Joshua may have been commissioned but Moses is still in charge, and God has some housekeeping notices for him. He reminds him of the daily, weekly and monthly offerings, as well as the offerings for the annual festivals. Of course we've heard all of this before, but there are some subtle changes and additions. And anyway, the people have not proved themselves to be the most obedient. They need reminding. At times the Bible can feel really repetitive, and it can be tempting to skip passages in search of something new, but I don't believe God repeated Himself simply because He liked the sound of His own voice. He kept going back to things because He wanted to make sure that the people remembered them and understood them, and sometimes He would slip a new promise or commandment in among the repeats. When we get a sense of deja vu while reading the Bible, we need to ask ourselves why. What's so important that God needed to say it again? Have I been missing something? Is there a new angle this time? And that applies even more in our own lives. If God keeps saying something, it's because we need to listen.
Now God moves on to talk about vows, and he says that if any man makes a vow, he must stay true to his word. That seems fair enough. If we promise to do something, honesty and honour demand that we do it. And if we know that we must keep our word, then maybe we will think more carefully before giving it and avoid making rash promises or speaking insincerely. God doesn't stop there though. He goes on to say that if a woman who lives at home makes a vow and her father confirms it or remains silent, then she is bound to her word; but if her father forbids it, her pledge no longer stands. In the same way, if a married woman made a vow, her husband had the power to confirm or nullify it. If a widow or a divorced woman makes a vow, it is binding, presumably because there is no one to release her from it. Basically, if a woman lived with a man, be it her father or her husband, he had authority over her and all of her decisions. A woman was only free and empowered to make her own decisions if she was on her own, and therefore in a more vulnerable position where her choices were limited anyway. The implication is that women are not capable of making sensible or reasonable decisions, and so if there is a man on hand, it should really be up to him. Remember I said yesterday that it was impossible to deny that there was misogyny in the Bible? Well this is a prime example. And it's not right. God gave every one of us free will and that means we all have the right and the power to make our own decisions, women included.
God then tells Moses to take vengeance on the Midianites, and then he will be "gathered to [his] people". In other words, he has one last mission and then he'll die. It's not much of an incentive to get on and do what God says, but Moses chooses obedience anyway. He goes straight to the people and instructs them to arm one thousand men from each tribe and send them into battle. They destroy the Midianites, killing every man, including the five Midianite kings and Balaam (who it turns out who do hear of again) and burning their towns. Apparently that's not enough though. When the Israelite warriors return, Moses instructs them to kill the Midianite women also, as they were the ones who led the Israelite men into sin. It's bloody and it's brutal and it's hard to believe that it was ever the will of God. Especially when you consider that Moses tells the people that all those who have killed or touched anyone who has killed must purify themselves and their garments and all that they took into battle. Killing their enemies has made them unclean, and that means that it is wrong. Even if God really did send them into battle, to defend themselves or their honour or whatever, it was clearly never His ideal.
All that remains now is for the Israelites to divide the spoils of war. Half is set aside for the soldiers, and half for the community. From the soldiers' half, 1/500th is to be given to God; while from the community's half, 1/50th is to be given to God. I pointed out yesterday that the land was divided equally between the people because they were all equal, so this uneven distrubition may seem strange, but the circumstances here are different. The people got an equal share in the land because it was a gift from God, but the soldiers got more of the bounty because it was a reward for their actions. They got more because they did more. We shouldn't try to apply this too literally - God doesn't work a rewards-based system and there are no heavenly brownie points - but I do believe that the more we put in to life, the more we get out of it. It may sound like a hideously cheesy motivational speech cliche, but cliches are only repeated so often because there is truth in them.
Thursday 30 September 2010
Wednesday 29 September 2010
Numbers 25-27 - In Which the Israelites are Seduced and a New Leader is Appointed
Balak's plan to curse the Israelites may have failed, but he's not totally out of luck because they seem determined to do his job for him. The Israelites are seduced by Moab and some of the men start to indulge in improper sexual relations with Moabite woman and worship their god, the Baal of Peor. God is not happy and orders Moses to kill the leaders of the guilty people. However, when Moses passes the message on, he instead orders the leaders to put to death the guilty people. Moses' way seems fairer, so I'm not going to argue. We need to take responsibility for our own actions.
Unfortunately, when people are stuck in a hole, they don't always know when to stop digging. While the rest of the community are gathered outside the Tent of Meeting, apparently weeping because of a plague that is affecting them, an Israelite man brings a Midianite woman into camp. This clearly isn't going to make God any happier so Aaron's grandson, Phinehas, decides to take action. He grabs a spear and follows the couple into the man's tent, where he impales them both. God sees this and declares that because Phinehas was zealous for His honour, He has turned His anger away from the Israelites and stopped the plague. He also makes a covenant of peace and lasting priesthood with Phinehas and his descendants. I'm not suggesting we should all go out and commit double murder in God's name - we should most definitely not be doing that - but maybe we do need to be more zealous about His honour. We need to stand up for Him, not because He can't stand up for Himself, but because we care about Him that much.
God now commands Moses to take a second census of the people, which He does. There are now 601, 730 Israelites. This is slightly fewer than before, but that shouldn't really be surprising, given the number of plagues God has sent. The census also reveals that of all the men who were counted in the last census, only Caleb and Joshua are still alive. You may or may not remember that back in chapter 14, God said that none of the men who grumbled against Him after the exploration of Canaan would live to see the promised land and His word has come true. He knows what He's talking about. And now that Moses knows how many people there are, God tells him that the land is to be allotted "as an inheritance to them based on the number of names", so that larger groups get more land and smaller groups get less land. Everybody gets the same amount of land, because everybody is equal.
Now we have a slight diversion. A man named Zelophehad has died leaving five daughters but no sons. His daughters come to the Tent of Meeting to ask that they inherit his property so that his name does not disappear simply because he has no sons. I'm pretty sure guaranteeing personal wealth and security for themselves was also a factor, but that doesn't necessarily make them greedy. There's nothing wrong with wanting to be able to support yourself. Moses agrees with their request, and so they inherit their father's property. But more than that, Moses goes on to make this a permanent law, saying that daughters should always inherit if there are no sons. The law was changed and generations of Israelite women benefited because the daughters of Zelophehad dared. What can we do if we dare? Much is made of the anti-feminism of the Bible, and it is undeniable that there is a depressing amount of misogyny and female suppression within its pages, but there are the odd glimpses of something approaching equality and respect. That doesn't make the sexism any less serious, but it does weaken the argument that women are inferior because the Bible says so.
This section ends with God calling Moses up another mountain. He says He will show him the promised land, but he will die and he will not enter the land because of his previous disobedience. Moses doesn't argue - he knows he screwed up and he has to ace the consequences - but he asks God to give the people a new leader. God immediately recommends Joshua, one of the two men that did not speak out against Him and "a man in whom is the spirit". That's what God looks for in us. He doesn't look at our curriculum vitae or our personal profile. He doesn't look at our past achievements or our references. And He certainly doesn't look at our own promotional material. What He really wants to know is if we are full of the spirit. His spirit.
Moses does as God commands and commissions Joshua through the laying on of hands in front of the whole assembly, and so Israel has a new leader-in-waiting. But this isn't the end of Moses' story. Not yet.
Unfortunately, when people are stuck in a hole, they don't always know when to stop digging. While the rest of the community are gathered outside the Tent of Meeting, apparently weeping because of a plague that is affecting them, an Israelite man brings a Midianite woman into camp. This clearly isn't going to make God any happier so Aaron's grandson, Phinehas, decides to take action. He grabs a spear and follows the couple into the man's tent, where he impales them both. God sees this and declares that because Phinehas was zealous for His honour, He has turned His anger away from the Israelites and stopped the plague. He also makes a covenant of peace and lasting priesthood with Phinehas and his descendants. I'm not suggesting we should all go out and commit double murder in God's name - we should most definitely not be doing that - but maybe we do need to be more zealous about His honour. We need to stand up for Him, not because He can't stand up for Himself, but because we care about Him that much.
God now commands Moses to take a second census of the people, which He does. There are now 601, 730 Israelites. This is slightly fewer than before, but that shouldn't really be surprising, given the number of plagues God has sent. The census also reveals that of all the men who were counted in the last census, only Caleb and Joshua are still alive. You may or may not remember that back in chapter 14, God said that none of the men who grumbled against Him after the exploration of Canaan would live to see the promised land and His word has come true. He knows what He's talking about. And now that Moses knows how many people there are, God tells him that the land is to be allotted "as an inheritance to them based on the number of names", so that larger groups get more land and smaller groups get less land. Everybody gets the same amount of land, because everybody is equal.
Now we have a slight diversion. A man named Zelophehad has died leaving five daughters but no sons. His daughters come to the Tent of Meeting to ask that they inherit his property so that his name does not disappear simply because he has no sons. I'm pretty sure guaranteeing personal wealth and security for themselves was also a factor, but that doesn't necessarily make them greedy. There's nothing wrong with wanting to be able to support yourself. Moses agrees with their request, and so they inherit their father's property. But more than that, Moses goes on to make this a permanent law, saying that daughters should always inherit if there are no sons. The law was changed and generations of Israelite women benefited because the daughters of Zelophehad dared. What can we do if we dare? Much is made of the anti-feminism of the Bible, and it is undeniable that there is a depressing amount of misogyny and female suppression within its pages, but there are the odd glimpses of something approaching equality and respect. That doesn't make the sexism any less serious, but it does weaken the argument that women are inferior because the Bible says so.
This section ends with God calling Moses up another mountain. He says He will show him the promised land, but he will die and he will not enter the land because of his previous disobedience. Moses doesn't argue - he knows he screwed up and he has to ace the consequences - but he asks God to give the people a new leader. God immediately recommends Joshua, one of the two men that did not speak out against Him and "a man in whom is the spirit". That's what God looks for in us. He doesn't look at our curriculum vitae or our personal profile. He doesn't look at our past achievements or our references. And He certainly doesn't look at our own promotional material. What He really wants to know is if we are full of the spirit. His spirit.
Moses does as God commands and commissions Joshua through the laying on of hands in front of the whole assembly, and so Israel has a new leader-in-waiting. But this isn't the end of Moses' story. Not yet.
Tuesday 28 September 2010
Numbers 22-24 - Balak and Balaam
Having defeated the Amorites and the Bashanites, the Israelites travel to the plains of Moab and camp along the river Jordan. The Moabites have seen how their new next door neighbours deal with people who get in their way and they're quite understandably a little nervous. Terrified in fact. The king of Moab, Balak, decides that something needs to be done about these Israelites and so he decides to call on Balaam, who appears to have been a Mesapotamian seer or prophet with a reputation as the go-to guy for curses and blessings. Balak wants him to curse the Israelites, and so the elders of Moab and Midian travel to Balak's home with the fee for divination. He invites them to stay the night, while he waits for a word from God.
This is where I get a little confused. Balaam says he will "give [the elders] the answer the Lord gives [him]". The fact that he uses the epithet "the Lord", the name God chose for Himself and which predominates throughout the Bible, implies that this is God with a capital G that he's talking to. Not any old god, but the same God that the Israelites worship. But Balaam isn't an Israelite. And the Moabites don't worship God either. Nobody involved in this plan to curse the Israelites worships God and surely it wouldn't take a genius to figure out that if you want to curse someone, you don't ask their god to do it. It would be like trying to hire a loving mother to asassinate her own son. Not going to work. So why does Balaam want to speak to Him? Well, he may not worship God, but chances are he knows of Him by reputation. This is the God that drowned the entire Egyptian army and set fire to two of His own priests because they disobeyed Him. And if it doesn't take a genius to work out that you don't ask that God to curse His own people, then neither does it take a genius to work out that if you want to curse His people yourself, you'd better have a word with Him first. Unless you fancy ending at the bottom of the sea or spontaneously combusting.
So God talks to Balaam and asks him who the men who have come to see him are. God already knows so He doesn't really need to ask, but maybe He wants to know what kind of guy Balaam is. Can He trust Him? It turns out He can, because Balaam tells Him exactly who the men are. God tells Balaam not to go with them or curse the Israelites because He has blessed them. Balaam dutifully returns to the men with this message, and they return to Balak. Balak's not one to give up so easily though, and he sends even more men to Balaam to try and persuade him with the offer of handsome rewards. Balaam tells them that nothing they could offer him could make him go against the word of God. And here it gets interesting because he calls Him "the Lord my God". Did you get that? Balaam called Him his God. I've already said that Balaam wasn't an Israelite, why refer to God as his God? Maybe he was trying to ingratiate himself. Or maybe his experience of God had had a profound impact on him. God was never just for the Israelites.
Balaam tells the men to stay the night, just as the others did, will he goes and speaks to God again. This time God tells him to go with the men, but to do only what He tells him. So the next day Balaam saddles his donkey and sets off. He's doing just as God said, and yet for some reason God is angry with him and sends an angel to stop him in his tracks. Balaam doesn't see the angel but his donkey does and turns off the road. Balaam isn't happy about this and he beats the donkey to get her back on the road. Again the angel appears, this time in a narrow place, so when the donkey tries to turn she crushed Balaam's foot against the wall. Again, Balaam beats the donkey to force her on. One last time, the angel appears, but here there is no place to turn so the donkey simply lies down. Balaam starts to beat her again, but the Lord opens the donkey's mouth and she asks Balaam why he keeps beating her. I think I might have been a little freaked out if my donkey suddenly started talking, but Balaam takes it all in his stride and answers her, saying that she has made a fool of him and he would kill her if he could. She asks him if she is in the habit of doing this, to which Balaam can only reply by saying no. I can't believe I'm about to say this, but the donkey has a point. If Balaam had though before striking out, he may have realised something was up.
At this point, God opens Balaam's eyes and he finally sees the angel with its sword drawn. The angel tells him that if it had not been for the donkey turning away, he would have killed him by now, and that he has come to stop him because his path is reckless before God. In the most literal sense, his path is the one dictated by God. He's going where God told him to go, so surely He can't be angry about that. Maybe there's another issue here. Like Balaam's career path. Balaam is into divination, which God has already declared an abomination. Before God lets him go to Balak to do His work, He needs to set him straight. So He reminds Balaam that he must speak only what He tells him. If we're on the wrong path, God will tell us. But more than that, He'll show us the right one.
So Balaam arrives in Moab and warns Balak that he can only say what God puts in his mouth. The next day, Balak takes Balaam up to Bamoth Baal, from where they can see part of the Israelite camp. They sacrifice seven rams and seven bulls, then Balaam goes away to await God's word. When he comes back, he tells Balaam that he cannot curse those who God has not cursed. He also describes the Israelites as a people who live apart and hopes for a righteous death and for his end to be like theirs. Balak isn't happy about this, but Balaam simply says that he can only speak God's words.
Balak tells Balaam to neither bless nor curse the Israelites, but then he changes his mind and decides to try again and takes Balaam to another place which commands a different view of the Israelites. Again they sacrifice seven bulls and seven rams, and again Balaam awaits Gods reply. This time Balaam comes back and says that God is not a man and so he is not fickle or a liar. He has chosen to bless the Israelites and so Balaam can not change that. Balaam also says that God is with the people and He protects and strengthens them so that others will say "See what God has done" and that there is no divination against Israel. In other words, Balak's plan won't work. Balak still wants another try though, so he takes Balaam to another spot and sacrifices another seven rams and seven bulls. Balaam realises now that God will speak if He wants to speak, and sorcery is not necessary, so he ditches all of the divination tricks he apparently used on the previous attempts, and the Spirit of God comes on him and he blesses the Israelites, describing the beauty of their land, their abundance, their power and their strength. This message, or oracle, is slightly different to the others, as he starts by saying it is the oracle of one who sees clearly, who has heard God and seen a vision from Him. God had managed to get through to him before, but now that he has ditched the sorcery, he can experience God in a more real and powerful way.
Balak is really angry now. He summoned Balaam to curse the Israelites, but instead he has blessed them three times. He refuses to pay Balaam, saying that God has kept him from his reward, but Balaam calmly replies that he told him all along that he could only say what God wanted him to say, and no reward was going to change that. As his parting shot, Balaam warns Balak and the surrounding nations that they will be destroyed by the Israelites. He then begins his journey back home, and that is the last we hear of him. I do wonder though, did his experience of God change him? Did he ditch the divination and tell his family and friends about the god he has called "the Most High" and claimed for himself? I'd like to think he did.
This is where I get a little confused. Balaam says he will "give [the elders] the answer the Lord gives [him]". The fact that he uses the epithet "the Lord", the name God chose for Himself and which predominates throughout the Bible, implies that this is God with a capital G that he's talking to. Not any old god, but the same God that the Israelites worship. But Balaam isn't an Israelite. And the Moabites don't worship God either. Nobody involved in this plan to curse the Israelites worships God and surely it wouldn't take a genius to figure out that if you want to curse someone, you don't ask their god to do it. It would be like trying to hire a loving mother to asassinate her own son. Not going to work. So why does Balaam want to speak to Him? Well, he may not worship God, but chances are he knows of Him by reputation. This is the God that drowned the entire Egyptian army and set fire to two of His own priests because they disobeyed Him. And if it doesn't take a genius to work out that you don't ask that God to curse His own people, then neither does it take a genius to work out that if you want to curse His people yourself, you'd better have a word with Him first. Unless you fancy ending at the bottom of the sea or spontaneously combusting.
So God talks to Balaam and asks him who the men who have come to see him are. God already knows so He doesn't really need to ask, but maybe He wants to know what kind of guy Balaam is. Can He trust Him? It turns out He can, because Balaam tells Him exactly who the men are. God tells Balaam not to go with them or curse the Israelites because He has blessed them. Balaam dutifully returns to the men with this message, and they return to Balak. Balak's not one to give up so easily though, and he sends even more men to Balaam to try and persuade him with the offer of handsome rewards. Balaam tells them that nothing they could offer him could make him go against the word of God. And here it gets interesting because he calls Him "the Lord my God". Did you get that? Balaam called Him his God. I've already said that Balaam wasn't an Israelite, why refer to God as his God? Maybe he was trying to ingratiate himself. Or maybe his experience of God had had a profound impact on him. God was never just for the Israelites.
Balaam tells the men to stay the night, just as the others did, will he goes and speaks to God again. This time God tells him to go with the men, but to do only what He tells him. So the next day Balaam saddles his donkey and sets off. He's doing just as God said, and yet for some reason God is angry with him and sends an angel to stop him in his tracks. Balaam doesn't see the angel but his donkey does and turns off the road. Balaam isn't happy about this and he beats the donkey to get her back on the road. Again the angel appears, this time in a narrow place, so when the donkey tries to turn she crushed Balaam's foot against the wall. Again, Balaam beats the donkey to force her on. One last time, the angel appears, but here there is no place to turn so the donkey simply lies down. Balaam starts to beat her again, but the Lord opens the donkey's mouth and she asks Balaam why he keeps beating her. I think I might have been a little freaked out if my donkey suddenly started talking, but Balaam takes it all in his stride and answers her, saying that she has made a fool of him and he would kill her if he could. She asks him if she is in the habit of doing this, to which Balaam can only reply by saying no. I can't believe I'm about to say this, but the donkey has a point. If Balaam had though before striking out, he may have realised something was up.
At this point, God opens Balaam's eyes and he finally sees the angel with its sword drawn. The angel tells him that if it had not been for the donkey turning away, he would have killed him by now, and that he has come to stop him because his path is reckless before God. In the most literal sense, his path is the one dictated by God. He's going where God told him to go, so surely He can't be angry about that. Maybe there's another issue here. Like Balaam's career path. Balaam is into divination, which God has already declared an abomination. Before God lets him go to Balak to do His work, He needs to set him straight. So He reminds Balaam that he must speak only what He tells him. If we're on the wrong path, God will tell us. But more than that, He'll show us the right one.
So Balaam arrives in Moab and warns Balak that he can only say what God puts in his mouth. The next day, Balak takes Balaam up to Bamoth Baal, from where they can see part of the Israelite camp. They sacrifice seven rams and seven bulls, then Balaam goes away to await God's word. When he comes back, he tells Balaam that he cannot curse those who God has not cursed. He also describes the Israelites as a people who live apart and hopes for a righteous death and for his end to be like theirs. Balak isn't happy about this, but Balaam simply says that he can only speak God's words.
Balak tells Balaam to neither bless nor curse the Israelites, but then he changes his mind and decides to try again and takes Balaam to another place which commands a different view of the Israelites. Again they sacrifice seven bulls and seven rams, and again Balaam awaits Gods reply. This time Balaam comes back and says that God is not a man and so he is not fickle or a liar. He has chosen to bless the Israelites and so Balaam can not change that. Balaam also says that God is with the people and He protects and strengthens them so that others will say "See what God has done" and that there is no divination against Israel. In other words, Balak's plan won't work. Balak still wants another try though, so he takes Balaam to another spot and sacrifices another seven rams and seven bulls. Balaam realises now that God will speak if He wants to speak, and sorcery is not necessary, so he ditches all of the divination tricks he apparently used on the previous attempts, and the Spirit of God comes on him and he blesses the Israelites, describing the beauty of their land, their abundance, their power and their strength. This message, or oracle, is slightly different to the others, as he starts by saying it is the oracle of one who sees clearly, who has heard God and seen a vision from Him. God had managed to get through to him before, but now that he has ditched the sorcery, he can experience God in a more real and powerful way.
Balak is really angry now. He summoned Balaam to curse the Israelites, but instead he has blessed them three times. He refuses to pay Balaam, saying that God has kept him from his reward, but Balaam calmly replies that he told him all along that he could only say what God wanted him to say, and no reward was going to change that. As his parting shot, Balaam warns Balak and the surrounding nations that they will be destroyed by the Israelites. He then begins his journey back home, and that is the last we hear of him. I do wonder though, did his experience of God change him? Did he ditch the divination and tell his family and friends about the god he has called "the Most High" and claimed for himself? I'd like to think he did.
Thursday 23 September 2010
Numbers 19-21 - Of Water and War
We've already heard about the laws regarding uncleanliness, but now God tells Moses what to do about it. Aaron's son, Eleazar, must go out into the desert and a young heifer must be sacrificed in his presence. Eleazar must then sprinkle some of the heifer's blood in the direction of the Tent of Meeting, and someone must burn the carcass and gather up the ashes. These ashes are then to be mixed with water, and that water is to be used to cleanse those who have become unclean through contact with a corpse or a grave. Anyone who does not purify himself must be cut off because he has defiled the sanctuary of the Lord.
I'm not quite sure I understand this. I get why staying away from dead bodies is a good idea - decomposition and nasty bacteria and all that - but I struggle with the ritualistic side. Surely being sprinkled with water mixed with the ashes of another dead body wouldn't really help anything. It's the same with the sacrifices. What was it about slaughtering an animal that atoned for sin? Maybe I'm missing the point. Maybe all of this is about showing a willingness to make up for our mistakes. It's like that episode of Friends when Chandler shuts himself in a box to apologise to Joey for kissing his girlfriend. Lying in a box for a few hours didn't reverse the betrayal, and it didn't work a magic spell of forgiveness on Joey, but it did have an impact because it showed that Chandler wanted to make amends. In the same way, killing animals and getting splashed with ash water 'worked' because by performing those actions, the people showed God that they were sorry and wanted to make amends. It's not always what we do that matters, but the intention behind it.
And now another story involving water. The Israelites have camped at Kadesh in the Desert of Zin. Miriam has died and been buried there, and now the community has run out of water. Again the people complain and again Moses prays, and God tells him to take his staff and speak to a particular rock, and water will pour from it. So Moses gathers the community and rebukes them, saying "Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?". Then he strikes the rock and water gushes from it. The people may be happy with this, but God certainly isn't. He tells Moses and Aaron, "Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them".
So why is God so mad at them? They did what they were told, didn't they? Well, not quite. By saying "must we bring you water", Moses appears to take credit for the miracle for himself and Aaron and in doing so he fails to honour God. As always, there is a price to pay, and for Moses and Aaron it's a big one. God may not smite them, but after all of their work leading the community, after all of the headaches and heartaches, He tells them they will not enter the promised land. Our actions have consequences, and we must be prepared to face them.
But for now Moses is still in charge, and the Israelites want to pass through Edom. Moses sends messages to the King, but he denies them passage and threatens them with attack. Moses asks again, promising to stay on the main road and pay for any water they drink, but again the king says no and this time he sends out his army. The army is large and powerful, so the Israelites turn away and camp at Mount Hor, on the border with Edom. Here God declares that Aaron will die. Aaron's robes are taken from him and given to Eleazar, then he goes up the mountain and there he dies.
The Israelites continue on their journey, and are attacked by the Canaanites who capture some of them. The Israelites then vow to God that if He delivers the Canaanites into their hands, they will destroy their cities. It seems God listens, because the Israelites destroy the Canaanites and their towns, and name the place Hormah, meaning "destruction". This brings us to one of the big questions of the Old Testament. Did God ever sanction, encourage or even aid war and mass murder? I don't know the answer to that, but it seems to me there are two main possibilities. Option 1 - God really did help the Israelites defeat their enemies, presumably because the Israelites had special privileges as the people who obeyed His laws. Option 2 - God did not support the Israelites' wars, but the people presumed that when they won it was because God favoured them, and when they lost it was because He was angry with them. It's another one of those we may never know the answer to, but it doesn't mean it's not worth asking the question.
Now we have a brief interlude where the people start their complaining again, and so God sends venomous snakes among them. For the first time (at least, for the first time I can remember) the people recognise that they have sinned and they ask Moses to pray that God will take the snakes away. It's taken a while, but they're finally learning. God tells Moses to put a bronze snake on a pole so that if anyone who has been bitten by a snake looks at it, they will be healed. A novel treatment, maybe, but it works.
After the snake incident, the Israelites resume their journeying, making their way to Moab. Here we get a long list of places they camp, as well as a brief description of the land and a song about a well. There is also a reference to the Book of Wars, presumably an historical account of the Israelites' campaigns. The Bible is not the whole story.
The Israelites' war really steps up a gear now, as they defeat the Amorites and the Bashanites. Moses sends messengers to the Sihon, king of the Amorites, asking for safe passage through his territory. He refuses and sends his army out against them, but the Israeiltes trounce them, capturing and occupying all of the cities of the Amorites. They take a moment to celebrate this in song, then march down the road to Bashan and defeat King Og and his entire army, leaving no survivors and taking possession of his land. How can so much war ever have been justified?
I'm not quite sure I understand this. I get why staying away from dead bodies is a good idea - decomposition and nasty bacteria and all that - but I struggle with the ritualistic side. Surely being sprinkled with water mixed with the ashes of another dead body wouldn't really help anything. It's the same with the sacrifices. What was it about slaughtering an animal that atoned for sin? Maybe I'm missing the point. Maybe all of this is about showing a willingness to make up for our mistakes. It's like that episode of Friends when Chandler shuts himself in a box to apologise to Joey for kissing his girlfriend. Lying in a box for a few hours didn't reverse the betrayal, and it didn't work a magic spell of forgiveness on Joey, but it did have an impact because it showed that Chandler wanted to make amends. In the same way, killing animals and getting splashed with ash water 'worked' because by performing those actions, the people showed God that they were sorry and wanted to make amends. It's not always what we do that matters, but the intention behind it.
And now another story involving water. The Israelites have camped at Kadesh in the Desert of Zin. Miriam has died and been buried there, and now the community has run out of water. Again the people complain and again Moses prays, and God tells him to take his staff and speak to a particular rock, and water will pour from it. So Moses gathers the community and rebukes them, saying "Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?". Then he strikes the rock and water gushes from it. The people may be happy with this, but God certainly isn't. He tells Moses and Aaron, "Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them".
So why is God so mad at them? They did what they were told, didn't they? Well, not quite. By saying "must we bring you water", Moses appears to take credit for the miracle for himself and Aaron and in doing so he fails to honour God. As always, there is a price to pay, and for Moses and Aaron it's a big one. God may not smite them, but after all of their work leading the community, after all of the headaches and heartaches, He tells them they will not enter the promised land. Our actions have consequences, and we must be prepared to face them.
But for now Moses is still in charge, and the Israelites want to pass through Edom. Moses sends messages to the King, but he denies them passage and threatens them with attack. Moses asks again, promising to stay on the main road and pay for any water they drink, but again the king says no and this time he sends out his army. The army is large and powerful, so the Israelites turn away and camp at Mount Hor, on the border with Edom. Here God declares that Aaron will die. Aaron's robes are taken from him and given to Eleazar, then he goes up the mountain and there he dies.
The Israelites continue on their journey, and are attacked by the Canaanites who capture some of them. The Israelites then vow to God that if He delivers the Canaanites into their hands, they will destroy their cities. It seems God listens, because the Israelites destroy the Canaanites and their towns, and name the place Hormah, meaning "destruction". This brings us to one of the big questions of the Old Testament. Did God ever sanction, encourage or even aid war and mass murder? I don't know the answer to that, but it seems to me there are two main possibilities. Option 1 - God really did help the Israelites defeat their enemies, presumably because the Israelites had special privileges as the people who obeyed His laws. Option 2 - God did not support the Israelites' wars, but the people presumed that when they won it was because God favoured them, and when they lost it was because He was angry with them. It's another one of those we may never know the answer to, but it doesn't mean it's not worth asking the question.
Now we have a brief interlude where the people start their complaining again, and so God sends venomous snakes among them. For the first time (at least, for the first time I can remember) the people recognise that they have sinned and they ask Moses to pray that God will take the snakes away. It's taken a while, but they're finally learning. God tells Moses to put a bronze snake on a pole so that if anyone who has been bitten by a snake looks at it, they will be healed. A novel treatment, maybe, but it works.
After the snake incident, the Israelites resume their journeying, making their way to Moab. Here we get a long list of places they camp, as well as a brief description of the land and a song about a well. There is also a reference to the Book of Wars, presumably an historical account of the Israelites' campaigns. The Bible is not the whole story.
The Israelites' war really steps up a gear now, as they defeat the Amorites and the Bashanites. Moses sends messengers to the Sihon, king of the Amorites, asking for safe passage through his territory. He refuses and sends his army out against them, but the Israeiltes trounce them, capturing and occupying all of the cities of the Amorites. They take a moment to celebrate this in song, then march down the road to Bashan and defeat King Og and his entire army, leaving no survivors and taking possession of his land. How can so much war ever have been justified?
Wednesday 22 September 2010
Numbers 16-18 - In Which There Is More Moaning
The people's grumbling has just earned them another forty years in the desert, and yet they continue to moan. They just don't learn. This time, two hundred and fifty community leaders led by Korah, Dathan and Abiram rise up aginst Moses and Aaron. They accuse the brothers of going too far in exalting themselves above the community, something which they have no right to do because all the people are holy. They do have a point - the community is supposed to be holy, and any superiority or arrogance on Moses and Aaron's part would be wrong - but there a few flaws in their argument. Firstly, Moses and Aaron did not choose their positions. It was God who called them to be His spokesman and His priest, and it was not for the people to question His choices. Secondly, if Moses and Aaron had been abusing these positions, the leaders would have had a right to complain, but that does not seem to have been the case. There is no evidence of them demanding special privileges, and we have already been told that Moses was the most humble of men. Finally, although the Israelites were meant to be God's chosen people, they had not proved themselves to be holy. They appear to have spent most of their time in the desert grumbling against God, and He has had to repeat Himself so many times that you start to wonder if they listened to Him at all. They were in no position to be claiming privileges for themselves.
Moses first reaction is to fall face down. Generally this is considered to be an attitude of prayer, so presumably that's what he was doing. Instead of listing his credentials and telling the leaders why they should listen to him, he gets down on his knees and prays. I wish that was my gut reaction to problems, but I'm afraid that's something I'm still working on. When Moses stands back up again, he tells them that they will gather the next day and God will show who is holy and who He has chosen. This may sound like Moses is saying "I'll show you God likes me better", which would rather prove the leaders' point, but I don't think that's what's going on here. This isn't about proving Moses right, it's about proving the leaders wrong, showing them the error of their ways. But more than that, it's about handing the dispute over to God. Remember, there was alwas the chance that God could side with the leaders.
Of course, He doesn't. The following day, the three men who led the rebellion - Korah, Dathan and Abiram - are swallowed up by the earth while the two hundred and fifty who followed them are destroyed by fire. The people still haven’t learnt their lesson though, and the next day they start complaining again, accusing Moses and Aaron of killing the leaders. God really loses His temper now and sends out a plague which Aaron only succeeds in stopping once 14, 700 people have died. I used that phrase “loses His temper” without really thinking about it, but now it has made me think. Maybe when God punished people like this it wasn’t because He was being deliberately hard or cruel, it was because He was angry. He feels just like we do, but the difference is that when God gets mad He has the power and the authority to do something about it.
You’d think that God would be happy that He’d made His point by now, but he knows that the Israelites need telling several times before they pay any attention, so He gives it one last shot. He tells Moses to bring one staff for each leader of the ancestral tribes, including one for Aaron as leader of the Levites, to the Tent of Meeting. He says that the staff belonging to the man He chooses with sprout, and then He can be rid of the people’s constant grumbling. The next day, Moses goes to the Tent of Meeting and sees that Aaron’s staff has sprouted, blossomed and produced almonds. God has appointed His man for all the people to see. Now that they have seen they can finally believe, but it would have gone better for them it they had believed without having to see and trusted Moses and Aaron in the first place. We need to have faith in other people as well as in God. As Yul Bryner sings in The King and I, “unless somebody trusts somebody sometime, there’ll be nothing in the world excepting fishes”.
Now that God has reestablished Aaron as priest, He reminds him of some of the terms and conditions of his contract. The Levites are to take responsibility for the care of the Tent of Meeting, but Aaron and his sons alone must care for the sanctuary and the altar. The Levites will not have an inheritance in the land because God is their inheritance, but they will take as their wages all that is offered or tithed or devoted to God. And from now on, the people must not come near the Tent, meaning that only the Levites may approach God. God still calls His followers to set themselves apart from the world and live different lives, but He no longer makes these distinctions as to who can and can’t come near to Him. That belonged to the old covenant, where holiness was achieved through actions not through grace. Now we can all approach Him, no matter who we are or where we are coming from.
Moses first reaction is to fall face down. Generally this is considered to be an attitude of prayer, so presumably that's what he was doing. Instead of listing his credentials and telling the leaders why they should listen to him, he gets down on his knees and prays. I wish that was my gut reaction to problems, but I'm afraid that's something I'm still working on. When Moses stands back up again, he tells them that they will gather the next day and God will show who is holy and who He has chosen. This may sound like Moses is saying "I'll show you God likes me better", which would rather prove the leaders' point, but I don't think that's what's going on here. This isn't about proving Moses right, it's about proving the leaders wrong, showing them the error of their ways. But more than that, it's about handing the dispute over to God. Remember, there was alwas the chance that God could side with the leaders.
Of course, He doesn't. The following day, the three men who led the rebellion - Korah, Dathan and Abiram - are swallowed up by the earth while the two hundred and fifty who followed them are destroyed by fire. The people still haven’t learnt their lesson though, and the next day they start complaining again, accusing Moses and Aaron of killing the leaders. God really loses His temper now and sends out a plague which Aaron only succeeds in stopping once 14, 700 people have died. I used that phrase “loses His temper” without really thinking about it, but now it has made me think. Maybe when God punished people like this it wasn’t because He was being deliberately hard or cruel, it was because He was angry. He feels just like we do, but the difference is that when God gets mad He has the power and the authority to do something about it.
You’d think that God would be happy that He’d made His point by now, but he knows that the Israelites need telling several times before they pay any attention, so He gives it one last shot. He tells Moses to bring one staff for each leader of the ancestral tribes, including one for Aaron as leader of the Levites, to the Tent of Meeting. He says that the staff belonging to the man He chooses with sprout, and then He can be rid of the people’s constant grumbling. The next day, Moses goes to the Tent of Meeting and sees that Aaron’s staff has sprouted, blossomed and produced almonds. God has appointed His man for all the people to see. Now that they have seen they can finally believe, but it would have gone better for them it they had believed without having to see and trusted Moses and Aaron in the first place. We need to have faith in other people as well as in God. As Yul Bryner sings in The King and I, “unless somebody trusts somebody sometime, there’ll be nothing in the world excepting fishes”.
Now that God has reestablished Aaron as priest, He reminds him of some of the terms and conditions of his contract. The Levites are to take responsibility for the care of the Tent of Meeting, but Aaron and his sons alone must care for the sanctuary and the altar. The Levites will not have an inheritance in the land because God is their inheritance, but they will take as their wages all that is offered or tithed or devoted to God. And from now on, the people must not come near the Tent, meaning that only the Levites may approach God. God still calls His followers to set themselves apart from the world and live different lives, but He no longer makes these distinctions as to who can and can’t come near to Him. That belonged to the old covenant, where holiness was achieved through actions not through grace. Now we can all approach Him, no matter who we are or where we are coming from.
Tuesday 21 September 2010
Numbers 13-15 - Exploring the Promised Land
God has kept talking about the land that He is going to give the Israelites, and now they finally get to see it for the first time. One man from each tribe is sent into Canaan to explore the land before they enter it. This then is the beginning of the Israelites' struggle to claim the land for their own. Our battles may not be so literal, but they exist nonetheless. Peer pressure, injustice, depression addiction...we are all fighting something. And so whatever the rights and wrongs of the Israelites' struggle, there are lessons to be learned from this rather faltering start.
Lesson 1: Preparation Moses tells the twelve scouts to find out what the land is like, whether the cities are fortified and how strong the people are. As they say, know your enemy. It's the same for us. We need to know what we're fighting for or against and we need to spend time thinking and praying about what we can do about it. Just rushing in won't work.
Lesson 2: Faith The scouts are impressed by the land, but they panic when they see how strong the people of Canaan are. There's no way they can defeat them, they say. What they forget is that they are not alone. God won't fight our battles for us, and if they're the wrong battles He won't fight at all, but if we're fighting for God He will support us. We need to put our trust in Him and ask Him if we can instead of immediately saying we can't.
Lesson 3: Courage The Israelites do not have faith and so they become afraid, and the scouts start to spread lies about Canaan, saying that it is populated by the Nephilim (legendary giant warriors) and devours all who enter it. If we do not have faith, it is easy to give in to fear. Even when we do trust in God we can get a little nervous. Those feelings are not wrong in themselves, but as Yoda says, "fear is the path to the dark side". It can lead to cowardice and hate and anger, and they can in turn lead to sin and suffering. We need to stand strong, because when we act with courage we can act with honour.
Lesson 4: Intelligence God declares that no one who has failed to trust Him will see the promised land. The people will remain in the desert for another forty years, by which time all those who grumbled against Him will have died. When the people hear this, they are ashamed of their lack of faith, and despite what God has just said, they decide to try to make it up to Him by entering Canaan. Moses tells them not to because God is not with them, but they do it anyway and they are beaten back. Some battles we are just not going to win, normally the ones we shouldn't be fighting in the first place, and we need to learn to recognise those and just stay out of them. A little thought goes a long way.
Moving into the promised land hasn't worked out, so now we return to the law and God outlines supplementary offerings to be given alongside those already prescribed. What is really interesting here is how much emphasis is given to the fact that these laws apply to aliens as well as the native-born Israelites. We talk about Israel being a chosen nation, but the truth is that God always wanted all of His people to be treated equally. The Israelites were not special simply because of their birth, but because of their observance of the Law, and so anybody could follow the Law and become part of God's people. The problem was that the Israelites didn't seem to share this crucial piece of information. That's part of the reason Jesus came, but that's for later.
God then reminds the people that if they sin unintentionally, they must offer a sacrifice to make atonement; but if a person sins defiantly, they must be cut off from their people. We are told that no sin is worse than any other, so why is there this distinction? Maybe because if the sin is deliberate it is compounded by a wilful disrespect of God, and it is that disrespect that really hurts Him. Imagine someone opens a door they didn't know you were stood behind and it hits you in the face and breaks your nose. You'd want them to say sorry, but you wouldn't blame them and you wouldn't hold it against them. Now imagine someone punches you in the face and purposefully breaks your nose. It's just as broken as when the other oerson did it by accident, and again you forgive them when they eventually apologise, but it still upsets you more because you know someone wanted to hurt you. It's the same for God. I believe that He offers salvation to all who truly repent, whether their sins were deliberate or not, but it is important that we realise what we do to Him when we deliberately disobey Him.
Finally, God tells the people to put tassels on their clothing to remind them of His commands. We can all be a little forgetful at times, so it's good for us to have little reminders to keep us on track. That may be a cross we wear or an icthus fish in our car window or a prayer card in our bag or any number of other things. It doesn't really matter because it's not the thing that's important, it's what it represents. But we need to be careful that it does not fade into the background so that we scarcely notice it anymore. Every time we look at that thing, it should remind us of God's word.
Lesson 1: Preparation Moses tells the twelve scouts to find out what the land is like, whether the cities are fortified and how strong the people are. As they say, know your enemy. It's the same for us. We need to know what we're fighting for or against and we need to spend time thinking and praying about what we can do about it. Just rushing in won't work.
Lesson 2: Faith The scouts are impressed by the land, but they panic when they see how strong the people of Canaan are. There's no way they can defeat them, they say. What they forget is that they are not alone. God won't fight our battles for us, and if they're the wrong battles He won't fight at all, but if we're fighting for God He will support us. We need to put our trust in Him and ask Him if we can instead of immediately saying we can't.
Lesson 3: Courage The Israelites do not have faith and so they become afraid, and the scouts start to spread lies about Canaan, saying that it is populated by the Nephilim (legendary giant warriors) and devours all who enter it. If we do not have faith, it is easy to give in to fear. Even when we do trust in God we can get a little nervous. Those feelings are not wrong in themselves, but as Yoda says, "fear is the path to the dark side". It can lead to cowardice and hate and anger, and they can in turn lead to sin and suffering. We need to stand strong, because when we act with courage we can act with honour.
Lesson 4: Intelligence God declares that no one who has failed to trust Him will see the promised land. The people will remain in the desert for another forty years, by which time all those who grumbled against Him will have died. When the people hear this, they are ashamed of their lack of faith, and despite what God has just said, they decide to try to make it up to Him by entering Canaan. Moses tells them not to because God is not with them, but they do it anyway and they are beaten back. Some battles we are just not going to win, normally the ones we shouldn't be fighting in the first place, and we need to learn to recognise those and just stay out of them. A little thought goes a long way.
Moving into the promised land hasn't worked out, so now we return to the law and God outlines supplementary offerings to be given alongside those already prescribed. What is really interesting here is how much emphasis is given to the fact that these laws apply to aliens as well as the native-born Israelites. We talk about Israel being a chosen nation, but the truth is that God always wanted all of His people to be treated equally. The Israelites were not special simply because of their birth, but because of their observance of the Law, and so anybody could follow the Law and become part of God's people. The problem was that the Israelites didn't seem to share this crucial piece of information. That's part of the reason Jesus came, but that's for later.
God then reminds the people that if they sin unintentionally, they must offer a sacrifice to make atonement; but if a person sins defiantly, they must be cut off from their people. We are told that no sin is worse than any other, so why is there this distinction? Maybe because if the sin is deliberate it is compounded by a wilful disrespect of God, and it is that disrespect that really hurts Him. Imagine someone opens a door they didn't know you were stood behind and it hits you in the face and breaks your nose. You'd want them to say sorry, but you wouldn't blame them and you wouldn't hold it against them. Now imagine someone punches you in the face and purposefully breaks your nose. It's just as broken as when the other oerson did it by accident, and again you forgive them when they eventually apologise, but it still upsets you more because you know someone wanted to hurt you. It's the same for God. I believe that He offers salvation to all who truly repent, whether their sins were deliberate or not, but it is important that we realise what we do to Him when we deliberately disobey Him.
Finally, God tells the people to put tassels on their clothing to remind them of His commands. We can all be a little forgetful at times, so it's good for us to have little reminders to keep us on track. That may be a cross we wear or an icthus fish in our car window or a prayer card in our bag or any number of other things. It doesn't really matter because it's not the thing that's important, it's what it represents. But we need to be careful that it does not fade into the background so that we scarcely notice it anymore. Every time we look at that thing, it should remind us of God's word.
Friday 17 September 2010
Numbers 9-12 - Dissatisfaction in the Desert
Two years in the desert means two years since the exodus, so now God reminds Moses that it's time to celebrate Passover again. As the Israelites begin to prepare for the meal, one group of people approaches Moses, worried that they will be excluded because they have been made unclean by a corpse. Moses doesn't know what to tell them, so he goes away to ask God's opinion. How often do we do that? And how often do we rush in and give an answer we're not really sure about? If somebody asks us a tricky theological question, it's okay to say we don't know. It's even better if we then pray about it and go back to that person with God's answer. But back to Moses. God tells Him that the unclean people may join in with the meal just like everybody else, and so may foreigners living among the Israelites. God didn't want the people to miss out, and He doesn't want us to miss out. That's why He accepts us no matter what state we're in.
Here we are told again that on the day the Tabernacle was set up, a cloud appeared over the tent. While the cloud remained, the people stayed put. When the cloud lifted, the people packed up and followed it until it stopped. "At the Lord's command they encamped, and at the Lord's command they set out." Can we say the same for ourselves?
God then tells Moses to make two silver trumpets. These are to be used to call either the leaders of the clans or the whole community to assemble. They are also to be sounded when the Israelites go into battle, because then God will remember them and come to their aid. God wants us to hold Him accountable to His promises, and we have the right to remind Him of them.
And now it is time to move on. The cloud lifts and the people set out in their clans and divisions. Every time the people set out, Moses calls on God to go before them and clear their way, and every time they camp, Moses calls on God to return to His people. Essentially, he starts and ends every day with a prayer. If we want to build a relationship with God, we need to spend time with Him. Wouldn't saying good morning and good night be an excellent start?
The people aren't happy, though. They complain about their hardships, so God sends fire among them. Then, despite the fact that God has continued to send them manna every day, they complain that they don't have enough meat to eat. Their ingratitude is disgusting, but unfortunately it's not all that surprising. So often we ignore what we have and waste our time and energy pining over something we don't. We torture ourselves with longing and miss out on everything our lives already have to offer us. It's not good for us, and we know that deep down, so why do we persist on doing it? The fire clearly hadn't stopped the people from moaning, so now God decides to try a different tactic. He says He will send them meat "until it comes out of their nostrils and they loathe it". It's as they say, you should be careful what you wish for. Be thankful for what you have because what you desire may be far worse.
The people aren't the only ones who are dissatisfied, though. Moses has taken a Cushite wife, and it seems Miriam and Aaron aren't happy about it. That's not the real issue here though, because what they actually say is "Has the Lord spoken only through Moses?...Hasn't he also spoken through us?" They use Moses' wife as an excuse to have a bit of a moan, but they are really annoyed because they feel like their contribution has been overlooked. They do have a point - it's important that we recognise everyone's gifts and listen to what God has to say through them - but their whining smacks of arrogance and a desire for praise. They're totally missing the point. We serve God because it is the least He deserves from us, not for glory or honour.
God is angered by their grumbling and calls them to the Tent of Meeting, where He basically tells them that Moses is a faithful servant and that they should not have spoken against him. This isn't one of those ordinances that last from generation to generation and it doesn't mean that all leaders are beyond reproach, or that we should never criticise them. No one is infallible, and when a minister does wrong we need to speak out, just as we would with any other person. The point is, they shouldn't have criticised Moses because He didn't deserve it. There is no place for baseless gossip and slander. God also says that while He speaks to others in riddles and dreams, He speaks to Moses clearly, face to face. It may seem that this is because God like Moses better than the others, but that's not necessarily the case, and I certainly don't believe that God practises favouritism now. I do believe though that there are many ways in which God can speak to us, and He will speak to each of us in different ways at different times, because He knows how we will hear Him best.
Here we are told again that on the day the Tabernacle was set up, a cloud appeared over the tent. While the cloud remained, the people stayed put. When the cloud lifted, the people packed up and followed it until it stopped. "At the Lord's command they encamped, and at the Lord's command they set out." Can we say the same for ourselves?
God then tells Moses to make two silver trumpets. These are to be used to call either the leaders of the clans or the whole community to assemble. They are also to be sounded when the Israelites go into battle, because then God will remember them and come to their aid. God wants us to hold Him accountable to His promises, and we have the right to remind Him of them.
And now it is time to move on. The cloud lifts and the people set out in their clans and divisions. Every time the people set out, Moses calls on God to go before them and clear their way, and every time they camp, Moses calls on God to return to His people. Essentially, he starts and ends every day with a prayer. If we want to build a relationship with God, we need to spend time with Him. Wouldn't saying good morning and good night be an excellent start?
The people aren't happy, though. They complain about their hardships, so God sends fire among them. Then, despite the fact that God has continued to send them manna every day, they complain that they don't have enough meat to eat. Their ingratitude is disgusting, but unfortunately it's not all that surprising. So often we ignore what we have and waste our time and energy pining over something we don't. We torture ourselves with longing and miss out on everything our lives already have to offer us. It's not good for us, and we know that deep down, so why do we persist on doing it? The fire clearly hadn't stopped the people from moaning, so now God decides to try a different tactic. He says He will send them meat "until it comes out of their nostrils and they loathe it". It's as they say, you should be careful what you wish for. Be thankful for what you have because what you desire may be far worse.
The people aren't the only ones who are dissatisfied, though. Moses has taken a Cushite wife, and it seems Miriam and Aaron aren't happy about it. That's not the real issue here though, because what they actually say is "Has the Lord spoken only through Moses?...Hasn't he also spoken through us?" They use Moses' wife as an excuse to have a bit of a moan, but they are really annoyed because they feel like their contribution has been overlooked. They do have a point - it's important that we recognise everyone's gifts and listen to what God has to say through them - but their whining smacks of arrogance and a desire for praise. They're totally missing the point. We serve God because it is the least He deserves from us, not for glory or honour.
God is angered by their grumbling and calls them to the Tent of Meeting, where He basically tells them that Moses is a faithful servant and that they should not have spoken against him. This isn't one of those ordinances that last from generation to generation and it doesn't mean that all leaders are beyond reproach, or that we should never criticise them. No one is infallible, and when a minister does wrong we need to speak out, just as we would with any other person. The point is, they shouldn't have criticised Moses because He didn't deserve it. There is no place for baseless gossip and slander. God also says that while He speaks to others in riddles and dreams, He speaks to Moses clearly, face to face. It may seem that this is because God like Moses better than the others, but that's not necessarily the case, and I certainly don't believe that God practises favouritism now. I do believe though that there are many ways in which God can speak to us, and He will speak to each of us in different ways at different times, because He knows how we will hear Him best.
Thursday 16 September 2010
Numbers 5-8 - More Laws, Offerings and Rituals
God has already said that those with infectious skin disease must be sent outside the camp, but now He extends the rule of exclusion to those who are ceremonially unclean because of discharge or contact with a dead animal. He says this must be done so that the unclean do not defile the camp where He dwells. It sounds like this is for God's benefit, and maybe that's part of it. Maybe He didn't want to be affected by our human imperfections. Maybe He needed to stay away from impurity to keep Himself pure. I don't know, but I do think it was actually more for the people's benefit. Skin diseases can be highly contagious, discharge can be a symptom of a more serious illness, and dead bodies can carry all sorts of nasty and harmful diseases, so they could all lead to serious health problems if left unchecked. As I said in a previous post, exclusion was a way of removing infection from the camp to prevent it from spreading. It was not about ostracising or persecuting the sick and the vulnerable, it was about protecting the community.
God then outlines the system for restitution for wrongs, whereby the guilty person must confess and pay the injured party full restitution plus one fifth. I'm not sure exactly what wrongs this law applied to, but God has already detailed specific punishments for theft, murder and rape, so I'm thinking maybe criminal damage. If they cannot pay the person they have wronged, they must pay a close relative of that person; and if there is no close relative, they must pay the priest. It's tempting to wonder of that last clause was added in by some opportunistic priest, but maybe that's too cynical. And it's beside the point. If this system sounds familiar, it's because it works just like the guilt offering. You see, God is not the only person we need to apologise to and seek forgiveness from. When we hurt someone we must own up, we must say sorry and we must make amends.
Next comes the test for an unfaithful wife. If a man suspects his wife of adultery but has no proof, he must take her to the priest with the appropriate offerings, and the priest must put the woman under an oath and give her bitter water to drink. If she is innocent she will come to no harm, but if she has slept with another man her abdomen will swell and her thigh will waste away. Another possible translation is that she will become barren or suffer miscarriages. It's like some sort of medieval witch hunt meets Jeremy Kyle. Can this really have come from God? Would he really turn justice into this kind of superstitious spectacle? My gut says not. And why is the sort of ritual only used for women accused of adultery? Why not male adulterers? Or people suspected of other crimes? Something here doesn't ring true. It doesn't fit with the rest of law. More importantly, it doesn't fit with what I know of God, and that is the mark we must test everything against.
Moving on, we have the Nazarite vows. A man or woman could choose to take become a Nazarite by taking a special vow of separation for a set period of time. While they were under these vows, they must abstain from alcohol, let their hair grow and keep themselves ceremonially clean. At the end of the allotted period, they must make a sacrifice to God and shave and burn their hair with it. We're not told why a person would want to make such a vow, but the fact that it is described as a "vow of separation to the Lord" suggests that it was about setting aside time to step away from the world and focus more closely on God. Sometimes we really need that. These vows were only temporary though. Faith is forever, but its expression will change as we change and our circumstances change, and that's okay.
Here we find the priestly blessing. The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace. I grew up listening to this blessing and I have always loved it. The phrase "bless you" is used with such frequency and carelessness that it's easy to forget what it really mean. Well this is it. It means praying for God's to show His grace and peace and care to another person. How beautiful!
Now it's time for the dedication of the Tabernacle. Over twelve consecutive days, the leaders of each of the twelve tribes come to the altar to present their offering. In each case we are told the name of the leader and the details of their offering. Each offering is the same - a silver plate and bowl filled with flour and oil, a gold dish filled with incense, a bull, a ram, a lamb, a goat, two oxen, five more rams, five more goats, and five more lambs -but we are given the details twelve times over. Somebody's trying really hard to make a point about offerings. Why? This wasn't a regular offering so the people didn't need to know about, so it kind of feels like the leaders are showing off. It's like when a celebrity promotes a charity by telling you how much they've given. It's arrogant and condescending. And it sort of misses the point. Sure, we should be encouraged to give, to people and to God, but if we're bullied or shamed into it, it doesn't mean very much.
Finally, Moses sets up the lamps and as instructed by God, and then sets apart the priests. They have already been ordained, but now they must be dedicated because they are to be given wholly to God in place of the firstborn. They shave and wash, and a sacrifice is made. Most interestingly, the community lay hands on the priests. It reinforces what I've said before. Our ministers need our support and our blessing if they are to best serve us and God.
God then outlines the system for restitution for wrongs, whereby the guilty person must confess and pay the injured party full restitution plus one fifth. I'm not sure exactly what wrongs this law applied to, but God has already detailed specific punishments for theft, murder and rape, so I'm thinking maybe criminal damage. If they cannot pay the person they have wronged, they must pay a close relative of that person; and if there is no close relative, they must pay the priest. It's tempting to wonder of that last clause was added in by some opportunistic priest, but maybe that's too cynical. And it's beside the point. If this system sounds familiar, it's because it works just like the guilt offering. You see, God is not the only person we need to apologise to and seek forgiveness from. When we hurt someone we must own up, we must say sorry and we must make amends.
Next comes the test for an unfaithful wife. If a man suspects his wife of adultery but has no proof, he must take her to the priest with the appropriate offerings, and the priest must put the woman under an oath and give her bitter water to drink. If she is innocent she will come to no harm, but if she has slept with another man her abdomen will swell and her thigh will waste away. Another possible translation is that she will become barren or suffer miscarriages. It's like some sort of medieval witch hunt meets Jeremy Kyle. Can this really have come from God? Would he really turn justice into this kind of superstitious spectacle? My gut says not. And why is the sort of ritual only used for women accused of adultery? Why not male adulterers? Or people suspected of other crimes? Something here doesn't ring true. It doesn't fit with the rest of law. More importantly, it doesn't fit with what I know of God, and that is the mark we must test everything against.
Moving on, we have the Nazarite vows. A man or woman could choose to take become a Nazarite by taking a special vow of separation for a set period of time. While they were under these vows, they must abstain from alcohol, let their hair grow and keep themselves ceremonially clean. At the end of the allotted period, they must make a sacrifice to God and shave and burn their hair with it. We're not told why a person would want to make such a vow, but the fact that it is described as a "vow of separation to the Lord" suggests that it was about setting aside time to step away from the world and focus more closely on God. Sometimes we really need that. These vows were only temporary though. Faith is forever, but its expression will change as we change and our circumstances change, and that's okay.
Here we find the priestly blessing. The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace. I grew up listening to this blessing and I have always loved it. The phrase "bless you" is used with such frequency and carelessness that it's easy to forget what it really mean. Well this is it. It means praying for God's to show His grace and peace and care to another person. How beautiful!
Now it's time for the dedication of the Tabernacle. Over twelve consecutive days, the leaders of each of the twelve tribes come to the altar to present their offering. In each case we are told the name of the leader and the details of their offering. Each offering is the same - a silver plate and bowl filled with flour and oil, a gold dish filled with incense, a bull, a ram, a lamb, a goat, two oxen, five more rams, five more goats, and five more lambs -but we are given the details twelve times over. Somebody's trying really hard to make a point about offerings. Why? This wasn't a regular offering so the people didn't need to know about, so it kind of feels like the leaders are showing off. It's like when a celebrity promotes a charity by telling you how much they've given. It's arrogant and condescending. And it sort of misses the point. Sure, we should be encouraged to give, to people and to God, but if we're bullied or shamed into it, it doesn't mean very much.
Finally, Moses sets up the lamps and as instructed by God, and then sets apart the priests. They have already been ordained, but now they must be dedicated because they are to be given wholly to God in place of the firstborn. They shave and wash, and a sacrifice is made. Most interestingly, the community lay hands on the priests. It reinforces what I've said before. Our ministers need our support and our blessing if they are to best serve us and God.
Wednesday 15 September 2010
Numbers 1-4 - The Census and the Levites
The Israelites have been in the desert for two years, and now God tells Moses to "take a census of the whole Israelite community, by their clans and families, listing every man by name, one by one". God already knows how many people there are, and he knows who and where and how old they are, so why bother? Well maybe He wants the people to know. Maybe He wants them to be more aware of each other. It's easy to look out at the world and see a mass of people, but our attitudes begin to change when we name them "one by one". That's why war memorials list the names of the dead. And it's why we need to engage with people as individuals. But maybe I'm oversentimentalising things. Maybe it was purely practical. God had already instructed the people to look after the vulnerable, and they could only do that if they knew who and where they were. In the same way, we need to get to know our communities so we know how we can best serve them.
God then appoints a man from each tribe to help Moses with the census. These sorts of administrative duties can feel trivial and unexciting, and I suspect they are often left to whoever's not doing anything else. I also suspect that the person left doing them often feels inferior to the person doing the big upfront obvious stuff. The big Hollywood film star is more important than the guy who photocopies the scripts, right? Wrong. If the objective is making a film, then the man with the photocopier is just as important as the leading lady. Without him, no one knows what they're doing and the film doesn't get made. It's the same in the church. The friendly face at the door is just as important as the minister speaking at the front, and the person who sorts out the rotas is just as important as the singer leading the congregation in worship. After all, if the church isn't welcoming, no one will come back; and if no one knows what's going on, no one will come at all. We are all valued and we are all valuable.
And so Aaron and his helpers conduct the census and find there are 603, 550 men over the age of twenty, not counting the Levites. Add in the women, the children and the Levites and there must have been well over a million. That's a lot of people living in the desert, but God takes care of every single one of them. He's a safe pair of hands.
After the census, God tells Moses and Aaron to organise the Israelites according to their tribes. The Tent of Meeting and the camp of the Levites are to be set up at the centre of the encampment, with the tribes of Judah, Isaachar and Zebulun to the east, the tribes of Reuben, Simeon and Gad to the south, the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh and Benjamin to the west, and the tribes of Dan, Asher and Naphtali to the north. This may sound like God was dividing the Israelites and breaking up the community, but I don't think that was the point ofthe exercise. I think the key is in the last sentence of this section, where we are told that "this is the way they set out, each with his clan and family". This was about keeping the Israelites together by strengthening familial relationships. The Israelite nation was far too big at this point to be treated as a single entity. People would get lost or go unnoticed, and it would be impossible for everyone to know each other. Arguments and divisions would soon arise and the community would fall apart. Splitting the people into smaller family groups would have made it easier to generate a sense of belonging, and this would have held the people together. It's important that we recognise our place in the world in its widest sense, but it's also vital that we look at building relationships and smaller communities where we are.
I can't remember if I touched on this before, but God has previously said that all of the the firstborn of the people of Israel belong to Him. He has already made provisions for redeeming the firstborn children, but now He says that He will accept the Levites in their place. There are 22,273 firstborn males and 22,000 Levites, so God takes for Himself all of the Levites, plus 5 shekels for each of the remaining 273. The Levites have already been set aside for God's service, so He doesn't really gain anything from this arrangement. It is however much kinder on the people, as it means families do not have to give up their children. God asks only for what is His by right, but even then He thinks of us first.
Finally, God moves on to the role of the Levites. The Gershonites were to be in charge of the care and transportation of the materials of the tabernacle, the Korathites were to take responsibility for the ark, the lampstand, the altars and the holy objects, and to the Merarites fell the task of looking after the framework of the tent as well as the posts, pegs and ropes. These roles were passed down from generation to generation, and so all members of the Levite tribe were born into a particular service. They didn't have much say in the matter. In the same way, the place and time into which we are born and our circumstances thereafter will determine to a large extent what we can do. Often that can feel frustrating, and we can wish things were different, but God knows us and He knows our situations and He plans accordingly. Those plans may be clear from birth as they were for the Levites, or they may be revealed later as they were to Moses, but they are laid out from the start and they are our own personal birthright.
God then appoints a man from each tribe to help Moses with the census. These sorts of administrative duties can feel trivial and unexciting, and I suspect they are often left to whoever's not doing anything else. I also suspect that the person left doing them often feels inferior to the person doing the big upfront obvious stuff. The big Hollywood film star is more important than the guy who photocopies the scripts, right? Wrong. If the objective is making a film, then the man with the photocopier is just as important as the leading lady. Without him, no one knows what they're doing and the film doesn't get made. It's the same in the church. The friendly face at the door is just as important as the minister speaking at the front, and the person who sorts out the rotas is just as important as the singer leading the congregation in worship. After all, if the church isn't welcoming, no one will come back; and if no one knows what's going on, no one will come at all. We are all valued and we are all valuable.
And so Aaron and his helpers conduct the census and find there are 603, 550 men over the age of twenty, not counting the Levites. Add in the women, the children and the Levites and there must have been well over a million. That's a lot of people living in the desert, but God takes care of every single one of them. He's a safe pair of hands.
After the census, God tells Moses and Aaron to organise the Israelites according to their tribes. The Tent of Meeting and the camp of the Levites are to be set up at the centre of the encampment, with the tribes of Judah, Isaachar and Zebulun to the east, the tribes of Reuben, Simeon and Gad to the south, the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh and Benjamin to the west, and the tribes of Dan, Asher and Naphtali to the north. This may sound like God was dividing the Israelites and breaking up the community, but I don't think that was the point ofthe exercise. I think the key is in the last sentence of this section, where we are told that "this is the way they set out, each with his clan and family". This was about keeping the Israelites together by strengthening familial relationships. The Israelite nation was far too big at this point to be treated as a single entity. People would get lost or go unnoticed, and it would be impossible for everyone to know each other. Arguments and divisions would soon arise and the community would fall apart. Splitting the people into smaller family groups would have made it easier to generate a sense of belonging, and this would have held the people together. It's important that we recognise our place in the world in its widest sense, but it's also vital that we look at building relationships and smaller communities where we are.
I can't remember if I touched on this before, but God has previously said that all of the the firstborn of the people of Israel belong to Him. He has already made provisions for redeeming the firstborn children, but now He says that He will accept the Levites in their place. There are 22,273 firstborn males and 22,000 Levites, so God takes for Himself all of the Levites, plus 5 shekels for each of the remaining 273. The Levites have already been set aside for God's service, so He doesn't really gain anything from this arrangement. It is however much kinder on the people, as it means families do not have to give up their children. God asks only for what is His by right, but even then He thinks of us first.
Finally, God moves on to the role of the Levites. The Gershonites were to be in charge of the care and transportation of the materials of the tabernacle, the Korathites were to take responsibility for the ark, the lampstand, the altars and the holy objects, and to the Merarites fell the task of looking after the framework of the tent as well as the posts, pegs and ropes. These roles were passed down from generation to generation, and so all members of the Levite tribe were born into a particular service. They didn't have much say in the matter. In the same way, the place and time into which we are born and our circumstances thereafter will determine to a large extent what we can do. Often that can feel frustrating, and we can wish things were different, but God knows us and He knows our situations and He plans accordingly. Those plans may be clear from birth as they were for the Levites, or they may be revealed later as they were to Moses, but they are laid out from the start and they are our own personal birthright.
Tuesday 7 September 2010
Leviticus 24-27 – The Year of Jubilee and Punishment for Disobedience
Before we get onto the subjects of the title, God instructs Moses to command the Israelites to bring oil so that the lamps outside the Tent of Meeting can always be kept lit. The people must provide the oil, but it falls to the priests to ensure that the lamps burn from morning until evening – everyone must play their part. No explicit reason is given for this practice, but maybe it was so that the Tent of Meeting was always clearly visible, presumably so that it could always be found and always be used. Our churches can always be found, but can they always be used? It makes me sad whenever I see a church locked up during the week. I know there are practical difficulties to keeping them open all the time, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if they could be?
God also instructs the people to bring twelve loaves every Sabbath. I believe this is the Bread of the Presence, referred to in a previous post, but here its greatest significance seems to be that it belongs to the priests as their food. If the people don’t obey, the priests don’t eat. Our actions impact on others and we must not forget that.
Now we see the Law in action for the first time. A fight breaks out, and in the course of it, one of the men blasphemes God’s name with a curse. The people put the man in custody until “the will of the Lord should be made clear to them”. God speaks to Moses and tells him that the blasphemer must be taken out of the camp and stoned to death, which is exactly what the people do. When I first read this, a phrase from previous chapters came back to me - "His blood will be on his own head". In other words, the man knew before he acted that blasphemy was wrong, and he knew that he would be punished for it, so he was responsible for his own fate and it's no good blaming God. The only problem is, that view requires unquestioning acceptance of the Law as it is, and I've tried but I just can't do it. I wrote yesterday that no one deserves to die for a sin for which they have already been forgiven by God, but the truth is that no one has ever deserved to die like that. When I read of women stoned to death for adultery, I do not object on the grounds that under the new covenant it is no longer a legal requirement, I weep because it is barbaric and inhuman. And when I read of this blasphemer killed by his community for what was probably a heat-of-the-moment slip of the tongue, something in me revolts in the same way.
To say "The Law said so" is not enough, even if it is supposedly God's Law. I have to question it because I feel instinctively and passionately that it's wrong. And how do I reconcile such brutal laws with "the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness" (Exodus 34:6) who through His Son later taught mercy and forgiveness? I can see only three possibilities. Either these laws were written by men and ascribed to God in an attempt to justify their own cruelty, or the men who wrote the laws down genuinely believed they were right but misunderstood God's purposes, or the laws really did come from God and there was another aspect to His character that we would rather ignore. I don't have the answer, but my gut tells me it must be one of the first two - in my experience, it is people that have proven themselves to be cruel and fallible, not God - in which case the whole Law is called into question and we must work out with God what is from Him and what is not. However, if it is God's word we must accept it, not as a Law for us now but at least as true in its own time. But accepting something to be true does not mean agreeing with it. I will never like it or think it right. But then, God doesn't need me to agree with Him - as He kept reminding the Israelites, He's God.
Moving on for the moment, we now get to the Year of Jubilee. First, God tells Moses that every seventh year is to be a sabbath year, a year of rest for the land. The people must not plant or harvest, but may eat whatever the land provides. He then tells Moses to count off seven sabbath years, and the following year - the fiftieth year - is to be consecrated as a jubilee. Trumpets will proclaim liberty for the people, and everyone will return to his family property and his own clan. It's like hitting the reset button. All property sold since the last jubilee is to be returned to its original owner, meaning those who have fallen on hard times will be able to reclaim their wealth and get the chance to start again. It also means that anyone who has accumulated wealth by buying up other people's property will have to return it and so their wealth will be diminished. Further to that, no one may charge interest on a loan to a person unable to support themselves. Charity is not to profited from. I think this is all fantastic. It's a safety net for the poor, and a reminder to the rich that earthly wealth is only temporary. It gives people a second chance and it stops the gap between rich and poor growing too wide. I think this may go in my manifesto.
But it wasn't just property that could be bought and sold. People could be too. As I seem to recall touching on in a previous post, if an Israelite fell into poverty, he could sell himself. But he was not to be treated as a slave - his master was to treat him as a hired worker and release him at the next Year of Jubilee. Again we see the original welfare system in action. Things get a little less liberal after that though, as God says that the Israelites may take slaves from the nations around them, and that they may be willed to their heirs as inheritance. I guess the standard justification of this passage would run along the lines of "the Israelites could make slaves of other nations because back then they were God's chosen ones, but now that we are all equal in God's eyes slavery is no longer allowed", but I can't accept that it was ever okay. And so I find myself asking the same questions as before. Did men make it up or get it wrong? Or did God really say this? I think these are questions we need to keep asking rather than blindly accepting or struggling to justify something we believe deep down to be wrong.
Now God tells the people that if they follow His commands, He will bring them peace and prosperity, and He will walk among them. Conversely, if they fail to obey Him, He will cause all sorts of terrible things to happen to them, though He will never abandon them completely. Maybe here we find the root of the prosperity gospel so popular in certain churches. The implication is that you can measure the strength of your relationship with God by how well your life is going. That sort of thinking is dangerous because it can lead to a feeling of abandonment in the hard times, and it can make us complacent and smug in the good times. Experience tells me that there is some correlation between my relationship with God and my personal happiness - the closer I walk with God, the more of His peace and joy and strength I know, and the better I cope with whatever life throws at me - but I don't believe for a second that God chooses to reward or punish me depending on how well-behaved I am. Maybe He never did. Isn't it possible that the people noticed a similar correlation and misunderstood it? Or maybe when things went badly they presumed it was because God was angry with them, instead of recognising that sometimes bad stuff just happens?
Leviticus concludes with some rules about vows dedicating land, property, animals or people to God. Even after doing some reading, I'm still not sure I totally understand this passage. It's not clear why the people would make such dedications, and there are so many conditions they make my head swim. Two things are clear, however. Firstly, if anyone wished to dedicate a person to God by giving an equivalent amount of money, a set amount was to be given based on the person's age and gender, ranging from fifty shekels for a man between the ages of sixty and twenty to three shekels for a girl under the age of five. Attaching price tags to people may seem dehumanising, and the values themselves may seem ageist and sexist, but they were only for the purposes of this dedication and it seems that they were based purely on the value of the person as a labourer. Young men were valued so highly because theoretically they would have been in peak physical condition, whereas the old and the very young were ill-suited to labour and young women would have had pregnancies and childcare to contend with. This does not mean that any group was considered more important than any other in a more general sense. Secondly, nothing could be redeemed once it had been dedicated to God. Once we give a gift we cannot ask for it back, and so we should not make vows lightly.
God also instructs the people to bring twelve loaves every Sabbath. I believe this is the Bread of the Presence, referred to in a previous post, but here its greatest significance seems to be that it belongs to the priests as their food. If the people don’t obey, the priests don’t eat. Our actions impact on others and we must not forget that.
Now we see the Law in action for the first time. A fight breaks out, and in the course of it, one of the men blasphemes God’s name with a curse. The people put the man in custody until “the will of the Lord should be made clear to them”. God speaks to Moses and tells him that the blasphemer must be taken out of the camp and stoned to death, which is exactly what the people do. When I first read this, a phrase from previous chapters came back to me - "His blood will be on his own head". In other words, the man knew before he acted that blasphemy was wrong, and he knew that he would be punished for it, so he was responsible for his own fate and it's no good blaming God. The only problem is, that view requires unquestioning acceptance of the Law as it is, and I've tried but I just can't do it. I wrote yesterday that no one deserves to die for a sin for which they have already been forgiven by God, but the truth is that no one has ever deserved to die like that. When I read of women stoned to death for adultery, I do not object on the grounds that under the new covenant it is no longer a legal requirement, I weep because it is barbaric and inhuman. And when I read of this blasphemer killed by his community for what was probably a heat-of-the-moment slip of the tongue, something in me revolts in the same way.
To say "The Law said so" is not enough, even if it is supposedly God's Law. I have to question it because I feel instinctively and passionately that it's wrong. And how do I reconcile such brutal laws with "the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness" (Exodus 34:6) who through His Son later taught mercy and forgiveness? I can see only three possibilities. Either these laws were written by men and ascribed to God in an attempt to justify their own cruelty, or the men who wrote the laws down genuinely believed they were right but misunderstood God's purposes, or the laws really did come from God and there was another aspect to His character that we would rather ignore. I don't have the answer, but my gut tells me it must be one of the first two - in my experience, it is people that have proven themselves to be cruel and fallible, not God - in which case the whole Law is called into question and we must work out with God what is from Him and what is not. However, if it is God's word we must accept it, not as a Law for us now but at least as true in its own time. But accepting something to be true does not mean agreeing with it. I will never like it or think it right. But then, God doesn't need me to agree with Him - as He kept reminding the Israelites, He's God.
Moving on for the moment, we now get to the Year of Jubilee. First, God tells Moses that every seventh year is to be a sabbath year, a year of rest for the land. The people must not plant or harvest, but may eat whatever the land provides. He then tells Moses to count off seven sabbath years, and the following year - the fiftieth year - is to be consecrated as a jubilee. Trumpets will proclaim liberty for the people, and everyone will return to his family property and his own clan. It's like hitting the reset button. All property sold since the last jubilee is to be returned to its original owner, meaning those who have fallen on hard times will be able to reclaim their wealth and get the chance to start again. It also means that anyone who has accumulated wealth by buying up other people's property will have to return it and so their wealth will be diminished. Further to that, no one may charge interest on a loan to a person unable to support themselves. Charity is not to profited from. I think this is all fantastic. It's a safety net for the poor, and a reminder to the rich that earthly wealth is only temporary. It gives people a second chance and it stops the gap between rich and poor growing too wide. I think this may go in my manifesto.
But it wasn't just property that could be bought and sold. People could be too. As I seem to recall touching on in a previous post, if an Israelite fell into poverty, he could sell himself. But he was not to be treated as a slave - his master was to treat him as a hired worker and release him at the next Year of Jubilee. Again we see the original welfare system in action. Things get a little less liberal after that though, as God says that the Israelites may take slaves from the nations around them, and that they may be willed to their heirs as inheritance. I guess the standard justification of this passage would run along the lines of "the Israelites could make slaves of other nations because back then they were God's chosen ones, but now that we are all equal in God's eyes slavery is no longer allowed", but I can't accept that it was ever okay. And so I find myself asking the same questions as before. Did men make it up or get it wrong? Or did God really say this? I think these are questions we need to keep asking rather than blindly accepting or struggling to justify something we believe deep down to be wrong.
Now God tells the people that if they follow His commands, He will bring them peace and prosperity, and He will walk among them. Conversely, if they fail to obey Him, He will cause all sorts of terrible things to happen to them, though He will never abandon them completely. Maybe here we find the root of the prosperity gospel so popular in certain churches. The implication is that you can measure the strength of your relationship with God by how well your life is going. That sort of thinking is dangerous because it can lead to a feeling of abandonment in the hard times, and it can make us complacent and smug in the good times. Experience tells me that there is some correlation between my relationship with God and my personal happiness - the closer I walk with God, the more of His peace and joy and strength I know, and the better I cope with whatever life throws at me - but I don't believe for a second that God chooses to reward or punish me depending on how well-behaved I am. Maybe He never did. Isn't it possible that the people noticed a similar correlation and misunderstood it? Or maybe when things went badly they presumed it was because God was angry with them, instead of recognising that sometimes bad stuff just happens?
Leviticus concludes with some rules about vows dedicating land, property, animals or people to God. Even after doing some reading, I'm still not sure I totally understand this passage. It's not clear why the people would make such dedications, and there are so many conditions they make my head swim. Two things are clear, however. Firstly, if anyone wished to dedicate a person to God by giving an equivalent amount of money, a set amount was to be given based on the person's age and gender, ranging from fifty shekels for a man between the ages of sixty and twenty to three shekels for a girl under the age of five. Attaching price tags to people may seem dehumanising, and the values themselves may seem ageist and sexist, but they were only for the purposes of this dedication and it seems that they were based purely on the value of the person as a labourer. Young men were valued so highly because theoretically they would have been in peak physical condition, whereas the old and the very young were ill-suited to labour and young women would have had pregnancies and childcare to contend with. This does not mean that any group was considered more important than any other in a more general sense. Secondly, nothing could be redeemed once it had been dedicated to God. Once we give a gift we cannot ask for it back, and so we should not make vows lightly.
Monday 6 September 2010
Leviticus 20-23 - Of Punishments and Priests, Sacrifices and Celebrations
Here we find another list of sins and their appropriate punishments. The majority - child sacrifice, cursing a parent, adultery, homosexuality, bestiality, and performing occult practices - are punishable by death. Others - consulting a medium, incest, and having sex while a woman is menstruating - require the offenders to be cut off from the community. Two further offences - sleeping with an aunt, or marrying a brother's wife - would leave the guilty parties childless. Some of these laws are still practised in certain Eastern countries, but they no longer apply because Jesus has already accepted the punishment on our behalf, whoever we are and whether or not we believe it. It is therefore our responsibility to make our voices heard and stop these archaic sentences being carried out. It is easy to shy away, citing religious or cultural differences, but no one deserves to die for a sin they have already been absolved of by the highest Judge there is.
There is, however, something from this passage which does hold true. We "must not live according to the customs of the nations" in which we live. That doesn't mean we must distance ourselves completely or reject non-Christian culture for the sake of it. God transcends that which we label 'Christian' and there is much in this world that is good and beautiful, and we miss out if we condemn ourselves to living like hermits. What it really means is that we must build our lives on God's law, then embrace the world only as it fits with that design. God sets the colour scheme, and we choose the decoration to match.
Now we have some more rules for priests. They must not make themselves ceremonially unclean for any but specified close relatives, they must not shave their heads or the edges of their beards, they must not blaspheme and they may only marry virgins. They may not serve while they are ceremonially unclean, and they may not eat the offerings while they have skin disease. The high priest may not make himself unclean for anybody, make public displays of grief, or leave the sanctuary. In essence, the priests must remain holy because they enter the presence of God. God has already told the people they must be holy, but here He really rams it home to the priests. They are granted the privilege of coming closest to Him and with that comes responsibility. They must try even harder to keep themselves pure. Priests no longer have that exclusive access to God, but they still have a special responsibility. They are acting as very public representatives of God, and so they have a duty to do their best to set an example, both to their congregations and to the wider community. Unfortunately bad press travels faster than good press - the Catholic Church will attest to that - so it is important that we recognise the good work out minsters to and support and encourage them in that.
There is another rule for priests that I wanted to give a little more attention to - no man with a defect or disability may serve as a priest. He may eat the holy food, and so he will still be supported, but he may not present the offering or enter the sanctuary. Again, this is to do with the need to to be holy and clean in God's sight. Calling somebody unclean because of a physical condition over which they have no control may seem grossly unfair, and barring them from certain work because of it sounds very much like discrimination, but it does have an interesting theological implication. If sickness and disability make a person unclean, which I suggested in an earlier post really means 'not like God', then sickness and disability cannot come from God. They were never part of His design for us. So where do they come from? I would suggest that when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, they gave Satan permission to work in this world, and every time we sin, we give him permission to stay a little longer. In accordance with his destructive nature, he has brought all sorts of harmful things into the world, including physical pain and impairment. That is why Jesus healed with the words "Your sins are forgiven" - the illness was not a punishment for a specific sin, but it was the result of the general existence of sin. It's also why God gave this rule. He didn't reject those with deformities or disabilties, and He ensured they were still provided for, but those conditions were the result of the Fall and so He could not allow them into His presence. Things have changed though. We are each healed of our uncleanness, if not the hurts of our physical bodies, and so that barrier no longer exists.
Along the same lines of thought, God then reminds Moses that all sacrifices given to Him must be without defect in order for them to be accepted. God is pure and whole, and so He can only accept that which is the same. The only exception is in the case of a freewill offering. This offering had no legal or ritual purpose, it was simply an offering given of the person's own free will. I think the person's willingness to give without being prompted pleases God so much that He will accept whatever they have to bring. If you ask somebody for a cup of coffee, you tell them how you like it; but if somebody unexpectedly hands you a mug, you don't complain if they forgot the sugar.
Finally for today, God reminds the people of the festivals He has already set up - the weekly Sabbath, or day of rest; the Passover meal to mark the Exodus; the Firstfruits to commemorate the first of the harvest; the Feast of Weeks seven weeks later; the Feast of Trumpets, which is a day of rest commemorated with trumpet blasts; the Day of Atonement, when the people are made clean; and the Feast of Tabernacles, when the people live in booths in remembrance of their time in the desert. The festivals themselves are very particular to that culture, and so there is maybe not a lot we can learn from them. We can see, however, that God loves a party. He wants us to stop and remember Him and all He has done for us, but He also wants us to stop and relax and simply enjoy ourselves. What a great boss.
There is, however, something from this passage which does hold true. We "must not live according to the customs of the nations" in which we live. That doesn't mean we must distance ourselves completely or reject non-Christian culture for the sake of it. God transcends that which we label 'Christian' and there is much in this world that is good and beautiful, and we miss out if we condemn ourselves to living like hermits. What it really means is that we must build our lives on God's law, then embrace the world only as it fits with that design. God sets the colour scheme, and we choose the decoration to match.
Now we have some more rules for priests. They must not make themselves ceremonially unclean for any but specified close relatives, they must not shave their heads or the edges of their beards, they must not blaspheme and they may only marry virgins. They may not serve while they are ceremonially unclean, and they may not eat the offerings while they have skin disease. The high priest may not make himself unclean for anybody, make public displays of grief, or leave the sanctuary. In essence, the priests must remain holy because they enter the presence of God. God has already told the people they must be holy, but here He really rams it home to the priests. They are granted the privilege of coming closest to Him and with that comes responsibility. They must try even harder to keep themselves pure. Priests no longer have that exclusive access to God, but they still have a special responsibility. They are acting as very public representatives of God, and so they have a duty to do their best to set an example, both to their congregations and to the wider community. Unfortunately bad press travels faster than good press - the Catholic Church will attest to that - so it is important that we recognise the good work out minsters to and support and encourage them in that.
There is another rule for priests that I wanted to give a little more attention to - no man with a defect or disability may serve as a priest. He may eat the holy food, and so he will still be supported, but he may not present the offering or enter the sanctuary. Again, this is to do with the need to to be holy and clean in God's sight. Calling somebody unclean because of a physical condition over which they have no control may seem grossly unfair, and barring them from certain work because of it sounds very much like discrimination, but it does have an interesting theological implication. If sickness and disability make a person unclean, which I suggested in an earlier post really means 'not like God', then sickness and disability cannot come from God. They were never part of His design for us. So where do they come from? I would suggest that when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, they gave Satan permission to work in this world, and every time we sin, we give him permission to stay a little longer. In accordance with his destructive nature, he has brought all sorts of harmful things into the world, including physical pain and impairment. That is why Jesus healed with the words "Your sins are forgiven" - the illness was not a punishment for a specific sin, but it was the result of the general existence of sin. It's also why God gave this rule. He didn't reject those with deformities or disabilties, and He ensured they were still provided for, but those conditions were the result of the Fall and so He could not allow them into His presence. Things have changed though. We are each healed of our uncleanness, if not the hurts of our physical bodies, and so that barrier no longer exists.
Along the same lines of thought, God then reminds Moses that all sacrifices given to Him must be without defect in order for them to be accepted. God is pure and whole, and so He can only accept that which is the same. The only exception is in the case of a freewill offering. This offering had no legal or ritual purpose, it was simply an offering given of the person's own free will. I think the person's willingness to give without being prompted pleases God so much that He will accept whatever they have to bring. If you ask somebody for a cup of coffee, you tell them how you like it; but if somebody unexpectedly hands you a mug, you don't complain if they forgot the sugar.
Finally for today, God reminds the people of the festivals He has already set up - the weekly Sabbath, or day of rest; the Passover meal to mark the Exodus; the Firstfruits to commemorate the first of the harvest; the Feast of Weeks seven weeks later; the Feast of Trumpets, which is a day of rest commemorated with trumpet blasts; the Day of Atonement, when the people are made clean; and the Feast of Tabernacles, when the people live in booths in remembrance of their time in the desert. The festivals themselves are very particular to that culture, and so there is maybe not a lot we can learn from them. We can see, however, that God loves a party. He wants us to stop and remember Him and all He has done for us, but He also wants us to stop and relax and simply enjoy ourselves. What a great boss.
Friday 3 September 2010
Leviticus 16-19 - Day of Atonement and Various Laws
In response to the deaths of Nadab and Abihu (see previous post) God tells Mosses to tell Aaron that He cannot come to the Tent of Meeting whenever he wants, and that when he does come, he must bathe and clothe himself in sacred garments and bring a sin offering for himself. He must also bring two goats, one to be sacrificed as a sin offering for the people and the other to be carry the sins of the people into the desert (the origin of the scapegoat). He must then wash and put on his regular clothes and present a burnt offering for himself and a burnt offering for the people. Here we see most clearly how Jesus' sacrifice replaced the offerings of the old covenant, as he took the place of the goats, taking our sins and then dying to make atonement for us. This is what Jesus meant when He said He came to fulfil the Law.
God then sets up the day of atonement. On the tenth day of the seventh month, the people were to fast and refrain from work, because on that day they would be made clean before God. The high priest was to make atonement for - or purify - the Most Holy Place, the Tent of Meeting, the altar, the priests and the community. This may seem a little redundant given that the people were meant to atone for their sins as they happened, and Aaron had just been told to offer a sin offering every time he entered the Tent of Meeting, but God knew that the people would grow lazy or forgetful. Knowing this, He makes a date with His people, just as He already has with the festivals, because He knows they'll remember that much. And it worked - Zach Braff's character in Garden State jokes that synagogues are made with moveable walls so that they can fit all the people who come just for the day of atonement. God knows us and He works around us.
God then reminds Moses that all sacrifices are to be brought to Him, because it seems not everybody has been paying attention. Some people must have been sacrificing animals off their own back, but anyone who kills an animal and does not bring it to the tabernacle is guilty of bloodshed and must be cut off from his people - the people are only allowed to kill and eat meat because they first give God His due. Some others have been sacrificing to goat idols, but God likens this to "prostituting themselves", presumably because they are giving the idols their worship, something which does not belong to them. God also reminds Moses that the people are not to eat blood, because this is the life of the animal, or meat which has been found dead torn by wild animals.
Now God moves onto unlawful sexual relations. A number of examples are given, but essentially the rules are these: do not sleep with any of your close blood relatives or the wives of any of your close relatives; do not sleep with a woman and her daughter; do not marry two sisters; do not have sex with a woman while she is menstruating; do not sleep with your neighbour's wife; do not sleep with another man as with a woman; and do not have sex with an animal. It's interesting that all but the last are written specifically for men. Are women here being denied their sexuality? Or does this imply an assumption that men are more likely to indulge in unlawful sexual acts? I don't think either is particularly fair, although I assume that the equivalent rules do also apply to women.
But what does the Law have to do with our sex lives anyway? They're private, aren't they? Yes they are, or at least they should be, but they can still have an impact on others. It's that impact that these laws are really interested in. They're about maintaining peace (adultery can cause great pain and lead to discord and violence, and we've already seen from Jacob the damage that marrying two sisters can do) and protecting the gene pool (there are serious health issues associated with children born of incest). Essentially, they're about protecting the community. And bestiality is forbidden because it is goes against the whole point of sex and relationships - pets are great but we were made to relate primarily and most intimately to other humans, which is why God made Adam a human companion.
That all seems fair enough and thus far there's little to argue with, but then we come to the issue of homosexuality. It's too big an issue to go into properly here, but it's also too important to ignore, so for now I will just say this. I have no problem with homosexuality. For twenty years I was told that it was wrong, but then I started to think for myself and the arguments began to fall apart. One of the main arguments against it is that it is "unnatural". It's the same argument used against bestiality and incest, and some will be quick to point out that theses sexual practices are condemned together, but we have already seen the reasons for forbidding bestiality and incest. Homosexuality is about a relationship between two people, and the fact that same-sex couples cannot reproduce unaided does not damage but only limits the gene pool, so there is a world of difference. Perhaps most importantly, unlike adultery, homosexuality hurts no one. It may offend some people, but we can't ban everything that offends someone. We'd live very sterile lives if we did. I can't argue with the fact that it is forbidden here, but why do we stick so firmly to this law and ignore others, such as the one in the following chapter that forbids clothing made of two different materials? When Jesus said "what you loose on earth will be loosed in Heaven, what you bind on earth will be bound in Heaven" He gave us permission to change the rules. It's a dangerous business and it can and has been grossly misused, but as long as we make the rules in accordance with the nature of God, I think we're okay. God is a god of love, and what is homosexuality about if not love? Surely He would see the sense in retracting this law, which has only succeeded in causing misery and heartache for many.
Finally we come to a mixed bag of various laws. Many are reminders of commands already given, because God know how often we need reminding of these things. We need to remind ourselves too. Of the others, I will just pick up on a few - you can read the rest for yourself. God decrees that farmers must not reap to the edges of their fields, and vineyard owners must not go over their vines a second time. Anything left is for the poor and the alien to gather as food for themselves. God is providing for the weak and the vulnerable, but it relies on the people keeping His commands. It's always amazing to see how people step up to the mark in times of disaster - the amount of money donated after the recent flood in Pakistan is truly remarkable and a wonderful testament to the generosity of the human spirit - but we have a social responsibility in the quiet times too. We need to care for those in our community who are in need everyday.
God has already said "Thou shalt not kill", but now He goes a step further and tells the people not to endanger the life of another. This would presumably cover offences such as reckless behaviour and grievous bodily harm. Stopping short of murder is not enough, we must not hurt any one in any way. God then goes even further and says "Do not hate your brother in your heart". Jesus said something similar and it was called revolutionary, but it has its roots right here. Jesus was not saying anything the Jewish people hadn't heard before, but they had forgotten it and so Jesus was bringing them back to the point. God also forbids the use of mediums and sorcery, dishonest practice in business and tattooing. He demands respect for the elderly and reverence for Himself; and He declares that foreigners are to be loved and treated as natives. This last seems particularly pertinent given the wonderful patchwork society we live in, and perhaps we would do well to remember it next time we hear someone complaining about "those foreigners".
God then sets up the day of atonement. On the tenth day of the seventh month, the people were to fast and refrain from work, because on that day they would be made clean before God. The high priest was to make atonement for - or purify - the Most Holy Place, the Tent of Meeting, the altar, the priests and the community. This may seem a little redundant given that the people were meant to atone for their sins as they happened, and Aaron had just been told to offer a sin offering every time he entered the Tent of Meeting, but God knew that the people would grow lazy or forgetful. Knowing this, He makes a date with His people, just as He already has with the festivals, because He knows they'll remember that much. And it worked - Zach Braff's character in Garden State jokes that synagogues are made with moveable walls so that they can fit all the people who come just for the day of atonement. God knows us and He works around us.
God then reminds Moses that all sacrifices are to be brought to Him, because it seems not everybody has been paying attention. Some people must have been sacrificing animals off their own back, but anyone who kills an animal and does not bring it to the tabernacle is guilty of bloodshed and must be cut off from his people - the people are only allowed to kill and eat meat because they first give God His due. Some others have been sacrificing to goat idols, but God likens this to "prostituting themselves", presumably because they are giving the idols their worship, something which does not belong to them. God also reminds Moses that the people are not to eat blood, because this is the life of the animal, or meat which has been found dead torn by wild animals.
Now God moves onto unlawful sexual relations. A number of examples are given, but essentially the rules are these: do not sleep with any of your close blood relatives or the wives of any of your close relatives; do not sleep with a woman and her daughter; do not marry two sisters; do not have sex with a woman while she is menstruating; do not sleep with your neighbour's wife; do not sleep with another man as with a woman; and do not have sex with an animal. It's interesting that all but the last are written specifically for men. Are women here being denied their sexuality? Or does this imply an assumption that men are more likely to indulge in unlawful sexual acts? I don't think either is particularly fair, although I assume that the equivalent rules do also apply to women.
But what does the Law have to do with our sex lives anyway? They're private, aren't they? Yes they are, or at least they should be, but they can still have an impact on others. It's that impact that these laws are really interested in. They're about maintaining peace (adultery can cause great pain and lead to discord and violence, and we've already seen from Jacob the damage that marrying two sisters can do) and protecting the gene pool (there are serious health issues associated with children born of incest). Essentially, they're about protecting the community. And bestiality is forbidden because it is goes against the whole point of sex and relationships - pets are great but we were made to relate primarily and most intimately to other humans, which is why God made Adam a human companion.
That all seems fair enough and thus far there's little to argue with, but then we come to the issue of homosexuality. It's too big an issue to go into properly here, but it's also too important to ignore, so for now I will just say this. I have no problem with homosexuality. For twenty years I was told that it was wrong, but then I started to think for myself and the arguments began to fall apart. One of the main arguments against it is that it is "unnatural". It's the same argument used against bestiality and incest, and some will be quick to point out that theses sexual practices are condemned together, but we have already seen the reasons for forbidding bestiality and incest. Homosexuality is about a relationship between two people, and the fact that same-sex couples cannot reproduce unaided does not damage but only limits the gene pool, so there is a world of difference. Perhaps most importantly, unlike adultery, homosexuality hurts no one. It may offend some people, but we can't ban everything that offends someone. We'd live very sterile lives if we did. I can't argue with the fact that it is forbidden here, but why do we stick so firmly to this law and ignore others, such as the one in the following chapter that forbids clothing made of two different materials? When Jesus said "what you loose on earth will be loosed in Heaven, what you bind on earth will be bound in Heaven" He gave us permission to change the rules. It's a dangerous business and it can and has been grossly misused, but as long as we make the rules in accordance with the nature of God, I think we're okay. God is a god of love, and what is homosexuality about if not love? Surely He would see the sense in retracting this law, which has only succeeded in causing misery and heartache for many.
Finally we come to a mixed bag of various laws. Many are reminders of commands already given, because God know how often we need reminding of these things. We need to remind ourselves too. Of the others, I will just pick up on a few - you can read the rest for yourself. God decrees that farmers must not reap to the edges of their fields, and vineyard owners must not go over their vines a second time. Anything left is for the poor and the alien to gather as food for themselves. God is providing for the weak and the vulnerable, but it relies on the people keeping His commands. It's always amazing to see how people step up to the mark in times of disaster - the amount of money donated after the recent flood in Pakistan is truly remarkable and a wonderful testament to the generosity of the human spirit - but we have a social responsibility in the quiet times too. We need to care for those in our community who are in need everyday.
God has already said "Thou shalt not kill", but now He goes a step further and tells the people not to endanger the life of another. This would presumably cover offences such as reckless behaviour and grievous bodily harm. Stopping short of murder is not enough, we must not hurt any one in any way. God then goes even further and says "Do not hate your brother in your heart". Jesus said something similar and it was called revolutionary, but it has its roots right here. Jesus was not saying anything the Jewish people hadn't heard before, but they had forgotten it and so Jesus was bringing them back to the point. God also forbids the use of mediums and sorcery, dishonest practice in business and tattooing. He demands respect for the elderly and reverence for Himself; and He declares that foreigners are to be loved and treated as natives. This last seems particularly pertinent given the wonderful patchwork society we live in, and perhaps we would do well to remember it next time we hear someone complaining about "those foreigners".
Thursday 2 September 2010
Leviticus 11-15 - Laws Regarding Cleanliness
Here we find the first of the laws concerning cleanliness, which I shall deal with in sections as they appear.
Clean and unclean food The text here is typically longwinded, but in essence, the people were allowed to eat any animal that both had cloven hooves and chewed the cud, fish with fins and scales, any birds not specifically forbidden and winged insects with jointed legs. These animals were considered clean, while all others were unclean and considered detestable. Anyone who touched or ate an unclean animal became unclean too, although only until evening. There is no apparent logic or method to the distinction between clean and unclean, and it is unclear why certain animals were clean and others unclean. Maybe the apparent arbitrariness is the key. Maybe it was a random set of rules intended to test the people’s obedience and resolve. Whatever the case, it is clear why the people must keep themselves clean. God tells them: “consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy”. We are made in His image and we are designed to be like Him. We are at our best when we follow in His footsteps.
Purification after childbirth If a woman gave birth to a son, she was ceremonially unclean for seven days, and on the eighth day she had to take the boy to be circumcised. She then had to wait thirty-three days to be purified from her bleeding. If a woman gave birth to a daughter, she was unclean for fourteen days, and had to wait sixty-six days to be purified. After the days of purification, she had to offer a burnt offering and a sin offering, in order to make atonement and be purified. This puzzles me immensely. Why should such a natural and necessary process make a woman unclean? Why did a girl make her unclean for longer than a boy? Why did she have to offer a sin offering as atonement? Childbirth isn’t a sin, is it? The second question I have no answer to, except to repeat that the Old Testament is patriarchal and misogynistic. As for others, I will hazard a guess. Maybe unclean simply means ‘not like God’. Childbirth is a very physical act, and as such it separates us from the spiritual world. Maybe it is this separation that distanced the woman from God and made her unclean. Once she was unclean, she was in the same position as if she had sinned, and so she needed to make the sin offering to put her right with God. That doesn’t mean that childbirth was a sin, just that it had the same spiritual result.
Regulations about infectious skin diseases The basic rules are these – if a person has any imperfection of the skin he must be examined by a priest. If the skin has not turned white and the problem is no more than skin deep, the person is to be quarantined for seven days. At the end of this time, if the affected area has improved, he will be pronounced clean. But if the skin and hair in the affected area have turned white and the problem appears to be more than skin deep, it is an infectious skin disease and the person is unclean. That person “must wear torn clothes, let his hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of his face and cry out ‘Unclean! Unclean!’” and he must live alone outside the camp. It doesn’t sound like a particularly caring way to treat a sick person, but in the absence of any cure it at least prevented the infection from spreading. It was kind on the community, if not the individual. Sometimes we need to put the needs of others first, however hard that may be.
Regulations about mildew These are not too dissimilar to the regulations about infectious diseases. If any item of clothing showed signs of mildew, it was to be isolated for seven days. If after that time the mildew had not spread, the item was to be washed; but if it had spread, the item was to be destroyed. In a country where there are half a dozen clothes shops on every high street, this may seem a little over dramatic, but we must remember that the Israelites were living in the desert. They couldn’t just pop down to the local bazaar for a replacement, so they had to take care of their property. They may not have been able to save infected items, but isolating and destroying them at least prevented other items from being damaged too. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt us to take a lesson from this and start taking better care of what we have instead of giving in to the disposable culture that surrounds us.
Cleansing from infectious skin diseases Once a person had been declared clean, the priest was to take two birds, kill one over fresh water, then dip the live one in its blood together with cedar wood, scarlet yarn and hyssop. The priest was then to sprinkle the person being cleansed seven times (presumably with the blood) then release the live (but probably rather distressed) bird. The person being cleansed then had to shave off all his hair and bathe in water, before he could be declared ceremoniously clean. He was then allowed back into the camp, but even then he had to stay outside of his tent for seven days, at the end of which time he had to shave and wash again. On the eighth day, he was to bring a guilt offering of a lamb (or two pigeons if he couldn’t afford a lamb) and some oil. The lamb was to be slaughtered, and the cleansed person marked with its blood and the oil. It’s an odd ritual, and I’m not even going to pretend I understand it, but sometimes you just have to go with God whether you know what He’s on about or not.
Cleansing from mildew This section starts with something that feels like it should have been in the last section on mildew – what to do with an infected house. All objects were to be removed, and the house shut up for seven days. If the mildew had not spread, the house was clean; but if it had spread the infected stones were to be removed and taken out of camp, and the walls were to be scraped and replastered. The house can then be purified, using the same ritual as for the purification of a person healed of a skin disease.
Discharges causing uncleanness When a man had a bodily discharge or a woman menstruated, they were considered unclean, and anything or anyone that touched them was unclean until evening. After the discharge or bleeding had stopped, they were unclean for a further seven days. On the eighth day they were to bring a burnt offering and a sin offering to make atonement. An emission of semen also made a man unclean, but only until the evening, and no sacrifice was needed. This raises the same questions as the laws regarding childbirth. Why make natural bodily functions seem so dirty? It’s no wonder so many people are so uptight about talking about such things. Well, I can only give the same answer (guess, to be more precise) as I did before. I don’t think it means these things are dirty, because it would be totally illogical for God to condemn us for something we have no control over and which only happens because He designed us that way. I think that maybe it’s simply that these reminders of our physical nature separate us from the spiritual nature of God. So do these rules still apply? No, I don’t think they do. If our sins have already been atoned for by Jesus, then why not the imperfections of our physical bodies?
Clean and unclean food The text here is typically longwinded, but in essence, the people were allowed to eat any animal that both had cloven hooves and chewed the cud, fish with fins and scales, any birds not specifically forbidden and winged insects with jointed legs. These animals were considered clean, while all others were unclean and considered detestable. Anyone who touched or ate an unclean animal became unclean too, although only until evening. There is no apparent logic or method to the distinction between clean and unclean, and it is unclear why certain animals were clean and others unclean. Maybe the apparent arbitrariness is the key. Maybe it was a random set of rules intended to test the people’s obedience and resolve. Whatever the case, it is clear why the people must keep themselves clean. God tells them: “consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy”. We are made in His image and we are designed to be like Him. We are at our best when we follow in His footsteps.
Purification after childbirth If a woman gave birth to a son, she was ceremonially unclean for seven days, and on the eighth day she had to take the boy to be circumcised. She then had to wait thirty-three days to be purified from her bleeding. If a woman gave birth to a daughter, she was unclean for fourteen days, and had to wait sixty-six days to be purified. After the days of purification, she had to offer a burnt offering and a sin offering, in order to make atonement and be purified. This puzzles me immensely. Why should such a natural and necessary process make a woman unclean? Why did a girl make her unclean for longer than a boy? Why did she have to offer a sin offering as atonement? Childbirth isn’t a sin, is it? The second question I have no answer to, except to repeat that the Old Testament is patriarchal and misogynistic. As for others, I will hazard a guess. Maybe unclean simply means ‘not like God’. Childbirth is a very physical act, and as such it separates us from the spiritual world. Maybe it is this separation that distanced the woman from God and made her unclean. Once she was unclean, she was in the same position as if she had sinned, and so she needed to make the sin offering to put her right with God. That doesn’t mean that childbirth was a sin, just that it had the same spiritual result.
Regulations about infectious skin diseases The basic rules are these – if a person has any imperfection of the skin he must be examined by a priest. If the skin has not turned white and the problem is no more than skin deep, the person is to be quarantined for seven days. At the end of this time, if the affected area has improved, he will be pronounced clean. But if the skin and hair in the affected area have turned white and the problem appears to be more than skin deep, it is an infectious skin disease and the person is unclean. That person “must wear torn clothes, let his hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of his face and cry out ‘Unclean! Unclean!’” and he must live alone outside the camp. It doesn’t sound like a particularly caring way to treat a sick person, but in the absence of any cure it at least prevented the infection from spreading. It was kind on the community, if not the individual. Sometimes we need to put the needs of others first, however hard that may be.
Regulations about mildew These are not too dissimilar to the regulations about infectious diseases. If any item of clothing showed signs of mildew, it was to be isolated for seven days. If after that time the mildew had not spread, the item was to be washed; but if it had spread, the item was to be destroyed. In a country where there are half a dozen clothes shops on every high street, this may seem a little over dramatic, but we must remember that the Israelites were living in the desert. They couldn’t just pop down to the local bazaar for a replacement, so they had to take care of their property. They may not have been able to save infected items, but isolating and destroying them at least prevented other items from being damaged too. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt us to take a lesson from this and start taking better care of what we have instead of giving in to the disposable culture that surrounds us.
Cleansing from infectious skin diseases Once a person had been declared clean, the priest was to take two birds, kill one over fresh water, then dip the live one in its blood together with cedar wood, scarlet yarn and hyssop. The priest was then to sprinkle the person being cleansed seven times (presumably with the blood) then release the live (but probably rather distressed) bird. The person being cleansed then had to shave off all his hair and bathe in water, before he could be declared ceremoniously clean. He was then allowed back into the camp, but even then he had to stay outside of his tent for seven days, at the end of which time he had to shave and wash again. On the eighth day, he was to bring a guilt offering of a lamb (or two pigeons if he couldn’t afford a lamb) and some oil. The lamb was to be slaughtered, and the cleansed person marked with its blood and the oil. It’s an odd ritual, and I’m not even going to pretend I understand it, but sometimes you just have to go with God whether you know what He’s on about or not.
Cleansing from mildew This section starts with something that feels like it should have been in the last section on mildew – what to do with an infected house. All objects were to be removed, and the house shut up for seven days. If the mildew had not spread, the house was clean; but if it had spread the infected stones were to be removed and taken out of camp, and the walls were to be scraped and replastered. The house can then be purified, using the same ritual as for the purification of a person healed of a skin disease.
Discharges causing uncleanness When a man had a bodily discharge or a woman menstruated, they were considered unclean, and anything or anyone that touched them was unclean until evening. After the discharge or bleeding had stopped, they were unclean for a further seven days. On the eighth day they were to bring a burnt offering and a sin offering to make atonement. An emission of semen also made a man unclean, but only until the evening, and no sacrifice was needed. This raises the same questions as the laws regarding childbirth. Why make natural bodily functions seem so dirty? It’s no wonder so many people are so uptight about talking about such things. Well, I can only give the same answer (guess, to be more precise) as I did before. I don’t think it means these things are dirty, because it would be totally illogical for God to condemn us for something we have no control over and which only happens because He designed us that way. I think that maybe it’s simply that these reminders of our physical nature separate us from the spiritual nature of God. So do these rules still apply? No, I don’t think they do. If our sins have already been atoned for by Jesus, then why not the imperfections of our physical bodies?
Wednesday 1 September 2010
Leviticus 8-10 - The Priests
The Tabernacle is up and running, the offerings have been established, and now it is time to ordain the priests. God has already decreed that the priesthood will be composed of Aaron and his sons, which leads me to a question. Why was Moses not ordained? After all, the priests were meant to be the link between man and God, and Moses was the guy that God talked to. I'm not sure of the answer to this, but I think it is interesting nevertheless. Right from the beginning, God did not talk only to the priests, and he had work too for the unordained. I have been blessed enough to be taught by some wonderful ministers, but I believe there is also much wisdom to be found outside of the Church and it's a shame to ignore it. Look at C.S. Lewis. He was an English professor, yet he also become one of the greatest Christian evangelists and writers of all time. Or take my mum. She's had no formal religious training, but she has taught me so much. Don't underesitmate the spiritual knowledge or wisdom of those around you - talk with them, debate with them, learn from them. You'll learn a lot. Don't underestimate yourself either - you may not be called to be a priest or a vicar or a minister or whatver you choose to call them, but there are countless other ways in which you can serve God, none of which are any less worthy.
And so onto the actual ordination. First, Aaron and his sons are arrayed in all their finery, and then both they and the Tabernacle are consecrated with oil. Next they bring a burnt offering, an ordination offering and a sin offering, because before they can serve God, they must make themselves clean. In the same way, we must put ourselves right with God before we can speak about Him or for Him to others. That doesn't mean we can't serve God until we are perfect - if we wait for that, we'll never get anything done - but it does mean we must keeping coming back to God to confess our sins and ask for forgiveness. If we want to spokespeople for God, we must live good lives and repent of our mistakes or we risk becoming hypocrites.
The ordination lasts seven days - sometimes there will be a period of preparation before we are ready to step out and do God's work - and then on the eighth day, the priests begin their work. They once again present a burnt offering and a sin offering to atone for their own sins and those of the people; then they call the community to bring a burnt offering and a fellowship offering because God will appear to them. Aaron presents the offerings as prescribed and blesses the people, then "the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people". God did not reserve Himself for an elite few like Moses, He wanted to share Himself with everyone. And He hasn't changed. He still wants to meet with every one of us and show us His might and His power and His beauty. When they saw Him, the people "shouted for joy and fell facedown". Sometimes when we experience God it can feel strange or even scary, often because He has something to say which we don't want to hear. But I think that most of the time, He just wants us to rejoice in His presence. In those moments, we should shout for joy like the Israelites, because there's nothing quite like experiencing the awesomeness that is God.
Things take a nasty turn though, when two of Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, offer "unauthorised fire, contrary to the Lord's command" and are consumed and killed by fire from the Lord's presence. When we break God's laws, when we fail to serve Him properly, there are consequences. Not the consequences Nadab and Abihu faced, but consequences nonetheless. God won't zap us with a lightening bolt every time we put a foot wrong - you've probably noticed that hasn't happened to you yet, because under the new covenant of grace such punishments are obsolete - but it may be that our wrong choices cause ourselves harm, or hurt someone else, or damage a relationship. The old law relied on fear of punishment to keep people in line. It was "do this and don't do that or something bad will happen". It's not like that anymore, and we no longer have to fear the wrath of God, but that doesn't mean we can do what we like. Now we are called to be obedient out of love, because we want to keep ourselves and others from harm.
After the deaths of Nadab and Abihu, God tells Aaron "You must ditinguish between the holy and the common, between the clean and the unclean". The question of what is clean and what is unclean is addressed in later chapters (in fact, I believe I start the cleanliness laws tomorrow) so for now I will concentrate on the first part of God's decree - the separation of the holy and the common, the spiritual and the secular. God is in and part of everything, and cannot be separated from the everyday things of our lives. Nor, I believe, does He want to be. It may have been different under the old covenant, when the sin of the people meant they had to purify themselves before He could come near them, but now that we have been redeemed no such barriers exist. He is so close and so familiar that we can call Him Daddy, and we can meet with Him at any time and in any place. So if this isn't about putting God in a box, what is it about? Well, just before God talks about this the holy and the common, He tells Aaron that he and his sons must not drink wine when they go to the Tent of Meeting, and I think this may be the key. God wasn't saying the priests couldn't drink at all, just not on duty because it would cloud their minds and make it difficult for them to concentrate on Him. In the light of this, I think this distinction is about avoiding distractions in those times when we most closely and purposefully focus on God - during worship or meditation, for example. Think of it this way, anything which distracts us and takes our attention away from God is better kept for another time. That will be different for all of us, and it is up to us to work it out with God.
And so onto the actual ordination. First, Aaron and his sons are arrayed in all their finery, and then both they and the Tabernacle are consecrated with oil. Next they bring a burnt offering, an ordination offering and a sin offering, because before they can serve God, they must make themselves clean. In the same way, we must put ourselves right with God before we can speak about Him or for Him to others. That doesn't mean we can't serve God until we are perfect - if we wait for that, we'll never get anything done - but it does mean we must keeping coming back to God to confess our sins and ask for forgiveness. If we want to spokespeople for God, we must live good lives and repent of our mistakes or we risk becoming hypocrites.
The ordination lasts seven days - sometimes there will be a period of preparation before we are ready to step out and do God's work - and then on the eighth day, the priests begin their work. They once again present a burnt offering and a sin offering to atone for their own sins and those of the people; then they call the community to bring a burnt offering and a fellowship offering because God will appear to them. Aaron presents the offerings as prescribed and blesses the people, then "the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people". God did not reserve Himself for an elite few like Moses, He wanted to share Himself with everyone. And He hasn't changed. He still wants to meet with every one of us and show us His might and His power and His beauty. When they saw Him, the people "shouted for joy and fell facedown". Sometimes when we experience God it can feel strange or even scary, often because He has something to say which we don't want to hear. But I think that most of the time, He just wants us to rejoice in His presence. In those moments, we should shout for joy like the Israelites, because there's nothing quite like experiencing the awesomeness that is God.
Things take a nasty turn though, when two of Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, offer "unauthorised fire, contrary to the Lord's command" and are consumed and killed by fire from the Lord's presence. When we break God's laws, when we fail to serve Him properly, there are consequences. Not the consequences Nadab and Abihu faced, but consequences nonetheless. God won't zap us with a lightening bolt every time we put a foot wrong - you've probably noticed that hasn't happened to you yet, because under the new covenant of grace such punishments are obsolete - but it may be that our wrong choices cause ourselves harm, or hurt someone else, or damage a relationship. The old law relied on fear of punishment to keep people in line. It was "do this and don't do that or something bad will happen". It's not like that anymore, and we no longer have to fear the wrath of God, but that doesn't mean we can do what we like. Now we are called to be obedient out of love, because we want to keep ourselves and others from harm.
After the deaths of Nadab and Abihu, God tells Aaron "You must ditinguish between the holy and the common, between the clean and the unclean". The question of what is clean and what is unclean is addressed in later chapters (in fact, I believe I start the cleanliness laws tomorrow) so for now I will concentrate on the first part of God's decree - the separation of the holy and the common, the spiritual and the secular. God is in and part of everything, and cannot be separated from the everyday things of our lives. Nor, I believe, does He want to be. It may have been different under the old covenant, when the sin of the people meant they had to purify themselves before He could come near them, but now that we have been redeemed no such barriers exist. He is so close and so familiar that we can call Him Daddy, and we can meet with Him at any time and in any place. So if this isn't about putting God in a box, what is it about? Well, just before God talks about this the holy and the common, He tells Aaron that he and his sons must not drink wine when they go to the Tent of Meeting, and I think this may be the key. God wasn't saying the priests couldn't drink at all, just not on duty because it would cloud their minds and make it difficult for them to concentrate on Him. In the light of this, I think this distinction is about avoiding distractions in those times when we most closely and purposefully focus on God - during worship or meditation, for example. Think of it this way, anything which distracts us and takes our attention away from God is better kept for another time. That will be different for all of us, and it is up to us to work it out with God.
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