Year 1, Day 172: Deuteronomy 21

Unsolved Murders

Deuteronomy 21 provides a really neat passage with which to begin.  We are going to talk about unsolved murders.  Sure, we’ve talked a lot about deaths in which the perpetrator is known – whether intentional or unintentional.  But here we get to talk a little bit about those deaths in which the perpetrator is not known.  So what does this passage have to say?

Surprisingly, this passage lays the guilt at the feet of the elders of the nearest city.  Now, we certainly know that these elders did nothing to deserve to bear this guilt.  They didn’t commit the act; they didn’t know it was happening.  Yet they bear the guilt and the responsibility for making atonement for it.

You might ask why.  The answer is really scary for me personally.  The first reason is simply because the elders are unable to carry out their duty of making sure the perpetrator is brought to judgment before the Lord.  Since they are unable to perform their sworn duty as an elder, they bear the guilt for being unable to do their duty.  But the second reason is even scarier to me and it comes out of a purely Jewish understanding of scripture.  This reason states that the elders were charged with intervening against the sins of humanity within their community.  The dead body whose perpetrator is unknown is evidence of the elder’s inability to truly keep watch over their community.  So they bear the guilt of not being able truly watch over those whom God has charged them to watch.

This really scares me – and it should scare anyone who takes the mantle of being an “elder” of a community – whether you are officially called an elder or not.  Essentially this passage tells us that elders bear guilt of sins committed in the community when the doer of the sin is not found.  Now, hear me clearly on this point because I’m going to make an important but subtle distinction here.  They don’t bear the actual guilt of the actual sin – because whether we can find the perpetrator or not God knows and will hold that person accountable.  But the elders bear the guilt for not being able to truly be the elders that God has called them to be. 

That’s a scary truth that I know all too well.  I might like to envision myself as a good pastor who tries to watch over those that God has given to me … but the truth is that I’m nowhere near as good at this job as I wish I could be.  I cannot even be the elder that I want to be – much less the kind of elder that God desires me to me.  And I need to accept that like these elders spoken of in this passage I bear the guilt for my human failings with respect to watching over the community of God.

No Guiltless Sin

There’s another bit to this passage that I’d like to bring out before moving along.  This passage also speaks to the truth that there is no guiltless sin.  All sin affects relationships.  All sin breaks down the bonds that hold us together and destroys community.  Even a sin where the perpetrator is unknown has bearers of guilt as the community deals with the effect of the sin.

God takes life and relationships quite seriously.  He takes matters like death, hatred, envy, and the like very seriously.  In fact, God takes it so seriously that in Deuteronomy 21:8 we have the elders specifically ask God to not set the guilt for the murder among the people.  Clearly God takes the death of a single person seriously and will set guilt among the people for it.  This makes me pause when I consider matters such as abortion, child neglect, global malnutrition, etc.  How many people die because of human carelessness?  How much guilt do we bear that we don’t even realize – or worse, have become immune to effects of the realization?

Captive Women as Wives

The rest of the passage deals with an odd assortment of various laws.  What I find interesting about these is the variety of grace and judgment found within them.  The first is a law about taking a captive woman as a wife.  Certainly this law is one based out of love.  A captive woman would normally be treated as a servant, but this law makes a provision for a captive woman to rise above the servant status.  Furthermore, if the captive woman is ultimately rejected by the Hebrew man who thought he would like to marry her, notice that the woman is prohibited from being sold as a slave.  This is a law full of grace.  God is looking out for those in the land who normally would have no rights.  In this case, it is the women.

Inheritance of the Firstborn

The next law – that of the inheritance rights of the firstborn – is also based on grace.  The firstborn is the firstborn regardless of his origin.  Whether the child is the father’s favorite is irrelevant.  Whether the child comes from the father’s favorite wife is also irrelevant.  I honestly cannot help but read this passage and think of how Jacob and Esau squabble over birthrights and blessings.  I can’t help but think of how Rachel and Leah wrestled with producing heirs for Jacob.

Human beings are quite fickle people.  Our approval of other people often follows our whims.  We need rules such as these to ensure that our whims do not cause us to do something unfaithful to those God cares about.  From Abraham to the Exodus it is clear that the concept of the firstborn male is significant to God and not subject to our whims.

Rebellious Children

The next set of laws is about the rebellious son.  Here we have a law of retribution and judgment.  While I cannot fathom any parent bringing their child forward to be stoned, I will also confess that modern life and modern thought is vastly different than the communal dependency that was true in ancient cultures.  I cannot condemn this practice because I do not know what it was like in those days.  In those days, a rebellious child could spell the destruction of an entire household.

However, in today’s day and age I choose not to be a strong advocate for the fullest implementation of this passage, either.  What I do think this passage can teach us is the importance of discipline and respect in a well functioning culture.  When the youth do not respect the elders who are following the ways of God, there should be consequences.  This much we can glean from this passage.

When we look more abstractly as this passage regarding the stoning of a rebellious child, we can see another really important theme here.  It is the parent’s responsibility to raise the child in God’s ways.  It is the parent’s responsibility to judge when they are following God or not.  It is the parents’ responsibility to take hold of the reigns of the theological, social, and emotional upbringing of the child.  When parents relinquish this responsibility to society (through schools or government) or even to the church, the community will fail.  When parents relinquish this responsibility, children are taught by each other more than anyone else.  When that happens, our society looses the foresight and wisdom that learning from an older generation can provide.  In other words, when the parents of a society relinquish the reigns of responsibility – our society will become self-centered and focused more on the moment than on the future.

Hanging on a Tree

This entry is long, so I will only speak briefly about the passage regarding hanging on a tree.  First, absolutely know that this is a prefiguring of Jesus as said in Galatians 3:13.  Second, understand that criminals were hung on a tree as an example for others.  Well, more as a deterrent against similar behavior.  They are cursed because their behavior was so bad that it had to be lifted up as a sign to the rest of the community to not go that far.

What is really neat is that this is the line of thinking that precisely led to Christ’s crucifixion.  Jesus taught many things controversial to traditional Jewish thought.  But in the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) what gets Jesus into real trouble is that he proclaims He can forgive sins when he heals people.  (See Matthew 9:1-8 as an example.)  In the synoptic Gospels, forgiving sins is something that only God can do.  In the Gospel of John, it is the raising of Lazarus from the dead that becomes the straw that breaks the camel’s back.  (See John 11)  Again, raising someone from the dead is only something God can do.  In both cases, the Jewish leaders see Jesus as blaspheming God, thus they crucify Him as an example to the rest of the community to not push theology that far. 

Yet, it is this very crucifixion that actually brings the light to focus on Jesus because we look to Him and see our savior.  Though He was righteous He died the death of the unrighteous for our sake.  The Jewish leaders lifted Him up as an example of what not to do.  God the Father lifted up the Son on the cross as an example of what perfection does.

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