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Deuteronomy 21 · a question people ask

Could parents have a son put to death just for disobeying them?

In the text

The chapter describes one case and says what it involved. The son is one "who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and though they chasten him, will not listen to them" (21:18). Both parents act together: "his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city and to the gate of his place" (21:19). The parents don't act alone: they bring him to the elders at the gate (21:19), and their words to the elders name more than disobedience: "This our son is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey our voice. He is a glutton and a drunkard" (21:20). Then "All the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones" (21:21). The text doesn't say what the elders did or said. The chapter tells of no case in which this law was carried out.

The verses

“If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and though they chasten him, will not listen to them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city and to the gate of his place. They shall tell the elders of his city, “This our son is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey our voice. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” All the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall remove the evil from among you. All Israel shall hear, and fear.”
Deuteronomy 21:18-21 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Deuteronomy 21

Deuteronomy 21: Not all night on the tree

When no one knew who shed the blood, the nearest city's elders washed their hands and prayed, "Forgive, LORD, your people Israel" (21:8). And the law that a hanged man "is accursed of God" (21:23) is the law Paul quotes when he writes that Christ became "a curse for us" (Galatians 3:13).

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions