Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 21-23.

Verses 21 through 23 are the reason the Jewish leaders asked Pilate to have the bodies of Jesus and those crucified with him taken down before the end of the day. After the Resurrection, when the apostles were brought before the Sanhedrin Peter also alludes these two verses (or, at least, he seems to do so).  In fact, that reference suggests an explanation as to why the Sanhedrin wanted to have Jesus crucified rather than stoning Him.  In the Acts passage, Peter contrasts the Jewish leaders killing Jesus by hanging Him on a cross (in other words having His body exposed on a pole) with God exalting Him by raising Him from the dead.  The Jewish leaders hoped the ignominy of Jesus being hung on a cross would destroy His followers’ faith in Him because this passage tells us that anyone hung on a pole is under God’s curse.  So, in a way, the Jewish leaders sought to put Jesus under God’s curse by hanging Him on a pole, but God turned it into raising Him up like the bronze snake which Moses placed upon a pole.  So that, by looking upon Him, those who were under the curse of sin might be healed, just as those suffering from the bite of venomous snakes in the wilderness were healed by looking at the bronze snake.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.