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Deuteronomy

About this book
Chapter 24

1 If a man marries a woman and she does not please him because he has found something indecent in her, then he may draw up a divorce document, give it to her, and evict her from his house.⁠ 2 When she has left him she may go and become someone else’s wife. 3 If the second husband rejects her and then divorces her, gives her the papers, and evicts her from his house, or if the second husband who married her dies,⁠ 4 her first husband who divorced her is not permitted to remarry her after she has become ritually impure, for that is offensive to the Lord. You must not bring guilt on the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance. 5 When a man is newly married, he need not go into the army nor be obligated in any way; he must be free to stay at home for a full year and bring joy to the wife he has married. 6 One must not take either lower or upper millstones as security on a loan, for that is like taking a life itself as security. 7 If a man is found kidnapping a person from among his fellow Israelites, and regards him as mere property and sells him, that kidnapper must die. In this way you will purge the evil from among you. 8 Be careful during an outbreak of leprosy to follow precisely all that the Levitical priests instruct you; as I have commanded them, so you should do.⁠ 9 Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam along the way after you left Egypt. 10 When you make any kind of loan to your neighbor, you may not go into his house to claim what he is offering as security.⁠ 11 You must stand outside and the person to whom you are making the loan will bring out to you what he is offering as security. 12 If the person is poor you may not use what he gives you as security for a covering. 13 You must by all means return to him at sunset the item he gave you as security so that he may sleep in his outer garment and bless you for it; it will be considered a just deed by the Lord your God. 14 You must not oppress a lowly and poor servant, whether one from among your fellow Israelites or from the resident foreigners who are living in your land and villages. 15 You must pay his wage that very day before the sun sets, for he is poor and his life depends on it. Otherwise he will cry out to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty of sin.⁠ 16 Fathers must not be put to death for what their children do, nor children for what their fathers do; each must be put to death for his own sin.⁠ 17 You must not pervert justice due a resident foreigner or an orphan, or take a widow’s garment as security for a loan.⁠ 18 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore I am commanding you to do all this. 19 Whenever you reap your harvest in your field and leave some unraked grain there, you must not return to get it; it should go to the resident foreigner, orphan, and widow so that the Lord your God may bless all the work you do.⁠ 20 When you beat your olive tree you must not repeat the procedure; the remaining olives belong to the resident foreigner, orphan, and widow. 21 When you gather the grapes of your vineyard you must not do so a second time; they should go to the resident foreigner, orphan, and widow.⁠ 22 Remember that you were slaves in the land of Egypt; therefore, I am commanding you to do all this.

Texts in conversation

Compare Numbers 12:10 and Deuteronomy 24:9

Hebrew Bible

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Summary

In Numbers, Miriam is afflicted with leprosy after speaking against Moses, and in Deuteronomy, the moment is recalled with a warning to remember her. These establish an unusual pattern where inappropriate speech results in physical consequences.

Passages

Numbers 12:10

Hebrew Bible
8 With him I will speak face to face, openly and not in riddles, and he will see the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?” 9 The anger of the Lord burned against them, and he departed. 10 After the cloud had departed from above the tent, there was Miriam, leprous like snow. Then Aaron turned toward Miriam, and realized that she was leprous. 11 So Aaron said to Moses, “O my lord, please do not hold this sin against us, in which we have acted foolishly and have sinned! 12 Do not let her be like a baby born dead, whose flesh is half consumed when it comes out of its mother’s womb!”
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Numbers

Deuteronomy 24:9

Hebrew Bible
7 If a man is found kidnapping a person from among his fellow Israelites, and regards him as mere property and sells him, that kidnapper must die. In this way you will purge the evil from among you. 8 Be careful during an outbreak of leprosy to follow precisely all that the Levitical priests instruct you; as I have commanded them, so you should do. 9 Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam along the way after you left Egypt. 10 When you make any kind of loan to your neighbor, you may not go into his house to claim what he is offering as security. 11 You must stand outside and the person to whom you are making the loan will bring out to you what he is offering as security.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Deuteronomy

References

"... Judges 12 tells of how Jephthah, previously so slow to go to war against Israel's foreign enemy, the Ammonites, rushes after his victory over them to initiate a civil war among the Israelites, in which Jephthah and his fellow Gileadites kill 40,000 from the tribe of Ephraim. It would appear that the sacrifice of just one innocent human, his own daughter, quickly hardened and desensitized Jephthah to the precipitate slaying of tens of thousands of his own people. Soon thereafter, he died, and, the text tells us, he was buried in cities of Gilead (12:7). This odd reference to a number of cities, the Midrash tells us, is not a scribal error of some sort, but signifies that he died a horrible death - his limbs atrophied and fell off one by one from his body, and were buried separately where each loss of limb occurred, as required by Jewish law. Of course, the text and the Midrash together are telling us of classic manifestations of leprosy, the Divine punishment throughout the Bible for moral transgressions committed through improper speech and its destructive consequences. (Numbers 12:10 and Deuteronomy 24:9) ..."
Lippman Bodoff, “The Tragedy of Jephthah,” JBQ 28.4 (2000): 251–255.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Numbers 12:10 and Deuteronomy 24:9

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