V. 1. ff. If you find a slain man in the land that is yours 2c.
Moses remains in this chapter still with the things, which concern war and blood. First, he introduces a great ceremony (ceremoniam), which is to take place when a slain man is found in the field, and one does not know the culprit: how one is supposed to pay off the debt. This evil also belongs to that which is civil, and of which we have said that one must suffer it if one wants to live together with neighbors (jure vicinitatis). Otherwise, why should those who live in the immediate vicinity of the place of death (occisi) be the most burdened with guilt, since it is possible that he would have been killed by people living far away or by strangers? But this law, in my opinion, is given so that the rough people of the law would be deterred by this outward show of sadness and repentance 1) and held back from the death stroke, just as children are used to be deterred from evil by outward things that are shown to them (spectaculis) and by frightening images.
Secondly, he gives them a law about the captive wives. And here you see how much the law allowed the Jewish men of war, that they were not only allowed to have several wives, but also, if they felt like it (si amor jusserit), a Gentile woman and prisoner of war. For since he dealt above with the men of war, who are not new husbands [Cap. 20, 1-4.], it is evident that almost all of them who were to do war service had been husbands for at least more than a year, and these married men of war are permitted to take even a heathen wife home with them, and, what is more, after that, if she displeases him, he [Moses] gives him the right to let her go from him, but as a free woman, so that she may marry another but not be sold or ravished.
1) We have adopted posnitsMias with the Jena instead of posllitslltin in the Wittenberg and in the Erlangen.
(prostitui) could. For it is not befitting for civic respectability that one sells or disgraces a humiliated woman.
But what is this? Were the Jews free to ravish the women? The text does not have the word "ravish" (prostituendi), fondas word which means to sell or to hire (locare), so that the meaning seems to me to be that she should not be sold for money, or in any other way given away for profit, to whomever the husband wants, namely to a servant or a friend, but she should be left completely free, so that she can rather, free of him, marry whomever she wants.
In short, this law also belongs in part to the things that Moses left for the Jews because of their hardness, as Christ teaches from the letter of separation Matth. 19, 8. For it is unjust that a woman should be cast away (dimitti) from her husband through no fault of her own and only because of her own will; nevertheless, this unjustness is allowed to the hard and rude (barbaris) people, so that they do not commit a greater misdeed (malum). But polygamy was common among this people, both according to the example of the fathers and according to the law. 2)
But this use, that she trim her nails and take off the clothes in which she is imprisoned, and sit and mourn her father and mother for a month, is instituted in order that the harshness of the deed may be alleviated, namely, that a heathen woman may be taken in marriage among the people of God, so that by these purifications she may be sanctified, as it were, and mixed with the holy people, after she has forgotten her people and her friendship and has become a new creature according to the flesh. For the brute rabble must be led and urged to respectability and reverence by outward ceremonies and ostentation, since they cannot be led by the spirit.
2) The last sentence is missing in the Wittenberg.
Thirdly, he gives a law about two wives and their offspring, lest the husband, according to his affection and love, should give the firstborn to the son of the wife whom he loves best, who is not the firstborn. For the firstborn was the noblest and highest honor of children, which was not by the will of man, as marriage to a prisoner of war, but by the heavenly blessing, whereby there is no respect of person. Therefore, it may not be transferred according to human will [from one to another], or changed according to the will of the lover or the beloved, so that this is a generally valid sentence (gnome) that this law contains: What GOD gives as a gift, man may not take away. This law was even harsh, since it prevents both enmity (vindictam) against the hated wife and favor against the beloved. For to put away enmity and favor requires no small virtue, indeed, it is impossible of nature. Therefore it is enforced by law and by force, which wickedness neither wants nor is able to do. So you see that polygamy is permitted by the law.
Fourth, he gives the law of the disobedient sons, who are to be punished by death. The best and most just lawgiver is Moses, who pronounces the death sentence not only for lesser offenses, but much more also for greater ones. Among men the laws and customs are such that they punish murder and theft with death, but adultery is seldom punished with death. Furthermore, disobedience and the shameful life of children are not punished by death, much less offenses against sacred things (sacrilegia), and impiety and blasphemy against God and God's word. Here, however, Moses commands so strictly that the rebelliousness of the children be punished that he even commands that the parents themselves be the first to initiate this death penalty, since they themselves are to bring their own sons to court, accuse them and testify against them. This is how highly God values obedience and reverence to parents, and how God wanted us to follow this law as well, so that the licentious and insolent parents would be punished.
The youth would be taught more fear and timidity, which is being destroyed everywhere by such miserable examples and such impudent manners.
Fifthly and lastly, he decrees that the malefactors who are punished with death on the gallows should be taken away on the day, and that they should not be left on the gallows during the night. He adds the reason: "For a hanged man is accursed in the sight of God, lest the land be polluted." He says in active form: He is a cursed by God (maledictio Dei), that is, he is considered a cursed by God and before God and by God. Now, however, you are to put out of sight what you know is so displeasing to GOD that it is also cursed before Him, so that it will not seem as if you are hanging it as if you take pleasure in it, so that the land will be filled with the curse of GOD and thus be defiled. All this is ordained in order to make the killing detestable, as well as that worshipful use (religio) with the corpse of the one who was found slain, so that they would be deterred from killing, to such a degree that they would also kill the one who was worthy of death, forced by the coercion of the law, but themselves would like to kill only unwillingly, and should take away the killed as a gruesome image (spectrum) of the death stroke, so that the horror of killing would not become small and cool through the habit of looking at the corpse and to tolerate.
Secret interpretation.
Above [Cap. 19 It has been said that "killing" has a twofold secret interpretation. For either godliness or godlessness is killed; both are spiritual killing. The former is meant by the death stroke as guilt. The latter is meant by the sword of the avenging judgment as the punishment. Thus he is killed in an evil way who is alienated from God and the word of life by the word of ungodliness; but he is killed in a right way who is struck by the word of the Spirit as punishment and is frightened by the future wrath of God so that he may repent and live. If he is not made alive in this way
If he wants to die, he will remain a dead man in twofold death, both in his ungodliness and in the future wrath against his ungodliness, with which God will kill him. But we kill spiritually by shrinking. Therefore, the found corpse means either a killed brother or any killed people (populum), whom we find infected by false delusion, whose author or teacher is not known. Here, all those who are closest must run to it and, terrified in a godly conscience, take this guilt upon themselves, fearing that it might have happened through their fault, or that it might be among us who did it, especially the elders, that is, the ministers of the Word, and act no differently to remove this trouble than if they had caused it themselves.
Therefore, they are to take a young heifer from the cattle that has not yet pulled at the yoke, which is Christ in his flesh, which he took from our human race. But he is taken in the spirit, that is, preached and believed. But he was never under the yoke, that is, he was without sin, owing nothing to the law, but sacrificed for us according to his will. They shall lead it into a rough and rocky valley, which has never been tilled, nor received seed, and shall cut off its neck there, that is, they shall preach that he suffered in the world and for the world, which is barren, rough and ungrateful to God, never having heard or received the word of God before, but only preening in righteousness and wisdom of the flesh. Then, while the Levites stand by, the elders shall approach the slain man, and wash their hands over the young heifer, and pray that this blood may not be imputed to them, that is, over Christ thus preached and believed, the ministers of the word shall become innocent, and 1) act [as if it were their own business], 2) and pray that this offense may be forgiven them. Thus through Christ all things are forgiven, both the
1) et is missing in the Jenaer.
2) Such an addition: si sua res agatur, seems to us commanded by the context and by the parallelism at the end of this paragraph.
The sins that are right and recognized, as well as the unknown sins and those that we fearfully suspect to be sins. An excellent example of this spiritual interpretation is given to you by Paul in the whole epistle to the Galatians, where he, having found the body of a slain man in the field of the church, and not knowing who had done it, runs to it as the neighbor and acts as if it were his own business. See there.
The captive woman who is taken as a wife, thinks St. Jerome, is the eloquence. For in such a way they consider the secret interpretations as a kind of game. We say that the secret interpretations must be applied to faith. Therefore, this woman is either the synagogue, or the church from the Gentiles. We understand by it (facimus) the synagogue, which was beautiful through the gifts that Paul enumerates Rom. 9, 4. 5. and says: "To whom belongs the law and the covenant, the glory, the fathers" 2c., and completely suitable for love and marriage, that is, to hear Christ's word. The hair (caesaries) was her shining priesthood; this is shorn off and cut off. The garment in which she is caught, the outward appearance of righteousness, also had to be put off, so that the true righteousness of the cross might be introduced, which considers everything that was gain before as dirt [Phil. 3, 7. 8.]. She shall also trim the nails, that is, she shall also lose the hardness of the law which lacerates the consciences. Then she shall mourn her father and mother, that is, she shall recognize and confess that sin is original and in nature, which cannot be removed by the righteousness of the law, but rather is increased. And so she should be married (maritetur), that is, receive and believe the word of God, and be the wife of Christ.
Up to this point, the spiritual interpretation of the synagogue for one part has endured, as it is the custom of Scripture to speak of the whole in the figure of the synecdoche, since it means only one part. Now follows from the other part, which is rejected, namely it is the same woman, who is accepted and rejected, because it is one and the same people, to the
Partly accepted, partly abandoned. If then the woman displeases you, that is, in this ungodly part, you shall let her go free, that is, Christ has left the Jews and does not subject them to the law anymore, nor does he hand them over to another master, but they [the synagogue] are free to go away as they please and follow the master they want. Thus the Lord foretold Isa. 5, 2. ff. that his vineyard would leave him. Now you can draw this secret interpretation quite generally to all works saints, some of whom are caught by the word, who shave off their hair, trim their nails, and condemn all glory of former righteousness, and realize that they are sinners. Again, some are left as hardened in their minds.
Two wives of one man are the twofold and yet one church of the Jews and Gentiles. The synagogue is the hostile one, because it kills the prophets and crucifies Christ 2c.; the church of the Gentiles is the beloved one, because it accepts the word with joy. Nevertheless, the synagogue has the firstborn, because from it comes Christ, the apostles, the word, and not from the Gentiles, "because salvation comes from the Jews", Joh. 4, 22. Therefore, even today one should not despise the Jews, because from them, not from us, comes all glory, as Paul does Rom. 9, 3. ff. For they were the first Christians, and "to them is promised and trusted what God has spoken" [Rom. 3, 2].
The son, who is rebellious and a drunkard, means a teacher in the church who is first begotten by the Word, but then corrupted by human doctrines and dreams and stubbornly adheres to them. This one is to be accused and convicted before the court of the church, and to be killed with stones, that is, with hard sayings of the Scriptures, that is, to be overcome, so that he may live. If he does not want to live, then the severe judgment of death and the wrath of God must be applied, so that he may be killed and live.
The one hanged for an iniquity, who is to be taken down because of the curse of God, so that the land will not be defiled, means that an ungodly person, who by
the word is condemned, and does not repent, should be completely removed, and should be set apart as a curse before God and considered a ban, lest, if it were tolerated among us, it should infect and corrupt very many of us, as it says in 1 Cor. 5,1 ) 13. 6: "Put out from among yourselves whoever is evil," for "a little leaven leaveneth the whole dough."
But what shall we say to Paul, who in his letter to the Galatians Cap. 3, 13. understands this passage of Christ, saying: "Christ became a curse for us, for it is written: Cursed is everyone who hangs on the wood." Jerome agonizes over this passage, saying that Moses speaks of a hanged transgressor, but that Christ committed no sin. But he does not see that Paul speaks in the most simple way, and Moses, who speaks in general terms, understands Christ correctly and according to the letter, without figurative speech. For if every hanged man is a curse before God, 2) as Moses teaches, Christ is also a curse before God, and if every hanged man is an evildoer, Christ is also an evildoer. Therefore, it should not have been said here how Christ was without sin, but how he had sin; likewise, it should not have been said how he was the one who gave and was not subject to this hanging, but how he was and could have been subject to it.
Here Paul solves the whole difficulty with one word, saying: "He became a curse for us"; for us, I say, not for himself. By this word he clearly teaches that someone has two kinds of sin and that a hanged man becomes a curse before God; once for himself and his own sin; such are all others; the other time for others and for foreign sin; such is Christ alone, who says, Ps. 69, 10.: "The reproach of those who revile you falls on me", and Is. 53, 4.: "He bore our sins", and again [v. 8.]: "For the sins of my people I afflicted him", and [v. 10.]: "So the LORD wanted to bruise him for the sake of our sins".
1) In the issues: 1 Cor. 15.
2) Erlanger: vso instead of: I)si in the other editions.
1562 L ex. oxx. XIII, 278-280. interpretations on the fifth book of Moses. W. Ill, 2SV7-WII. 1563
for the sake of other sins" 2c. Whether someone is hanged for himself or for another, the simple understanding of the law remains that anyone hanged for sin is a curse before God. Therefore, Christ, in bearing our sin, became a curse for us in truth, as the text reads to the letter. As he was circumcised and put under the whole law for us, while he was free from every law for himself, so he "who knew no sin was made sin for us, that we might have in him the righteousness that is before God," 2 Cor. 5,1 ) 21. Thus he became a curse who did not know the curse, so that in him we might be a blessing from God.
But that this curse before God from the wood
1) In the issues: 2 Cor. 6.
To be taken, lest the land be defiled, means to preach and believe the gospel of the cross, namely, that the cross is glory, death life, sin righteousness, the curse blessing, damnation blessedness, or as Paul says [Gal. 6:14], that we glory in the cross of our Lord, that the world is crucified to us, and we to the world, according to the words [Matth. 5:10]: "Blessed are those who are persecuted" 2c. Otherwise, if this is not preached and believed, there is nothing more detestable, nothing more abominable, than the cross and death, and the whole land is defiled by this opinion and this vexation of the cross, for "to the unclean nothing is pure, to the pure all things are pure" [Tit. 1, 15.]. This [that everything is pure] happens through the word, that [that nothing is pure] without the word.