Hanging

Hanging in scripture is not a method of strangulation but the public exposure of an executed body on a tree, post, or purpose-built gallows. It functions both as the visible end of capital punishment and as a sign of curse, and the same image is finally taken up in the New Testament to describe the death of Christ.

Capital Punishment By Hanging

The first hanging in scripture is foretold in Joseph's prison interpretation, and it is hanging only after death has already been pronounced: "within yet three days will Pharaoh lift up your head from off you, and will hang you on a tree; and the birds will eat your flesh from off you" (Gen 40:19). The narrative follows through three days later: "he lifted up the head of the chief cupbearer and the head of the chief baker among his slaves... but he hanged the chief baker: as Joseph had interpreted to them" (Gen 40:20-22).

Israel's wars of conquest carry the same pattern. After Ai falls, the king is killed and then displayed: "the king of Ai he hanged on a tree until evening: and at the going down of the sun Joshua commanded, and they took his body down from the tree, and cast it at the entrance of the gate of the city, and raised on it a great heap of stones, to this day" (Jos 8:29). The five Amorite kings receive the same treatment: "afterward Joshua struck them, and put them to death, and hanged them on five trees: and they were hanging on the trees until the evening" (Jos 10:26). In both episodes the killing precedes the hanging, and the body is removed at sunset.

David, taking the throne in Hebron, uses the same display against the assassins of Ish-bosheth: "David commanded his young men, and they slew them, and cut off their hands and their feet, and hanged them up beside the pool in Hebron" (2Sa 4:12). The execution publicizes the king's repudiation of the murder rather than rewarding it.

In Persia the gallows itself becomes a character. Haman builds one fifty cubits high to destroy Mordecai, and the reversal is exact: "they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the king's wrath was pacified" (Esth 7:10). The decree extends to his line: "let Haman's ten sons be hanged on the gallows" (Esth 9:13).

Hanging On A Tree And The Curse

The Mosaic law fixes a theological reading on the practice. A capital criminal already executed could be hanged for public display, but only within strict limits: "if a man has committed a sin worthy of death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree; his body will not remain all night on the tree, but you will surely bury him the same day; for he who is hanged is accursed of God; that you do not defile your land which Yahweh your God gives you for an inheritance" (Deut 21:22-23).

Two restrictions are written into the law itself. The hanged body must not remain overnight, because the corpse left exposed defiles the land Yahweh has given. And the verdict on the hanged man is theological, not merely civil: such a person is "accursed of God." Hanging is read as the visible sign of a curse already pronounced.

The conquest narratives respect this rule. Joshua takes down the king of Ai "at the going down of the sun" (Jos 8:29) and the five kings "until the evening" (Jos 10:26). The land is not to be defiled by an exposed corpse, however justly executed.

Christ And The Curse Of The Tree

Paul takes up Deuteronomy 21 directly and reads the cross through it: "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree" (Gal 3:13).

The argument turns on the Deuteronomic verdict. If hanging on a tree marks a man as accursed of God, then the crucified Christ stands in the position the law assigned to the executed criminal. Paul does not soften that judgment; he takes it as the mechanism of redemption. The curse that fell on the body left hanging on the tree falls on Christ, and those for whom he hangs are "redeemed... from the curse of the law."

The Old Testament image of capital punishment by hanging — Pharaoh's baker, the king of Ai, the five Amorite kings, the men killed beside the pool in Hebron, Haman on his own gallows — supplies the legal and visual frame. Deuteronomy 21:22-23 supplies the theological reading. Galatians 3:13 takes both and applies them to the cross.