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July 21 - Deuteronomy 21 · A Chapter a Day Bible Reading

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  Hello friends, it's Sean here and it is the start of another
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  week. It's Monday, It's the 21st of
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  July. Boy, here we are in July and
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  Gee, I remember last week complaining about the cold and
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  here I am sitting in glorious winter sunshine, streaming in
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  through the window. Which means today the biggest
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  challenge will be not keeping warm, but staying awake.
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  You know how that works. Well, friends, today we are
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  going to be opening back up the book of Deuteronomy as we
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  continue reading through this expose of what it looks like to
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  live as God's people under this new covenant that God has set up
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  with them. And today we continue through
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  the section about human dignity as Moses unpacks not just not
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  murdering each other, but how do we live upholding the dignity of
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  the other as he unpacks the 6th Commandment.
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  You shall not murder. So having said that, let us dive
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  back in and continue reading together.
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  Deuteronomy chapter 21. When you are in the land the
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  Lord your God is giving you, someone may be found murdered in
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  a field and you don't know who committed the murder.
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  In such a case, your elders and judges must measure the distance
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  from the site of the crime to the nearby towns.
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  When the nearest town has been determined, that town's elders
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  must select from the herd A heifer that has never been
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  trained or yoked to a plough. They must lead it down to a
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  valley that has not been ploughed or planted and that has
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  a stream running through it. There in the valley, they must
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  break the heifer's neck. Then the Levitical priests must
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  step forward, for the Lord your God has chosen them to minister
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  before him and to pronounce blessings in the Lord's name.
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  They are to decide all legal and criminal cases.
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  The elders of the town must wash their hands over the heifer
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  whose neck was broken. Then they must say, Our hands
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  did not shed this person's blood, nor did we see it happen.
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  O Lord, forgive your people Israel, whom you have redeemed.
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  Do not charge your people with the guilt of murdering an
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  innocent person. Then they will be absolved of
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  the guilt of this person's blood.
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  By following these instructions, you will do what is right in the
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  Lord's sight and will cleanse the guilt of murder from your
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  community. Suppose you go out to war
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  against your enemies, and the Lord your God hands them over to
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  you, and you take some of them as captives.
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  And suppose you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and
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  you are attracted to her and want to marry her.
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  If this happens, you may take her to your home where she must
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  shave her head, cut her nails, and change the clothes she was
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  wearing when she was captured. She will stay in your home, but
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  let her mourn for her father and her mother for a full month.
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  Then you may marry her, and you will be her husband, and she
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  will be your wife. But if you marry her and she
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  does not please you, you must not let her go free.
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  You must not sell her or treat her as a slave, for you have
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  humiliated her. Suppose a man has two wives, but
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  he loves one and not the other, and both have given him sons,
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  And suppose the first born son is the son of the wife he does
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  not love. When the man divides his
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  inheritance, he may not give the larger inheritance to his
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  younger son, the son of the wife he loves, as if he were the
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  first born son. He must recognise the rights of
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  the oldest son, the son of the wife he does not love, by giving
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  him a double portion. He is the first son of his
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  father's virility, and the rights of the first born belong
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  to him. Suppose a man has a stubborn and
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  rebellious son who will not obey his father or mother even though
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  they discipline him. In such a case, the father and
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  mother must take the son to the elders as they hold court at the
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  town gate. The parents must say to the
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  elders, This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious and
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  refuses to obey. He is a glutton and a drunkard.
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  Then all the men of his town must stone him to death.
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  In this way you will purge this evil from among you, and all
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  Israel will hear about it and be afraid.
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  If someone has committed a crime worthy of death and is executed
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  and hung on a tree, the body must not remain hanging from the
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  tree overnight. You must bury the body that same
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  day, for anyone who is hung is cursed in the sight of God.
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  In this way you will prevent the defilement of the land the Lord
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  your God is giving you as your special possession.
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  We thank you, Lord, that you have given us life and that life
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  is not some vagary to be handed around, but life is this
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  precious, precious force that you have placed inside of our
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  beings. Thank you for life and this
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  preciousness of life that we see reflected in these laws that you
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  pass down through Moses. Laws that to us sound strange as
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  our modern ears hear these words.
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  But to have dignity and rights handed to a woman captured by
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  her enemies, what a game changer this would have been to that
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  society. And to have the rights of an
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  unloved son guaranteed so that he could not be cast out and
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  looked over. What a revolutionary idea at
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  that time and that a whole community would not be held to
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  ransom over a death that could not be solved.
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  Our Lord, thank you that written into the DNA of this covenant of
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  these laws passed down at that time was the fact that life is
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  precious and your people are precious.
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  In fact, all people are precious.
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  And so you found this way to protect people and their rights
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  and their dignity. Lord, give us that lens to see
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  beauty and dignity in the life of every other so that we can
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  care and love in the way that you do.
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  I thank You that Your care and your love comes to us first
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  before we even deserve it. You are so good to us and we
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  love you and we thank you. And we pray all of this in that
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  precious name of Jesus, Amen.