Deuteronomy 21:18-21 English Standard Version A Rebellious Son 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, though they discipline him, will not listen to them, 19 then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, 20 and they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ 21 Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear, and fear. If this passage were still followed today and parents took that job of disciplining their children (especially their sons) seriously, then so many of our problems with over-population of our prisons and juvenile detention facilities would be alleviated.
It was the responsibility of the parents and the elders of the community to protect the community from the foreseeable threat of someone who showed no respect for authority or discipline because such a person would certainly become more and more rebellious and commit more and more egregious sins and crimes. The rebellious one is described as a glutton--that is one that lives to fulfill his own lusts, be that for food or sex, or pleasure, or whatever, and that he is a drunkard--that is that he is controlled by substances such as alcohol. Note that this is a child still under the authority of his parents and he already probably has an alcohol problem (or use of other intoxicants). Don't we see this pattern today with kids who start drinking and doing drugs and seem to live only for themselves and what pleases them while being rebellious to their parents in every way no matter how much their parents try to raise them correctly and discipline them? We have no plan for what to do before they commit the crimes we know they are going to, but if the parents and the community kept their eyes open, they would see that such children would be a danger to the community. It's also telling that the LORD doesn't say, "Save their lives because eventually my word may get through to them and may change them." While that can happen, it's not the job of the justice system to have grace and try and get the bad people saved (because they may say anything, even things they don't mean to get out of trouble). No, God tells the community to put such a child to death publicly as an example for all others and to let Him be the Righteous Judge of that child's soul. It is the job of the justice system to purge the evil from their midst so that the innocent will not be caught up in judgment with the guilty, because God will not let the guilty and wicked go unpunished. The people of Israel and the other nations will hear of the people of the LORD having this kind of love for His Law and will fear and obey. Deuteronomy 21:15-17 English Standard Version Inheritance Rights of the Firstborn 15 “If a man has two wives, the one loved and the other unloved, and both the loved and the unloved have borne him children, and if the firstborn son belongs to the unloved, 16 then on the day when he assigns his possessions as an inheritance to his sons, he may not treat the son of the loved as the firstborn in preference to the son of the unloved, who is the firstborn, 17 but he shall acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the unloved, by giving him a double portion of all that he has, for he is the firstfruits of his strength. The right of the firstborn is his. If we know the book of Genesis, this sounds a whole lot like the story of Jacob who wanted to marry Rachel (the one he had eyes for), but was tricked into marrying her older sister Leah first (apparently she didn't look all that pretty as it says she had "weak eyes" which is an idiom saying that she wasn't all that much to look at). The rights of the firstborn son to receive his inheritance should not be affected by favoritism towards which wife the husband loved more.
Note that God doesn't not say that it's okay to have multiple marriages here, nor did He say that in the last passage, but He knows the situation will arise because the it has already come up early on in the book of Genesis where the hearts of people were wicked and they desired to hoard people, power, and possessions for themselves to make them feel like they were gods. God's design was always one man and one woman forever. So, God knows His people are going to sin in this way, but even in so doing, he wants the children to be protected and make sure that the firstborn son (which the LORD has used that phrase to refer to Israel already) will always receive his inheritance. We'll see this also points to Jesus, the only-begotten Son of the Father and that Jesus will definitely receive His inheritance from the Father--His people which the LORD has been promising would be an inheritance unto Himself--which doesn't make much sense until we realize that God is Three-in-One and The Father is giving true Israel and the Church universal (all believers) to the Son as His Bride and His inheritance. The Son will also be given the kingdom of all creation. All of heaven and earth and even those under the earth will be His subjects and will bow before Him and worship Him. The firstborn was to receive a double-portion (twice as much as the others)--no more, no less. This also protects the rights of the other children so that the father could not play favorites between them or simply leave everything to the firstborn. Whatever the firstborn got needed to be a double-portion of what each of the others individually got and the entire estate was to be divided between all the male children and the unmarried female children (we already covered this earlier that once a woman was married it was no longer the father's responsibility to provide for her, but if she was unmarried she was to inherit just like all her brothers. But if she was married after she inherited, then the land was to go back to the nearest relative so that it would stay in the family and not change ownership to the new family/clan that she married into for their plots of land were an eternal inheritance to the families, clans, tribes, and the nation as a whole.) All that I just said there was to say that we should not read into this that women were excluded. We've already seen how the LORD made provision for them earlier. (see Numbers 27 and Numbers 36 where this is discussed if you're interested in this--specifically the daughters of Zelophehad). Again, this is a promise to Israel who the LORD called His "firstborn son"--because Israel was to show people Christ and the LORD already tried to treat Israel as He would treat the Son of God as true Israel should have been saved and made into the likeness of the Son, just like the Church is supposed to be today--and of course this is also the promise for Jesus, the Son of God. No one is going to take away His inheritance and we are part of the inheritance if we have been made children of God by His salvation. Deuteronomy 21:10-14 English Standard Version Marrying Female Captives 10 “When you go out to war against your enemies, and the LORD your God gives them into your hand and you take them captive, 11 and you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you desire to take her to be your wife, 12 and you bring her home to your house, she shall shave her head and pare her nails. 13 And she shall take off the clothes in which she was captured and shall remain in your house and lament 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 But if you no longer delight in her, you shall let her go where she wants. But you shall not sell her for money, nor shall you treat her as a slave, since you have humiliated her. We've now jumped back into rules for warfare and the capture and treatment of female prisoners. Are the Hebrews allowed to take the women that they keep alive a spoils of war as wives for themselves and their sons?
There would be a process for such a thing to happen and while the passage is not clear here, I don't see that God commands or gives allowance for multiple marriages. Marriage is supposed to mirror our relationship with the LORD and it is supposed to be one man and one woman in an "forever" bond (until death breaks that bond), but our covenant with the LORD is eternal so that not even death can separate us from each other--in fact it will bring us even closer together. God's intent for marriage was just the way He made it to begin with--one man with one woman. The beautiful foreign slave woman that the Hebrew man wants to take as his wife would have to go through several things that were probably to be a process of her losing her identity with her old culture and giving up things that would have been connected to her foreign gods. When the man would bring her into his home, she would have to shave her head (usually not permitted of Hebrew women) and pare her nails. She would change clothes from those she was captured in so that she had nothing to look at to remind her of who she was, and she would then have a period of mourning/grieving for all those that she lost and would not see again, because all the males of that city would have died and she was going to be losing her identity and become bound to this Hebrew man. She would be his family now and would no longer have an identity with her culture or family. Only after this period of mourning (and this time was long enough for her to have had a period or to see if she missed her period and was already pregnant, and it also gave the chance for any symptoms of any diseases that she might have to expose themselves so as the man would not catch any sexually-transmitted diseases/infection from her unknowingly), then he could go in and have marital relations with her and consummate the marriage. Now there is a stipulation here that seems more like a provision or an allowance than something that God would love for his people to do since we know that God hates divorce and we already talked about how the marriage covenant is supposed to display the covenant of salvation to all. If the man stopped loving this woman, he was to let her go anywhere that she wanted (she was to be treated as if she was free)--she was never to be treated as a regular slave that could be sold for money. She lost everything she had for this man and God said that she would at least walk away with her freedom and what dignity she had at that point if the man no longer wanted her. I praise God that we don't have to worry about Him changing His mind about if he loves us or not. When He decides to love us, though we too were foreigners and rebellious against all He is, He brings us into His house and cleans us and takes us as His own and He will never stop loving us, for He loved us all enough to die in our place to purchase us. So then in Christ we are both free from the slavery of our old lives and now are bound by love to a new Master that as we are slaves of Christ, though it is a slavery we willingly agree to as we know that our Master loves us and will always take care of us and do what is best for us. We are not only His slaves, but He calls us both His friends and His Bride. Deuteronomy 21:1-9 English Standard Version Atonement for Unsolved Murders 21 “If in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess someone is found slain, lying in the open country, and it is not known who killed him, 2 then your elders and your judges shall come out, and they shall measure the distance to the surrounding cities. 3 And the elders of the city that is nearest to the slain man shall take a heifer that has never been worked and that has not pulled in a yoke. 4 And the elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a valley with running water, which is neither plowed nor sown, and shall break the heifer's neck there in the valley. 5 Then the priests, the sons of Levi, shall come forward, for the LORD your God has chosen them to minister to him and to bless in the name of the LORD, and by their word every dispute and every 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 and they shall testify, ‘Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it shed. 8 Accept atonement, O LORD, for your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, and do not set the guilt of innocent blood in the midst of your people Israel, so that their blood guilt be atoned for.’ 9 So you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from your midst, when you do what is right in the sight of the LORD. We are going to take a side-trip now from talking about the criminal justice system to talking about atonement--a different kind of justice that needs to happen in the eyes of the LORD. The LORD who is the Righteous Judge does not let sin go unpunished and He requires that atonement be made from His people for all sins, both private and public and personal and corporate.
Typically the life of the murder victim was paid for by the life of the murderer that was put to death. "Life for life" is part of the Mosaic Covenant. However, if the identity of the murderer is unknown, then the closes city/town is responsible for making atonement (they did not keep that person safe who was travelling in or near their city/town). The elders of that city along with the priests would make a specific kind of sacrifice in a specific kind of place--an animal that way young and had done no work in a piece of land with running water that had never been farmed or tilled (there is the idea of the iron objects that we use to till the soil polluting the ground as this is us trying to add our works to the atonement that God is providing). The elders and the priests are to proclaim their innocence as they pray, "Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it shed. Accept atonement, O LORD, for your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, and do not set the guilt of innocent blood in the midst of your people Israel, so that their blood guilt be atoned for." In this way the community would not be held guilty for the sin that was unatoned for. Deuteronomy 20 English Standard Version Laws Concerning Warfare 20 “When you go out to war against your enemies, and see horses and chariots and an army larger than your own, you shall not be afraid of them, for the LORD your God is with you, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. 2 And when you draw near to the battle, the priest shall come forward and speak to the people 3 and shall say to them, ‘Hear, O Israel, today you are drawing near for battle against your enemies: let not your heart faint. Do not fear or panic or be in dread of them, 4 for the LORD your God is he who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory.’ 5 Then the officers shall speak to the people, saying, ‘Is there any man who has built a new house and has not dedicated it? Let him go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man dedicate it. 6 And is there any man who has planted a vineyard and has not enjoyed its fruit? Let him go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man enjoy its fruit. 7 And is there any man who has betrothed a wife and has not taken her? Let him go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man take her.’ 8 And the officers shall speak further to the people, and say, ‘Is there any man who is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go back to his house, lest he make the heart of his fellows melt like his own.’ 9 And when the officers have finished speaking to the people, then commanders shall be appointed at the head of the people. 10 “When you draw near to a city to fight against it, offer terms of peace to it. 11 And if it responds to you peaceably and it opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall do forced labor for you and shall serve you. 12 But if it makes no peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it. 13 And when the LORD your God gives it into your hand, you shall put all its males to the sword, 14 but the women and the little ones, the livestock, and everything else in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as plunder for yourselves. And you shall enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which the LORD your God has given you. 15 Thus you shall do to all the cities that are very far from you, which are not cities of the nations here. 16 But in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, 17 but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the LORD your God has commanded, 18 that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so you sin against the LORD your God. 19 “When you besiege a city for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them. You may eat from them, but you shall not cut them down. Are the trees in the field human, that they should be besieged by you? 20 Only the trees that you know are not trees for food you may destroy and cut down, that you may build siegeworks against the city that makes war with you, until it falls. This passage is one of the ones that is taken out of context to try and say things that it doesn't say, so let's be careful to evaluate the context here and see what it does say, as we have now switched topics from talking about the leadership of the elders, judges, and priests to now talking about how the people should conduct themselves in war and how they should be different than their pagan neighbors who were known for being ruthless (like the Assyrians). The people are not to fear these large, ruthless armies they are going up against because the LORD has promised them victory--He would fight for them. All they needed to do was remember who He is and what He has already done to bring them out of Egypt and overthrow what was the mightiest empire of that time to know that He can do anything and they need only trust in Him--even bring the nation of Israel through the Red Sea while using the same Red Sea to drown the armies of the Egyptians.
The Israelites were not to go to battle like other nations did--it was to be an act of worship for them. As we'll see later in the book of Joshua, the priests and Levites were out front with the Ark of the Covenant and they were blowing the ram's horn trumpets and singing praises to the LORD. What army in its right mind would send the band and the choir out front as the tip of the spear? But the enemy was to hear the armies of Israel coming praising the LORD and it was to be a testimony of the who the LORD is and what He has done and it would encourage the Israelites and put fear into the fear of the LORD into the hearts of their enemies--maybe even changing the hearts of some of their enemies. The message from the priests sounds very similar to the charge that the Commander of the LORD's Army (we think this was a preincarnate appearance of Jesus) gave Joshua in chapter one. "Be strong and very courageous" was told to Joshua a few times in that message, but Joshua 1:9 comes to mind, "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.” Jesus was acting as The Great High Priest that He is here, not just as the Captain of the LORD's Army and encouraging His soldier Joshua (who would in turn encourage the rest of the people) to keep their focus on the LORD that had led them and provided for them every step of the way and would continue to do so. There was opportunity given during the priests message for those who were faint of heart or had other cares and concerns and had a divided mind to turn back. The LORD did not want them in battle. Some specific cases were given such as those who had built new houses they would not get to live in, or planted new vineyards they would never get to taste of the harvest for, or were betrothed (a little stronger than "engaged to be married," but that's the closest we can come to it) and were concerned they would not get to their wedding day and be able to consummate their marriage with their bride. Also if there was any other reason that any of the men were cowardly or faint of heart after remembering who the LORD is and what He had done and they had eliminated all those who were concerned that another would reap the benefits of their labors, then those that were cowardly were to go back home as well so that their cowardice did not infect the hearts of those that they were supposed to be fighting alongside. God only wanted those fighting who would encourage each other that the LORD was with them and that with God all things are possible--especially the things that look impossible to us. It was to be a time of worship. Only after this point were the commanders of the armies chosen so that there would never be a commander who was afraid to be in battle. Now, as I said there were a few options on how the "enemy" could respond when they heard the armies of the LORD coming with their music and songs ready for battle. The first option that they would hope for is that the people would open up the gates of city and welcome the Israelites in and surrender not only to the armies of Israel, but to the LORD. The LORD said that in such cases, the lives of these men, women and children will be preserved, but they will be made to do forced labor and shall serve the LORD and His people--in this way their "change of heart" will be put to the test to see if it is genuine or if they are simply trying to save themselves. If they will not give themselves up peacefully, then they are to besiege the city. When the city falls (and it would fall), all the adult males would be put to death and all the women and children and livestock and other items would be spoils of war that the Israelites could plunder and take as their own. This is not the case though for the cities that the LORD was giving to Israel as an inheritance. God said he wanted those people dead and didn't want any of them to remain alive--not even their women and children, and that all the items in those cities were to be destroyed with fire to show what the coming judgment would be like for these godless people and those who followed in their footsteps. There would be no escape from the coming judgment of God's wrath on them and God had established that another would take what belonged to them and they would never have claim to it again because they would no longer exist. If Israel had followed through on that there would be none of these silly debates about who had rights to the Promised Land because all the peoples who may have lived there in the past would be dead and unable to contest Israel's claim to ownership. God knew what He was doing when He ordered the complete destruction of all the peoples from all the Land that was promised to be inhabited by His people. There would be no "coexist" ideology here. God did not want the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites to teach the Israelites their abominable practices and bring judgment upon the LORD's people and cut them off from the blessing the LORD had intended for them. Last, but not least, the LORD commanded that the people should not have a "scorched earth" policy whereby the destroyed all the surrounding trees so that the people had no source of food. The trees were to be left alone. The Israelites could eat from their fruit but they were not to cut those trees that would be able to produce food--only the trees that they knew did not produce food could be cut down and used to make the siegeworks to help them put the city under siege. Now, we go to war in very different ways today with our nation, but perhaps there is still something that we could learn from these tactics. I'll be honest that it's hard for me to imaging how to apply everything from this passage to our world and our nation today, and I know that our nation is not the nation of Israel, and there is a not a direct correspondence to the Church because we don't go to war against nations of this world since our kingdom is not of this world. How people fight in battle though does tell you a lot about them and the LORD that they claim to believe in. It's clear in this passage and others we'll study that even going to battle was an act of worship because they could praise the LORD for the victory they knew He had already won for them. They just needed to trust and obey. Deuteronomy 19:15-21 English Standard Version Laws Concerning Witnesses 15 “A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established. 16 If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing, 17 then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the LORD, before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days. 18 The judges shall inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, 19 then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. 20 And the rest shall hear and fear, and shall never again commit any such evil among you. 21 Your eye shall not pity. It shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. We're still on the broader topic of justice and conducting trials that are instructions for the Levites and the judges that are chosen from among each of the tribes. We are now told that there must be multiple witnesses that agree for any man to be convicted.
If there arises a witness that might maliciously be accusing someone in a false manner. then they are to come before the LORD by coming before the priests and the judges that were chosen by the people and were in office in that day. The defendant will be examined and the witness will be carefully cross-examined. If it is found that the witness was giving false testimony, then whatever the false witness was trying to have done to the accused would be done to the witness instead. If they were wrongly accused of a death-penalty crime, that person would die because they had attempted to commit murder. False testimony is something that God says He hates (lying lips) and that we should speak so that we need to add no oath or vow to what we say to make people believe us because our word should be enough. We are to be people of integrity. God says the reason for this kind of punishment is twofold. First, it will purge the evil people from among them because eventually those wicked enough to try to use the courts to murder someone or other such capital offenses would be purged from among the people. Second, for those that would see this happen it would send a message of "don't even think about it." People getting away with crimes like this, especially using the courts to pervert justice and take advantage of the innocent, brings about further perversions of justice as the people would no longer see the courts as an instrument of God's Law and justice, but something to be manipulated for their own means. Look at our justice system today. Is everything required to be established by two or three witnesses that agree on each matter of the case that's going to trial? Is there punishment for giving false testimony (other than perjury charges)? Do we do enough to make sure that the judges represent both God and the people and do we bring difficult cases before the LORD as we should? As we live in a culture that is crying out for "justice" and that justice is a perversion of what God means in much the way that we see here where they want people to be held guilty without trial by the accusation of just one party--a party that has malicious intent many times and that doesn't want to be cross-examined in court--we need to be extra-careful to uphold God's Law and justice (and also His grace and mercy in how we deal with personal offenses, especially with other "brothers" and "sisters" who we are not to drag into court or be litigious against). How much would it say for us personally and as a society if people knew that the LORD's truth and justice were in charge in our courts, but that there was no place for the wicked in our land. Those who planned to pervert justice and hope to get away with it need not enter the land or should quickly leave the land if they were one of our citizens and were acting in a way not in keeping with that identity of one who calls himself or herself by the name of the LORD (assuming we were a nation of people that belonged to the LORD and followed after Him and were a people called by His name). What a testimony that would be! Deuteronomy 19:14 English Standard Version Property Boundaries 14 “You shall not move your neighbor's landmark, which the men of old have set, in the inheritance that you will hold in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess. Everyone had an eternal inheritance that belonged not only to them, but to their future generations. No one was to move the boundary markers (landmarks) between allotments of land to take land from one man/family/clan/tribe and give it to another, especially those who did this dishonestly to try to steal land that did not belong to them. Every man, family, clan and tribe had exactly what they needed and what the LORD had provided for them.
Side note here, but Israel should have never allowed the UN to define its territory (much smaller than what the LORD had allotted them) and should never gotten into the "land for peace" deals as the Land is not theirs to sell or trade--it belongs to the LORD and He has given stewardship of it to specific people families, clans, and tribes...now that part of the Land has been given away to those who have no claim to it, and the LORD Himself will have to win it back in battle in Revelation so that the Land may once again be whole and Israel and the people of God will finally have all the Land promised to them. But we look forward to an even better inheritance that is imperishable--the kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. His kingdom will have no end as He sits on the throne of His father David. No one will move any of the boundary markers of His kingdom and there will be a place prepared for each and every one of us that no one else will steal and we can never give away. |
Daniel WestfallI will mostly use this space for recording my "journal" from my daily devotions as I hope to encourage others to read the Bible along with me and to leave a legacy for others. Archives
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