No additional evidence on or near the body
I finally asked if the tree was a fruit tree. The teacher asked me why I would ask that question. My response then was to say to him, ‘I would like to solve the mystery. The man climbed the tree probably attempting to get to some fruit higher up in the tree when he fell and hit his head on a branch which probably was the fatal blow and not the landing. That was the correct answer.
I enjoyed being blessed in guessing correctly the other crime scenes. The man did not like that I was solving the problems. So, he kept giving me the hatred look which I gleaned from his demeanor so I would not participate. Oh well!
We are going to see today how our Great and Holy Ruler Adoni Yahweh Who Is the True Teacher give out instructions on how to solve the mystery of crime scenes. I know you will enjoy His course.
The first part of chapter 21 follows in the issue of blood having been shed, in the first case innocently, in the second by war, where it was not murder. Neither therefore required immediate retribution. . The principle established is that the deliberate violent shedding of blood illegally must be required by a death. There must be immediate fulfillment of the principle, a life for a life. Blood had been spilt in Yahweh’s land, and there must be a recompense (not an atonement, it is not a sacrifice). If the culprit cannot be found then a substitute or representative is required which itself must be totally innocent. This must be provided by the nearest city. It is an acknowledgement by those closest to the murder that they are partly at fault for having allowed it to happen in their vicinity, but it is also a declaration before Yahweh God that they are totally innocent and do not know who the guilty party is. It is a declaration that if the murderer is ever discovered he will be executed.
21 “If anyone is found slain, lying in the field in the land which the LORD your God is giving you to possess, and it is not known who killed him, 2 then your elders and your judges shall go out and measure the distance from the slain man to the surrounding cities. 3 And it shall be that the elders of the city nearest to the slain man will take a heifer which has not been worked and which has not pulled with a yoke. 4 The elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a valley with flowing water, which is neither plowed nor sown, and they shall break the heifer’s neck there in the valley.
If a dead body of someone killed violently was found anywhere in Yahweh’s land, lying out in the open country, and enquiry did not reveal a culprit, the elders and judges of the surrounding towns must be called in, together with the priests. This would be something that affected all Israel. No doubt they would first of all make enquiries. But then they had to assess which city or town was nearest to the spot. The probability must be that someone in that city and town was responsible. Furthermore it was a slight on that city or town that it had happened in their neighborhood.
Once the particular city had been selected, the elders of that city were to take a heifer from the herd which had never toiled and which had never worn a yoke. Thus it was to be in pure form, and untainted by earthly activity. It was then to be taken down into a valley where there was running water, something not manmade and a symbol of purity and life, and a valley which was not at the time either ploughed ready for sowing, or actually sowed, thus itself being ‘virgin land’. And there the heifer’s neck was to be broken.
We note first the continual emphasis on the fact that all connected with this was to be pure and untainted by the activity of man. What died was not to be connected with the activity of the city and its inhabitants, or with the people of Israel. While of earth it was to be totally neutral. It was to represent the death of an ‘unknown’ which had no connection with the city. The running water probably indicated a valley that was being constantly renewed with purity and life by Yahweh. Nothing that was utilized was contaminated by the recent use of it by man.
Secondly we note that the slaughter of the heifer had no direct connection with where the body had been found. It was the whole land that was being cleansed, not that particular spot.
5 Then the priests, the sons of Levi, shall come near, for the LORD your God has chosen them to minister to Him and to bless in the name of the LORD; by their word every controversy and every assault shall be settled.
All this was to be overseen by the levitical priestsThese men must oversee every discussion, every decision, and every action with regard to the matter. In the end it will be they who declare the land to be again ‘blessed’. It is clear therefore that some actual ritual would be performed. But consonant with Moses’ approach in Deuteronomy he only expands on the part that the people have to play.
6 And all the elders of that city nearest to the slain man shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley. 7 Then they shall answer and say, ‘Our hands have not shed this blood, nor have our eyes seen it.
The elders of the city were then to wash their hands over the heifer whose neck had been broken. The breaking of the neck specifically revealed that it was not a sacrifice, (Exodus 13.13). This washing of hands declared them to be innocent of any connection with the death of the slain man. Thus they were then to answer and say, ‘our hands have not shed this blood, nor have our eyes seen it’. By this they meant ‘we as a city’ for they were speaking on behalf of the whole city before Yahweh. ‘Nor have our eyes seen it’ signified that they were swearing before Yahweh that they had not seen the actual shedding of the blood. None of the city (as far as they were aware) had been present at the scene when the murder was committed. One purpose in this was to put the elders to the test before Yahweh as to whether they really were innocent. They would be aware that to do this before Yahweh, if in fact they knew who the murderer was, would be blasphemy.
8 Provide atonement, O LORD, for Your people Israel, whom You have redeemed, and do not lay innocent blood to the charge of Your people Israel.’ And atonement shall be provided on their behalf for the blood.
They were then to seek Yahweh’s forgiveness that it had happened in the territory for which they had oversight. The word signifies ‘to cover’ and is elsewhere connected with atonement. But here a different kind of covering was sought; a covering that would hide what had been done in the eyes of Yahweh. No one was actually taking the blame. But note that the ‘covering’ was for the whole of Israel who needed to have the stain removed from them. All were involved in a violent death that had taken place in Yahweh’s land, and would not remain satisfied until the murderer was caught and executed. For in the last analysis they were responsible for what happened in the land. But meanwhile they would be forgiven for the blood that had been shed. It would not be counted against them.
9 So you shall put away the guilt of innocent blood from among you when you do what is right in the sight of the LORD.
By acting in this way and doing what was right in Yahweh’s eyes (executing the guilty person by proxy in a neutral environment) they put away ‘the innocent blood’, that is the shed blood concerning which they were innocent, from the midst of them. One importance of this would be that no avenger of blood could now blame the city. Another, of course, was that neither would Yahweh.
As far as we are concerned the lesson for us is that God does look on us as partly responsible for what happens in our own environment. If we do not do all that we can to maintain the purity from sin of our own towns and cities and countryside we must share the blame. It is not sufficient to say, ‘we did not know’, if God can reply, ‘you should have known’.
The remainder of chapter 21 is on the maintenance of family life in harmony, and on the honor to be shown to different members of the family. The protection of family honor and harmony covers the following aspects:
• 1). Treatment of women captives who are viewed as desirable (21.10-14).
• 2). The attitude towards the wife in verses 10-14 then leads on into another case of an unloved wife, which deals with the rights of inheritance of the firstborn (21.15-17).
• 3). This then leads on to establishing the principle of the authority of father and mother, and the treatment of a violently rebellious son (21.18-21).
All these three regulations seek to deal with the disruption of family life, the first dealing with fairness towards captives who are brought into the family, the latter two dealing with matters at the very heart of society’s welfare, inheritance rights and the maintenance of authority.
The chapter closes with a brief reference to dealing with those who behave in such a way as to deserve sentence of death (verses 22-23). This harks back to the rebellious son (verses 18-21), and to what should happen to the murderer in verses 1-9 if he was ever found.
We see now instructions with regard to particular women captives who have been brought back to Israel. Similar situations would probably already have been met up with after earlier conflicts. Where one of these women captives was desired by an Israelite as a wife (her husband would be dead, having been slain after the siege, or in battle) he must not just callously take her and marry her. Certain consideration must first be given to the woman.
10 “When you go out to war against your enemies, and the LORD your God delivers them into your hand, and you take them captive, 11 and you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and desire her and would take her for your wife, 12 then you shall bring her home to your house, and she shall shave her head and trim her nails. 13 She shall put off the clothes of her captivity, remain in your house, and mourn her father and her mother a full month; after that you may go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife. This might of course apply to any battle, not just a siege, and it is clear that it does not refer to Canaanites. In the constant conflicts this could often happen in those days. Especially with a wandering people like the Israelites such battles and such captives would have been fairly common, partly as a result of skirmishes with desert tribes. It would equally happen in the future because of warfare with belligerent neighbours. But the stress here is on the treatment of a woman captive whom an Israelite desires for himself. She must be brought to the family residence of the man who wished to marry her, then she must shave her head and pare her nails, and get rid of the clothes in which she came. After which she was to be given a month for mourning her family. (They may not have been dead, just lost for ever). Once that was over the marriage could then take place.
The shaving of her head and the paring of her nails possibly refers to the removal from her extremities (head and hand and foot) of all connections with the old life (Leviticus 14.14). The hair and the nails were also the parts of a woman that could grow long and enhance her beauty. Thus the cutting may have symbolized the end of her old pagan beauty and the growth of a new beauty now that she was an Israelite. In addition the purpose may have been to make her ritually clean (Leviticus 14.8, 14). She would now be expected to become a member of the covenant. The changing of her clothes implied something similar. She was now an Israelite and to be brought within the covenant. She must put off the clothes which distinguished her background and dress like an Israelite woman from now on. The mourning period, which was a standard period of mourning in Israel was out of consideration for her feelings. She would have had little chance to mourn while captive, but once the month was over she would be expected to forget her old life. On marriage she would now be a free Israelite woman.
14 And it shall be, if you have no delight in her, then you shall set her free, but you certainly shall not sell her for money; you shall not treat her brutally, because you have humbled her.
The question here is as to what is intended. On the face of it, it is the alternative to marriage. He has had a month to think it over and he is now not convinced that he wants to go ahead with marriage. His attachment has worn off and he no longer has any delight in her, which may also be explained by her reaction to the situation which has made him recognize that it will not work out. By sending her away he is humbling her. Thus as compensation he must not sell her, or deal with her as a slave. She must be sent away as a free woman, the position she would have held if he had married her.
Others, however, see the situation as signifying a marriage, made in haste, which has turned out to be a disaster. He had discovered that a beautiful woman did not necessarily make a good wife, especially if she had foreign tastes, and foreign habits. Furthermore she had been given little choice in the matter, and might well have been feeling angry and bitter, or has been traumatized. She might well have been behaving rebelious. The man might have discovered that he found little delight in his marriage. This may even signify that she had refused him his conjugal rights.
It is clear that both wished the arrangement to end and in these circumstances he could ‘let her go’ presumably by divorcing her. She must then be allowed to go where she wished for the marriage had made her a free woman, who might well, be back to her own country. He must not try to sell her as a slave, or treat her as such, because he had ‘humbled her’. This may simply refer to having put her in her difficult position, or of having ‘forced’ her to marry him or to the fact that divorce was necessarily usually looked on as a humbling experience for the woman. Whichever way it was he must not try to take any further advantage of her.
Just as he had been freed from slavery by the deliverance from Egypt so he had to set her free from slavery. Having given her hope for the future it would not be just to restore her to her former condition when she was a captive. She now shared in the deliverance from Egypt.
One lesson for us from this example is the importance of giving people who have been good to us their due. The woman had done right by him. He must do right by her.
We must keep in mind that a part purpose of the Law was to control life as it was already lived, to control what already actually took place, so as to ensure fair treatment for the weaker party. The receiving of slaves and treating them as slave wives was universal practice. Conditions of the day rendered it inevitable. Both war and extreme poverty resulted in there being a certain quantity of people for whom there was little practical alternative. The only alternative was their being killed off or left to die. No nation could offer open house for all. They would never have survived. And we must not think in terms of modern slavery. Slavery was then an economic means by which the helpless and dispossessed could obtain food and shelter in return for service.
Divorce was allowed in Israel, in so far as it was allowed, simply because, had it not been, worse things would have occurred. It was not God's will. As our Lord Jesus said it was His concession to man's weakness and the need to protect the weaker party. Without divorce a woman may have been cast off with no hope of any future marriage. If the case we have been looking at was a case of divorce, without the provision made here a slave wife might simply have been got rid of in one way or another. By having regulation it ensured right treatment. God had to take into account man's tendencies for these laws were intended to be practically applied and He knew that the people were not perfect. Impractical laws would simply have led to infamous behavior and the suffering and death of the weak.
The faltering love of a man for a beautiful captive leads on to the case where a man’s love for a wife has waned. The stress is on fair treatment and harmony in the family.
15 “If a man has two wives, one loved and the other unloved, and they have borne him children, both the loved and the unloved, and if the firstborn son is of her who is unloved, 16 then it shall be, on the day he bequeaths his possessions to his sons, that he must not bestow firstborn status on the son of the loved wife in preference to the son of the unloved, the true firstborn.
The thought of the wife unloved by her husband in verses 10-14 leads on this next regulation. This too applies where a wife is unloved by her husband. In this case the man is a polygamist. Similarly to Jacob he loved one wife, and the other was unloved, even possibly hated. But if they had borne him children, and the unloved one was the mother of his firstborn, he must not disinherit the firstborn for the sake of the second wife’s child. He cannot declare that the second wife’s son is ‘the firstborn’ with all the firstborn’s privileges.
17 But he shall acknowledge the son of the unloved wife as the firstborn by giving him a double portion of all that he has, for he is the beginning of his strength; the right of the firstborn is his.
He must rather acknowledge the firstborn and give him the double portion which was the firstborn’s due. This is because as the firstborn he was the foundation of the man’s family, the beginning of what has become his strength.
One lesson for us in this regulation is the need to deal fairly with people and not to indulge in favoritism. It is so easy to favor ‘nice’ people, and to disregard those whom we find not so nice. Here God is warning us against such behavior. We must deal fairly and rightly with all, and not rob people of their genuine rights.
Parental concern for the son as revealed in verses 15-17 now leads on to the case where a son is a rebellious troublemaker. Again the desire is to maintain the harmony of the family. In 15-17 the father was seen as behaving badly towards his son, and was forbidden by law to do so. Here the son was seen as behaving badly towards his father and mother to such an extent that they could no longer guarantee to control him.
18 “If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and who, when they have chastened him, will not heed them, 19 then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city, to the gate of his city. 20 And they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’
This does not refer to the normal spats that can occur in the best of families. If necessary that could have been dealt with by a severe beating. There was no limit to a father’s right to have his son beaten as long as he did not die. This refers to a son who had broken all the rules of society laid down by his parents, who was destroying the family name, and making constant problems for them in their relationships with the tribe. He had become wild and undisciplined, and broke the covenant constantly, becoming a menace to society and uncontrollable. Though they had chastened him, and such chastening could be pretty severe it had not worked. All efforts to control him had proved useless. He had stubbornly gone on in his rebellious way causing trouble and concern not only for his parents but for the society in which he lived. He was a menace to all.
For a father and mother to agree together to hand their son over to the authorities in those days (the witness of both was required) was the sign of how bad things were. They themselves would be publicly admitting their inability to control their own son. They would do it in this case for the sake of society. He could no longer be allowed to wreak havoc on everyone, and they could no longer act as his guarantee. They were left without any options.
They took him by force and brought him to the gate of the city where the judges and elders met, testifying to his behavior before them. ‘Glutton’ and ‘drunkard’ were two abusive terms which together signified his total depravity. His greed expressed by his crimes and his totally disorderly behavior putting everyone at risk could only be described in this way. The facts, if not already widely known, would be sought before sentence was passed. Few elders and judges would have wanted to act in such a case without good reason. Without good reason every father among them would have drawn back from it.
If you would like a good example of such a defiant son I suggest you pick up a Steven Segal movie entitled ‘Out for justice.’
Steven Seagal plays a good if troubled man living in a corrupt world (sound familiar yet?) in this action drama. Gino Felino (Seagal) is a cop who grew up in a tough Brooklyn neighborhood and while many of his old friends now live on the other side of the law, he retains a fierce loyalty to the community. When his partner, a friend since childhood, is murdered in broad daylight and in clear view of his wife and children -- Gino is assigned to investigate, and he soon learns that the shooter was Richie Madano (William Forsythe), his life-long nemesis and now a low-level wise guy with an addiction to crack. Gino swings into action to bring Richie to justice, though he discovers that he's not the first in line -- the Don who oversees Richie's crew is appalled by this crime, and Gino has to bring Richie in before the Mafia can kill this man. Throughout the movie you can see the truth of this chapter amplified in that all of the people want this evil drug addicted killer eliminated.
21 Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones; so you shall put away the evil from among you, and all Israel shall hear and fear.
To rebel in this way against parents was to rebel against God. It was to be out of control in society. (All means had been tried to persuade him to be otherwise). The punishment was therefore stoning, possibly because as the equivalent of a blasphemer the son was seen as ‘unclean’ and none would want to touch him. It was also a method of execution in which all could partake and thus share out among them any feelings of guilt that might arise. The whole city was called on to perform the execution. This serves to demonstrate that all would be aware of the justice of the sentence.
The thought of the stoning a son, who was worthy of death leads on to the question of what was done with the body of such a person.
22 “If a man has committed a sin deserving of death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, 23 his body shall not remain overnight on the tree, but you shall surely bury him that day, so that you do not defile the land which the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance; for he who is hanged is accursed of God
It is clear from this that the practice with executed criminals was to display the body on a tree. By this it would be made apparent to the whole society that this man had been tried, sentenced, and executed. Such a man was necessarily under a curse. It brought shame on him and his family.
But his body must not remain on the tree all night. He must be buried the same day because he was under God’s curse and to leave a cursed body there through the night would be to defile the land. It would be to extend into the next day the necessary execution of the criminal which should all be finished with on the day of execution. The execution had as it were cancelled out the criminal behavior. The two went together, excusing and explaining the death of the criminal so that it did not defile the land.
Paul took this fact and applied it to the death of Jesus on our behalf. By hanging on a tree He willingly became a curse for us thus bearing for us the curse of sin (Galatians 3.10-13).
