Deuteronomy 20:5

officers shoṭerîm, Deuteronomy 1:15; Deuteronomy 16:18.

a new house … not dedicated The vb is used of the dedication of the Temple, 1 Kings 8:63 = 2 Chronicles 7:5, but nowhere else in the O.T. is there any mention of the dedication of a private house. (A.V. of title to Psalms 30 is misleading.) At the present day in Syria, when a house is built a goat or sheep is slain and the blood stamped (often by the open hand) on the door or walls, as the present writer has seen in Moab and elsewhere: cp. Doughty Ar. Des.i. 136, W. R. Smith Rel. Sem.133 f., Musil, Moab, 372, Ethn. Ber.417. The sacrifice propitiates the spirits of the disturbed soil. To leave for war without fulfilling such rites was regarded as fatal; see Schwally, 91 f., who quotes as parallel Iliadii. 698 f.: Protesilaus, the first Greek slain by the Trojans, had left his house unfinished. That such a superstition prevailed in Israel is probable, but by the addition and another man dedicate it, D's motive for this law is shown to be rather one of humanity.