CHAPTER 21

(1451 B.C.)

UNSOLVED MURDER

¹If one be found slain in the land which the LORD your God gives you to possess it, lying in the field, and it be not known who has killed him:

²Then your Elders and your Judges shall come forth, and they shall measure unto the cities which are round about him who is killed:

³And it shall be, that the city which is next unto the slain man, even the Elders of that city shall take an heifer, which has not been wrought with, and which has not drawn in the yoke (the Lord was to be brought into all of this, thus showing His tender Solicitude for individuals as well as for nations, and the regard He had for family life Williams);

⁴And the Elders of that city shall bring down the heifer unto a rough valley, which is neither eared nor sown, and shall strike off the heifers neck there in the valley (break the heifers neck; this was not a sacrifice, but simply a symbolical representation of the infliction of death on the undiscovered murderer):

⁵And the Priests the sons of Levi shall come near; for them the LORD your God has chosen to minister unto Him, and to bless in the Name of the LORD; and by their word shall every controversy and every stroke be tried (the Priests were to be heavily involved, because everything as it pertained to Israel was spiritual):

⁶And all the Elders of that city, who are next unto the slain man, shall wash their hands over the heifer that is beheaded in the valley:

⁷And they shall answer and say, Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it (again, all of this shows the sacredness of human life).

⁸Be merciful, O LORD, unto Your people Israel, whom You have redeemed, and lay not innocent blood unto Your people of Israels charge. And the blood shall be forgiven them.

⁹So shall you put away the guilt of innocent blood from among you, when you shall do that which is right in the sight of the LORD (expiation was made by the killing of the transgressor, when he could be found [19:13]; when he was not known, by the process described here; of course, if afterwards he was apprehended, he would suffer the penalty he had incurred).

MARRIAGE

¹⁰When you go forth to war against your enemies, and the LORD your God has delivered them into your hands, and you have taken them captive,

¹¹And you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and have a desire unto her, that you would have her to your wife;

¹²Then you shall bring her home to your house, and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails;

¹³And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in your house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month: and after that you shall go in unto her, and be her husband, and she shall be your wife (all of these things demanded were signs of purification, of separation from former heathenism, preparatory to reception among the Covenant People of Jehovah).

¹⁴And it shall be, if you have no delight in her, then you shall let her go where she will; but you shall not sell her at all for money, you shall not make merchandise of her, because you have humbled her (the Law of God, as given to Moses, which took into account even the feelings of a slave girl, so to speak, which as well guaranteed her rights; at that time, there was no law in the world that was even remotely as fair and equitable as the Law of God).

THE FIRSTBORN

¹⁵If a man have two wives, one beloved, and another hated, and they have born him children, both the beloved and the hated; and if the firstborn son be hers that was hated:

¹⁶Then it shall be, when he makes his sons to inherit that which he has, that he may not make the son of the beloved firstborn before the son of the hated, which is indeed the firstborn:

¹⁷But he shall acknowledge the son of the hated for the firstborn, by giving him a double portion of all that he has: for he is the beginning of his strength; the right of the firstborn is his (the firstborn inherited twice as much as any of the other sons).

DEATH

¹⁸If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:

¹⁹Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the Elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place;

²⁰And they shall say unto the Elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.

²¹And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shall you put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear (gluttony and drunkenness were regarded by the Hebrews as highly criminal; the word rendered by glutton includes other kinds of excess besides eating; it designates one who is prodigal, who wastes his means or wastes his person by indulgence).

CRIMINALS

²²And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be to be put to death, and you hang him on a tree:

²³His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but you shall in any wise bury him that day; (for he who is hanged is accursed of God;) that your land be not defiled, which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance. (This is the reason that the religious leaders of Israel demanded that Jesus be put on the Cross [Mat. 27:23]. They knew that one put on the tree was accursed of God, and so they reasoned that the people would then think, were He really the Messiah, God would never allow Him to be put on a Cross. They did not realize that the Lord had foretold the event of the Cross some 1,500 years earlier, as it concerned the brazen serpent on the pole [Num. 21:8-9]. It was necessary that Jesus go to the Cross, in order that He might atone for all the sins of mankind, at least for all who will believe [Jn. 3:16]. So, Jesus was made a curse on the Cross, not because of His sins, for He had none, but for the sin of the whole world, and for all time [Jn. 1:29; Gal. 3:13].)