How did they handle unsolved murders, prisoners of war becoming wives, firstborn rights, juvenile delinquency, and hanging as a death penalty? Is human understanding of love of neighbor very different to God’s? Let’s begin in Deuteronomy 21.
Was Israel to deal with an unsolved murder with dignity?
When you are in the land the Lord your God is giving you, someone may be found murdered in a field, and you don’t know who committed the murder. In such a case, your elders and judges must measure the distance from the site of the crime to the nearby towns. When the nearest town has been determined, that town’s elders must select from the herd a heifer that has never been trained or yoked to a plow. They must lead it down to a valley that has not been plowed or planted and that has a stream running through it. There in the valley they must break the heifer’s neck. Then the Levitical priests must step forward, for the Lord your God has chosen them to minister before him and to pronounce blessings in the Lord’s name. They are to decide all legal and criminal cases. (Deuteronomy 21:1-5 NLT)
How could the nearest city to the unsolved murder clear its name?
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. They shall answer and say, “Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it. Forgive, Yahweh, your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, and don’t allow innocent blood among your people Israel.” The blood shall be forgiven them. So you shall put away the innocent blood from among you, when you shall do that which is right in Yahweh’s eyes. (Deuteronomy 21:6-9 WEB)
Were they to treat any female prisoners of war with dignity in marriage?
When you wage war against your enemies and the Lord hands them over to you and you take prisoners, if you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you fall in love with her and take her as your wife, bringing her into your home, she must shave her head, cut her nails, remove her prisoner’s clothing, and live in your house, mourning her father and her mother for one month. After that, you may consummate the marriage. You will be her husband, and she will be your wife. But if you aren’t pleased with her, you must send her away as she wishes. You are not allowed to sell her for money or treat her as a slave because you have humiliated her. (Deuteronomy 21:10-14 CEB)
Were they to treat the inheritance rights of a firstborn son with dignity?
Suppose a man has two wives and loves one more than the other. The first son of either wife is the man's first-born son, even if the boy's mother is the wife the man doesn't love. Later, when the man is near death and is dividing up his property, he must give a double share to his first-born son, simply because he was the first to be born. (Deuteronomy 21:15-17 CEV)
How were they to solve the problem of juvenile delinquency?
If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they discipline him, will not listen to them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, and they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear, and fear. (Deuteronomy 21:18-21 ESV)
Was hanging for the death penalty to be handled with dignity?
If anyone is found guilty of an offense deserving the death penalty and is executed, and you hang his body on a tree, you are not to leave his corpse on the tree overnight but are to bury him that day, for anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not defile the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance. (Deuteronomy 21:22-23 HCSB)
Though it may not always seem so to our weak modern values, how did Paul summarize these and other laws?
For the whole Law is summarized in a single statement: “You must love your neighbor as yourself.” (Galatians 5:14 ISV)
How did they handle unsolved murders, prisoners of war becoming wives, firstborn rights, juvenile delinquency, and hanging as a death penalty? Is human understanding of love of neighbor very different to God’s?
