Monday 8th September
Read Deuteronomy 21:18-21
“If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, 19 his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. 20 They shall say to the elders, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.’ 21 Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.” (NIVUK)
The context for this law from Moses is the fifth commandment. “‘Honour your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the Lord your God is giving you.” (Deuteronomy 5:16).
A persistently rebellious son is clearly breaching this, the first, of the laws concerning relationships within the covenant people. The blessing attached to the honouring of parents is continued life in the promised land. To break this commandment results in the death of the son. And bereft parents.
One wonders if this law was ever enacted. One imagines that parents would consider their sons not quite ‘stubborn and rebellious’ enough. The instinct to call evil good – or at least tolerate it – is strong in just about all of us. Our horror at these words is less about the ‘evil amongst us (v21)’ but more likely directed at the prescribed purging and punishment.
Spend time reflecting on your response to these words. Why has God commanded this?
