The Kindness of Stones: On Stubborn Sons and Social Order Text: Deuteronomy 21:18-21
Introduction: A Stumbling Block to the Modern Mind
We come now to a passage that is, for our sentimental and therapeutic age, one of the great stumbling blocks in the Old Testament. It is a text that causes modern Christians to shuffle their feet, to look for the nearest exit, and to offer up a thousand embarrassed qualifications. It is a text that our enemies, the enemies of God, love to trot out as Exhibit A in their case against the goodness of God’s law. "You see?" they say, "Your God commands parents to kill their children! How barbaric! How unenlightened!"
And in our pathetic desire to be seen as reasonable and nice, we are often tempted to agree with them, at least in part. We try to explain it away, to relegate it to a dusty and irrelevant past, or to pretend it says something other than what it plainly says. But in doing so, we do violence to the Scriptures, and we reveal that our ultimate authority is not the Word of God, but the ever-shifting spirit of the age. We have traded the steadfast rock of God's revelation for the sinking sand of public opinion.
But the Word of God is not barbaric. It is the very foundation of civilization. What is truly barbaric is a society that has abandoned its foundations. What is truly barbaric is a society that produces sons who are so incorrigible, so given over to rebellion and debauchery, that they become a cancerous threat to the entire social body. What is barbaric is a society that has no answer for such rebellion except to shrug, or to medicate, or to incarcerate at great expense, all the while the cancer metastasizes.
This law is not about parents having a bad day with a toddler who won’t eat his peas. This is not about a moody teenager who slams his bedroom door. This law is a guardrail at the edge of a cliff. It is a severe mercy, designed to protect the family, which is the essential building block of any society, from utter dissolution. It establishes the principle that the authority of parents is not a private matter, but a public good. And when that authority is systematically and violently rejected, it is not a family squabble; it is an act of social treason.
We must therefore approach this text not with embarrassment, but with the firm conviction that the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. We must see that this law, far from being cruel, is actually a profound kindness. It is a kindness to the parents, a kindness to the community, and ultimately, a kindness to other sons who might be tempted to walk the same ruinous path.
The Text
If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father or his mother, and when they discipline him, he will not even listen to them, then his father and mother shall seize him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gateway of his hometown. Then they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he will not listen to our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of his city shall stone him, and he will die; so you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel will hear of it and fear.
(Deuteronomy 21:18-21 LSB)
The Incorrigible Son (v. 18)
The law begins by defining the character and conduct of the son in question.
"If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father or his mother, and when they discipline him, he will not even listen to them," (Deuteronomy 21:18)
Notice the specific language. This is not a description of childish immaturity. The words are "stubborn and rebellious." This is a settled state of the heart, a hardened posture of defiance. This son is not making isolated mistakes; he has set his will against the lawful authority God has placed over him. The Fifth Commandment, to honor father and mother, is the lynchpin of the two tables of the law. It is the first commandment with a promise, and it governs our relationship to all delegated authority, both in the home and in the world. To reject this commandment is to reject the entire structure of God’s ordained order.
His rebellion is not passive. He "will not obey" the voice, the word, of his parents. This is a direct assault on the covenantal instruction that parents are commanded to give. The home is the first church, the first school, and the first government. When a son refuses to listen to the voice of his parents, he is refusing to listen to the voice of God mediated through them.
Furthermore, this rebellion is resistant to correction. "When they discipline him, he will not even listen to them." This is crucial. The parents have not been negligent. They have fulfilled their duty to discipline. They have used the rod of correction, as Proverbs commands. They have pleaded, they have warned, they have punished. But the son’s heart is so hard that all these efforts are futile. He has become incorrigible. He is beyond the reach of parental discipline. This is the point where the family's resources have been utterly exhausted. The problem has grown beyond the capacity of the household to contain it.
From Private Trouble to Public Concern (v. 19-20)
Because the son's rebellion is now a public threat, the matter is brought to the civil authorities.
"then his father and mother shall seize him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gateway of his hometown. Then they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he will not listen to our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’" (Deuteronomy 21:19-20 LSB)
This is a critical safeguard. This law does not grant parents the right to exercise capital punishment themselves. That would be vigilantism and would open the door to horrific abuse. Instead, the authority to wield the sword belongs to the civil magistrate, here represented by the elders at the city gate. The parents act as the plaintiffs, the witnesses. Both the father and the mother must agree. This prevents one parent from acting rashly or maliciously against a child. They must present a united front, demonstrating that this is not a petty grievance but a catastrophic breakdown of order.
They bring him to the "gateway of his hometown," which was the public square, the place of judgment. This is a formal, legal proceeding. The parents make their accusation before the elders, repeating the charges: he is "stubborn and rebellious" and "will not listen to our voice."
But then they add two more specific charges: "he is a glutton and a drunkard." These are not minor vices. In the context of the Old Testament, they represent a complete rejection of covenant life. Gluttony and drunkenness are signs of a man wholly given over to his appetites, a man with no self-control, who squanders his substance and despises his inheritance. Think of the prodigal son, who wasted his inheritance on riotous living. This son is a black hole of consumption, a drain on the family's resources and a disgrace to their name. He is not just disobedient; he is actively destroying the household from within.
The Community's Immune Response (v. 21)
The sentence is then pronounced and carried out by the community as a whole.
"Then all the men of his city shall stone him, and he will die; so you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel will hear of it and fear." (Deuteronomy 21:21 LSB)
The punishment is death by stoning. Stoning was a communal act. It required the participation of "all the men of his city." This was not a back-alley execution. It was a public, corporate act of judgment. This signifies that the son's crime was not just against his parents, but against the entire community. His rebellion threatened the stability of every family in that city. By participating, the men of the city were saying, "We will not tolerate this cancer in our midst. We will uphold the integrity of the family as the foundation of our society."
The purpose of this severe penalty is stated explicitly. First, "so you shall purge the evil from your midst." This kind of high-handed, incorrigible rebellion is not a weakness to be managed; it is an evil to be purged. It is a spiritual contagion that, if left unchecked, will infect the whole community. The health of the body politic requires the removal of such malignant growths. God is serious about holiness, and He commands His people to be serious about it too.
Second, the purpose is deterrence: "and all Israel will hear of it and fear." This law was designed to be a shot across the bow of every would-be rebel. The news of such an execution would travel, and it would instill a holy fear, a profound respect for the God-ordained authority of parents. The goal was that this law would be so fearsome that it would rarely, if ever, need to be used. The fence at the top of the cliff is a mercy, preventing countless falls. The fact that there is no record in Scripture of this law ever being carried out is a testimony to its effectiveness, not its irrelevance.
The Law and the Gospel
Now, how do we as Christians, living under the new covenant, apply such a law? We do not apply it by picking up stones. The arrival of Jesus Christ has transformed the application of the civil code of ancient Israel. The ceremonial laws have been fulfilled in Him, and the civil laws, while still embodying principles of perfect justice, are no longer binding on nations that are not the theocratic nation of Israel. The general equity, the underlying principle, however, remains.
What is the principle? The principle is that rebellion against parental authority is a heinous sin with devastating social consequences. The principle is that the family is not a private democracy, but a divine hierarchy. The principle is that unchecked rebellion leads to societal rot.
Under the new covenant, the ultimate expression of this law is found in the discipline of the church. When a member of the covenant community is in open, unrepentant sin, a process of discipline is initiated. It begins privately, but if the person remains stubborn and rebellious, it escalates until he is brought before the elders. If he still refuses to listen, he is excommunicated, put out of the church. Paul uses language very similar to our text: "Purge the evil person from among you" (1 Corinthians 5:13).
Excommunication is the New Testament equivalent of being taken outside the camp. It is a spiritual death. It is handing a person over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit might be saved on the day of the Lord (1 Corinthians 5:5). It is a severe mercy, designed to bring the rebel to his senses and to protect the purity of the church.
But there is an even deeper gospel connection. We must recognize that, before God, we are all that stubborn and rebellious son. We have not listened to the voice of our Heavenly Father. We have been disciplined by His law, and yet we have hardened our hearts. We have been gluttons for sin and drunkards on rebellion. By the standards of this law, we all deserve to be taken to the city gate. We all deserve the stones.
And in a profound sense, we were. We were taken outside the gate. But another stood in our place. Jesus Christ, the only truly obedient Son, was taken outside the gate of Jerusalem. He was seized by the elders of His people. He was accused, though He was innocent. And He bore the full weight of the curse of the law for us. He was crushed by the stones of God's wrath that we deserved, so that we, the rebellious sons, could be forgiven, adopted, and brought back into the Father's house.
Therefore, we uphold the goodness of this law by recognizing the severity of the sin it condemns. And we marvel at the grace of the gospel that has rescued us from the penalty it demands. We then, as forgiven sons, turn and teach our own children the fear of the Lord, recognizing that the stakes are eternally high, and that true love disciplines, corrects, and points them to the only obedient Son who can save them.