Respect for life 21:22-22:8

This section opens and closes with references to death (21:22; 22:8) placing it within the legislation dealing with the sixth commandment.²³⁸

 The burial of a hanged person 21:22-23

"The preceding law had proceeded from parental to official judicial authority and had prescribed the death penalty. The present case takes the judicial process a step beyond the execution, to the exposure of the corpse as a monitory, public proclamation of the satisfaction of justice."²³⁹

The method of public execution prescribed in Israel was normally stoning. After criminals had died, sometimes their executioners hung their bodies up for all to see as a deterrent to similar crimes.²⁴⁰This law required that in such cases those responsible had to bury the body the same day as the execution to avoid defiling the land further because of death (cf. Num. 35:33-34; Lev. 18:24-27). Hanging was the resultof God's curse, not its cause.

The fact that Jesus Christ's enemies crucified Him on a tree for all to see demonstrated that God had cursed Him because He bore our sins as our substitute. His hanging on a tree did not result in God cursing Him (John 19:31; Gal. 3:13).

 Preventing accidental death 22:1-8

Love for one's neighbor comes through in several concrete situations in verses 1-4. Failure to get involved and help a neighbor in need is also wrong under the New Covenant (James 2:15-16; 1 John 3:17).

Men appeared in women's clothing and vice versa (v. 5) in some of the worship rituals of Astarte.²⁴¹Furthermore transvestism did and still does have associations with certain forms of homosexuality.²⁴²Perhaps for these reasons God gave the command to wear clothing appropriate to one's own sex as well as because God intended to keep the sexes distinct (v. 5). Homosexualism was punishable by death in Israel.

"There are positive values in preserving the differences between the sexes in matters of dress. The New Testament instruction in Galatians 3:28, that there is neither male nor female, but that Christians are all one in Christ Jesus, applies rather to status in God's sight than to such things as dress. Without being legalistic some attempt to recognize the relative difference of the sexes, within their common unity as persons, is a principle worth safeguarding."²⁴³

Verses 6-7 show that God cares for the least of His creatures, and He wanted His people to do the same. Israelites could not kill mother birds along with their young or vice versa.

"The affectionate relation of parents to their young which God had established even in the animal world, was to be kept just as sacred [among animals as among humans, vv. 6-7]."²⁴⁴

Another view is that this law taught the Israelites to protect this important source of food, namely, eggs.²⁴⁵Building parapets on their flat-roofed houses reminded them of the value of human life and to love their neighbors (v. 8).