19.1–25.19 The diverse articles in this division of the polity exemplify principles of social justice and practices meant to protect individual life and livelihood within the covenant community.
19.1–13 This adaptation of Ex 21.12–14 emphasizes communal responsibility to facilitate legitimate asylum in cases of accidental homicide without compromising either prosecution of those guilty of premeditated murder or, implicitly, the ban on local altars (cf. 4.41–43; Num 35.9–28; Josh 20).
19.1–3 A formulaic introduction (cf. 12.29 is followed by prescriptions for establishment of three cities that provide regionally accessible places of refuge.
19.4–7 Rationale for the institution is given in the form of an illustrative case.
19.4 Unintentionally, not premeditated (lit. “without knowledge”); cf. Job 35.16; 36.12; 38.2.
19.6 Avenger of blood, the agent designated (by the family of the deceased or a city court?) to inflict retaliatory punishment on the murderer (cf. 2 Sam 14.11). In hot anger, impetuously (lit. “because his heart is hot” cf. Ps 39.3).
19.8–9 Provision for an additional three cities when the LORD…enlarges your territory; cf. 12.20; also 11.22–25.
19.10 Bloodguilt, the onus or pollution of illegitimate “bloodshed” cf. 21.8–9; Ex 22.2; 1 Sam 25.26, 33; 2 Sam 21.1; Ps 51.14; Hos 4.2.
19.11–12 More detail is given in Josh 20.4–6.
19.12 On the jurisdiction of city elders, see 21.1–9, 19–20; 22.15–19; 25.7–9.
19.13 No pity. See 13.5, 8.
19.14 Concern for the integrity of cairns and the like delimiting familial plots of arable land is widely attested in biblical and other ancient sources (see 27.17; Job 24.2; Prov 22.28; Hos 5.10; cf. Instruction of Amenemope 7.11–19).
19.15–21 In view here is protection of individuals from pernicious accusation and perjured witness (cf. 5.20; Ex 20.16; 23.1).
19.15 The requirement of corroborative testimony to sustain a guilty verdict in capital cases (17.6; Num 35.30) is restated as a general rule of judicial evidence.
19.16 Malicious witness, one intent on doing injury or “violence” to another (cf. Gen 6.13; Job 19.7; Ps 35.11). Wrongdoing is the capital offense of incitement to “treason” in 13.5 (cf. Isa 59.13).
19.17 Both parties, accuser and accused. Before the LORD refers to divine presence at the (single) sanctuary (e.g., 12.18; 14.23), here represented by the judicial council (17.8–12; cf. 1.17).
19.18 Thorough inquiry. See 13.14; 17.4.
19.19–21 Just retribution as well as effective deterrence (cf. 13.11) commend punishment corresponding to the harm that the culprit intended to do to the victim. The talion formula life for life…foot for foot (cf. Ex 21.23–25) is invoked to underscore the principle of reciprocity.
DEUTERONOMY 20
Rules of Warfare
1When you go out to war against your enemies, and see horses and chariots, 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 from the land of Egypt. 2Before you engage in battle, the priest shall come forward and speak to the troops, 3and shall say to them: “Hear, O Israel! Today you are drawing near to do battle against your enemies. Do not lose heart, or be afraid, or panic, or be in dread of them; 4for it is the LORD your God who goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to give you victory.” 5Then the officials shall address the troops, saying, “Has anyone built a new house but not dedicated it? He should go back to his house, or he might die in the battle and another dedicate it. 6Has anyone planted a vineyard but not yet enjoyed its fruit? He should go back to his house, or he might die in the battle and another be first to enjoy its fruit. 7Has anyone become engaged to a woman but not yet married her? He should go back to his house, or he might die in the battle and another marry her.” 8The officials shall continue to address the troops, saying, “Is anyone afraid or disheartened? He should go back to his house, or he might cause the heart of his comrades to melt like his own.” 9When the officials have finished addressing the troops, then the commanders shall take charge of them.
10When you draw near to a town to fight against it, offer it terms of peace. 11If it accepts your terms of peace and surrenders to you, then all the people in it shall serve you at forced labor. 12If it does not submit to you peacefully, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it; 13and when the LORD your God gives it into your hand, you shall put all its males to the sword. 14You may, however, take as your booty the women, the children, livestock, and everything else in the town, all its spoil. You may enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which the LORD your God has given you. 15Thus you shall treat all the towns that are very far from you, which are not towns of the nations here. 16But as for the towns of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not let anything that breathes remain alive. 17You shall annihilate them—the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites—just as the LORD your God has commanded, 18so that they may not teach you to do all the abhorrent things that they do for their gods, and you thus sin against the LORD your God.
19If you besiege a town for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, you must not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them. Although you may take food from them, you must not cut them down. Are trees in the field human beings that they should come under siege from you? 20You may destroy only the trees that you know do not produce food; you may cut them down for use in building siegeworks against the town that makes war with you, until it falls.
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20.1–20 Protocols of holy war, sketched in this and subsequent units (21.10–14; 23.9–14; 24.5), are one of the features distinguishing the Deuteronomic polity from other bodies of biblical law. The martial program of the later Judean monarchy (cf. 2 Kings 18.7–19.35; 23.29) as well as the ideology of the conquest era (e.g., 7.1–2, 17–26; 9.1–3; 31.3–8) seems to be reflected in these texts.
20.1 Because the Lord is present as warrior with Israel to give victory (cf. 1.30; 3.22; Ex 14.14; 15.1–4; Judg 4.14), the militia should not be intimidated by a foe’s superior numbers and weaponry. Horses and chariots. See Josh 11.4; 1 Kings 20.25; Isa 31.1.
20.2–9 The levy.
20.2–4 The only stated task of the priest is to deliver a vestigial war oracle (cf. 1.20–21, 29–31; 9.1–3); cf., e.g., Num 31.6; Judg 20.25–28; 1 Sam 7.7–11; 14.36–42.
20.5–8 On the administrative role of the officials, see 16.18 (cf. 1.15; Josh 1.10). Implementation of these provisions for exemption is specifically noted in 1 Macc 3.56 (cf. Deut 24.5; Judg 7.3). Dedicated, or “inaugurated” cf. 1 Kings 8.63 (of the temple); also Deut 28.30 (live in).
20.6 Enjoyed its fruit, made “profane” or ordinary use of the harvest (Jer 31.5; cf. Lev 19.23–25).
20.7 Engaged, formally betrothed; cf. 2 Sam 3.14.
20.9 Commanders, lit. “officers of hosts” (cf. 1.15; 1 Kings 2.5).
20.10–20 Rules of engagement.
20.10–11 Terms of peace, surrender followed by vassalage (cf. 2.26; Josh 9.3–27; 11.19; Judg 1.27–35; 21.13; 2 Sam 10.19).
20.12–15 A mitigated ban is applicable against distant or external foes (cf. 2.33–35; 3.6–7; Num 31.7–54).
20.16–18 A total ban must be inflicted upon the proscribed nations of Canaan (see 7.1–2; cf. 12.29–31). Anything that breathes, livestock as well as the human populations (cf. Gen 7.22; Josh 10.40; 11.11, 14; 1 Kings 15.29).
20.19–20 For the tactics called into question, see 2 Kings 3.19, 25; cf. Josephus, Jewish War 5.523; 6.5–6.
DEUTERONOMY 21
Law concerning Murder by Persons Unknown
1If, in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess, a body is found lying in open country, and it is not known who struck the person down, 2then your elders and your judges shall come out to measure the distances to the towns that are near the body. 3The elders of the town nearest the body
shall take a heifer that has never been worked, one that has not pulled in the yoke; 4the elders of that town shall bring the heifer down to a wadi with running water, which is neither plowed nor sown, and shall break the heifer’s neck there in the wadi. 5Then the priests, the sons of Levi, shall come forward, for the LORD your God has chosen them to minister to him and to pronounce blessings in the name of the LORD, and by their decision all cases of dispute and assault shall be settled. 6All the elders of that town nearest the body shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the wadi, 7and they shall declare: “Our hands did not shed this blood, nor were we witnesses to it. 8Absolve, O LORD, your people Israel, whom you redeemed; do not let the guilt of innocent blood remain in the midst of your people Israel.” Then they will be absolved of bloodguilt. 9So you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from your midst, because you must do what is right in the sight of the LORD.
Female Captives
10When you go out to war against your enemies, and the LORD your God hands them over to you and you take them captive, 11suppose you see among the captives a beautiful woman whom you desire and want to marry, 12and so you bring her home to your house: she shall shave her head, pare her nails, 13discard her captive’s garb, and shall remain in your house a full month, mourning for her father and mother; after that you may go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife. 14But if you are not satisfied with her, you shall let her go free and not sell her for money. You must not treat her as a slave, since you have dishonored her.
The Right of the Firstborn
15If a man has two wives, one of them loved and the other disliked, and if both the loved and the disliked have borne him sons, the firstborn being the son of the one who is disliked, 16then on the day when he wills his possessions to his sons, he is not permitted to treat the son of the loved as the firstborn in preference to the son of the disliked, who is the firstborn. 17He must acknowledge as firstborn the son of the one who is disliked, giving him a double portiona of all that he has; since he is the first issue of his virility, the right of the firstborn is his.
Rebellious Children
18If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father and mother, who does not heed them when they discipline him, 19then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his town at the gate of that place. 20They shall say to the elders of his town, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” 21Then all the men of the town shall stone him to death. So you shall purge the evil from your midst; and all Israel will hear, and be afraid.
Miscellaneous Laws
22When someone is convicted of a crime punishable by death and is executed, and you hang him on a tree, 23his corpse must not remain all night upon the tree; you shall bury him that same day, for anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not defile the land that the LORD your God is giving you for possession.
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a Heb two-thirds
21.1–9 This case sketches procedures for restricting communal liability and exculpating bloodguilt in event of a rural homicide in which the culprit cannot be found and prosecuted (cf. 19.4–13; Num 35.30–34).
21.2 Appointed judges (see 16.18) exercise concurrent jurisdiction with local elders (see note on 19.12) in determining the town nearest the scene of the crime.
21.3–4 Transfer or expurgation of liability is enacted by nonsacrificial slaughter (break the…neck; cf. Ex 13.13; 34.20) of an unworked heifer (cf. Num 19.2; 1 Sam 6.7) in a pristine locale. Running water. The “constant flow” (cf. Ps 74.15; Am 5.24) presumably effects the removal of bloodguilt.
21.5 For the jurisdiction of the priests, the sons of Levi (also 31.9; cf. 18.1), see 17.8–13.
21.6–8 An exculpatory act (hand washing) and declaration of innocence accompany petitionary prayer for removal of bloodguilt.
21.8 Absolve, “cleanse,” “forgive,” or “expiate” (e.g., 32.43; Ex 32.30; 2 Sam 21.3).
21.9 Cf. 13.5, 18; 19.13.
21.10–21 These three articles (vv. 10–14, 15–17, 18–21) impose restraints on the exercise of authority by male heads of household.
21.10–14 Here a foreign woman acquired as a spoil of war (cf. 20.14) who then becomes a man’s slave wife or concubine may not later be sold for profit by the husband (cf. Ex 21.7–11).
21.12–13 The rites mark a transition separating the woman from her former identity and captive status in preparation for her role as bride.
21.14 Go free may denote manumission rather than divorce (cf. 15.12–13; Jer 34.16; cf. 22.19, 29; 24.1–3). As a slave; i.e., as chattel. Dishonored, or “violated,” often refers to coerced sexual intercourse (e.g., 22.24, 29; Gen 34.2; Judg 19.24; 2 Sam 13.12).
21.15–17 The legal status of the firstborn son, with an attendant share of inheritance, is fixed by priority of birth rather than paternal decision. See, e.g., Gen 21.9–13; 27.1–40; 48.13–49.4; 1 Kings 1.15–21; 1 Chr 5.1–2; cf. Code of Hammurabi 165–170.
21.15 Disliked. Cf. Gen 29.31–33.
21.17 Double portion, “two-thirds” of the total estate (cf. 2 Kings 2.9; Zech 13.8). Virility. Cf. Gen 49.3; Ps 105.36.
21.18–21 The local community, represented by its elders, has jurisdiction in the capital case of a son charged with chronically dishonorable conduct in defiance of parental authority (cf. 5.16; 27.16; Ex 21.15, 17; Lev 20.9).
21.19 Both parents must appear as plaintiffs before the court at the town…gate (cf. Isa 29.21; Am 5.10, 12, 15).
21.20 Stubborn and rebellious, obstinately unruly (cf. Jer 5.23; Ps 78.8). A glutton and a drunkard, dissolute (cf. Prov 23.20–21; 28.7; see also Mt 11.19; Lk 7.34).
21.21 Public execution by stoning treats the offense as comparable to treason; cf. 13.5, 10–11; 22.21, 24; Lev 20.2; 24.14–16.
21.22–23 Limitation on public display of the corpse of an executed criminal; cf. Josh 8.29; 10.26–27; 1 Sam 31.10; 2 Sam 4.12. Exposure of the body (hang…on a tree) was presumably meant to revile the crime by degrading its perpetrator, supposed to be under God’s curse. Sameday burial prevented the corpse from becoming carrion (cf. 2 Sam 21.10; Ezek 39.17–20).
DEUTERONOMY 22
1You shall not watch your neighbor’s oxor sheep straying away and ignore them; you shall take them back to their owner. 2If the owner does not reside near you or you do not know who the owner is, you shall bring it to your own house, and it shall remain with you until the owner claims it; then you shall return it. 3You shall do the same with a neighbor’s donkey; you shall do the same with a neighbor’s garment; and you shall do the same with anything else that your neighbor loses and you find. You may not withhold your help.
4You shall not see your neighbor’s donkey or ox fallen on the road and ignore it; you shall help to lift it up.
5A woman shall not wear a man’s apparel, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment; for whoever does such things is abhorrent to the LORD your God.
6If you come on a bird’s nest, in any tree or on the ground, with fledglings or eggs, with the mother sitting on the fledglings or on the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young. 7Let the mother go, taking only the young for yourself, in order that it may go well with you and you may live long.
8When you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for your roof; otherwise you might have bloodguilt on your house, if anyone should fall from it.
9You shall not sow your vineyard with a second kind of seed, or the whole yield will have to be forfeited, both the crop that you have sown and the yield of the vineyard itself.
10You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey yoked together.
11You shall not wear clothes made of wool and linen woven together.
12You shall make tassels on the four corners of the cloak with which you cover yourself.
Laws concerning Sexual Relations
13Suppose a man marries a woman, but after goin
g in to her, he dislikes her 14and makes up charges against her, slandering her by saying, “I married this woman; but when I lay with her, I did not find evidence of her virginity.” 15The father of the young woman and her mother shall then submit the evidence of the young woman’s virginity to the elders of the city at the gate. 16The father of the young woman shall say to the elders: “I gave my daughter in marriage to this man but he dislikes her; 17now he has made up charges against her, saying, ‘I did not find evidence of your daughter’s virginity.’ But here is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity.” Then they shall spread out the cloth before the elders of the town. 18The elders of that town shall take the man and punish him; 19they shall fine him one hundred shekels of silver (which they shall give to the young woman’s father) because he has slandered a virgin of Israel. She shall remain his wife; he shall not be permitted to divorce her as long as he lives.
20If, however, this charge is true, that evidence of the young woman’s virginity was not found, 21then they shall bring the young woman out to the entrance of her father’s house and the men of her town shall stone her to death, because she committed a disgraceful act in Israel by prostituting herself in her father’s house. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. 22 If a man is caught lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman as well as the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.
23If there is a young woman, a virgin already engaged to be married, and a man meets her in the town and lies with her, 24you shall bring both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death, the young woman because she did not cry for help in the town and the man because he violated his neighbor’s wife. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.
25But if the man meets the engaged woman in the open country, and the man seizes her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die. 26You shall do nothing to the young woman; the young woman has not committed an offense punishable by death, because this case is like that of someone who attacks and murders a neighbor. 27Since he found her in the open country, the engaged woman may have cried for help, but there was no one to rescue her.
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