Deuteronomy 27 Footnotes

27:17 All properties in the promised land were God’s and were allocated to tribes, clans, and families as best suited him. To encroach on a neighbor’s property is to reveal dissatisfaction with one’s own share, and thus to question the Lord’s wisdom and sovereignty over all of life. It is also comparable to a business deception (25:16). Such self-serving actions violate a person’s solidarity with others who share in the Lord’s covenant, and thus come under the curse.

27:21 Besides being intuitively abhorrent, sexual relations with an animal (bestiality) breaks down the division between two of God’s creatures, one of which (mankind) was to rule the other (animals). Such an act (perturbatio naturarum) upsets the creative order and thus evidences dissatisfaction with, and lack of respect for, God’s perfect plan of governance for what he has brought into being.