Book Write-Up: The Enemy in the Household

Caryn A. Reeder.  The Enemy in the Household: Family Violence in Deuteronomy and Beyond.  Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012.  See here for Baker’s page about it.

The Torah appears to recommend and to approve of family violence, and this is disturbing to a number of modern readers, especially those who would like to take the Torah seriously as a document of religious value.  There is the command that parents participate in the execution of their rebellious son (Deuteronomy 21:18-21), the law in Deuteronomy 22 about the stoning of the wife who was not a virgin when she got married, and the command for Israelites to kill any close family member who recommends the worship of other gods (Deuteronomy 13:6-11).  Deuteronomy 33:9 praises the Levites for rejecting their close family members in their loyalty to God’s covenant, and that may be a reference to the story in Exodus 32 about the Levites slaughtering brothers who worshiped the Golden Calf.

Caryn Reeder’s The Enemy in the Household is about family violence in Deuteronomy, as well as the interaction with this concept within Second Temple Judaism (i.e., Jubilees, Philo, and Josephus), rabbinic literature, and the New Testament.  Her treatment of the Hebrew Bible employs a hermeneutic of trust, in which she tries to give biblical writers the benefit of the doubt and see even their troubling texts as religiously and morally instructive.  She looks for the reasoning behind the laws about family violence, as she interacts with biblical scholarship, and she believes that they are about protecting Israel from violating her covenant with God, safeguarding inheritance (in the case of the man who wants to marry a virgin because then he can be sure that it will be his children who will inherit his property), and maintaining societal order.  Reeder maintains that the value that these laws place on community can be instructive to those today who are extremely individualistic.

Reeder interacts with the history of interpretation of these laws in order to demonstrate that ancient interpreters, too, struggled with them.  Moreover, Reeder explores the other side of the concept of family violence within the Bible, since Jewish Christians according to the synoptic Gospels were actually the victims of family violence, as their families rejected them and even sought their death on account of the Jewish Christians’ commitment to Jesus.

Reeder’s discussion of the Hebrew Bible was informative and judicious, albeit repetitive.  While she does well to seek reasons for Deuteronomy’s laws regarding family violence, one can legitimately question whether she successfully defends them.  Do any reasons—-covenant or inheritance—-justify becoming so cold as to participate in the death of a close family member?  Could the same objectives have been accomplished in any other way?

Reeder’s interaction with the New Testament addressed such issues as the Jewish Christians as victims of family violence as well as the New Testament’s attempts to protect churches from false teachers, which is similar to the goal of Deuteronomy 13:6-11 (to protect Israel from apostate family members), only without the violence.  This discussion, too, was informative and judicious, but it would have benefited from a discussion of why the early Jewish Christians were persecuted: What specifically about their commitment to Jesus made them subject to family violence, especially the sort of family violence that was directed against apostates?

The most valuable part of this book, in my opinion, was Reeder’s discussion of Second Temple and rabbinic literature.  Reeder addresses the extent to which Jewish interpreters upheld family violence, as well as the extent to which they mitigated, softened, or limited it.  One point that stood out to me was her argument that the Book of Jubilees largely rejected family violence as a solution to religious apostasy, which was significant within its historical context, as devout Jews struggled with the ramifications of Hellenistic influence.  Another interesting detail in Reeder’s book was her discussion of the interrelationship between Second Temple interaction with the concept of family violence and the Roman idea that a father was lord of his family and could kill his children at will.  Reeder talks about the Romans’ own limitations on this idea, as well as Jewish criticism of it.

The Enemy in the Household is a useful work on family violence in the Book of Deuteronomy and the history of biblical interpretation.

My thanks to Baker Academic for sending me a complimentary copy of this book, in exchange for an honest review.

Is Deuteronomy 32:8-9 Earlier Than the Rest of the Song of Moses?

Deuteronomy 32:8-9 states (and here I will be using the New Revised Standard Version):

"When the Most High apportioned the nations, when he divided humankind, he fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the gods; the LORD's own portion was his people, Jacob his allotted share."

I think that Deuteronomy 32:8-9 is from a source that is earlier than the rest of Deuteronomy 32:1-43, which is the Song of Moses.  I don't know if anyone else has said this----I wouldn't be surprised if someone has----but it just seems to me that the content of Deuteronomy 32:8-9 is at odds with the rest of the Song of Moses.  At the same time, however, I make this statement while holding specific assumptions about what the content of Deuteronomy 32:8-9 actually is, and perhaps it would fit right into the rest of the song were I to have different assumptions.

Allow me to first share what my assumptions about Deuteronomy 32:8-9 are.  I base them on things that I have read and heard within academia.  First, the Most High (Elyon) is different from the LORD (YHWH), and the Most High is dividing up the nations among the gods and is giving Israel to the LORD.  Second, Deuteronomy 32:8-9 indicates that it's all right for the other nations to worship their own gods, since these nations belong to those gods; Israel, however, is allowed to worship only her god, namely, YHWH.

These themes appear to contradict what's in the rest of the Song of Moses.  First, whereas Deuteronomy 32:8-9 presents the Most High dividing up the nations and giving Israel to YHWH, as if Israel existed before YHWH became her god, Deuteronomy 32:6 affirms that the YHWH created Israel.  Second, whereas Deuteronomy 32:8-9 appears to deem other nations' worship of their own gods to be acceptable, much of the Song of Moses depicts Israel's oppressors as foolish.  This judgment extends to their worship, for Deuteronomy 32:31 says that their rock is not as our (Israel's) rock.  A significant message in Deuteronomy 32 is that YHWH will defeat Israel's enemies in order to glorify his own name, so that the nations would know about YHWH's power and supremacy.  Why would the Song of Moses incorporate an earlier piece, if it contradicted its ideology?  Because Deuteronomy 32:8-9 affirms that Israel belongs to YHWH, which is a significant theme in the Song of Moses: Israel belongs to YHWH and not the other gods, yet Israel has strayed from YHWH.

Now let me critique what I just said.  First, I'll do so while retaining my assumptions about the meaning of Deuteronomy 32:8-9.  Perhaps YHWH was the creator of Israel, not in the sense that he brought the Israelites into being, but rather in that he made Israel what she was as a nation: he delivered her from slavery, gave her laws and a system of authority, and gave her land.  Professor Bernard Batto said in his book, Slaying the Dragon, that the story of the Red Sea (at least according to one of the biblical authors----I think it was P) was a creation story: in the same way that God in Genesis 1 split the waters and created the cosmos, so likewise did he split the sea and create Israel.  There were already Israelites, but YHWH fashioned them into a nation and in that sense could be called their creator.  Could not Deuteronomy 32:8-9, therefore, be consistent with the notion in Deuteronomy 32 that YHWH created Israel: the Most High gave Israel to YHWH, who made her into a nation?

Regarding the issue of Deuteronomy 32:8-9 deeming foreign worship of the gods to be acceptable, perhaps that is the case, and yet that is consistent with believing that the gods of the other nations are not as good as YHWH, the God of Israel.  Israel has the better deal, the Song of Moses may be saying, yet she chooses to worship other gods!  Moreover, maybe Deuteronomy 32 tolerates the foreign worship of other gods, while still deeming it to be foolish, since YHWH is superior.

Second, I'll critique my assumptions about Deuteronomy 32:8-9 and see where I end up.  Maybe Deuteronomy 32:8-9 does not regard the Most High and YHWH as two distinct gods, but rather as the same god.  In this case, YHWH created Israel and the other nations, and took Israel for himself.  On whether Deuteronomy 32:8-9 deems the foreign worship of the gods to be acceptable, my point here is the same as what I said above: it may regard it as acceptable, yet as a raw deal, and as foolish, since YHWH is superior.

The Rationale for Prohibiting Inbreeding

Deuteronomy 27:20, 22-23 state (in the King James Version): "Cursed be he that lieth with his father's wife; because he uncovereth his father's skirt. And all the people shall say, Amen...Cursed be he that lieth with his sister, the daughter of his father, or the daughter of his mother. And all the people shall say, Amen.  Cursed be he that lieth with his mother in law. And all the people shall say, Amen."

What is the rationale for these laws?  Many of us would read those laws and say "Because that activity is gross!", and it is. But not everyone in ancient times regarded it as gross.  The Intervarsity Press Bible Background Commentary's comment on Deuteronomy 27:20-23 states:

"Incest was abhorrent in most other societies as well (see, for example, the prohibitions in *Hittite laws).  The exception is Egypt, where it was a common practice in the royal family (but little attested elsewhere) as a means to strengthen or consolidate royal authority.  This concept is also seen among *Elamite kings."
Keil-Delitzsch state in their comment on Leviticus 18:6-7:

"The marriage laws and customs were much more lax among the Gentiles. With the Egyptians it was lawful to marry sisters and half-sisters (Diod. Sic. i. 27), and the licentiousness of the women was very great among them (see at Gen_39:6.). With the Persians marriage was allowed with mother, daughter, and sister (Clem. Al. strom. iii. p. 431; Eusebii praep. ev. vi. 10); and this is also said to have been the case with the Medians, Indians, and Ethiopians, as well as with the Assyrians (Jerome adv. Jovin. ii. 7; Lucian, Sacriff. 5); whereas the Greeks and Romans abhorred such marriages, and the Athenians and Spartans only permitted marriages with half-sisters (cf. Selden de jure nat. et gent. v. 11, pp. 619ff.). The ancient Arabs, before the time of Mohammed, were very strict in this respect, and would not allow of marriage with a mother, daughter, or aunt on either the father's or mother's side, or with two sisters at the same time. The only cases on record of marriage between brothers and sisters are among the Arabs of Marbat (Seetzen, Zach's Mon. Corresp. Oct. 1809). This custom Mohammed raised into a law, and extended it to nieces, nurses, foster-sisters, etc. (Koran, Sure iv. 20ff."

I'm hesitant to accept the authority of Jerome on what the Assyrians did, since Jerome lived long after the time of the Assyrians.  But there may be something to what Keil-Delitzsch say about the other nations.  Within the cultures of the ancient Near East and other Gentiles, there was a prominent abhorrence of marrying immediate family, but there was also some acceptance of the practice.

Even within the Bible, Abraham married his half-sister (Genesis 20:12), and, after Amnon raped his half-sister Tamar, Tamar informed Amnon that he now had to marry her (II Samuel 13:4), which implies that she regarding the practice of half-siblings marrying as permissible, even though v 12 indicates that she believed that Amnon was doing something that was stigmatized in Israel----which could have been the rape itself, or perhaps Amnon sleeping with his half-sister.

Why, then, do Deuteronomy 27, Leviticus 18, and Leviticus 20 prohibit sex with immediate family?  One explanation is that God wanted to prevent the diseases that result from inbreeding.  Maybe the ancient Israelites had observed over the years the bad effects of inbreeding, and that was the basis for their prohibition of it.  And yet, Numbers 36 requires women whose dead fathers had no sons to marry someone from their father's tribe, so as to keep their father's land within the family.  Moreover, as far as I can see, there is nothing within Leviticus 18 that prohibits Israelites from marrying their cousins.

Is the prohibition based on the rationale that people should not sleep with someone who raised them?  But Ezekiel 16 presents God marrying Jerusalem after he had raised her, and I once heard a professor remark that this reflects a custom within the ancient world.

Perhaps the problem was that Israelites should not sleep with someone else's wife.  We know that adultery was considered to be wrong, and yet there seems to be something more going on in the prohibitions on inbreeding.  After all, Leviticus 18:12-13 prohibits Israelites from sleeping with their aunt, and it's not said that the aunt was necessarily somebody else's wife.  Rather, the passage just notes that the aunt is the kinswoman of the Israelite's parent, and so it obviously deems that to be what's wrong.  But what is its rationale?

I wouldn't be surprised if biblical scholars have speculated about this question.  I've just not found much speculation about it in the commentaries that I've read.

Deuteronomy 24:4: Why Was the Ex-Wife Defiled?

Today, I want to talk about Deuteronomy 24:4, which occurs within a passage that's about divorce.  Deuteronomy 24:1-4 states in the King James Version: "(1.) When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house.   (2.) And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man's wife.  (3.) And if the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorcement, and giveth it in her hand, and sendeth her out of his house; or if the latter husband die, which took her to be his wife; (4.) Her former husband, which sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled; for that is abomination before the LORD: and thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance."

The situation is this: a man puts away his wife through divorce, and she marries another man.  If her second husband dies or puts her away through divorce, then she is not allowed to remarry her first husband, for she has been defiled.  But I wonder why she is not allowed to remarry her first husband.  What is the big deal?  And how exactly has the woman been defiled?  In this post, I'll look at a variety of commentaries, some more scholarly than others, in my search for answers.

1.  Although I ordinarily find the Intervarsity Press Bible Background Commentary to be quite lucid in its explanations of verses in the Hebrew Bible, I was disappointed by its treatment of Deuteronomy 24:4, for I found it to be rather elliptical.  It still brought up some thought-provoking points, however!  This commentary says the following:

"defilement.  The very unusual form of the Hebrew verb used in verse 4 makes it clear that the woman in this case is the victim, not the guilty party.  She has been forced to declare her uncleanness by the uncharitable actions of the first husband, and the second marriage demonstrates that another husband has been capable of accommodating whatever *impurity she was plagued with.  The prohibition is aimed at preventing the first husband from marrying the woman again (in which case he might be able to realize some financial gain), whereas if the woman were impure the prohibition would be against her and would preclude a marriage relationship with anyone."

I wish that the commentary had specified how the first husband would financially gain by remarrying his ex-wife.  Gleason Archer in the Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties states that the husband when he was divorcing his wife was surrendering whatever "rights to the dowry that she had brought into the marriage" (page 152), so perhaps that's why the first husband can financially gain were he to remarry her: she would bring some of that dowry back!  In terms of defilement, what the Intervarsity Press Bible Background Commentary seems to be suggesting (and I'm open to correction) is that the ex-wife actually is not defiled.  She was merely declared to be such when her first husband put her away, but the fact that she was then able to get married to somebody else demonstrated that she was not in a genuine state of defilement.  It's like Deuteronomy 24:4 is saying something like this: "You, first husband, said that your first wife was 'defiled' when you divorced her.  Well, if you really think that she's defiled, then you can't have her back!  You've got to live with your words!"

In a similar vein, Bernard Levinson in the Jewish Study Bible states regarding Deuteronomy 24:4: "Since she has been defiled, not in general, since she is permitted to remarry, but specifically as regards relations with her first husband."  Levinson, like the Intervarsity Press Bible Background Commentary, picks up on why it's odd for the ex-wife to be called defiled: because she's free to remarry, something that defiled women apparently cannot do!  Levinson does not dismiss the reality of her defilement, however, but he merely says that the defilement is limited to the ex-wife's relationship with her first husband: in that relationship, she is defiled.

I'm not yet satisfied, for I still wonder why it would be so wrong for the ex-wife to remarry her first husband after the end of her second marriage.  Deuteronomy 24:4, after all, treats that as an abomination and a sin!  Why?

2.  Jeffrey Tigay in his Jewish Publication Society commentary on Deuteronomy says the following: "the first husband...shall not take her to wife again after she has been defiled  That is, disqualified for him by virtue of her second marriage.  Had she not remarried, there would be no objection to the couple's reunion...Interestingly, Islamic law prescribes the opposite procedure: if a man has irrevocably divorced his wife, he may not remarry her unless she has been married in the interim.  When a couple wishes to reunite, a beggar is hired to marry the woman and consort with her for one night, after which he divorces her and frees her to reunite with her husband.  Wives understandably find this repulsive, and some Muslims permit a sacrifice to be offered in place of the intervening marriage."

This has a lot of interesting information.  For one, I learn that the remarriage in the movie, The Parent Trap, is allowed under Deuteronomy 24:4, since the man and the woman did not marry anyone else between the time that they divorced and the time that they remarried each other (though the man was about to marry Vicki)!  And, second, it was interesting that Islamic law differed from the one in Deuteronomy 24:4.  But I still don't know why it's a sin and an abomination to the LORD for a woman to remarry her first husband after the dissolution of her second marriage.

3.  John MacArthur states regarding Deuteronomy 24:1-4 in his MacArthur Study Bible:

"This passage does not command, commend, condone, or even suggest divorce. Rather, it recognizes that divorce occurs and permits it only on restricted grounds. The case presented here is designed to convey the fact that divorcing produced defilement. Notice the following sequence: 1) if a man finds an uncleanness (some impurity or something vile, cf. 23:14) in his wife, other than adultery, which was punished by execution (cf. 22:22); 2) if he legally divorces her (although God hates divorce, as Mal. 2:16 says; He has designed marriage for life, as Gen. 2:24 declares; and He allowed divorce because of hard hearts, as Matt. 19:8 reveals); 3) if she then marries another man; 4) if the new husband then dies or divorces her; then that woman could not return to her first husband (v. 4). This is so because she was 'defiled' with such a defilement that is an abomination to the Lord and a sinful pollution of the Promised Land. What constitutes that defilement? Only one thing is possible—she was defiled in the remarriage because there was no ground for the divorce. So when she remarried, she became an adulteress (Matt. 5:31, 32) and is thus defiled so that her former husband can’t take her back. Illegitimate divorce proliferates adultery."

For MacArthur, the woman was defiled by the divorce and the remarriage itself, of which God disapproved.  But, if that's the case, it is odd that the text only forbids the woman to remarry her first husband after the dissolution of her second marriage.  It doesn't altogether forbid her to go for a third marriage----she just can't remarry her first husband!

4.  The Nelson Study Bible says: "defiled: Returning to her first husband after an intervening marriage might have placed the woman in the same position as an unfaithful wife."

I vaguely understand what this is saying: that there is a thin line between a married woman sleeping with another man while she is married, and a married woman being put away, marrying someone else, and then returning to her first husband after the dissolution of her second marriage.  But, in my opinion, the two are different: in the second scenario, the first marriage is legally dissolved before she remarries!  And yet, could Deuteronomy 24:4 be conveying a message of "Look, if you want your marriage to be dissolved, then leave it dissolved, rather than muddying the waters by remarrying each other after you had got a divorce"?  But that contradicts Tigay's point that a couple under Deuteronomy 24:4 can remarry each other after they have divorced, as long as there was not another marriage in between of their divorce and their remarriage of each other.

5.  Keil-Delitzsch state the following:

"The law that the first husband could not take his divorced wife back again, if she had married another husband in the meantime, even supposing that the second husband was dead, would necessarily put a check upon frivolous divorces...The thought, therefore, of the impossibility of reunion with the first husband, after the wife had contracted a second marriage, would put some restraint upon a frivolous rupture of the marriage tie: it would have this effect, that whilst, on the one hand, the man would reflect when inducements to divorce his wife presented themselves, and would recall a rash act if it had been performed, before the wife he had put away had married another husband; on the other hand, the wife would yield more readily to the will of her husband, and seek to avoid furnishing him with an inducement for divorce. But this effect would be still more readily produced by the reason assigned by Moses, namely, that the divorced woman was defiled...by her marriage with a second husband. The second marriage of a woman who had been divorced is designated by Moses a defilement of the woman, primarily no doubt with reference to the fact that the emissio seminis in sexual intercourse rendered unclean, though not merely in the sense of such a defilement as was removed in the evening by simple washing, but as a moral defilement, i.e., blemishing, desecration of the sexual communion with was sanctified by marriage, in the same sense in which adultery is called a defilement in Lev_18:20 and Num_5:13-14. Thus the second marriage of a divorced woman was placed implicite upon a par with adultery, and some approach made towards the teaching of Christ concerning marriage: 'Whosoever shall marry her that is divorced, committeth adultery' (Mat_5:32). - But if the second marriage of a divorced woman was a moral defilement, of course the wife could not marry the first again even after the death of her second husband, not only because such a reunion would lower the dignity of the woman, and the woman would appear too much like property, which could be disposed of at one time and reclaimed at another (Schultz), but because the defilement of the wife would be thereby repeated, and even increased, as the moral defilement which the divorced wife acquired through the second marriage was not removed by a divorce from the second husband, nor yet by his death. Such defilement was an abomination before Jehovah, by which they would cause the land to sin, i.e., stain it with sin, as much as by the sins of incest and unnatural licentiousness (Lev_18:25)."

A lot of this is similar to what MacArthur said: that the woman was defiled in the sense that she remarried after her divorce.  I've already expressed my problems with that position.  But Keil-Delitzsch raise additional considerations: that the ban in Deuteronomy 24:4 is intended to discourage flippant divorce and the casual treatment of women as property, who can be put aside then taken back again.  This reminded me of something that Pastor Jon Courson said in a sermon, which addressed Deuteronomy 24:4: that God does not want marriage to be the equivalent of going steady----a couple breaks up, the woman has another boyfriend, and later the couple gets back together again.  But, as Tigay says, the couple can get back together as long as the woman did not have a second marriage!  What that tells me is that the second marriage is significant.  I don't like to read evangelical Promise Keeper ethics into the Hebrew Bible, but perhaps the message is that sex is a sacred act of union, and it is cheapened when a couple can be divorced, the woman then sleeps with someone else in a second marriage, and then the couple remarries.

6.  John Gill says: "after that she is defiled; not by whoredom, for in that case she was not forbidden, as it is interpreted, but by her being married to another man; when she was defiled, not by him, or with respect to him, nor with regard to any other man, whom she might lawfully marry after the decease of her latter husband; but with respect to her first husband, being by her divorce from him, and by her marriage to another, entirely alienated and separated from him, and so prohibited to him; and thus R. Joseph Kimchi interprets this defilement of prohibition, things prohibited being reckoned unclean, or not lawful to be used[.]"

According to Gill, the woman's second marriage utterly alienates her from her first husband, and so she cannot return to him after her second marriage ends.  It's like her second marriage seals the deal that her first marriage is over.  That makes a degree of sense.  And yet, doesn't a woman's marriage to anyone alienate her from other men, at least when she is married?  There's something missing from Gill's answer that I can't quite put my finger on.

7.  Rashi says (according to what the Chabad has): "since she was defiled [to him]: [This unusual expression comes] to include a sotah [a woman suspected of adultery] because she secluded herself [with another man]. [Until her trial ceremony takes place (see Num. 5:11-31) and it is yet unknown whether she has indeed committed adultery, he may not have relations with her.] - [Sifrei 24:136]"

I'm not sure what Rashi is saying here.  Is he saying that both the incident in Deuteronomy 24:4 and the sotah are examples of a woman being defiled?  Or is he suggesting that somehow the sotah relates to Deuteronomy 24:4----that the woman was divorced because her husband suspected her of adultery, or something like that?

Maybe all of these answers (well, except for Rashi's) get at the truth in some way, even if I don't find them entirely satisfactory.

Finders and Owners: Appreciating Laws as Laws, Not Advanced Ethical Concepts

In this post, I'll use as my starting-point Deuteronomy 22:1-4, which I will quote in the King James Version:

"(1.)Thou shalt not see thy brother's ox or his sheep go astray, and hide thyself from them: thou shalt in any case bring them again unto thy brother.  (2.)And if thy brother be not nigh unto thee, or if thou know him not, then thou shalt bring it unto thine own house, and it shall be with thee until thy brother seek after it, and thou shalt restore it to him again.  (3.)In like manner shalt thou do with his ass; and so shalt thou do with his raiment; and with all lost thing of thy brother's, which he hath lost, and thou hast found, shalt thou do likewise: thou mayest not hide thyself.   (4.)Thou shalt not see thy brother's ass or his ox fall down by the way, and hide thyself from them: thou shalt surely help him to lift them up again."

Exodus 23:4 has a similar rule, only it's about returning the ox or ass of an enemy: "If thou meet thine enemy's ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again."

The notion that finders have an obligation to the owners of what's found occurs elsewhere in the ancient Near East.  The Intervarsity Press Bible Background Commentary states regarding Deuteronomy 22:1-3: "The laws of Eshnunna and Hammurabi also deal with lost property, but they broaden the legislation to include both the responsibilities of the finder and the legal rights of the owner when property is resold."

I have heard sermons and have read religious writings that wax eloquent about the laws in Exodus 23:4 and Deuteronomy 22:1-4, saying that the laws reflect God's perfect will that we be considerate of others.  Some, who want to point out against Christian detractors that the Hebrew Bible itself teaches love for enemies, appeal to Exodus 23:4 as an example of this concept.

But are we dealing with a dramatic, divinely-inspired ethical concept in Exodus 23:4 and Deuteronomy 22:1-4?  I would say that we're dealing with an important concept, and I'd even acknowledge that the concept ultimately comes from God (in some manner), but I believe that I appreciate the laws in a different manner from those who wax eloquent about them.

Essentially, I'd say that the laws in Exodus 23:4 and Deuteronomy 22:1-4 are just that, laws, just like the laws of Eshnunna and Hammurabi about finders and owners.  I may have to qualify that thought a bit, for there are scholars who dispute that the laws in the Hebrew Bible and the Code of Hammurabi were ever applied to society.  Perhaps they're right.  But I can think of practical reasons that laws on finders and owners would exist in a society.  Suppose that a person lost something and somebody else found it and decided to keep it.  Unless the owner is exceptionally generous, the two would probably dispute over who now owns the item of property: the owner would say that it's his because, well, he owns it, and the finder could say "Finders keepers, losers weepers!"  Maybe the dispute would get violent!  Consequently, it makes sense that there would be a law that would resolve or prevent this particular situation.  That's why we have laws: to keep order and to resolve disputes.

What about the law in Exodus 23:4 about returning a lost item that belongs to an enemy?  Is that an exalted religious and ethical teaching, demonstrating the divine-inspiration and moral advancement of the Bible as far back as Hebrew Bible days?  Not necessarily.  I don't know offhand what other ancient Near Eastern laws say about love of enemies, but, on a practical basis, it makes sense to me that the law on returning lost items would entail returning the lost item of an enemy.  Why?  Because the law is supposed to apply impartially to all.  Just because I don't like a person, or a person does not like me, that doesn't excuse me from my legal obligations to that person.  (And, yes, I recognize that the Code of Hammurabi mandates different treatments of people based on their socio-economic status, but, as far as I know, it does not excuse people from their legal obligations to somebody else on the basis of that other person being an enemy.)  If we can use "that person is my enemy" as an excuse not to keep the law, then we wouldn't have much of a law, would we?  For the law to be valid, it would have to apply to everyone, even those with whom we have problems.

At least when it comes to the laws about finders and owners, I'm skeptical that the Bible was more advanced than other ancient Near Eastern nations.  I wouldn't be surprised if the biblical authors were somehow influenced by other ancient Near Eastern law codes, as they looked to those foreign codes to see what a law code looked like.  Or perhaps it was common-sense that led the biblical authors and the authors of foreign law codes to include a law about finders and owners, since they realized that a society to be orderly would have to address this issue.  Acknowledging this point does not detract from my reading of the Bible, but rather it leads me to appreciate the value of law, both the order that it brings and its impartial application even to those who may not like me, or whom I may not like.  And maybe such legal values are ultimately from God.

Show No Pity, or Cultivate Pity?

One theme that has come up repeatedly in my reading of Deuteronomy is God's command to the Israelites not to pity certain people.  Specifically, God in Deuteronomy commands the Israelites not to pity the following: the Canaanites (Deuteronomy 7:16), an intimate who is encouraging an Israelite to worship other gods (Deuteronomy 13:8), someone who maliciously and intentionally kills another person (Deuteronomy 19:13), a false witness (Deuteronomy 19:21), and a woman who grabs a man's privates in an attempt to protect her husband (Deuteronomy 25:12).  The Canaanites, the idolatrous intimate, and the killer are to be put to death.  The false witness is to receive the punishment that he was hoping the person he accused would receive.  And the women who grabs the man's privates will get her hand cut off.

What I was thinking about as I read this passage was this: Shouldn't we be cultivating our pity, rather than suppressing it?  It seems to me that God (or people's characterization of God) expects for Christians to put up with so much garbage from people in this imperfect world with love, tolerance, grace, serenity, compassion, and forgiveness.  The cultivation of pity can help Christians on their quest to do this, for it can assist them in humanizing the people who do the garbage that annoys them, or that is just plain evil.  Christians can reflect that those who do bad things may perhaps have been victims themselves in the past, and so they are to be pitied rather than hated.  In light of this, Deuteronomy's command for the Israelites not to pity in certain situations slightly takes me aback.

And yet, Deuteronomy's tough stance makes a degree of sense.  How can God establish a holy people and get God's message off the ground if there are people----foreign and domestic----who are attempting to turn Israel from her God?  How can society be safe if people are maliciously killing others or are bearing false witness to get someone else into serious trouble?  I have a hard time accepting Deuteronomy's command that the woman grabbing the man's privates get her hand cut off, since she was just trying to protect her husband.  At the same time, her act could have had devastating consequences for her victim, for it could have deprived him of the ability to produce children.  This would run contrary to God's desire to make Israel populous, as well as deprive the victim of offspring who can work his land and take care of him in his old age.  Thus, it's understandable that Deuteronomy sought to discourage that sort of action on the part of women (but why not men?).

Should justice be tempered with mercy?  Deuteronomy screams "no" in the cases that I listed.  I don't think that most people would believe that those who hurt others should simply be let off the hook.  But is there a place for compassion when the sentencing is occurring----for society, to use an example, to respect the value of a killer's life rather than sentencing him to death?  If we're a "hang them high" sort of society, are we not brutal?  But then one could ask if anything less than the death penalty for murder is fair, in terms of the punishment fitting the crime.

Deuteronomy, Debts, and Student Loan Reform

In this post, I'll blog about Deuteronomy 15:7-11.  The passage states (according to the King James Version):

"(7) If there be among you a poor man of one of thy brethren within any of thy gates in thy land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thine heart, nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother: (8) But thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him, and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need, [in that] which he wanteth.  (9) Beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand; and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother, and thou givest him nought; and he cry unto the LORD against thee, and it be sin unto thee.  (10)  Thou shalt surely give him, and thine heart shall not be grieved when thou givest unto him: because that for this thing the LORD thy God shall bless thee in all thy works, and in all that thou puttest thine hand unto.  (11) For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land."

I have three thoughts:

1.  The passage tells the Israelites to lend to their fellow Israelites who are poor.  It's interesting that the passage does not talk about giving, but rather lending, which implies that the poor Israelite would have to pay back the person lending to him.  I say that because v 9 refers to the seventh year, during which debts were cancelled, and I don't think that the seventh year would be mentioned here if the subject of the passage were gifts rather than loans.  Of course, if the lending occurred at a time that was really close to the seventh year, then the loan would practically amount to a gift, since the lender would lend the poor Israelite money, and the poor Israelite's debt would soon be cancelled and he wouldn't have to pay the lender back.  But, in many cases, we're not dealing with free money.  The idea is probably that the poor Israelite ordinarily would get off his feet and would be able to pay back the lender, by working for the lender as an indentured servant, or by finding some way to gain enough wealth to pay the lender back.

This is not to say that there are no handouts in the Torah, for there are: there are gleanings for the poor or the widows and orphans (Leviticus 19:10; Deuteronomy 24:19-21), the command to leave the corners of the fields for the poor (Leviticus 23:22), and the exhortation to share with widows and orphans during the festival (Deuteronomy 16:11).  There was supposed to be a safety-net.  But not everything was intended to be free, for God exhorted Israelites to lend to the needy.

One verse that has long given me problems is Matthew 5:42, which states: "Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away."  So I'm supposed to give to everyone who asks me for money?  What would prevent people from taking advantage of me?  But the second part says "borrow", so is there a presumption that I'd get paid back?  Not so fast, for Luke 6:34-35 commands that people lend without expecting to be repaid.  I'm all for giving something to a needy person who comes to me, such as a sandwich or a meal.  But I'm not willing to give indiscriminately to everyone who asks of me, for then I could go broke.  I'd prefer to give to charities, for I have more confidence that they will spend the money appropriately.  Is that a violation of Jesus' teachings?  Or is there a more common-sense, less absolutist way to interpret what Jesus is saying?

2.  Something that I've long wondered: If debts are cancelled every seven years, what would keep a debtor from not paying for seven years until his debt is finally cancelled?  I don't think that happened, and the reason is that Deuteronomy 15:9 says that Israelites are supposed to lend to their poor brethren even if the seventh year is near.  That tells me that, when the seventh year was further off in the future, the creditor felt that there was a greater chance that he'd be paid back.  Perhaps the creditor could appeal to courts to make the debtor pay back at least some of the debt.  Even with the seventh year, there are still loans and debts, at least for six years.  But the seventh year was most likely intended to ensure that Israelites were not weighed down by debt for long periods of time, such that they became perpetual slaves with little hope of paying their creditors back and getting off their feet.  Moreover, according to Deuteronomy 23:20, Israelites were not to charge usury when they lent to their fellow Israelites, and so indebted Israelites would not be weighed down by rapidly and massively accumulating interest as they sought to pay back their creditors.

3.  My hunch is that the likelihood that, during six year periods, indebted Israelites would be expected to pay back their creditors would ensure that people would lend, since they'd have an expectation that they'd be paid back, on some level.  Or perhaps it worked better back then than it would now (assuming that the policy was ever implemented), for, today, debts are so huge that they take much longer to pay back.  I think of mortgages and student loans.  Even in the first century, there was a rabbinic attempt to circumvent the seventh year debt cancellation (see here), which may show that the Sabbatical year was impractical even then.  But was it always impractical?  I'm hesitant to say that.

But would people lend if they couldn't charge interest?  After all, don't bankers make their money from interest, in part?  I don't see anything in the Torah about banks, and so the idea was probably that private individuals rather than institutions would lend.  And Deuteronomy presents a scenario in which the lenders would not need to charge interest in order to support themselves, for the Israelite lenders would already be wealthy on account of their crops.  My impression is that Deuteronomy has a prosperity Gospel sort of mindset: lenders wouldn't even have to be worried if they lent close to the seventh year and thus didn't get paid back, for they'd have plenty of wealth.  But they had to obey God to get that wealth, and one element of being obedient to God was lending to the needy, even when the seventh year was at hand.

Can we apply any of these principles to today?  One important principle is that people should pay off their debts.  But another important principle is that debt should not become a form of perpetual slavery or a burden that keeps people from getting off their feet, and so exorbitant interest rates are wrong.  In light of these principles, I favor some elements of President Barack Obama's student loan proposals, but I have problems with other parts.  (And I'm writing this post on December 1, 2012, so my understanding of the proposals in this post is based on how they were conceptualized then.)  Cancelling the student loan debt after a certain number of years may be problematic, for the government would have to take the loss from people not paying back all of their debt.  But imposing a high interest rate on student loans, even though that brings the government revenue, can become an undue burden on the debtors, and so I agree with President Obama's desire for interest rates on student loans to be low.  I believe that people should pay off their loans as long as it takes, based upon their income, and that the interest rate should be really low.  Of course, if this country were booming with prosperity, perhaps it wouldn't be a problem if the government cancelled student loan debt after a certain number of years, the same way that Deuteronomy envisioned a situation in which a lender could practically give somebody money and not be hurt if he wasn't paid back.  But would that ever happen?

The Different Tithing Laws in the Torah

I'm going through the Book of Deuteronomy for my daily quiet time, and what I would like to talk about in this post is the different laws on tithing in Numbers 18 and Deuteronomy.  Biblical scholars have discussed this issue in the past, and so I'm not coming up with anything new in this post (as far as I know).  At the same time, I remember something that Madeleine L'Engle said in one of her Crosswicks Journals: When her husband told her that her thoughts in her writings were not original, she replied that, even if her thoughts had been said before by others, she had to say them herself.  Learning does not always entail coming up with something new, but it also includes learning old stuff for yourself, and articulating it (to yourself, and maybe even to others) as part of your learning.

In Numbers 18, the tithing law goes like this: The Israelites give a tithe to the Levites, and the Levites give a tenth of that tithe to the LORD, which seems to mean giving it to the Aaronic priests.  Moreover, the firstfruits and firstborn of cows, sheep, and goats belong to the Aaronic priests (though parts of these animals are sacrificed to the LORD).  In Deuteronomy 12 and Deuteronomy 14, by contrast, the Israelites eat the tithe themselves at the central sanctuary, but they are instructed to share the tithe with the Levites.  Every third year, the Israelites are to store their tithes within their towns, and the tithes are to be used for the Levites, resident aliens, widows, and orphans.  So, in Deuteronomy, are the Levites expected to survive on whatever scraps from the tithes the Israelites are willing to spare?  According to Deuteronomy 18, the Levites are to eat from the animal sacrifices, and the Israelites are to give the Levites their firstfruits.

The impression that I get from these passages is this: In Numbers 18, the tithe goes to the Levites, and the firstfruits go to the Aaronic priests.  In Deuteronomy, however, which does not elevate the Aaronic priests above the other Levites, the tithe belongs to the Israelites at the festival, and they can share it with the Levites.  Meanwhile, the firstfruits belong to the Levites in general, not just the Aaronic priests.

In Armstrongism, people in the church were expected to pay three tithes.  The first tithe went to the ministry.  The second tithe was to be used by the church members during the Feast of Tabernacles.  And the third tithe occurred every three years and was supposed to be for the poor.  My understanding is that Second Temple and rabbinic Judaism, too, maintained that the Torah commanded at least two tithes: one (the one of Numbers 18) went to the Levites, and the other was used by Jews at the festival, but every third year it went to the vulnerable of society.

My Dad once gave a sermon in which he argued that there was only one tithe.  I don't remember every argument that he made, but I do recall him pointing out that, according to the Armstrongite interpretation, a lot went to the Levites, with whom the Armstrongites equated the ministry.  After all, the Israelites gave an entire tenth to the Levites, and the Israelites were exhorted to share some of their festival tithe (which they used for their own enjoyment) with the Levites.

I myself wouldn't say that there was only one tithe, for Numbers 18 commands the Israelites to give a tenth to the Levites, and Deuteronomy tells them to put aside a tenth for their own (the Israelites') enjoyment at the festivals.  When these laws are put together, I do not think that we can get out of the Torah that the Israelites only had one tithe, part of which went to the Levites, and part of which was used by the Israelites at the festivals, for Numbers 18 seems to present the entire tenth going to the Levites (though the Levites are then to give a tenth of that to the Aaronic priests).

Rather, what I think is going on is that we have two different tithing laws, from two separate sources in the Torah.  When the two laws are put together, of course the Levites are getting rich!  Not only do they get a tenth from the Israelites, but the Israelites also have to treat the Levites like vulnerable poor people during the festivals and every third year.  But why would the Levites be so vulnerable, if they are receiving tithes every year?  My guess is that tithes amounted to a lot of domesticated animals, fruits, and vegetables, and so I doubt that the Levites would be poor and vulnerable if they were getting tithes every year!  But in a scenario in which the Levites are not receiving tithes but rather firstfruits and sacrificial meat, which is what we see in Deuteronomy, the Levites are not getting as much, and so they are poorer.  And since they are poorer, it makes sense that Deuteronomy would exhort the Israelites to share what they have with the Levites during the festivals.  In the Deuteronomic system, the Levites are more vulnerable.  And, on a side note, because the Levites are so vulnerable in Deuteronomy, some scholars question the proposition that Levites wrote the Book of Deuteronomy, for why would the Levites support a system in which they would be so lowly?

The "Humans Can't Keep the Law" Narrative

One problem that I often have when I'm talking about religion with others is that they have an overarching narrative, whereas I tend to poke holes in that narrative.  For example, I know Christians who believe that the Old Testament set the stage for the New Testament.  They say that God gave Israel the law knowing that the Israelites wouldn't be able to keep it, and that would demonstrate why it was necessary for them to receive a new heart, which Jesus Christ would bring.  I would grant that, on some level, you see a similar message in parts of the Hebrew Bible.  After all, Ezekiel talks about a heart of flesh and a new heart (Ezekiel 11:19; 18:31; 36:26), Jeremiah refers to God writing God's laws on Israelites' hearts and minds (Jeremiah 31:33), and Deuteronomy mentions the circumcision of the Israelites' hearts (Deuteronomy 30:6).  But I have problems with saying that this narrative is assumed or is present throughout the Hebrew Bible.  After all, Josiah did a pretty good job in terms of obeying God's requirements (Josiah 22:2).  So did Job (Job 1:1).  So why should we assume that it's presumed throughout the Hebrew Bible that people can only fail when they attempt to obey God's law?

Did God expect for Israel to fail when he gave her the Torah?  I know someone who gave a sermon about how the Israelites were wrong at Sinai/Horeb to commit themselves to do all that the LORD said, for they should have been humbler, recognizing that they were unable to obey God's commands.  Rather than boldly proclaiming that they would do all that the LORD said, the preacher said, they should have been like the publican in Jesus' parable: crying out to God for mercy (Luke 18:13).  But let's look at Deuteronomy 5:27-29, which states (in the KJV): "[The Israelites said:] Go thou near, and hear all that the LORD our God shall say: and speak thou unto us all that the LORD our God shall speak unto thee; and we will hear [it], and do [it].  And the LORD heard the voice of your words, when ye spake unto me; and the LORD said unto me, I have heard the voice of the words of this people, which they have spoken unto thee: they have well said all that they have spoken.  O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever!"  God thought that what the Israelites said was well-spoken.  Why wouldn't this include their commitment to do all that God said?  And, when God expressed hope that the Israelites would have a heart in them to obey God's commandments, why should we assume that God is saying that they lacked such a heart on account of their sinful nature?  Perhaps God was hoping that their commitment to God would last.

But the Christian narrative (or the one I'm talking about in this post) is still tempting!  And I would even say that it's valid.  I believe that I need divine help to be good.  But I don't base that on the entire Bible having one consistent message.  On what do I base it, then?  Perhaps a number of factors: experience, as I see people become transformed when they rely on God; my personal sense of my own flaws; and maybe the message in the Bible that we can come to God for help.  So I have few problems with the narrative itself.  I largely have problems with Christians thumping their chest and acting as if the entire Bible proclaims the same message, and that those who don't agree with them are spiritually blind or are idiots.

Loving God: Emotion and Obedience

In this post, my topic will be loving God, and I'll be drawing from my daily quiet times in Deuteronomy 6.

In Deuteronomy 6:5, Moses instructs the Israelites to love the LORD their God with all their hearts, with all their souls, and with all their might.  What is loving God?  There are some who believe that love for God is an emotion.  You see in Pentecostal, charismatic, and a number of evangelical circles an emotional and sentimental love for God, as those particular Christians feel a deep affection for God on account of God's love for them.  By contrast, my religious background----by which I mean the religion in which I was raised----tended to scoff at religious emotionalism and sentimentalism, preferring a business-like approach to God.  My impression was that it equated loving God with obedience to God's commands (a la, to cite one verse of Scripture, II John 1:6).  How do you love God?  You obey God's commandments!  Or so I was told.

Which is right?  I'd say that they both are, to a certain extent.  I seriously doubt that the authors of the Bible wanted for our love for God to lack any emotional component or affection for God whatsoever, for Deuteronomy 6:5 instructs the Israelites to love God with their entire hearts and minds.  Moreover, you see a lot of enthusiasm in the Book of Psalms about God's good deeds for Israel.  You see admiration for God's attributes.  But, on the other hand, obeying God's commands is also important, for one way that you can show that you appreciate God's attributes of love and forgiveness is to love and to forgive others, as well as to cultivate your relationship with God by worshiping God only, by avoiding idols, by setting aside time to spend with God, and by honoring God's name.  Obedience to God's commands is a concrete way that you can show your love to God.

Of course, one problem today is that many people try to have one without the other.  You have some people who have a deep emotional affection for God, yet their lives are not particularly godly: they are unkind and impatient towards others, they commit adultery, etc.  I can think back to times when I was on a religious high, and yet I wasn't particularly kind to others.  That kind of invalidates my religious high, doesn't it?  Or at least it convicts me that I should bring my affection towards God into the realm of real life, as I allow it to saturate how I regard and treat others!  On the other hand, it's also possible for one to mechanically obey God's commands, without a deep affection for God, and it's hard for me to call that loving God.  I once heard a sermon in which the preacher asked, "How would you married men feel if your wife told you that she'd cook and clean, but that she did not love you?"  The preacher was talking about the church of Ephesus in Revelation 2:1-7, which was doing a lot of commendable deeds, yet it had forgotten its first love.  In my opinion, I should try to combine an emotional affection for God with obedience towards God's commands.

At the same time, I don't want to judge others.  There are Christians who enjoy nitpicking others over whether or not they are emotional enough in their worship of God.  And there are Christians who chastise those who are introverts because the introverts supposedly do not obey God's command to "love" other people.  But it's important to remember that people are different.  Some may not be inclined to cry and lift up their hands in worship and to talk about the Lord all the time, for they prefer a quiet appreciation of God and God's attributes.  Some may not be bubbly and social and yet they help people in other ways, ways that may be invisible to others.  In my opinion, how people love God is between them and God, not them, God, and judgmental Christian busy-bodies.

Idolatry, Orthodoxy, and Orthopraxy

In Deuteronomy 4, there is quite a focus on idolatry.  I've heard a number of evangelicals say that believing the wrong thing about God is essentially worshiping another god, or an idol.  These evangelicals often say this to theists who believe that God is too loving to send people to hell, or when they want to stress that God is just and holy, not just loving.  In the minds of these evangelicals, believing that God does not send people to hell or is too loving is essentially worshiping another god, an idol.  I even read one evangelical who said that we have to get the relationship between Christ's divine and human natures right, otherwise we'd be worshiping a false god, an idol.  So I guess that Chalcedon was important, after all!

The thing is, nobody has God exactly right.  Language in limited in describing God.  It cannot capture the entirety of who and what God is.  What's more, what we think we know about God does not capture who and what God is.  Not only is language limited in capturing God, but it can also be quite ambiguous.  Some evangelicals like to thump their chests and say that one has to believe what the Bible says about God, otherwise one is worshiping an idol.  But what the Bible teaches is obviously ambiguous, explaining the multitude of interpretations and denominations that are out there.  Moreover, there is the factor of the reader and how he or she filters the text.  We all come to the text with our own backgrounds, biases, and proclivities, and we stress some things in the text while downplaying, ignoring, or not even noticing other things.  This is true even of the evangelicals who think that we have to get God right, lest we find ourselves worshiping an idol.  If they're correct on that, then we're all worshiping an idol.

Something that intrigued me about Deuteronomy 4 is that its focus was not so much on orthodoxy (right belief) but rather on orthopraxy (right doing).  Don't represent God visually.  Walk in God's commandments, and do not add to them or subtract from them.  Granted, there are claims that are made about God: God is one, God alone possesses Israel, God freed the Israelites from Egypt through the Exodus, and God destroyed the Israelites who followed the Baal of Peor.  But, in my opinion, that is quite different from saying that one has to get God exactly right in order to avoid worshiping an idol.  Those claims about God do not exhaust who and what God is, nor do they really assert that we have to have inside of our minds a conception of God that has the exact right proportion of justice and mercy, or a conception of Christ that has a certain understanding of Christ's divine and human natures.  Rather, in Deuteronomy 4, what's important is how God has related to Israel: God freed her and thus possesses her, and God punishes her for her sins.  Moreover, even if the Israelites may not have had a perfect conception of God in their minds (since, as I said, nobody does, but it's also worth noting that the ancient Israelites' conception of God probably differed from that of Christians, and yet God still interacted with the ancient Israelites through their own framework), they could still learn about God's kindness, mercy, and justice by practicing the law, which was about kindness, mercy, and justice. 

Deuteronomy 2-3: Dealing with Fear

In this post, I'll write about my daily quiet times in Deuteronomy 2-3.  My focus will be on dealing with fear.  I'll be looking at the Conquest, which is a very grisly subject, to say the least.  But, in reading Deuteronomy 2-3, I thought of four insights that can help me in terms of my attitude and my day-to-day life.  I hope that you will agree with me that the lessons are valid, even if the Conquest understandably disturbs your moral sensibilities.

The Israelites were about to embark upon a new challenge.  The prior generation of Israelite warriors had died off, and a new generation of Israelites was taking their place.  This new generation did not have as much experience in terms of waging wars, and they were about to fight Amorites and Canaanites who were bigger and stronger than they were, all to take possession of a huge countryside that, according to the previous generation of Israelites, devoured its inhabitants (Numbers 13:32).  Would this new generation of Israelites be successful at such a daunting task?  Many of us can probably identify with them in that we ourselves have embarked upon challenging tasks and wonder if we're ready or equipped for them, or if instead they are too much for us.

One lesson that I got from the passage was that God may show us that the intimidating task can actually be done.  There is a lot in Deuteronomy 2 about the other peoples who have conquered the intimidating inhabitants of the Transjordan or Canaan: the people of Esau, the Moabites, the Ammonites, and the Caphtorites.  God declares that he gave land to the Edomites and the descendants of Lot (Ammon and Moab), which probably means that God helped them to defeat the inhabitants.  This is not said in Deuteronomy 2 about the Caphtorites, however, but Amos 9:7 affirms that God brought the Philistines from Caphtor, which perhaps implies that God had a hand in the Caphtorites' success, as well.

In my opinion, God was reassuring the Israelites that conquering the inhabitants of Canaan was possible, for God had helped other people-groups to defeat intimidating foes.  In short, the Israelites could win with God's help, as had the other people-groups.  Joel Osteen says in Your Best Life Now that, in order for something to become possible, you first have to conceive of it on the inside, which means your mind.  My problem is that I cannot always conceive of myself competently performing certain tasks.  Maybe I should start imagining myself doing those tasks, as well as draw inspiration and wisdom from others who have gone through their struggles (i.e., Asperger's Syndrome, or other challenges) and yet have managed to succeed.

The second lesson that I got from the passage was that God may help us to get our feet wet.  God brought Sihon, king of the Amorites, against Israel, even after Israel had made overtures of peace towards him.  Perhaps God was trying to get Israel's feet wet: to prepare her for her battles against the Canaanites by helping her first to triumph against a powerful king in the Transjordan.  It's one thing for Israel to see that other people-groups had defeated intimidating foes with God's help, but it was quite another thing for Israel to learn that she herself could do so.  Israel's war against Sihon gave her practice, competence, and confidence.  I think that, sometimes, God may use certain situations to get our feet wet.  Or we can get our own feet wet through baby-steps.  

The third lesson that I got from the passage was that we should do what we can and leave the rest to God.  I am often afraid that people will not like me, and I look back at my past and see people rejecting me even after I had tried to be nice.  In the case of Israel, she was actually nice to King Sihon: she asked him to let her pass through his land, and she would pay the Amorites for food and for water.  Israel was trying to be peaceful, but Sihon responded by launching a war against her.  We can try to be nice, but there may be factors beyond our control.  Sihon, for example, may have been intimidated by a massive group of Israelites on the move around his territory, for he wondered how they would affect him.  Would they attack?  Would they take his resources?  Moreover, there was God's role in all of this, for God had a plan behind Sihon's rejection of Israel's peaceful overtures.  I'm reminded of Romans 12:18, which states (in the KJV): "If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men."  We can only do our part in seeking peace with people, and we should leave the things that we can't control to God.

The fourth lesson that I got from the passage was that we should do the task before us with all of our might.  Deuteronomy 3:3 says (in the KJV): "So the LORD our God delivered into our hands Og also, the king of Bashan, and all his people: and we smote him until none was left to him remaining."  The Israelites really dived into the task of fighting Og, king of Bashan, such that they got the job done.  Similarly, when we are met with an intimidating task, perhaps the way that we can get past our fears is to dive into the task.

Accountability, Seeing Miracles, and the Israelites in the Wilderness

As I've done my daily quiet time in the Book of Deuteronomy, I've thought about a view that one of my relatives has.  According to my relative, people in this day and age can be saved, but they cannot be lost.  Why?  Because there is not enough unassailable evidence that Christianity is the one true religion for God to judge people according to their response to it.  In the Bible, particularly the New Testament, my relative notes, miracles accompany the proclamation of the Gospel in order to attest to the Gospel's truth (see John 15:24; Hebrews 2:4).  When miracles do not accompany the preaching of the Gospel, however, how can God judge people for rejecting it?  On what basis should people believe in the Gospel as opposed to other religions and philosophies, if God does not prove to them beyond a reasonable doubt that the Gospel is true?

A number of my evangelical friends say that the people who reject the Gospel would probably reject it even if they saw a miracle (see Luke 16:31), but I have issues with that claim.  So people should be judged according to a hypothetical----according to what they would have done?  That makes no sense to me.
So what's this have to do with Deuteronomy?  I read Deuteronomy 1, and it talks about how the Israelites were barred from the Promised Land because of their unbelief.  They were intimidated by the walls of Canaan and the size of the Amorites, and thus they did not want to attempt to conquer Canaan.  I wondered if God likewise judges me when I am afraid, but then I saw that the Israelites in Deuteronomy 1 had advantages that I myself do not have.  As Deuteronomy 1:30-33 indicates, the Israelites had seen and experienced God's power: God's deliverance of Israel from Egypt, God taking care of the Israelites in the wilderness, and God guiding the Israelites by cloud and by fire.  I haven't seen miracles at that level, so, while I can understand God judging the Israelites of that time for being afraid, I have a hard time believing that God judges me for my fear.

Some may argue that God does judge people in the here and now, as God judged the Israelites in the wilderness, for the wilderness generation are paraded before New Testament Christians as an example.  After all, does not the Epistle to the Hebrews warn its Christian audience not to be unbelieving, as were the Israelites in the wilderness, lest they fail to enter God's rest?  And does not Paul in I Corinthians 10 exhort the Corinthians not to be like the sexually-immoral Israelites in the wilderness?  Does not that imply that the lessons of Deuteronomy 1 are for all time, and apply even to those who have not seen God's miracles?

But it can be argued that the Hebrews and the Corinthians, too, saw and experienced miracles.  Hebrews 6:10 refers to people who have tasted the powers of the World to Come.  And I Corinthians 12:28 mentions miracles and the gift of healing.

So is the Bible irrelevant, if people are not held accountable over whether or not they believe in it?  I don't think so.  It has good principles.  I think of the hyper-dispensationalist saying that I've heard that parts of the Bible are for us, but they were not written to us.  For example, I know of hyper-dispensationalists who do not believe that (say) all of the Gospel of Matthew is normative for Christians today, for they maintain that the Gospel of Matthew teaches a works-salvation, whereas Christians are saved by grace through faith.  But they still study the Gospel of Matthew because they believe that it has edifying stuff, even for them.  Similarly, while I am not in the same position as the Israelites in the wilderness or even the early church, I can still be edified by lessons pertaining to them: how we can trust God because he loves us and wants to take care of us, for example.

I should say this about accountability: I do not want to imply that human beings in the here-and-now are not accountable to God for what they do.  The issue that I'm addressing is salvation: when does God hold people accountable for how they respond to the Gospel?  How much knowledge do they need before they indeed are held accountable?  Of course, one can point out that morality and salvation are intertwined issues, for salvation is God saving us from the punishment that we deserve for our immorality.  So things are thornier than I may think.

Musings on Jeremiah 33:14-16 and Prophecy

At church this morning, the pastor preached about Jeremiah 33:14-16, which states (in the King James Version):

"(14) Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will perform that good thing which I have promised unto the house of Israel and to the house of Judah. (15) In those days, and at that time, will I cause the Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David; and he shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land.  (16) In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely: and this is the name wherewith she shall be called, The LORD our righteousness."

The pastor was applying this to Jesus, but was it Jesus at his first coming, or Jesus at his second coming?  I don't entirely remember.  On the one hand, the pastor suggested that Israel's return from exile occurred in 1948, with the re-establishment of Israel as a nation, and I think that would coincide with applying Jeremiah 33:14-16 to Jesus' second coming----the exiles return to Israel in 1948, and several years later Christ comes back and rules Israel in righteousness while enabling Judah to dwell in safety.  On the other hand, the pastor also seemed to think that v 15's reference to the Davidid as a branch was predicting that Jesus would be a humble Messiah, not the conquering king that many Jews in the first century were expecting.  That appears to hold that Jeremiah 33:14-16 concerns Jesus' first coming. 

Perhaps one could combine the two views:  God caused the Davidic branch to sprout during Jesus' first coming, in the person of Jesus, and years later Jesus would come back and rule Israel in righteousness, save Judah, and enable Jerusalem to dwell in safety.  Speaking for myself, I'm skeptical about applying Jeremiah 33 to Jesus, for I think that what Jeremiah was saying was that the Jews would return from exile in seventy years, and then God would restore the Davidic dynasty and the Levitical priesthood (see vv 18-22, and Jeremiah 25:11-12; 29:10).  Even if you go the route of saying that the prophecy is consistent with saying that the Jews would return from exile under Cyrus, and years later God would re-establish the Davidic dynasty through Jesus, who would rule years after that, there's still the problem of what to do with the prophesied restoration of the Levites.  Don't many Christians believe that Christ nullified the Levitical priesthood?  Is that inconsistent with Jeremiah 33:18-22's prediction that God would not only restore the Levites, but that they would be before him perpetually?

Christians can probably go a variety of routes here.  First, they can say that God did restore the Levites, in Israel's historical post-exilic period.  But Jeremiah 33:18-22 appears to describe the Levitical priesthood as perpetual, whereas the historical service of the Levites in the Temple came to an end, as did the Temple.  Second, Christians can say that Jesus as high priest fulfills the function of the Levitical priesthood, and that Jeremiah 33:18-22 is symbolic of this.  I can't really refute that, but I do think that interpreting prophecies symbolically is quite arbitrary and allows people to read back into the prophecies their desired conclusions rather than allowing the prophecies to speak for themselves.  Third, Christians can say that Levites will offer sacrifices before God during the millennial reign of Christ.  Perhaps that would work.  When I read Jeremiah's prophecies about restoration, though, it seems to concern what Jeremiah expected to happen in seventy years, not something that would be partially fulfilled in seventy years, while other parts would be fulfilled later in the future.  But many Jews and Christians believe that the prophecies could be partially fulfilled in the past while also having a later fulfillment, and the reason has been that they want for the prophecies to have continued relevance rather than being an expectation on the part of Jeremiah that did not fully pan out.

I should note something else: Jeremiah 33:18 states that "Neither shall the priests the Levites want a man before me to offer burnt offerings, and to kindle meat offerings, and to do sacrifice continually."  So the Levites are offering sacrifices?  That appears to be inconsistent with Leviticus-Numbers, in which the Aaronic priests perform the sacrifices, while the Levites are responsible for transporting and guarding the sanctuary, and possibly other services.  Deuteronomy, however, does not present the Aaronides as a higher class of priests than the other Levites, and it just says that the Levites minister before God (Deuteronomy 18:7).  Jeremiah appears to agree with Deuteronomy, whereas Ezekiel depicts the Zadokites as the priests who will offer sacrifices (Ezekiel 43:19; 44:15).  Of course, I suppose that you could say that the Aaronides and the Zadokites were Levites (Ezekiel 40:46), which is true.  Still, it's interesting that Jeremiah does not explicitly distinguish the sons of Aaron from the other Levites, but rather says that the Levites will offer sacrifices to God.

I was intrigued by what my pastor was saying about the branch, for that made me wonder why the Davidid in Jeremiah 33 was called the branch.  Does it have to do with lowliness and humility, as my pastor was suggesting?  I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case, for there was an expectation that the coming king of Israel would be humble----Zechariah 9:9 presents him peacefully entering Jerusalem on a donkey, for example.  But I think the passage probably means that there will come a king who will have Davidic ancestry, which means that God will restore David's dynasty.  In short, a branch will come from the Davidic tree.

Being Thankful

At church this morning, the topic was Thanksgiving. 

We had a baptism today, and our pews are usually packed (at least in the first five rows) whenever that happens.  The baby who was being baptized is related to the pastor, who is Welsh.  During the children's service, the pastor was asking the kids what they were thankful for.  A little girl said that she was thankful for her "nine".  That didn't make sense to me (she's thankful for the number 9?), until the pastor explained to the congregation that "nain" (pronounced "nine") is the Welsh word for grandmother.  I thought that was cool.  It's like the American Jews I have met who look, talk, and act like most Americans, yet they call their grandfather "zaideh".  They have preserved part of their culture.

I enjoyed the pastor's sermon.  The pastor referred to the line that grateful people get to be happy twice: when something good happens to them, and when they are thankful for the good thing that has happened to them.  I myself think that it's good for my soul when I am thankful or appreciative for the good things that I have.  I think about gratitude a lot, and I would probably do well to think about it more often than I do!  I'm thankful for necessities, such as having shelter, for I cannot imagine how I would cope if I were homeless.  But I'm also thankful for things that I simply enjoy.  For example, my Mom, her husband, and I watched a DVD of Fringe last night, which had excellent episodes.  This was after a long period of not watching Fringe because we were waiting for a particular DVD of it to be available to us on Netflix.  Well, last night, I was happy twice: I enjoyed Fringe, and I was also happy when I was thankful for having watched Fringe!

Thanksgiving can be a difficult concept, though.  How can I be thankful and think that God has blessed me, when there are so many people in the world who lack necessities?  John Shore tackled that question here----not satisfactorily, in my opinion, but at least he did try to tackle it.  I'm reluctant to say that God has blessed me and not others.  But I still think that it's good----for the sake of my own attitude, that is----for me to be happy about the things that I have and the people who are in my life.  As far as others are concerned, all I can say is that thinking about those who lack should motivate me to donate to charity.

My pastor mentioned another issue: that of bad memories.  One of our texts was Deuteronomy 26, in which God commands the Israelites to remember in their thanksgiving their bitter experiences in Egypt.  The pastor inquired how we can be thankful when we have so many bad memories.  I was thinking about this issue last night.  I have my share of bad memories: people who have rejected me, things not turning out as I had hoped, etc.  These memories make me question if I will ever get a break.  Plus, I fear that life will bring more and more bad memories as it proceeds.  But my pastor said that we can put our bad memories within a positive context, as we remember that God has a plan for our lives and as we come to see those bad memories as something that can teach us.  I would say that his advice fits my situation, though I would be very reluctant to tell everyone who has experienced a trauma that they must see their trauma in that way.  In my opinion, there are some things that are so bad, that it would have been better had they not occurred at all.  I don't put my bad experiences in that category.  I can only speak for myself, and, looking back, I can see things that I could have done better, particularly in social situations (though there are also times when I wonder what exactly I did wrong). 

What's It Have to Do with Me?

Even though my sermon is over and done with, I have another post about preaching within me!

I remember reading something by Pastor John MacArthur about preaching.  (I'll be relying on my memory of what I read, and that may be flawed, so please keep that in mind!)  MacArthur said that many pastors tell him that they try to make their sermons 50 percent theology, and 50 percent application (ways to apply Christianity to one's daily life).  But MacArthur stated that he does not have that sort of approach; rather, he believes that theology itself is applicable to people's everyday lives.

In a sense, I can see MacArthur's point.  In my sermon on Job this last Sunday, I presented God as someone who loved God's creation.  That was a theological assertion.  I suppose that I could have come up with specific points about how people can apply that concept to their daily lives, but (at least in this area) I didn't think it was really necessary.  People can apply this concept to their lives when they walk out of the service and regard God as one who loves God's creation (including them), and relate to this God accordingly.  The application is essentially, "Now go ye therefore with this conception of God in your mind."

But things are not always that simple, for there are a number of theological concepts----or concepts related to biblical interpretation----whose applicability is not readily apparent, and so the preacher may have to bring them down to earth and detail possible ways that people can apply them.  I'll use myself as an example.  A long time ago, I delivered a sermon about Deuteronomy 23, which bans the offspring of illegitimate sexual unions, men with their privates crushed or cut off, Ammonites, and Moabites from God's assembly.  I went into how the Book of Ruth and Isaiah 56 appear to offer a different vision, but I may have mentioned that Nehemiah 13 holds fast to the more exclusive vision of Deuteronomy 23.  My overall point, though, was that the New Testament includes all people.

This is all information that interests me, for it's an excellent test-case of the diversity that exists within the Bible.  And yet, I can picture people in the congregation thinking to themselves, "Okay, this is all interesting, but what's if have to do with me?"  My overall point in the sermon was that God now includes all people, and so we should go out and witness, but couldn't I have made that point without going into Deuteronomy 23, Ruth, Isaiah 56, and Nehemiah 13?  Perhaps, but I really wanted to talk about those texts, as they're a favorite topic of mine!  Maybe what I should have done was to probe the issue of exclusion----how there may have been justifiable reasons for God to exclude certain people from the assembly, in the same way that we all deserve exclusion from God's presence on account of our sins.  And yet, how wonderful it is when the excluded are finally included!  And perhaps they appreciate their inclusion even more after they've been excluded.  This is an evangelical, Luther-like----maybe even a Spurgeon-esque----message, and some of you may have problems with that.  (It doesn't set entirely right with me, either, to be honest!)  But my point is that I should have done a better job in bringing the biblical texts down to earth for my audience----so that they could see ways that the texts could relate to them.

Another sermon that I gave a while back was shortly before Thanksgiving.  Essentially, I gave a little history lesson about how God was with the Pilgrims, protecting them and their mission and sending them rain and Squanto the Native American, and I lamented that America has departed from her godly roots.  This was an interesting history lesson----some of it was probably true, and some of it may have been thenomist propaganda.  But I should have brought it down to earth for my congregation----showing them what lessons they themselves could take from it.  After I spoke, the pastor was reaching for some way to apply my sermon, and he told the congregation that people who immigrate to the U.S. from Caribbean countries (much of the congregation was from the Caribbean) should not just come here and enjoy the blessings of America, but they should remember their families, who are still in the Caribbean.  And the associate pastor told me that one way I could have brought my message down to earth was to say that, if we follow God and try to do God's will, God will help us by making crooked paths straight.  (He probably didn't intend that as an absolute, in a prosperity Gospel sense, but his point was most likely that God will open doors for us to serve God, if we are willing, and will help us in our service.)

I think that some preachers can preach their theology, and their theological points are easy to apply, without them having to include in their sermons specific application points.  I, however, am the sort of person who may have to have 50 percent theology and 50 percent application in my sermon, for I need to work at bringing my information down to earth so that people don't leave the service saying to themselves, "Well, that was interesting, but what's it have to do with me?"

Psalm 85

For my weekly quiet time this week, I will blog about Psalm 85.

I think that Psalm 85 was composed after Israelites had returned to the land of Israel from exile.  Their captivity was turned, which may mean that it was reversed.  They believed that their sins were forgiven by God.  And yet, they did not feel fully restored.  They wanted to be turned even more (vv 4, 6), perhaps implying that their turning thus far was incomplete.  And they hoped that God would stop being angry at them.  They wanted to hear a message of peace from God----whether that was through a cultic prophet, the Torah, prophetic messengers, or whomever (it's debated).

There would be restoration, and the restoration somehow coincides with certain attributes or principles: mercy, truth, righteousness, and peace.  What results is the prosperity of the land.

It's unclear to me if the message of Psalm 85 is that Israel's restoration follows her practice of righteousness, or if righteousness is the result of God favoring Israel (grace, if you will).  In favor of the former view, v 13 says that righteousness prepares the way for him, presumably God, which may imply that Israel's righteousness is prior to God's activity on Israel's behalf and presence in Israel.  V 8 affirms that God will speak peace and yet exhorts people not to turn (there's that word again) to folly.  Does that mean that God desires to bless God's people, and yet that will be contingent on Israel's practice of righteousness?  V 9 says that God's salvation is close to people who fear God.  Does that indicate that the path to salvation is fearing God and practicing righteousness?

Or does the practice of righteousness flow from God's grace?  Do vv 10-12 describe what happens when God is near: righteousness, truth, and peace are the fruit?  Peter Craigie and Erhard Gerstenberger present a picture in which agents from God work together for the community's well-being, which (in my opinion) regards the righteousness, truth, and peace as a divine work, not so much as something that humans conjure up.  Moreover, vv 10-12 appear to describe a paradise in which the people hold to truth and righteousness looks down from heaven with approval.  Could human beings attain this sort of paradise by pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps, or does God bring it about?

Within the Hebrew Bible, we see both sorts of concepts, often in the same books.  In Deuteronomy 30, Israel takes the initiative of turning to God, and God then restores her to her land and circumcises her heart.  In Jeremiah 4:4, Judah is told to circumcise her hearts, yet Jeremiah 31:33 foresees God writing God's law on the hearts of Israel and Judah.  Ezekiel 18:31 exhorts Israel to get a new heart and a new spirit, but Ezekiel 11:19 and 36:26 show God promising to give Israel a new heart that is yielded to God's commandments.

Perhaps grace----which means God's forgiveness and transformation----coincides with some willingness on our part.  But God is eager to speak peace to us.

Concluding Weinfeld's Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School

For my write-up today of Moshe Weinfeld's Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, I'll write something about each chapter that I read today.

In "The Concept of God and the Divine Abode", Weinfeld states that Deuteronomy 4:26 presents the commandments being "heard from out of the midst of the fire that was upon the mount, but they were uttered by the Deity from heaven" (page 207). This is different from Exodus 19:12, in which Moses needed to prevent the Israelites from breaking through to gaze upon God. Exodus 19 presumes that God is on the mountain, whereas Deuteronomy asserts the opposite---that God is speaking from heaven. Another point that stood out to me in this chapter was Weinfeld's interpretation of I Kings 8:27, which is Deuteronomistic: "The sanctuary is here conceived as a house of prayer and not as a cultic center" (page 209).

In "Sacral and Festal Observances", Weinfeld contrasts Deuteronomy with P, with whom Weinfeld thinks that Deuteronomy is consciously disagreeing. Weinfeld notes that Deuteronomy does not mention sin and guilt offerings, for it holds that "spiritual purification and repentance---consisting of confession and prayer---and not sacrificial offerings expiate sin" (page 210). According to Weinfeld, "Deuteronomic sacrifice consists primarily of offerings which are consumed by the offerer in the sanctuary and are designed to be shared with the poor, the Levite, the alien resident, the orphan, and the widow" (page 211). Deuteronomy also does not treat certain things as inherently sacred, as do the priests: While P regards the tithe as inherently holy, Deuteronomy regards it as "the property of the original owner (14:22-7)", and so a person can use it for profane purposes as long as he pays "its equivalent monetary value" (page 215). For Weinfeld, that means that Deuteronomy regards sanctity as something that flows from "the religious intentions of the person who consecrates" the tithe, not as something that the tithe inherently possesses. Moreover, Weinfeld argues that P and Deuteronomy conceptualize the Sabbath differently. P regards the Sabbath as something that redramatizes creation, and so his version of the Sabbath command uses the word "remember". Deuteronomy, however, being anti-anthropomorphic, is uncomfortable with the idea of God resting after creation, and so it chooses instead to provide a historical basis for the Sabbath: the Exodus. Deuteronomy's version of the Sabbath command uses the imperative "observe".

In "Purity and Impurity in the Deuteronomic Conception of Holiness", Weinfeld argues that P thinks that the land can be defiled through certain sins---and so he prohibits even non-Israelite resident aliens from committing them (violating rules on sacrificial procedure, eating leaven on the Days of Unleavened Bread, defiling a corpse, incest, Molech worship, spilling blood, blasphemy, and eating on the Day of Atonement)---whereas Deuteronomy views sin as a matter of personal guilt, not defilement of the land. Moreover, Deuteronomy holds that a resident alien does not have to obey the Torah. In fact, whereas the Holiness Code regards everyone---even a resident alien---of being impure after they eat what dies of itself, meaning that they have to wash after eating it (Leviticus 17:15), Deuteronomy 14:21 says that Israelites can't eat it, but they can give it to a resident alien.

Another point that Weinfeld makes is that Deuteronomy highlights the holiness of Israel, whereas P and the Holiness Code regard holiness primarily as the quality of priests. Consequently, while H only bans priests from eating what dies of itself, while allowing others to eat it, as long as they wash afterward (Leviticus 11:39-40; 17:15; 22:8), Deuteronomy says that no Israelite can eat it (Deuteronomy 14:1-2, 21), thereby extending a priestly rule to all of Israel. Weinfeld believes that the villain Korah's contention in Numbers 14:3 that all of Israel is holy reflected priestly polemic against the Deuteronomic School, which viewed all of Israel as holy.

In "The Judicial Reform", Weinfeld argues that centralization of the cult closed down local sanctuaries, which also functioned as courts, and so that is why Deuteronomy sets up a court system for the nation, while leaving family law to the elders.

In "The Laws of Asylum", Weinfeld contrasts Deuteronomy's view of the cities of refuge with earlier views. Before Deuteronomy, the cities of refuge were sanctuaries where the person guilty of manslaughter atoned for his sins, whereas Deuteronomy---which abolished sanctuaries through centralization---treated the cities of refuge as places of protection for the person guilty of manslaughter. Moreover, according to Weinfeld, Deuteronomy locates the cities of refuge where it does on the basis of practical considerations---it places them where the manslayer can quickly reach them---not in order to place them at sanctuaries.

In "The Laws of Warfare", Weinfeld says that Deuteronomy has nothing about the ark going out with the Israelites in battle, or spoils being dedicated to the priests. And, when Deuteronomy exhorts warriors to keep away from doing anything indecent, Weinfeld thinks that relates to the camp's cleanliness, not its sacred purity.

In "Sin and Punishment", Weinfeld says that the Covenant Code prohibits the cursing of parents because it is "insubordination to authority", whereas Deuteronomy focuses instead on how the incorrigible son brings "ruin upon himself and his family" (page 241). Weinfeld states that P regarded sin as a "palpable substance...which rests upon the malefactor" and is expunged when the sinner was cut off from his people. In many cases, this was automatic---as the land vomited up the sinner. Sometimes, however, P required the community to carry out the death penalty---in which case the malefactor was taken to an impure place, where the congregation laid hands on him and thereby transferred to him the impurity of those whom the crime contaminated (Leviticus 24:14). Deuteronomy, however, presents punishment as occurring in the city itself, as well as regards the death penalty, not as a matter of purification, but as a deterrent. P also said that those who committed certain ritualistic sins (eating blood and fat, eating ritual meat while impure, contaminating the sanctuary, uncircumcision, eating leaven during the Days of Unleavened Bread, eating on the Day of Atonement) would be cut off by God, whereas Deuteronomy "is not interested in offenses of this sort" (page 242).

I'll cover Weinfeld's treatment of wisdom literature in one broad stroke. Weinfeld thinks that wisdom literature influenced Deuteronomy, not the other way around, for Israelite wisdom literature overlaps with other ancient Near Eastern wisdom literatures (showing that it could have gotten its ideas from them rather than Deuteronomy), plus it lacks reference to Israel as a nation---which would be odd, if it were influenced by Deuteronomy. Weinfeld also thinks that the Book of Proverbs was pre-exilic (the time of Deuteronomy, according to Weinfeld) because it lacked the national focus of post-exilic literature---including wisdom literature.

Weinfeld also refers to Yehezkel Kaufmann's position that P came before the prophets, rather than vice versa (Wellhausen). For Kaufmann, P focused on the cult and did not say anything about eschatology, and so it most likely was not aware of the prophetic writings, which elevated morality and had an eschatological component.

Weinfeld's chapter on "Humanism" is beautiful, for it is about how Deuteronomy regarded the dignity of women, the poor, etc., beyond other Pentateuchal authors. For example, while the Covenant Code in Exodus 22:30 bans Israelites from eating food torn by beasts and tells them to give it to the dogs, Deuteronomy 14:21 has them give it to the resident aliens. According to Weinfeld, the humanism of Deuteronomy arose under the influence of wisdom literature, which (according to Weinfeld) maintained that all people were equal because they were made by a common creator. (Job 31:15 has that sort of idea.)