Deuteronomy 24 explained: Laws That Protect the Vulnerable

Divorce and remarriage (vv. 1-4)

This law does not command divorce; it assumes divorce was already happening and adds limits: a written certificate that freed the woman to remarry, and no going back to the first husband after she had married someone else. What ground for divorce is meant was debated even in ancient times, and why the return was forbidden is unclear, though it may have discouraged rash divorce or passing a wife back and forth.

Home, livelihood and freedom (vv. 5-7)

A new husband got a year off from war and public duties to build his marriage, and a lender could not take a family's millstones, the hand mill used to grind each day's bread. Kidnapping someone to enslave or sell them carried the death penalty, ranking a person's freedom far above any property.

Skin disease and Miriam (vv. 8-9)

People with skin diseases were to follow the priests' instructions given earlier in Leviticus; the Hebrew term covers many conditions, not just modern leprosy. Miriam, Moses' sister, was struck with such a disease and kept outside the camp for a week after speaking against Moses, a reminder that no one was exempt.

Lending to the poor (vv. 10-13)

A lender had to wait outside for the pledge, an item held as security on a loan, rather than walk into the borrower's home and take it. If a poor person pledged their cloak, often their only blanket at night, it had to be returned before sunset.

Fair wages and fair courts (vv. 14-18)

Day laborers, whether Israelite or foreign, were to be paid before sunset because they needed that day's money to live. Courts could not punish parents for their children's crimes or children for their parents', and foreigners, orphans and widows were owed fair treatment because Israel itself had once been slaves in Egypt.

Leaving some harvest behind (vv. 19-22)

Harvesters were not to go back for a forgotten bundle of grain or strip olive trees and grapevines a second time. What was left belonged to the foreigner, the orphan and the widow, a built-in way of feeding people who had no land of their own.

Key verse: Deuteronomy 24:18

Something to think about

Who in today's world would stand where this chapter's foreigner, orphan and widow stood, and what might it look like for a society to leave something behind for them?