The Pulpit Commentary — Deuteronomy — Section 349

~0n would not hearken to father or mother, would not appreciate chastisement, and had hecome a drunkard and glutton, then the parents were directed to brina tho case before the c>lders of the city, and the impenitent, licentious son was to be ~ken away from the earth by public stoning. The public law was thus, in the last resort, to ho.ck up parental authority and to remove the "scapegrace." I. PAREJ\"'TAL AUTHORITY IS TO BE EXERCISED T-0 THE UTMOST. Father and mother arc both to do their best to save their son from being a public disgrace. They are to u~e the rod, to chasten him, if nothing milder will do. Only after they have prose- cuted their parental authority to the last degree are they to seek the public officers. JI, GLUTTOJ\--Y AND DRUNKENNESS ARE TREATED AS CAPITAL OFFENCES UNDER THE 'l'HEOCRACY. They are incompatible with membership in God's kingdom. Hence they are deemed worthy of death. Decause they are not now so severely visited by public law does not imply that they are less heinous in God's sight than they were then. III. IT MUST HAVE BEEN THE LAST RESORT WHEN PARENTS WOULD BRING FORTH THEIR SON FOR PUBLIC EXECUTION. What a wearying of love and patience there must have been before such a commandment as this would be carried out I The father and mother would bear long before they would bring themselves to make of their child a public infamy. IV. TnE EXECUTION OF THE SCAPEGRACE WAS A BOLEl,{N DEDICATION OF mu, BY IMPOSITION OF HANDS, TO DEATH BY STONING. Such a public disgrace must have had a very wholesome effect in deterring reckless children from self-abandonment. \Ve do not bear of any instance of such an execution. Drunkenness and gluttony were not common crimes in Israel. Y. IT WOULD SEEM THAT GIBBETING WAS ADDED TO THE STONING, TO EMPHASIZE STILL MORE THE DISGRACE IN SUCH CASES. When this was carried out, it was under- stood that the gibbeted person was taken down at sundown, so as not to defile the land, and was buried without delay. As accursed of God, the corpse was as soon as possible put out of sight into the tomb. "VJ. IT IS INSTnUCTIVE TO THL'sK OF JESUS CHRIST BEING EXPOSED TO JUST SUCH A PUBLIC Th7AMY. He was made a curse for us. He was banged on a tree, gibbeted as a malefactor. What love led him to place himself in such a position ! The authorities took him, and in his Father's and mother's presence they did him to death, as if he had been a disobedient and di~graceful Son. Thus did he deliver us from the curse of the Law. We receive honour because he accepted shame. The" holy Child Jesus" was nailed to the cross, was suspended on a tree, as if be were accursed of God. May we all profit by his voluntary humiliation, and imitate him as the holy, conse- crated Child !-R. M. E. Vers. I-9.-Puriji,cation from guilt of an uncertain m'IJ,Tder. The explanation commonly given of this peculiar ceremony seems unsatisfactory. Keil's view, that "it was a symbolical infliction of the punishment that should have been borne by the murderer, upon the animal which was substituted_ for himt is contrad_ict~d by t~e fact that for deliberate murder, the Law, as he admits, provided no exp1at10n, wlnle the obje~t of this cere~ony was plainly !n some way to remove blood-guiltiness.. Fairbairn's explanation (in his ' Typology') lB even more far-fetched, that the heifer was "a palpable representative of the person whose life had been wantonly and murderously taken away." The key to the ceremony is, we think, to be sought for in another direction. The central idea is that a responsibility attaches to a whole community for crimes committed in its midst. 'l'he members of the community are implicated in tho guilt of the murder till they absolve themselves by bringing the murderer to justico (vers. 8, 9). In the case here treated of, t~e ?lur~erer is u~k~own, an~ a rite is appointed by which the share of the commu~uty _in ~1s blood-guil~m~ss, ~hieµ can~ot be removed in the ordinary way, by executrng Justice on the cnmmal, 1s otherwise abolished. The heifer, in this view, represents neither the murdered man nor his murderer but the people of the city, who seek to purge themselves from guilt by putting it to death. It is their own guilt th_ey seek to get rid of, not _th_e_ criminal's. Expiation was not admitted for the actual murderer, but the respons1b1hty for the crime, which, failing the visitation of justice on the criminal, devolved on the community -for that, expiation was admitted. The &nimal, sufi'er;ng vicariolltlly, 1u full poasea• OIi, XXI. 1-23,] THE BOOK OF DEuTERONOMY. 34G ----------- sion of Its vital powers, while the elders of the cHy washed their handg over it, and cleclarcd their innocence of all knowledge of the murder, sufficed to sec11re that" tho blood should be forgiven them "-forgiveness implying previous imputation. The valley, "neither cared nor sown," was, in its desolation and sterility, a fit place for such a transaction, which, while it cleansed the city, left the curse up0n the mnr- derer, and indeed made the spot a sort of witness of his yet unexpiatcd guilt. We learn: 1. '!'hat responsibility attaches to each and all in a community for crimes committed in its midst. 2. That the community is not absolved till every effort has been made to discover the perpetrators of crime and to bring them to justice. 3. That the punishment of murder is death. 4. That to ignore, connive at, or enco•1rage crime in a community, involves the authorities in the criminality of the deeds connived at. 5. That all yartics, the people (represented by the ciders), the magistrates (judges), the Church (priest~), are alike interested in bringing criminals to justice.-J. 0.