Reference: Crimes and Punishments
Hastings
The term 'crimes' is here used loosely in the sense of punishable offences, including not merely crimes (crimina) in the sense of breaches of the criminal law in the modern sense, and torts (delicta) or breaches of the civil law, but also those offences in the sphere of religion and worship to which definite penalties were attached. Within the limits of this article it is possible to present only a summary of the more important and typical punishable offences recognized in the various Hebrew law-codes. The latter, indicated by the usual symbols, are: (1) BC, the oldest code, known as the Book of the Covenant, Ex 20:22 to Ex 23:33, with which for convenience sake is joined the Decalogue of Ex 20:2-17; (2) Deuteronomist, the Deuteronomic Code, De 12; 13; 14; 15; 16; 17; 18; 19; 20; 21; 22; 23; 24; 25; 26; 27; 28; (3) Law of Holiness, the Holiness Code, Le 17; 18; 19; 20; 21; 22; 23; 24; 25; 26; and (4) Priestly Narrative, the great collection of laws known as the Priests' Code, and comprising the rest of the legislative material of the Pentateuch. In the case of Priestly Narrative alone will it be necessary to name the books (Ex., Lv., or Nu.) to which reference is made.
The penal offences of the Pentateuch may be conveniently grouped under the three heads of crimes against Jahweh, against society (including property), and against the individual.
1. A. Crimes against Jahweh, or offences in the sphere of religion and worship.
See Verses Found in Dictionary
Whoever sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.
And it came to pass about three months after, that it was told to Judah, saying, Tamar thy daughter-in-law hath played the harlot; and also, behold she is with child by lewdness: and Judah said, Bring her forth, and let her be burnt.
I am the LORD thy God, who have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. read more. Thou shalt not make to thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And showing mercy to thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain: for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. Remember the sabbath-day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath-day, and hallowed it. Honor thy father and thy mother; that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's.
And the LORD said to Moses, Thus thou shalt say to the children of Israel; Ye have seen that I have talked with you from heaven.
They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee to sin against me: for if thou shalt serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to thee.
Upon man's flesh shall it not be poured, neither shall ye make any other like it, after the composition of it: it is holy, and it shall be holy to you.
Six days may work be done, but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD: whoever doeth any work in the sabbath-day, he shall surely be put to death.
Whatever soul it may be that eateth any manner of blood, even that soul shall be cut off from his people.
But the man that is clean, and is not in a journey, and forbeareth to keep the passover, even the same soul shall be cut off from among his people: because he brought not the offering of the LORD in its appointed season, that man shall bear his sin.
And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath-day.
And Balaam said to Balak, Build me here seven altars, and prepare me here seven bullocks and seven rams.
And lest thou shouldst lift up thy eyes to heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldst be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the LORD thy God hath divided to all nations under the whole heaven.
If thou shalt hear, in one of thy cities, which the LORD thy God hath given thee to dwell there, saying,
Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is in it, and its cattle, with the edge of the sword. And thou shalt gather all the spoil of it into the midst of its street, and shalt burn with fire the city, and all the spoil of it every whit, for the LORD thy God: and it shall be a heap forever; it shalt not be built again. read more. And there shall cleave naught of the cursed thing to thy hand: that the LORD may turn from the fierceness of his anger, and show thee mercy, and have compassion upon thee, and multiply thee, as he hath sworn to thy fathers;
And hath gone and served other gods, and worshiped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded;
Then shalt thou bring forth to thy gates that man or that woman, who have committed that wicked thing, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die.
The hands of the witnesses shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. So thou shalt remove the evil from among you.
And if a Levite shall come from any of thy gates out of all Israel, where he sojourned, and come with all the desire of his mind to the place which the LORD shall choose; Then he shall minister in the name of the LORD his God, as all his brethren the Levites do, who stand there before the LORD. read more. They shall have like portions to eat, beside that which cometh of the sale of his patrimony. When thou art come into the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination to the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee. Thou shalt be perfect with the LORD thy God. For these nations, which thou shalt possess, hearkened to observers of times, and to diviners: but as for thee, the LORD thy God hath not suffered thee so to do. The LORD thy God will raise up to thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like to me; to him ye shall hearken. According to all that thou desiredst of the LORD thy God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I may not die. And the LORD said to me, They have well spoken of that which they have spoken. I will raise up to them a prophet from among their brethren, like thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak to them all that I shall command him.
When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing doth not follow, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.
But if any man shall hate his neighbor, and lie in wait for him, and rise up against him, and smite him mortally, that he dieth, and he shall flee into one of these cities:
One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth; at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established.
When thou comest nigh to a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace to it. And it shall be, if it shall make thee answer of peace, and open to thee, then it shall be, that all the people that are found therein, shall be tributaries to thee, and they shall serve thee.
And when the LORD thy God hath delivered it into thy hands, thou shalt smite every male of it with the edge of the sword: But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil of it, shalt thou take to thyself: and thou shalt eat the spoil of thy enemies, which the LORD thy God hath given thee. read more. Thus shalt thou do to all the cities which are very distant from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations.
Only the trees which thou knowest that they are not trees for food, thou shalt destroy and cut them down; and thou shalt build bulwarks against the city that maketh war with thee, until it shall be subdued.
So shalt thou remove the guilt of innocent blood from among you, when thou shalt do that which is right in the sight of the LORD.
And if a man shall have committed a sin worthy of death, and he must be put to death, and thou shalt hang him on a tree:
And the damsel's father shall say to the elders, I gave my daughter to this man for a wife, and he hateth her,
And the elders of that city shall take that man and chastise him; And they shall amerce him in a hundred shekels of silver, and give them to the father of the damsel, because he hath brought an evil name upon a virgin of Israel: and she shall be his wife; he may not put her away all his days.
And they shall amerce him in a hundred shekels of silver, and give them to the father of the damsel, because he hath brought an evil name upon a virgin of Israel: and she shall be his wife; he may not put her away all his days.
And they shall amerce him in a hundred shekels of silver, and give them to the father of the damsel, because he hath brought an evil name upon a virgin of Israel: and she shall be his wife; he may not put her away all his days. But if this thing shall be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel:
But if this thing shall be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel: Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she may die: because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to be guilty of lewdness in her father's house: so shalt thou remove evil from among you.
Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she may die: because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to be guilty of lewdness in her father's house: so shalt thou remove evil from among you. If a man shall be found lying with a woman married to a husband, then they shall both of them die, both the man that lay with the woman, and the woman: so shalt thou remove evil from Israel.
But if a man shall find a betrothed damsel in the field, and the man shall force her, and lie with her; then the man only that lay with her shall die:
Then the man that lay with her shall give to the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days.
Then the man that lay with her shall give to the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days.
There shall be no harlot of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel.
In any case thou shalt deliver to him the pledge again when the sun goeth down, that he may sleep in his own raiment, and bless thee; and it shall be righteousness to thee before the LORD thy God.
Thou shalt not pervert the judgment of the stranger, nor of the fatherless, nor take a widow's raiment for a pledge:
If there shall be a controversy between men, and they come to judgment, that the judges may judge them; then they shall justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked.
When men strive together one with another, and the wife of the one draweth near to deliver her husband from the hand of him that smiteth him, and putteth forth her hand, and taketh him by the secrets:
But thou shalt have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure shalt thou have; that thy days may be lengthened in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
Cursed be the man that maketh any graven or molten image, an abomination to the LORD, the work of the hands of the artificer, and putteth it in a secret place: and all the people shall answer, and say Amen.
And when Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he saddled his ass, and arose, and went home to his house, to his city, and put his household in order, and hanged himself, and died. and was buried in the sepulcher of his father.
And whoever will not do the law of thy God, and the law of the king, let judgment be executed speedily upon him, whether it be to death, or to banishment, or to confiscation of goods, or to imprisonment.
And whoever will not do the law of thy God, and the law of the king, let judgment be executed speedily upon him, whether it be to death, or to banishment, or to confiscation of goods, or to imprisonment.
Then Pashur struck Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks that were in the high gate of Benjamin, which was by the house of the LORD.
And he sent, and beheaded John in the prison.
And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.
So when they continued asking him, he raised himself, and said to them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
And he killed James the brother of John with the sword.
Who, having received such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks.
From the Jews five times I received forty stripes save one.
And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given to them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, and for the word of God, and who had not worshiped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.