Day 40, February 9 Bible Reading

Day 40,  February 9

Ex. 22:1-15 Retribution for theft, dishonesty and property damage

Ex. 21:33-36  Retribution for property damage caused by animals

Ex. 22:25-31 / Lev. 19:9-10 / Deut. 24:19-22  Various commandments and laws / Laws regarding harvests

Lev. 19:32-37        / Deut. 21:22 – 22:12      Various social laws

Deut. 23:15-25      Various social and religious laws

Deut. 24:6-18        Various social laws

Deut. 25:4, 11-16  Various social laws

Deut. 21:10-14      Marrying a captive woman

Deut. 24:1-5  Laws regarding divorce and remarriage

Deut. 25:5-10        The law of levirate marriage

Moses’ Law was not original.  In fact the Code of Hammurabi existed before and has very similar laws. I will attempt to contrast Moses’s law with the Hammurabi Code whenever I can.

In this society, there are no prisons. All crime is against a victim not a state.  All sin (not unto death) is considered a debt.  It has a monetary value,  They follow the laws of restitution, and it’s goal is to restore the criminal.  When the debt is paid, restitution is complete, the perpetrator is forgiven, and the victim is made whole. and True justice is the transformation of the one who committed injustice while making the victim whole. When viewed this way, these laws are more merciful than what man legislates today.   

These are Israelite laws. Americans, Canadians, Chinese, no one else were meant to follow these.

Ex. 22:1-15 Retribution for theft, dishonesty and property damage

• Ex. 22:1 According to the Hammurabi code, when you steal an ox, you have to repay 10 oxen.  That is like replacing one Mercedes Benz with 10.  You would forever be in debt.  Moses’ law applied a more lenient consequence by requiring only five oxen to be restored or in the case of sheep, 4 is required. 

• Ex. 22:2-4 If a thief is killed breaking into a house, you are not charged.  However if you killed him in broad daylight  you are guilty. The thief needs to make full restitution. If he has nothing to pay back his debt he becomes an indentured servant. Slavery in biblical days was really indentured servitude.  When you complete your debt service you are set free.  Later on you would learn you can be redeemed or your debt bought back and be set free.  If the theft is in the thief;’s hands, he has to restore double.

• This was the principle Zacchaeus used to restore fourfold if he has taken anything from anyone by false accusation [Luke 19:8]. 

• Ex. 22:5 The Hammurabi code says “ If a shepherd, without the permission of the owner of the field, and without the knowledge of the owner of the sheep, lets the sheep into a field to graze, then the owner of the field shall harvest his crop, and the shepherd, who had pastured his flock there without permission of the owner of the field, shall pay to the owner twenty gur of corn for every ten gan.”  Similar to Moses’ law right? In this case the law does not modify the code

• Ex. 22:6 If a fire you started burn’s someone else’s grain, you need to make restitution.

• Ex. 2:7-8 If you gave your neighbor money or valuables to keep, and a thief stole it, and is found, he needs to pay double.  If not found you have to make sure it was not the  owner of the house who took it.

• Ex. 22:9 Levis as judges adjudicate whenever theft or loss occurs to determine who needs to pay at least double.

• Ex. 22:10-13 If you give your neighbor your dog [ok..cattle, sheep etc.]  and he dies, or is lost etc., with no witnesses then there should be an oath between them, that there was no foul play.

• Ex. 22:14-15 More laws on property damage. If you borrow something and it is damaged you need to make good on it with the owner. If the owner  was with it, no need to make it good.  If it was hired, it is part of the risk of hiring it out. 

Ex. 21:33-36  Retribution for property damage caused by animals

• Ex. 21:33-34 You dig a pit and an animal falls in it and dies, you need to pay the owner, The dead animal is yours.

• Ex. 21:35-36 This is where Solomon got the wisdom of dividing the baby.  If one man’s ox hurts another and it dies, you sell the live ox and divide the money, and take the dead ox, divide it and make oxtail soup. (Well I added that last part)

Ex. 22:25-31 / Lev. 19:9-10 / Deut. 24:19-22  Various commandments and laws / Laws regarding harvests

• Ex 22:25-27 Don’t charge poor people interest.  If you take a neighbor's coat as a security pledge for a loan, you give it back to him every night so that he is not cold. Being neighborly and considerate is more important than getting paid back.

• Ex 22:28 Don’t speak ill of God nor curse your ruler. [Does not mean you cannot articulate when they are corrupt]

• Ex. 22:29-31 First of everything belongs to God: grapes, grape juice, firstborn of sons, ox, sheep etc.  Have them be with the mother for seven days and on the eighth day it belongs to God.
  
  

• Lev 19:9-10 Biblical welfare/ safety net. Imagine if all the economic producers do not glen everything for profit, but leave a sample of their cars, houses, food, drinks, services for the poor and stranger? Supposed instead of McDonalds throwing away tons of food every night, they did this? The poor and stranger still had to work to come and get the gleanings.
  
  

• Deut 24:19-22 Once again, the importance of legislating social responsibility. Don’t overdo it to get every sheaf, every olive, every grape, to sell on the market.  The point is that taking care of the widows, the poor and the children is everyone's responsibility and it is ok to make laws to establish that and to ensure that economic producers fulfilled their social responsibility as such.

Lev. 19:32-37        / Deut. 21:22 – 22:12      Various social laws

• Lev 19:32 Honor your elders; rise and stand 

• Lev. 19:33-34 Don’t mistreat immigrants.  The immigrant who lives among you shall be like a natve citizen, and be loved as such, given rights as a citizenship.

• Luke 19:35-37 Don’t cheat in measurements, length, weight, volume, scales in a transaction. Don’t do injustice in judgment.
  
  

• Deut 21:22 This is a crucifixion. If a man commits a sin worthy of death, He is to be hanged, but don’t leave the body overnight.  Paul referred to this stating “13 Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”), [Gal 3:13]”

• Deut 22:1-4 Don’t hide yourself or refrain from acting when you can do good.  Don’t pretend it is none of your business. If you see something lost, hold onto it until someone seeks it.  People don’t like being inconvenienced.  It is ok being  inconvenienced to help someone else.

• Deut. 22:5 Another abomination.  Wearing clothes made for the other gender.

• Deut. 22:6-7 Interesting that it is described as being well with you and prolonging your days when you take eggs from a nest but not eat the mother.

• Deut. 22:8 Similar to the law of the pit, where the ox fell in, safety is first.  Cover your holes, pits, build a railing for the roof of your house, so you are not responsible if someone gets hurt or killed.

• Deut. 22:9 Interesting  laws on the fruit of the vineyard being defiled if you sow it with different kinds of seed.  In Napa Valley they do not sow multiple grape seeds together.  It will ruin the wine. Some allow natural pesticide by having normal plants and weeds grow together with the vine.  But don’t mix the grapes.

• Deut. 22:10 An ox and a donkey don't go well together.  Picture of unequally yoked.

• Deut. 22:11 Don’t wear wool and linen together. Wool is a picture of human flesh, where you sweat; you are a sheep.  Linen is a picture of righteous garments where you do not sweat. See Ezekiel 44. Don’t mix righteousness with your own sweat and works.

• Deut. 22:12 Tassels for prayer.

Deut. 23:15-25      Various social and religious laws

• Deut. 23:15-16  Slave masters in the 16 or 17th century did not read this.  If a slave escapes, don’t seek to return him or oppress him.

• Deut. 23:17-18 No gigolos, no harlotry or practicing sodmy nor sex as a religious ritual practice for males nor females. Don’t price the prostitution price tp the house of the Lord as an offering.  So who would have sex with a prostitute and bring her wages to the church?

• Deut 23:18-20 Don;t share poor, nor your brother, interest. You can charge an immigrant interest.   

• Deut 23:21-23  Let there be no gap between what you say and what you do.  Don’t make a vow to the Lord.  If you do, pay it without delay.

• Deut. 23:24-25 You can eat your belly full of your neighbor's grapes or you can pluck wheat grain with your hand.  If you take a container, you are stealing.  That is an interesting one.  Therefore like manna, you are limited by your appetite for the day/ hour.  Hoarding or talking more than what you need is wrong.

Deut. 24:6-18        Various social laws

• Deut. 24:6 You can take a coat as a pledge (and you need to return it at night), but someone’s equipment for their livelihood such as a millstone, you cannot.

• Deut. 24:7 So if a kidnapper mistreats or sells sometime, they die? So if they kidnap and treat the person nicely, is that ok? Asking for a friend.

• Deut 24:8-9 We haven’t fully read the laws of leprosy yet. But just follow the priests and Levites if there is an outbreak.

• Deut. 24:10-13 Similar law to before. It is all about valuing a human’s dignity and not ever engaging in dehumanizing anyone.  Don’t go into a man’s house for his pledge. Don’t keep a man’s coat overnight when he needs it to be warm.  This is righteousness to God.  That is interesting.  When you do not dehumanize a fellow human that is righteousness.

• Deut. 24:14-15 Don’t oppress your employees, especially the poor, needy, the immigrants when they work for you.  Don’t hold back their pay. Pay them every day.

• Deut. 24:16 Interesting instruction that everyone will die for their own sin.  Fathers not put to death for children and children for fathers.  Yet God pronounced this “ For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, “ [Ex. 20:5]  So which is it?

• Deut. 24:17-18 Once again the admonition to not pervert justice to not take a widow’s garment as a pledge, and to always remember how you were treated as a slave in Egypt and be guided by that.

Deut. 25:4, 11-16  Various social laws

• Deut 25:4 Paul used this scripture to position that preachers should be given an offering for the work they do.  Don’t muzzle the ox while it threads its grain.  This is similar to allowing someone to come to your vineyard and eat a handful of grapes.  It would not kill you and your bottom line to feed someone, or engage in charity.

• Deut 25:11-12  I have nothing to say about the following.  My mouth is still open.  [Deut 25:11-12] “If two men fight together, and the wife of one draws near to rescue her husband from the hand of the one attacking him, and puts out her hand and seizes him by the genitals, 12 then you shall cut off her hand; your eye shall not pity her.”   Actually I need to ask God about this.  However I am attracted to  feisty women ☺ 

• Deut 25:14-16 Don’t rig the system or measurements. Don’t be duplicitous, have one personality for the outside and one for the family.  Have just weights.  This is another abomination to God.

Deut. 21:10-14      Marrying a captive woman

• Deut 21:10-14 It is not the taking captive a beautiful woman as a spoil of war that got me.  It is the fact that she has to shave her head and trim her nails.  Why? She has lice?  Actually in all seriousness, you are humane, and you allow her time to grieve her father and mother for a full month, before having sex with her.   Of course if the sex is not good you can set her free, because you humbled her. Notice after you wife her, you can let her go.

Deut. 24:1-5  Laws regarding divorce and remarriage

• Once again if the woman does not find favor in his eyes, or he finds some type of indecency in her, the man can write her a bill of divorce, so that she is released.

• There is a misnomer that Christ was against divorce. He was against putting away a woman due to a man’s whim and fancy, and for any reason at all.  If you put away a woman you must give her a bill of divorce. Christ was saying it was because of the hardness of man’s heart divorce was given for any nook and cranny of an excuse. The main reason for divorce is fornication/ adultery and abuse/ neglect

• God was against the former husband who divorced a woman to take her back.  That is another abomination.

Deut. 25:5-10        The law of levirate marriage

• God was very particular to ensure that all the families who received an inheritance were able to keep that inheritance in perpetuity in that family’s name.  A challenge to this was lost of property because of debt.  This was rectified on the year of Jubilee. What if the family only has daughters?  Then the daughters can inherit and must marry within the tribe.  What if the family had no children and the husband died? Well in that case, the brother(s) need to go into the dead brother’s wife and raise up a seed for the dead brother.  If he refuses he was to be called in front of the elders and have the brother’s wife remove his sandal.  This legalized the transaction to refuse transfer.  She would keep it and spit in his face, for he has insulted her, his brother’s name and refuses to build up his brother’s house so that his name will always be counted in the lineage.  This designation was to always remain with the brother.