Deuteronômio 21:3 Comentário

In this chapter provision is made, I. For the putting away of the guilt of blood from the land, when he that shed it had fled from justice (Deu 21:1-9). II. For the preserving of the honour of a captive maid (Deu 21:10-14). III. For the securing of the right of a first-born son, though he were not a favourite (Deu 21:15-17). IV. For the restraining and punishing of a rebellious son (Deu 21:18-21). V. For the maintaining of the honour of human bodies, which must not be hanged in chains, but decently buried, even the bodies of the worst malefactors (Deu 21:22, Deu 21:23).

INTRODUCTION TO DEUTERONOMY 21 This chapter treats of the beheading of the heifer, for the expiation of unknown murder, and the rules to be observed in it, Deu 21:1 of a beautiful captive woman an Israelite is desirous of having for his wife, and what methods he must take to accomplish it, Deu 21:10, of giving the double portion to the firstborn, which he must not be deprived of in favour of the son of a beloved wife, Deu 21:15 and of the stubborn and rebellious son, who remaining so must be put to death, Deu 21:18 and of burying a person hanged on a tree the same day he is executed, Deu 21:22.

And it shall be, that the city which is next unto the slain man,.... And so suspected, as the Targum of Jonathan, of the murder; or the murderer is in it, or however belonged to it: even the elders of the city shall take an heifer; of a year old, as the same Targum, and so Jarchi; and in this the Jewish writers agree, that it must be a year old, but not two; though heifers of three years old were sometimes used in sacrifice, Gen 15:9 a type of Christ, in his strength, laboriousness, and patience; see Num 19:2. which hath not been wrought with; in ploughing land, or treading out corn: and which hath not drawn in the yoke, which never had any yoke put upon it; or however, if attempted to be put upon it, it would not come under it, and draw with it: no mention is made, as usual, that it should be without blemish: because though in some sense expiatory, yet was not properly a sacrifice, it not being slain and offered where sacrifices were; hence it is said in the Misnah (q), that a blemish in it did not make it rejected, or unlawful for use: nevertheless, this heifer may be a type of Christ, whose sufferings, bloodshed, and death, atone for secret and unknown sins, as well as for open and manifest ones, even for all sin; and its being free from labour, and without a yoke, may signify the freedom of Christ from the yoke of sin, and the service of it, and from human traditions; that he was not obliged to any toil and labour he had been concerned in, or to bear the yoke of the law, had he not voluntarily undertaken it of himself; and that he expiated the sins of such who were sons of Belial, children without a yoke; and for the same reason, this heifer not being required to be without blemish, might be because Christ, though he had no sin of his own, was made sin for his people, and reckoned as if he had been a sinner; though indeed, had this been the design of the type, all the sacrifices which typified Christ would not have required such a qualification, to be without blemish, as they did. (q) Ut supra, (Sotah, c. 9.) sect. 5.

EXPIATION OF UNCERTAIN MURDER. (Deu 21:1-9) If one be found slain . . . lying in the field, and it be not known who hath slain him--The ceremonies here ordained to be observed on the discovery of a slaughtered corpse show the ideas of sanctity which the Mosaic law sought to associate with human blood, the horror which murder inspired, as well as the fears that were felt lest God should avenge it on the country at large, and the pollution which the land was supposed to contract from the effusion of innocent, unexpiated blood. According to Jewish writers, the Sanhedrin, taking charge of such a case, sent a deputation to examine the neighborhood. They reported to the nearest town to the spot where the body was found. An order was then issued by their supreme authority to the elders or magistrates of that town, to provide the heifer at the civic expense and go through the appointed ceremonial. The engagement of the public authorities in the work of expiation, the purchase of the victim heifer, the conducting it to a "rough valley" which might be at a considerable distance, and which, as the original implies, was a wady, a perennial stream, in the waters of which the polluting blood would be wiped away from the land, and a desert withal, incapable of cultivation; the washing of the hands, which was an ancient act symbolical of innocence--the whole of the ceremonial was calculated to make a deep impression on the Jewish, as well as on the Oriental, mind generally; to stimulate the activity of the magistrates in the discharge of their official duties; to lead to the discovery of the criminal, and the repression of crime.