Deuteronomy 24-26

Deuteronomy 24

The social rules continue, but these are more familiar.

It begins with the ever so famous writ of divorce. A husband can divorce a displeasing wife by giving her a letter of divorce. If she remarries, then gets divorced or widowed, the prior ex-husband cannot remarry her. The whole letter of divorce is actually a lot like what our society does, although there are procedures for it, plus it is not gender-specific (I.e., women can divorce men).

Much of the rest of he chapter contains a lot of societal justice of the poor with an emphasis on appropriate security for loans. In all examples (millstones, cloaks), the security cannot be oppressive, affect the person's livelihood.

An important criminal justice rule emerges - people are only put to death for their own sins. Children are not to die for he sins of their parents and vice versa. So, how do we reconcile this with God cursing to the 3rd or 4th generation and that the children of the bad people will die in the conquest of Canaan? I'm not entirely sure, but for starters, this chapter is a social justice criminal code for people, whereas the other events are stuff that God explicitly deals with. Since they are supposed to spare children of conquered cities after the initial conquest (from the rules of war, a few chapters back) I think that God is spelling out here - the death of children will be a rare thing and only when explicitly directed by God. Since the conquest of Canaan was unique in so many ways, it will end up being very rare.

Deuteronomy 25

These are actually weird rules again.

Flogging is to be limited to 40 lashes.

Remember Judah and Tamar from Genesis? Here it spells out that if a husband dies without a son, his brother must marry the widow.

If two men are fighting and the wife of one intervenes by grabbing the testicles of the guy her husband is fighting, you must cut off her hand. This is totally strange on so many levels, but at least it fits the rule that if men have their testicles crushed, they are exploded from the Assembly of God (from a few chapters before).

They cannot forget that the Amelakites are bad people who attacked stragglers while they were in the desert.

Deuteronomy 26

This covers a special remembrance in the first fruit harvest.

It also the special tithe every 3rd year. This goes specifically to the poor and the Levites. So, is this tithe on top of the tithe they are already doing? Or is it one tithe with a different purpose depending on the year? I think it is the latter, actually. Tithes for years 1-2 they enjoy at harvest feasts in a big community pot luck, while every 3rd year, they give it to the Levites and the poor. If this were the case, it would make sense for people within the community to stagger which one they are doing, so the poor and Levites get something every year, as opposed to one huge windfall every 3 years.