Deuteronomy 19 - Introduction

III. Third Division of the Laws. Of Crime, War, Property, the Family, and Equity. 19 25

Over 50 laws on all these relations and duties of the ordinary citizen. This division of the Code is distinguished from the two previous, (1) by being uninfluenced except in the case of the first law, on the Cities of Refuge, and perhaps also in Deuteronomy 21:1-9; Deuteronomy 23:15 f. by the centralisation of the Cultus; (2) by a less orderly arrangement; and (3) by the appearance of new terms and ideas such as the elders(explicable by the fact that the subjects of these laws are not new institutions consequent on the centralisation of the cultus but older local customs and organisation), the house of the Lord, the assembly of the Lord, etc. But we find prevailing the same deuteronomic language and style, the same proofs of compilation from earlier codes (doublets, traces of fusion, etc.) and the same signs of editorial expansion. The principle of grouping laws according to the relation to their subjects is sometimes observed but frequently departed from. The only other explanation of the order followed is the presence of corresponding catch-words at the end and beginning of consecutive laws. See below.

CHAPTER 19

Of the Cities of Refuge

Israel shall set apart three of the cities of the land (Deuteronomy 19:1 f.) to be selected after their position is taken into account and the land divided into three parts so that everymanslayer may have the chance of asylum (Deuteronomy 19:3). And (a) this is the case of the manslayer who by flight there shall secure his life: viz. if he has slain his neighbouraccidentally, as e.g. when they were hewing wood (Deuteronomy 19:4-6). Therefore three cities (Deuteronomy 19:7). But if God enlarge Israel's land three more shall be added so that no innocent blood be shed (Deuteronomy 19:8-10). But (b) the wilful murderer who flees to one of these cities shall be brought thence by the elders of his commune and delivered to the avenger, that the guilt be removed from Israel (Deuteronomy 19:11-13). In the Sg. throughout and with many phrases of D. Yet there are signs of compilation. As in Deuteronomy 15:2 ff. an earlier law seems to be quoted, for, as there, neighbouris used instead of brotherwhich is usual in Sg. passages.

Stade (Gesch. i. 664, n. 3), Berth. and Marti take Deuteronomy 19:8 as later than the rest of the law, on the ground that it breaks the connection between the two cases of manslaughter, (a) the innocent, and (b) the wilful. This is not at all certain. The provision of three more cities, Deuteronomy 19:8-10, comes naturally after the case of the innocent slayer in whose interest it is made, as Deuteronomy 19:10 points out; and it may well be from the same hand as 4 ff. Nor is there reason for supposing (with Steuern.) that Deuteronomy 19:11 are from another hand than Deuteronomy 19:3 bff., for Deuteronomy 19:3 bsays that the cities are for everymanslayer, therefore for the guilty (Deuteronomy 19:11-13) as well as for the innocent (Deuteronomy 19:4 ff.), that all alike may have a fair trial; and both Deuteronomy 19:4 ff. and Deuteronomy 19:11 use the term neighbour. The position of Deuteronomy 19:8-10 and the order of the whole passage are thus quite logical. At the same time Deuteronomy 19:8-10 have been expanded by some standard formulas (see notes) and others appear in Deuteronomy 19:1; Deuteronomy 19:13. It is remarkable how unnecessary these phrases of D are, and how when they are removed, there is left (as in other cases) a law, compact, consistent, and so far sufficient. It is, of course, impossible to say whether the law had originally none of these phrases, and therefore no reference to Moses or Israel's standpoint before entering the land. But it yields these certain signs of its origin. It is a consequence of D's centralisation of the cultus, and is therefore later than E whose law, Exodus 21:12-14, recognises every altar of Jehovah as an asylum, cp. 1 Kings 1:50; 1 Kings 2:28 f. Also the mitigation of the violence of the vendetta agrees with the equity and humanity that pervade D's Code. Like other laws of D this does not abolish but qualifies the earlier procedure. The avenger is not superseded, but remains the executioner of the wilful murderer of his kinsman, only he cannot perform this family duty till the public authorities have delivered the murderer to him. Again, the law was drawn when Israel's territory was still small (Deuteronomy 19:3; Deuteronomy 19:8) therefore hardly in the reign of Solomon, to which some scholars assign the Bk. of Deut. On the relation of D's law to the corresponding laws and other passages in P, and to the fragment above, Deuteronomy 4:41-43, see notes on the latter.