Dt. 25: Justice I Am

Neuteronomy 25: 11-12 "If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity."

Deuteronomy's 25th chapter seems to be about justice. The first part is basically saying, if two men have a dispute, take it to court. The judges will acquit the innocent and condemn the guilty. Makes sense. This method of justice survives to this day. The following part doesn't seem to. If the guilty man needs to be beaten, the judge will make him take 40 lashes. One for every night and day it rained on the ark, one for each year the Israelites were in the wilderness. One for every day the scouts were in the promised land. One for each day Moses was on the mountain...you get me. Forty.

But more than forty is degrading. More than forty is outside that perfect, recurring number forty. More than forty is unjust...too much.

Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain. OK. Why this random animal rights law in the middle of the human justice laws? I had to consider this a little more than surface level. An ox's job is to drag the millstone over the grain, crushing it. Thats a lot of work. To muzzle it is to keep it's mouth closed, preventing it from eating any of the grain. Why would God want men to allow oxen to eat some of the grain? Its got to be more than just animal rights though.

Verses 5-10 are about family justice, and continuing a family line. I was wondering about why the widow of a dead man could not remarry outside of the family. In fact, that widow was required to marry the brother of the dead man, bear him children, so that the dead man's line could continue. If the brother wasn't into this deal, she could take him to the elders who would try to talk him into it. If that wasn't working, she could take of his sandal (in my head, I see her chasing him down, wrestling him to the ground, taking off his sandal) and spit in his face. What a grave insult it must have been to not carry on your brother's line and reject his grieving widow to warrant God allowing her to spit in his face. I wonder if this was the widow's only shot at at childbearing...the Bible doesn't say...only that his widow must not marry outside the family.

Weird that if two dudes are fighting, the wife of one could not run up and grab the other guys nuts. She was to have her hand cut off because of it. What the heck? She's trying to protect her husband. But this makes me think guys have to settle their dust ups on their own. Is it about the "dishonor" of having a woman come in and "handle"...."things?" Or is it about having two intact balls (so he could keep going to church)? I don't know.

Having differing weights for trade is lame. What kind of terrible person would do that? That blows. It's dishonest and unjust. God detests that because of His being so perfectly just.

Then God orders them to blot the memory of the Amalekites out from under heaven. That's justice, since the Amalekites apparently pestered the Israelites in their wandering. Where have we heard that before?

Lev. 21: Priests Can Do It!

Just as the nation of Israel as a whole was called to be separate from other nations, those in the priesthood were called to be separate from their own nation. Just as Israel had rules to follow to ensure their separation, the priests had their rules as well.

Priests were called to be uber-clean, and not make themselves ceremonially unclean for anyone who dies...which I presume means handling or touching a dead body...except for someone in their own family, a close relative.

They weren't allowed to shave their heads, trim their beards, cut their skin, or profane the name of God. OK. Makes sense, I'm with it so far. The Bible here says they present offerings as the "food of their God." As in, this food comes from God, is given by Him, or is given to Him to be consecrated.

As far as marriage, priests were allowed to marry. The wife had to be a virgin, not a former prostitute, not a divorced woman, not a widow. This was to keep the line priestly line pure. The priests always had to have that extra step up and beyond the Israelite people. If a priest's daughter succumbed to the draw of prostitution, she was to be burned in the fire. Homie don't play that. That would defile the line.

The anointed one, the high priest, was held to a higher standard still. He was not allowed to tear his clothes or let his hair become "unkempt." Messy or uncovered, whatever. He could not enter a place where there was a dead body, even if it was mom or dad. He also couldn't leave the sanctuary, because he was anointed, he was separate. I don't know if he couldn't leave at all, or just during priestly duties. The Bible doesn't say, and I'm not familiar enough with the priestly culture at this point in my reading. But I'd hate to not be able to leave a certain place for the rest of my life. That would more than kinda suck.

What is kinda strange, yet kinda understandable, yet still kinda strange is the regulations for the priests beginning in Lev. 21:16. No one in the priestly line could become a priest if he had a defect. You were excluded from service as a priest if you had the following defects:
Blind
Lame
Disfigured
Deformed
Crippled Foot
Crippled Hand
Hunchbacked
Dwarfed
Eye Defect
Festering or Running Sores
Damaged Testicles

Was God being a jerk? I don't think so. It seems like it though. Nowadays, we tolerate and bend over backwards to accommodate people with the above afflictions, so naturally, this would seem pretty horrible of God to do. But I seem to recall God requiring rams and bulls and goats and lambs...all without defect. Perfection was required, and priests needed to be as perfect as they could be as well. At least that's my estimation. People in Aaron's line were allowed to eat the sacrificed food, but could not approach the altar to make atonement. This would desecrate the sanctuary.

It is God who makes people holy.