Essay zu Dewarim 21:1

Another memorable addition to Israel’s law corpus, the case described here stands in stark contrast to the way things are done in contemporary society For us, an unsolved murder is a matter of intellectual curiosity, a puzzle to be unraveled on a television screen; in biblical Israel, innocent blood had to be atoned for by the entire group when the perpetrator went unfound. In the biblical view (as in that of other ancient societies), crime or wrongdoing was seen as completely disruptive, a threat to the well-being of the very cosmos. Here atonement is made via a public confession and the death of an animal—not with the usual “decontaminating” use of sacrificial blood but with a death that symbolically atones for the death of the murder victim.