his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him the same day; for he who is hanged is accursed of God. Don’t defile your land which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance.
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 23. Of God. Chal. “he has been fixed on the gibbet for sinning against God.” Sym. and Arab. “he has blasphemed the Lord.” Syriac, “the man who has blasphemed shall be hung.” Only people accused of great crimes such as blasphemy and idolatry, were condemned to this reproachful death, and prayers were not said for them in the synagogue, as they were for other persons, during the 11 months following their decease. Calmet.—They are not to be remembered before God. Their dead bodies are to be buried before sun-set, that the country may not be defiled. The punishment itself is extremely infamous, and the name of God is often used by the Jews, to express something in the highest degree, as the cedars of God, and so forth Bible.—Some understand this passage, as if the body were not to be left on the gibbet, because man, being created to the likeness of God, he will not allow the body to be insulted. Homer (Il. xxiv.) says that Achilles offered an insult to the earth, when he dragged the dead body of Hector round the walls of Troy. Others think, that the criminal having been treated with due severity, as accursed of God, his corpse must not be deprived of decent burial. Res sacra miser. The Jews refused this privilege to none but suicides, (Josep. Bel. iii. 25,) while the Egyptians and Phœnicians suffered the bodies to rot upon the gibbet, whose inhumanity God here reproves. Saint Paul reads this verse in a different manner both from the Hebrew and Septuagint leaving out of God, and substituting, with the Septuagint the words every one, and on a tree. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree. Galatians 3:13. S. Jerom remarks, that on this, as well as on other occasions, he adheres to the sense, without following the express words of Scripture. He also observes, with Tertullian, that only those are declared accursed by the law, who are hung for their crimes; and as Jesus Christ suffered not for any fault of his own, but being willing to appear in the character of one accursed, he has procured for us all blessings. Calmet.—In a mystical sense, that man is accursed who is obstinate in sin, hanging as it were on the tree, which was the occasion of our first parents’ transgression. Worthington.—S. Jerom seems to think that the Jews have inserted of God, to intimate that Christ was accursed of him. Bible.