Respect for Life in All Its Forms: The laws in 22:1–12 are loosely concerned with respect for life, animal and human. As such, they would fittingly end the section mainly related to the sixth commandment, “you shall not murder.”

21:22–23 The body of an executed criminal. The purpose of this law is to prevent the land from being polluted by improper treatment of a human corpse (cf. 21:1–9). The difference here, of course, is that the corpse is of an executed criminal, not a murder victim. Hanging is not the means of execution (which is stoning), but a kind of intensification, perhaps for its deterrent effect. The law does not prescribe that the body of a person put to death under the law should be hung up in open view. But it is a known custom, occasionally recorded in exceptional circumstan…