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Deuteronomy 21

Deuteronomy 21 places unresolved bloodshed, household power, and capital punishment under God’s authority through laws for Israel’s communal life.

A slain person lies in a field, and no one knows who killed him. Moses directs Israel’s elders to address the bloodshed before God through a public rite. Further laws govern marriage to a captive woman, protect a firstborn son’s inheritance against a father’s favoritism, and prescribe death for a rebellious son brought before the elders. The closing law requires burial before nightfall when an executed person’s body has been hung on a tree, lest the land be defiled.

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1If someone is found slain in the land which the LORD your God gives you to possess, lying in the field, and it isn’t known who has struck him,
2then your elders and your judges shall come out, and they shall measure to the cities which are around him who is slain.
3It shall be that the elders of the city which is nearest to the slain man shall take a heifer of the herd, which hasn’t been worked with and which has not drawn in the yoke.
4The elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a valley with running water, which is neither plowed nor sown, and shall break the heifer’s neck there in the valley.
5The priests the sons of Levi shall come near, for them the LORD your God has chosen to minister to him, and to bless in the LORD’s name; and according to their word shall every controversy and every assault be decided.
6All the elders of that city which is nearest to the slain man shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley.
7They shall answer and say, “Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it.
8Forgive, LORD, your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, and don’t allow innocent blood among your people Israel.” The blood shall be forgiven them.
9So you shall put away the innocent blood from among you, when you shall do that which is right in the LORD’s eyes.
11and see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you are attracted to her, and desire to take her as your wife,
12then you shall bring her home to your house. She shall shave her head and trim her nails.
13She shall take off the clothing of her captivity, and shall remain in your house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month. After that you shall go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife.
14It shall be, if you have no delight in her, then you shall let her go where she desires; but you shall not sell her at all for money. You shall not deal with her as a slave, because you have humbled her.
15If a man has two wives, the one beloved and the other hated, and they have borne him children, both the beloved and the hated, and if the firstborn son is hers who was hated,
16then it shall be, in the day that he causes his sons to inherit that which he has, that he may not give the son of the beloved the rights of the firstborn before the son of the hated, who is the firstborn;
17but he shall acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the hated, by giving him a double portion of all that he has; for he is the beginning of his strength. The right of the firstborn is his.
18If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and though they chasten him, will not listen to them,
19then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city and to the gate of his place.
20They shall tell the elders of his city, “This our son is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey our voice. He is a glutton and a drunkard.”
21All the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall remove the evil from among you. All Israel shall hear, and fear.
22If a man has committed a sin worthy of death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree,
23his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him the same day; for he who is hanged is accursed of God. Don’t defile your land which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance.
World English BibleRead in NIV in Psalmlog →Highlighted verses are the most connected.
Key verses
Deuteronomy 21:23The burial command limits the public exposure of an executed person and connects the curse with the land’s defilement.
Deuteronomy 21:18The case begins with a son’s persistent refusal to heed either parent, even after discipline.
Deuteronomy 21:21The prescribed execution makes this household offense a matter of public judgment, with fear intended to spread through Israel.
Where this chapter reaches

Galatians quotes the curse attached to hanging on a tree when explaining Christ’s redemption from the curse of the law. Numbers shares the concern that bloodshed defiles the land where God dwells, connecting an individual death with the community’s responsibility before him.

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Questions people ask about Deuteronomy 21

Why does Deuteronomy 21 command stoning a rebellious son?

The law describes persistent rebellion despite discipline, with both parents accusing the son before the city’s elders of gluttony and drunkenness. It states that execution removes evil and causes Israel to fear. His age is unspecified. This is a judicial law for ancient Israel, with no authority granted to parents to execute children themselves.

What does Deuteronomy 21 say about marrying a captive woman?

The law permits an Israelite soldier to marry a captive woman after she has a full month to mourn her parents. If he later rejects her, he must release her and may neither sell nor enslave her. The text places limits on his power within captivity; it does not describe her consent.

What does being hanged on a tree mean in Deuteronomy 21?

Verses 22–23 describe a person executed for a capital offense whose body is then hung on a tree. The body must be buried that day because the person is under God’s curse, and leaving it would defile the land. The sequence describes exposure after execution; the method of execution is unspecified.

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Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).