Deuteronomy 21:18

Children have rights, as the last passage shows, but they have also duties. The punishment of an incorrigible son is very severe. The State is regarded as having an interest in the proper upbringing of children and as exercising its authority when that of the parents is powerless: see on Exodus 20:12; Exodus 21:15; Exodus 21:17.

22, 23. And thou hang him] The hanging followed the execution. See on Numbers 25:4 and cp. Joshua 10:26; 2 Samuel 4:12. The tree was a stake on which the dead body of the criminal was impaled, in token of infamy. The dead body must be taken down before nightfall because it is 'the curse of God.' The words rendered, he that is hanged is accursed of God, are somewhat ambiguous. They mean either he 'is accursed in the sight of God, i.e. cursed by God,' or 'is an insult or reproach to God.' Jewish commentators take them in the latter sense. The dead body pollutes the land and is an insult to God: it must therefore be taken down. St. Paul quotes the words in Galatians 3:13 in the former sense, viz. that the fact of hanging is an evidence of the divine curse resting upon the person. The Jews of the apostle's time, like those of later times, argued from the 'offence of the cross.' Seeing that Jesus was hanged on a tree, He could not be the Son of God: He was manifestly the object of divine displeasure. St. Paul boldly admitted the fact, but reasoned differently from it. The curse, he said, was vicarious. Christ 'was made a curse for us,' thereby redeeming us from the curse of the Law.