Deuteronomy 21:7

And they shall answer and say, Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Benson Commentary

Deuteronomy 21:7-8. They shall answer — To the priests who shall examine them. This blood — This about which the present inquiry is made; or this which is here present: for it is thought the corpse of the slain man was brought into the same place where the heifer was slain. Nor have we seen or understood how or by whom this was done. Forgiven — Though there was no moral guilt in this people, yet there was a ceremonial uncleanness in the land, which was to be expiated and forgiven.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

21:1-9 If a murderer could not be found out, great solemnity is provided for putting away the guilt from the land, as an expression of dread and detesting of that sin. The providence of God has often wonderfully brought to light these hidden works of darkness, and the sin of the guilty has often strangely found them out. The dread of murder should be deeply impressed upon every heart, and all should join in detecting and punishing those who are guilty. The elders were to profess that they had not been any way aiding or abetting the sin. The priests were to pray to God for the country and nation, that God would be merciful. We must empty that measure by our prayers, which others are filling by their sins. All would be taught by this solemnity, to use the utmost care and diligence to prevent, discover, and punish murder. We may all learn from hence to take heed of partaking in other men's sins. And we have fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, if we do not reprove them.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Eared - i. e., plowed; compare Genesis 45:6 note and references. The word is derived from the Latin, and is in frequent use by English writers of the fifteenth and two following centuries.

Strike off the heifer's neck - Rather, "break its neck" (compare Exodus 13:13). The mode of killing the victim distinguishes this lustration from the sin-offering, in which there would be of course shedding and sprinkling of the blood.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

CHAPTER 21

De 21:1-9. Expiation of Uncertain Murder.

1-6. If one be found slain … lying in the field, and it be not known who hath slain him—The ceremonies here ordained to be observed on the discovery of a slaughtered corpse show the ideas of sanctity which the Mosaic law sought to associate with human blood, the horror which murder inspired, as well as the fears that were felt lest God should avenge it on the country at large, and the pollution which the land was supposed to contract from the effusion of innocent, unexpiated blood. According to Jewish writers, the Sanhedrin, taking charge of such a case, sent a deputation to examine the neighborhood. They reported to the nearest town to the spot where the body was found. An order was then issued by their supreme authority to the elders or magistrates of that town, to provide the heifer at the civic expense and go through the appointed ceremonial. The engagement of the public authorities in the work of expiation, the purchase of the victim heifer, the conducting it to a "rough valley" which might be at a considerable distance, and which, as the original implies, was a wady, a perennial stream, in the waters of which the polluting blood would be wiped away from the land, and a desert withal, incapable of cultivation; the washing of the hands, which was an ancient act symbolical of innocence—the whole of the ceremonial was calculated to make a deep impression on the Jewish, as well as on the Oriental, mind generally; to stimulate the activity of the magistrates in the discharge of their official duties; to lead to the discovery of the criminal, and the repression of crime.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

They shall answer, to wit, to the priests who shall examine them and determine this controversy.

This blood; this about which the present inquiry is made; or this which is here present; for it is thought the corpse of the slain man was brought into the same place where the heifer was slain.

Neither have our eyes seen it; nor have we seen or understood how or by whom this was done.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And they shall answer and say,.... The elders of the city, at the time of the washing of their hands:

our hands have not shed this blood; have been no ways concerned in it, nor accessory to it: the Targum of Jonathan is,"it is manifest before the Lord that he did not come into our hands, nor did we dismiss him, that has shed this blood;''which is more fully explained in the Misnah (y); for had they been aware of him, or had any suspicion of him or his design, they would have detained him, or at least would not have suffered him to have departed alone:

neither have our eyes seen; it, or him; so the Targum of Jerusalem,"our eyes have not seen him that hath shed this blood;''by which expression is meant, that they had no manner of knowledge of the murderer, nor of any circumstance that could lead them to suspect or conclude who he was.

(y) Ut supra, (Sotah. c. 9.) sect. 6.

Geneva Study Bible

And they shall answer and say, Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

7. answer] testify, as in Deuteronomy 5:20 (9th Comm.), and Deuteronomy 19:16.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 7, 8. - This act they were to accompany with a solemn declaration of their innocence of this crime, and of their entire ignorance of the perpetrator of it; and with an earnest cry to God that the sin which had been done might be forgiven. Be merciful... unto; be propitiated towards (literally, cover, כַּפֵּר לְעַמְך; for the phrase, כַּפֵר לְ, see Leviticus 1:4). And lay not innocent blood; the blood of the innocent man who has been slain. Deuteronomy 21:7

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The elders of the town were to wash their hands over the slain heifer, i.e., to cleanse themselves by this symbolical act from the suspicion of any guilt on the part of the inhabitants of the town in the murder that had been committed (cf. Psalm 26:6; Psalm 73:13; Matthew 27:24), and then answer (to the charge involved in what had taken place), and say, "Our hands have not shed this blood (on the singular שׁפכה, see Ewald, 317, a.), and our eyes have not seen" (sc., the shedding of blood), i.e., we have neither any part in the crime nor any knowledge of it: "grant forgiveness (lit., 'cover up,' viz., the blood-guiltiness) to Thy people...and give not innocent blood in the midst of Thy people Israel," i.e., lay not upon us the innocent blood that has been shed by imputation and punishment. "And the blood shall be forgiven them," i.e., the bloodshed or murder shall not be imputed to them. On נכּפּר, a mixed form from the Niphal and Hithpael, see Ges. 55, and Ewald, 132, c.