Rectifying Public and Private Wrongs: Each of the five sections of this chapter deals with a situation of human distress or misconduct and seeks either to rectify the wrong or to mitigate its worst effects. We have seen already that this is a characteristic feature of Deuteronomy—part of its “pastoral strategy.” Another feature is that the first and fifth of the laws both require actions that involve removing pollution from the sight of God and from the land.

21:15–17  The right of the firstborn son. The next two laws balance each other. The first protects a son from an unfair father; the second protects parents from an unruly son. Together they illustrate the balance of rights and responsibilities that exist in a family, and even more so, in wider society.

Polygamy was permitted in Israelit…