Deuteronomy 21

Deuteronomy 21 and the Problem of Bloodguiltiness

If you'll turn with me, please, in your Bibles to the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 21. Deuteronomy, chapter 21. We return to our study of the... Well, it's not technically the Holiness Code, though that is the title that we are using, but we are entering into some of the most difficult texts that we have yet to tackle in looking at those texts in the Mosaic Code that are most often presented to us as objectionable, as no longer viable, as objections to the Christian faith in essence.

And so we wish to handle them aright so that should you find yourself in a situation where you are being asked individually to demonstrate a knowledge of the Word of God, a consistency in your study of the Scriptures that you will feel that you have a foundation upon which to speak.

And so we look this evening at the first two sections of Deuteronomy, chapter 21. The first section, if a slain person is found lying in the open country, in the land which Yahweh your God gives you to possess, and it is not known who has struck him.

Then your elders and your judges shall go out and measure the distance to the cities which are around the slain one. 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 and which has not pulled in a yoke.

And the elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a valley with running water, which has not been plowed or sown, and shall break the heifer's neck there in the valley. Then the priests, the sons of Levi, shall come near.

For the Lord your God has chosen them to serve him and to bless in the name of Yahweh. And every dispute and every assault shall be settled by them. All the elders of that city, which is nearest to the slain man, shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was 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 Yahweh, and do not place the guilt of innocent blood in the midst of your people Israel.

And the bloodguiltiness shall be forgiven them. So you shall remove the guilt of innocent blood from your midst when you do what is right in the eyes of Yahweh.". And so here we have, again, what strikes us as simply an ancient practice in regards to bloodguiltiness and animal sacrifice and things like that.

And most people would just simply pass over a section like this and not give it a second thought. But I think there is, again, a principle that needs to be understood and there is a propriety in our understanding.

The fact that there is something called bloodguiltiness. We have seen it before. And it is a concept that probably is far from our thinking, but shouldn't be. It is very central to the understanding of the concept of sin and guilt and the need for expiation.

And so for a Christian, there should be an understanding of the concept of bloodguiltiness because it is directly related to the idea that lies behind the very concept of the need for propitiation for sin and hence the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

It doesn't make any sense to a person who believes that we are merely an accident. That blood, for example, there is no life in the blood. There is just simply certain chemical reactions that take place and that just simply developed by chance.

It might have happened here. It might not have happened here. It may be happening someplace else. We just don't know. It is just all random chance anyways. It is rather obvious that if we think that way, this idea of bloodguiltiness would not make any sense.

But if we understand that human life is created in God's image and that the life is in the blood and that even all the way back to the beginning we have the idea of the blood crying out from the ground in the situation of Cain and Abel, for example.

What does that mean? Well, that there was from the beginning a need for justice to be done. And it is interesting. As much as we may try to think in a secular fashion in our land today, there is an undeniable aspect of us that longs for justice to be done.

I cannot help but think of the repeated stories over the past couple of decades and they are starting to pass away now because almost everybody that was alive during World War II, at least was an adult during World War II, is getting that age where they are passing away.

But have you noted the deep desire to see justice done in regards to making sure that all of those men that were involved in the Holocaust, all those men involved in the Final Solution, that if any of them escaped, if there is even a guard in a prison camp, there have been 95-year-old men arrested not all that long ago in various lands when it was proven or when enough documentation was presented that this individual was involved and that he was arrested and imprisoned and even brought up on charges that could lead to his execution.

Well, that was a long time ago. Why would there be this continued desire on the part of anyone today, even on the part of children and grandchildren, even great-grandchildren of those who suffered these things, why would there be such a desire to see justice done?

Well, it's just vengeance. It's just vengeance. Well, why not go after just all the soldiers? Well, no, it was specific individuals who were engaged in specific things. There is a desire in our heart to see justice done.

And so, in this situation, when a person is found, a body is found, and no one knows who struck this individual, there are no witnesses, and of course, that happens a lot. You have this mechanism provided where individuals who are the elders of those cities are to engage in an action whereby they are saying, we have no knowledge, there is no means by which we can make justice come from this because we do not know who did this, and yet there is blood guiltiness upon the land.

And so, in the giving of this heifer, and this would have been a valuable animal. It had future value. There would have been a cost to the people in doing this, but there is this ritual that has gone through where the people are acknowledging we cannot have blood guiltiness in the land.

This is not a proper thing. A human life has been taken in our midst. We do not have the mechanism to know who did it. Now, you might say today, well, we don't have to worry about that. Now we have CSI, right?

You know, and they can figure out anything. Well, I wish they could. But the fact of the matter is, we have instances where murders take place, and they're never solved, and no one's ever brought to justice.

And the very idea of cold cases, the very idea of looking back, why bother? Why look at these things? Because we know that human life is precious. Now, of course, we live in a day of great contrasts in this matter.

And we live in a day where we know more about human life. We know more about when it begins, its beauty. We know more about the unique genetic makeup of each child in the womb. And yet, January 22nd just came and went, and what was the number?

58 million who have died in the womb since that atrocity called Roe v. Wade. 58 million. Blood guiltiness is all over our people. Blood guiltiness is all over the land. And so we look at this, and we...

It's so easy for us, and this is normally the attitude of most people who want to seem to attack God's law and the scriptures. It's so easy for us to look down on these... They break the neck of a heifer.

We should call PETA about that. I mean, this is just terrible. I mean, this is just Stone Age justice. It's all just looking down, looking down, looking down. And yet, these people long ago recognized the value of life and the necessity of removing blood guiltiness, and we don't.

In fact, just this week, just this week, a grand jury refused to do anything about Planned Parenthood selling baby parts, but they indicted the people in the sting operation for buying baby parts. Really?

Oh, my. The perversion of justice, the perversion of worldview. God will not be mocked, my friends. God will not be mocked. These people knew the importance of taking their time and taking of their treasure to make a statement about the value of human life.

Who is the more advanced moral people? I really have to wonder. And so here you have the idea of the blood guiltiness. But then we start moving into some of the difficult material, really difficult material.

War, Marriage, and the Protection of a Captive Woman

Beginning in verse 10. When you go out to battle against your enemies and Yahweh, your God, delivers them into your hands and you take them away captive and see among the captives a beautiful woman and have a desire for her and would take her as a wife for yourself, then you shall bring her home to your house and she shall shave her head and trim her nails.

She shall also remove the clothes of her captivity and shall remain in your house and mourn her father and mother a full month. And after that you may go into her and be her husband and she shall be your wife.

It shall be if you are not pleased with her, then you shall let her go wherever she wishes, but you shall certainly not sell her for money, nor you shall not mistreat her because you have humbled her.

Well, here we go into the dealing with issues in relationship to situations that come out of warfare. We had already seen one. Well, we've seen a couple in the past already. We saw a little something about the destruction of the Amorites, the destruction of the people in that area.

They would not teach you to go after false gods, so on and so forth. But this is a different situation. There is nothing mentioned about where this battle takes place. And what is seen is a beautiful woman, and you'll notice there is nothing said here about mourning her husband.

So evidently this is a beautiful unmarried woman. And she has been taken captive and the Jewish man desires to take her as a wife for himself. Now, we're already dealing with, and we're going to see in the next section, notice verse 15, if a man has two wives, the one loved and the other unloved.

So we're already dealing with a situation here where the ideal is no longer being practiced. The ideal, Jesus himself says, from the beginning this was God's intention. And so we're already dealing with a situation possibly allowed because of the fact of warfare and the fact of driving people out and the fact that you had to have lots of children to be able to continue to keep your group going, shall we say.

But whatever the situation might be, it is not the best, and so there are laws given to circumscribe and to control this situation. And this one here is the taking of a wife and in reality the vast majority of the law is what?

It is a protection for the woman. It's a protection for the woman because if we look at the legal code that existed in that day that we can gather from other secular sources that really have only come to light over the past maybe 150 years, we know that in the vast majority of warfare situations there was really no protection whatsoever for someone who was taken captive for a beautiful woman.

There could simply be the rape of that woman and then just the passing of her around if she was just considered chattel property. But in this case, notice what it says, and have a desire for her and would take her as a wife.

Now there are certain requirements and certain necessities in regards to how a wife is to be treated under the Mosaic Law. And so there is going to be literally an elevation of this woman as far as her position in the society is concerned.

But certain things have to happen first. First of all, you shall bring her home to your house and she shall shave her head and trim her nails. She shall also remove the clothes of her captivity and shall remain in her house and mourn her father and mother a full month.

So there is to be a period of time. Again, in the law codes of the day, there was no protection whatsoever and so the idea was you could, well, I'll take her for a wife and have her for a day and then just discard her.

No, she is to be brought in. She is to be treated as a wife. She is to be given food. She is to be given clothing. She is to be allowed to mourn her father and mother because she is being removed from her people for a full month.

Now obviously if she is in your home, you are going to find out something about this woman during this period of time. And obviously there would be a lot of situations where that would be about all that was needed.

Where there would be no taking of her as wife at the end of this period of time in any way, shape or form. In other words, there is a limitation here upon that sudden desire, that sudden urge to act upon something.

Oh, look at that beautiful woman. I'm going to act upon that situation. No, there is going to be a care and concern for her. Obviously if she has been in the clothing of captivity, the shaving of the head, the trimming of the nails means just simply taking care of her.

Taking care of her in a sense of providing her the things that would be appropriate for a wife. The time to mourn. And after that you may go into her and be her husband and she shall be your wife. It shall be, if you are not pleased with her, then you shall let her go wherever she wishes.

Now, could this be a recognition that she simply may not ever want this situation to arise, to continue to be the wife, to continue to be in that society? That there is going to be such disharmony? That this is going to disrupt the rest of the family life and the life in the community?

Well, most definitely. But notice it says, let her go wherever she wishes. So, she has the control in the situation in the sense of she wants to go to that place, she wants to go to that place, she wants to return to her people.

It is up to her. You do not get to control her. You do not sell her for money. You shall not mistreat her because you have humbled her. And so there is a, in these rules, amazing advancements over what was seen in the day.

And there was a concern about the woman's status and a groundwork laid to find out whether during that month this was even going to be something that was going to work. And even if after that time period, she could not be turned into a slave, could not be sold for money, could not be mistreated in any way.

There was a limitation and a strict set of parameters placed upon what could take place in this particular situation. Now, obviously, it would seem to me that with this in place, that many a Jewish man would think twice and then maybe a third time and a fourth time and a fifth time before acting upon any sudden urges when seeing a captive woman and saying, that looks like the wife for me.

These rules would hopefully, over time, provide for some relief from what might happen as a result of that. Similarly, in the next section, we have something else that's related to trying to maintain harmony within the social structure.

The Rights of the Firstborn in a Polygamous Household

If a man has two wives, the one loved and the other unloved, and both the loved and the unloved have born him sons, if the firstborn son belongs to the unloved, then it shall be in the day he wills what he has to his sons.

He cannot make the son of the loved the firstborn before the son of the unloved, who is the firstborn. 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.

To him belongs the right of the firstborn. And so what you have here, again, is the recognition, and again, we're dealing with a suboptimal situation here, but it is one that we, of course, know from Genesis, this very type of situation did exist, that you would have favoritism in polygamous situations.

And so the temptation was that if you had favoritism between the wives, then you would have favoritism amongst the children as well. And so here is a strict rule that says, look, your firstborn is your firstborn.

And there is to be a double portion given to the firstborn. And so you do not allow your predilections and your imbalances to influence the treatment of your offspring. There is a rule as to who the firstborn is and what the firstborn is to receive.

He is given a double portion in the distribution of the father's wealth. And that is to be the case no matter who the mother is and no matter what the relationship with that mother is. To him belongs the right of the firstborn.

And so once again, there is a stricture, there is an expression of what the morality in that situation was to be. Which leads us to one that you probably have heard of before. And that is verses 18 through 21.

The Rebellious Son and the Removal of Evil

If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father or his mother, and when they chastise him, he will not listen to them, then his father and mother shall seize him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gateway of his hometown.

They shall say to the elders of the city, the son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey us, he is a glutton and a drunkard. Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death. So you shall remove the evil from your midst and all Israel will hear of it and fear.

Well, I've sort of lost track of how many times I've heard an atheist in a debate quote that one. So, you think that God of yours is a good God. Well, how many of you have stoned any of your kids recently?

Well, there it is. And, of course, a couple of things to note. We note at the end, all Israel will hear of it and fear. This is, I think, about the third time now we have encountered that phrase when dealing with extreme situations.

Remember the one where if even your best friend, if even your wife, if even the person to whom your heart is knit says to you, let's go worship other gods. Let's join the worship of Yahweh to other gods.

You are not to spare, you are not to pity, you are to bring this person and that person is to be executed. And what does it say? And all Israel will hear and fear. This is the idea that this is going to be a rarity, but it is going to be something that is going to cause the people to recognize the importance of holiness before God.

And, as far as I know, as far as I can hear, as far as I'm seeing from my studies, I don't know of any record of this ever happening. But that's not necessarily a good thing, given what we see later on in Israel, where you have all sorts of rebellious gluttons and drunkards who end up as kings of Israel.

And the result is the passing of children through the fire and the worship of Moloch and all the things that come with it. So, this is obviously not a situation where you have a young person, what we would call a young person, who is being brought to the elders of the city to be stoned.

I'm afraid there's only a couple of young people in the room right now. So, we've got Max down here. And I really don't think that the text has someone of Max's age in mind, because it refers to him as being rebellious, a glutton, and a drunkard.

Now, obviously, that would seem to indicate that we're talking about someone who has reached an age of what we would call maturity, who is in a situation where they are living a debauched life. They're bringing dishonor to the parents.

They are rebellious. They will not listen. This is a person who has rejected godly correction, rejected godly discipline. And who knows this best? Who knows this best? Yes, the parents may know it best.

But in my experience, the parents are also the primary ones who would overlook such behavior as well and excuse such behavior. Oh, he had a rough upbringing, we did our best, and so on and so forth. Maybe that's why, as far as we can tell, this never happened.

Because who are the only ones who can bring this person before the elders of the city? Before this person, once you're a rebellious glutton and a drunkard, how far away is fornication, adultery, idolatry, maybe murder, theft, how far away is that?

Sadly, in our day, we know people who engage in those activities at incredibly young ages. It's shocking. Isn't it shocking to you? Just last year, how old was the young boy that was brought up on murder chart?

14, I think? Maybe even 13? It was amazing to think that someone of that youth could engage in such behaviors. But here was a law that to the covenanted people of God, to have such an individual who knows what God's law is, has heard, rebels, is a glutton and a drunkard, and notice it's not the parents who are to undertake this activity on their own.

Instead, again, than all the men of his city. And so, to bring him out to the elders of his city at the gateway of his hometown. Now, they're going to look into this situation. They are charged with doing this.

They're the same ones we saw earlier who have to engage in the activity of cleansing the bloodguiltiness and so on and so forth. So, they don't want to bring bloodguiltiness upon their people. So, there's two restraining actions here.

They don't want to improperly bring the death penalty against someone which would bring bloodguiltiness upon them. But at the same time, they recognize that someone like this engaging in these behaviors is the prime candidate for being the one who will bring bloodguiltiness upon their city.

And hence, the language, so you shall remove the evil from your midst. These are difficult texts. They're hard texts. But they're important texts. Because you'll notice something. What's the last section in Deuteronomy 21?

The Hanged One and the Curse of God

So that you do not defy your land which Yahweh your God gives you as an inheritance. Sound familiar? Oh, just a passing law. Simple passing law that if someone is executed and then hung upon a tree. Now, this wouldn't have been specifically in crucifixion because that was not a mechanism of execution amongst the Israelites.

Especially at this time. But there could have been a and it doesn't look like that the person was executed by hanging from the neck either. So there is an execution possibly by stoning and then the display of the body and if that was what was chosen to do his corpse shall not hang all night on the tree but you shall bury him on the same day.

So the whole idea is the land is not to be defiled by this corpse being left upon the tree and then you have just that little phrase for he who is hanged is accursed of God. Hanged specifically in this context upon a tree.

Well, we know that the Apostle Paul picks up on this very phraseology in Galatians chapter 3 verse 13 and in that text he says Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law having become a curse for us for it is written cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.

Now, it wasn't the mechanism of the death that was in view. It was the voluntary acceptance of being accursed that is in view in Paul's citation in Galatians chapter 3 and it comes right here from Deuteronomy chapter 21 verse 23.

And so in the midst of this sundry set of laws that are concerned primarily with the removal of blood guiltiness the keeping of blood guiltiness from happening the protection of the family units and the relationships within the family here at the end do not defile your land which Yahweh your God gives you as an inheritance by leaving someone hung upon the tree overnight.

This would defile the land and so in each one of these we look back at these laws and we try to understand what was the purpose of these laws amongst the covenanted people of God. How did these laws function not only to point toward God's holiness but also as a curb to evil as a guide as a means of maintaining well I hate to steal the term but it's a good term it's a term that I'm not sure where brother Albert Moeller got it from but he likes to use the phrase human flourishing.

I guess you could talk about human happiness but I don't know about you happiness seems like happy happy happy you know flourishing sounds like a more serious term. These are things that are to protect human flourishing within the people of Israel and before we look down upon the ancients from our high lofty spot as as moderns with all of our technology and everything else.

I think we need to look at what the foundations of these laws are and recognize that the huge difference between then and now is that God is speaking to a people who are to live as his representatives.

They are in covenant with him. They are to be holy and there is next to no understanding on the part of the vast majority of people approaching this text today as to what holiness is or why anyone should care why anyone should care and indeed until as we saw this morning from Luke 7 there is that work of the spirit of God in the heart that causes us to see our own sins, to see the holiness of God, to see our own unholiness.

We like Simon the Pharisee will join with many in the world in looking down upon the holiness laws because we do not see that it was so vitally important that God create this people that they become such a illustration for us of what it means to have a heart of stone and the difference between having a heart of stone and a heart of flesh and yet through this people and through God's tremendous patience with them we have the Messiah who comes and gives himself so we might have peace with God.

All of this is the great theme of the scriptures and when people come to these texts they are not taking them in the sense of the great theme that they present. They take them as just individual texts, pull them out and try to examine them outside of the context they possess in the original scriptures themselves.

So once again I find that just simply being exposed to these having heard even the briefest discussion of maybe some of the background, some of the relationship between these laws is extremely helpful to us as believers in being able to give an answer of the hopes within us and be able to respond to those who raise objections.

Now these same laws you may notice I'm not sure if in your Bible if you have a subtitle to the next section but I know that I have been dreading honestly looking forward to doing sections called sundry laws.

Sundry laws. Nothing like finding a theme to tie it all together. But we have some sections coming up that are very, very challenging and I know that these are not easy to work through. But let me just remind everybody just once again then why force you to do this?

Why? Well I hope that each and every day as you watch the news, as you listen to what's going on in our land, that you are given example after example after example where our society has completely lost all grounding in a Christian worldview, in a Judeo-Christian worldview, whatever you want to call it that would see worth in human life and see us as the creations of God.

We see it every single day. Some of you work in companies where you already have had to be sensitized. Which means to be desensitized to Christian truth in essence. And so it is vitally important that we consider that we be exposed to these things that we can honestly look someone in the eye and say yes I have read that before.

Not only have I read that before but I have heard discussions of it and sermons on it. We've discussed it openly within our congregation. We don't have anything to hide and let's talk about what it really means.

If you can have that kind of foundation, that kind of confidence, I think that is well worth the literally few more weeks of working through these texts to be able to say yep, heard that one before, yep and did you notice what else it says in that chapter?

And have much more confidence. We want to be Christians who can speak up in our land because it is a dark land. As I look to the future, as I look to those who may be our leaders in the future, well we definitely need to be looking at these things.

No question about it. So let's thank the Lord for His word and be dismissed. Our Heavenly Father once again we consider these words which were recorded for us literally thousands of years ago and we know that there are many who simply read them with historical interest and move on but as we saw at the end of this chapter there are vitally important truths that we can derive.

There are things that we must understand if we are to be able to give an answer for the hope that's within us. So we ask that you would help us to remember that even if it is months or years from now that we would as we encounter these texts again remember the things that were said and have a familiarity with your text that we might be able to speak to those around us that we might be able to confidently witness for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

You have called us to be witnesses in this day. May we be prepared to do so to your honor and glory. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.