Deuteronomy 21 Footnotes

21:15 Polygamy, while tolerated by the law, was certainly never prescribed nor sanctioned. Monogamy is the standard to which God’s people were to conform. This is clear in both the OT (Gn 2:24) and NT (Mt 19:4-6). As is often the case, the instruction was designed not to prescribe a cultural norm but to regulate existing practice in a more humane way.

21:16 The wife who is “hated” (Hb text) is not the object of her husband’s loathing disdain. The verb expresses the idea of being secondary in his affections. Jacob’s preference for Rachel over Leah (Gn 29:18,30) and Elkanah’s favor toward Hannah rather than Peninnah (1Sm 1:5) are examples. (On the meaning of hate in this sense, see note on Dt 7:7-8.)

21:17 The child of the less-loved but first wife must be granted the double portion that fell to the firstborn son. This is a prime example of the principle of fair treatment in human relationships that distinguishes Israel’s social practice from that of surrounding cultures. Israel’s faith raised its family and community life to a higher plane than that of its neighbors.

21:21 The execution of a wayward and incorrigible son is inconceivable in modern secular society, which lacks the standards of a theocratic (ruled by God) community. The possibility described here dramatizes the heavy responsibility borne by Israelite parents to see that their offspring held to the standards demanded of the people of God. Parents were expected to be God’s agents of authority and discipline at the family level, ensuring that no dysfunctional and destructive influences entered the community of faith on their account.

21:23 The hanging on a tree here was not crucifixion, nor was it even the cause of death (v. 22). Its purpose was to put to shame a person who had committed a capital offense, both because of the heinousness of his crime and to serve as a deterrent to others. Such an individual was the special object of God’s curse, the focus of his wrath that otherwise would be poured out on the community as a whole (see 2Sm 4:12; 21:9; Gl 3:13).