Deuteronomy 21, Blood Guilt

We continue expanding on the killing, murder and manslaughter, on principles related to the Sixth Commandment (Deuteronomy 5: 17.) One aspect of murder is "blood guilt", the desecration that murder brings to the land and its people.

Deuteronomy 21: 1-9, Unsolved murder

If a man is found slain, lying in a field in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess, and it is not known who killed him, your elders and judges shall go out and measure the distance from the body to the neighboring towns. Then the elders of the town nearest the body shall take a heifer that has never been worked and has never worn a yoke and lead her down to a valley that has not been plowed or planted and where there is a flowing stream. There in the valley they are to break the heifer's neck.

The priests, the sons of Levi, shall step forward, for the LORD your God has chosen them to minister and to pronounce blessings in the name of the LORD and to decide all cases of dispute and assault. Then all the elders of the town nearest the body shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley, and they shall declare: "Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it done.

Accept this atonement for your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, O LORD, and do not hold your people guilty of the blood of an innocent man." And the bloodshed will be atoned for. So you will purge from yourselves the guilt of shedding innocent blood, since you have done what is right in the eyes of the LORD.

If a murder is unsolved, the leaders of the nearest town take on the burden of seeking atonement for the blood guilt caused by the murder. This all appears to be a symbolic acts, separate from identifying the murderer, recognizing that sin occurred and thus the community needed forgiveness.

Notice the hand-washing, a symbolic statement regarding a desire to be clean. David claims to have washed his hands "in innocence" in Psalm 26:6 and Pilate washes his hands in Matthew 27: 24 when he gives in to the crowd regarding the crucifixion of Jesus.

Deuteronomy 21: 10-14, Captured women

When you go to war against your enemies and the LORD your God delivers them into your hands and you take captives, if you notice among the captives a beautiful woman and are attracted to her, you may take her as your wife. Bring her into your home and have her shave her head, trim her nails and put aside the clothes she was wearing when captured. After she has lived in your house and mourned her father and mother for a full month, then you may go to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife.

If you are not pleased with her, let her go wherever she wishes. You must not sell her or treat her as a slave, since you have dishonored her.

Women captured in war can be given in an arranged marriage, but they must have some basic humane treatment (allowed to grieve) and if the man does not want the woman, she is free to go.  (There are to be no slaves created by warfare.) The actions within the home (head-shaving, trimming nails, changing into different clothes) are presumably acts representing the woman's change of status. She now has a life starting over as a woman of Israel but is allowed a month to grieve this change. (Apparently a month was a standard length of time for public mourning, see Numbers 20:29 and Deuteronomy 34: 8.)

Currid, in his commentary on Deuteronomy, argues that the middle portion of the book describes implications of the Ten Commandments and that this chapter falls under the sixth commandment, regarding murder. He admits that this section on captured women doesn't quite fit into that pattern -- it is either a tangential passage caused by discussions about murder, killing, and warfare, or it is a transitional passage looking towards the next commandment, laying out standards for human sexuality.

Deuteronomy 21: 15-17, Fairness with two wives

If a man has two wives, and he loves one but not the other, and both bear him sons but the firstborn is the son of the wife he does not love, when he wills his property to his sons, he must not give the rights of the firstborn to the son of the wife he loves in preference to his actual firstborn, the son of the wife he does not love. He must acknowledge the son of his unloved wife as the firstborn by giving him a double share of all he has. That son is the first sign of his father's strength. The right of the firstborn belongs to him.

A man is not to give preference to one wife over the other. In the ancient Near East (as we saw in Genesis) the firstborn has special status and the man is not to change that status merely because he loves one woman more than another. 

Deuteronomy 21: 18-21, A rebellious son

If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders, "This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard."

Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.

Ouch!  I am glad that this is not applied today!

In the patriarchal society of the day, the system of justice involved a hierarchy, from tribes to clans to families. The smallest unit in which justice was to be applied -- and where honor was required -- was the family.

Deuteronomy 21: 22-23, Hanging on a tree

If a man guilty of a capital offense is put to death and his body is hung on a tree, you must not leave his body on the tree overnight. Be sure to bury him that same day, because anyone who is hung on a tree is under God's curse. You must not desecrate the land the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.

Execution and then hanging (or hanging by execution) should end in the body coming down before nightfall.  Even murderers are to be treated with some integrity.  

The curse of one hanging on a tree will be quoted later in the New Testament, since Jesus himself was hung on a tree.