Tag Archives: Genesis 19:8

Romans, Part 63

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I am considering Rejoice in hope, endure in suffering, persist in prayer,[1] as a description of love rather than as rules to obey.  The story of the Levite and his concubine in the book of Judges qualifies as ἀδικίᾳ that love is not glad about.  In the previous essay I wrote, “Dear God, I hope she was dead,” of the Levite’s concubine as she was sprawled out on the doorstep of the house.[2]  The problem with that hope is that the text doesn’t specify exactly when she died.

If my Mom found dog pee on the carpet she would rub the dog’s nose in it.  If that poor woman didn’t die from her injuries during the night I feel like my nose is being rubbed in the stench of the religious mind.

I’m trying to be mindful of our differing socializations, the Levite’s and mine.  John Wayne and Clint Eastwood would never send a woman out to face a pack of rapists.  “Women and children first” is second nature to me.  The Levite never heard Jesus’ teaching, What defiles a person is not what goes into the mouth; it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles a person.[3]  I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that he could not know that sending his woman out to a pack of rapists defiled him infinitely more than any pack of rapists could ever hope to do to him (Matthew 15:18-20a NET).

But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these things defile a person.  For out of the heart come evil ideas, murder, adultery, sexual immorality (πορνεῖαι, a form of πορνεία), theft, false testimony, slander.  These are the things that defile a person…

“Get up, let’s leave!”[4] the Levite said the next morning to the woman sprawled out on the doorstep of the house.

Perhaps his apparent coldness to the one who saved his ass—literally—is just my misunderstanding of an ancient Hebrew idiom.  I thought Jesus was terribly rude to his mother when He said, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come.[5]  Jesus, his mother Mary and his disciples attended a wedding in Cana.  All Mary had said to Him was, “They have no wine left.”[6]  My mother argues that I’m wrong to hear rudeness in Jesus’ response, rather that I should hear the crosscurrents of the obligation an eldest son felt toward his widowed or abandoned mother, and a godly mother’s sense of obligation to push him out the door to accomplish whatever God had sent Him to accomplish instead.

“Whatever he tells you, do it,”[7] Mary told the servants.  Jesus did this [turned water into wine] as the first of his miraculous signs, in Cana of Galilee.  In this way he revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him,[8] and his quiet life, and hers, changed dramatically overnight.

If the Levite put the woman’s unresponsive but still breathing body on the donkey and went home,[9] his negligence alone made him culpable for her death.  Even a Samaritan, a pseudo-Jew, had more compassion on a total stranger who fell among robbers (Luke 10:34, 35 NET):

He went up to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them.  Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.  The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever else you spend, I will repay you when I come back this way.’

This became the meaning of the law, love your neighbor as yourself,[10] when Jesus asked an expert in religious law, “Which of these three [the priest or the Levite who passed by on the others side,[11] or the Samaritan] do you think became a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”  The expert in religious law said, “The one who showed mercy to him.”  So Jesus said to him, “Go and do the same.”[12]

If the woman was still alive when the Levite took a knife, grabbed his concubine, and carved her up into twelve pieces,[13] the reeking stench of the religious mind boggles the imagination, for she had become too tainted in his sight to serve any longer as his sex slave.  If this is the understanding I am meant to perceive from the text’s reticence to state with any precision when the woman died, I will suggest that law is required to create a religious monster of this magnitude.

Before the law Judah was told, “Your daughter-in-law Tamar has turned to prostitution, and as a result she has become pregnant.”[14]  The charge was true.  Tamar had removed her widow’s clothes and covered herself with a veil.  She wrapped herself and sat at the entrance to Enaim which is on the way to Timnah.[15]  She did this so that men, one man in particular in fact, would think she was a prostitute.[16]

Judah said, “Bring her out and let her be burned!”[17]

While they were bringing her out, she sent word to her father-in-law: “I am pregnant by the man to whom these belong.”  Then she said, “Identify the one to whom the seal, cord, and staff belong.”[18]

They were Judah’s, given in pledge to what he thought was a cult prostitute seated by the side of the road.  Judah recognized them and said, “She is more upright than I am, because I wouldn’t give her to Shelah my son.”  He did not have sexual relations with her again.[19]

It’s a complicated tale involving Tamar’s social security, Judah’s superstition and Onanism (like Ananias and Sapphira-ism, e.g., lying to the Holy Spirit).  But before the law it was that easy for Judah to confess his own guilt and acquit Tamar.  After the law this Levite earned his place in a fiery hell.  And my own deliberations were so alarmingly like his.

I didn’t exactly grab my daughter and throw her out of the house to a pack of ravenous men.  I didn’t exactly fill her with the confidence that she could be loved by one man for an entire lifetime either.  I had my own σκάνδαλα (a form of σκάνδαλον; stumbling blocks) as he had his.  The Levite had Lot, a righteous man in anguish over the debauched lifestyle of lawless men[20] as his example.

Look, I have two daughters who have never had sexual relations with a man, Lot had said to a pack of ravenous men of Sodom.  Let me bring them out to you, and you can do to them whatever you please.  Only don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.[21]  The Levite’s host did essentially the same thing to save him: Here are my virgin daughter and my guest’s concubine, he said.  I will send them out and you can abuse them and do to them whatever you like.  But don’t do such a disgraceful thing to this man![22]

God spared Lot and his virgin daughters: So the men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house as they shut the door.  Then they struck the men who were at the door of the house, from the youngest to the oldest, with blindness.[23]  In his own story the Levite played the role of the visitor.  He knew his host and his host’s daughter should be spared.  He knew he could not strike men blind.  So he did the only thing in his power to do: the Levite grabbed his concubine and made her go outside.[24]

My own deliberations during my second divorce, predicated largely on my own experiences during my first divorce, shared the Levite’s  myopia.  Not once did I consider, much less wait for, God’s miraculous intervention.  I deliberated and acted with only my own abilities in view, never considering the possibility of God’s graciousness, believing instead that I probably deserved to be punished with another divorce, and so, living up to that expectation of my religious mind.

I have written a lot about the Levite and virtually nothing about the men who threatened him and raped his concubine.  I relate to the Levite’s religious mind.  It is more difficult to relate to the men who surrounded the house where he and his concubine stayed.  To illustrate I’m reminded of a story told by artist Miru Kim in Esquire Magazine.

She takes beautiful, evocative photographs of deserted urban landscapes and ruins with either herself or her sister as the lone figure in the shot—nude.  She was photographing herself, alone in an abandoned train tunnel, when the vagrant who lived there returned.  A marginal man, underground, in the dark, far from any systems of social control, it was the perfect setting for a violent tragedy.  Miru Kim continues in her own words:

“I was so scared.  That was probably the scariest moment.  I saw a figure coming through the tunnel, and he didn’t have a flashlight or anything, so it was completely dark.  So I see this dark figure coming toward me, then I saw that it was just this old guy who looked pretty harmless, he just lived there.  So I dressed up and explained to him what I was doing — ‘I’m doing an art project, sorry to bother you’ — you know?  Because it’s like his house, you know?  So I told him, and he didn’t say much; he was just standing there like, Okay.  So I took off my clothes again and did it in front of him and he was kind of sitting in the picture, so I was like, ‘Do you mind moving forward out of the picture, please?’  And he was just sitting around watching, so I did my thing, then dressed up.  It was really filthy in there, real muddy, smelled like urine, and I was wiping off with baby wipes, and the guy was like, ‘Do you want my shirt to clean off?’  He looked probably sixty or so, I’m sure he’s younger than he looks, and really skinny.  He was really nice.  Afterward, we were sitting around talking about his life.  He kept on talking about Rikers Island, and that he likes it down there because it’s quiet.  I told him I liked that, too.  And then he was like, ‘Let me walk you out.’  He thanked me for treating him like a regular person.”

I understand this art lover.  I relate to this lover of women.  He is my brother.  The mob that surrounded the house in Gibeah seems like cartoon evil to me.  This is how old men portray the enemy to young men when they want them to fight their wars for them.

I recognize the humanity of the men in Sodom primarily by their religious minds.  Lot offended their moral sensibilities: “Out of our way!” they cried, and “This man came to live here as a foreigner, and now he dares to judge us!  We’ll do more harm to you than to them!”[25]  The men of Benjamin were given no such cover.  They were like irrational animals – creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed.[26]

I played a week-long gig in an army town about forty years ago.  When we finished the first night we had to excuse ourselves between two lines of soldiers wound all the way around our hotel.  They awaited their turn for two women side by side on their backs in another hotel room.  I had been in locker rooms in high school.  I can at least extrapolate from that experience what kind of macho-anti-masturbatory-group-think might possess a young man to pay for the privilege to be third, fifth (?), eleventh (?), thirty-second (?), fifty-third (?) in one of those lines.  I can’t find any experience to extrapolate from to get anywhere near the vigilantes (?) enforcing social norms (?) in Sodom or the welcoming committee (?) in Gibeah.

“Warm Bodies” is an interesting movie.  It might have been a great film if it weren’t narrated from the wrong point of view with unnecessary voiceovers.  A zombie eats a man’s brains.  This allows him to see the man’s thoughts and feel his feelings.  He falls in love with the man’s girlfriend.  It’s not a sexual or romantic love, though there is a humorous bit where he attempts to comb his hair before assuring her in labored speech and pantomime that he will not eat her.  “Keep you safe,” is his constant refrain.  And he lives up to his word, not eating her himself and defending her from other zombies who would.

Eventually the mob in Gibeah came face-to-face with a woman.  Like the vagrant in the abandoned train tunnel or the zombie in “Warm Bodies” they had an opportunity to see themselves in her frightened eyes and repent, but they gang-raped her instead.  To say that they deserved to die implies moral reasoning and social systems of adjudication.  The instinct to exterminate these men is more basic than that.  It is the instinct, perhaps, which binds us together as a brotherhood of men.  And the Levite’s macabre missive mustered four hundred thousand of the brotherhood.

A town in which most people are filled with the fruit of the Holy Spirit can afford one fat, lazy sheriff.  The image and meaning of the good in that town will be some aspect(s) of the citizens’ love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness or self-control.  A town in which most people are not filled with the fruit of the Holy Spirit must fund at least three shifts of virile nazis.  The image and meaning of the good in that town will be those virile nazis.  As Robin (Anne Heche) in “Six Days Seven Nights” replied to Quinn (Harrison Ford), who thought women preferred a man who was in touch with his feminine side: “Well, not when they’re being chased by pirates.  They like them mean and armed!”

Romans, Part 64

Back to Romans, Part 65

Back to Romans, Part 66

[1] Romans 12:12 (NET)

[2] Judges 19:26 (NET)

[3] Matthew 15:11 (NET)

[4] Judges 19:28 (NET)

[5] John 2:4 (KJV)

[6] John 2:3 (NET)

[7] John 2:5 (NET)

[8] John 2:11 (NET)

[9] Judges 19:28 (NET)

[10] Leviticus 19:18 (NET) Table

[11] Luke 10:31, 32 (NET)

[12] Luke 10:36, 37 (NET)

[13] Judges 19:29 (NET)

[14] Genesis 38:24a (NET)

[15] Genesis 38:14 (NET)

[16] Genesis 38:15a (NET)

[17] Genesis 38:24b (NET)

[18] Genesis 38:25 (NET)

[19] Genesis 38:26 (NET)

[20] 2 Peter 2:7 (NET)

[21] Genesis 19:8 (NET)

[22] Judges 19:24 (NET)

[23] Genesis 19:10, 11a (NET)

[24] Judges 19:25b (NET)

[25] Genesis 19:9a (NET)

[26] 2 Peter 2:12a (NET)

Romans, Part 62

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As I continue to consider Rejoice in hope, endure in suffering, persist in prayer,[1] as a description of love rather than as rules to obey, I want to look at some more truth that love rejoices in along with some more ἀδικία that it does not.  What Luke called a parable (παραβολὴν, a form of παραβολή) Matthew presented as a rhetorical question in a discourse about child-rearing: If someone owns a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go look for the one that went astray?[2]

Matthew

Luke
See that you do not disdain one of these little ones.  For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.

Matthew 18:10 (NET)

 So Jesus told them this parable:

Luke 15:3 (NET)
What do you think?  If someone owns a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go look for the one that went astray?  And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he will rejoice (χαίρει, a form of χαίρω) more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray.

Matthew 18:12, 13 (NET)

 “Which one of you, if he has a hundred sheep and loses one of them, would not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture and go look for the one that is lost until he finds it?  Then when he has found it, he places it on his shoulders, rejoicing (χαίρων, another form of χαίρω).  Returning home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, telling them, ‘Rejoice with me, because I have found my sheep that was lost.’

Luke 15:4-6 (NET)
In the same way, your Father in heaven is not willing that one of these little ones be lost.

Matthew 18:14 (NET)

 I tell you, in the same way there will be more joy (χαρὰ) in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need to repent.

Luke 15:7 (NET)

I should back up a bit and look at more of the context of Matthew’s Gospel narrative.  Jesus’ disciples had asked him, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?[3]

He called a child, had him stand among them, and said, “I tell you the truth, unless you turn around and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven!  Whoever then humbles himself like this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.  And whoever welcomes a child like this in my name welcomes me.”[4]

Then He began what I am calling a discourse about child-rearing: But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a huge millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the open sea.[5]  The Greek word translated causes…to sin is σκανδαλίσῃ (a form of σκανδαλίζω).  The definition in the NET reads as follows:

1) to put a stumbling block or impediment in the way, upon which another may trip and fall, metaph. to offend 1a) to entice to sin 1b) to cause a person to begin to distrust and desert one whom he ought to trust and obey 1b1) to cause to fall away 1b2) to be offended in one, i.e. to see in another what I disapprove of and what hinders me from acknowledging his authority 1b3) to cause one to judge unfavourably or unjustly of another 1c) since one who stumbles or whose foot gets entangled feels annoyed 1c1) to cause one displeasure at a thing 1c2) to make indignant 1c3) to be displeased, indignant

It comes from σκάνδαλον a snare or trap, translated stumbling blocks in the next verse: Woe to the world because of stumbling blocks (σκανδάλων, a form of σκάνδαλον)!  It is necessary that stumbling blocks (σκάνδαλα, another form of σκάνδαλον) come, but woe to the person through whom they (σκάνδαλον) come.”[6]  The necessity (ἀνάγκη, a form of ἀναγκή) of stumbling blocks is part of the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God,[7] how God has consigned all people to disobedience so that he may show mercy to them all.[8]  As I write this my daughter is essentially a witch, a neo-pagan.  My part in her defection from Christ was a decision made during my divorce from her mother.

My children wanted to stay with me rather than their mother.  I went along with it, hoping their mother would see reason.  She called my bluff and asked for money (to which she was entitled) to leave.  My biggest concern at that moment was the family’s financial survival.  I traveled for a living and would need to hire someone to care for them while I was away.  I had no legal rights to my children.  (I married into them and hadn’t adopted them because their biological father was still living.)  And there were a few more things.

Her care for those children had saved their mother from many (though not all) misguided mistakes.  To take that from her seemed dangerous and cruel.  Add to that, I was crushed in my own soul to be rejected again by yet another woman.  I had serious doubts that I could be a single parent of two teenage children.  Did I even want to be a single parent of two teenage children?  I wanted to make movies.

I decided that I could walk away with nothing but a paycheck, start over again and still help the family financially, and my wife could not.  And so I rejected and abandoned my daughter.

I’m grateful to Stephenie Meyer, Melissa Rosenberg, Catherine Hardwicke and Kristen Stewart for giving me two hours to be a teenage girl in love.  Randy Brown, Robert Lorenz, Clint Eastwood and Amy Adams have also helped me immensely in a more didactic way.  But both “Twilight” and “Trouble with the Curve” came too late to save me from making potentially the worst decision of a lifetime of bad decisions (Matthew 18:8, 9 NET).

If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire.  And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away.  It is better for you to enter into life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into fiery hell.

If what I do with my hands, if where I go with my feet, if what I see with my eyes causes me to sin?

Causes you to sin has proven to be the worst of all possible translations of σκανδαλίζει (another form of σκανδαλίζω) for me.  It turns my thoughts inward to my sins.  My sins are forgiven!  Young’s Literal Translation—cause thee to stumble—allows me to see that Jesus was still talking about my real bumbling and stumbling, causing my daughter—one of those little ones who believed in Him—to sin, becoming a stumbling block to her, causing her to desert one whom she ought to trust.

Having watched her struggle through two drug-related psychotic breaks and a stroke, I agree with Jesus that it would have been better for me to kill myself.[9]  It is better for her, however, that I believe that I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.  So the life I now live in the body, I live because of the faithfulness of the Son of God…[10]  And I continue to pray that his love, his joy, his peace, his patience, his kindness, his goodness, his faithfulness, his gentleness, and his firm control[11] are all she sees from me from now on, because if I cannot be forgiven…

And by forgiven I mean:  though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.[12]  An eternity in a fiery hell seems like overkill to me for masturbation or premarital sex or even stealing a gazillion dollars.  But if my daughter cannot be found again by the Lord Jesus, if I have condemned her to an eternity in hell, I’m not entirely convinced one eternity in one fiery hell will be sufficient for me.

And though I write like this I still have hope.  “I’ll always be here as your daughter,” she texted me as I thought and wrote about these things.  She has forgiven me, but not Jesus—not yet.  “Your sacrifice has made my education possible and I can never repay you but with love,” she texted.  Since faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word (ρήματος, a form of ῥῆμα) of God,[13] I pray that He will speak that word, “hear,” to her heart, so she will know Jesus and his Father who has given her so much more than a few dollars.  Now this is eternal life, Jesus prayed to his Father, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent.[14]

I didn’t intend this essay to be so confessional.  I intended to write about an incident in the history of Israel, when a Levite…acquired a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah.[15]  Actually, I wanted to write about what happened on their journey home, after she got angry at him and went home to her father’s house in Bethlehem in Judah,[16] after he retrieved her from there.  But in the KJV she didn’t get angry, she played the whore against him.  The note in the NET reads: “Or ‘was unfaithful to him.’ Many have understood the Hebrew verb וַתִּזְנֶה (vattizneh) as being from זָנָה (zanah, “to be a prostitute”), but it may be derived from a root meaning “to be angry; to hate” attested in Akkadian (see HALOT 275 s.v. II זנה).”

Ken Stone wrote in the Jewish Women’s Archive online:

The Hebrew text states that the woman “prostituted herself against” the Levite (19:2). Thus, it has often been assumed that she was sexually unfaithful to him. Certain Greek translations, however, state that she “became angry” with him. The latter interpretation is accepted by a number of commentators and modern English translations, including the NRSV, since the woman goes to her father’s house rather than the house of a male lover. It is also possible that the woman’s “prostitution” does not refer to literal sexual infidelity but is a sort of metaphor for the fact that she leaves her husband. The act of leaving one’s husband is quite unusual in the Hebrew Bible, and the harsh language used to describe it could result from the fact that it was viewed in a very negative light.

And though Mr. Stone mentioned “Certain Greek translations,” the Septuagint reads simply καὶ ἐπορεύθη ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ ἡ παλλακὴ αὐτοῦ (literally: “and went from him the concubine of his”).

I won’t comment about a Levite with a concubine, except to say that the Hebrew word pı̂ylegesh (פילגש), translated concubine, does not occur in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers or Deuteronomy.  It occurs in Genesis before God’s law was given and again after in Judges, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Esther, Song of Solomon and Ezekiel.  But the concubine is a foreign custom to God’s law.

The Levite and his concubine spent the night in Gibeah, in the land of the Benjamites, with an old man from the Ephraimite hill country, the place to which the Levite and his concubine were returning.  I made the following table to compare and contrast what happened next to the incident in Sodom the night before it was destroyed.

Judges, the Levite and his concubine

Genesis, Lot and the visitors
They were having a good time, when suddenly some men of the city, some good-for-nothings, surrounded the house and kept beating on the door.

Judges 19:22a (NET)

 Before they could lie down to sleep, all the men – both young and old, from every part of the city of Sodom – surrounded the house.

Genesis 19:4 (NET)

The note on good-for-nothings in the NET reads: “‘the men of the city, men, the sons of wickedness.’ The phrases are in apposition; the last phrase specifies what type of men they were. It is not certain if all the men of the city are in view, or just a group of troublemakers. In 20:5 the town leaders are implicated in the crime, suggesting that all the men of the city were involved. If so, the implication is that the entire male population of the town were good-for-nothings.”  The text is clearer regarding Sodom: Now the people of Sodom were extremely wicked rebels against the Lord (yehôvâh).[17]

Judges, the Levite and his concubine

Genesis, Lot and the visitors
They said to the old man who owned the house, “Send out the man who came to visit you so we can have sex with him.”

Judges 19:22b (NET)

 They shouted to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight?  Bring them out to us so we can have sex with them!”

Genesis 19:5 (NET)
The man who owned the house went outside and said to them, “No, my brothers!  Don’t do this wicked thing!  After all, this man is a guest in my house.  Don’t do such a disgraceful thing!

Judges 19:23 (NET)

 Lot went outside to them, shutting the door behind him.  He said, “No, my brothers!  Don’t act so wickedly!

Genesis 19:6, 7 (NET)
Here are my virgin daughter and my guest’s concubine.  I will send them out and you can abuse them and do to them whatever you like.  But don’t do such a disgraceful thing to this man!”

Judges 19:24 (NET)

 Look, I have two daughters who have never had sexual relations with a man.  Let me bring them out to you, and you can do to them whatever you please.  Only don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.”

Genesis 19:8 (NET)

Chivalry as a moral code was invented much later.

Judges, the Levite and his concubine

Genesis, Lot and the visitors
The men refused to listen to him…

Judges 19:25a (NET)

 

 “Out of our way!” they cried, and “This man came to live here as a foreigner, and now he dares to judge (Septuagint: κρίσιν κρίνειν) us!  We’ll do more harm to you than to them!”  They kept pressing in on Lot until they were close enough to break down the door.

Genesis 19:9 (NET)
…so the Levite grabbed his concubine and made her go outside.

Judges 19:25b (NET)

 So the men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house as they shut the door.  Then they struck the men who were at the door of the house, from the youngest to the oldest, with blindness.

Genesis 19:10, 11a (NET)
They raped her and abused her all night long until morning.  They let her go at dawn.

Judges 19:25c (NET)

 The men outside wore themselves out trying to find the door.

Genesis 19:11b (NET)

The Benjamites who did this were not “godless Sodomites,” extremely wicked rebels against the Lord (yehôvâh, ליהוה), but sons of Israel living in the promised land.

Judges, the Levite and his concubine

Genesis, Lot and the visitors
The woman arrived back at daybreak and was sprawled out on the doorstep of the house where her master was staying until it became light.  When her master got up in the morning, opened the doors of the house, and went outside to start on his journey, there was the woman, his concubine, sprawled out on the doorstep of the house with her hands on the threshold.

Judges 19:26, 27 (NET)

 Then the two visitors said to Lot, “Who else do you have here?  Do you have any sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or other relatives in the city?  Get them out of this place because we are about to destroy it.  The outcry against this place is so great before the Lord (yehôvâh, יהוה) that he (yehôvâh, יהוה) has sent us to destroy it.”

Genesis 19:12, 13 (NET)

The woman was dead.  Dear God, I hope she was dead (Judges 19:29, 30 NET):

When he got home, [the Levite] took a knife, grabbed his concubine, and carved her up into twelve pieces.  Then he sent the pieces throughout Israel.  Everyone who saw the sight said, “Nothing like this has happened or been witnessed during the entire time since the Israelites left the land of Egypt!  Take careful note of it!  Discuss it and speak!”

Romans, Part 63

Back to Romans, Part 64

[1] Romans 12:12 (NET)

[2] Matthew 18:12 (NET)

[3] Matthew 18:1b (NET)

[4] Matthew 18:2-5 (NET)

[5] Matthew 18:6 (NET)

[6] Matthew 18:7 (NET)

[7] Romans 11:33a (NET)

[8] Romans 11:32 (NET)

[9] Matthew 18:6b (NET)

[10] Galatians 2:20a (NET)

[11] Galatians 5:22, 23 (NET)

[12] Isaiah 1:18b (NKJV) Table

[13] Romans 10:17 (NKJV)

[14] John 17:3 (NET)

[15] Judges 19:1b (NET)

[16] Judges 19:2a (NET)

[17] Genesis 13:13 (NET)

Deuteronomy, Part 1

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I intend to do a detailed study of Deuteronomy.  It coincided with my reading of an article in Newsweek, but I don’t know yet if that is anything more than a coincidence.  This is what Moses said to the assembly of Israel in the Transjordanian wastelands,[1] the book of Deuteronomy begins.  It struck me this time as an open invitation to compare Deuteronomy with what the Lord told Moses to say—Speak to the Israelites and tell them[2]—in Numbers 33:50-36:13 (NET).  I noticed immediately that what Moses said in Deuteronomy is considerably longer than what the Lord told him to say in Numbers.

Moses addressed the Israelites just as the Lord had instructed him to do.[3]  The note in the NET reads: “Heb ‘according to all which.’”  The Septuagint reads, κατὰ πάντα ὅσα ἐνετείλατο κύριος αὐτῷ πρὸς αὐτούς (literally, “following all as great as the Lord commanded him toward them”)

While I am willing to accept that God said more to Moses than is recorded in Numbers if Moses addressed the Israelites [according to all which] the Lord had instructed him to do, I notice that this same word ʼăsher was translated what in verse 1, whose twice in verse 4, that in verse 8 and just as in verse 11.  The problem is that verse 11 has a slightly different form of ʼăsher (כאשר) from all the other occurrences (אשר).  If Moses addressed the Israelites [, what] the Lord had instructed him to do, I think it only prudent to compare what Moses said to other passages with an open mind to potential differences between what Moses said and what the Lord told Moses to Speak to the Israelites and tell them.

Deuteronomy

Exodus, Numbers
The Lord our God spoke to us at Horeb and said, “You have stayed in the area of this mountain long enough.  Get up now, resume your journey…

Deuteronomy 1:6, 7a (NET)

 The Lord said to Moses, “Go up from here, you and the people whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt…

Exodus 33:1a (NET)
…heading for the Amorite hill country, to all its areas including the arid country, the highlands, the Shephelah, the Negev, and the coastal plain – all of Canaan and Lebanon as far as the Great River, that is, the Euphrates.

Deuteronomy 1:7b (NET)

 “Give these instructions to the Israelites, and tell them: ‘When you enter Canaan, the land that has been assigned to you as an inheritance, the land of Canaan with its borders,  your southern border will extend from the wilderness of Zin along the Edomite border, and your southern border will run eastward to the extremity of the Salt Sea, and then the border will turn from the south to the Scorpion Ascent, continue to Zin, and then its direction will be from the south to Kadesh Barnea.  Then it will go to Hazar Addar and pass over to Azmon.  There the border will turn from Azmon to the Brook of Egypt, and then its direction is to the sea.  And for a western border you will have the Great Sea.  This will be your western border.  And this will be your northern border: From the Great Sea you will draw a line to Mount Hor; from Mount Hor you will draw a line to Lebo Hamath, and the direction of the border will be to Zedad.  The border will continue to Ziphron, and its direction will be to Hazar Enan.  This will be your northern border.  For your eastern border you will draw a line from Hazar Enan to Shepham.  The border will run down from Shepham to Riblah, on the east side of Ain, and the border will descend and reach the eastern side of the Sea of Chinnereth.  Then the border will continue down the Jordan River and its direction will be to the Salt Sea.  This will be your land by its borders that surround it.’”

Numbers 34:2-12 (NET)
Look! I have already given the land to you.  Go, occupy the territory that I, the Lord, promised to give to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to their descendants.”

Deuteronomy 1:8 (NET)

 …to the land I promised on oath to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’

Exodus 33:1b (NET)
I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite.  Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey.  But I will not go up among you, for you are a stiff-necked people, and I might destroy you on the way.”

Exodus 33:2, 3 (NET)

The borders of the land of Israel were part of the instructions the Lord gave to Moses.  I won’t try to compare the geography of ancient place names.  The Lord’s statement—I will not go up among you, for you are a stiff-necked people, and I might destroy you on the way—was not repeated here in Deuteronomy.  When the people heard this troubling word they mourned.[4]  I think this troubling word is part of a covenant of law, the ministry that produced death and condemnation[5] as Paul called it.

I almost missed how momentous this insight is for me.  There were days between those sentences, days of data-gathering and meditation on pânı̂ym (פני) before I recognized something about me: I will not go up among you, for you are a stiff-necked people, and I might destroy you on the way, was the essential feature of God’s holiness as that holiness pertained to me.  I can’t trace its origin.  It’s so deep inside me it seems self-evident.  It’s the reason I thought salvation was essentially a way for God to overcome his holiness.

But prior to the law the Lord didn’t speak this way to Cain[6] after Cain murdered his brother.  Cain was banished, however, from the Lord’s presence or face.  Surely You have driven me out this day from the face (pânı̂ym, פני; Septuagint: προσώπου) of the ground; I shall be hidden from Your face (pânı̂ym, ומפניך; Septuagint: προσώπου).[7]  So Cain went out from the presence (pânı̂ym, מלפני; Septuagint: προσώπου) of the Lord and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.[8]

God’s covenant with Abraham had one human requirement, one law, if you will—circumcision (Genesis 17:9-13 (NET):

Then God said to Abraham, “As for you, you must keep the covenantal requirement I am imposing on you and your descendants after you throughout their generations.  This is my requirement that you and your descendants after you must keep: Every male among you must be circumcised.  You must circumcise the flesh of your foreskins.  This will be a reminder of the covenant between me and you.  Throughout your generations every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised, whether born in your house or bought with money from any foreigner who is not one of your descendants.  They must indeed be circumcised, whether born in your house or bought with money.  The sign of my covenant will be visible in your flesh as a permanent reminder.”

Moses, as a resident foreigner in a foreign land,[9] had not kept that one requirement with his own son.  Apparently, even after the Lord sent him back to Egypt to free Israel, Moses didn’t honor the covenant with God.  Now on the way, at a place where they stopped for the night, the Lord met Moses and sought to kill him.  But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off the foreskin of her son and touched it to Moses’ feet, and said, “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me.”  So the Lord let him alone.  (At that time she said, “A bridegroom of blood,” referring to the circumcision.)[10]

This “Lord” who met Moses and sought to kill him was not some generic lord.  The Hebrew word is yehôvâh (יהוה) disguised in translation, I assume, as a religious attempt to obey the commandment: You shall not take the name of the Lord (yehôvâh,  יהוה) your God (ʼĕlôhı̂ym, אלהיך) in vain, for the Lord (yehôvâh,  יהוה) will not hold guiltless anyone who takes his name in vain.[11]  The story of yehôvâh, Moses and Zipporah leads me to consider that Moses’ slowness to honor the covenant was out of consideration for his foreign wife’s sensibilities.  They had discussed it.  She knew exactly what to do when yehôvâh (יהוה) sought to kill her husband.  But as I begin to study the face or presence of yehôvâh (יהוה) I will refrain from speculating how Zipporah knew that it was He who sought to kill him.

Even so Moses was deeply troubled, though perhaps not surprised, by the Lord’s declaration, I will not go up among you, for you are a stiff-necked people, and I might destroy you on the way.  But yehôvâh[12] (יהוה) reassured him: My presence (pânı̂ym, פני; Septuagint: αὐτὸς, self) will go with you, and I will give you rest.[13]  And Moses expressed for me what is the heart of the issue, If your presence (pânı̂ym; פניך; Septuagint: αὐτὸς σὺ, yourself) does not go with us, do not take us up from here.  For how will it be known then that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people?  Is it not by your going with us, so that we will be distinguished, I and your people, from all the people who are on the face (pânı̂ym;[14] פני) of the earth?[15]

In the Septuagint pânı̂ym (פני) was translated αὐτὸς (self) here rather than προσώπου (face).  It seemed to discount the efficacy of I will not go up among you, while it challenged my attempt to hold both statements true by casting pânı̂ym as another entity.  Yet αὐτὸς may well be another attempt to deal with this conundrum.  It implies something related but other than the I which would be understood from the Greek verb alone.  And the verbs were different.  I will not go up among you was μὴ συναναβῶ μετὰ σοῦ.[16]  My presence will go with you was αὐτὸς προπορεύσομαί σου.[17]  The verb προπορεύσομαί (a form of προπορεύομαι) means to precede, go before.  It’s a subtle distinction, but it still implied some distance to spare Israel from destruction.

The rabbis who translated the Septuagint were, and I am, seeking to no One we don’t entirely comprehend.  Our reference frames are different as well.  The rabbis believed yehôvâh ʼĕlôhı̂ym (אלהים יהוה) in a culture in which there were other ʼĕlôhı̂ym (אלהים) to choose.  Now, in my culture I will trust yehôvâh ʼĕlôhı̂ym (אלהים יהוה) or I will depend on myself.  I don’t see any other options.  So I decided to look deeply into pânı̂ym (פני).  I made it through Genesis thus far and some preliminary observations follow.

In the beginning the face or presence of the Lord had a location in space and time.  There were times when his face or presence was present in a location and times and locations when and where his face or presence was not.  Adam and Eve hid themselves from the presence (pânı̂ym, מפני; Septuagint: προσώπου) of the Lord (yehôvâh, יהוה) God (ʼĕlôhı̂ym, אלהים) among the trees of the garden. [18]  And I assume that Adam and Eve did not eat the forbidden fruit nor did Cain murder Abel in the presence of yehôvâh ʼĕlôhı̂ym.  Of course, I had to quote from the NKJV here because the NET blurred any potential distinction between the presence of the Lord God and the Lord God: and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the orchard.[19]

These spatial/temporal limitations were so much a part of the word pânı̂ym that it could mean prior to something occurring in time: Lot looked up and saw that the Jordan River valley was well-watered (before [pânı̂ym, לפני; Septuagint: πρὸ] the Lord [yehôvâh, יהוה] obliterated Sodom and Gomorrah) like the garden of the Lord (yehôvâh, יהוה), like the land of Egypt, all the way to Zoar.[20]  Bring me some wild game and prepare for me some tasty food, Rebekah overheard Isaac say to Esau; Then I will eat it and bless you in the presence (pânı̂ym, לפני; Septuagint: ἐναντίον) of the Lord (yehôvâh, יהוה) before (pânı̂ym, לפני; Septuagint: πρὸ) I die.[21]

(It may be worth noting that Isaac didn’t mention the presence of the Lord to Esau.  Rebekah said it to Jacob.  Rebekah was the sister of Laban.  A generation later, Jacob’s wife Rachel thought it expedient to steal Laban’s household idols.  In a guilt by association sort of way it may be necessary to consider that all Rebekah meant by the presence of the Lord was in proximity to a household idol designated yehôvâh.)

It is not our custom here, Laban explained after he put Leah into Jacob’s wedding bed rather than Rachel, to give the younger daughter in marriage before (pânı̂ym, לפני; Septuagint: πρὶν) the firstborn.[22]  These were the kings, Moses began a king list, who reigned in the land of Edom before (pânı̂ym, לפני; Septuagint: πρὸ) any king ruled over the Israelites.[23]  And finally, Your father gave these instructions before (pânı̂ym, לפני; Septuagint: πρὸ) he died,[24] Joseph’s brothers lied by a messenger they sent to Joseph.

The Lord (yehôvâh, יהוה) appeared…by the oaks of Mamre.[25]  Abraham looked up and saw three men (ʼı̂ysh, אנשים; Septuagint: ἄνδρες) standing across from him.[26]  The word ʼı̂ysh occurred first from the mouth of Adam: this one will be called ‘woman,’ (ʼishshâh,  אשה) for she was taken out of man (ʼı̂ysh, מאיש; Septuagint: ἀνδρὸς).[27]  Abraham took some curds and milk, along with the calf that had been prepared, and placed the food before (pânı̂ym, לפניהם; Septuagint: παρέθηκεν) them.[28]  Another Hebrew word was also used for the three men Abraham saw when yehôvâh appeared, according to the NET website:  When the men (ʼĕnôsh, האנשים; Septuagint: ἄνδρες) got up to leave, they looked out over Sodom.[29]  (A note in the NET acknowledged that the Hebrew was actually “toward the face [pânı̂ym, פני; Septuagint: πρόσωπον] of” Sodom.)  One of the three men was yehôvâh:  The…men (ʼı̂ysh,[30] האנשים; Septuagint: ἄνδρες) turned and headed toward Sodom, but Abraham was still standing before (pânı̂ym, לפני; Septuagint: ἐναντίον) the Lord[31] (yehôvâh, יהוה).

In the next chapter the two men who left for Sodom were called angels, essentially a transliteration of the Greek or Latin words for messenger or envoy: The two angels (malʼâk,  המלאכים; Septuagint: ἄγγελοι) came to Sodom in the evening.[32]  Later they were called men again: Only don’t do anything to these men (ʼı̂ysh, לאנשים; Septuagint: ἄνδρας), for they have come under the protection of my roof,[33] Lot said.  So the men (ʼı̂ysh, האנשים; Septuagint: ἄνδρες) inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house as they shut the door,[34] Moses wrote.  Then the two men inside struck the men (ʼı̂ysh, האנשים; Septuagint: ἄνδρας) who were at the door of the house, from the youngest to the oldest, with blindness.[35]  After that demonstration the men inside the house were called visitors (ʼı̂ysh, האנשים; Septuagint: ἄνδρες) in the NET.[36]  But later, even the NET called them men again: When Lot hesitated, the men (ʼı̂ysh, האנשים; Septuagint: ἄγγελοι[37]) grabbed his hand and the hands of his wife and two daughters because the Lord (yehôvâh, יהוה) had compassion on them.[38]

I have belabored this point because, though the ancient word may not be species specific[39] in a scientific sense, there is enough here, that if one believed Moses[40] about yehôvâh as a man visiting Abraham, he would not dismiss Jesus so easily as a blasphemer: The Jewish leaders replied, “We are not going to stone you for a good deed but for blasphemy, because you, a man (ἄνθρωπος), are claiming to be God.”[41]

I’ll pick this up again in the next essay.

Back to Fear – Deuteronomy, Part 4

[1] Deuteronomy 1:1a (NET)

[2] Numbers 33:51a (NET)

[3] Deuteronomy 1:3b (NET)

[4] Exodus 33:4a (NET)

[5] 2 Corinthians 3:7-10 (NET)

[6] Genesis 4:8-16 (NET)

[7] Genesis 4:14a (NKJV)

[8] Genesis 4:16 (NET)

[9] Exodus 2:22 (NET)

[10] Exodus 4:24-26 (NET)

[11] Exodus 20:7 (NET) Table

[12] Moses spoke to yehôvâh (יהוה) in Exodus 33:12, 13 (NET)

[13] Exodus 33:14 (NET)

[14] Face wasn’t exactly translated in the Septuagint: ὅσα ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ἐστιν (“as great as upon the earth is”) much as face of the ground wasn’t exactly translated in Genesis 4:14 (NET).

[15] Exodus 33:15, 16 (NET)

[16] http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Exo&c=33&t=LXX#s=t_bibles_83003

[17] http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Exo&c=33&t=LXX#s=83014

[18] Genesis 3:8b (NKJV)

[19] Genesis 3:8b (NET)

[20] Genesis 13:10 (NET)

[21] Genesis 27:7 (NET)

[22] Genesis 29:26 (NET)

[23] Genesis 36:31 (NET)

[24] Genesis 50:16b (NET)

[25] Genesis 18:1 (NET)

[26] Genesis 18:2a (NET)

[27] Genesis 2:23b (NET)

[28] Genesis 18:8 (NET)

[29] Genesis 18:16a (NET)

[30] I’m not sure why האנשים highlights as ʼĕnôsh in Genesis 18:16 (NET) and ʼı̂ysh in Genesis 18:22 (NET), whether it is a subtlety of the Hebrew language or a mistake on the NET website (though Strong’s Concordance concurs).  See also: Genesis 19:10, 11, 12, 16 (NET)

[31] Genesis 18:22 (NET)

[32] Genesis 19:1 (NET)

[33] Genesis 19:8 (NET)

[34] Genesis 19:10 (NET)

[35] Genesis 19:11a (NET)

[36] Genesis 19:12 (NET)

[37] The rabbis who translated the Septuagint switched back to ἄγγελοι as the men functioned as envoys of the compassion of yehôvâh)

[38] Genesis 19:16 (NET)

[39] You must take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, the male (ʼı̂ysh, איש; Septuagint: ἄρσεν) and its mate, two of every kind of unclean animal, the male (ʼı̂ysh, איש; Septuagint: ἄρσεν) and its mate… (Genesis 7:2 NET)

[40] John 5:46 (NET)

[41] John 10:33 (NET)