Enticement To Sin

Two complementary portions of Deuteronomy fulfill the unique role of describing how a particular sin and trying to convince someone to carry out the sin are both capital offenses.  Certainly, enticing someone to sin is itself an act that is sinful, but there is an enormous difference between doing something and plotting to do it or telling someone else to.  All the same, Yahweh's laws call for the same punishment for both: execution by stoning.  The sins in question are respectively worshiping a false god, the natural world, or anything other than God and, successfully or not, enticing someone to do this very thing.  The relationship between these passages is unique as aforementioned because nowhere else does the Bible address enticement to sin in this manner.  Here are the full excerpts:

Deuteronomy 13:6-10--"If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, 'Let us go and worship other gods' (gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), do not yield to them or listen to them.  Show them no pity.  Do not spare them or shield them.  You must certainly put them to death.  Your hand must be the first in putting them to death, and then the hands of all the people.  Stone them to death . . ."

Deuteronomy 17:2-5--"If a man or woman living among you in one of the town the Lord gives you is found doing evil in the eyes of the Lord your God in violation of his covenant, and contrary to my command has worshipped other gods, bowing down to them or to the sun or the moon or the stars in the sky, and this has been brought to your attention, then you must investigate it thoroughly.  If it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done in Israel, take the man or woman who has done this evil deed to your city gate and stone that person to death."

It could obviously not be as severe a sin to only attempt to persuade someone to do an evil act as to actually do the action in question, but Biblically, both enticement to worship other gods and worshiping other gods both meet or surpass the threshhold of wickedness to make a behavior deserve execution.  Does this necessitate that the same would be true of other capital sins?  An easy example is murder: someone could order another person to commit murder and yet not be the one murdering anyone.  Murder is declared a capital offense in each book of the Torah (Genesis 9, Exodus 21, Leviticus 24, Numbers 35, Deuteronomy 19), but Deuteronomy 22:8 uses the word bloodshed to reference the death of a person who fell from a house without a parapet on its walkable roof, a word used in reference to murder in Numbers 35.  Negligence in taking precautions to protect human life is bloodshed just like murder.  

Exodus 21:22-23, furthermore, prescribes a "life for life" penalty for anyone whose negligence during a brawl results in the death of a bystander.  This does not apply to all accidents leading to death, for not all involve negligence.  Additionally, Exodus 21:28-32 demands capital punishment for whoever "knows", as much as can be the case, that their inaction or passivity is endangering human life if it leads to someone winding up dead, using the example of a bull that has already attacked a human not being penned up even when the owner saw or was told about the incident.  The penalty is the same for active murder and negligence culminating in human death:

Exodus 21:12, 14, 20, 22-23, 28-32--"'Anyone who strikes a person with a fatal blow is to be put to death . . . 

But if anyone schemes and kills someone deliberately, that person is to be taken from my altar and put to death . . . 

Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result . . . 

If people are fighting and hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows.  But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life . . .

If a bull gores a man or woman to death, the bull is to be stoned to death, and its meat must not be eaten.  But the owner of the bull will not be held responsible.  If, however, the bull has had the habit of goring and the owner has been warned but has not kept it penned up and it kills a man or woman, the bull is to be stoned to death, and its owner also is to be put to death.  However, if payment is demanded, the owner may redeem his life by the payment of whatever is demanded.  This law also applies if the bull gores a son or daughter.  If the bull gores a male or female slave, the owner must pay thirty shekels of silver to the master of the slave, and the bull is to be stoned to death.'"

Passivity in the face of circumstances that jeopardize human life is a capital sin if someone does indeed die just like with intentional murder.  If failing to confine a bull that has attacked a person nonlethally--since the domestic animal that has already killed a person must itself be killed even if it is a truly unanticipated accident and the owner has no guilt--means the owner deserves to die if the creature later kills someone, then directly ordering the unjust death of a human being would have to deserve the same penalty at least.  The latter is the worse offense.  While not as severe as actual murder, it is necessarily greater than neglecting to safeguard human life when evidence suggests others are at risk.  Consequently, due to enticement to sin deserving the same penalty as the sin in question and due to both neglect leading to human death and premeditated murder deserving the same penalty, the person who engages in the intermediately severe sin of commanding another person to commit murder on their behalf likewise Biblically deserves execution.

The same would be true of other capital sins such as kidnapping (Exodus 21:16), sorcery (Leviticus 20:27), rape (Deuteronomy 22:25-27), false testimony in a capital case (Deuteronomy 19:16-21), and adultery (Leviticus 20:10).  Any person who entices another to commit such deeds deserves to die for their own sin independent of whether the other party acts according to the invitation.  In the case that one person goes further and forces another to carry out a capital sin, such as by threatening to kill them if they do not work on the Sabbath (Exodus 35:1-3), the person who forces the other to do what would otherwise be a sin (on their part) is the one truly guilty of a capital offense, not the innocent victim (Deuteronomy 22:22-27).  In spite of the focus of this post being on enticement to sin and additional instances beyond that of Deuteronomy 13 where the offender deserves death, it is vital that the person who forces another to sin capitally is the one who really should be put to death.

It is also important and somewhat relevant that another category of sin besides 1) committing an act like worship of other gods or murder, 2) enticing someone else to do so, or 3) forcing someone to do so also deserves execution.  More specifically, formally but falsely accusing someone of having committed a capital sin out of malice--not merely driven by incorrect perceptions or incomplete access to evidence the witness rationalistically realizes is fallible anyway--makes the guilty party worthy of the same punishment the maliciously accused person would deserve if he or she truly had sinned in that manner.  Therefore, there are four pathways to deserving capital punishment by Biblical standards, whether by committing an act independently meriting execution, enticing someone else to do such things, forcing others to carry them out, or accusing someone else of having done them:

Deuteronomy 19:16-21--"If a malicious witness takes the stand to accuse someone of a crime, the two people involved in the dispute must stand in the presence of the Lord before the priests and the judges who are in office at the time.  The judges must make a thorough investigation, and if the witness proves to be a liar, giving false testimony against a fellow Israelite, then do to the false witness as that witness intended to do to the other party.  You must purge the evil from among you.  The rest of the people will hear of this and be afraid, and never again will such an evil thing be done among you.  Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot."

In a variety of circumstances, more than just committing an act like murder or rape should be responded to with execution on the testimony of two or three witnesses (Numbers 35:30, Deuteronomy 17:6, 19:15).  Indeed, capital punishment is prescribed for more besides such deeds than maliciously accusing others of having sinned so grievously.  Thanks to the case law of Deuteronomy 13:6-10, one can see the logical ramifications of Biblical justice for other attempts to persuade someone to sin which are not specifically mentioned anywhere in the Torah or beyond.  Not even one's own children, siblings, or by extension parents can be exempted from this.  Thanks to Exodus 21:28-32, anyone not making assumptions and looking to reason can see that if negligence resulting in the death of a man, woman, or child is a capital sin, then maliciously calling for some other party to unjustly kill them directly would at least deserve the same punishment; a host of other verses from the same chapter make it clear that malicious murder or mistreatment leading to potentially accidental murder (as in the instance of the master or mistress beating their slave to death, whatever the intention) is certainly a capital sin.

Enticing someone to sin, whether one has or will carry out the deed and whether they do, is not the worst category of evil possible.  Yet it is significant all the same.  So significant is this form of sin that God's nature requires that no one show any pity to their closest friend or family member when they secretly propose worshiping other gods.  How much worse, then, would publicly pressing a group of people to sin be, or demanding that someone else sin?  When the sin makes the perpetrator deserve premature death via capital punishment, like enticing someone to worship anything other than Yahweh or instructing them to commit murder, it would be evil for anyone to refuse imposing the sentence.  Justice is justice, and very few who profess commitment to Judeo-Christianity would actually dare to entertain that any punishments but those which correspond to their arbitrary community/national norms or subjective sense of morality (conscience).  Deuteronomy's case law about privately enticement to worship anything besides Yahweh is clear as to what is morally necessary.