Deuteronomy 20:5
Furthermore, the officers are to address the army, saying, "Has any man built a new house and not dedicated it? Let him return home, or he may die in battle and another man dedicate it.
Sermons
WarJ. Orr Deuteronomy 20:1-5
Military Service to be VoluntaryD. Davies Deuteronomy 20:1-9
Religious WarsR.M. Edgar Deuteronomy 20:1-20
Faint-HeartednessJ. Parker, D. D.Deuteronomy 20:5-9
The Exemptions in WarJ. Wolfendale.Deuteronomy 20:5-9
ExemptionsJ. Orr Deuteronomy 20:5-10














Three classes were exempted from service in war, and one class was forbidden to take part in it. The exempted classes were:

1. He who had built a house, but had not dedicated it.

2. He who had planted a vineyard, but had not eaten of its fruit.

3. He who had betrothed a wife, but had not married her.

The class forbidden to engage in the war was the class of cowards (ver. 8). These regulations -

I. HAD AN IMPORTANT BEARING ON THE STABILITY OF SOCIETY. War has naturally a disturbing effect on industry and commerce. It unsettles the public mind. It creates a feeling of insecurity. It prevents enterprise. These evils would be intensified in a state of society where, besides the danger of the country being overrun by hostile armies, each adult male was liable for service in the field. In such a condition of society there would obviously be a disinclination, when war was imminent, to acquire property, to institute improvements, or to enter into any new engagements. The man who built a house would not be sure that he would live to dedicate it; the man who planted a vineyard, that he would live to eat of it; the man who betrothed a wife, that he would be spared to take her. This provision of the Law was therefore calculated to have a reassuring and tranquillizing effect, and would so far counteract the tendency of warlike rumors to paralyze industry and the arrangements of domestic life.

II. WERE AN IMPORTANT ALLEVIATION OF THE EVILS OF WAR. They aimed at exempting those who, from their circumstances and prospects, would feel most keenly the hardship of a call to service. Ver. 7 connects itself with the importance attached in ancient nations to the perpetuation of the house. "According to modern notions, a forlorn hope would naturally be composed of men who had not given hostages to fortune. Such, however, was not the light in which the matter presented itself to the Greek mind. The human plant had flowered. The continuance of the house was secure. It was therefore comparatively of little moment what befell the man whose duty to his ancestors had been fulfilled" (Renouf). The sentiment here expressed was that of ancient nations generally.

III. WERE OF GREAT IMPORTANCE IN SECURING EFFICIENCY IN THE ARMY. The army was plainly better without the cowards than with them. One coward may do harm to a whole company. But, besides these, it was likely that persons serving by compulsion, in a spirit of discontent at disappointed prospects, and for the sake of their prospects unwilling to part with their lives, would prove but inferior soldiers. At any rate, there was policy in recruiting the army only from those who had a fixed stake in the welfare of the nation. The man with house, wife, and vineyard was more likely to be ready to shed the last drop of his blood in defense of his treasures than one wholly unattached, or attached only in hope.

LESSONS.

1. Those entering the Christian warfare need to count the cost (Luke 14:25-34).

2. In Christ's service there are no exemptions.

3. Nevertheless, consideration should be shown in the work of the Church for those who are peculiarly situated.

4. The danger of being entangled in spirit in Christ's service (2 Timothy 2:4).

5. The faint-hearted are no strength to a cause (Judges 7:3).

6. Numbers are not the only thing to be considered in reckoning the efficiency of a Church or of any body of spiritual warriors. - J.O.

Let him go and return to his house.
Soldiers must be as free from care and cowardice as possible. Wellington declared "that the power of the greatest armies depends upon what the individual soldier is capable of doing and bearing." Four classes are here exempted: —

I. THOSE INVOLVED IN BUSINESS. The soldier leaves his private business when he enlists to serve his country. The farmer leaves his plough, the mechanic his shop, and the merchant his store. In Israel those were not called to serve who, from circumstances and prospects, would feel most keenly the hardship.

1. Those engaged in dedicating a house. They must return to their house lest another dedicate it.

2. Those engaged in planting a vineyard must enjoy the fruit of it. Building and planting are good and needful for the community, but encumber the soldier.

II. THOSE HINDERED BY SOCIAL TIES. "What man hath betrothed a wife and not taken her" (ver. 7, 24:5). "It was deemed a great hardship to leave a house unfinished, a new property half-cultivated, and a recently contracted marriage unconsummated, and the exemptions allowed in these cases were founded on the principle that a man's heart being deeply engrossed with something at a distance, he would not be very enthusiastic in the public service." In an army there should be one heart, one purpose, and one desire to please the commander. In the corps of Christian soldiers there is entire obedience to the will of the Captain of our Salvation.

III. THOSE DEFICIENT IN PERSONAL QUALIFICATIONS. The fearful and faint-hearted were not permitted to war.

1. In moral qualifications. Some think that the fear named arose from an evil conscience, which makes a man afraid of danger and death. Men of loose and profligate lives are often cowards and curses to an army. Hence those conscious of guilt were to be sent away. "A guilty conscience needs no accuser." "Conscience makes cowards of us all."

2. In natural qualification. The allusion seems to be natural cowardice. Men reverence bravery, but cowards are objects of scorn. Wellington said of some foreigners who ran away from the field of Waterloo, "Let them go; we are better without them." There must be no fear in officers or men. No cowards in the ranks lest the army flee before the enemy.

(J. Wolfendale.)

Fearful and faint-hearted.
The army might thus be greatly reduced; we must remember, however, that reduction may mean increase. We do not conquer by number but by quality. One hero is worth ten thousand cowards. Caesar is in himself more than all his legions. Quality counts for everything in the greatest battles and the most strenuous moments of life. Given the right quality, and the issue is certain. Quality never gives in; quality is never beaten; quality flutters a challenge in its dying moments, and seems to say, "I will rise again and continue the fight from the other side." So the army was reduced, and yet the army was increased in the very process of reduction. Today the great speech is made over again — "What man is there that is fearful and faint-hearted? let him go and return unto his house, lest his brethren's heart faint as well as his heart." We cannot deny the fact that most Christian professors are faint-hearted; they are not heroic souls. What is the explanation of faint-heartedness? Want of conviction. Given a convinced Church, and a heroic Church is the consequence; given a Church uncertain, unconvinced, and you have a Church that any atmosphere can affect and any charlatan can impose upon. We must, therefore, return to foundations, to central principles, to primary realities; and having made sure of these the rest will arrange itself. Where is conviction There may be a good deal of concession: there may be a strong indisposition to object to, or to deny, or to bring into discredit, theological problems and religious usages, but what is needed is something more — clear, well-reasoned, strongly grounded conviction; and where this rules the mind every faculty is called into service, and the battle of life is conducted with heroic decision and chivalrous self-forgetfulness. It was well understood in Israel that the faint-hearted man does more harm than he supposes he does. It is the same all the world over and all time through. The timid man says, "I will sit behind." Does his retirement behind mean simply one man has gone from the front? It means infinitely more — it is a loss of influence, a loss of sympathy, a loss of leadership. A Christian professor is not at liberty to say he will abide in the shade; he will allow the claims of others; any place, how obscure soever, will do for him. Have no patience with men who tell such lies! They have no right to be behind; their mission should be to find the best place, and to wake up every energy — to stir up the gift that is in them; and every man should feel that the battle depends upon him. The discouraging influence of faint-heartedness it is impossible to describe in words. Better have a congregation of six souls of light and fire and love, than have a great crowd without conviction, easy-going, flaccid in sentiment and thought — without central realities and foundations that can be relied upon. "What man is there that is fearful and faint-hearted? Let him go": he is not a loss — his going is the gain of all who are left behind. How marvellously faint-heartedness shows itself! In one ease it is fear of heresy. In another case it is fear of criticism. What will the people next door say? What will the adjoining Church think? What will other men declare their judgment? In another case it is fear of sensation. We must not advertise, because some people might misunderstand it; we must not have too much music, because there are persons unable to follow the mystery of praise; we must not have anything unusual. To have such faint. hearted men in the Church is the bitterest trial that Christ has now to undergo. There is another faintness which is rather to the credit of the man who experiences it — a faintness arising from great service, long-continued effort, and noble sacrificial consecration. When a man pours out his life for the cause he may well be faint now and then. A beautiful sentiment in Scripture describes his condition: "faint, yet pursuing" — putting out the arm in the right direction, looking along the right road, and saying in mute eloquence, "Give me breathing time, and I will join you again; let me rest awhile; do not take my sword away - in a day or two at most I will be at the front of the flight." That is a faintness which may be the beginning of great strength. So God is gracious to us; having no sympathy with timidity and fear and cowardliness, He has infinite compassion upon those who, having worn themselves out in service, need space and time for breathing.

(J. Parker, D. D.)

People
Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Hivite, Hivites, Jebusites, Moses, Perizzites
Places
Beth-baal-peor, Egypt
Topics
Anyone, Army, Authorities, Battle, Built, Death, Dedicate, Dedicated, Depart, Die, Event, Fight, Home, Lest, Officers, Otherwise, Overseers, Return, Saying, Someone, Speak, Spoken, Turn
Outline
1. The priest's exhortation to encourage the people to battle
5. The officers' proclamation of who are to be dismissed from the war
10. How to use the cities that accept or refuse the proclamation of peace
16. What cities must be devoted
19. Trees must not be destroyed in the siege

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Deuteronomy 20:1-7

     5660   bridegroom

Deuteronomy 20:1-20

     5214   attack

Deuteronomy 20:5-8

     5339   home

Library
'Fit, Though Few'
'Then Jerubbaal, who is Gideon, and all the people that were with him, rose up early, and pitched beside the well of Harod: so that the host of the Midianites were on the north side of them, by the hill of Moreh, in the valley. 2. And the Lord said unto Gideon, The people that are with thee are too many for Me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel vaunt themselves against Me, saying, Mine own hand hath saved me. 3. Now therefore go to, proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, Whosoever
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Sharon. Caphar Lodim. The Village of those of Lydda.
Between Lydda and the sea, a spacious valley runs out, here and there widely spreading itself, and sprinkled with villages. The holy page of the New Testament [Acts 9:35] calls it Saron: and that of the Old calls the whole, perhaps, or some part of it, 'the plain of Ono,' Nehemiah 6:2, 11:35; 1 Chronicles 8:12... The wine of Sharon is of great fame, with which they mixed two parts water: and remarkable is that they say concerning the houses of Sharon. R. Lazar saith, "He that builds a brick house
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica

Appeal to the Christian Women of the South
BY A.E. GRIMKE. "Then Mordecai commanded to answer Esther, Think not within thyself that thou shalt escape in the king's house more than all the Jews. For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place: but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this. And Esther bade them return Mordecai this answer:--and so will I go in unto the king,
Angelina Emily Grimke—An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South

Deuteronomy
Owing to the comparatively loose nature of the connection between consecutive passages in the legislative section, it is difficult to present an adequate summary of the book of Deuteronomy. In the first section, i.-iv. 40, Moses, after reviewing the recent history of the people, and showing how it reveals Jehovah's love for Israel, earnestly urges upon them the duty of keeping His laws, reminding them of His spirituality and absoluteness. Then follows the appointment, iv. 41-43--here irrelevant (cf.
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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