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Continuing our
talks on the Old Testament, last week we finished with the establishment
of the Judges of Israel. Today we will look at the Ten Commandments and
the establishment of the Law as given by God to the Jewish Nation.
Leaving
Raphidin where they had camped for some time Israel now makes another
stop at the base of Mount Sinai in the Sinai desert. It is the third
month from when they left Egypt, so if it is the first of the month then
a journey that would take a caravan from Suez to Sinai approximately 7-8
days, took the Israelites 45-46 days, because on the way they made long
stops.
At Mount
Sinai Moses goes up the mount where God called him to receive an order
of agreement for the covenant between Israel and God. He was to remind
the people of all the things God had done for them and if they agree to
keep his commandments they will be a special people to him above all the
other nations. The people agreed saying they will observe everything
that God has spoken. Moses conveys the words of the people to God and
God tells Moses that he will come in a pillar of cloud so that the
people can hear when he speaks to him and believe for ever. God then
tells Moses to sanctify the people and for them to wash their clothes
because on the third day he will come down upon Mount Sinai in the sight
of all the people. On that day no one is to go up the mount or touch any
part of it and that if anyone touches it he will die. If any man or
beast touches it he will be stoned or shot through with a dart. We are
not told if this will be done by God or from the Israelite soldiers
standing guard. So Moses instructs the people to wash their clothes and
to keep themselves pure and for no man to come near a woman for three
days. This outward cleansing is symbolic of inner cleansing. By taking
care of their bodily hygiene they are at the same time preparing their
soul to receive spiritual cleansing. We do something similar when we are
to partake of Holy Communion; we fast beforehand, we don't come together
with our husband or wife, which even today is observed by most people
with a three day abstention and we wash and present ourselves before the
Lord in clean clothing.
So on the
third day at dawn, which was the sixth or seventh of the third month and
exactly fifty days after the exodus, voices were heard and lightning and
a dark cloud came upon Mount Sinai and the voice of a trumpet sounded
loud and all the people in the camp trembled with fear. Then Moses led
the people forth to meet with God under the mount. The mount was covered
with smoke as from a furnace, because the Lord descended upon it in
fire. The trumpet grew louder and louder and God called Moses to go up
the mount. Once on the top, God tells Moses to go down again and warn
the people not to come near lest they die. Moses returns to the top
taking with him only Aaron as God had instructed him. What follows next
is the giving of the Old Testament Law which is not just the Ten
Commandments. After giving the first Ten Commandments, God follows with
hundreds of other laws and ordinances they had to observe which dealt
with everything on worship, on sacrifices, on servant’s rights, on how
to live with their neighbours, how to receive strangers, on cursing, on
what to do if someone’s animal harmed someone else, what punishments
were to be applied for stealing various items, for killing premeditated
or accidentally, for causing a fire that destroys another’s crops, for
trespassing, and many other laws that we have to this day but with
different punishments.
Before we look at
these Laws, something should be said of this fiftieth day, which is
still celebrated as the Jewish Pentecost in remembrance of the day the
Jewish nation received the Law directly from God. It was fifty days
after the Passover, the Jewish Pascha. In the New Testament we also
celebrate a new Pentecost fifty days after the Christian Pascha. The
establishment of the Old Pentecost is an image of the New Pentecost and
both are preceded with a Pascha. The Old Pascha was the passing of the
Lord over the land of Egypt smiting all the firstborn in the land,
followed by the miraculous passing over of the Red Sea. A new life
begins for the Israelites which is now sealed which the giving of the
Law. The New Pascha is the passing over of Christ’s body from death to
the Resurrection, which is then sealed with the giving of the Holy
Spirit on the fiftieth day. There are many similarities between the Old
and New Pentecosts. In the Old, Mount Sinai was shaken and the mount
smoked with fire; in the New, a violent wind rushed through the house
where the apostles were and tongues of fire came upon them. At Sinai
trumpets were heard, in Jerusalem the Apostles preaching. God came down
upon Sinai, God the Holy Spirit came down upon men in Jerusalem. Then
the Law was given on tablets of stone, now the law is written upon our
hearts. At Sinai was the dead letter; at Jerusalem the life-giving
Spirit. At Sinai was fear and trembling, at Jerusalem was joy and love.
Then God addressed only the Jewish Nation, now he addresses all of
mankind. Then the keeping of the law was rewarded with material goods,
now with the receiving of the Holy Spirit, we are promised heavenly
goods, forgiveness of sins and eternal blessedness.
Let's now
return to Mount Sinai where with the beginning of chapter 20, God gives
the first Ten Commandments which have become the foundation of every
civilization. It should be noted that in the text that follows we are
not explicitly told that there are Ten Commandments. This we learn from
a much later chapter. Also the commandments are not numbered so with
some commandments we don't actually know when one commandment finishes
and another begins. Some for example number the first commandment only
as verse two while others from verse two till verse six. When the
commandments are divided in this way then verse seventeen, which most
people consider as one commandment, is divided into two commandments.
For simplicity, I will follow the generally accepted numbering of the
Commandments.
The first
commandment: "I am the Lord thy God, Which have
brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of an house of bondage."
Here God officially proclaims and preaches monotheism, that He is
the only God and stresses the great mercy he has shown upon Israel by
bringing them out of bondage: something for which they should remain
eternally grateful for.
The Second
Commandment: "Thou shalt have no other gods beside
Me. Thou shalt not make unto thee an idol, or likeness of any thing,
whatsoever things are in the heaven above, and whatsoever is in the
earth beneath, and whatsoever is in the waters under the earth."
We have come across this commandment many times in older talks on Icons.
It is used against the Orthodox Church by those who claim that Icons are
a form of idolatry which is clearly forbidden by this commandment.
Where the
Septuagint says "thou shalt not make unto thee an idol, the KJB
translates this as "graven image". Graven image means an idol but it
could be loosely interpreted to mean every kind of image, even a simple
painting of flowers. On the other hand the word idol specifically refers
to a carved image in wood or stone that was used in pagan religious
worship. The commandment is clear that no idol is to be manufactured
having any likeness of anything that is in heaven, or on earth or in the
sea. God specifies heaven, earth and sea, because in the many years of
their sojourn in Egypt, the Israelites had seen many idols that borrowed
their images from all three places.
Note that
the commandment refers to an idol created to be worshipped as a god and
not for every form of images. If it refers to all kinds of images then
God contradicts himself because a little later he gives another charge
to Moses saying: “Thou shalt make two cherubim of gold; of beaten work
shalt thou make them, in the two ends of the mercy seat”. The mercy seat
was to be placed on top of the Ark of the Covenant. Solomon used this
same ordinance when building the temple: “and within the oracle he made
two cherubim of olive tree each ten cubits high” [1 Kings 6: 23]. Again,
in Numbers 21: 8, the Lord said unto Moses, “Make thee a fiery serpent
and set it upon a pole”.
Is God then
contradicting himself? On the one hand, he tells us not to make any
graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven, on earth
and in the sea and then on the other hand he tells Moses and Solomon to
make images of Cherubim and a serpent. It is therefore obvious from
these exceptions that God only prohibited images that were to be used as
idols of gods or even as images that would represent Himself. Images
other than idols were permissible because they were not images intended
to be worshipped as a god. The commandment therefore had a twofold
purpose: a practical and a theological. The practical purpose was to
protect the Israelites from polytheism and pagan worship which was the
common practice amongst other nations of that time such as the Egyptians
and Assyrians. Whilst in Egypt the Israelites had begun to worship the
gods of the Egyptians: idols had become a part of their lives. Now they
are told to put all their trust in an invisible God. Believing in an
invisible God was difficult and there was always the possibility that
through encounters with other nations, the Israelites would again become
influenced by their religious practices and would sooner or later demand
to make an image that would act as a visual aid in their worship. This
is where the second and theological purpose of the commandment is
revealed.
God is
uncreated and invisible and therefore indescribable and therefore cannot
be represented in any form. To show Him in any form whatsoever would
have been a false image, because the invisible and Absolute Being of
God, cannot be described by created matter. God was not only invisible
and indescribable; He was also uncircumscribable. This means that He was
everywhere, in everyplace and without being confined to any boundaries
in any given time. He reaches beyond all creation and beyond our
understanding.
But this
theological understanding belongs to the Old Testament. With the Birth
of Christ, the theological understanding of this law is no longer true.
If, as we believe Jesus Christ is God incarnate, in other words God in
the flesh, then the Old Testament Law forbidding images is replaced by a
new law in Christ. Why? Because whereas before God was uncreated,
invisible and indescribable, now He has become as one of His creatures:
a man visible and describable, and whereas before God was
uncircumscribable, now He has made Himself circumscribable. With the Old
Law God could not be described by created matter because no one had seen
God, but now God is visible for all to see.
The Icon
therefore is an image of God in his human form. The word Icon should not
be misunderstood. It is only an English transliteration of the Greek
word Εικόνα which simply means an image. In this sense man is an icon of
God because he was created in the image of God. All pictures are icons
but when we refer to images of Christ and the saints we call them Holy
Icons, simply meaning Holy Images.
Orthodox
understand Holy Icons as inanimate objects which act as a medium by
which God works to teach, speak, encourage and heal the faithful. This
is not something new or unbiblical: created matter was used by God for
this purpose even in the Old Testament. The Bronze Snake for example
which God commanded Moses to make was a medium through which God gave
his grace and power to heal those bitten by real snakes. God told Moses:
"Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a
pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he
looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put
it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any
man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived."
Similarly
the Ark of the Covenant is described as the ritual object where God was
present. God said to Moses: "there I will meet
with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from
between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony."
(Exodus 25:22) Also the Ten Commandments written on the stone tablets
were the Word of God and acted as a medium for God's grace and power.
As already
noted, the Old Law on images lost its theological meaning when God
became man and, from the very beginning of the Christian Church, the
Icon became a statement proclaiming the Incarnation which I'm sure we
will have another chance to discuss at some future talk.
The same
commandment continues: "Thou shalt not bow down
thyself to them, nor art thou to serve them: for I am Lord thy God, a
jealous God, recompensing the sins of the fathers upon children unto the
third and fourth generation unto them that hate Me; and doing mercy unto
thousands, unto them that love Me and keep My commandments." Here
it is clear that the prohibited images refer only to idols which are not
to be worshipped or served as gods. God then says of himself that he is
a jealous God and that he punishes the children for the sins of their
fathers that hate him up to the third and fourth generation. The word
jealous shown not be interpreted negatively as it would be with human
emotions. Here jealousy is used to show God's compassion upon those that
love him. God is speaking of people making idols and bowing down to them
and worshipping them instead of giving him the worship that belongs to
him alone. God is possessive of the worship and service that belong to
Him. As God points out in this commandment, it is a sin to worship or
serve anything other than God.
Where God says that
he will punish the children for the sins of the fathers that hate him up
to the third and fourth generation, we must be careful to read exactly
what it says. He does not say that he will punish the children for their
father's sins up to the third and fourth generation, but only of those
fathers that hate him. The key words for the proper understanding of
this verse are "them that hate me". Thus he will be longsuffering and
compassionate upon the fathers that sin and their children, but if their
descendants turn from him and hate him as did some of their ancestors
then he will bring upon them punishment up to the third and fourth
generation. The punishment is only temporary up to the third or fourth
generation, but he is far more lavish with his rewards to those that
love him and keep his commandments with love and mercy unto thousands of
generations.
The Third Commandment: "Thou shalt not take the
name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not acquit him that
taketh His name in vain." In fear of not taking the Lord's name
in vain the Jews exaggerated this commandment by never mentioning the
Lord's name of Yahve. God's name as Yahve appears for the first time
when God appeared to Moses in the burning bush which we saw last week.
When God told Moses to go to Egypt and tell the people of Israel of
God's plan for them, Moses replied "what if the
people ask me the name of this God, what should I tell them?" And
God replied I AM THAT I AM: Thus shalt thou say unto the children of
Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you. In the Hebrew text is says Yahve
which is interpreted by the Septuagint as I Am because Yahve is the
Hebrew verb for I am. The Hebrew language does not have vowels in its
alphabet so it is written with only four consonants which in English
would be JHWH.
Now because
the Jews feared pronouncing the name of God lest they be guilty of
taking his name in vain and because they didn't have written vowels to
help them, in time they forgot how the name was pronounced. After the
6th century AD, the Masorites (Judean scholars of that era) introduced
their own vowels into Hebrew words and because they didn’t know what the
correct pronunciation of the word “Yahve” was, they arbitrarily added
vowels to the four-letter “JHWH”, which they had taken from the words
“Adonai” (Master) and “Elohim” (God) and created the word Jahovah which
then became Jehovah. Jehovah therefore is not the name God revealed to
Moses in Exodus, but a created word of the wise men of Israel. This name
was later used by the Jehovah Witnesses believing that it was the proper
name of God, but today all experts are in agreement that the four letter
JHWH was pronounced Yahve. Thus the Jehovah of the Jehovah’s Witnesses
is a name that doesn’t exist and is without any meaning.
As already
said the Jews exaggerated this commandment of not taking the Lord's name
in vain by never mentioning God's name, others take it to mean that it
should not be used to swear an oath falsely but its proper meaning is
not to use the Lord's name other than in prayer, or to teach, or when in
need. It also means not to empty his name in other words not to speak of
God in a way that empties him of his significance. It is common to
respond to a surprise or on hearing gossip concerning someone with "Oh
my God!" It has become such a common response that people just blurt out
Oh my God! at almost anything even a funny joke. The Irish use "Mary
mother of God and baby Jesus fairly loosely." People often use God's
name as an oath to defend themselves saying "I swear to God I didn't
know or swear to God it wasn't me etc. Cypriots often use God's name or
the Mother of God's in anger "Θεέ μου Θεέ μου κανί" (My God, my God
enough) "Παναγια μου με πέλλανες" (Mother of God you've driven me mad).
Screaming out God's name in anger cannot be considered prayer because it
is used blasphemously and no different to how many Greeks blaspheme by
shouting out the devils name. Greeks from mainland Greece often use the
blasphemous phrase "Γ.... την Παναγία σου" (F*** your Mother of God).
There are many ways people use God's name in vain. In pleasure people
shout out: Oh God that was fantastic, in shock: Jesus man you scared the
life out of me, in irritation: Oh for Christ's sake leave me alone, in
annoyance: God dammit I made a mistake. All these occasions and many
more are taking the Lord's name in vain.
Written down some
of these phrases may appear to be a form of prayer, but it is not just
the words by themselves, but the tone of voice and content in which they
are used that makes them taking the Lord's name in vain. Another way of
taking the Lord's name in vain done by millions of people is by claiming
to be a Christian. To say we are Christian means we take upon ourselves
the name of Christ and thus should live according to his commandments
and teachings. To claim to be a Christian only nominally is taking the
name of Christ in vain.
The Fourth
Commandment: "Remember the day of the sabbaths, to
hallow it. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: but on the
seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt do no
work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy
maidservant, thine ox, nor thine ass, nor thy stranger that dwelleth
with thee. For in six days the Lord made the heaven and the earth, the
sea, and all things that in them are, and rested the seventh day:
wherefore the Lord blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it." We
saw the meaning of the Sabbath day in the Second talk on the Holy Bible
where the six days of creation symbolized the six working days in which
man is obliged to work, but on the seventh, the Sabbath, he is obliged
to rest and glorify God. God separates the seventh day from the other
days and gives it a special and holy character, so that on this day man
can rest from his daily routine and during this day of rest to find time
to think of God and to profit from prayer, but here the commandment also
teaches the people to be charitable. It defines that not only
themselves, their sons and daughters are to rest on this day, but also
their servants and even the animals the ox and the ass are not to be put
to work on the Sabbath. Even strangers staying with them are to observe
the Sabbath. By strangers it means proselytes who have not yet been
circumcised and received as a child of Israel.
The first
four commandment deal with man's relationship with God. The next six
commandments deal directly with man’s relationship to others. Each of
these commandments addresses a different aspect of daily life and how
man is to live peaceably with his neighbour.
The first of
these commandments is the Fifth Commandment:
"Honour thy father and mother, that it may be well with thee, and that
thou mayest live long upon the good land which the Lord thy God giveth
thee." After honouring God, honour is to be given to the parents.
Here the woman as a mother is honoured equal to the man as a father.
This shows the superiority of the Jewish law compared to other laws
where woman had no value. St. Paul in his Epistle to the Ephesians
repeats this commandment: "Children, obey your
parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honour thy father and mother;
which is the first commandment with promise; That it may be well with
thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth." (Ephesians 6:1-3)
Honouring parents is the only commandment that comes with a promise of
long life as a reward.
To honour the father and mother meant to show respect to them as the
authority of the home and head of the family. Also, one’s relationship
with their father and mother mirrored their relationship to God. And a
right relationship with God often promoted a right relationship with the
earthly father and mother. The two went hand in hand. Those who honoured
God held the same honour for their father and mother. And those who
honoured their father and mother honoured God, who placed parents as
authorities over households.
So how are
we to honour our parents? Honouring your father and mother is being
respectful in word and action and having an inward attitude of esteem
for their position. St. Paul says: "Children, obey
your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord."
(Col.3:20) Thus honour is obedience to their unspoken and unspoken
wishes, listening, heeding, and submitting to their authority. But this
obedience is not unconditional. If our parents are ungodly, if they ask
us to do something that clearly contradicts God's commands then we are
obligated to obey God rather than our parents.
The
remaining five commandments are simple and short and don't need any
interpretation. The Sixth Commandment: Thou shalt
not commit adultery, the Seventh: Thou
shalt not steal, the Eighth: Thou shalt not
murder, the Ninth: Thou shalt not testify
falsely against thy neighbour with false witness, and the Tenth:
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife; thou
shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, nor his field, nor his
manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any of his
cattle, nor all whatsoever pertaineth unto thy neighbour. This
last commandment reaches deep into the thoughts and hidden desires of
the heart and asks us to keep check of our desires before they get out
of hand and become action. If, when the desire is awakened within us, we
remember that it is a sin, then with fear of breaking the commandment we
can cast it from our thoughts before it grows and festers and becomes a
cause of resentment and hostility towards our neighbour. In general we
must retain good relationships with our neighbours by honouring and
respecting them and the things that belong to them.
All the
while Moses was up the mount receiving the Ten Commandment the people
perceived the presence of God, through thunder and lightning, through
the noise of the trumpet and the smoke that covered the mountain. The
whole atmosphere brought fear upon the people and held them at a
distance. Their fear was so great that they asked Moses to speak to them
and not let God speak to them directly for fear that they would die.
Moses again
goes into the darkness where God was and a second stage of laws is
revealed which Moses later called the Book of the Covenant. The book
consists of laws on worship, laws concerning personal rights, ownership
rights, certain promises and a great mixture of other laws.
The first of
these secondary laws concerns the sacrificial altar. Here God instructs
Moses to make the altar of earth only in places that God will specify.
On this they will sacrifice the whole burnt offerings and the
deliverance or peace offerings. The difference between the two is that
with the whole burnt offerings the animal was burnt whole whereas with
the peace offerings only the best parts of the animal were offered. As
already said, the altar was to be made of earth, but if it was to be
made of stone then the stone was to be used in its raw condition and not
to be carved and shaped with any tools otherwise it would be polluted.
This was because they would be in the desert for forty years continually
on the move. The altar of earth or raw stone could easily be dismantled,
but an altar of carved stone would be more permanent. When they left a
certain place the neighbours who were idol and devil worshippers could
then use this altar for their sacrifices to their gods which explains
why it would be polluted. The same law concerning the altar continues:
"Thou shalt not go up by steps unto Mine altar, that thou mayest not
discover thy nakedness thereon." What it means is that there should not
be any steps up to the altar but to have a slight inclination like a
ramp so that the naked feet of the priest are not visible.
The next law
concerns the rights of slaves. If someone buys a Hebrew servant he will
serve his master for six years, but in the seventh year he will be free
to go. Hebrews became slaves to other Hebrews if they owed them money
which they couldn't repay or if they broke in to someone's house and
couldn't pay the compensation set by the court. The laws here concern
only Hebrew slaves; the subject of non-Hebrew slaves is covered in the
Book of Deuteronomy.
If someone
made himself a servant to someone of his own freewill, he is free to
leave by himself; if his wife also went with him she also is free to go
with him. Now if a master gave his servant a wife and she gave him sons
and daughters, in the seventh year the servant is free to go out alone,
but the wife and children remain the property of the master. If the same
servant will not leave because he loves his master, his wife and
children and insists on remaining a slave to be with them, the master
will take him before the judgement seat of God and there before the
judges he will confess his desire to remain his master's servant until
he dies. As a sign of his life-long servitude, his master will take him
to the doorpost and bore his ear with an awl (pointed tool). The ear is
pierced as a sign of his complete dependency to his master's house
because the ear means that he will hear and obey.
If someone
sells his daughter to be a house-servant she will not be set free as the
other maidservants in the seventh year. By house-servant it does not
mean a slave because then she would have the rights of a slave to be set
free in the seventh year. Here it means a girl given to be a wife
because the father owed the master money and gave his daughter as
payment. Now if after she had been betrothed to him the master didn't
find her pleasing, then he was to let her go free, or he could resell
her to another Hebrew, but by no means was he at liberty to sell her to
another nation, because he had dealt deceitfully with her. If on the
other hand he didn't betroth her for himself but gave her as a wife to
his son then the girl was to have all the rights that belonged to a
daughter. If whoever is her husband takes for himself another wife, he
is not to deprive her of food, clothing or the marital rights. If he is
not willing to do these three things then the girl is free to leave but
without money.
These laws
on slavery may seem harsh to us, but they were actually very lenient and
compassionate compared to the contemporary laws of other nations. The
Babylonian Hammurabi code and the Assyrian lawbook state than when
someone becomes a slave for only three years then he can never again
obtain his freedom and remains the property of his master for ever.
The next
laws concern murder and dishonour to parents. If anyone hits another man
and he die he will be punished by death. The executioner was usually the
next of kin of the victim. If the death was unintentional then he will
be given a town where he can flee to. The towns for refuge will be
specified by God at a later time and they are mentioned in Numbers and
Deuteronomy. In the case of a premeditated attempted murder where a man
lies in wait for his neighbour to cunningly slay him, but fails, and
then seeks refuge at the altar, he shall be taken from the altar and put
to death.
Whoever hits
his father or mother will be put to death. Whoever insults and badmouths
his father or mother is again guilty of death. Other laws of the time
completely ignored the mother so the Jewish law was first to recognized
certain equal rights between the sexes.
If someone
abducts another son of Israel and forcibly sells him and his guilt is
proved then he will be put to death. All the above crimes were
punishable by death. Next follow crimes of lesser sentences.
If two men verbally abuse each other and the one hits the other with a
stone or with his fist and does not die but is bedridden, if the man
rises and walks again then the one that hit him is in the clear, but has
to pay for the loss of his time and all medical expenses.
If a man
hits his manservant or maidservant with a rod and the servant dies then
he shall be punished. It doesn't tell us what form of punishment
probably leaving it to the discretion of the judge. Now if the same
servant doesn't die immediately and lives on for a day or two and then
dies, then the man is free from any punishment because the servant was
bought with his money and is his personal property. Compared to the
Gospel of the New Testament these ordinances are imperfect, but compared
to other ancient laws they are superior because none of the other laws
of the time had any legislation protecting servants.
If two men
get into a brawl and the pregnant wife of one intervenes to stop the
fight or defend her husband and loses her baby then the other man is to
pay a penalty according to what the woman's husband will lay upon him
and which the court will judge appropriate. The text talks about the
woman's child being born imperfect or perfect. It does not refer to
deformities but to the time of the pregnancy. Born imperfect means to
abort the pregnancy before the fourth month because the foetus has not
fully developed; it is imperfect. After the fifth month the foetus is
considered a perfect person because it is fully formed. If the woman
aborts her child between the fifth and ninth months of pregnancy then
the man that caused the abortion is guilty of murder and punishable with
the law life for life. If the child is born with a deformity then the
law: eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning
for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe is applied. The law: an
eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth was theoretically a justifiable
punishment, but it was very rarely put into practice. Jewish tradition
refused to interpret the law in it's literally sense and instead used it
to calculate a reasonable money compensation to be given to the victim.
The eye for
an eye and a tooth for a tooth worked differently for victims who were
servants. If a man hit the eye of his servant and put it out, instead of
an eye for an eye or money compensation, the servant received his
freedom. Again if the servant lost his tooth because his master hit him,
for the tooth's sake he received his freedom.
The next set
of laws concerns human deaths caused by animals. If a bull gore a man or
woman and they die, the bull is to be stoned to death and its flesh is
not to be eaten because it was condemned to death and therefore unclean.
The loss of the bull to the owner is punishment enough and he is
acquitted of any other liability. But if the bull was known to be wild
and push with his horns before and it was told his owner and he did
nothing to constrain the bull then the bull is to be stoned and the
owner also is to be put to death. But the law allows for the guilty
owner to escape death by paying a large sum according to how much is
laid upon him. This law applies only if the victim of the bull is a free
son or daughter of Israel. If the victim is a servant then the owner is
liable to pay the master of the servant thirty didrachmas of silver and
the bull to be stoned. Thirty didrachmas is approximately 345 grams of
silver.
From human
deaths caused by animals the next law deals with animal deaths. If
anyone digs a pit or a cave in stone and doesn't cover it and an ox or
an ass falls into it, the owner of the pit has to compensate the owner
of the animal with money and the dead animal shall be his. If any mans
bull gores his neighbour's bull and it dies, they shall sell the live
bull and divide the money and also divide the dead bull. But if the bull
was known to be wild and it was told the owner and he did nothing to
constrain his bull, then he will repay bull for bull and the dead bull
shall be his.
The laws
continue dealing with thefts of livestock and damage to crops by animals
or fire and how they are to be recompensed by those responsible. We
won't look at these but go directly to various laws concerning man. If
any man charms a maid that is not betrothed and sleeps with her, he is
obliged to give her father the dowry which the law requires and take her
as his wife. If the father refuses and will not consent to give his
daughter to him as a wife then the man is still obliged to pay the
father the amount in silver according to the dowry of virgins. Sorcerers
are sentenced to death as also are those who lie with an animal and
those that sacrifice to any other god other than the Lord. Strangers,
widows and orphans have a special protection from God. Strangers are not
to be hurt or oppressed because the Israelites were also strangers in
the land of Egypt and know very well what it means to be oppressed.
Neither is the widow or fatherless child to be hurt or afflicted by ill
use. Their cry will come unto the Lord and he will hear them and as
punishment the man afflicting them will die by the sword leaving his
wife a widow and his children fatherless.
If someone lends
money to a poor brother he is not to pressure him to repay it neither is
he allowed to add interest to the amount borrowed. The Jewish law
allowed interest to be charged to strangers, but not to another Jew who
was poor. If the poor person left his coat as collateral the coat was to
be returned to him before sunset. This was because the coat was the main
outer garment of the poor and during the day it was used as a coat but
in the evening it was used as a mattress or blanket to keep warm. The
laws continue some being repeats of ordinances already made known to the
Jews from the time they left Egypt like the keeping of certain feasts,
offering the firstfruits of the crops and offering the firstborn sons of
Israel to God and also the firstborn of the animals. After finishing
with various other ordinances which Israel is to observe, God tells them
that if they listen to his voice and do all that he commands, they will
be a special people to him above all the other nations. They will
prosper and have good health and all their enemies will become his
enemies and one by one he will defeat them. God has made his covenant
with Israel and Moses now has to convey everything God has told him to
the Elders and people of Israel and receive their acceptance of the
agreement.
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