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Deuteronomy 24

Deuteronomy book home•Chapter 24 of 34•22 verses

Chapter overviewAt a glance + deeper study

REVIEWED OVERVIEW

Deuteronomy 24 Overview

Deuteronomy 24 regulates divorce and remarriage in a specific case, protects a newly married man from immediate military/service burdens, forbids kidnapping, warns Israel to follow priestly instructions concerning leprosy, limits how lenders may take pledges, requires prompt payment of hired workers, and commands generosity toward strangers, fatherless children, and widows through gleaning laws.

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24Chapter

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Before you read Deuteronomy 24

Coming from

Chapter 23 addressed assembly boundaries, camp holiness, escaped servants, prostitution, interest, vows, and limited use of a neighbor’s produce.

In this chapter

Moses applies justice and mercy to marriage, labor, debt, crime, disease regulation, and harvest practices, with special attention to those who can easily be exploited.

Leads into

Chapter 25 continues with proportional punishment, the working ox, levirate responsibility, honest weights, and remembrance of Amalek.

Key understandingExplore deeper

The opening divorce law does not command divorce; it regulates a situation in which divorce has already occurred and forbids a first husband from remarrying the woman after an intervening marriage. Jesus later explains that Mosaic divorce concessions addressed hardness of heart and points back to creation for God’s design for marriage. The pledge and wage laws protect poor people from creditors and employers who might use economic leverage oppressively. Gleaning deliberately leaves part of the harvest accessible to vulnerable people.

Major truths in this chapterExplore deeper

Truth 1

Civil law can restrain damage in broken situations without presenting the broken situation as God’s ideal.

Truth 2

Economic power must not be used to strip a poor person of dignity or basic security.

Truth 3

Workers are entitled to timely wages.

Truth 4

Harvest generosity is built into Israel’s law so vulnerable people have a real opportunity to gather food.

Connections to the rest of ScriptureExplore deeper

Connection 1

Matthew 19:3–9 and Mark 10:2–12 explicitly discuss Deuteronomy 24’s divorce provision and point back to Genesis 1–2.

Connection 2

Ruth 2 provides a narrative picture of gleaning law benefiting a widow and foreigner.

Connection 3

James 5:4 condemns withholding the wages of laborers, echoing the justice principle found here.

What is clear, and where care is neededExplore deeper

Keep this clear 1

Do not cite the opening verses as proof that God commands or celebrates divorce; the law regulates a damaged situation.

Keep this clear 2

The leprosy reference is about obeying priestly procedures under the Mosaic system, not diagnosing every skin condition as divine punishment.

Keep this clear 3

The rule that children are not executed for a father’s crime concerns human courts and individual legal responsibility; it does not deny the broader biblical reality that one person’s sin can have consequences affecting others.

Read Deuteronomy 24 watching for…

The exact remarriage situation the opening law forbids.

The protections given to a newly married man.

Limits placed on taking a poor person’s pledge.

The command to pay hired workers promptly.

The repeated gleaning provision for stranger, fatherless, and widow.

Chapter outline3 sections

1-4Rules are given concerning divorce and remarriage 5-13Mercy and fairness are required in marriage, pledges, kidnapping, and leprosy 14-22Workers, strangers, widows, orphans, and the poor are protected

When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house.

And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man's wife.

And if the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorcement, and giveth it in her hand, and sendeth her out of his house; or if the latter husband die, which took her to be his wife;

Her former husband, which sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled; for that is abomination before the LORD: and thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.

When a man hath taken a new wife, he shall not go out to war, neither shall he be charged with any business: but he shall be free at home one year, and shall cheer up his wife which he hath taken.

No man shall take the nether or the upper millstone to pledge: for he taketh a man's life to pledge.

If a man be found stealing any of his brethren of the children of Israel, and maketh merchandise of him, or selleth him; then that thief shall die; and thou shalt put evil away from among you.

Take heed in the plague of leprosy, that thou observe diligently, and do according to all that the priests the Levites shall teach you: as I commanded them, so ye shall observe to do.

Remember what the LORD thy God did unto Miriam by the way, after that ye were come forth out of Egypt.

When thou dost lend thy brother any thing, thou shalt not go into his house to fetch his pledge.

Thou shalt stand abroad, and the man to whom thou dost lend shall bring out the pledge abroad unto thee.

And if the man be poor, thou shalt not sleep with his pledge:

In any case thou shalt deliver him the pledge again when the sun goeth down, that he may sleep in his own raiment, and bless thee: and it shall be righteousness unto thee before the LORD thy God.

Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy strangers that are in thy land within thy gates:

At his day thou shalt give him his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon it; for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it: lest he cry against thee unto the LORD, and it be sin unto thee.

The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.

Thou shalt not pervert the judgment of the stranger, nor of the fatherless; nor take a widow's raiment to pledge:

But thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt, and the LORD thy God redeemed thee thence: therefore I command thee to do this thing.

When thou cuttest down thine harvest in thy field, and hast forgot a sheaf in the field, thou shalt not go again to fetch it: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow: that the LORD thy God may bless thee in all the work of thine hands.

When thou beatest thine olive tree, thou shalt not go over the boughs again: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow.

When thou gatherest the grapes of thy vineyard, thou shalt not glean it afterward: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow.

And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt: therefore I command thee to do this thing.

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Deuteronomy 24:2

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