Deuteronomy 27 Study Notes

27:17 The sin of moving a neighbor’s boundary marker was a kind of theft, a violation of the eighth commandment, and it also betrayed a lack of satisfaction with what God had allotted a person in life. See 19:14.

27:18-19 Social justice must be rooted in God’s care for vulnerable people in society. The person who denies justice to such helpless people goes against the nature of the Lord, who inspired law to regulate such matters (24:17) and who, in the person of Christ, identified with those most in need of justice (Php 2:5-11; cp. 2Co 8:9).

27:20-23 Verses 20 and 23 speak of sexual relationships with one’s stepmother and mother-in-law, bracketing the heinous sins of bestiality (v. 21) and incest (v. 22).

27:20 Father’s wife has in mind either one’s stepmother or a second wife of one’s father (22:30; cp. Lv 18:7-8; 20:11). The father’s own shame was at risk when a son had sexual relations with a woman known so intimately by his father.

27:21 Bestiality—sexual intercourse with an animal—is not only reprehensible, but it goes against God’s creation order in which humankind, made in the image of God, is to rule over all other created beings, not to be on the same level with them.

27:22 The sister here is a sibling related through polygamy. A father’s daughter or a mother’s daughter would thus be a sister by one’s stepmother or stepfather.

27:24-25 Secretly means either outside public view or in a manner totally unexpected by the victim.

27:26 The list of curses is summarized by the warning that covenant violation consisted not only of committing certain misdeeds but failing to observe others. The law quoted is the entire book of Deuteronomy and not just this list.