Deuteronomy 24

1 If a man marries a woman, but she becomes displeasing to him because he finds some indecency in her, he may write her a certificate of divorce, hand it to her, and send her away from his house. 2 If, after leaving his house, she goes and becomes another man’s wife, 3 and the second man hates her, writes her a certificate of divorce, hands it to her, and sends her away from his house, or if he dies, 4 then the husband who divorced her first may not remarry her after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination to the LORD. You must not bring sin upon the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance. 5 If a man is newly married, he must not be sent to war or be pressed into any duty. For one year he is free to stay at home and bring joy to the wife he has married. Additional Laws 6 Do not take a pair of millstones or even an upper millstone as security for a debt, because that would be taking one ’s livelihood as security. 7 If a man is caught kidnapping one of his Israelite brothers, whether he treats him as a slave or sells him, the kidnapper must die. So you must purge the evil from among you. 8 In cases of infectious skin diseases, be careful to diligently follow everything the Levitical priests instruct you. Be careful to do as I have commanded them. 9 Remember what the LORD your God did to Miriam on the journey after you came out of Egypt. 10 When you lend anything to your neighbor, do not enter his house to collect security. 11 You are to stand outside while the man to whom you are lending brings the security out to you. 12 If he is a poor man, you must not go to sleep with the security in your possession; 13 be sure to return it to him by sunset, so that he may sleep in his own cloak and bless you, and this will be credited to you as righteousness before the LORD your God. 14 Do not oppress a hired hand who is poor and needy, whether he is a brother or a foreigner residing in one of your towns. 15 You are to pay his wages each day before sunset, because he is poor and depends on them. Otherwise he may cry out to the LORD against you, and you will be guilty of sin. 16 Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin. 17 Do not deny justice to the foreigner or the fatherless, and do not take a widow’s cloak as security. 18 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you from that place. Therefore I am commanding you to do this. 19 If you are harvesting in your field and forget a sheaf there, do not go back to get it. It is to be left for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. 20 When you beat the olives from your trees, you must not go over the branches again. What remains will be for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow. 21 When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you must not go over the vines again. What remains will be for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow. 22 Remember that you were slaves in the land of Egypt. Therefore I am commanding you to do this.

✦ What the text says

## Summary Deuteronomy 24 collects a series of case laws (casuistic "if/when" formulations) covering divorce and remarriage (vv.1-4), exemption of a new husband from military service (v.5), pledge-taking restrictions protecting debtors (vv.6, 10-13, 17), prohibition of kidnapping (v.7), skin-disease protocol (v.8-9), fair treatment of hired laborers (vv.14-15), individual responsibility for sin (v.16), and gleaning rights for the sojourner, orphan, and widow (vv.19-22). ## Key words - *ki* ("if/that", H3588A) — the recurring conditional particle that opens nearly every law unit, marking the casuistic "when X happens" structure typical of this legal collection. - *keritut* ("divorce", H3748), paired with *sefer* ("document of", H5612A) construct — together "a document of cutting-off," the technical term for the writ in vv.1 and 3. - *to'evah* ("abomination", H8441) in v.4 — a noun describing the remarriage scenario as unacceptable "before the face of" (*penei*, H6440G) Yahweh. - *tzedaqah* ("righteousness", H6666) in v.13 — the outcome credited to the creditor who returns a poor man's pledge before sunset. - *ger*, *yatom*, *almanah* ("sojourner", H1616; "fatherless one", H3490; "widow", H0490) — the fixed triad recurring in vv.17, 19, 20, 21 marking the vulnerable classes protected by gleaning and pledge laws. ## What the text says The chapter is built almost entirely from chains of sequential perfect verbs (*ve*- + perfect) following an initial *ki* + imperfect, the standard Biblical Hebrew pattern for casuistic law: a protasis states the triggering condition (e.g., *yiqqach* "he will take," H3947G) and the apodosis unfolds as a series of "and-then" actions (*katav*, "he will write"; *natan*, "he will give"; *shilechah*, "he will send away," piel H7971I). This grammatical chaining, rather than any single imperative, produces the effect of a procedural sequence rather than a command. Several verses employ infinitive absolute constructions for emphasis: *hashev tashiv* ("certainly...you will return," H7725H) in v.13 and *zakhor* ("remember," H2142) in v.9 use a doubled or fronted infinitive to intensify obligation or recollection. The recurring formula *zakharta ki 'eved hayita be-Mitzrayim* ("you will remember that a slave you were in Egypt," vv.18, 22) grounds several social laws in a stated historical motive clause introduced by *'al-ken* ("therefore," H3651C), linking the command grammatically to the preceding memory clause. ## Differences between versions In v.4, the Hebrew *to'evah hi' li-fnei Yahweh* ("she is an abomination before the face of Yahweh") is rendered by the LXX as βδέλυγμά ἐστιν ἐναντίον κυρίου, closely parallel, while the Vulgate expands to "polluta est, et abominabilis facta est" — two verbal clauses replacing the Hebrew's single nominal predicate. In v.1, Hebrew *sefer keritut* ("document of cutting-off") appears in LXX as βιβλίον ἀποστασίου ("document of departure/apostasy") and Vulgate *libellum repudii* ("little book of repudiation") — three distinct images (cutting, departing, repudiating) for the same legal instrument.

This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.