Deuteronomy 21 Study Notes
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21:1-2 The sense of solidarity among God’s people comes to the fore in the case of an anonymous individual who has committed murder without witnesses. The city closest to the body will be assumed to have harbored the criminal. This may seem unfair, but the likelihood of the perpetrator being from the closest city in that day of difficult travel was very high.
21:3-7 The ritual that follows was for absolving the community from the sin of only one of its members. A cow that had not been . . . used for work suggests purity and vitality. The uncultivated field, like the animal, was full of potential, unlike the victim whose potential had been snuffed out. Next the elders must break the cow’s neck and the priests must wash their hands, thus symbolizing their innocence and that of the community. This was no sin offering since no blood was shed, but it was similar to the rite of breaking the neck of a donkey to be presented as an offering (Ex 13:13), possibly suggesting the fate of the criminal should he ever be apprehended and also of witnesses who failed to come forward.
padah
| Hebrew pronunciation | [pah DHAH] |
| CSB translation | redeem, ransom |
| Uses in Deuteronomy | 6 |
| Uses in the OT | 60 |
| Focus passage | Deuteronomy 21:8 |
Prebiblical Semitic legal use of this root allowed connotations of religion and “setting free.” Padah indicates change of ownership through payment or substitution. People redeemed slave girls to marry them (Lv 19:20). Israel’s firstborn had to be redeemed (Ex 34:19-20) because God redeemed Israel from Egyptian slavery at the cost of Egypt’s firstborn (Ex 13:15). God and Israel later recalled this redemption (Dt 15:15; 2Sm 7:23). God redeemed David from all trouble (2Sm 4:9), and David prayed God would do likewise for Israel (Ps 25:22). Psalmists sought redemption from threats like death (Ps 49:7-8,15). Padah once describes redemption from sin (Ps 130:7-8). Especially when parallel with ga’al, also meaning “redeem,” padah is translated ransom (Hs 13:14).
21:8-9 The testimony of the elders that the people of their city had neither committed the murder nor witnessed it (v. 7) was followed by an urgent appeal to the Lord that he would not impute to the people collectively the guilt for what only one of them had done.
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.