Deuteronomy24chapter 24

Deuteronomy 24:1-4

Verses 1 to 3 set out a case and verse 4 alone carries the command, so what the statute forbids is the first husband taking her back after a second marriage. The Pharisees quote it at Matthew 19:7 as though Moses had commanded the writing of divorcement, and Jesus answers that Moses suffered it for the hardness of your hearts and that from the beginning it was not so. The schools of Shammai and Hillel divided over how much the phrase some uncleanness covers, which is why the question at Matthew 19:3 is put in the form of every cause. Jeremiah 3:1 reasons from this same law about Israel and her lovers.

Deuteronomy 24:5-9

The exemptions at 20:5-7 sent home the man who had betrothed a wife and not taken her, and verse 5 adds a full year at home for the man who has. Verses 6 and 7 both price a man's life: the hand mill may not be taken in pledge because he taketh a man's life to pledge, and stealing a man is capital where stealing goods was not, which Exodus 21:16 had already said. The leprosy law itself is not repeated here, only the order to do what the priests teach, and the memory set beside it is Miriam at Numbers 12:10-15. Remember falls fourteen times in this book and three of them stand in this chapter, at verses 9, 18 and 22.

Deuteronomy 24:10-15

The creditor waits outside and the debtor brings the pledge out to him, so a poor man's house is not entered over a debt. Exodus 22:26-27 already required the garment back by sundown, and verse 13 adds what the older statute did not, that it shall be righteousness unto thee before the Lord thy God. The hired servant is paid at his day whether he is of thy brethren or of thy strangers, because he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it, and Leviticus 19:13 gives the same rule. James 5:4 has the hire of the labourers kept back by fraud crying into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.

Deuteronomy 24:16-18

2 Kings 14:6 quotes this verse by name when Amaziah executes his father's murderers and spares their children, so the rule stands on record as having been kept. Exodus 20:5 speaks of God visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, while this verse governs what a court may do, and Ezekiel 18 takes up the difference at length. The stranger, the fatherless and the widow stand together here as they do through the book, and the ground given for the group is that thou wast a bondman in Egypt and the Lord thy God redeemed thee thence.

Deuteronomy 24:19-22

Leviticus 19:9-10 and 23:22 left the corners of the field and the gleanings, and this adds the sheaf a man forgot, so what is lost by accident becomes the portion of the poor. Ruth 2 is the same law in operation, since Ruth is both a stranger and a widow, two of the three named here, and Boaz at 2:16 orders handfuls let fall on purpose, which is past what the statute asks. The chapter closes on the ground verse 18 gave, that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt.