Deuteronomy 12:29-31

Transition to the Laws in 13 (and those in Deuteronomy 16:21 to Deuteronomy 17:7)

When settled in W. Palestine Israel shall not inquire into the manner of the worship of the local deities, and so be enticed to imitate it in the worship of their own God, for the Canaanites in their worship practise every abomination to Jehovah: they even burn their children to the gods. Here we meet one of the greater difficulties raised by the order of the laws in the code. For unless this short passage be merely one of the many exhortations, which, like a chorus, break in upon both the narratives and the laws of D, it is meant as an introduction to the laws against seducers to idolatry, which follow in ch. 13. Yet, as such, it is abrupt and incomplete; Deuteronomy 12:31 warns against every abomination to Jehovah, and then, instead of a list of those abominations, gives only one. Now others are given in Deuteronomy 16:21 to Deuteronomy 17:7; and that passage is clearly out of place where it stands, between laws relating to judicial authorities and procedure. The suggestion has therefore been made (first by Dillmann, cp. Driver on Deuteronomy 16:21 and Bertholet on Deuteronomy 12:29 and Marti in Kautzsch's Heil. Schrift des A.T.) that Deuteronomy 16:21 to Deuteronomy 17:7 originally stood between Deuteronomy 12:29-31 and Deuteronomy 13:2 ff. There is much in favour of this suggestion; Deuteronomy 16:21 to Deuteronomy 17:7 naturally continues Deuteronomy 12:29-31 and has phrases in common with this (which thy God hatethand abomination), while its second part commanding the punishment of idolatrous Israelites as naturally leads up to the three laws in Deuteronomy 13:2 ff. (Deuteronomy 13:1 ff.). On the relation to Deuteronomy 12:29-31 of Deuteronomy 18:9-12, also on the sacrifice of children, see on the latter passage. A further difficulty is Deuteronomy 12:32 (Deuteronomy 13:1), see the note on it.

Deuteronomy 12:29. When the Lord thy God shall cut off the nations So Deuteronomy 19:1 (cp. deuter. Joshua 23:4 f.); beyond this the verses differ.

whither thou goest in to dispossess them Characteristic of the Sg. passages, cp. Deuteronomy 9:5; Deuteronomy 19:1 has whose land the Lord thy God is about to give thee.

and thou shalt have dispossessed them] So Deuteronomy 19:1: R.V. succeedest them.

and dwellest in their land Deuteronomy 19:1, their cities.

Deuteronomy 12:30. take heed to thyself See Deuteronomy 6:12.

ensnared to follow them snared away after them; cp. Deuteronomy 7:16; Deuteronomy 7:25.

inquire not after See on seek, Deuteronomy 12:5.

How do these nations, serve, etc.] Rather How used these nations to worship.

so will I do, I also or in my turn] The lighter form of the pronoun, "anî,used in the Song 32 and throughout P, is found in D (which elsewhere uses the heavier form "ânôki) only here and Deuteronomy 29:5; and is to he explained by the common O.T. usage of preferring "anîwhen the pronoun is employed in emphasis as here.

The whole verse is true to the religious situation in which Israel found themselves after settlement in Canaan. They came under the belief, prevalent in antiquity, that not only must the gods of a land be propitiated by its invaders, but that worship must be offered only after the local mishpator ritual (1 Samuel 26:19; 2 Kings 17:25 ff.). So they inquiredwhat that mishpatwas and conformed to it the worship of their own God, with the result of confusing Him with the gods of the land.

for even their sons and their daughters do they burn or used to burn. That the Semites (as well as other ancient races) sacrificed children has been amply proved. Mesha of Moab, hard pressed by Israel, slew his first-born to Kemosh (2 Kings 3:27) just as we know, through the Greeks (Diod. Sic. xx. 14, Porph. apudEuseb. Praep. Evang. iv. (64, 4), was the practice of Phoenicians and Carthaginians in times of national danger or disaster. On human sacrifices among them, the Syrians, and ancient Arabs see notes to pp. 346 ff. of W. R. Smith's Rel. Sem.For the Canaanites the evidence of the sacrifice of children by slaughter and burning is conclusive, both from the O.T. texts, and recent discoveries:

At Gezer round the feet of the maṣṣeboth(see on Deuteronomy 16:22) and -over the whole area of the High Place the earth was discovered to be a regular cemetery in which the skeletons of young infants were buried. These infants were never more than a week old. Two at least showed marks of fire." They were buried in jars, each with a lamp and a bowl, as if symbols of fire and blood (R. A. S. Macalister, PEFQ, 1903, Bible Side Lights etc., 73 f.). At Ta-anak Sellin found jars with the remains of 20 infants, some up to 5 years of age close to a rock altar (Tell Ta-annek, 35 ff.). At Megiddo (Tell el-Mutesellim) under the corner of a temple four jars with remains of infants were dug up from a stratum probably of the late Israelite period. Others have been found under the walls of houses, but whether these were of still-born infants or of such as died naturally is not known; in Egypt, as the present writer has been informed by the American missionaries, the still-born children of Copts are buried in the house (whether with the hope that they may be re-born into it?). See further Frazer, Adonis, Attisetc. 78. But there can be no doubt of the fate of those found in the sanctuaries; the marks of fire on some and the presence of lamps and bowls prove slaughter and sacrifice by fire. So too the vb. burnused here and in Jeremiah 7:31; Jeremiah 19:5, as well as the story of Abraham and Isaac, indicates a full sacrifice, slaughter and at least partial consumption by fire on an altar. On this Ezekiel 16:21 (cp. Ezekiel 23:39) is explicit: thou hast slain my children and didst deliver them up in causing them to pass through(sc. the fire) to them. The fire was the means of their conveyance to the deity. Therefore the expression to make son or daughter pass through the fire(Deuteronomy 18:10) cannot he explained as merely a consecration or ordeal by fire. The data do not enable us to determine whether at any time the practice of devoting the firstborn was binding and universal among the Canaanites, or was confined to periods of calamity. That even among the Canaanites there was a revolt from it is proved by Mr Macalister's discovery (op. cit.170 f., PEFQ, 1903, 8 f.), in some strata of the pre-Israelite period, of lamps and bowls buried with the jars instead of children and as if in substitution for these.

The practice by Israel of sacrificing children after the same fashion and from the same motives is proved by the narratives and laws of the Old Testament as well as by the prophets:

The story, which is found in E, Genesis 22, that the divine word bade Abraham sacrifice Isaac and then revealed a substitute in the ram, is evidence that at one time among the Hebrews the belief had prevailed in the duty of fathers to slay their children, if required, us proof of their fidelity to their God, but that by His mercy a substitute was allowed. This is confirmed by the form of the law in J, Exodus 13:12. Though this sanctions the redemption of the firstborn son by an animal, the way in which it opens thou shalt cause to pass over unto Jehovah all that openeth the womb and every firstling which thou hast that Cometh of a beastindicates that the original principle, on which Israel acted, was that the firstborn of men, equally with those of animals, were due to the deity by sacrifice. In Judah in the 7th century the popular belief was that Jehovah Himself had given a law obliging the burning of children, for Jeremiah (or a deuteronomic writer whose words have been here placed among his prophecies) emphatically denies the existence of such a law: which I commanded not, neither came it into my mind(Jeremiah 7:31; Jeremiah 19:5). On the other hand Ezekiel supports the opinion that Israel's God had given such a law and explains that this was in order to punish the second generation in the wilderness. 20:25: moreover I gave them also statutes not good and judgements whereby they should not live, and I polluted them in their own gifts, in that they caused to pass through(sc. the fire) all that openeth the womb, that I might make them desolate(see A. B. Davidson's note on this passage in Ezekielin this series).

There was therefore a memory in Israel that the fathers of the race had shared the general Semitic conscience that the sacrifice of children was sanctioned or even expressly commanded by God, but that from an early time He had permitted the substitution of an animal, which permission, J tells us, was expressly dictated by Moses at the Exodus. In the early centuries after the settlement there are no instances of child-sacrifice in Israel except in the story of Jephthah (and more doubtfully in that of Hiel, the re-builder of Jericho). And the cases which recur later are all explicable by the bad influence of the neighbouring heathen, and the panic produced by national disaster, either actual or threatened. So in the case of Ahaz (2 Kings 16:4), the historical character of which there is no reason to doubt (see as against Moore, E.B.art. -Molech" the present writer's Jerusalem, ii. 127, 264); and so with the recrudescence of the practice in the 7th century under Manasseh, and the use of the horrible Topheth or Tephath in the valley of Hinnom (Jeremiah 7:31; Jeremiah 19:5; -Mi." Deuteronomy 6:6 f.; Ezekiel 16:21; Ezekiel 20:18 ff; Ezekiel 23:39). The present Hebrew text of Jer. says that these sacrifices were offered to -Molech," but -there are grounds for believing that this was a divine title, Melek or King, rather than a name; and that the awful despot who demanded such a propitiation was regarded by the Jews as none other than their own God" (Jerusalem, ii. 264). This is clear, as we have seen above, from the passages in Jeremiah and Ezekiel. And the reason is plain why D, a work of the 7th century, should alone of all Israel's law-books be ardent, equally with the great prophets of the time, in repudiating child-sacrifice.