deuteronomy 23-24

Read Deuteronomy 23-24 at Bible Gateway.

Here is my outline of these chapters according to God’s paragraph divisions:

Continuation of the 7th Commandment: Do not commit adultery
Deu 23:1 {s} Assembly membership prohibited (inability to produce seed)
Deu 23:2 {s} Assembly membership prohibited to 10th generation (seed of unlawful unions)
Deu 23:3-6 {s} Assembly membership prohibited to 10th generation (Ammon + Moab)
Deu 23:7-8 {s} Assembly membership allowed in 3rd generation (Edom + Egypt)
Deu 23:9-14 {s} Holiness in the army camp

Explanation of the 8th Commandment: Do not steal
Deu 23:15-16 {s} An escaped slave shall not be returned to his master
Deu 23:17-18 {s} Wages of a harlot + price of a dog shall not be offered to YHVH (do not steal from YHVH)
Deu 23:19-20 {s} Do not steal by means of interest on loans
Deu 23:21-23 {s} Pay vows to YHVH (do not steal from YHVH)
Deu 23:24 {s} Do not harvest your neighbor’s vineyard
Deu 23:25 {s} Do not harvest your neighbor’s standing grain
Deu 24:1-4 {s} Divorce and remarriage
Deu 24:5-6 {s} Do not steal the happiness of your wife + the life of the family
Deu 24:7 {s} Theft of persons a capital offense punishable by death

Explanation of the 9th Commandment: Do not bear false witness
Deu 24:8-9 {s} Leprosy (tzaraas in Hebrew, or the evil tongue)

Explanation of the 10th Commandment: Do not covet
Deu 24:10-13 {s} Do not covet the pledge so much that you transgress the dignity of your neighbor
Deu 24:14-15 {s} Do not covet the wages of your hired men
Deu 14:16 {s} Do not covet revenge so that you put to death the innocent for the guilty
Deu 24:17-18 {s} Do not covet pledges at the expense of the poor
Deu 24:19 {s} Do not covet your grain at the expense of the poor
Deu 24:20-22 {s} Do not covet your fruit at the expense of the poor

I wish there was time and room to go into every commandment, because the beauty of YHVH’s wisdom, justice, and mercy is awesome! However I will explain a few of them.

“One of illegitimate birth shall not enter the assembly of the LORD; even to the tenth generation none of his descendants shall enter the assembly of the LORD.” Deu 23:2

God is not against children who have no say in the marital state of their parents! “Illegitimate” is a mistranslation. The Hebrew word is mamzer, which is the fruit of an invalid union. Invalid unions are explained in Lev 18 and 20 – unions between close relatives and the like. The point of these commandments on who can enter the assembly of the LORD has to do with preserving the purity of the seed, as we saw at the beginning of the section which explains Do not commit adultery. God is interested in preserving the purity of the seed of Israel, because the Promised Seed is going to come from the seed of Israel!

“When a man has taken a new wife, he shall not go out to war or be charged with any business; he shall be free at home one year, and bring happiness to his wife whom he has taken. No man shall take the lower or the upper millstone in pledge, for he takes one’s life in pledge.” Deu 24:5-6

Now these two sentences form a single paragraph in God’s way of thinking. Huh? First of all, we don’t understand what a man staying home the first year of his marriage has to do with Do not steal, but what on earth do these two have to do together?

The key is in the second sentence: do not take a millstone in pledge, because a millstone is the life of the family. Now, the first sentence: a man is to give his new wife happiness for the first year. He is to not pay attention to work or business or any other thing – he is to pay attention to her! What would our marriages be like if the husbands laid this foundation! So let us restate this commandment negatively: a man is not to take his new wife’s happiness.

Do not take a wife’s happiness
Do not take a family’s life

These two are together in a single paragraph, because God is trying to teach us that the wife’s happiness is the life of the family, just as the man’s living is the life of a family, and the life of the family is not to be taken or stolen!

For further study: Chiastic structures abound! I believe that each section that we have studied so far, on the explanation of the Ten Commandments, forms its own chiastic structure. Can you find any of them? Also, the explanation of the 9th Commandment, Do not bear false witness, is very short. What does leprosy have to do with false witness? The Hebrew word is tzaraas, not technically leprosy. It means in Hebrew, an evil tongue. We are exhorted to remember Miriam! What are the Scriptures trying to say, and what does it have to do with false witness?

Finding Messiah: We have noted a few times that the covenant at Sinai was a marriage covenant between YHVH and Israel. YHVH is the husband and Israel His wife. Now, when a husband divorces his wife, and she joins herself to another, the first husband cannot remarry his wife again after another man has had her, for that is an abomination (Deu 24:1-4). I don’t necessarily understand why it is, but I accept that God is smarter than I am and I accept that it is. Now, did you realize that God divorced Israel His wife because she was an adulterous wife (Jer 3:8)? She went and joined herself to another – her false gods that she went after. If she repents, He cannot remarry her. So what did God do? He died. Upon the death of the first husband, she is now free to marry whomever she wishes (Rom 7:1-4), and now the ekklesia (assembly of believers) is betrothed to her husband – Jesus Christ, who is returning as a Bridegroom for His Bride!