Deuteronomy 19 – 22
Found a flaw in the study with this book. The last study for this book ends at chapter24, the book ends at 31. So I am modifying the reading slightly and adding a chapter per study and putting the last chapters (27-31) between the second to last and last readings.
Verses 19:18 & 19 are laws which our legal system should consider today:
18 The judges shall enquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, 19 then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.
You will notice how many of these laws have severe punishment; many are death for something that would be accepted in today’s society. This law would limit false accusations and wrongful prosecutions, since there would be consequences if the person was caught. Today the biggest problem is people trying to get a pay day with liability lawsuits. There are lawyers who will file these cases “pro-bono” and take the money on the payout. If the loser had to pay legal fees for the other party, that would limit these cases.
Verse 21:14 ends an odd section about marrying captives:
But if you no longer delight in her, you shall let her go where she wants. But you shall not sell her for money, nor shall you treat her as a slave, since you have humiliated her.
This section allows the Israelites to marry captives, which contradicts many of God’s orders from battles to kill everything. It seems odd that God would allow this practice which throughout their history it caused problems. Solomon and Samson’s wives both caused their demise and were foreigners. They may not have been “captives” but either way they introduced an evil that caused problems.
Why is God so against bringing in evil customs and practices to the faith? It’s really simple, the practices were the antithesis of God’s domain. They followed gods and demons that Satan put in place near the beginning of time. Ironically, if you really dig into the history of the evil in this world, it has roots to Babylon and Nimrod (tower of Babel fame). Even the “scientific dictatorship” today has roots to the Babylonian gods, but that would take hours to explain. Research it!!
Verse 22:5 caught my eye:
A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD your God.
Think of how it’s common for women to wear men’s clothing. The thing that I wonder is if the style of “skinny jeans” or men wearing women’s cut jeans goes against this or are those still considered men’s clothing?
Verse 22:22 highlights how the Law got perverted in Jesus’ day:
If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.
Remember the woman about to be stoned for adultery in John 7? Jesus wrote something on the ground and the crowd slowly dispersed until it was her and Jesus. The hypocrisy was the man was not there. The Law was being unjustly enforced where the man was getting off and the woman was subject to death. The Law is clear here, both parties should die. Today this “Law” is a joke in today’s society where “if you can’t love the one you love, love the one your with” seems to be the norm. Divorce is rampant where almost half of all marriages fail, many because of adultery. But that number would be different if death was still the punishment.
Also, think about why this was then. The idea was not to allow evil practices to take hold in society. I alluded to Babylon earlier and will again now. If you look into the roots of sex with whomever, it goes back to Nimrod and his wife Semiramis. She actually seems to be the root of most of the evil in this world throughout history if you study closely.