Scripture: Deuteronomy 21:1-23 (NKJV)
1 “If anyone is found slain, lying in the field in the land which the LORD your
God is giving you to possess, and it is not known who killed him, 2 then your
elders and your judges shall go out and measure the distance from the slain man
to the surrounding cities. 3 And it shall be that the elders of the city
nearest to the slain man will take a heifer which has not been worked and which
has not pulled with a yoke. 4 The elders of that city shall bring the heifer
down to a valley with flowing water, which is neither plowed nor sown, and they
shall break the heifer’s neck there in the valley. 5 Then the priests, the sons
of Levi, shall come near, for the LORD your God has chosen them to minister to
Him and to bless in the name of the LORD; by their word every controversy and
every assault shall be settled. 6 And all the elders of that city nearest to
the slain man shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in
the valley. 7 Then they shall answer and say, ‘Our hands have not shed this
blood, nor have our eyes seen it. 8 Provide atonement, O LORD, for Your people
Israel, whom You have redeemed, and do not lay innocent blood to the charge of
Your people Israel.’ And atonement shall be provided on their behalf for the
blood. 9 So you shall put away the guilt of innocent blood from among you when
you do what is right in the sight of the LORD.
10 “When you go out to war against your enemies, and the LORD your God delivers
them into your hand, and you take them captive, 11 and you see among the
captives a beautiful woman, and desire her and would take her for your wife, 12
then you shall bring her home to your house, and she shall shave her head and
trim her nails. 13 She shall put off the clothes of her captivity, remain in
your house, and mourn her father and her mother a full month; after that you
may go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife. 14 And it
shall be, if you have no delight in her, then you shall set her free, but you
certainly shall not sell her for money; you shall not treat her brutally,
because you have humbled her.
15 “If a man has two wives, one loved and the other unloved, and they have
borne him children, both the loved and the unloved, and if the firstborn son is
of her who is unloved, 16 then it shall be, on the day he bequeaths his
possessions to his sons, that he must not bestow firstborn status on the son of
the loved wife in preference to the son of the unloved, the true firstborn. 17
But he shall acknowledge the son of the unloved wife as the firstborn by giving
him a double portion of all that he has, for he is the beginning of his
strength; the right of the firstborn is his.
18 “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 who, when they have chastened him,
will not heed them, 19 then his father and his mother shall take hold of him
and bring him out to the elders of his city, to the gate of his city. 20 And
they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and
rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ 21
Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones; so you shall
put away the evil from among you, and all Israel shall hear and fear.
22 “If a man has committed a sin deserving of death, and he is put to death,
and you hang him on a tree, 23 his body shall not remain overnight on the tree,
but you shall surely bury him that day, so that you do not defile the land
which the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance; for he who is hanged
is accursed of God.”
Devotion
The law of Moses is very concerned with death, that is, unlawful death as well
as all unlawful activities. Unlawfulness is sin. It is rebellion against God’s
way of life. It is rebellion against God Himself. God takes rebellion very
seriously. “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat
of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as
iniquity and idolatry.” (1 Sam. 15:22-23).
All murder must be atoned for in God’s eyes. But for man to carry out the right
punishment for murder, he must know who is guilty. Sometimes this is not
possible, but atonement must still be made for this sin, so that it does not
rest upon the whole people. The slaying of the heifer wasn’t exactly like an
expiatory sacrifice, “but, as the mode of death, viz. breaking the neck…clearly
shows, it was a symbolical infliction of the punishment that should have been
borne by the murderer, upon the animal which was substituted for him. To be
able to take the guilt upon itself and bear it, the animal was to be in the
full and undiminished possession of its vital powers.” (Carl Friedrich Keil).
If we extend this fact infinitely we see that our Jesus not only had to be in
the full and undiminished possession of His vital powers, He had to be perfect
in order to bear the weight of the entire world’s sins. One would not think of
a Lamb as a powerful animal, but our Lamb has all the strength necessary to
bear your sins, and all the world’s sins.
The Lutheran Herald is a publication of the Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of
North America. These daily devotions are authored by the bishop, pastors, and
deacons of the diocese. Daily posts are provided by The Reverend Jeffrey A.
Ahonen.
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