Deuteronomy 21:22

RIGHT OF THE EXECUTED TO PROMPT BURIAL

"And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be put do death, and thou hang him on a tree; his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt surely bury him the same day; for he that is hanged is accursed of God; that thou defile not the land which Jehovah thy God giveth thee for an inheritance."

The link of connection is contained in this thought: "Along with the punishment of the wicked, the recollection of their crimes was also to be removed."[30] It appears that Christ himself understood and endorsed such a principle as follows: "Ye build the sepulchres of the prophets and garnish the tombs of the righteous" (Matthew 22:29f). In that remarkable paragraph, our Lord placed the decorating of the tombs of the prophets on the same basis as their murder, such decorations being, in fact, memorials of the crimes that the Pharisees had committed.

It is important to observe here that, "The dead body was not accursed because it was hanging on a tree, but it was hanging on a tree because it was accursed."[31] Also, a number of scholars have pointed out that the reference here is not to crucifixion, a form of execution unknown at that time, but to the rather common practice of exhibiting the dead body of some notorious criminal as a warning to others. Farmers in West Texas still hang the bodies of trapped coyotes on fences as a deterrent to other coyotes.

Something of this same intention entered into the ancient custom of impaling dead bodies of the executed in public places. Here is found the basis of Paul's wonderful words, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us; for it is written: `Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree'" (Galatians 3:13). The epic failure of Israel appears in the truth that when the Redeemer himself came into the world, they caused him to be fastened to a tree in his death, supposing, of course, that they had fastened upon Jesus the curse of a passage like this, but in the case of the holy and righteous Christ, the curse fell not upon him but upon the once-chosen people. "Crucifixion was a terrible method of execution adopted later by Romans from the Orient, and used by them only upon slaves and the very vilest of criminals."[32] The same thing happened to crucifixion as a means of execution that also happened to the curse. Christ's being crucified elevated the Cross to the most hallowed position of honor and symbolism ever known on earth. There is no holier symbol than that of the Cross of Christ! "The Jews of Paul's day, as well as later ones, argued from the `offence of the cross': Seeing that Jesus was hanged on a tree, he could not be the Son of God."[33] How profoundly wrong they were! The reproach of Christ is the salvation of the world. The battle cry of the Church in all ages has been, and continues to be:

"Let us go forth unto Him without (outside) the camp, bearing his reproach" (Hebrews 13:13).