Laws, love and lost & found
Deuteronomy Chapters 21 and 22 Read it here
Today’s reading is a miscellaneous collection of laws ranging from the mundane building code requiring a low wall around a roof to keep people from falling off, to various laws concerning sexual purity and even a section on how to handle lost and found property.
One verse of particular interest to Christians is 21:23, which includes the statement that a person hung on a pole is under God’s curse…a verse that added to the insult and humiliation of the way Jesus was crucified.
If you are a language nerd like me you might question the use of “hung” instead of “hanged,” which is the past tense of an execution by hanging. Notice, though, that death in this case is by stoning. The body is a lifeless object when it is placed on the pole, making “hung” correct. That also highlights a difference between the case presented here and the later crucifixion of Jesus, who was alive when nailed to the cross.
It’s unclear what practices raised the issue of wearing clothing of the opposite sex. While some branches of Christianity still use the verse to question women wearing pants, it is worth consideration that what clothing is appropriate for each sex varies over time. Men’s clothing of the day would have been more similar to modern dresses than to modern blue jeans.
The law requiring a rapist to marry his victim with no possibility of divorce sounds barbaric to modern sensibilities, but would at least have guaranteed that the woman received financial support and protection for her lifetime rather than simply being discarded.
Most of the laws in the reading, though, are simply common-sense applications of care and respect for one’s neighbors.