Deuteronomy 21 Study Notes

21:10-14 The fact that female prisoners of war would be taken as wives by Israel does not sanction the practice. The law here was designed to protect the woman in such a case. She must be considered as an equal, permitted to display her humiliation by shaving her head and trimming her nails, and allowed to mourn for her father and mother a full month. Only then could her Israelite husband make full claim on her as his wife. Further protection was accorded her in the case of divorce.

21:15-17 This law (and perhaps the previous one) regulated the practice of polygamy while, as in the previous example, not endorsing it. Though Israel was the people of God and should have lived out its special relationship reflecting his glory and righteousness, they often failed. The law in some cases was thus designed to insure that an imperfect people were kept within certain moral and social boundaries. The present law mandated that a firstborn son of an unloved wife must receive two shares of the inheritance according to what appears to be long-standing custom (Gn 25:31-34; 48:8-22).

21:18-21 Capital punishment for a rebellious and drunken son may seem unduly harsh, but this behavior was a violation of the commandment to honor one’s father and mother (cp. 5:16). In God’s structure of sovereignty, parents represented his authority and therefore showing disobedience to one’s parents was showing disobedience of the Lord. This passage elaborates Lv 20:9.

21:22-23 A further humiliation attached to capital punishment was hanging the criminal’s corpse from a tree (1Sm 31:10; 2Sm 21:5-6). However, to leave the body on display too long would spread God’s curse beyond the criminal. The body must therefore be buried before sundown, a practice that continued until the time of Jesus (Gl 3:13). See Jn 19:31.