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Bible Commentaries

Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

Deuteronomy 21



Verses 1-9


Deuteronomy 21:1-2

Expiation of a Murder Committed by an Unknown Hand. - Deuteronomy 21:1 and Deuteronomy 21:2. If any one was found lying in a field in the land of Israel ( נפל fallen, then lying, Judges 3:25; Judges 4:22), having been put to death without its being known who had killed him ( וגו נודע לא , a circumstantial clause, attached without a copula, see Ewald , §341, b . 3), the elders and judges, sc., of the neighbouring towns, - the former as representatives of the communities, the latter as administrators of right, - were to go out and measure to the towns which lay round about the slain man, i.e., measure the distance of the body from the towns that were lying round about, to ascertain first of all which was the nearest town.

Deuteronomy 21:3-4


Deuteronomy 21:5

The priests were to come near during this transaction; i.e., some priests from the nearest Levitical town were to be present at it, not to conduct the affair, but as those whom Jehovah had chosen to serve Him and to bless in His name (cf. Deuteronomy 13:5), and according to whose mouth (words) every dispute and every stroke happened (cf. Deuteronomy 17:8), i.e., simply as those who were authorized by the Lord, and as the representatives of the divine right, to receive the explanation and petition of the elders, and acknowledge the legal validity of the act.

Deuteronomy 21:6-8

The elders of the town were to wash their hands over the slain heifer, i.e., to cleanse themselves by this symbolical act from the suspicion of any guilt on the part of the inhabitants of the town in the murder that had been committed (cf. Psalms 26:6; Psalms 73:13; Matthew 27:24), and then answer (to the charge involved in what had taken place), and say, “ Our hands have not shed this blood (on the singular שׁפכה , see Ewald , §317, a .), and our eyes have not seen ” (sc., the shedding of blood), i.e., we have neither any part in the crime nor any knowledge of it: “ grant forgiveness (lit., 'cover up,' viz., the blood-guiltiness) to Thy people...and give not innocent blood in the midst of Thy people Israel ,” i.e., lay not upon us the innocent blood that has been shed by imputation and punishment. “ And the blood shall be forgiven them ,” i.e., the bloodshed or murder shall not be imputed to them. On נכּפּר , a mixed form from the Niphal and Hithpael, see Ges. §55, and Ewald , §132, c .

Deuteronomy 21:9

In this way Israel was to wipe away the innocent blood (the bloodshed) from its midst (cf. Numbers 35:33). If the murderer were discovered afterwards, of course the punishment of death which had been inflicted vicariously upon the animal, simply because the criminal himself could not be found, would still fall upon him.

Verse 10-11

Treatment of a Wife who had been a Prisoner of War. - If an Israelite saw among the captives, who had been brought away in a war against foreign nations, a woman of beautiful figure, and loved her, and took her as his wife, he was to allow her a month's time in his house, to bewail her separation from her home and kindred, and accustom herself to her new condition of life, before he married her. What is said here does not apply to the wars with the Canaanites, who were to be cut off (vid., Deuteronomy 7:3), but, as a comparison of the introductory words in Deuteronomy 21:1 with Deuteronomy 20:1 clearly shows, to the wars which Israel would carry on with surrounding nations after the conquest of Canaan. שׁבי and שׁביה , the captivity, for the captives.

Verses 12-14

When the woman was taken home to the house of the man who had loved her, she was to shave her head, and make, i.e., cut, her nails (cf. 2 Samuel 19:25), - both customary signs of purification (on this signification of the cutting of the hair, see Leviticus 14:8 and Numbers 8:7), - as symbols of her passing out of the state of a slave, and of her reception into the fellowship of the covenant nation. This is perfectly obvious in her laying aside her prisoner's clothes. After putting off the signs of captivity, she was to sit (dwell) in the house, and bewail her father and mother for a month, i.e., console herself for her separation from her parents, whom she had lost, that she might be able to forget her people and her father's house (Psalms 45:11), and give herself up henceforth in love to her husband with an undivided heart. The intention of these laws was not to protect the woman against any outbreak of rude passion on the part of the man, but rather to give her time and leisure to loosen herself inwardly from the natural fellowship of her nation and kindred, and to acquire affection towards the fellowship of the people of God, into which she had entered against her will, that her heart might cherish love to the God of Israel, who had given her favour in the eyes of her master, and had taken from her the misery and reproach of slavery. But her master becoming her husband, she entered into the rights of a daughter of Israel, who had been sold by her father to a man to be his wife (Exodus 21:7.). If after this her husband should find no pleasure in her, he was to let her go לנפשׁהּ , i.e., at her free will, and not sell her for money (cf. Exodus 21:8). “ Thou shalt not put constraint upon her, because thou hast humbled her .” התעמּר , which only occurs again in Deuteronomy 24:7, probably signifies to throw oneself upon a person, to practise violence towards him (cf. Ges. thes. p. 1046).

Verses 15-17


Verse 18-19


Verse 20

Here they were to accuse the son as being unmanageable, refractory, disobedient, as “a glutton and a drunkard.” These last accusations show the reason for the unmanageableness and refractoriness.

Verse 21

In consequence of this accusation, all the men of the town were to stone him, so that he died. By this the right was taken away from the parents of putting an incorrigible son to death (cf. Proverbs 19:18), whilst at the same time the parental authority was fully preserved. Nothing is said about any evidence of the charge brought by the parents, or about any judicial inquiry generally. “In such a case the charge was a proof in itself. For if the heart of a father and mother could be brought to such a point as to give up their child to the judge before the community of the nation, everything would have been done that a judge would need to know” ( Schnell, d. isr. Recht, p. 11). - On Deuteronomy 21:21 , cf. Deuteronomy 13:6 and Deuteronomy 13:12.

Verse 22-23

Burial of those who had been Hanged. - If there was a sin upon a man, מות משׁפּט , lit., a right of death, i.e., a capital crime (cf. Deuteronomy 19:6 and Deuteronomy 22:26), and he was put to death, and they hanged him upon a tree (wood), his body was not to remain upon the wood over night, but they were to bury him on the same day upon which he as hanged; “ for the hanged man is a curse of God ,” and they were not to defile the land which Jehovah gave for an inheritance. The hanging, not of criminals who were to be put to death, but of those who had been executed with the sword, was an intensification of the punishment of death (see at Numbers 25:4), inasmuch as the body was thereby exposed to peculiar kinds of abominations. Moses commanded the burial of those who had been hanged upon the day of their execution, - that is to say, as we may see from the application of this law in Joshua 8:29; Joshua 10:26-27, before sunset, - because the hanged man, being a curse of God, defiled the land. The land was defiled not only by vices and crimes (cf. Leviticus 18:24, Leviticus 18:28; Numbers 35:34), but also by the exposure to view of criminals who had been punished with death, and thus had been smitten by the curse of God, inasmuch as their shameful deeds were thereby publicly exposed to view. We are not to think of any bodily defilement of the land through the decomposition consequent upon death, as J. D. Mich. and Sommer suppose; so that there is no ground for speaking of any discrepancy between this and the old law. - (On the application of this law to Christ, see Galatians 3:13.), - This regulation is appended very loosely to what precedes. The link of connection is contained in the thought, that with the punishment of the wicked the recollection of their crimes was also to be removed.


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Bibliography Information
Keil, Carl Friedrich & Delitzsch, Franz. "Commentary on Deuteronomy 21:4". 1854-1889.

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