Tag Archives: Deuteronomy 21-23

Daily Bible Study

March 6, 2024 Bible Study — God Can Turn His Curse Into a Blessing

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.

Daily Bible Study

March 6, 2023 Bible Study — Laws Concerning Sex And Marriage

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

This passage contains several commands which are designed to protect women from sexual exploitation.  The first such command concerns women captured in war.  If a man takes such a woman as a slave and intends to have sex with her, he must give her a month to mourn her family and then he can take her as his wife.  If he decides that he no longer wants her as his wife, he must set her free.  He may not sell her or treat her as a slave.  Then there is the instruction concerning a man who has two wives, of whom he only loves one.  He may not treat the children of the one he loves preferentially over the children of his unloved wife.  Continuing in the passage there are laws concerning rape which assume that sexual acts between a man and a woman to whom he is not married is rape.  These laws meant that if a man seduced a woman, he would need to take care of her economically for the rest of his life.  While in our society today, such laws would punish women for the actions of someone else, in that society they protected them from abuse.  As importantly, they reinforced the idea that having sex with someone meant that you were married to them.

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

Daily Bible Study

March 6, 2021 Bible Study God Demands That We Respect Human Life

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

The first portion of this passage makes an assumption which we easily overlook.  It assumes that only a murder committed in the countryside would remain unsolved.  It also indicates that the elders of a town would seek to solve any murders within their area of authority.  It makes me wonder if the first sign of the downfall of a society comes when they start having large numbers of unsolved, unpunished murders.  As I read through the laws which Moses gave to the people of Israel I see respect for human life emphasized.  When a society becomes complacent about identifying and punishing those who have murdered another human being that society is losing the respect for human life which God demands.  Most, if not all, sins result from failing to respect the lives of those around us, of beginning to consider other people as mere objects whose purpose is to give us pleasure.

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

Daily Bible Study

March 6, 2020 Bible Study — All Human Lives Belong To God

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

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

We can learn an important lesson about the value of human life from this passage.  When there was an unsolved murder it did not just molder in the record books.  A system was established to determine which authorities were responsible to solve the crime.  Then they were required to take a solemn oath that they had neither committed the murder nor knew who had.  This requirement applied even if the victim was someone of no account.  Yes, there were cases where no one would be able to identify the murderer, and there always will be such cases.  Someone still had to come before God and offer a sacrifice to God for the life which had been taken.  Every human life belongs to God and anyone who takes such a life will be accountable to God for that life.  Those to whom God has given the authority to govern will be held accountable for trying to bring justice to those whose lives have been taken by another.

Daily Bible Study

March 6, 2019 Bible Study — Government Officials Held Accountable For Unsolved Murder

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

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

The commands for dealing with an unsolved murder are interesting.  They assume that if the murder had happened in a town, someone would have witnessed it and it would be solved.  More importantly, the elders of the nearest town were required to offer a sacrifice for the murdered person and vow that they did not commit the murder themselves and that they did not know who did.  Can you imagine what would happen if we had a similar law in place in our major cities today?  What would happen if the mayor and members of city council had to pay out of pocket for every unsolved murder in their city?

There are two passages here concerning sexual purity which are not exactly related but which I am going to touch on together.  The first is something which can be easily overlooked.  The Israelites were allowed to have sex with women they captured in battle.  However, if they did so, those women were no their wives and they had they were obligated to them just as they were to a wife obtained in any other fashion.  This combined with several other passages leads us to the conclusion that the Law only sanctioned sex between a man and a woman if they were married.  There is the suggestion that if a man and a woman have sex, they are married.  

OK, I changed my mind and decided to make this second part on purity its own paragraph.  Several days ago I came across a post on FaceBook which suggested that the idea of virginity as we understand it today was a novel idea when Christians started referring to Mary as a virgin.  This passage shows us that this is not the case.  This passage lays out clear boundaries about determining if a woman was a virgin when she went to her marital bed for the first time.  If a man falsely accused a woman of not being a virgin when he married her, he was obligated to pay a severe fine and to support her as his wife for the rest of her life no matter what happens otherwise.  The point I wanted to make is that while Hebrew, and many other languages of the ancient world, did not have a separate word for virgin and for unmarried young woman, this was not because they did not have the concept of virginity as we understand it today.  Rather, the reason those words were interchangeable was because the social mores of the time assumed that an unmarried young woman was a virgin.

Daily Bible Study

March 6, 2018 Bible Study — Don’t Ignore Your Responsibility

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

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

    Today’s passage contains a lot of miscellaneous instructions which I do not believe apply today. However, there are a few things of which we should take note. The passage emphasizes the importance of gaining closure when someone has been murdered. If it is not possible to conclude who committed the murder, the political leaders of the closest town must swear that they did not have the person murdered nor know who did so. This focuses on the importance of not allowing the murder of anyone go without notice, someone must acknowledge that a murder has taken place and make some effort to hold the responsible parties to account. The passage also brings up the importance of addressing the issue of children who will not honor their parents. While I do not think we should go as far as this passage goes, its emphasis on how serious it is when children will not obey their parents. In this case, it seems to be concerning children who are old enough that their parents can no longer hold them to account by physical strength. A review of many of the high profile cases of violence in our society shows the importance of this. In many of those cases we see people who had stopped being obedient to their parents long before they reached the age of independence. The final instructions I want to emphasize today are those which tell us to look out for the interests of others: if you see your neighbor’s (and remember what Jesus says about who our neighbor is) animal wondering loose, take it back to them. If you find your neighbor’s possession, return it to them. In both of these cases the passage says, “Do not ignore your responsibility.”

Daily Bible Study

March 6, 2017 Bible Study

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

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

    When I came to Deuteronomy I was expecting to struggle with what to write about it. After all, Deuteronomy means, more or less, “Second Law”, so I perceive it too a large degree as being a repeat of things said in earlier books (primarily Leviticus). I was pleasantly surprised as I read through it this year with the new perspectives on things I found there. Until today. Today’s passage contains a lot of miscellaneous regulations to which I see no common theme. That being said, I still believe there is value in reading through it regularly and I suspect that next year I will have a different perspective on it.
    There was one section that I want to expand on a little. When I was a child there was a saying we often used, “Finders keepers, losers weepers.” I knew many adults who used it as well (although, I am pretty sure my parents never used it and discouraged my siblings and I from using it). In this passage, God makes it clear that that saying is not His ideal either. If we find something of value, we should seek to return it to its rightful owner. If we know who they are and they live nearby, we should take it to them. If we do not know who they are, or they live more distantly, we should hold it for them until they can be identified and/or arrangements can be made for them to retrieve it. The next verse is on a similar theme. If we witness someone struggling with a task, we should assist them.

Daily Bible Study

March 6, 2016 Bible Study

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading. I had been using One Year Bible Online, but it was time for a change.

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

    This passage starts with an emphasis on the importance of finding justice for those who have been murdered. When someone is found murdered and it is not known who committed the crime, the town elders of the nearest town must make an offering and take an oath that they do not know who committed the crime. This stresses the importance of finding justice for those who have been wronged. In this case, someone who has been murdered and cannot seek justice for themselves.

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    The very next part of this passage suggests to me a key difference between the rules governing Israelite treatment of slaves and that of most other cultures. It lays out the provisions a man must follow if he wishes to make a woman captured in battle (and thus a slave) his wife. My reading of this is that it implies that a man was not permitted to have sexual relations with his slaves. If a man wanted to have sexual relations with his slave, he needed to marry her. Further, if he later no longer wanted to be married to her, while he was free to divorce her just as he was a wife he obtained in the normal manner, she did not return to being a slave. Instead, the slave he had made his wife would then be a free woman.