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Deuteronomy 24

The chapter places household decisions, lending, wages, and harvest practices under God’s commands, with firm protections for vulnerable people.

Moses gives Israel laws governing household life and the treatment of people with little power. He addresses divorce and remarriage, a newly married man’s exemption from service, and limits on taking security for loans. Kidnapping carries the death penalty, and skin disease requires obedience to priestly instruction. The laws also require prompt wages, individual responsibility in capital punishment, and justice for vulnerable people. Israel’s memory of slavery and God’s redemption grounds the commands to leave food for those in need.

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1When a man takes a wife and marries her, then it shall be, if she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some unseemly thing in her, that he shall write her a certificate of divorce, put it in her hand, and send her out of his house.
2When she has departed out of his house, she may go and be another man’s wife.
4her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife after she is defiled; for that would be an abomination to the LORD. You shall not cause the land to sin, which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance.
5When a man takes a new wife, he shall not go out in the army, neither shall he be assigned any business. He shall be free at home one year, and shall cheer his wife whom he has taken.
6No man shall take the mill or the upper millstone as a pledge, for he takes a life in pledge.
7If 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 shall die. So you shall remove the evil from among you.
8Be careful in the plague of leprosy, that you observe diligently and do according to all that the Levitical priests teach you. As I commanded them, so you shall observe to do.
9Remember what the LORD your God did to Miriam, by the way as you came out of Egypt.
13You shall surely restore to him the pledge when the sun goes down, that he may sleep in his garment and bless you. It shall be righteousness to you before the LORD your God.
14You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your brothers or one of the foreigners who are in your land within your gates.
15In his day you shall give him his wages, neither shall the sun go down on it, for he is poor and sets his heart on it, lest he cry against you to the LORD, and it be sin to you.
16The fathers shall 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.
17You shall not deprive the foreigner or the fatherless of justice, nor take a widow’s clothing in pledge;
18but you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you there. Therefore I command you to do this thing.
19When you reap your harvest in your field, and have forgotten a sheaf in the field, you shall not go again to get it. It shall be for the foreigner, for the fatherless, and for the widow, that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.
21When you harvest your vineyard, you shall not glean it after yourselves. It shall be for the foreigner, for the fatherless, and for the widow.
22You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt. Therefore I command you to do this thing.
World English BibleRead in NIV in Psalmlog →Highlighted verses are the most connected.
Key verses
Deuteronomy 24:1This verse opens a divorce and remarriage case whose final ruling forbids return to the first husband after another marriage.
Deuteronomy 24:14The ban on oppressing poor workers extends to foreigners, placing their treatment under the same command.
Deuteronomy 24:16This law limits capital punishment to the offender, forbidding execution of parents or children for another family member’s sin.
Where this chapter reaches

Exodus shares the commands concerning kidnapping and returning a poor borrower’s garment, while Leviticus shares the requirement to leave harvest produce for vulnerable people. 2 Kings records a king applying the rule against executing children for their fathers’ sins, and Ezekiel shares its emphasis on individual responsibility.

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Notice

After reading the whole chapter

What difference does Israel’s memory of slavery make to the commands about justice and harvests?

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Which limit on a lender’s or employer’s power most challenges your view of what someone is owed?

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Questions people ask about Deuteronomy 24

What does Deuteronomy 24 say about divorce and remarriage?

Verses 1–4 describe a man divorcing his wife after finding some unspecified indecency, followed by her marriage to another man. The ruling forbids her first husband from taking her back after that second marriage ends. The text does not define the indecency or give a complete account of grounds for divorce.

Why does Deuteronomy 24 forbid taking a millstone as a pledge?

A pledge was property held as security for a loan. A millstone was needed to grind grain for food, so taking it threatened the borrower’s means of staying alive. Related commands protect a debtor’s home from intrusion and require returning a poor person’s pledged garment before night.

What does Deuteronomy 24:16 mean?

The verse sets a rule for capital punishment: parents must not be executed for their children’s wrongdoing, nor children for their parents’ wrongdoing. Each person is accountable for his own offense. Its immediate subject is the administration of justice in Israel; it does not claim that wrongdoing has no consequences for other people.

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Deuteronomy · 34 chapters
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What the Bible says about anger →

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).