The name Deuteronomy means "second law". It is Moses’ final address to the people. It covers the last 1 ½ months of Moses’ life. He’s 120 years old. It’s God’s "review" for the people to make sure they understand His ways before they go into the land.

A murder has been committed.

The city closest to the body will be the one responsible for the following ritual.

(Deu 21:4 NLT) They must lead it to a valley that is neither plowed nor planted with a stream running through it. There they must break the cow's neck.

The heifer gave its life in a demonstration that something worthy of death had occurred.

washing hands – a demonstration of their innocence in the matter.

I tend to think that we as a nation have no concept of this.

This could not be a gal from one of the cities of Canaan, it would have to be one of the cities that were far away. It was against the Law for an Israelite to marry an Canaanite (Deut.7:1-4).

This was contrary to standard accepted practice for soldiers. Usually a soldier would pillage and rape. The Israelites were commanded to marry.

Ladies, aren’t you glad you didn’t have to prepare for your wedding like this?

Actually, the cutting of hair, nails, etc. was a way of her cutting herself from her old way of life, preparing her to become an Israelite.

A guy had to wait a month to marry her. Especially if her hair had been cut off, it would help him think twice to make sure he wasn’t just marrying her for her good looks.

The assumption is that they would divorce.

This again would be a little different from what other cultures of the day would do. Other cultures wouldn’t think twice of selling the woman into slavery. In Israel, she was to be a freed woman.

The problem of "two wives". Be careful that you don’t think that the Bible is condoning the practice of having multiple wives. Some people in the Bible practiced polygamy, but God doesn’t advocate it.

Now what God is going to deal with here is not the problem of having multiple wives, but a related problem of dealing with the children of these multiple wives.

You weren’t supposed to play favorites with the kids according to who their mother was.

It was the commonly accepted thing in those days that the firstborn would receive a double portion of the inheritance. Rather than break that understood custom because the son was a child of a "hated" wife, you were to follow through with what was proper in that culture.

This isn’t a situation where the parents haven’t learned how to discipline their children. This was in a situation where the parents have been applying discipline, but the child was still rebellious.

The parents weren’t supposed to make the final decisions about this child, they were to leave it in the hands of the elders.

Jewish tradition has it that this punishment was never actually carried out. I guess the threat of it was enough. I wonder if this is why there is a commandment with a promise:

This was not the mode of punishment, as in death by hanging. This was after the criminal was put to death, the body was to be hung on a tree as a way of making a public statement that this was what would happen to those who committed a similar crime.

Paul uses this verse:

In God’s law, there is no such thing as "finders-keepers". If you find something that belongs to someone else, you are to return it to them or else keep it until you see them again.

God doesn’t want anyone confused about your sexuality.

Does this mean that a gal can’t wear pants?

abomination – tow`ebah – a disgusting thing, abomination, abominable

If you were out for a walk and come across a mother bird and her chicks, you were not allowed to take and eat the entire family, but only the chicks.

Why?

A battlement was a parapet. For a flat roof, a parapet is a small wall around the outside of the roof, a way to keep people from falling off your roof.

Here we have the beginning of building safety regulations!

Why weren’t they to mix stuff?

This comes from Numbers 15:37-41, where God commanded the Israelites to sow fringed borders on their garments. These fringes were to be a way of reminding them to obey the Law of the Lord.

The man’s complaint and reason to divorce his wife was that when they got married she was not a virgin.

Virginity is something that ought to be looked at as a treasure.

On a couple’s wedding night, a particular portion of a gal’s anatomy that is often broken during a couple’s initial intercourse was wrapped up in a piece of cloth and kept by the gal’s father as proof that she was a virgin on the night of her wedding.

In other words, whipping him, probably with 40 lashes.

He is fined 100 shekels, about 48 oz. of silver. This is twice the normal price paid a father to marry his daughter.

The father of the gal kept the silver.

Virginity was like a treasure.

No getting out of this marriage!

If the gal was found to have not been a virgin, then she was put to death.

The penalty for an adulterous relationship was death. In Mesopotamia, an adulterous couple were tied together and thrown into a river to drown. In Israel, the death sentence was originally done through stoning, later they changed to strangulation. (I imagine the man’s wife probably did it … just kidding)

Engagement was just as serious as being married.

The implication is that if she had been raped against her will, she would have been heard by others and a woman wasn’t punished because she was raped. She was only punished if she was a willing participant.

There would be no way of proving whether or not she did it willingly or not. Only the man was put to death.

Fifty shekels – the normal amount a man would pay his father in law to marry his daughter.

If the gal was not engaged or married, then a man who had intercourse with her was going to get to marry her.

There should be no such thing as "one night stands".

God’s design for sex is that it be done within the bounds of marriage.

A form of incest. Not necessarily your own mother, but perhaps a different wife of your father.

This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t look for your father’s hidden skirt. It refers again to having intercourse with your mom or stepmom, to "discover" or better, "uncover" the skirt was a polite way of talking about sex, specifically with something that properly belonged to your father.