Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree
The Old Testament
you must not leave the body on the tree overnight, but you must be sure to bury him that day, because anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not defile the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.
Deuteronomy 21:23
Read the full text in a modern translation BSB
Read the full text (2 verses)
In the New Testament
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”
Galatians 3:13
BSB
Read the full text in a modern translation BSB
Read the full text (4 verses)
When someone who has committed a crime deserving death has been put to death and hanged on a tree, his body may not remain there all night. For he that is hanged is accursed of God.
In Deuteronomy this is about displaying a body after execution. In Jesus' day the text was also applied to crucifixion; one of the Dead Sea Scrolls already does so. For many Jews a crucified Messiah was therefore a contradiction: how could God's anointed be cursed? Paul, who at first persecuted the Christians himself, turns it around: Christ became a curse for us, to redeem us from the curse. Peter deliberately speaks in his sermons of 'the tree'. That the bodies had to come down from the cross before the sabbath follows from the same law (John 19:31).