Episode 73: Holy War, disobedient sons, and hated wives

(Deuteronomy 20-21)

Holy War

20 ¹ When you are fighting against people with horses, chariots, and powerful armies, don't be afraid. God is with you, fighting against your enemies.

⁵ These are the exemptions for fighting in holy wars:

If you've built a house and haven't dedicated it, go do it.

Lest you die in battle and another man dedicate it.

⁶ If you've planted a vineyard and haven't eaten from it, go eat from it.

Lest you die in battle and another man eat from it.

⁷ If you've betrothed a wife but haven't yet taken her, go take her.

Lest you die in battle and another man take her.

⁸ And if you're afraid to fight, go home.

¹⁰ When you come to a city to fight against it, first proclaim peace. ¹¹ If the city agrees to be peaceable, enslave them.

¹² If they won't agree to that, go to war against them.

¹³ When God delivers a city to you, kill every male with a sword. ¹⁴ But keep the women, little girls, animals, and spoil for yourself.

¹⁵ Do this to the cities that are far away from you.

^16-17 But for the cities that God gives you for an inheritance, kill everyone. Save alive nothing that breathes, as God commands.

¹⁸ That way they won't teach you their abominations, so you won't sin against your God.

¹⁹ But when you besiege a city, don't destroy the trees.

What to do with a dead body

21 ^1-7 If you find a dead body and don't know the cause of death, get all the elders together, find a heifer that has never done any work, cut off the head of the heifer, wash your hands over its body, and say, “Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it.”

⁹ This procedure will remove the guilty blood from among you.

What to do with women captured in a holy war

^10-12 When you go to war, and God delivers your enemies into your hands, and you see a beautiful woman among the captives and would like her for a wife, bring her home, and have her shave her head and cut her nails.

¹³ After she has spent a month mourning her dead mother and father, have sex with her.

¹⁴ Later, if you don't like her, you can let her go.

What to do if you have two wives (one that you love and one that you hate)

^15-16 If a man has two wives, one that he loves, and the other that he hates, and if both wives have born him children, and if the firstborn son's mother is the wife that he hates, then he can't make the son of the beloved wife his firstborn son. ¹⁷ He must give a double portion of his inheritance to the firstborn son of his hated wife.

What to do with a disobedient son

^18-20 If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son, who will not obey his father or mother, then his father and mother will bring him to the elders of the city, and say,

Our son is stubborn and rebellious and will not obey us.

He is also a glutton and a drunkard.

²¹ And all the men of the city will stone him to death. That will put the evil away from you. Everyone will hear, and fear.

How to hang people on trees

^22-23 If a man has committed a sin worthy of death, and you hang him on a tree, don't leave his dead body all night on the tree. Bury the body the same day. Because whoever is hanged is accursed by God.