Deuteronomy 21:22

22 When someone is convicted of a crime punishable by death and is executed, and you hang him on a tree,

Deuteronomy 21:22 Meaning and Commentary

Deuteronomy 21:22

And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death
This before mentioned, or any other that deserves death, any kind of death, as strangling, killing with the sword, burning and stoning, to which the Jews restrain it here:

and he be to be put to death, and thou hang him, on a tree;
is condemned to stoning, and after that they hang him, as the Targum of Jonathan; and according to the Jewish Rabbins, as Jarchi observes, all that were stoned were to be hanged, and only men, not women F7; for it is remarked that it is said "him" and not "her" F8: about this there is a dispute in the Misnah F9;

``all that are stoned are hanged, they are the words of R. Eliezer; but the wise men say none are to be hanged but the blasphemer and idolater; a man is to be hanged with his face to the people, a woman with her face to the tree, they are the words of R. Eliezer; but the wise men say, a man is to be hanged, but no woman, to whom R. Eliezer replied, did not Simeon Ben Shetach hang women in Ashkelon? they answered him, he hung eighty women (at once), but they do not judge or condemn two in one day;''

so that this was a particular case at a particular time, and not be drawn into an example: in the same place it is asked,

``how they hang one? they fix a beam in the earth, and a piece of wood goes out of it (near the top of it, as one of the commentator F11 remarks), and join his two hands together and hang him;''

that is, by his hand, not by his neck, as with us, but rather in the crucifixion; only in that the hands are spread, and one hand is fastened to one part of the cross beam, and the other to the other end.


FOOTNOTES:

F7 Misn. Sotah, c. 3. sect. 8.
F8 Maimon. & Bartenora in. ib.
F9 Misn. Sanhedrin, c. 6. sect. 4.
F11 Bartenora in Misn. Sanhedrin, c. 6. sect. 4.

Deuteronomy 21:22 In-Context

20 They shall say to the elders of his town, "This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard."
21 Then all the men of the town shall stone him to death. So you shall purge the evil from your midst; and all Israel will hear, and be afraid.
22 When someone is convicted of a crime punishable by death and is executed, and you hang him on a tree,
23 his corpse must not remain all night upon the tree; you shall bury him that same day, for anyone hung on a tree is under God's curse. You must not defile the land that the Lord your God is giving you for possession.
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.