“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.”
My Notes
What Does Deuteronomy 24:7 Mean?
The law prescribes death for kidnapping: "If a man be found stealing any of his brethren... and maketh merchandise of him, or selleth him; then that thief shall die." The specific crime is human trafficking—stealing a person and selling them. The penalty is the most severe available because the crime treats a human being, made in God's image, as a commodity.
The phrase "maketh merchandise" (hithammer bo, to deal in, to treat as merchandise) specifically identifies the commercial element: the kidnapper doesn't just take the person. They sell them. The crime combines theft of a person with commercial exploitation of a person. The victim isn't just stolen. They're marketed. The image of God is price-tagged and sold.
The purpose clause—"thou shalt put evil away from among you"—is the same purification language used for other capital crimes. The evil of human trafficking contaminates the community and must be removed. The death of the trafficker isn't just justice for the victim. It's purification for the community that harbored the crime. Human trafficking is community evil, not just individual sin.
Reflection Questions
- 1.If human trafficking was a death-penalty offense in ancient Israel, how seriously do modern systems take the same crime?
- 2.The law targets the commercial element—the selling, the profit. Where do you see the commodification of people in modern economics?
- 3.Trafficking is community contamination. How complicit are communities that tolerate or ignore the exploitation of persons?
- 4.God's legal tradition valued humans above all commerce. Does your consumption—of goods, of services—reflect that valuation?
Devotional
Kidnapping and selling a person: death penalty. The law treats human trafficking as one of the most severe crimes possible—because the crime treats a human being as merchandise. The image of God, price-tagged and sold. The penalty matches the violation: you treated a person as a product. You forfeited your life.
The specific criminalization of the commercial element—"maketh merchandise of him, or selleth him"—means the law targets the industry, not just the act. It's not just the abduction. It's the selling. The market. The profit made from treating persons as property. The trafficker who kidnaps and the trafficker who sells are both condemned. The entire supply chain of human commodification is capital offense.
The community purification language—"put evil away from among you"—means human trafficking isn't just the trafficker's sin. It's the community's contamination. The community that harbors trafficking is the community that carries the evil. The execution removes the evil from the collective. The individual crime requires a communal response because the crime's contamination is communal.
God's law treated human trafficking as a death-penalty offense over three thousand years ago. The crime that the modern world is still learning to prosecute was already the most severely punished form of theft in ancient Israel. The legal tradition that produced Western civilization's concept of human rights began with: the person who sells a person dies. The image of God isn't merchandise. And the society that treats it as merchandise carries an evil that must be removed.
Commentary
Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.
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Cross References
Related passages throughout Scripture