Ok, now,
when we left off God had just delivered the Ten Commandments, and the people of
Israel had just given Moses a handy excuse for the fact that nobody other than
him could actually hear God speaking words. And as we move on… more laws.
First, there
are laws about altars, for animal sacrifice no less. They must be earth or
unworked stone, with no steps to walk up so that nobody can get an upskirt shot,
and no gold or silver idols to represent God.
This is
immediately followed by some laws about slaves. No… the law is not that you
can’t own people. These laws are about how you go about owning other people. In
this section it mostly talks about Hebrews owning other Hebrews. Male Hebrews
bought as slaves only serve for six years, and then you’re supposed to set them
free. Unless you managed to marry one of your slave girls off to him, and he
actually doesn’t want to leave her and any kids they might have had together
(because you own his wife and kids). In order to remain with his family, he
basically has to agree to be your slave for life, and you mark him by driving
an awl through his ear.
Now
girls… girls have it different. I’m gonna quote the whole section, because it’s
a bit confusing.
“Ex 21:7 When a man sells his
daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. 8 If she does
not please her master, who has designated her for himself, then he shall let
her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since
he has broken faith with her. 9 If he designates her for his son, he shall deal
with her as with a daughter. 10 If he takes another wife to himself, he shall
not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights. 11 And if he does
not do these things for her, she shall go out for nothing, without payment of
money.”
I’m a
little confused about the nature of this situation. It’s clear that when a girl
is sold into slavery, it’s for life unless the master chooses to sell her back
to her father. What’s less clear is the actual nature of her slavery, due to
the reference to her master taking “other wives.” Is she a slave, or is she a
wife? Are the terms interchangeable? Or is she more like a concubine – a slave
who essentially acts as a wife in all ways except she doesn’t have the same
status as an actual wife? Then I recall that in earlier stories Jacob had his
wives Rachel and Leah. Each of them were had servants that they gave to Jacob “as
wives,” but who were later still referred to as his servants. That makes me think the concubine
situation is the most likely interpretation of this particular passage. But it’s pretty clearly in the law
that men could have multiple wives/concubines, and men were allowed to sell
their daughters into lifelong servitude of a likely sexual nature. Something
tells me this isn’t the situation most people are thinking of when they toss
around the term “Biblical marriage.”
Anyway,
the laws continue. There’s some reasonable stuff about retribution for murders
(penalty is death of course), human trafficking, striking pregnant women
(though it treats that as a crime against her husband), theft, responsibility for
loaned property, responsibility for damage caused by your livestock, etc. There’s
also some less-than-stellar stuff, such as that, while you can’t beat your
slave to death, if you stop short so that he survives a day or two then it’s OK
whether he dies or not. Or that if he’s permanently disabled by your beating
you have to let him go free (no restitution specified – I’m sure penniless and
disabled former slaves got along quite swimmingly in ancient Palestine). Then
there’s some batshit crazy awful stuff, like that anyone who curses or strikes
their parents should be put to death (news flash: there are some parents out
there who are frankly awful, and a few harsh words or a sock in the jaw is the minimum they deserve. Though I suppose
it’s possible that, given the context, that the authors may believe that the
word “curse” involves casting actual magic spells on their parents… which is
still not a death-worthy thing because it’s nonsense).
Now, I
should point out that my copy of the Bible includes these handy little heading
titles to tell you what any given section is about. It’s worth mentioning now
because the next section has the hilarious title (in the dark humor sense) of
“Laws About Social Justice.” Yes, there is some good social justice stuff, like
not letting widows and orphans starve, not oppressing travelers in their lands,
and not committing perjury or manipulating lawsuits to favor the rich over the
poor. But this is also the section that contains the famous line “Thou shalt
not permit a sorceress to live,” (sorceress? Does that mean sorcerers – the
male version of the same thing - are A-OK?), and makes it a crime worthy of
death to worship any god other than Yahweh. And of course, from my perspective,
that amounts to killing people over fictions.
From
there we move on to laws about festivals and worship. In these the Hebrews are
forbidden to even say the names of other gods. There are some feast days
specified, notes on offering the blood of sacrifices, and the specification
that the best of the first fruits of the harvest must be given to God. Oh, and
for some reason this section ends with forbidding the boiling of young goats in
their mother’s milk.
Now I
don’t want to give you the wrong impression here. There are some good things in
the laws laid down here. I’m not making an exhaustive list because this is a
blog, and anyway the Bible will have it all spelled out for you. The point I’m
trying to make, though, is that these laws simply are not universally good. It’s
a mixed bag of good, bad, and downright fucking evil, which is pretty much what
you might expect from laws written by a barbarian tribe 4000 or so years ago.
Or by many if not most modern lawmakers, if truth be told.
Then
there’s a break in the lawgiving to talk about the coming invasion of Canaan.
The gist of it is that they’re supposed to enter Canaan and completely wipe out
the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites, and Jebusites, and God
will send an angel with them to make sure they can pull off the genocide
successfully. Of course, they are forbidden to adopt the gods of the people
they wipe out. Yahweh is really big on hoarding the worship for himself.
God even
promises that he will be sure to drive out the peoples of those lands only as
fast as the Israelites expand, to make sure that the land they leave behind
won’t have time to fill up with wild animals that might harm them. I actually
find this hilarious. Firstly, it’s kind of a fact that people you’re warring against
are far more dangerous to you than wild animals. Secondly, does this suggest
that Yahweh would have been unable to prevent wild animals from taking over?
Lastly, you know what else causes people to driven out of a land at the same
rate that the invaders expand? Getting driven out by the fucking invaders! This
line is nothing more than claiming the natural result of a successful invasion
and giving the credit entirely to God. And very transparently so.
So at
this point God seems to be done laying down the law, and tells Moses to go
fetch Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy elders to come up and worship on the mountain.
Though they must still worship from afar – only Moses can come close to God. So
Moses heads down, and while he’s there he passes along all the laws to the
people. They agree to follow them, and he then proceeds to write the laws down in a
book. He then builds an altar and commands that a bunch of animals be gathered
together as a sacrifice. I should point out that this includes multiple oxen,
which are really damn big animals. I bring that up, because I want you to have
a sense of the amount of blood that will be involved in the next verse.
“Ex 24:6 And Moses took half the
blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar. 7
then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people.
And they said ‘All that Yahweh has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.’
8 And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said ‘Behold the
blood of the covenant that Yahweh has made with you in accordance with all
these words.’”
Do we
have that image fully in mind here? Yahweh’s covenant with the Israelites was
sealed by pouring gallons of blood over both his altar and the people
themselves. That’s pretty fucking hardcore. Do you have any doubt that this is
a blood god these people worshipped? And by extension, that Christians worship?
So with
that lovely image in mind, I take my leave for another day. Hope you all remain
well, until next time.
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