Deuteronomy 21:1-9

See W. R. Smith, Kinship 1 p. 263 (= 64f. in Kinship 2) for a similar law among the ancient Arabs. The ground of this law may be the belief that, until avenged or atoned for, a murdered man's blood defiles a land and its people. Note the idea that the community (here the nearest town) is responsible for the act of an individual. The conception of individual responsibility becomes specially prominent in Jeremiah 31:29; Ezekiel 14:12 ff., Ezekiel 18:2 f. The solidarity of the family, tribe, and nation had been emphasized in early writings, the whole suffering for the sins of each one; see Deuteronomy 13:7; Exodus 20:5 f., CH, §§ 23f., and for modern Arabia, Doughty, Arabia Deserta, i. 176; also the valuable treatise of M. Lö hr, Socialismus und Individualismus im AT (reviewed by the present writer in RTP, viii. p. 578ff.).