Day 52, February 21 Bible Reading

Day 52,  February 21

Lev. 19:20-22        The guilt offering for sexual sin

Lev. 22:17-30        Acceptable and unacceptable offerings

Num. 5:5-31  Restitution for wrongdoing / The test for adultery

Num. 15:1-31        Supplementary offerings / Offerings for unintentional sins

Deut. 21:1-9  Atonement for an unsolved murder

Lev. 19:20-22        The guilt offering for sexual sin

• Recall in Deut 22:23-30, if a man has sex with a woman who is betrothed and it is in the city, they are both to die, since she did not cry iut,  If he rapes her outside the city the man should die. If the young woman is not betrothed, the man has to pay the father 50 shekels of silver and wife her, and he is not permitted to divorce her.  In other cases divorce was allowed.
  
  

• Now in Leviticus this is a special case where this woman was betrothed as a concubine, not a main wife.  She is a slave.  The woman was property.  They are to be scourged/ beaten not out to death. A trespass offering with a ram and 20% tax atonement had to be given.  So when you are property the law is different.  Is there a concubine dating website?

Lev. 22:17-30        Acceptable and unacceptable offerings

• Lev 22:17-25 The offerings cannot have a defect, no blindness, broken limbs, maimed, running sores, eczema (wait, eczema is in the Bible), scabs from an old wound, no defects at all  You cannot have a bull or land where a limb is too long or short.  Wow.  you cannot offer anything bruised, crushed or from a foreigner’s hand.

• Lev 22:26-30 You can offer a bull, sheep, goat eight days or after.  Let it be with its mother for seven days at least after it is born.  You cannot kill a parent or child animal same day.   Remember when you sacrifice a thanksgiving offering of your free will, you are to eat it, on the same day and not leave it till morning.  Vow or peace  offerings can be kept for the same day or next but must be burned by the third.

Num. 5:5-31  Restitution for wrongdoing / The test for adultery

• Num 5:5-10 All sins against another human that are not sins of death, are given a valuation by the priests and the criminal has to pay 20% tax as restitution to the victim.  This is the system of restitution, a much better system than the criminal and penitentiary system we have in the US. There were no jails in Israel.  If the man has no relative who can pony up the money or a redeemer, the restitution must go to the priest in addition to a ram for atonement.  All sins involving holy things go to the priests. However every man’s holy things remain as his.

• Num 5:11-31.  This is the strange law of jealousy. If a man suspects his wife went astray and committed adultery, and there are no witnesses, he is to bring his wife to the priest.  The obvious question is can a woman do this also? I suspect not.
  
  He has to bring an offering also, with grain, barley and no oil nor frankincense, for it is an offering to remember the [alleged] iniquity on this day.
  
  So the priest takes some water in an earthen vessel and takes sine dust from the floor of the tabernacle and mixes it with the water.
  
  Then the priest uncovers her head and out the grain offering the =jealousy in her hands.
  
  The priest though has the bitter water that brings a curse in his hands.  Get the visual?
  
  Then the priest gives her an oath: If no man has lain with you, you are free from any curse, but if not, and you have gone astray while under your husband’s authority (there it is the patriarchal flavor), “the Lord will make you a curse and your thigh will rot and your belly swell”
  
  Incidentally thighs back then were euphemism for loins, as thighs were  thought to be involved in the reproductive process. So this curse can easily be having her vulva rot and womb swell or miscarriage.
  
  So the priest would write these curses in a book and scrape them off into the water. It seems he wrote them with dust on a scroll or stone.  The woman was made to drink of the bitter water after the grain offering was waved before the Lord and some burned on the altar. If after this her “thigh” did not rot and her belly did not swell. She was free and may conceive children.  So this was a curse to either miscarry and leave a scar, and be unable to ever have children. If that was the case she would be doubly cursed, as her “thigh” or vulva was rotten, no one would dare have sex with her, and she cannot have children. She would be scarred.
  
  Some people said that this was a curse to abort any baby in her.
  
  This was the Lord Jesus used when the Pharisees brought the adulterer to him with no husband to have here stoned.  Instead of using the law from Deut 22, He used this law. He wrote on the dust off the floor where He was at, for He was the Tabernacle.  The Pharisees would have recognized what He was doing.  He told them He who was without sin cast the first stone.

Num. 15:1-31        Supplementary offerings / Offerings for unintentional sins

• Num 15:1-10 These seem to be extra offerings. If you bring one of the main offerings such as a burnt offering to fulfill a vow or as a freewill offering or during the feast, you should also present the following combo meals. Notice the larger the sacrifice the larger the amounts.  This is BBQ meat, bread and wine. [For all you religious Christians out there this is alcoholic wine]

• With a lamb - a grain offering of 1/10 of an ephah of flour mixed with ¼  hin of oil as a grain offering and ¼ of wine as a drink offering. 

• With a ram - a grain offering of 2/10 of an ephah of flour mixed with ⅓   hin of oil as a grain offering and ⅓  of wine as a drink offering.

• With a bullock - a grain offering of 3/10 of an ephah of flour mixed with ½    hin of oil as a grain offering and ½   of wine as a drink offering.

• Num 15:11-16 One law for native born and stranger

• Num 15:17-21 When you come to the Land, when you make bread or cake from the first grain you are to heave it to the Lord  It is a first meal from the land.

• Num 15:22-26 If you sin unintentionally, we covered this already as trespass offerings, but it seems bread and wine is used here also.  For the congregation a young bull for burnt offering with its grain and drink as well as one kid/ goat for sin offering is offered.

• Num 15:27-29 If an individual sins unintentionally, we covered this already as trespass offerings, with a young female goat offered. No bread nor wine here.

• Num 15:30-31 So far we have talked about unintentional sins and trespasses. If though someone does anything intentionally, presumptuously, with a high hand, whether native born nor stranger, they should be cut off because they despised the word of the Lord.  You cannot just say, well everyone is human. If you do it intentionally you despise the word of God.

Deut. 21:1-9  Atonement for an unsolved murder

• If someone is murdered in an open field and no one knows who did it, the elders in the nearest city would take a heifer that has not seen labor and lill it in a valley of flowing water; break its neck.   The Levites would be the judges.  The elders would wash their hands over the heifer whose neck is broken and say their hands have not shed his blood and they didn't see anything.   The key was so that God would not charge Israel with murder and hat the guilt would be taken away.  Remember the laws had also to do with making sure the land is never defiled.  It was not just about individual sin, It was also about defilement of the land.