Tying Up Some Loose Ends
Deuteronomy 25 is the
last section of law within the book, and as one would expect it is another
conglomeration of laws. Moses is tying
up loose ends here just to make sure all the bases are covered. Tomorrow we will move into a different
element in the book and progress through the blessings and curses before
dealing with Moses’ farewell. But for
today, we have to wrap up the law.
As I finish the Law,
I cannot help but wonder about it’s compilation. I used to wonder how these chapters came to
be. How do random laws get put
altogether? That was before I led people.
Now that I have experience leading people, I understand it all too
well. We have a saying. “Behind every stupid law there is a stupid
person who made that law come into existence.”
I’m not trying to call these laws stupid. But some of them are rather random.
The reality is that
Moses had to lead a whole nation. I’m
sure in the midst of his leadership he came upon some strange situations and
had to make laws preventing those strange situations from happening. We get strange laws from government trying to
keep people from doing strange things.
In a sense, every time we see a weird compilation of laws we should
think of it as a sign that people lack common sense and have a propensity for
putting themselves in strange positions in the first place. If common sense could be trusted, law codes
could be small.
Punishment
The first section of
this chapter gives us a bit of a unique perspective on punishment. Although we do know that prisons existed in
ancient times, notice how this section of the law indicates that a criminal is
punished with a beating and then released.
The reason for the release is so that restitution can be made and the
offender might be able to bring a guilt offering before the Lord. This ancient law code is about allowing
punishment to happen but also allowing people to get on with their life.
In some respects,
this perspective is vastly different from our own law code in America. Here we imprison offenders and let their
state-financed (hence tax-payer financed) jail sentence be equated to them
“paying their dues.” Personally, when I
think about it in those terms, I don’t see jail time in the “paying dues”
category. Sure, it is a disruption in
the life of a criminal. Certainly means
that the criminal cannot be out perpetrating more crimes. But neither can the offender work towards
restitution nor have any chance at learning the evilness of their ways. We all know that while jail time is
supposedly about the rehabilitation, rehabilitation is far too seldom the
outcome.
One important
difference between the ancient Hebrew law code and our American law code is the
perspective of capital punishment. One
can see evidences of capital punishment (or attempts at capital punishment) all
throughout the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament. When serious offences are legitimately punishable
by death, there is no fear of repeat offenders.
When the serious offenders (adulterers, murderers, etc) are punished by
death, there is much less of a need for prisons. Therefore, with the capital offenses being
punished with capital punishment, it meant that the lesser criminals could be
given a beating and expected to make restitution. That punishment would be expected to be
carried out lest a more serious punishment be handed down.
Now, I’m not saying
that we should go back to that system.
The prior two paragraphs are simply meant so that we can understand the
fundamental difference between the modern legal system of punishments and the
ancient systems. I think both have
advantages and both have grave flaws. I
think it is important to accept that the modern system presents a grave
possibility where criminals are not truly making acts of repentance for their
crimes. The ancient system no doubt
convicted and killed many innocent people because their justice was quick and
severe. I guess where I come to stand is
to patiently long for the day when we will live in God’s presence directly
knowing that He will be a perfect judge.
Marriage Among Levites
The Levirate Marriage
law that follows this section on capital punishment needs a little
clarification. It is easy to feel
confusion when this passage is put in juxtaposition with all the laws of sexual
intercourse being limited to a husband and wife. After all, these verses seem to be indicating
that sex is not always between a man and his wife.
There is one
significant difference in this passage.
Here one husband dies without producing an heir. The dead husband’s brother is mandated to
have sex with his sister-in-law (and essentially making her his wife as the
passage attests). This means that the
brother of the dead man may have multiple wives. That’s where the confusion happens.
It should be stated
that the purpose of this act was in no way for the sake of lust or carnal
pleasure. Rather, this exclusion is for
the sake of keeping the promise of God’s inheritance in Israel. As we can see in this passage, the brother
had a right to refuse and accept social degradation in the process.
For me, when I look
at this passage I see a passage that is about establishing a hierarchy among
various levels of sexuality. Carnal lust
is still prohibited very strongly, and this passage does nothing to ease that
prohibition. However, this passage also
attempts to lift up the idea that obeying God for the sake of bringing His
promise to the world can supersede carnal relations. For the sake of producing an heir – and only
for the sake of producing an heir – permission is granted for a specific sexual
encounter – and thus a man potentially being married to more than one woman.
Even still, living
with a modern perspective I think that this kind of exception would have to be
handled with the utmost of care. Sexual
relations are incredibly strong bonds that when grown outside the dynamic of a healthy
two-person marriage they can quickly turn into something that is destructive to
a healthy marriage.After all, remember back to the story of Rachel and Leah
with Jacob. I understand God’s provision
for the making of an heir, and I do not quibble with it at all. I simply assert that this is a passage that
should be handled with the utmost of care; especially should we attempt to give
this passage an interpretation and application in our modern world.
An Awkward Ending
In fact, much of what
was said above is also true about the woman who grabs the genitals of someone
attempting to harm her husband. The
force of this law is likewise all about the inheritance of God being granted
throughout the generations. Should a
man’s genitalia be harmed in a fight, his ability to procreate might well be
compromised. This is to be avoided, so
we have a special law to draw attention to the fact that all Hebrew people have
a right to bring children into God’s promise.
This isn’t a law about whether the act is sinful or not sinful. This is a law attempting to uphold the
supremecy of God’s promises over everything else.
This blog post is
getting long, so I’ll stop here. The
rest of the laws are pretty self-explanatory.
I do apologize for the randomness of the blog posts of late. This should improve once we have moved beyond
readings which contain random sets of laws.
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