Deuteronomychapter 21
23 verses · Moses, by tradition · 15th to 13th century BC · The Law
His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day; (for he that is hanged is accursed of God;) that thy land be not defiled, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.
Introduction
Moses, by tradition, The Law, Deuteronomy Overview.
Moses gives these statutes on the plains of Moab in the last year of his life, to a people about to settle towns and farms of their own. The chapter belongs to the long middle of the book, where the covenant's terms are set out case by case. Its cases are the hard ones, where no witness can be found or where a man holds all the power in his own house. Listen for who is made to answer when nobody can be named, and for the elders at the gate. Read it as the law reaching into the places a court could not see.
Context
- Who
- Elders who would have to handle these cases themselves
- What
- A set of five statutes on an unsolved killing, a woman taken in war, the firstborn's share, a defiant son and a body left hanging.
- Where
- The plains of Moab east of the Jordan, legislating for the open country and the town gates of the land ahead
- When
- The fortieth year after the Exodus, about 1406 BC on the early date of the Exodus, a date reached from the evidence since the chapter names no year.
- Why
- To make a town, a husband and a father answer in public for decisions that would otherwise be made in private.
Historical context
The chapter is Moses speaking in the fortieth year, and it hands its cases to elders rather than to a central court. The house reading dates it to about 1406 BC, stated as a reading rather than a settled date. The place is the plains of Moab, and the cases are framed for towns and fields Israel has not yet occupied. The occasion is the settling of matters no court could prove, beginning with a body found in open country. A first hearer knew why the rite used untilled ground and a heifer that had never worked, since nothing in that setting had been put to human use before. A first hearer also knew that in the surrounding world a captured woman was property. That is what makes the month of mourning at verse 13 and the release at verse 14 read as brakes on a man's will. The double portion for the firstborn was the standard inheritance rule of the region, and in a land-based economy an inheritance was survival. The stubborn son was brought by both parents to the elders at the gate, so the charge was tried by the town rather than by the father in his own house.
Significance
The thread running through the chapter is that blood and shame do not simply evaporate. An unsolved killing still lay on the land, and the nearest town had to answer for it in public even when nobody could be named. The household statutes then took three decisions away from the man who would otherwise have made them alone. The last law required a hanged body taken down before nightfall so the land was not defiled, and to a first hearer that was a question of keeping the land clean.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
The opening ceremony of this chapter was a public act with a fixed order. A body was found in the open and the killer was unknown. The elders and judges who went out were the distinguished among them, whom Rashi identifies as the Great Sanhedrin (Rashi on Deuteronomy 21:2:1, citing Sotah 44b). The heifer was brought down to a valley that had never been tilled (Rashi on Deuteronomy 21:4:1, citing Sifrei Devarim 207:2 and Sotah 45b).
The elders then washed their hands and made their declaration. Rashi explains what it actually denies, since nobody suspected the court of the killing. The meaning is that they never saw the man and let him go without food or escort (Rashi on Deuteronomy 21:7:1, citing Sifrei Devarim 210:2 and Sotah 45b). The priests followed with the words asking forgiveness for Israel. Scripture then announces that once the ceremony is done the blood is pardoned them (Rashi on Deuteronomy 21:8:1, citing Sotah 46a). The court also made a public announcement at the stoning of a rebellious son, naming the man and the charge (Rashi on Deuteronomy 21:21:1, citing Sanhedrin 89a).
How it is read
The law of the woman taken in war is read as a restraint on the soldier rather than a licence. Rashi holds that the passage speaks of a war that is not obligatory, since a captive could be taken only there (Rashi on Deuteronomy 21:10:1, citing Sifrei Devarim 211:1). The month in her captor's house was arranged to cool him. She lets her nails grow so that she becomes repulsive to him (Rashi on Deuteronomy 21:12:1, citing Sifrei Devarim 212:4 and Yevamot 48a). She puts off the fine clothes, which Rashi says the women of those peoples wore in war to lure the enemy (Rashi on Deuteronomy 21:13:1, citing Sifrei Devarim 213:1). Of the verse that follows he says plainly that Scripture is telling the man he will end by hating her (Rashi on Deuteronomy 21:14:1, citing Sifrei Devarim 214:1).
The double portion of the firstborn is read as a share equal to those of two brothers together (Rashi on Deuteronomy 21:17:1, citing Sifrei Devarim 217:2-4). The word for the rebellious son is read from the root meaning to deviate, a son who has left the proper path of life (Rashi on Deuteronomy 21:18:1).
The last verse of the chapter is where a Christian reader should pay attention. Rashi reads the hanged man as "a degradation of the Divine King, for man is made in His image and the Israelites are His children" (Rashi on Deuteronomy 21:23:1, citing Sanhedrin 46b). The body is therefore taken down the same day. Paul quotes the same verse at Galatians 3:13 and applies the curse it names to the crucifixion of Jesus. The verse is one text read two ways, and this site sets the two readings side by side without settling them here. The corpus also holds Ibn Ezra on Deuteronomy 21:1:1, 21:3:1, 21:5:1, 21:6:1, 21:15:1, 21:16:1 and 21:20:1 without an English text. It holds Malbim on Deuteronomy 21:1:1 and 21:19:1 the same way. All are cited without quotation.
What the rabbis say
The rabbis taught a parable on the hanged man that carries the weight of the whole law. Rashi gives it as twin brothers who closely resembled each other. One became king, the other was arrested for robbery and hanged, and whoever saw the body on the gallows thought the king had been hanged (Rashi on Deuteronomy 21:23:1, citing Sanhedrin 46b). That is the reason offered for taking a body down before nightfall. This site reports it as the teaching of the rabbis rather than as the plain sense of the verse.
Two more teachings turn on the order of the chapter. A father and mother who spare a rebellious son will see him grow into a man who commits a capital crime. That is why the law of the hanged man follows straight after (Rashi on Deuteronomy 21:22:1, citing Midrash Tanchuma, Ki Teitzei 1). The rabbis also held that the heifer's broken neck settles nothing if the killer turns up afterwards, since he is still put to death (Rashi on Deuteronomy 21:9:1, citing Sotah 47b and Ketubot 37b).
The corpus carries more locators on this chapter, given for a reader to follow. Arakhin 16a:18 and Avodah Zarah 74a:2 stand across 21:1 to 21:9. Jerusalem Talmud Sanhedrin 1:2:36 stands at 21:2, Devarim Rabbah 5:1 and Bekhorot 35b:16 at 21:5. Chullin 117b:1 and Chullin 11a:13 stand at 21:6, Ein Yaakov, Sotah 7:29 at 21:7. Ketubot 37b:6 and Ketubot 37b:7 stand at 21:9, Devarim Rabbah 6:4 at 21:10 and 21:11. Bereshit Rabbah 45:6 stands at 21:14, Bava Batra 111b:1 at 21:17. Avot DeRabbi Natan 35:2 stands at 21:19, and Bamidbar Rabbah 8:4 at 21:23.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Deuteronomy 21:2 to 21:23, Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, public domain, 1929-1934; Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Deuteronomy 21:1:1, 21:3:1, 21:5:1, 21:6:1, 21:15:1, 21:16:1 and 21:20:1, cited without text; Malbim, Malbim on Deuteronomy 21:1:1 and 21:19:1, cited without text; The Sefaria corpus on disk, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/deuteronomy/21.json, fetched 2026-09-19, 2026.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A heifer in the valley for unsolved blood
Deuteronomy 21:1-5
An unsolved killing leaves guilt on the land, and the town nearest the body answers for it. The heifer has never been yoked and the valley never plowed or sown, and Albert Barnes notes that it is not called a sin offering and its blood never reaches an altar. Behind the rite stands Genesis 9:5, where God requires a man's blood of every man.
Deuteronomy 21:1
“According to Jewish writers, the Sanhedrin, taking charge of such a case, sent a deputation to examine the neighborhood. They reported to the nearest town to the spot where the body was found. An order was then issued by their supreme authority to the elders or magistrates of that town, to provide the heifer at the civic expense and go through the appointed ceremonial.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
The elders and judges measure from the victim to each neighboring city, and Gill cites the Mishnah, which sends three men of the great Sanhedrin out from Jerusalem to measure. Wesley adds that the measuring was needed only where the nearest city was in doubt. The distance fixed the guilt.
Deuteronomy 21:2
“Then thy elders and thy judges shall come forth,.... From the city or cities near to which the murder was committed, to make inquiry about it, and expiation for it; so Aben Ezra interprets it of the elders of the cities near, but others understand it of the elders of the great sanhedrim at Jerusalem; so the Targum of Jonathan,"then shall go out from the great sanhedrim two of thy wise men, and three of thy judges;''and more expressly the Misnah (l),"three go out from the great sanhedrim in Jerusalem;''R.”
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 21:2
“The elders represented the citizens at large, the judges the magistracy: priests Deu 21:5 from the nearest priestly town, were likewise to be at hand. Thus, all classes would be represented at the purging away of that blood-guiltiness which until removed attached to the whole community.”
Wesley reads the heifer never yoked as a figure of the murderer, a man who would not bear the yoke of God's law, and it dies in his place. He also sees Christ in it, who bore a yoke He chose. The nearest city bought the heifer at public cost.
Deuteronomy 21:3
“Which hath not drawn in the yoke - A fit representative of the murderer, in whose stead it was killed, who would not bear the yoke of God's laws. A type also of Christ, who was under the yoke, but what he had voluntarily taken upon himself.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 21:3
“The requirements as regards place and victim are symbolic. The heifer represented the murderer, so far at least as to die in his stead, since he himself could not be found. As hearing his guilt the heifer must therefore be one which was of full growth and strength, and had not yet been ceremonially profaned by human use. The Christian commentators find here a type of Christ and of His sacrifice for man: but the heifer was not strictly a sacrifice or sin-offering. The transaction was rather figurative, and was so ordered as to impress the lesson of Gen 9:5.”
The Hebrew names a stream that never runs dry, and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown picture its water carrying the blood away from the land. Breaking the heifer's neck showed, in Wesley's words, what the elders would have done to the murderer. Unless the murderer was found, the valley stayed unsown, Henry reports.
Deuteronomy 21:4
“Shall bring down the heifer unto a rough valley - נחל איתן nachal eythan might be translated a rapid stream, probably passing through a piece of uncultivated ground where the elders of the city were to strike off the head of the heifer, and to wash their hands over her in token of their innocence. The spot of ground on which this sacrifice was made must be uncultivated, because it was considered to be a sacrifice to make atonement for the murder, and consequently would pollute the land.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Matthew Henry has the priests direct the rite by the law and speak the prayer of verse 8 on behalf of the people. Wesley takes case of assault to cover every wound one man gives another, whether it killed or only hurt. Their word settled such cases.
Deuteronomy 21:5
“Every controversy - Of this kind: every controversy which shall rise about any stroke, whether such a mortal stroke as is here spoken of, or any other stroke or wound given by one man to another.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Deuteronomy 21:6-9
The elders wash their hands over the heifer and declare, “Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it”. Psalm 26:6 uses the same picture, and at Matthew 27:24 Pilate washes his hands before the crowd, which Matthew Henry notes was the words without the case. The prayer of verse 8 asks mercy for the whole people, though nobody in that town did the killing.
Deuteronomy 21:6
“Shall wash their hands over the heifer - Washing the hands, in reference to such a subject as this, was a rite anciently used to signify that the persons thus washing were innocent of the crime in question. It was probably from the Jews that Pilate learned this symbolical method of expressing his innocence.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The elders give this answer before the priests, who examined them, as Wesley reads it. Henry takes the oath past the shedding of blood itself: the elders declare they knew no killer, hid none and helped none escape. A city that hid a killer shared his guilt.
Deuteronomy 21:7
“They shall answer - To the priests who shall examine them. This blood - This about which the present enquiry is made: or this which is here present: for it is thought the corps of the slain man was brought into the same place where the heifer was slain.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
The prayer calls on the LORD as the one who redeemed Israel, and it asks Him to cover a guilt the people had incurred by no act of their own. Wesley names it a ceremonial uncleanness on the land. Matthew Henry adds that the killer might still live unseen in that very town.
Deuteronomy 21:8
“Forgiven - Though there was no mortal guilt in this people, yet there was a ceremonial uncleanness in the land, which was to be expiated and forgiven.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Deuteronomy 19:13 purges the same guilt by putting a known murderer to death. This rite does the work when the killer cannot be found. Matthew Henry draws the consequence: a town that knew its murderer and sheltered him had no rite to clear it.
Deuteronomy 21:9
“So shalt thou put away the guilt of innocent blood from among you,.... Which otherwise, the person not being found out, and brought to just punishment for it, would devolve upon the whole.”
A captive woman given a month to mourn
Deuteronomy 21:10-14
A captive woman is brought into the house and given a full month to shave her head, put aside her captive's clothing and mourn her parents. Adam Clarke takes the shaving as leaving her former religion, and Matthew Henry as a check on desire. If the man is not pleased with her she goes free unsold, and Albert Barnes limits the war to nations outside Canaan.
Deuteronomy 21:10
“But nevertheless I also intellectually have "gone out to war against my enemies, and I saw there" in the plunder "a woman with a beautiful figure." Whatever we find said well and reasonably among our philosophical enemies, or we read anything said among them wisely and knowingly, we must cleanse it. We must remove and cut off all that is dead and worthless. It is as if one were trimming the hairs of the head and the nails of the woman taken from the spoils of the enemy. Only then would you take her as a wife.”
Origen of Alexandria · written before 253 · HOMILIES ON LEVITICUS 7.6.7patristic
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 21:10
“The regulations which now follow in the rest of this and throughout the next chapter bring out the sanctity of various personal rights and relations fundamental to human life and society. Deu 21:10-14. The war supposed here is one against the neighboring nations after Israel had utterly destroyed the Canaanites (compare Deu 7:3), and taken possession of their land.”
Clarke notes that the law allowed no forced possession of a captive woman, and she could be taken only as a wife. Henry reads the permission as given for the hardness of men's hearts, and Calvin as God setting limits on a soldier's license in war. She was his wife or she was let go.
Deuteronomy 21:11
“And seest - a beautiful woman - No forcible possession was allowed even in this case, when the woman was taken in war, and was, by the general consent of ancient nations, adjudged as a part of the spoils. The person to whose lot or share such a woman as is here described fell, might, if he chose, have her for a wife on certain conditions; but he was not permitted to use her under any inferior character.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Calvin names the rabbis who read the order to shave her head as a way to spoil her beauty and cool the man's desire, and he answers them from the change of clothing in verse 13. He reads every sign as a farewell to her people. Origen made the woman an image of pagan learning, cleansed before use.
Deuteronomy 21:12
“She shall shave her head - This was in token of her renouncing her religion, and becoming a proselyte to that of the Jews. This is still a custom in the East; when a Christian turns Mohammedan his head is shaven, and he is carried through the city crying, la alahila allah we Mohammed resooli Allah; “There is no God but God, and Mohammed is the prophet of God.” Pare her nails - ועשתה את צפרניה veasethah eth tsipporneyha, “she shall make her nails.” Now whether this signifies paring or letting them grow, is greatly doubted among learned men.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
A full month was the usual time of mourning in Israel, and her father and mother were now as good as dead to her. Clement of Alexandria saw the waiting as a test of the man, a month for desire to cool into a settled choice. Her grief came first.
Deuteronomy 21:13
“Bewail her father and her mother a full month - This is prescribed from motives of humanity, that the woman might have time and leisure to detach her affections from their natural ties, and prepare her mind for new ones.”
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 21:13
“The [Deuteronomic] law wishes males to have responsible sexual relations with their marriage partners, solely for the generation of children. This is clear when a bachelor is prevented from enjoying immediate sexual relations with a woman prisoner of war. If he once falls in love with her, he must let her cut her hair short and mourn for thirty days. If even so his desire has not faded away, then he may father children by her. The fixed period of time enables the overpowering impulse to be scrutinized and to turn into a more rational appetency.”
Clement of Alexandria · written before 215 · The Stromata Book 3patristic
Barnes reads treat her as a slave as a ban on treating her with force. Wesley reads dishonored as the man having had relations with her, and Henry as his raising her hope of marriage and then refusing it. She could not stay as a lesser wife.
Deuteronomy 21:14
Thou shalt not make merchandise of her - Rather, thou shalt not constrain her: literally “treat her with constraint,” or “treat her as a slave.”
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 21:14
“If his love should afterwards cool and he become indifferent to her person, he was not to lord it over her, neither to sell her in the slave market, nor retain her in a subordinate condition in his house; but she was to be free to go where her inclinations led her.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
The unloved wife's son keeps his double portion
Deuteronomy 21:15-21
Both household laws take the matter out of the father's hands. The firstborn keeps “a double portion” whatever the father prefers, and Albert Barnes notes he could still set it aside for cause but not for favour. A stubborn son is brought by both parents to the elders, and tractate Sanhedrin narrows the conditions so far that it records the opinion that no such case was tried.
Deuteronomy 21:15
“If a man have two wives,.... Which is supposed, but not approved of, though permitted because of the hardness of men's hearts; for it was not so from the beginning, when only one man and one woman were created, and joined together in marriage; but as it was connived at, and become customary, a law is made to prevent confusion, and preserve order in families: one beloved and another hated; or less loved, yet continued his wife, and not divorced.”
2 more voices on this verse
Deuteronomy 21:15
“Moses did not originate the rights of primogeniture (compare Gen 25:31), but recognized them, since he found them pre-existing in the general social system of the East. Paternal authority could set aside these rights on just grounds Gen 27:33, but it is forbidden here to do so from mere partiality.”
Deuteronomy 21:15
“It shows how Providence commonly sides with the weakest, and gives more abundant honour to that part which lacked; for the first-born son is here supposed to be hers that was hated; it was so in Jacob's family: because the Lord saw that Leah was hated, Gen. xxix.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
One reading, held by Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, takes the verbs as past, so the unloved wife had died and the beloved wife pressed for her own son. Gill and Wesley read two living wives, a practice the law tolerated and never approved. The firstborn keeps his right either way.
giving him a double portion: Matthew Henry takes the firstfruits of his father's strength as the son in whom a house first grew strong, the first of the arrows of Psalm 127:4. The double share is his by birth. Henry draws the rule that a father's favour gives no ground for moving it.
Deuteronomy 21:17
“This digression then of ours from one part of the Law to the other, for the purpose of shewing that the firstborn is not the son of the beloved, that is of the more remiss and voluptuous wife, has not been needless, although the words of the chapter before us express the same truth: He may not make the son of the beloved first-born before the son of the hated, which is indeed the first-born.”
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · Letters 31-40patristic
A stubborn and rebellious son
a stubborn and rebellious son: The charge rests on a pattern: the father and mother have disciplined their son, and he will still refuse to listen. Henry notes that no son came under this law for a slow mind, only for a settled will against both parents. Discipline came first.
Deuteronomy 21:18
“The stubborn, rebellious, gluttonous, and drunken son is to be stoned to death - This law, severe as it may seem, must have acted as a powerful preventive of crime. If such a law were in force now, and duly executed, how many deaths of disobedient and profligate children would there be in all corners of the land!”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 21:18
“The formal accusation of parents against a child was to be received without inquiry, as being its own proof. Thus the just authority of the parents is recognized and effectually upheld (compare Exo 20:12; Exo 21:15, Exo 21:17; Lev 20:9); but the extreme and irresponsible power of life and death, conceded by the law of Rome and other pagan nations, is withheld from the Israelite father. In this, as in the last law, provision is made against the abuses of a necessary authority.”
The parents could accuse, and only the elders could judge. Wesley reads the need for both parents as a guard against a cruel father, and the elders' hearing as a second guard, since they examined the cause before any sentence.
Deuteronomy 21:19
“And it cannot reasonably be supposed that both would agree without the son's abominable and incorrigible wickedness, in which case it seems a righteous law, because the crime of rebellion against his own parents did so fully signify what a pernicious member he would be in the commonwealth of Israel, who had dissolved all his natural obligations.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
a glutton, and a drunkard: Wesley reads glutton and drunkard as two sins that stand for others like them or worse. Henry takes them as the sins the father and mother had warned against, or as the root of the son's rebellion, and he points to Proverbs 31:4 and 5. There drink makes kings forget what is decreed.
Stoning was the death for blasphemy at Leviticus 24:23, and the father and mother here stand for God, whose authority parents bear over their sons. Henry reports a Jewish custom of sending word of the sentence through the whole nation. Israel heard by letter.
Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree
Deuteronomy 21:22-23
a sin worthy of death: The rule governs a body hung up after execution, and it requires burial the same day so the land is not defiled. Joshua 8:29 shows it kept, and John 19:31 raises the same concern at the cross. Galatians 3:13 applies “anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse” to Christ, so this verse is where Paul says the curse of the law went.
Deuteronomy 21:22
“There were four methods of execution in use among the ancient Jews; stoning (Exo 17:4; Deu 13:10, etc.), burning Lev 20:14; Lev 21:9, the sword Exo 32:27, and strangulation. The latter, though not named in Scripture, is regarded by the rabbis as the most common, and the proper one to be adopted when no other is expressly enjoined by the Law. Suspension, whether from cross, stake, or gallows, was not used as a mode of taking life, but was sometimes added after death as an enhancement of punishment.”
ConnectionsGalatians 3:13
bury him that day: Henry reads the burial on that day as care for the body of even the worst criminal, since punishment beyond death belongs to God. Athanasius asked why Christ died on a cross and answered from this curse: He came to bear the curse, so He took the death it named. The grave closes the shame.
Deuteronomy 21:23
“He that is hanged is accursed of God - i. e. “Bury him that is hanged out of the way before evening: his hanging body defiles the land; for God’s curse rests on it.” The curse of God is probably regarded as lying on the malefactor because, from the fact of his being hanged, be must have been guilty of a especially atrocious breach of God’s covenant. Such an offender could not remain on the face of the earth without defiling it (compare Lev 18:25, Lev 18:28; Num 35:34).”
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 21:23
“If any of our own people also inquire, not from love of debate but from love of learning, why he suffered death in no other way except on the cross, let him also be told that no other way than this was good for us and that it was well that the Lord suffered this for our sakes. For if he himself came to bear the curse laid upon us, how else could he have "become a curse" unless he received the death set for a curse? And that is the cross.”
Athanasius of Alexandria · written before 373 · On the Incarnation of the Word 25patristic
Cross references
Deuteronomy 21:23
- Quoted inGalatians 3:13Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”
'Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree' (Christ made a curse)
How this psalm is built
The form: Law restated inside a spoken address, standing in the stipulations of a covenant treaty, as Kline classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| Four hard cases set one after another | The chapter runs an unsolved killing, a woman taken in war, a firstborn passed over, and a stubborn son, then closes on a body left hanging. The cases share no subject, and what holds them together is that each one takes a decision out of a private hand and puts it before the elders or the priests.Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, on Deuteronomy 21:1. | Deuteronomy 21:1, Deuteronomy 21:10, Deuteronomy 21:15, Deuteronomy 21:18, Deuteronomy 21:22 |
| Nothing in the rite ever put to use | The heifer has never been worked and never drawn in a yoke, and the valley has never been ploughed or sown, so the two halves of the setting match. Albert Barnes notes that the heifer is not called a sin offering and that its blood is never brought to an altar, which makes the transaction figurative rather than sacrificial.Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, on Deuteronomy 21:3-4. | Deuteronomy 21:3, Deuteronomy 21:4 |
| The beginning of his strength | The phrase used of the firstborn at verse 17 is Jacob's phrase for Reuben at Genesis 49:3, and it is spoken in the house where Genesis 29:31 says Leah was hated. The statute borrows the words of the family it is protecting others from repeating.Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, on Deuteronomy 21:15-17. | Deuteronomy 21:17 |
| Hands washed and a word spoken over them | The elders wash their hands over the heifer and say in the priests' hearing that their hands have not shed this blood and their eyes have not seen it. The rite is carried by what the men say as much as by what they do, and the prayer at verse 8 asks mercy for the whole people rather than for the elders.Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on Deuteronomy 21:6. | Deuteronomy 21:6, Deuteronomy 21:7, Deuteronomy 21:8 |
The New Testament's use
8 more paragraphs on the patterns
Galatians 3:13 quotes verse 23, that he who is hanged is accursed of God, and applies it to Christ made a curse for us. Peter uses the same wood at Acts 5:30 and Acts 10:39. The verse that made a hanged corpse a defilement of the land is therefore the verse Paul reaches for to say where the curse of the law went.
Matthew 27:24 has Pilate wash his hands before the crowd and call himself innocent of the blood of Christ. Matthew Henry points out that Pilate had the words of this rite without the case, since he knew the man before him was innocent and sentenced him anyway. Psalm 26:6 uses the same picture of washed hands for innocence.
The rite that is not a sacrifice
Albert Barnes marks two things the text withholds. The heifer is never called a sin offering, and its blood is never brought to an altar. On that reading the transaction is figurative rather than sacrificial, and the prayer of verse 8 carries it. What the elders ask is that the blood be forgiven the people, though nobody in that town did the killing.
The stubborn son, and whether the case was ever tried
The son is charged as a glutton and a drunkard, which is the pair of words at Proverbs 23:20, and the stoning is done by the men of the city. The rabbinic tradition collected in tractate Sanhedrin narrows the conditions so far that it preserves the opinion that no such case ever came to trial. The narrowing is the tradition's own, and the statute stands in the text as it is written.
Where this chapter sits against the codes around it
This site's dossier sets Deuteronomy's civil statutes beside the Code of Hammurabi, which covers the same subjects in the same if-then form. The dossier states the difference as sharply as the likeness. Deuteronomy grounds its law in a rescue God performed, refuses to grade a life by rank, and bends its statutes toward the widow, the orphan, the sojourner and the debtor.
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Meredith G. Kline, Treaty of the Great King: The Covenant Structure of Deuteronomy, 1963; Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, 1972 and This site's published dossier on Deuteronomy, src/components/book/dossier-content/deuteronomy.ts, the entry on the Code of Hammurabi.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Athanasius of Alexandria, On the Incarnation of the Word 25; Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata Book 3; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Calvin; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Origen of Alexandria, HOMILIES ON LEVITICUS 7.6.7.