(Leviticus 27:1 - 27:34)
Jehovah spoke again to Moses and told him to instruct the people of Israel, "If someone makes a votive offering to Jehovah consisting a human being, here are the values set for each kind of individual:
“A man between the age of 20 and 60 -- 50 shekels of silver (according to the weights used at the Tabernacle)
A woman between the age of 20 and 60 -- 30 shekels
A boy between the age of 5 and 20 -- 20 shekels
A girl between the age of 5 and 20 -- 10 shekels
A boy child between the ages of 1 month and 5 years -- 5 shekels
A girl child between the ages of 1 month and 5 years -- 3 shekels
A man older than 60 years of age -- 15 shekels
A woman older than 60 years of age -- 10 shekels
"If you wish to make a vow, but are too poor to pay the full amount, take the person to the priest, who will figure out a price based on what you can afford.
"If the votive offering is an animal, such an animal, provided that it is an offering acceptable to Jehovah, will be considered holy. Another cannot be exchanged or substituted for it, neither a better one for a worse one or vice versa, but if one is substituted then both the substitute and the original animal should be considered holy. If the votive offering is a ritually impure animal, one not acceptable to Jehovah, then it must be brought to the priest, who will determine its value, high or low. His assessment will be final, and if you want to buy back the animal you must pay the price set by the priest, plus 20 percent.
"If someone dedicates his house to Jehovah as a votive offering, then the priest must assess its value. Whether high or low, the price set by the priest will be final. And if the owner wishes to buy it back, he must pay the price set by the priest, plus 20 percent, for the house to belong to him again.
"If someone dedicates a piece of family property as a votive offering, its value will be determined by the amount of seed the land requires for planting, eg. 50 shekels for a homer of barley seed. If the land is dedicated during the Jubilee Year, that assessment remains. If field has been dedicated after the Jubilee Year, then the priest must calculate the number of years till the next jubilee and reduce the price accordingly. If someone who has dedicated the land wants to buy it back, for the field to become his own again he must pay the established price plus 20 percent. But if the piece of property has not been bought back by the time of the jubilee, or has been sold to someone else, the original owner will no longer be able to redeem it. When it is released on the Jubilee Year, it will forthwith become of the property of the priests, holy as land dedicated to Jehovah.
"If someone dedicates a piece of property that was purchased and not part of his family's ancestral lands, the priest will calculate its value up to the next Jubilee Year, and at the time of the dedication make the assessed value a sacred donation to Jehovah. At the time of the Jubilee Year the property must return to the one from whom it was purchased, the one who inherited it as an ancestral land.
"All payments must be assessed in shekels as measured by the weights used at the Tabernacle. (One shekel is equal to 20 gerahs.)
"You may not dedicate a first-born animal to Jehovah, since first-born cattle, sheep, and goats already belong to him. However, you may buy back the first-born of any ritually impure animal at the price determined by the priest, plus 20 percent. If it is not bought back, the priest will then sell it at its assessed value.
"Nothing owned by a person that has been designated as a permanent sacrifice to Jehovah can be bought back or sold, whether it is a person, an animal, or a piece of family land. Anything dedicated in this way becomes holy and the property of Jehovah. No person designated as such a sacrifice and marked for destruction can be redeemed; he must be killed.
"All the produce of the land, whether the grain of the fields or the fruits of the trees, is subjected to 10 percent tax that must be paid to Jehovah and becomes his holy property. Anyone who wishes to buy back what he has donated of his harvest must pay its value and an additional 20 percent. A similar tax of herds and flocks is imposed: every 10th animal should be counted and set aside as the holy property of Jehovah. You may not pick or choose between good and bad animals or make substitutions. If a substitution is made, then both animals become holy and may not be redeemed."
These are the commandments that Jehovah on the mountain in Sinai gave to Moses for the Israelites.
Notes
1. A shekel is equal to about .4 ounces. An adult man is worth as much as a good tea service, 20 ounces of silver being roughly $400 given the 2014 market price of silver. A homer is equal to about 300 pounds.
2. While it is somewhat disturbing to think that Jehovah would put a specific cash value on a human being, it is dismaying to realize how little value an older man or woman has compared to a younger one, worth a third as much or less. Apparently the wisdom and experience of age didn't count for much when the shekels were counted by the priests. Also of note is how little value a woman has compared to a man. That womanly virtues and talents were undervalued is not surprising -- they always have been, but in a society that placed great emphasis on the propagation of its population, one would have thought that a woman, at least one of child-bearing years, would have at least as much value as a man. One can conclude that the shekel values here itemized are base solely upon the ability to perform manual labor and menial tasks.
3. A votive offering, unlike the required peace offerings, guilt offerings, etc., is made to Jehovah in fulfillment of a vow. It is personal in nature, not a public duty. A man promises Jehovah a goat, if he has a good harvest. The goat would be the votive offering. Such is a common practice among believers of all religions, Christianity no less than others. In medieval times, for instance, a noble warrior would ask for God's help in a battle and, in the event of winning it, promises to donate to the church some precious object. Similarly, in modern times, a rich man might promise he will fund a new steeple for the church if his prayers are answered and his wife recovers from an illness. The votive offering is always a bribe to the deity in payment for his favorable intervention in human affairs. It assumes that the divine being needs to be instructed by mortals in how he should aid mankind and will not do good unless he is rewarded for it.
4. It is unclear here what happens to the human being who is given to Jehovah as a votive offering. Does he become a slave to the priests or a commodity to be sold by them? It is clear that persons who are given as permanent sacrifices, those that can't be bought back, are to be killed. Are these criminals? Are they unwanted slaves, troublesome foreigners, or despised family members? Or are they, as they most likely were, captives of war? Are they executed, stoned to death or whatever, or are they sacrificed on the altar, butchered and burned like a sheep or a steer?
5. Once any kind of votive offering is bought back, Jehovah's law makes sure that the priests make a tidy 20 percent profit on the deal. Most of Jehovah's statutes are all about the priesthood being needed and honored -- and being able to enrich itself. Things were hardly different in the medieval Christian church where there was more emphasis on wealth and power than on piety, (although, to be fair, both the Jehovan and the Christian religious establishment did practice charity and provided what we call social services).
Saturday, October 18, 2014
Jehovah's Rewards and Punishments
(Leviticus 26:1 - 26:46)
"You must not make idols or carved images, or erect pillars or stone sculptures in your land for the purpose of worshiping them. Thus says Jehovah your god. You must keep my sabbaths and revere my Tabernacle. Thus says Jehovah your god.
"If you follow my statutes, respect my commandments and observe them faithfully, I will send you rain in good season. The land will yield its crops and the trees will bring forth their fruit. Your threshing will continue until it is time to harvest the grapes, and you will still be harvesting grapes when it is time to plant the grain. You will able to eat your fill and live securely on the land. I will bring peace to your land. You will be able to lie down to sleep without fear. I will banish the wild beasts from your land and no warfare will threaten your country. When you pursue your enemies, they will be routed. Five of you will put to flight a hundred of them, and a hundred, ten thousand! By your arms your enemies will be overcome.
"I will look with approval upon you. You will be fruitful and multiply. I will keep the pact I made with you. You will still be eating the grain of last year's harvest when it is time to store the new. I will place my Tabernacle among you and will not spurn you. My spirit will always be with you. I will be your god and you will be my people. I am Jehovah your god, who brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves. I broke the yoke of slavery that bound your neck, so that you could walk erect.
"However, if you do not heed me or obey these commandments, if you break my contract by rejecting my decrees, showing contempt for my laws, or ignoring my commands, then what follows will happen to you. Terrible calamity will fall precipitously upon you. Debilitating disease and fever will steal your sight and sap your strength. Your seeds will be planted in vain, for it will be your enemies who will eat the crop. I will turn against you so that you will be conquered by your enemies. Those who hate you will lord over you. You will flee even when no one pursues you.
"If, after all this, you still disobey me, I will punish you sevenfold for your sins. I will break your rebellious spirit. Your sky will become as dry as iron and your land as hard as copper. Your labor will all be to no purpose, because crops will not grow in your soil and the trees in your land will bear no fruit.
"If you still remain hostile toward me and refuse to obey me, then I will increase your afflictions sevenfold, in punishment for your sins. I will send wild beasts to attack you, to rob you of your children and prey upon your livestock. They will so decrease the population that your roads will be deserted and desolate.
"If, despite these afflictions, you haven't learned your lesson and are still hostile to me, then I will be hostile to you. I will afflict you sevenfold for your sins. In retribution for the breaking of my contract with you, I will bring warfare down upon you. You will seek refuge in your cities, but I will afflict you with disease and you will be delivered into the hands of your enemy. When I cut off your grain supply, it will only take ten women and a single oven to bake all the bread you have. The bread will be doled out by weight and when you eat your meager ration, it won't be enough to keep you from being hungry.
"If you then continue to disobey me and be hostile to me, my full wrath will vented upon you and I will punish you for your sins sevenfold. You will end up as cannibals, eating the flesh of your children. I will destroy your pagan shrines and topple your altars. Your corpses will be heaped upon the ruins of your smashed idols. I will revile you. I will devastate your cities and lay waste your places of worship. I will find no pleasure in the otherwise pleasurable aroma of your burnt offerings. I will make the land a place of such desolation that even the enemies occupying it will be shocked. I will scatter you among foreign lands where you will be harassed by warfare. Your country will be a wasteland and your cities will lie in ruins. The land in its desolation will have a Sabbath Year every year. While you are in exile in the land of your enemies and the land remains desolate, the land will enjoy the rest and the Sabbath Years it was deprived of when you were living there.
“You who survive will live in the land of your enemies with such fear that even so much as the rustle of a wind-blown leaf will drive you to into a panicked flight. You will flee as if from an army, but will fall and stumble over one another, even when no one pursues you. You will have no strength to oppose your foes. You will find death in foreign countries and the lands of your enemies will swallow you up. Those who do survive will waste away there, not only because of their own sins, but because of the sins of their ancestors.
"But, if finally my people will confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors, if they will regret their infidelity and hostility to me, (which made me so hostile to them they I banished them to the land of their enemies), if their hard hearts will be softened and they will make amends for their trespasses, then I will remember the contract I made with Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham and remember the land I promised them. That land, evacuated by them, will enjoy a sabbath while they are absent making amends for their iniquity, for continually ignoring my ordinances and rejecting my regulations. Yet, despite that, when they are in exile in the land of their enemies, I will not spurn them or detest them so much as to utterly destroy them or break my contract with them, for I am still their god Jehovah. For their sakes, I will remember the ancient contract I made with their ancestors when, before the eyes of all the world, I brought them out of Egypt to be their god. Thus says Jehovah."
These are the laws and statutes and decrees that Jehovah gave to Moses on the mountain in Sinai as part of the contract between himself and the Israelites.
Notes
1. The prohibition against images, statues, idols, etc. is specific, but only if they are used for idolatrous worship. It is not, therefore, forbidden to make a statue, a painting, and carving of anything; worshiping them is what is sinful. This prohibition has been too strictly interpreted by many religious who regard the Old Testament as scripture.
2. Success, good fortune, peace and prosperity are all predicated on ones' obedience to Jehovah and proper observance of his laws and statutes. Good things will happen to those who are good, evil things to those who are evil -- this is the kind of earthly justice we all yearn for and hope for. But experience repeatedly tells us it does not exist. Jehovah makes these glowing promises to his followers. When they are not fulfilled there is always the excuse that his people have not been holy enough, that their sins, and there are always sins, have deprive them of Jehovah's blessings. This mindset is not peculiar to the Israelites or even to the ancient world. That God in this earthly life will reward the righteous and punish the sinful is a belief that persists among the faithful of all religions, however much empirical evidence militates against its reality.
3. The worship of Jehovah was apparently so distasteful to the Israelites that they had to be bribed and threatened to be observant. The inducements to devotion are so great, the punishments that befall the apostate so horrendous, it is hard to understand why would the Israelites not remain dutifully faithful. But there is always skepticism and obstinacy, indulgence and passion and venality. Jehovah doesn't seem to be able to compel obedience or to change the nature of his errant worshipers.
4. Jehovah (or the authors of the Old Testament) always exhibits a taste for the melodramatic and seems to derive almost sadistic pleasure from florid descriptions of cataclysm, catastrophe, and calamity on an epic, indeed biblical scale. Jehovah, definitely not a turn-the-other-cheek kind of chap, takes delight in threatening evil and violence upon his people. He is rather like a stern father who must never be crossed or challenged, who demands unquestioning obedience, and who will find any excuse to get out the strap and give his unworthy offspring a good lickin'.
5. The Israelites are to be punished not only for their own sins, but for that of their ancestors. The concept of collective and ancestral guilt is well established in the Old Testament and promoted by Jehovah, although it is generally rejected by moderns who feel that a man is responsible only for his own actions.
6. The prophecies of disaster, conquest and exile, are obvious references to the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzer and the subsequent conquest and captivity of the Israelites from the Kingdom of Judah. Even the cannibalism refers to a recorded incident during that siege. To the writers of the Old Testament, very conscious of their audience, these events were recent history. Readers needed to be comforted by the knowledge that Jehovah must have been aware of this many hundreds of years before.
"You must not make idols or carved images, or erect pillars or stone sculptures in your land for the purpose of worshiping them. Thus says Jehovah your god. You must keep my sabbaths and revere my Tabernacle. Thus says Jehovah your god.
"If you follow my statutes, respect my commandments and observe them faithfully, I will send you rain in good season. The land will yield its crops and the trees will bring forth their fruit. Your threshing will continue until it is time to harvest the grapes, and you will still be harvesting grapes when it is time to plant the grain. You will able to eat your fill and live securely on the land. I will bring peace to your land. You will be able to lie down to sleep without fear. I will banish the wild beasts from your land and no warfare will threaten your country. When you pursue your enemies, they will be routed. Five of you will put to flight a hundred of them, and a hundred, ten thousand! By your arms your enemies will be overcome.
"I will look with approval upon you. You will be fruitful and multiply. I will keep the pact I made with you. You will still be eating the grain of last year's harvest when it is time to store the new. I will place my Tabernacle among you and will not spurn you. My spirit will always be with you. I will be your god and you will be my people. I am Jehovah your god, who brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves. I broke the yoke of slavery that bound your neck, so that you could walk erect.
"However, if you do not heed me or obey these commandments, if you break my contract by rejecting my decrees, showing contempt for my laws, or ignoring my commands, then what follows will happen to you. Terrible calamity will fall precipitously upon you. Debilitating disease and fever will steal your sight and sap your strength. Your seeds will be planted in vain, for it will be your enemies who will eat the crop. I will turn against you so that you will be conquered by your enemies. Those who hate you will lord over you. You will flee even when no one pursues you.
"If, after all this, you still disobey me, I will punish you sevenfold for your sins. I will break your rebellious spirit. Your sky will become as dry as iron and your land as hard as copper. Your labor will all be to no purpose, because crops will not grow in your soil and the trees in your land will bear no fruit.
"If you still remain hostile toward me and refuse to obey me, then I will increase your afflictions sevenfold, in punishment for your sins. I will send wild beasts to attack you, to rob you of your children and prey upon your livestock. They will so decrease the population that your roads will be deserted and desolate.
"If, despite these afflictions, you haven't learned your lesson and are still hostile to me, then I will be hostile to you. I will afflict you sevenfold for your sins. In retribution for the breaking of my contract with you, I will bring warfare down upon you. You will seek refuge in your cities, but I will afflict you with disease and you will be delivered into the hands of your enemy. When I cut off your grain supply, it will only take ten women and a single oven to bake all the bread you have. The bread will be doled out by weight and when you eat your meager ration, it won't be enough to keep you from being hungry.
"If you then continue to disobey me and be hostile to me, my full wrath will vented upon you and I will punish you for your sins sevenfold. You will end up as cannibals, eating the flesh of your children. I will destroy your pagan shrines and topple your altars. Your corpses will be heaped upon the ruins of your smashed idols. I will revile you. I will devastate your cities and lay waste your places of worship. I will find no pleasure in the otherwise pleasurable aroma of your burnt offerings. I will make the land a place of such desolation that even the enemies occupying it will be shocked. I will scatter you among foreign lands where you will be harassed by warfare. Your country will be a wasteland and your cities will lie in ruins. The land in its desolation will have a Sabbath Year every year. While you are in exile in the land of your enemies and the land remains desolate, the land will enjoy the rest and the Sabbath Years it was deprived of when you were living there.
“You who survive will live in the land of your enemies with such fear that even so much as the rustle of a wind-blown leaf will drive you to into a panicked flight. You will flee as if from an army, but will fall and stumble over one another, even when no one pursues you. You will have no strength to oppose your foes. You will find death in foreign countries and the lands of your enemies will swallow you up. Those who do survive will waste away there, not only because of their own sins, but because of the sins of their ancestors.
"But, if finally my people will confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors, if they will regret their infidelity and hostility to me, (which made me so hostile to them they I banished them to the land of their enemies), if their hard hearts will be softened and they will make amends for their trespasses, then I will remember the contract I made with Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham and remember the land I promised them. That land, evacuated by them, will enjoy a sabbath while they are absent making amends for their iniquity, for continually ignoring my ordinances and rejecting my regulations. Yet, despite that, when they are in exile in the land of their enemies, I will not spurn them or detest them so much as to utterly destroy them or break my contract with them, for I am still their god Jehovah. For their sakes, I will remember the ancient contract I made with their ancestors when, before the eyes of all the world, I brought them out of Egypt to be their god. Thus says Jehovah."
These are the laws and statutes and decrees that Jehovah gave to Moses on the mountain in Sinai as part of the contract between himself and the Israelites.
Notes
1. The prohibition against images, statues, idols, etc. is specific, but only if they are used for idolatrous worship. It is not, therefore, forbidden to make a statue, a painting, and carving of anything; worshiping them is what is sinful. This prohibition has been too strictly interpreted by many religious who regard the Old Testament as scripture.
2. Success, good fortune, peace and prosperity are all predicated on ones' obedience to Jehovah and proper observance of his laws and statutes. Good things will happen to those who are good, evil things to those who are evil -- this is the kind of earthly justice we all yearn for and hope for. But experience repeatedly tells us it does not exist. Jehovah makes these glowing promises to his followers. When they are not fulfilled there is always the excuse that his people have not been holy enough, that their sins, and there are always sins, have deprive them of Jehovah's blessings. This mindset is not peculiar to the Israelites or even to the ancient world. That God in this earthly life will reward the righteous and punish the sinful is a belief that persists among the faithful of all religions, however much empirical evidence militates against its reality.
3. The worship of Jehovah was apparently so distasteful to the Israelites that they had to be bribed and threatened to be observant. The inducements to devotion are so great, the punishments that befall the apostate so horrendous, it is hard to understand why would the Israelites not remain dutifully faithful. But there is always skepticism and obstinacy, indulgence and passion and venality. Jehovah doesn't seem to be able to compel obedience or to change the nature of his errant worshipers.
4. Jehovah (or the authors of the Old Testament) always exhibits a taste for the melodramatic and seems to derive almost sadistic pleasure from florid descriptions of cataclysm, catastrophe, and calamity on an epic, indeed biblical scale. Jehovah, definitely not a turn-the-other-cheek kind of chap, takes delight in threatening evil and violence upon his people. He is rather like a stern father who must never be crossed or challenged, who demands unquestioning obedience, and who will find any excuse to get out the strap and give his unworthy offspring a good lickin'.
5. The Israelites are to be punished not only for their own sins, but for that of their ancestors. The concept of collective and ancestral guilt is well established in the Old Testament and promoted by Jehovah, although it is generally rejected by moderns who feel that a man is responsible only for his own actions.
6. The prophecies of disaster, conquest and exile, are obvious references to the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzer and the subsequent conquest and captivity of the Israelites from the Kingdom of Judah. Even the cannibalism refers to a recorded incident during that siege. To the writers of the Old Testament, very conscious of their audience, these events were recent history. Readers needed to be comforted by the knowledge that Jehovah must have been aware of this many hundreds of years before.
Sunday, October 12, 2014
Sale of Slaves
(Leviticus 25:35- 25:55)
"If a fellow Israelite becomes destitute and cannot support himself, you should assist him as you would a foreigner or resident alien. If you respect your god, then do not charge him interest or make a profit at his expense, so that he may afford to live in the community. Do not charge interest on the money you may lend him or sell him food at a profit. Thus says Jehovah your god, who brought you out Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your god.
"If a fellow Israelite becomes destitute and must sell himself to you, treat him not as a slave, but as any other hired hand or migrant worker. He will only be in your service till the next Jubilee Year, at which time he and his family will have no obligation to you, but will be able to return to their own clan and ancestral lands. Since I freed the people of Israel from Egypt, they are my servants and they must not be sold into slavery. Show your respect for your god by not treating them as slaves.
"However, you may purchase slaves, both male and female, from neighboring countries and from among the foreigners that reside temporarily with you or even foreigners that have been born among your people. You may treat them as your personal property, chattels that may be bequeathed to your children as a permanent inheritance. But while you may regard foreigners as your slaves, you must never regard a fellow Israelite as such.
"If a resident alien becomes wealthy and he, or a member of his family purchases a fellow Israelite who has become impoverished, the Israelite retains the right to have his freedom bought back. A member of his family, an uncle or cousin or any blood relation, may do so -- or even the Israelite himself, if he is able to acquire sufficient wealth. The buyer and Israelite who has sold himself must calculate the price based upon the time to the next Jubilee Year from the date when the purchase was made and at a rate that a hired worker would normally be paid. (If many years remain till the next Jubilee Year, then a larger price will have to be paid for the Israelite to gain his freedom; if only a few years remain till the Jubilee Year, then a proportionately smaller amount is paid.) The foreigner must regard the purchased Israelite only as a worker who has been hired on a yearly basis and must not be allowed to treat your fellow Israelite as a slave. Any Israelite whose freedom has not been purchased before the Jubilee Year arrives will automatically be freed at that time, along with his children.
"The people of Israel belong to me. They are my servants that I brought of Egypt. Thus says Jehovah your god."
Notes
1. We see here more indications of the tribalistic attitude being reinforced by Jehovah's commands. These within the tribe are treated differently than those outside the tribe. Those within must not be charged interest on loans, profit must not be taken on food sold to the needy among them, and slaves must not be taken from within the tribe. Treatment of those outside the tribe is different. It's OK to take them as slaves, buy and sell them as mere property, for to Jehovah human beings have a different value depending on what tribe they belong to. Tribalism was the prevailing mindset in ancient times (and after), weakened only by the political and legal structures of the great empires, those of the Persians, the Hellenes, and the Romans. The moral equality of men would be a concept promulgated later by philosophies such as Stoicism and religions such as Christianity.
2. Any moral imperatives presented here are relative, not absolute: they are based solely on what is pleasing to Jehovah and what supports his personal pride. Israelites must be treated well for the sole reason that they are Jehovah's people, his servants, his property, not because of any overarching moral responsibility or concepts of righteousness or humanity.
"If a fellow Israelite becomes destitute and cannot support himself, you should assist him as you would a foreigner or resident alien. If you respect your god, then do not charge him interest or make a profit at his expense, so that he may afford to live in the community. Do not charge interest on the money you may lend him or sell him food at a profit. Thus says Jehovah your god, who brought you out Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your god.
"If a fellow Israelite becomes destitute and must sell himself to you, treat him not as a slave, but as any other hired hand or migrant worker. He will only be in your service till the next Jubilee Year, at which time he and his family will have no obligation to you, but will be able to return to their own clan and ancestral lands. Since I freed the people of Israel from Egypt, they are my servants and they must not be sold into slavery. Show your respect for your god by not treating them as slaves.
"However, you may purchase slaves, both male and female, from neighboring countries and from among the foreigners that reside temporarily with you or even foreigners that have been born among your people. You may treat them as your personal property, chattels that may be bequeathed to your children as a permanent inheritance. But while you may regard foreigners as your slaves, you must never regard a fellow Israelite as such.
"If a resident alien becomes wealthy and he, or a member of his family purchases a fellow Israelite who has become impoverished, the Israelite retains the right to have his freedom bought back. A member of his family, an uncle or cousin or any blood relation, may do so -- or even the Israelite himself, if he is able to acquire sufficient wealth. The buyer and Israelite who has sold himself must calculate the price based upon the time to the next Jubilee Year from the date when the purchase was made and at a rate that a hired worker would normally be paid. (If many years remain till the next Jubilee Year, then a larger price will have to be paid for the Israelite to gain his freedom; if only a few years remain till the Jubilee Year, then a proportionately smaller amount is paid.) The foreigner must regard the purchased Israelite only as a worker who has been hired on a yearly basis and must not be allowed to treat your fellow Israelite as a slave. Any Israelite whose freedom has not been purchased before the Jubilee Year arrives will automatically be freed at that time, along with his children.
"The people of Israel belong to me. They are my servants that I brought of Egypt. Thus says Jehovah your god."
Notes
1. We see here more indications of the tribalistic attitude being reinforced by Jehovah's commands. These within the tribe are treated differently than those outside the tribe. Those within must not be charged interest on loans, profit must not be taken on food sold to the needy among them, and slaves must not be taken from within the tribe. Treatment of those outside the tribe is different. It's OK to take them as slaves, buy and sell them as mere property, for to Jehovah human beings have a different value depending on what tribe they belong to. Tribalism was the prevailing mindset in ancient times (and after), weakened only by the political and legal structures of the great empires, those of the Persians, the Hellenes, and the Romans. The moral equality of men would be a concept promulgated later by philosophies such as Stoicism and religions such as Christianity.
2. Any moral imperatives presented here are relative, not absolute: they are based solely on what is pleasing to Jehovah and what supports his personal pride. Israelites must be treated well for the sole reason that they are Jehovah's people, his servants, his property, not because of any overarching moral responsibility or concepts of righteousness or humanity.
Sale of Land
(Leviticus 25:14 - 25:34)
"When you sell land to any of your own people, or buy land from them, do not cheat one another. When you buy land from a neighbor, the price should be based upon the number of years since the last Jubilee Year. The seller must take into account the number of years until the next jubilee. The more years there are until the next jubilee, the higher the price, the fewer the years, the lower the price. The reason for this is that the person selling you the land is actually selling a certain number of harvests. Show respect to your god by not cheating each other. Thus says your god Jehovah.
"Observe my statutes and obey my decrees and you will live securely in the land. The land will produce bountiful harvests, you will be able to eat your fill and live in security. But you might ask, 'What will we eat on the seventh year, since we are not allowed to plant or harvest crops during that year?' Rest assured that I will so bless your fields on the sixth year that the land will yield a crop that will last for three years. When you plant your fields in the eighth year you will still be eating the large crop from the sixth year. (In fact you will still be eating it when the new crop is being harvested on the ninth year!)
"You cannot sell the land permanently, for it belongs to me; you live upon it only as a resident alien would. When land is purchased, the right of the seller to buy it back must be honored. If one of your fellow Israelites falls into poverty and is forced to sell a piece of family property, a close relative should have the opportunity to reclaim it for him. If there is no family member to do so, but the original owner acquires enough wealth to buy it back, he may do so from the person he sold it to, after figuring a discount for the number of years to the next Jubilee. In this way, the original owner may return to his land. If, however, he cannot afford to pay for his land, it must remain with the new owner until the next Jubilee Year. At that time the property will revert to the original owner, who can live again on his own land.
"Anyone who sells a dwelling in a walled city has the right to reclaim it up to a full year after the purchase. During that year he has the right to buy it back, but if it is not bought back within the year, then the sale of the dwelling will become final. It will become the permanent property of the buyer and not to be returned in the Jubilee Year. However, a dwelling in a village, that is, an unwalled settlement, is to be treated like any other property in the countryside. It may be bought back anytime by the original owner and must be returned to him in the Jubilee Year.
"Members of the tribe of Levi retain the right to buy back any house in the towns belonging to them. Real estate sold by the Levites or property in the towns belonging to them must be returned to them during the Jubilee Year, since the property in their towns are their sole inheritance in Israel. The pastureland around the Levite towns may not be sold at all and is their permanent possession."
Notes
1. Laws concerning the disposition of land seem absurd to promulgate at a time when the migrant Israelites own no land and will not do so for several decades. But the chickens are being well counted before they hatch and the far-sighted Jehovah is supposedly establishing the ground rules long before the game is to be played. (Pardon the mixed metaphor!) It must be reiterated that Levitical law was obviously not established with a divine wave of the hand on Sinai, but evolved over many generations, many hundreds of years. To give custom and human-devised law authority, it is made out to be the command of the national deity -- standard practice among ancient and primitive societies.
2. Jehovah guarantees that there will be good harvests on the sixth year so that on the seventh year the land may lay idle. Really! Jehovah will apparently continually manipulate and manage the weather to benefit the Israelites and that bountiful harvests are assured if the Israelites follow his will. The idea that God (or, more commonly, the gods) actively controls climatic conditions and that every "act of God" is divinely ordained is an old one. For it has always been difficult for man to acknowledge that the venting of Nature's wrath, a drought, a flood, a hurricane, or a tornado, is simply a purposeless, random event. A companion to this view is that the righteous, those favored by the gods, will be rewarded with good fortune: crops yields are in direct proportion to the piety of the farmer.
3. Property and land ownership was regarded differently in Hebrew society than it is today. Firstly, all the land belongs to Jehovah. No one else can really own the land. (This is not conceptually dissimilar to monarchial nations where the crown technically owns all the land.) In most cases, an Israelite merely holds purchased property for a period of time, but families do seem to have permanent ancestral rights over certain tracts of land. It is to be assumed that upon settlement in Canaan there will be allotments of land to tribes, clans, and families, rather the way William the Conqueror divided up England after the Conquest. Any sale of these allotments will be more like a leasing agreement with the land reverting to the original owner after a period of time, here, by the advent of the Jubilee Year that occurs every 50 years. The original owner has the right to terminate at his discretion what is tantamount to a lease. The difference, though, between this arrangement and a lease is that here the "leasee" must make the entire payment up front. In modern terms, it would work like this: Pete wants to expand his farm and would like to plant wheat on a tract of land owned by Joe. He is willing to pay $1000 a year for the land. That's OK with Joe. Since it’s 12 years until the next Jubilee Year, Pete must fork over to Joe $12,000. He can then farm the land for 12 years. At the end of that time he must give it back to Joe. If Joe decides he wants the land back after 6 years time, he has the right to rescind their agreement, but he must give Pete $6000 to get his land back. If he can't afford to do so, he has to wait until the Jubilee Year when it will be returned to him without charge. This was an agrarian plan not without merit. It prevented the disenfranchisement of the poor and the creation of a permanently landless and, therefore, restive and disgruntled class of people, yet it did not impede those who were ambiguous, hard-working, and savvy from acquiring wealth. Ownership of land has been a sticking point in many, if not most societies, ancient and modern. Special problems are created when the indigenous population owns all the land, but is idle, while hard-working, ambitious immigrants are barred from owning property, or, when the ambitious immigrants buy up all the land and leave the indigenous people landless and destitute. The Hebrews found an admirable way of avoiding these extreme situations.
4. We see this early on in the history of civilization a difference between the city and the country/small town. Final after a period of a year are sales of dwellings in cities (in ancient and medieval times, any settlement that had a wall around it), unlike the sale of dwellings in towns, or of farmland and pastures. Cities have always attracted immigrants, foreigners, merchants, and travelers, a turnover of a diverse population. Different rules had to be in force. This is also due to the fact that city-dwellers probably didn’t own farmlands or pastures upon which they could subsist. The prosperity of even these ancient cities would depend upon the ability of its inhabitants to buy and sell freely, to transfer property and real estate.
5. The Levites, the tribe from which the priests of Jehovah come, would not receive the same sort of land allotment the other tribes did. They could, therefore, claim special, compensatory privileges. They made sure that they could, since it is they who are writing the rules, as is evidenced by the name of this book.
"When you sell land to any of your own people, or buy land from them, do not cheat one another. When you buy land from a neighbor, the price should be based upon the number of years since the last Jubilee Year. The seller must take into account the number of years until the next jubilee. The more years there are until the next jubilee, the higher the price, the fewer the years, the lower the price. The reason for this is that the person selling you the land is actually selling a certain number of harvests. Show respect to your god by not cheating each other. Thus says your god Jehovah.
"Observe my statutes and obey my decrees and you will live securely in the land. The land will produce bountiful harvests, you will be able to eat your fill and live in security. But you might ask, 'What will we eat on the seventh year, since we are not allowed to plant or harvest crops during that year?' Rest assured that I will so bless your fields on the sixth year that the land will yield a crop that will last for three years. When you plant your fields in the eighth year you will still be eating the large crop from the sixth year. (In fact you will still be eating it when the new crop is being harvested on the ninth year!)
"You cannot sell the land permanently, for it belongs to me; you live upon it only as a resident alien would. When land is purchased, the right of the seller to buy it back must be honored. If one of your fellow Israelites falls into poverty and is forced to sell a piece of family property, a close relative should have the opportunity to reclaim it for him. If there is no family member to do so, but the original owner acquires enough wealth to buy it back, he may do so from the person he sold it to, after figuring a discount for the number of years to the next Jubilee. In this way, the original owner may return to his land. If, however, he cannot afford to pay for his land, it must remain with the new owner until the next Jubilee Year. At that time the property will revert to the original owner, who can live again on his own land.
"Anyone who sells a dwelling in a walled city has the right to reclaim it up to a full year after the purchase. During that year he has the right to buy it back, but if it is not bought back within the year, then the sale of the dwelling will become final. It will become the permanent property of the buyer and not to be returned in the Jubilee Year. However, a dwelling in a village, that is, an unwalled settlement, is to be treated like any other property in the countryside. It may be bought back anytime by the original owner and must be returned to him in the Jubilee Year.
"Members of the tribe of Levi retain the right to buy back any house in the towns belonging to them. Real estate sold by the Levites or property in the towns belonging to them must be returned to them during the Jubilee Year, since the property in their towns are their sole inheritance in Israel. The pastureland around the Levite towns may not be sold at all and is their permanent possession."
Notes
1. Laws concerning the disposition of land seem absurd to promulgate at a time when the migrant Israelites own no land and will not do so for several decades. But the chickens are being well counted before they hatch and the far-sighted Jehovah is supposedly establishing the ground rules long before the game is to be played. (Pardon the mixed metaphor!) It must be reiterated that Levitical law was obviously not established with a divine wave of the hand on Sinai, but evolved over many generations, many hundreds of years. To give custom and human-devised law authority, it is made out to be the command of the national deity -- standard practice among ancient and primitive societies.
2. Jehovah guarantees that there will be good harvests on the sixth year so that on the seventh year the land may lay idle. Really! Jehovah will apparently continually manipulate and manage the weather to benefit the Israelites and that bountiful harvests are assured if the Israelites follow his will. The idea that God (or, more commonly, the gods) actively controls climatic conditions and that every "act of God" is divinely ordained is an old one. For it has always been difficult for man to acknowledge that the venting of Nature's wrath, a drought, a flood, a hurricane, or a tornado, is simply a purposeless, random event. A companion to this view is that the righteous, those favored by the gods, will be rewarded with good fortune: crops yields are in direct proportion to the piety of the farmer.
3. Property and land ownership was regarded differently in Hebrew society than it is today. Firstly, all the land belongs to Jehovah. No one else can really own the land. (This is not conceptually dissimilar to monarchial nations where the crown technically owns all the land.) In most cases, an Israelite merely holds purchased property for a period of time, but families do seem to have permanent ancestral rights over certain tracts of land. It is to be assumed that upon settlement in Canaan there will be allotments of land to tribes, clans, and families, rather the way William the Conqueror divided up England after the Conquest. Any sale of these allotments will be more like a leasing agreement with the land reverting to the original owner after a period of time, here, by the advent of the Jubilee Year that occurs every 50 years. The original owner has the right to terminate at his discretion what is tantamount to a lease. The difference, though, between this arrangement and a lease is that here the "leasee" must make the entire payment up front. In modern terms, it would work like this: Pete wants to expand his farm and would like to plant wheat on a tract of land owned by Joe. He is willing to pay $1000 a year for the land. That's OK with Joe. Since it’s 12 years until the next Jubilee Year, Pete must fork over to Joe $12,000. He can then farm the land for 12 years. At the end of that time he must give it back to Joe. If Joe decides he wants the land back after 6 years time, he has the right to rescind their agreement, but he must give Pete $6000 to get his land back. If he can't afford to do so, he has to wait until the Jubilee Year when it will be returned to him without charge. This was an agrarian plan not without merit. It prevented the disenfranchisement of the poor and the creation of a permanently landless and, therefore, restive and disgruntled class of people, yet it did not impede those who were ambiguous, hard-working, and savvy from acquiring wealth. Ownership of land has been a sticking point in many, if not most societies, ancient and modern. Special problems are created when the indigenous population owns all the land, but is idle, while hard-working, ambitious immigrants are barred from owning property, or, when the ambitious immigrants buy up all the land and leave the indigenous people landless and destitute. The Hebrews found an admirable way of avoiding these extreme situations.
4. We see this early on in the history of civilization a difference between the city and the country/small town. Final after a period of a year are sales of dwellings in cities (in ancient and medieval times, any settlement that had a wall around it), unlike the sale of dwellings in towns, or of farmland and pastures. Cities have always attracted immigrants, foreigners, merchants, and travelers, a turnover of a diverse population. Different rules had to be in force. This is also due to the fact that city-dwellers probably didn’t own farmlands or pastures upon which they could subsist. The prosperity of even these ancient cities would depend upon the ability of its inhabitants to buy and sell freely, to transfer property and real estate.
5. The Levites, the tribe from which the priests of Jehovah come, would not receive the same sort of land allotment the other tribes did. They could, therefore, claim special, compensatory privileges. They made sure that they could, since it is they who are writing the rules, as is evidenced by the name of this book.
Sabbath and Jubilee Years
(Leviticus 25:1 - 25:13)
When Moses was on the mountain in Sinai, Jehovah told him to give the following instructions to the people of Israel, "When you have settled upon the land I am giving you, the land itself must observe a Sabbath, a time of rest, every 7 years. For 6 years you should plant your fields, prune your vineyards and harvest your crops, but the 7th year must be a Sabbath year of total rest. During that year, devoted to Jehovah, you must not doing any planting or pruning. You must not harvest what has grown untended in your fields, or pick the fruit of your unpruned vines. It must be a year of complete rest for the land. However, whatever the land yields during the Sabbath Year will be subsistence for yourself, your male and female slaves, the hired hands and migrant workers who live with you, as well as your livestock and the wild animals on your property. Whatever grows wild on the land may be eaten.
"Counting off 7 weeks of sabbath years, that is, 7 times seven years, the result adds up to 49 years. On the Day of Atonement (on the 10th day of seven month, Tishri) of the 5oth year a ram's horn should sound loudly throughout the land. The 50th year will be regarded as holy, and liberty will be proclaimed throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It will be for you a jubilee. Everyone should return to his ancestral lands and to his own family. The 50th year will be a jubilee for you. You must not plant or harvest what has grown untended in your fields, or pick the fruit of your untended vines. For this is the Jubilee Year, holy to you. You must eat only what grows wild on your land. In this Jubilee Year each person must return to his own property."
Notes
1. The concept of letting fields lie fallow every few years is a sound and long-observed agricultural practice. However, letting all of one's fields go untilled for a year would seem unwise, since it is impossible to predict whether there will be a good harvest or not. A bad harvest before the Sabbath Year would result in a hungry community.
2. The demand that on the Sabbath Year one must leave to rot on the vine and in the field any fruits and crops that might grow on their own seems an incredible waste. But the commands of Jehovah, arbitrary as they are, must be obeyed.
3. On the Jubilee Year everyone is to return to his family and ancestral property. One wonders to what extent Israelites, even in later times, would have traveled and settled away from where they were born.
When Moses was on the mountain in Sinai, Jehovah told him to give the following instructions to the people of Israel, "When you have settled upon the land I am giving you, the land itself must observe a Sabbath, a time of rest, every 7 years. For 6 years you should plant your fields, prune your vineyards and harvest your crops, but the 7th year must be a Sabbath year of total rest. During that year, devoted to Jehovah, you must not doing any planting or pruning. You must not harvest what has grown untended in your fields, or pick the fruit of your unpruned vines. It must be a year of complete rest for the land. However, whatever the land yields during the Sabbath Year will be subsistence for yourself, your male and female slaves, the hired hands and migrant workers who live with you, as well as your livestock and the wild animals on your property. Whatever grows wild on the land may be eaten.
"Counting off 7 weeks of sabbath years, that is, 7 times seven years, the result adds up to 49 years. On the Day of Atonement (on the 10th day of seven month, Tishri) of the 5oth year a ram's horn should sound loudly throughout the land. The 50th year will be regarded as holy, and liberty will be proclaimed throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It will be for you a jubilee. Everyone should return to his ancestral lands and to his own family. The 50th year will be a jubilee for you. You must not plant or harvest what has grown untended in your fields, or pick the fruit of your untended vines. For this is the Jubilee Year, holy to you. You must eat only what grows wild on your land. In this Jubilee Year each person must return to his own property."
Notes
1. The concept of letting fields lie fallow every few years is a sound and long-observed agricultural practice. However, letting all of one's fields go untilled for a year would seem unwise, since it is impossible to predict whether there will be a good harvest or not. A bad harvest before the Sabbath Year would result in a hungry community.
2. The demand that on the Sabbath Year one must leave to rot on the vine and in the field any fruits and crops that might grow on their own seems an incredible waste. But the commands of Jehovah, arbitrary as they are, must be obeyed.
3. On the Jubilee Year everyone is to return to his family and ancestral property. One wonders to what extent Israelites, even in later times, would have traveled and settled away from where they were born.
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
Punishment of a Blasphemer
(Leviticus 24:10 - 24:23)
A certain man whose mother was an Israelite and whose father was an Egyptian had accompanied the Israelites on their Exodus. It happened that a fight broke out in camp between this man and an Israelite, and, during the fight, this son of Israelite woman blasphemed -- he uttered in a curse the name of Jehovah. He was thus brought to Moses. (This man's mother was, by name, Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri of the tribe of Dan.) They held him under close arrest until Jehovah's will in this matter could be learned.
Jehovah instructed Moses, "Let those who heard him utter the blasphemy take charge of him and bring the blasphemer to a place outside of camp. There let him be stoned to death by the entire community. Tell the people of Israel that those who curse their god will be punished for their sin. Anyone who commits blasphemy by cursing in the name of Jehovah will be stoned to death by the entire community of Israel. Indeed, any native born-Israelite or foreigner who lives among you that is guilty of blasphemy by cursing in my name is to be put to death.
"Furthermore, anyone who takes the life of another human being must be put to death. Anyone who causes the death of an animal must make restitution to the owner, that is, a live animal for the one that was killed. Anyone who inflicts injury on another person must be injured in the same way, a broken bone for a broken bone, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth; the perpetrator must suffer the same injury as his victim. Whoever kills an animal may make restitution, but whoever kills a human being must be put to death. This is the law for both foreigner and native-born citizen alike. Thus says Jehovah your god."
Moses conveyed what Jehovah had said to the Israelites. They did indeed take the blasphemer outside of camp and there stoned him to death, doing exactly as Jehovah had commanded Moses.
Notes
1. This incident is, for some reason, inserted in the midst of the explanations of Jehovan laws and Hebrew customs. But it is quite illuminating. --- However, it is not clear in the story exactly how the Egyptian-Israelite, the mixed-ethnicity camp follower, blasphemed or cursed Jehovah. Did he use his name as a cuss word? Did he say “Jehovah d--n it!” or "D--n Jehovah!" Did he suggest that Jehovah was a lousy god or even tell his Israelite opponent that Jehovah should go f--- himself, or something to that effect? Whatever it was, it was deemed serious enough an infraction of the prohibition against dissing Jehovah that the matter was brought to Moses. Moses has to consult Jehovah to find out what to do. And Jehovah responds with the pronouncement of a sentence that is swiftly enacted -- an ideal justice system!?
2. It was the custom of ancient Egyptians to curse their gods as well as praise them. Thus, the act of this half-Egyptian Israelite was doubly offensive. It violated Jehovan law and it also conformed to a noxious foreign custom.
3. The laws set down for the Israelites apply equally to foreigners or resident aliens living with them. This is equitable, but in this instance was there a prejudice against the accused because he was half Egyptian? (Undertones in the text suggest a disapproval of mixed marriages.) We cannot know, but we can be pretty sure that the accused had no opportunity to defend himself, present his case, offer extenuating circumstances, or profess contrition and plead for mercy. With a presumptive god serving as prosecutor, judge and jury, there would be no need for legal proceedings.
4. At times there are in the Levitical ordinances suggestions of a nascent legal system and moral sensibilities that are almost modern. At other times they betray values that are primitive, barbaric, and tribalistic. Executing someone for an act of blasphemy, especially one that probably occurred under stress, during the anger of the moment, is more than draconian. It reveals an unbending, fanatical mindset, much like that of the contemporary Islamic Jihadist who believes that any sign of disrespect to his god to be a capital offense. But this conforms to Jehovah's legal doctrine, that man's greatest moral responsibility is obedience to him.
5. The infamous moral imperative, "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," is unambiguously presented here. If you knock a man's eye out in a fight, you must let him gouge out your eye. If you break his leg, your leg must also be broken. This is the morality of getting back at others for what they've done to you. This is the morality of raw emotion and animal instinct, of the caveman and the criminal. This is the morality of revenge, blood feuds, brutality, cruelty, hatred, and unforgiveness. But there's flaw in this morality: the original offense may seem justified to the perpetrator. His punishment is, therefore, deemed unjust, an act that itself requires punishment. There ensues an endless cycle of reprisals. "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," results in a world of sightless, toothless men.
6. Jehovah must be fairly proud of his people, for they followed his orders to kill the man who offended him and did so with no apparent reluctance. He has what he wants, a docile, sheep-like people who will mindlessly obey and do what they are told, who do not criticize or question, but accept, who make no moral judgments on their own, but defer to him, who will do their thinking for them.
7. Leviticus tells us nothing of the backstory, who the blasphemer was, what the quarrel was about, and who his mother Shilomith was. Other sources of legend fill in the gap and satisfy our curiosity. Supposedly, the Egyptian father was a taskmaster who killed Shelomith’s father and, one assumes, raped her. This was the very man that Moses had killed. The blasphemer’s grievance was that he could not camp with his mother. Poor chap -- it seems as if he was paying for the sins of his father.
A certain man whose mother was an Israelite and whose father was an Egyptian had accompanied the Israelites on their Exodus. It happened that a fight broke out in camp between this man and an Israelite, and, during the fight, this son of Israelite woman blasphemed -- he uttered in a curse the name of Jehovah. He was thus brought to Moses. (This man's mother was, by name, Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri of the tribe of Dan.) They held him under close arrest until Jehovah's will in this matter could be learned.
Jehovah instructed Moses, "Let those who heard him utter the blasphemy take charge of him and bring the blasphemer to a place outside of camp. There let him be stoned to death by the entire community. Tell the people of Israel that those who curse their god will be punished for their sin. Anyone who commits blasphemy by cursing in the name of Jehovah will be stoned to death by the entire community of Israel. Indeed, any native born-Israelite or foreigner who lives among you that is guilty of blasphemy by cursing in my name is to be put to death.
"Furthermore, anyone who takes the life of another human being must be put to death. Anyone who causes the death of an animal must make restitution to the owner, that is, a live animal for the one that was killed. Anyone who inflicts injury on another person must be injured in the same way, a broken bone for a broken bone, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth; the perpetrator must suffer the same injury as his victim. Whoever kills an animal may make restitution, but whoever kills a human being must be put to death. This is the law for both foreigner and native-born citizen alike. Thus says Jehovah your god."
Moses conveyed what Jehovah had said to the Israelites. They did indeed take the blasphemer outside of camp and there stoned him to death, doing exactly as Jehovah had commanded Moses.
Notes
1. This incident is, for some reason, inserted in the midst of the explanations of Jehovan laws and Hebrew customs. But it is quite illuminating. --- However, it is not clear in the story exactly how the Egyptian-Israelite, the mixed-ethnicity camp follower, blasphemed or cursed Jehovah. Did he use his name as a cuss word? Did he say “Jehovah d--n it!” or "D--n Jehovah!" Did he suggest that Jehovah was a lousy god or even tell his Israelite opponent that Jehovah should go f--- himself, or something to that effect? Whatever it was, it was deemed serious enough an infraction of the prohibition against dissing Jehovah that the matter was brought to Moses. Moses has to consult Jehovah to find out what to do. And Jehovah responds with the pronouncement of a sentence that is swiftly enacted -- an ideal justice system!?
2. It was the custom of ancient Egyptians to curse their gods as well as praise them. Thus, the act of this half-Egyptian Israelite was doubly offensive. It violated Jehovan law and it also conformed to a noxious foreign custom.
3. The laws set down for the Israelites apply equally to foreigners or resident aliens living with them. This is equitable, but in this instance was there a prejudice against the accused because he was half Egyptian? (Undertones in the text suggest a disapproval of mixed marriages.) We cannot know, but we can be pretty sure that the accused had no opportunity to defend himself, present his case, offer extenuating circumstances, or profess contrition and plead for mercy. With a presumptive god serving as prosecutor, judge and jury, there would be no need for legal proceedings.
4. At times there are in the Levitical ordinances suggestions of a nascent legal system and moral sensibilities that are almost modern. At other times they betray values that are primitive, barbaric, and tribalistic. Executing someone for an act of blasphemy, especially one that probably occurred under stress, during the anger of the moment, is more than draconian. It reveals an unbending, fanatical mindset, much like that of the contemporary Islamic Jihadist who believes that any sign of disrespect to his god to be a capital offense. But this conforms to Jehovah's legal doctrine, that man's greatest moral responsibility is obedience to him.
5. The infamous moral imperative, "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," is unambiguously presented here. If you knock a man's eye out in a fight, you must let him gouge out your eye. If you break his leg, your leg must also be broken. This is the morality of getting back at others for what they've done to you. This is the morality of raw emotion and animal instinct, of the caveman and the criminal. This is the morality of revenge, blood feuds, brutality, cruelty, hatred, and unforgiveness. But there's flaw in this morality: the original offense may seem justified to the perpetrator. His punishment is, therefore, deemed unjust, an act that itself requires punishment. There ensues an endless cycle of reprisals. "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," results in a world of sightless, toothless men.
6. Jehovah must be fairly proud of his people, for they followed his orders to kill the man who offended him and did so with no apparent reluctance. He has what he wants, a docile, sheep-like people who will mindlessly obey and do what they are told, who do not criticize or question, but accept, who make no moral judgments on their own, but defer to him, who will do their thinking for them.
7. Leviticus tells us nothing of the backstory, who the blasphemer was, what the quarrel was about, and who his mother Shilomith was. Other sources of legend fill in the gap and satisfy our curiosity. Supposedly, the Egyptian father was a taskmaster who killed Shelomith’s father and, one assumes, raped her. This was the very man that Moses had killed. The blasphemer’s grievance was that he could not camp with his mother. Poor chap -- it seems as if he was paying for the sins of his father.
Menorah and Showbread
(Leviticus 24:1 - 24:9)
Jehovah instructed Moses, "Command the Israelites to bring you pure oil from pressed olives for the lamps of the menorah so that an eternal flame may always burn. Aaron should set up the menorah in the Tabernacle just outside the curtain of the Inner Sanctum, where the Chest of Sacred Records is housed, and he must tend it so that from dusk till dawn a flame will always burn there. This is to be an established custom observed through the generations: the lamps on the pure gold menorah standing before the Inner Sanctum must be continually tended.
"Using the finest flour, bake twelve loaves of bread made of two-tenths of an ephah of flour for each loaf. They should be arranged in two rows, six loaves in each row, on the table of pure gold standing before the Inner Sanctum. Place some pure frankincense next to each row as a token offering for the bread, a burnt offering for Jehovah. Every Sabbath this showbread must be laid out before the Inner Sanctum as a condition of my everlasting contract with the people of Israel. These loaves will belong to Aaron and his successors, but since they are sacred, they must be eaten within the confines of the Tabernacle. (It is the privilege of the priests to claim this divinely sanctioned portion of the food offerings made to Jehovah.)"
Notes
1. Aaron and his priests must tend the lamps of the menorah so that they will always burn in the Sanctum. You wonder if this required someone to be up all night on watch, adding oil and trimming the wicks when necessary. If so, it must have been a lonely vigil. How would someone living at that time occupy his solitary hours? Obviously, no internet to surf, no cat videos to look at, no video games to play, no ipod or talk radio or baseball games to listen to. There were no cards to play solitaire with. He could not read, not even the Bible, since it hadn't been written yet. (In fact, for many centuries there would not really be such a thing as a book. Alphabets had yet to be invented and there were only inscriptions and records in Sumerian cuneiform or Egyptian hieroglyphics.) Could a priest bring his knitting into the Sanctum, or engage in whittling? Playing a musical instrument -- what did they have beside the ram's horn and maybe some sort of harp or lyre? -- would have disturbed the sleeping flocks of sheep, and Jehovah might not have like it anyway. It is hard to imagine how the priest would have spent his time, save in meditation.
2. Again we have the huge two-tenth-of-an-ephah loaves of bread, from four quarts of flour -- a gallon! One hopes that the Jehovan priests, fattening up on a diet of such bread and all those choice burnt offerings of beef and mutton (and no healthy pork), had opportunities to work out. Some authorities, though, credibly assert that the omer, rather than the ephah should be used here. Two-tenths of an omer, being about three-quarters of pint, would make the bread conveniently small to fit on the table and not impossibly large.
3. We continually see that Jehovah is placated by various offerings of food. That, one supposes, was all that primitive man could think of. Later, the gods would regularly have things built for them, as does, in fact, Jehovah -- the Tabernacle. In more sophisticated times, men would also make other offerings and promises to their gods, good deeds, quests or crusades, devotional service, acts of self-denial, or abstention from bad behavior. For some reason, the modern worshiper no longer seems to think his god would appreciate a well-cooked fillet.
Jehovah instructed Moses, "Command the Israelites to bring you pure oil from pressed olives for the lamps of the menorah so that an eternal flame may always burn. Aaron should set up the menorah in the Tabernacle just outside the curtain of the Inner Sanctum, where the Chest of Sacred Records is housed, and he must tend it so that from dusk till dawn a flame will always burn there. This is to be an established custom observed through the generations: the lamps on the pure gold menorah standing before the Inner Sanctum must be continually tended.
"Using the finest flour, bake twelve loaves of bread made of two-tenths of an ephah of flour for each loaf. They should be arranged in two rows, six loaves in each row, on the table of pure gold standing before the Inner Sanctum. Place some pure frankincense next to each row as a token offering for the bread, a burnt offering for Jehovah. Every Sabbath this showbread must be laid out before the Inner Sanctum as a condition of my everlasting contract with the people of Israel. These loaves will belong to Aaron and his successors, but since they are sacred, they must be eaten within the confines of the Tabernacle. (It is the privilege of the priests to claim this divinely sanctioned portion of the food offerings made to Jehovah.)"
Notes
1. Aaron and his priests must tend the lamps of the menorah so that they will always burn in the Sanctum. You wonder if this required someone to be up all night on watch, adding oil and trimming the wicks when necessary. If so, it must have been a lonely vigil. How would someone living at that time occupy his solitary hours? Obviously, no internet to surf, no cat videos to look at, no video games to play, no ipod or talk radio or baseball games to listen to. There were no cards to play solitaire with. He could not read, not even the Bible, since it hadn't been written yet. (In fact, for many centuries there would not really be such a thing as a book. Alphabets had yet to be invented and there were only inscriptions and records in Sumerian cuneiform or Egyptian hieroglyphics.) Could a priest bring his knitting into the Sanctum, or engage in whittling? Playing a musical instrument -- what did they have beside the ram's horn and maybe some sort of harp or lyre? -- would have disturbed the sleeping flocks of sheep, and Jehovah might not have like it anyway. It is hard to imagine how the priest would have spent his time, save in meditation.
2. Again we have the huge two-tenth-of-an-ephah loaves of bread, from four quarts of flour -- a gallon! One hopes that the Jehovan priests, fattening up on a diet of such bread and all those choice burnt offerings of beef and mutton (and no healthy pork), had opportunities to work out. Some authorities, though, credibly assert that the omer, rather than the ephah should be used here. Two-tenths of an omer, being about three-quarters of pint, would make the bread conveniently small to fit on the table and not impossibly large.
3. We continually see that Jehovah is placated by various offerings of food. That, one supposes, was all that primitive man could think of. Later, the gods would regularly have things built for them, as does, in fact, Jehovah -- the Tabernacle. In more sophisticated times, men would also make other offerings and promises to their gods, good deeds, quests or crusades, devotional service, acts of self-denial, or abstention from bad behavior. For some reason, the modern worshiper no longer seems to think his god would appreciate a well-cooked fillet.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)