Deeper Commentary
Deu 24:1 When a man takes a wife and marries her, if she finds
no favour in his eyes because he has found some unseemly thing in her, he
shall write her a bill of divorce and give it into her hand and send her out
of his house-
Divorce was clearly possible under the Mosaic system. If a
man's wife committed adultery he could have her killed; or he
could put her through the trial of jealousy of Num. 5, with the result
that she would become barren; or he could divorce her (Dt. 22:19; 24:1 RV;
Lev. 21:14; 22:13). Within a Law that was holy, just and good (Rom. 7:12),
unsurpassed in it's righteousness (Dt. 4:8; and let us not overlook these
estimations), there were these different levels of response possible. But
there was a higher level: he could simply forgive her. This was what God
did with His fickle Israel, time and again (Hos. 3:1-3). And so the
Israelite faced with an unfaithful wife could respond on at least four
levels. This view would explain how divorce seems outlawed in passages
like Dt. 22:19,29, and yet there are other parts of the OT which seem to
imply that it was permitted. It should be noted that there were some
concessions to weakness under the Law which the Lord was not so willing to
make to His followers (e.g., outside the marriage context, Dt. 20:5-8 cp.
Lk. 9:59-62; 14:18,19). He ever held before us the Biblical ideal of
marriage.
Deu 24:2 When she has departed out of his house she may go and be another
man’s wife-
The Lord Himself spoke of how the Law's attitude to divorce was a
concession because of the hardness of men's hearts. Dt. 24:1-4 allows
divorce if a man “found some uncleanness” in his wife. This, the Lord
comments, was a concession for the hardness of their hearts. But the passage
moves on to say: “When a man hath taken new wife, he shall
not go out to war...but he shall be free at home one year, and shall cheer
up his wife” (:5). Taking a new wife seems a strange way to
describe taking a first wife. It would seem that Yahweh through Moses is
making a gracious concession to a man taking a second wife according to the
concession laid down in the previous verses.
Deu 24:3 If the latter husband hates her and writes her a bill of divorce
and gives it to her and sends her out of his house, or if the latter
husband who took her to be his wife dies-
This seems to imply that divorce was even possible if a husband simply
'hated' his wife. Or we may assume that the divorce had to be because of
unfaithfulness on her part (:1), and yet to divorce her for this was in
fact read by God as 'hating' her. For the standard He sought to inculcate
(see on :1) was forgiveness of the unfaithful wife, motivated in love for
her- which was just how He treated Israel.
Deu 24:4 her former husband who sent her away may not take her again to be
his wife after she is defiled, for that is abomination before Yahweh. You
shall not cause the land to sin, which Yahweh your God gives you for an
inheritance-
The prophets describe God divorcing Israel for her infidelity and yet
still asking her to return to Him. He chose this metaphor to reflect the
level of His desperate love for His people- that He would do what His own
law declared to be abomination to Him. That same kind of love is what He has
for us today.
Deu 24:5 When a man takes a new wife he shall not go into the army,
neither must he be assigned any business. He shall be free at home for one
year and shall please his wife whom he has taken-
See on :2. Often the parables of the Lord Jesus warn that those
who think He will understand their weakness, those who are too familiar
with His softer side. The parable of the great supper records men
explaining to Christ why they can't immediately respond to Him,
although they want to when it's more convenient: "I have bought a piece of
ground, and must needs go and see it... I have married a wife,
therefore I cannot come" (Lk. 14:18-20). The implication is that
they assumed that the servant calling them to the wedding (i.e. Christ)
would understand that their excuses were quite reasonable; the man who
pleaded marriage as his excuse would have been alluding to the Law's
provision to have time off from the Lord's duties on account of marriage
(Dt. 20:7). All these reasons were assumed to be quite reasonable, and the
men sound as if they were confident that of course Christ would
understand. But His demands are in fact higher than those made under the
old covenant.
Deu 24:6 No man may take the mill or the upper millstone as pledge, for he
takes a life in pledge-
Moses does not repeat every single commandment in the Law. Rather are
there several themes of Moses in Deuteronomy presented. His choice of which
ones he does repeat indicates his feelings towards Israel. His sensitivity
towards the weakest and poorest of Israel comes out in this. He was reaching
the spirit of the Lord Jesus, who said that the weakest of his brethren
represented him (Mt. 25:40 Gk.). Thus Moses stresses how they were not to go
into the house of a poor man to take back his pledge (Dt. 24:10); Moses
could enter into the sense of shame and embarrassment of the poor man when a
richer man enters his home. The Law in Exodus 22:26 did not stipulate that
the house of the poor man should not be entered; by making this point in his
farewell speech, Moses was showing his sensitivity, his ability now to enter
into the feelings of the poorest of God's people. Indeed, the whole passage
in Deuteronomy (24:6-17) about pledges is quite an expansion upon what the
Law actually said in Ex. 22. And this from a man who could have been the
king of Egypt, who could have had the world.
Deu 24:7 If a man is found stealing any of his brothers of the children of
Israel, and he deals with him as a slave or sells him, then that thief
must die. So you shall put away the evil from among you-
To
deal with another person as a slave or chattel, to not treat a person as a
person, was seen even under Mosaic Law as meriting the death penalty- for
it was as if a person had been killed by treating them like that (Dt. 24:7
RVmg.).
Deu 24:8 Take heed that in the plague of leprosy you observe diligently to
do according to all that the priests the Levites shall teach you. As I
commanded them, so you shall observe to do-
Paul warned the new Israel that after his death ("after my departing", Acts 20:29) there would be serious apostasy. This is the spirit of his very last words, in 2 Tim. 4. it is exactly the spirit of Moses' farewell speech throughout the book of Deuteronomy, and throughout his final song (Dt. 32) and Dt. 31:29: "After my death you will utterly corrupt yourselves". Paul's "Take heed therefore unto yourselves" (Acts 20:28) is quoted from many places in Deuteronomy (e.g. Dt. 2:4; 4:9,15,23; 11:16; 12:13,19,30; 24:8; 27:9).
Deu 24:9 Remember what Yahweh your God did to Miriam by the way as you
came forth out of Egypt-
The reference may be to how she was shut out of the camp for seven
days. This would have been inconvenient in domestic terms, especially if
the leprosy victim was a woman who was a mother and wife, expected to do
all the domestic chores. Moses foresaw how tempting it would be for men to
quietly ignore the need to put a leprous woman outside their camp for
seven days. So we see how at the end of the wilderness journey, Moses was
so sensitive to the likely weaknesses of his people; and he in this was a
type of the Lord Jesus.
Like Paul in his time of dying, Moses in Deuteronomy saw the importance of obedience, the harder side of God; yet he also saw in real depth the surpassing love of God, and the grace that was to come, beyond Law. This appreciation reflected Moses' mature grasp of the Name / characteristics of God. He uses the name "Yahweh" in Deuteronomy over 530 times, often with some possessive adjective, e.g. "Yahweh thy God" [AV- i.e. you singular], or "Yahweh our God". He saw the personal relationship between a man and his God. Jacob reached a like realization at his peak.
Deu 24:10 When you lend your neighbour any kind of loan, you must not go
into his house to get his pledge-
Moses in Deuteronomy, the 'second law', does not repeat every single commandment in the
Law. Rather are there several themes of Moses presented in Deuteronomy.
His choice of which ones he does repeat indicates his feelings towards
Israel. His sensitivity towards the weakest and poorest of Israel comes
out in this, and is a sign of his maturity. He was reaching the spirit of
the Lord Jesus, who said that the weakest of His brethren represented Him
(Mt. 25:40). Moses for all his wealthy background and high status amongst
Israel could enter into the sense of shame and embarrassment of the poor
man when a richer man enters his home. The Law in Ex. 22:26 did not
stipulate that the house of the poor man should not be entered; by making
this point in his farewell speech, Moses was showing his sensitivity, his
ability now to enter into the feelings of the poorest of God's people. He
typified in this the sensitivity of God’s son to our spiritual poverty. In
some things we all have some advantage over others; some ‘wealth’ which
they don’t have; for even the wealthiest person has some area of spiritual
poverty in their lives. We are not to shame them, but to be sensitive to
how they might feel if that poverty is exposed before us.
Deu 24:11 You shall stand outside and the man to whom you lent shall bring
the pledge outside to you-
The poor are often ashamed when the more wealthy enter their homes
and see their poverty. We see here the extreme sensitivity of God to the
poor, and to human feelings. He who is apparently so far away, is in fact
so near in understanding us.
Deu 24:12 If he is a poor man you must not sleep with his pledge-
Like many Mosaic laws, this was open to interpretation within the
conscience of the lender. He had to judge whether the person was "poor" or
not. Clearly these laws were often not intended as literalistic demands
for a yes / no kind of obedience; but rather were a springboard towards a
greater understanding of the human person, and finally to a culture of
love, sensitivity and kindness.
Deu 24:13 you must surely restore to him the pledge when the sun goes down
so that he may sleep in his garment and bless you, and it shall be
righteousness to you before Yahweh your God-
The Lord’s high value of persons is reflected in how He taught His
followers to not resist evil. A poor man had only two garments- an outer
one, and an inner one (Dt. 24:10-13). Underneath that, he was naked. Yet
the Lord taught that if you had your outer garment unjustly taken from
you, then offer your abuser your undercloth. Offer him, in all
seriousness, to take it off you, and leave you standing next to him
arrystarkus. This would have turned the table. The abuser would be the one
left ashamed, as he surely wouldn’t do this. And thus the dignity of the abused person was left intact at the end.
This was the Lord’s desire. Likewise, Roman soldiers were allowed to
impress a Jew to carry their pack for a mile, but they were liable to
punishment if they made him carry it two miles. To offer to carry it the
second mile would almost always be turned down by the abusive soldier. And
again, at the end of the exchange, he would be the one humiliated, and the
Lord’s follower, even though abused, would remain with head up and dignity
intact. See on :6.
Deu 24:14 You must not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy,
whether he is of your brothers or of the foreigners who are in your land
within your gates-
The oppression in view is things like not paying him his hire every
day (Dt. 24:14,15; Lev. 19:13). The ethnic background of the man was
irrelevant; he was to be treated as a person and not in any way abused
because of his weak economic position. "Oppress" is the same word
translated "deceive"; to not oppress others through deceiving them would
elicit the heaviest judgment from God, when the person realized the
deception and cried to God because of it (Dt. 24:15). Deceiving /
oppressing a neighbour was a sin against Yahweh (Lev. 6:2 s.w.), because
He has a special interest in the poor. And His law reflects that.
Deu 24:15 Each day you must give him his hire. The sun must not go down on
it for he is poor and sets his heart on it, lest he cry against you to
Yahweh and it be sin to you-
This is one of many examples of the utter inversion of values to be
found in the sphere of God's dealings with men: The rich are to almost
fear the landless poor labourer, in case he feels hard done by and prays
to God against the rich. The power, in ultimate and spiritual terms, is
with the poor- and the balance of power is against the wealthy.
Deu 24:16 The fathers must not be put to death for the children, neither
shall the children be put to death for the fathers. Every man shall be put
to death for his own sin-
It must be remembered that although in some ways all Israel
were guilty for the sins of some of them (e.g. Daniel and Ezra describe
themselves as guilty members of a guilty nation), this 'guilt by
association' could not be 'escaped' by leaving Israel, the covenant
people. And neither did God ever hold any individual Israelite personally
guilty of the sin of another Israelite (Dt. 24:16 etc.). Ultimately, God
will not destroy the righteous with the wicked (Gen. 18:24), although the
righteous in Israel sometimes suffered the effect of the nation's
wickedness (cp. our suffering the effect of Adam's sin without
being personally guilty of it).
Deu 24:17 You must not deprive the foreigner or the fatherless of justice,
nor take a widow’s clothing in pledge-
God again reveals His especial interest in the foreigner, orphan and
widow. This should be reflected in our perspectives too.
The Hebrew mishpat, "justice" or "ordinances", has a wide range of meaning. The idea is of judgment, as if God and His Angels gave these laws as their considered judgment after considering the human condition, and Israel were to abide by them and reflect that justice to others. But the word also the idea of a right or privilege; and that is how we should see God's laws. They are only felt as a burden because of human hardness of neck towards God's ways. His laws are not of themselves burdensome, but rather a privilege and blessing. The law was indeed "holy, just and good" (Rom. 7:12), designed to inculcate a holy, just and good life (Tit. 1:8), a way in which a man should "walk" in daily life (Lev. 18:4), a culture of kindness and grace to others which reflected God's grace to man. If we dwell upon the idea of "rights" carried within the word mishpat, we note that the law begins in Ex. 21:1,2 (also Dt. 15:12-18) with the rights of a slave- those considered to have no rights in the society of that day. The "rights" to be afforded by us to others are the essence of God's rightness / justice.
Deu 24:18 but you must remember that you were a bondservant in Egypt and
Yahweh your God redeemed you from there, therefore I command you to do
this-
One of the most repeated themes of Moses in
Deuteronomy is the way he keeps on telling them to "remember" all the
great things which God had done for them on their wilderness journey, and
especially the wonder of how He had redeemed them as children (his
audience had been under twenty years old when they went through the Red
Sea). Moses really wanted them to overcome the human tendency to forget
the greatness of God as manifested earlier in our lives and spiritual
experience. Our tendency as the new Israel is just the same- to forget the
wonder of baptism, of how God reached out His arm to save us.
Deu 24:19 When you reap your harvest in your field and have forgotten a
sheaf in the field, do not go back to get it. It shall be for the
foreigner, for the fatherless and for the widow, so that Yahweh your God
may bless you in all the work of your hands-
A theme of Deuteronomy is the way in which Moses visualizes commonplace
daily incidents which he could foresee occurring in Israel's daily life:
the man cutting down the tree and the axe head flying off and hitting
someone; finding a dead body in a lonely field; coming across a stray
animal on the way home from work; a man with two wives treating one as his
favourite; seeing your neighbour struggling to lift up his sick animal;
coming across a bird's nest and being tempted to take the mature bird as
well as the chicks home for supper; being tempted not to bother building a
battlement around the flat roof of your new house; the temptation to
take a bag with you and fill it up with your neighbour's grapes; the need
to have weapons which could be used for covering excrement (Dt. 19:5;
21:1,15; 22:1,2,4,6,8; 23:13,24,25; 24:5,6,10,15,19; 25:11,13). The
sensitivity of Moses, his eager imagination of his
people in daily life, his understanding of their everyday temptations... so
superbly typifies that of our Lord.
Dt. 24:19 doesn't make allowing gleaning a binding law upon landowners. The text simply states that "When you reap your harvest in your field and have forgotten a sheaf in the field, do not go back to get it. It shall be for the foreigner, for the fatherless and for the widow". By allowing gleaners to come and pick up dropped grain, Boaz's grace was going far beyond the letter of the law. This was taking that law way beyond what it said, in a spirit of grace. This would account for the hint in Ruth 2:22 that not every landowner allowed such gleaning in their fields. Likewise he extrapolates from the law of Levirate marriage to marry Ruth. So we see that the law of Moses was not a chain, a leash binding and tethering man to reluctant obedience; for Israel is God's partner, not His dog. But rather was it designed as a springboard towards a culture of grace, kindness and taking initiatives of grace in practice.
Deu 24:20 When you beat your olive tree do not go over the
boughs again. It shall be for the foreigner, for the fatherless and for
the widow-
The essence of this was that they were not to seek maximum personal
wealth. That of course is the exact opposite of the spirit of our age, and
is absolutely counter instinctive. The power to overcome this basic
instinct towards maximizing personal wealth can only come from an
awareness of the grace we have received, and a subsequent conscience
toward others because of that.
Deu 24:21 When you harvest your vineyard do not glean it afterwards
yourselves. It shall be for the foreigner, for the fatherless and for the
widow-
The idea is that the gleaning happened after harvesting had finished.
We see how Boaz took the spirit of these gleaning laws far beyond their
letter. He allowed gleaners to follow immediately behind the harvesters,
and gave extra grain to Ruth. Again I feel the need to labour the point;
that the law of Moses was not a chain, binding and tethering man to
reluctant obedience; but rather was designed as a springboard towards a
culture of grace, kindness and taking initiatives of grace in practice.
,
Deu 24:22 You shall remember that you were a bondservant in the land of
Egypt; therefore I command you to do this thing-
Lev. 25:38 reasons that because of Israel's experience of the Red Sea
redemption, therefore they were to have a generous spirit to their
brother. Because the Egyptians were hard taskmasters, and Israel had been
graciously saved from them, therefore they were not to be hard on
each other (Lev. 25:40). If the oppressed [as Israel were oppressed] cry
out unto you [as Israel cried out for their affliction], you must hear
them, otherwise God will hear them and punish you, as if you are the
Egyptian taskmaster (Ex. 22:24-27). Indeed, the whole Law of Moses is shot
through with direct and indirect reference to the Red Sea experience. It
was as if this was to be the motivator for their obedience and upholding
of the culture of kindness which the Law sought to engender (Lev.23, 24;
Dt. 17:7; 24:19-24). And our experience of redemption from this world
ought to have the same effect.
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