אל נחל איתן, where people do not normally walk.

וערפו, a discreet death, not one drawing attention to itself. The animal does not experience pangs of death, not knowing of its impending fate. Naturally, people knew even less about this impending procedure. This procedure parallels what the murderer had done when he ambushed an unsuspecting victim in a location which was isolated so that the court never found out who the murderer was. Had the court known of the identity of the murderer they would have dealt with him instead of this heifer having to be killed.

לשרתו ולברך, the (Temple) service of the priests is instrumental in attaining expiation for the innocent blood spilled, and in securing blessing for the land.

ועל פיהם יהיה כל ריב וכל נגע, so that they are familiar with the psyches of the people and their norms, as they observed already by watching their fathers deal with such matters. Perhaps, due to such cumulative empirical knowledge they have some knowledge of whose character has been tainted by sin so that such intuitive knowledge will help them bring the truth to light. (in the investigation of the murder)

ידינו לא שפכו את הדם הזה, we have not left a stone unturned in (making public) locating the murderer in the land.

ועינינו לא ראו, we are certain that the murderer did not commit this act where he could be seen. Had he been seen, he would have been challenged and prevented from committing the deed. At the very least, such witnesses would have come forward.

כפר לעמך, Please Lord, grant atonement to Your people, on behalf of the one who has spilled the blood. This is a veiled request to bring the murderer to justice as it is not given to man to do this. Compare Ketuvot 30 “if someone is guilty of judicial execution (and human justice did not reach him) he will either be killed by the secular authorities (for something else he is accused of) or terrorists will attack him.”

ונכפר להם הדם, it will be atoned through heavenly judgment, the heavenly agent spilling the murderer’s blood accomplishing this. It will appear in the eyes of man as if the matter had taken care of itself independently. [one cannot pinpoint why the party concerned died a violent death, not knowing what he had been guilty of. Ed.]

ואתה תבער, when you are aware of someone’s guilt it is up to you to sentence the party and to carry out the sentence and not to rely on heaven to intervene. When you are unaware of the identity of the guilty party, and you have made exhaustive attempts to find him without success, you may rest assured that G’d Himself will take care of the problem.

כי תצא, beyond the boundaries of your land.

ובכתה את אביה ואת אמה, to get her father and mother out of her system and reconciling herself to the fact that henceforth she would live in the Land of Israel, have no more contact with her parents. (whether they are dead or alive) Similar wording occurs in Psalms 45,11 שכחי עמך, the psalmist urging the Jewish people, compared to a princess, to forget their former environment and associates as she had been promoted to a loftier position. The prisoner of war described here as embracing Judaism has similarly been promoted to a far superior environment, severing her previous relationships completely. The weeping mentioned in our verse has nothing to do with the death of her parents for we do not kill mothers altogether. She weeps for having no longer a father and mother in the legal sense as these did not convert. Any other convert, not a prisoner of war, would similarly weep for this separation having occurred in her life as a result of her new status.

כי תהיינה לאיש שתי נשים, after the victory in war the Torah addresses internal matters in the Jewish state. The most important ones are interpersonal relationships with wives, children, livestock, jewelry, hunting for food, building homes, tilling the soil and matters related to clothing.

לא יוכל לבכר את בן האהובה על פני בן השנואה הבכור. The firstborn son’s entitlement to an extra share in his father’s inheritance must not be transferred on account of his father loving his mother more or “hating” her, i.e. loving her less than his second wife. If the reason the father wants to transfer the extra portion of the inheritance away from the chronologically entitled son due to that son’s misconduct¸ this is in order, as we know from Baba Batra 133 אם לא היה נוהג כשורה זכור לטוב, íf the chronologically oldest did not conduct himself properly his inheritance may be transferred to another better one. [opinion of Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel only, not accepted by codifiers. Ed.] It appears that this is what Yaakov did when he took birthright privileges away from Reuven (Chronicles I 5,1) transferring it to Joseph.

סורר ומורה, his obstinacy removed all hope that he would change his lifestyle.

זולל וסובא, such gluttons will become impoverished so that they will resort to robbery with violence in order to satisfy their needs. (Sanhedrin, 71, based on Proverbs)

כי קללת אלוהים תלוי, every disembodied creature is known as elohim; this includes the soul of human beings known as צלם אלוהים, “image of G’d.” [as He is without body, so this essence of a human being is without a body, does not need a body. Ed.] (Genesis 1,27) This is how we can understand the woman, known as בעלת אוב in Samuel I 28,13 whom King Sha-ul approached and asked to raise the prophet Samuel for him producing a disembodied image. Seeing that the disgrace done to a person after he has died is also an insult to this disembodied essence of him, the Torah describes it as קללת אלוהים, equivalent to cursing the dead person’s eternal essence. קללת אלהים, leaving the dead corpse hanging without burial is an insult to that very eternal essence of a human being called אלהים.

ולא תטמא, do not allow the spirit of impurity, death, to linger overnight in a location where a body remains unburied.