SEV Biblia, Chapter 21:23
no anochecerá su cuerpo en el madero, mas sin falta lo enterrarás el mismo día, porque maldición de Dios es el colgado; y no contaminarás tu tierra, que el SEÑOR tu Dios te da por heredad.
Clarke's Bible Commentary - Deuteronomy 21:23
Verse 23. His body shall not remain all night upon the tree] Its exposure for the space of one day was judged sufficient. The law which required this answered all the ends of public justice, exposed the shame and infamy of the conduct, but did not put to torture the feelings of humanity by requiring a perpetual exhibition of a human being, a slow prey to the most loathsome process of putrefaction. Did ever the spiking of the heads of state criminals prevent high treason? or the gibbeting of a thief or a murderer, prevent either murder or robbery? These questions may be safely answered in the negative; and the remains of the ancient barbarism which requires these disgusting and abominable exhibitions, and which are deplored by every feeling heart, should be banished with all possible speed. In the case given in the text, God considers the land as defiled while the body of the executed criminal lay exposed, hence it was enjoined, Thou shalt in any wise bury him that day. For he that is hanged is accursed of God] That is, he has forfeited his life to the law; for it is written, Cursed is every one who continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them; and on his body, in the execution of the sentence of the law, the curse was considered as alighting; hence the necessity of removing the accursed thing out of sight. How excellent are all these laws! How wondrously well calculated to repress crimes by showing the enormity of sin! It is worthy of remark that in the infliction of punishment prescribed by the Mosaic law, we ever find that Mercy walks hand in hand with Judgment.
John Gill's Bible Commentary
Ver. 23. His body shall not remain all night upon the tree , etc.] Which is to be understood of any and everyone that was hanged, and not of the rebellious son only; of whom Josephus says, that he was to be stoned by the multitude without the city, and having remained a whole day for a spectacle unto all, was to be buried at night; and indeed such a person was not to remain hanging on the tree any part of the night, but to be taken down at sun setting; so the Targum of Jonathan, “ye shall bury him at sun setting;” so says Maimonides f308 , they hang a man near the setting of the sun and loose him immediately, and if he continues they transgress a negative precept, “his body shall not remain”, etc. yea, according to him and to the Misnah f309 , and which agrees with the practice of the Jews to this day, not only those that were put to death by the sanhedrim, but whoever suffered his dead to remain unburied a night transgressed a negative command, unless he kept him for his honour, to get for him a coffin and shroud: but thou shalt in any wise bury him in that day : by all means, if possible; malefactors were not buried in the sepulchre of their fathers, but there were two burying places provided by the sanhedrim, one for those that were stoned and burnt, and another for those that were killed with the sword and strangled f310 ; and even the instruments of their death were to be buried also, as Maimonides relates, the tree on which he is hanged is buried with him, that there may be no remembrance of the evil, and they say, this is the tree on which such an one was hanged; and so the stone with which he is stoned, and the sword with which he is killed, and the napkin with which he is strangled, all are buried in the place where he is put to death, but not in the grave itself: for he that is hanged is accursed of God : plainly appears to be so, having committed some foul sin which has brought the curse of God upon him, and which being hanged on a tree was a plain proof and declaration of; and therefore having hereby suffered the rigour of the law, the curse of it, his body was ordered to be taken down; for the words are not a reason of his being hanged, but a reason why being hanged, and so openly accursed, he should not remain hanging, but be taken down and buried: the meaning is not, as Onkelos gives it, that “because he sinned before the Lord he is hanged,” and particularly was guilty of blasphemy; which is given as the reason of his being hanged, and as the sense of this passage; on the mention of which it is said f312 , “it is as if he should say, wherefore is he hanged? because he cursed God, and the name of God was found profaned:” but though this, or any other capital crime, may be allowed to be the reason of the man’s being hanged, and so apparently accursed; yet this is not the reason of his being loosed from thence, but his having bore the curse and satisfied the law: and hence this is applied to Christ by the apostle, in ( Galatians 3:13) showing, that his hanging on the tree was an indication and proof of his being made sin and a curse for his people, or that he bore the curse of the law for their sins, and that the taking of him down from the tree, and burying him, signified the removing the curse from him and his people for whom he suffered; or that thereby he redeemed them from the curse of the law, as the apostle expresses it: that thy land be not defiled, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance : which is another reason for taking down the body from the tree and burying it, lest the land of Canaan, which the Lord had given them for an inheritance, and which was typical of the undefiled inheritance, ( Peter 1:4) should be polluted, both in a natural sense, through the putrefaction and corruption, and the disagreeable smell of a dead body, and in a ceremonial sense, as every carcass was defiling, if a person but entered where it was; and therefore a dead body was not to be left hanging openly in the air, and rotting there.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 22, 23 - By the law of Moses, the touch of a dead body was defiling, therefor dead bodies must not be left hanging, as that would defile the land There is one reason here which has reference to Christ; "He that is hanged is accursed of God;" that is, it is the highest degree of disgrace and reproach. Those who see a man thus hanging between heave and earth, will conclude him abandoned of both, and unworthy of either Moses, by the Spirit, uses this phrase of being accursed of God, when he means no more than being treated most disgracefully, that it migh afterward be applied to the death of Christ, and might show that in i he underwent the curse of the law for us; which proves his love, an encourages to faith in him __________________________________________________________________
Original Hebrew
לא 3808 תלין 3885 נבלתו 5038 על 5921 העץ 6086 כי 3588 קבור 6912 תקברנו 6912 ביום 3117 ההוא 1931 כי 3588 קללת 7045 אלהים 430 תלוי 8518 ולא 3808 תטמא 2930 את 853 אדמתך 127 אשׁר 834 יהוה 3068 אלהיך 430 נתן 5414 לך נחלה׃ 5159
