Deuteronomy (Chapters 21-22)

Deuteronomy 21–22 contains laws about justice, community responsibility, and holy living among God’s people. These chapters address unsolved murders, family matters, caring for lost property, protecting life, and maintaining moral purity. Israel was commanded to act justly, care for neighbors, and remove evil from their midst. These laws reveal God’s concern for justice, responsibility, and holiness within His covenant community.

Transcript

Setting The Stage: Deuteronomy 21

SPEAKER_00 0:00

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SPEAKER_03 0:26

Hey everybody, welcome back to Teach Me the Bible Podcast. We're walking through the book of Deuteronomy, and today we're picking up where we left off in chapter 21. We're looking at all these different case laws and the application of the Mosaic Law in various situations as the people are about to go into the land and have to face these diff different things. And so uh pick it up in 21, verse 1. I got Dr. David Klingler with me here as always to be our guide through the text. So Doc.

Innocent Blood And Communal Guilt

Captive Wives And Boundaries

Dr. David Klingler 0:55

Yeah, we pick it up in in Deuteronomy chapter 21. One of the things that that that strikes me is the laws concerned for the um provision of the bloodshed of the innocent. If a slain person is found lying in the open country in the land, which the Lord your God gives you to possess, and it is not known who struck him, then the elders and the judges shall go out and measure to the cities which are around the slain one, and it shall be that the city which is nearest to the slain man, that is, the elders of that city, shall take a heifer of the herd, which has not been worked, which has not pulled the yoke, and the elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to the valley, uh valley with running water, which has not been plowed or sown, and shall break the heifer's neck in the valley. Then the priests, the sons of Levi, shall come near, for the Lord your God has chosen them to serve him, to bless him, uh to bless in the name of the Lord, and every dispute and every assault shall be settled by them. It's an interesting uh little tag there. And so, you know, the the the judges and the elders had a role, and then the priests had the role, and all of the elders of that city that is nearest to the slain man shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck has been broken in the valley, and they shall answer and say, Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it. Forgive your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, O Lord, and do not place the guilt of innocent blood in the midst of the of your people Israel, and the blood guiltness shall be forgiven them. So you shall move the guilt of the innocent blood from your midst when you do what is right in the eyes of the Lord. And so, you know, this was to be a concern. Certainly you were to try to find out who did it, but then if you couldn't, there was still provision even for that. And uh then uh it continues, uh, you know again, just a bunch of case laws here. When you go out to battle against your enemies, and the Lord your God delivers them into your hand, and you take uh them away captive, uh, and see uh among the captives a beautiful woman, and have desire for her, and would take her as a wife for yourself, and you bring her home to your house, you shall shave her head and trim her nails, and you shall remove uh the the clothes of her captivity, uh, and shall she shall remain in your house. Um return to that, and um uh and mourn for her mother and father a full month, and after that you may go into her uh and be your husband, and she shall be your wife. And it shall be that if you are not pleased with her, then you shall uh let her go wherever she wishes. You shall certainly not sell her for money, you shall not mistreat her uh because you have humbled her. Um interesting you know stuff here, and again, you know, it's it's stuff that uh doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense to us today.

SPEAKER_03 4:05

Yeah, I'm wondering this this probably wouldn't apply to women in the land necessarily, but these are enemies who who exist outside the land.

Dr. David Klingler 4:15

So it would have to be outside the land.

Firstborn Rights And Jacob’s Sons

SPEAKER_03 4:16

It's the same thing like with the cities, you know, there's certain certain uh rules for cities inside the land and outside the land, which they conquer. And so, yeah.

Dr. David Klingler 4:25

Yeah, and and of course, you know, again, it goes back to you're not to intermarry with the people in inside of the land because they will cause you to follow foreign gods and all that. For sure. Um if a man has two wives, uh this this one uh in 2115, um, you know, I was thinking in terms of of Jacob. Um if a man has two wives, one uh of them is loved and one is unloved, or actually in the Hebrew here is hated. It's the word for hated. Um, and um they both bear him sons. And if the firstborn belongs to the unloved or to the hated one, I mean that this sounds like the Rachel Leah story.

SPEAKER_03 5:07

For sure.

Dr. David Klingler 5:08

Uh it shall be in the days that he wills uh that he, you know, he has his sons, he shall not make the son of the loved, the firstborn, before the son of the unloved, who is the firstborn. So he's not allowed to switch the order, which again seems to be what Jacob did.

SPEAKER_03 5:26

So he's not allowed to elevate Joseph over Judah, for example.

The Rebellious Son And Purging Evil

Cursed On A Tree And Paul’s Lens

Dr. David Klingler 5:30

Well, or over Reuben. Reuben, you know, yeah, and so but then the question becomes well, why was Reuben removed? And and I think we're gonna get to that here in just a minute. Um, but he shall acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the unloved, by giving him a double portion of all that he has, for he is the beginning of his strength. Uh, to him belongs the right of the firstborn. This is the exact language of you know Genesis 49, right? When we go back to Genesis chapter 49, uh and we we pick it up here and uh and Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, preeminent in dignity and preeminent in power, uncontrolled as the water, you shall not have preeminence, because you went up to your father's bed and you defiled it, you went up to my uh to my couch. Um, you know, and this was a punishable offense that wasn't punished. See, that's the right, you know, that that seems to be the the issue and the problem here. Uh and so it walks right into the next uh you know to the next uh uh section uh which deals with the rebellious son. Oh if a man has a stubborn and rebellious son and will not obey his father and mother. Well, at this point in the story, Israel's disobedient, the sons are disobedient, none of them are doing right in the eyes of the Lord, uh, and it's all gone to a train uh gone and turned into a train wreck. But but after you know Israel, you remember back in the Genesis story, if the Lord be with me on this journey that I take, and if he give me food to eat and clothes to wear and all that, then the Lord will be my God. Uh and so you're going down this trail of the story as Israel and his sons, Jacob, whose name's going to be changed to Israel, and his sons are coming to faith in the promise. Uh none of them are walking faithfully. Um, but uh so as I understand this part of the uh of the law is that you are to act faithfully, not like the sons who didn't act faithfully, you know, not like Jacob, not like um you know, not like uh Reuben. And so if you have a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father and mother, then you will chastise him, and if he won't listen, then the father and mother shall seize him and bring him out to the elders of the city at the gateway of his hometown, and they shall say to the elders of the city, this son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, and he will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard. Um think of Eli. This is gonna be coming later in the story. Eli and his sons, the Eli the priest, and his sons, and of course his sons. Yeah, they were that's exactly right, and they were sons of Belial and disobedient, uh, and he doesn't judge them. No. Well, the Lord judges them uh in the story, but then all the men of the city shall stone him to death, and you shall remove the evil from your midst, and all Israel will hear it and fear. Um if a man has committed sin worthy of death, he is to be put to uh he is to be put to death, uh, and you hang him on a tree. You know, if you hang him on a tree, his corpse shall not be there all night. Uh you shall bury him the same day, for he is uh who hanged is accursed, cursed of God, so that uh you will not defile the land which the Lord your God has given you as an inheritance. Um so that there's a lot of significance there in verses 22 and 23. Let's go back just quickly. Yeah, that's Galatians, right? And that's Paul's explanation of what's going on with Christ crucified. But um uh, you know, one of the things that uh has been uh got my attention of late uh is and it's in this section of Deuteronomy, is that you know, and all Israel will hear it in fear. Yes. Um that the punishment for sin was not just to punish the offender, but it was so that all Israel would remain steadfast to the Lord, holy to the Lord. Uh otherwise, uh, you know, it just the the this rebellion sp spreads throughout the people. Yeah. Um and uh, you know, when I we think about church discipline, um you know, and I was making the point actually yesterday in Sunday school class that, you know, the there's so many parallels between the uh witness of one, uh then you know, on the witness of one, yeah, you know, a man shall not be condemned, but on two or three, uh and then when the two or three witnesses, um, they are to bring it to the elders, and the elders are to hear the evidence, and you know, and then the man is to be put to death. And yeah, and we think, well, that that's the judgment on the man. But then the the old testament continues, uh, and the story says, then all Israel will hear it in fear. Well, when you come to the New Testament, if your brother sins, go approach him if he uh, you know, if you want him back, that's wonderful. If not, then you take two or three.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

Yeah.

Discipline That Guards The Community

Dr. David Klingler 10:25

If he still won't listen, then you go to the elders, and if they won't listen to the elders, well, you know, you in the um, you know, when you're in Rome, you you know, and you you couldn't put him to death. Um, but you could put him out of the congregation. Right. Um and it was, and we when we say, and this is right, this was you know, for his judgment, but also for his restoration, right? And we get that you know from what Paul's doing, I think, over there in Corinthians first and second Corinthians. I've delivered him over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh so that his soul might be saved. Uh, but then this man repents, and the and Paul's response is well then get him back in there, right?

SPEAKER_03 11:03

Right.

Dr. David Klingler 11:03

Uh, and and so that's wonderful. But uh you remove the evil from your midst so that it doesn't infect the rest of the people. Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_03 11:13

Yeah. I I've noticed that a lot in in the gospels too, with this sort of setting different sides and the purging of evil from from the midst. You have like in Matthew, you have the leaven of the kingdom versus the leaven of the Pharisees. And when that leaven gets in here, you're to clean out the bad leaven. You're to it'll to separate, because exactly right, it'll spread. And that's and that's exactly the context of which Matthew talks about that discipline process, you know, it's it's getting this out of the midst of those who are walking according to the word of the apostles, so the church, right? And so, yeah.

Dr. David Klingler 11:48

Yeah, so now we come to the New Testament church and to our present situation. You look at the church and you think has evil and uh injustice and unholiness infiltrated the church and infected it and spread throughout it. Absolutely. Yeah, and so how do you address it? Well, you you know, but you there's so many verses that anybody, but that that kind of caught my uh attention there. And uh and then uh this verse uh twenty twenty-two, chapter twenty-one, verse twenty-two. If a man is considered us uh committed a sin worthy of death, and he's put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his corpse shall not hang there over all over the night, but you shall surely bury him the same day. For he who is hanged is accursed of God, uh, so that you uh do not defile your land, which the Lord your God has given you as an inheritance. This is exactly uh what's going on with uh Christ. And Paul makes this the point that uh you know he's talking about these Jews who are appealing to the law, and he says, Well, if you're you know, he who relies on the law has to keep all of it, and the one who doesn't keep all of it uh is uh under a curse. Uh but Christ became a curse by being hung on a tree. Uh and he's referring back to this uh this verse here.

SPEAKER_03 13:01

Interestingly enough, they they also shed innocent blood in the process of doing this. Yeah, and and bring defilement to the land by you know um you know and but they are very concerned about getting him off that cross. Yeah, give him off the cross.

Loving Your Neighbor In Practice

Dr. David Klingler 13:16

Yeah, that that that's exactly right. So uh and so um so then we come down to chapter 22. And the boy, this, you know, again, we were talking about the relevance of of you know these last verses in chapter 21 to uh the to the gospels to the crucifixion of Christ. We come into chapter 22, it's the same thing. Uh uh and this goes to you shall love the Lord your God, but you shall love your brother as yourself. And what does that look like to love your brother or to love your neighbor? Uh you shall not see your countryman's ox or his sheep straying away and pay no attention to them. In other words, you're not allowed to ignore it. Right? You know, it's not my issue, it doesn't concern me. Yeah, you know, mind my own business. That that's your that wasn't an option, right? You shall certainly bring them back to your countrymen. This was part of caring for your brother. If your countryman is not near you, um, if you don't know him, you shall bring it to your uh home, into your house, and it shall remain with you until your countrymen looks for it. Then you shall restore it to him. So there's no you know, finders, keepers, losers, weepers.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

Yeah, yeah.

Dr. David Klingler 14:24

And uh thus you will do with the donkey, uh, and uh you shall do the same with his garment. You shall do likewise with anything lost by your countrymen, which he has lost and you have found. You're not allowed to neglect, you're not allowed to you know keep it for yourself, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:41

Yeah, you know, but you're to you know, you're to restore it to your brother. Yeah. As we read this, I'm reminded, I think last time or maybe the episode before, you took us to uh Luke, the Gospel of Luke, chapters 14 and 15, and where we see this situation being played out between Jesus and the Pharisees. Exactly. Right. And it's it always hits me when whenever I'm reading this in Deuteronomy, um, it just always hits me how accurate Jesus is being with this law and how how much they are annulling the the commands. You know, they're all concerned about him not keeping the Sabbath, they're worried about him not keeping the law, and Jesus outlawyers them consistently. Yeah, yeah. That's actually these next verses here.

Jesus, Sabbath, And Lost Things

Dr. David Klingler 15:26

It says, You shall not see your countryman's donkey or his ox fallen on the way and pay no attention to them. You shall certainly help him raise them up. Um now in chapter 14, and that's the passage you're referring to. Yeah, uh, the situation there was, you know, there was a man suffering from dropsy there. The uh Jesus is there with the Pharisees and uh at their house to eat bread, and there was a man suffering from dropsy and right there in the midst of them, and he he asked the question, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not? And they remained silent. And then he said, Which one of you, if you had, you know, if you had an ox or a donkey fall in a hole on the Sabbath day, or ox or a son fall in the hole on the Sabbath day, wouldn't immediately rescue it. Well, the law doesn't say if your ox or your donkey falls, it says if your neighbors does.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

Yeah.

Dr. David Klingler 16:21

Right? Uh you you're not allowed to ignore it. Right. Well, what if that's on the Sabbath? Yeah. Okay, so so the dilemma here is you know, they're so concerned about breaking the law, you're not allowed to work on the Sabbath. Well, what if circumcision falls on the Sabbath? Is that work? What if your ox, uh your neighbor's ox or donkey falls in a hole on the Sabbath? Um, are you know, are are you allowed to rescue it?

SPEAKER_03 16:52

Are you required to rescue it? They're happy to rescue their own. Yeah, and that was the point. You'll rescue your response. You care about returning your own stuff. But that's what hits me in this passage is it's not just about the ox or donkey, it's about returning to your neighbor what they lost, which is going to be the next few parables, as you pointed out, that Jesus is returning to the father what is lost, and they're only concerned about returning their own possessions.

Clothing, Nests, And Roof Rails

Dr. David Klingler 17:20

Yeah, and and the you know, what if the you know, you kind of play out this logic here of this passage. What if the man suffering from drops dropsy's ox or donkey fell in a hole in the set? Could you help him then? Yeah. Okay, we could help his ox or donkey, but we couldn't help him. That's right. Wait, what? You know, and so it's really interesting. Yeah, that's you know, kind of where they have taken the law and turned it into the tradition of men. Uh, and really the the point of the law was to love the Lord God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. And so these are perfect examples of what does loving your neighbor look like. It's really practical, just really practical application stuff. Uh, and so you shall not see your countryman's ox or or donkey or ox falling on the way and pay no attention to them. You shall surely help him raise them up. And I I think that you know, this is here if he falls under load, you know, so yeah, he shouldn't be doing it on the Sabbath, but but if he falls in a hole or something like that. And the point is, if you well, you know, back to verse one, if you see him straying on the Sabbath, do you have to go help him? Or do you wait until you know you know, some other day? Yeah, I'll do I'll help him on a Thursday. That's that's not you know, that's not how it's uh how it's to go. Uh a man shall not wear uh a woman shall not wear a man's clothing, nor shall a man put on women's clothing. Uh for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God. This abomination word is all the way through uh this section. Um and it's you know, the these are things that are detestable, an abomination to the Lord. Um and there's going to be all kinds of uh these things uh continuing in this section. If you happen to come upon a bird's nest along the way and uh in any tree or on the ground with young ones or eggs, and the mother sitting on the young one of the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young. It's uh you shall certainly let the mother go, uh, and the young you may take for yourself, uh, in order that it may go tove with you, that uh you may prolong your days. In other words, you know, that you don't cut off the source, I guess is the point. When you build a house, uh you shall build a a parapet, uh um uh like a railing type uh on the roof, uh so that uh you will not bring blood guilt on your house if anyone falls from it. In other words, you know, this kind of goes back to the innocent, you know. Well, I I wasn't my intention for someone to fall off the roof.

Do Not Mix: Visual Holiness

SPEAKER_03 20:01

People were hanging out on the roofs for once. You see that you see this in modern Judaism too, they'll put these things around the roofs, I think today. Yeah, yeah, to to as a protection.

Dr. David Klingler 20:12

Um uh and then you get to these uh verse nine, you shall not sow uh your vineyard with two kinds of seed. Uh you shall uh you know all and and the produce of your field. You're not allowed to sow um, you know, two kinds of things. You're not allowed to plow with an ox or a donkey together. You shall not wear mixed materials, wool and linen. You shall not make uh, you know, what's going on with those verses before we get to the tassel thing? Uh well, you're not to intermix. What's the problem with intermixing? You know, I kind of like a you know, cotton weave or whatever. No, it was a reminder. Everything they did did was a reminder that they were not to intermix with the nations that they were going in to dispossess.

SPEAKER_03 20:58

They uh lest they be defiled. These are they're like small visual representations of a much bigger spiritual reality that they're to remember. That's absolutely right.

Sexual Ethics And True Justice

Dr. David Klingler 21:08

Uh you shall make uh uh your tassel on the four corners of your garments uh with which to cover yourself. If any man uh takes a uh that that four corners of the tassel is a garment, it was again it was the it was a reminder. If a man takes a wife and goes into her and then he turns against her and charges her with some shameful deed and publicly defames her, you know, you're not allowed to do that, right? You know, then you go to the father and he proves her virginity and and you know, if he can say, look, then you know the man has to pay you you're not allowed to publicly defame um you know your your wife. Uh if it's true, you know, that she's uh not a virgin, then you know, then uh you know then then um you know then that the the penalty is is death. If a man is found lying with a married woman, verse 22, then both of them shall die. The man who lies with the woman and the w uh and the woman. They you shall purge the evil from your land. There's a girl who's a virgin and uh engaged to a man and uh another finds her in the city and lies with her. You shall bring both of them out to the gate of the city and shall stone them to death. The girl because she didn't cry out in the city, and the man because he has violated his neighbor's wife. Again, this goes back to looking after your neighbor's wife, your neighbor's daughter, your neighbor's possessions, your neighbor's ox or donkey, all of this is to be put on display in Israel. Thus you shall purge the evil from among you. But if in the field a man finds a girl who is engaged and the man forces her and lies down with her, then only the man who lies with her shall be put to death. Uh you see so many of there are law code, and this is you know throughout all of uh um the world, you see you'll see similar laws, but uh but you know, really justice here. You shall do nothing to the girl, there is no sin in the girl worthy of death. For just as the man rises against his neighbor and murders him, so is this case, right? So he wasn't looking out for her. Uh when he found her in the field, uh the engaged girl cried out, and there was no one to save her. If a man finds a girl who is a virgin who is not engaging, he sees her and lies with her, uh, and they are discovered, then the man who lies with a girl will give the girl, a girl's father, fifty shekels of silver and become his wife because he has violated her. He cannot divorce her all of his. In other words, he's got to take her as a wife and care for her the rest of his days. Um a man shall not take his father's wife uh so as to uncover his father's skirt. Uh this uh, you know, and again, I think this goes back to the uh certainly the Reuben story uh as well. And so you have to. That sort of shows up in 1 Corinthians too. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And so you're gonna see these uh these laws all the way throughout the story. Uh, and if you don't know the the the laws, you won't correctly interpret the story. And again, this is the means by which the narrator, the storytellers, are going to show you if Israel's doing what's right in the eyes of the Lord, or if they're doing what's right in their own eyes, and uh, and we'll see this all the way through the story, and so yeah, so just a bunch of uh case laws here in this uh in this section and uh and important ones to know.

Law, Story, And Reading Scripture Well

SPEAKER_03 24:30

For sure. Yeah, I I just think about each time how often people tend to gloss over these chapters um in details. Um, and yet you hear a lot of people talking about wanting to know Jesus more in the New Testament. Uh, here we go. I mean, this is what Jesus is is looking at, this is what he's quoting, he knows these things. Um, and and these are absolutely important to understanding who Jesus is, what he's doing, how he's approaching his ministry. Um, and so uh all that to say, um, as we've said episode after episode, these details are significant, they're very important, and they're very helpful for us in understanding uh this story as we go through.

Dr. David Klingler 25:12

One additional note here you know, people will read these laws, and uh and some have tried to say, well, look, when you read these laws in light of other ancient Near Eastern laws, these laws are more just than those, right? Um, these are better than those. You know, they plead the case for women better or for whatever it is. Sure. Um, unless you're a cross-dresser, then that's not so, you know, not such a you know, um as if our moral code today is the standard by which all the moral codes ought to be judged, or our you know, moral compass today is the best moral compass and and better than you know, you know, maybe we should instruct the Lord on what justice truly is, or something like that. Uh, this was the the the Lord's command to Israel, uh, and this is how they were to walk. Uh and so you know, we can like it, not like it, you know, whatever. Um when you're the creator of the universe and you want to make the rules, then you can make your rules.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

Yeah, until then, yeah, you don't get to make the rules.

SPEAKER_03 26:19

And yeah, the Lord wasn't really concerned about Israel liking it, he was concerned about them doing it.

God’s Standards Over Ours

Dr. David Klingler 26:24

Yeah, yeah, and and uh and establishing justice uh in the land. And and you know what what's interesting to to me was that the you know the the you know the father was to be the protector of his daughter, uh, and the the husband was to be the protector of the wife, and then this was to go all the way, all the way through. That's good. And uh, you know, and and and the the the neighbor was to be the protector of his neighbors, yeah. Wife, donkey, possessions, yeah, all of it, daughter's possessions, all of it. He was to actually seek the good of be looking out for, right? And so he was to be his brother's wife's protector because he was looking out not only for his brother's wife, but for his brother. So he was to be his brother's keeper, yeah. You might say, yeah, he was not to lust after his brother's donkey or a rock. And this goes back to the law, yeah. So this goes back to you know to uh to um you know the Ten Commandments.

SPEAKER_03 27:22

Yes, right.

Dr. David Klingler 27:23

Uh and uh and so just really important uh very good uh stuff here and revelation of the character of God found in Deuteronomy.

SPEAKER_03 27:31

Very good. Well, hopefully these uh these episodes are helping you find a newfound passion for these chapters of Deuteronomy. They're so uh I I get so much from them as we just trek through these details, and so hopefully y'all uh are with me on that. And and we're gonna continue to walk through them. We're gonna pick up in chapter 23 next time. So we will see you then.

Protectors, Keepers, And Closing

SPEAKER_00 27:52

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