The Rebellious Son and the Hanged Man
18 If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and though they chasten him, will not listen to them, 19 then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city and to the gate of his place. 20 They shall tell the elders of his city, “This our son is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey our voice. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” 21 All the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall remove the evil from among you. All Israel shall hear, and fear. 22 If a man has committed a sin worthy of death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, 23 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 Yahweh your God gives you for an inheritance.
Parents may not punish a son themselves but must bring him to court, and an executed body must be buried the same day.
The case is the hardest in the chapter, and its details are constraints rather than licences.
The son described is not a difficult adolescent. He will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and this continues though they chasten him Deuteronomy 21:18. Correction has been tried and has failed. The charge brought is a glutton and a drunkard Deuteronomy 21:20 — a grown man consuming his household's substance and answering to nobody.
What the law does with him is take him out of his parents' hands.
They may not punish him themselves. His father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city and to the gate Deuteronomy 21:19, and the sentence is passed and carried out by the town. In a world where a head of household had wide power over his dependents, this removes the ultimate penalty from the family entirely and puts it in a public court.
Both parents must agree and both must bring the charge. The mother's voice is named twice, which gives her a veto in a matter where she would otherwise have had none.
No instance of this sentence being carried out is recorded anywhere in Scripture. What the law establishes in practice is that a father's authority stops short of his son's life, and that the community, not the household, decides.
The last two verses concern a body. A man executed for a capital crime and hung on a tree shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him the same day Deuteronomy 21:22–23.
Display was the ordinary practice, and its purpose was deterrence. The law allows the hanging and stops the exhibition at sundown. Even a man justly executed keeps a claim on decent burial, and the reason given is that leaving him defiles the land itself.
The clause attached — he who is hanged is accursed of God — is quoted centuries later in an argument about the cross, where Paul says Christ became a curse for us, and cites this verse Galatians 3:13. What the law states as a fact about a corpse on a tree, the New Testament applies to one particular execution.
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