Deuteronomy 24 Odds and Ends

seekeroftruth

Well-Known Member
Deuteronomy 24:5 If a man has recently married, he must not be sent to war or have any other duty laid on him. For one year he is to be free to stay at home and bring happiness to the wife he has married.

6 Do not take a pair of millstones—not even the upper one—as security for a debt, because that would be taking a person’s livelihood as security.

7 If someone is caught kidnapping a fellow Israelite and treating or selling them as a slave, the kidnapper must die. You must purge the evil from among you.

8 In cases of defiling skin diseases,[a] be very careful to do exactly as the Levitical priests instruct you. You must follow carefully what I have commanded them. 9 Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam along the way after you came out of Egypt.

10 When you make a loan of any kind to your neighbor, do not go into their house to get what is offered to you as a pledge. 11 Stay outside and let the neighbor to whom you are making the loan bring the pledge out to you. 12 If the neighbor is poor, do not go to sleep with their pledge in your possession. 13 Return their cloak by sunset so that your neighbor may sleep in it. Then they will thank you, and it will be regarded as a righteous act in the sight of the Lord your God.​

a. Deuteronomy 24:8 The Hebrew word for defiling skin diseases, traditionally translated “leprosy,” was used for various diseases affecting the skin.

Well, well, these are a hodgepodge of rules. I guess these would have been filed in the Miscellaneous file.

This is from the easy English commentary.

A new bridegroom did not have to do any public duty for one year. That meant that he did not have to fight in the army. It was important that he should have a child first. The family is very important to God.

God did not allow people to take away a person’s flat stones. A person must not take them as security for a debt. If a person could not break up his corn with his flat stones, he could not make his daily food.

The Israelites must kill anyone who stole another person as a prisoner. That was God’s serious punishment for an evil act.

The Israelites had to obey the laws about how to deal with diseases on their skin. Those laws are in Leviticus chapters 13 and 14. Even Moses’ sister had to obey the laws. They had to separate the people with those diseases from the rest of the people. Then the disease would not spread.

The Israelites could lend money to the poor people. But they must not make the poor people pay extra money for that. However, they could take some kind of security. The security was usually the coat in which a person slept. The person who lent the money must not enter the home of the man with the debt. The person who lent the money could not choose a security. Instead, he must return the coat each night so that the poor man could be warm and comfortable. These laws show that God cares about people’s needs.

This is from GodVine.

Small hand-mills which can be worked by a single person were formerly in use among the Jews, and are still used in many parts of the East. As therefore the day's meal was generally ground for each day, they keeping no stock beforehand, hence they were forbidden to take either of the stones to pledge, because in such a case the family must be without bread. On this account the text terms the millstone the man's life.

This comes from the enduringword.com commentary.

Kidnapping was usually done in the ancient world not so much for return and ransom, but so that one could sell the one abducted to slavery, just as was done to Joseph by his brothers (Genesis 37:28).

This crime was serious enough before God, so as to command the death penalty.​

In Numbers 12, Miriam led her brother Aaron in a rebellion against Moses, and for it, God struck her with leprosy. Though Moses prayed for her to be healed, God let her be a leper for seven days before healing her, and she was shut out of the camp seven days (Numbers 12:14). If someone as prominent as Miriam was quarantined as a leper, it showed that every other leper in Israel should also be quarantined.

Random laws are important.... when I read these laws, they brought other stories I've read into the day..... for instance, the story of Miriam stepping up against Moses and getting a skin disease in return....

Another example of laws reflecting real life was the kidnapping and selling of a free man [Joseph] into slavery is a capital offense.

God used these rules and laws to keep these dysfunctional humans in line. Looks like meanness was bad for everyone!
:coffee:
 
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