Leviticus Part 5

 

  *

Crime and Punishment

(So what else is new?)

One of the things I think we've learned about God so far is that he likes to use repetition to make a point. And I can't disagree, after all it is a tried and true pedagogical method. If you missed him telling you not to tell a lie in Exodus he's going to remind you in Leviticus and it will probably come up later too. He also likes to make any promised disciplinary actions memorable. The next two chapters we're going to look at here consist of more rules (surprise!), many of which are going to be repeats, followed by the consequences if one doesn't follow the rules, although it must be pointed out that not all of the Do's and Don'ts in Chapters 18 and 19 are covered in the This Is What Will Happen To Yous of Chapter 20. Once again, a good editor would have come in handy, but then again, who is going to line edit God? He's gonna tell us what he wants to tell us and anything he leaves out is none of our damn business.

    Let's get to it.

    Can anyone tell me what Chapter 19 begins with? If you answered,

The Lord spoke

    you've been paying attention and I appreciate you. And what the Lord spoke about in this chapter has to do with Ritual and Moral Holiness.

• Ritual
• Keep the sabbath
• No messing about with idols
• Anytime you make a sacrifice of well being, which I'm sure you recall is what you call it when an animal is ritually slaughtered as a sort of bloody thank you card to God, make sure all the resulting roasted meat is eaten within two days. This may be one of the first examples of the use of "Best By" dating on food. 
• Anyone nibbling on the leftovers on the third day receives a one way ticket out of town.

• Moral Holiness
• When harvesting grain or grapes, leave some for the less fortunate
• I know I brought this up earlier, but what is the point of handing out agrarian life guidelines, however kindhearted and well intended, to vagabonds? These folks aren't destined to settle down in one place for forty years for goodness sake. Maybe hold those agricultural helpful hints for when the Israelites are within a week or so of dispossessing the Canaanite farmers.
• Don't steal. This is covered in both verse 10 and verse 13. Oh, and The Ten Commandments.
• Don't lie. We've heard that one before.
• Don't "swear falsely by my name." 
• Don't commit fraud.$
• Don't hold back wages from your workers.$
• Don't make fun of the disabled.$
• Don't be unjust.
• Don't defer to "the great".
• My take on this is we shouldn't assume that just because someone is famous, or has acquired a bunch of money, that they are somehow wiser or kinder or more moral.
• Don't slander.$
• Don't try to advance yourself through violence (bloodshed).$
• Don't hate.
• Don't seek vengeance.$
• Don't bear a grudge.$
• Here's a Do. It shares Verse 18 with the bits about not taking vengeance or bearing a grudge.
• "but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord."
• I do like the bit of emphasis he put on this one.
• Back to the Don'ts. Don't cross breed animals. I guess that was an issue then and perhaps the results were unfortunate. Unicorns with platypuses perhaps. Awkward.
• Only one kind of seed per field.
• Maybe crop rotation is still okay.
• Don't mix materials in a garment.
• There goes poly-cotton.
• Verses 20-22 are devoted to the issue of sexual relations with someone else's slave girl.$ The punishment is not death and atonement is available.
• Verses 23-25 covers the all important question of "When can I eat the fruit from the trees I'm going to plant in the orchards I'll be acquiring through Manifest Destiny?"**
• If you're wondering, the first three years are off limits, the fourth year's crop goes to the Lord, and the fifth year is when you can take a bite.
• Don't eat blood.
• Don't mess with augury (omens and predictions and such) or witchcraft.
• Hmm, how about political polling?
• There are rules regarding haircuts and beards.
• No tattoos.
• In Verse 29 the Lord tells Moses that he looks unfavorably upon the practice of selling ones daughter into prostitution.
• Keep the sabbath. (See "Rituals")
• Another caution regarding wizards is in Verse 31.
• Verse 32 says, and I quote, "You shall rise before the aged, and defer to the old."
• A few of our nervous Democrats might want to cherry pick that one back into their own personal scriptures.
• Don't oppress resident aliens.
• A whole bunch of GOP folks seem to skip over this one.
• No cheating when it comes to weights and measures.

    And now, to answer the question "Oh yeah? What're You Gonna Do About It?" that might have been prompted by the Do's and especially the Don'ts in Chapters 18 and 19, let's go to Chapter 20, which is titled...

Penalties for Violations of Holiness

    How does it begin? All together now...

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying...

    Instead of going through this chapter verse by verse, I'm going to try to organize things according to punishment.

• Things That Will Get You Killed (Method of execution unspecified unless otherwise noted)
• Messing around with Molech. (Stoning)
• Cursing Mom or Dad
• Adultery with
• wife of neighbor
• father's wife
• daughter-in-law
• Seems a rather short list, but actually, I think it covers the vast majority of possibilities.
• Sex with
• Another man
• Ones wife and her mother (Burned to death)
• An animal (Animal must also die)
• This is one of those rare sex don'ts that includes the possibility of a woman being the guilty party.
• Things That Will Make You "Subject to Punishment"
• Sex with
• Sister 
• Not a nun. Or at least I don't think so.
• Step or half sister
• Sex with aunt
• Something That Will Get You Banished
• Sex with "a woman who is in her sickness"
• Something That Will Render You Unable to Have Children
• Sex with your sister-in-law

    God closes out the chapter in rather long-winded form, but it pretty much boils down to a couple of bullet points.

• Obey my laws or you'll be vomited out of town.
• I'm paying all of this attention to you folks because:
• "I have separated you from the other peoples to be mine."***
• "Oh, sorry, nearly forgot to let you know that in case you happen across any wizards or mediums, I want them stoned to death."

*A nice footbridge at Boyce Thompson Arboretum in Superior, AZ.

**The phrase Manifest Destiny may have been coined in 19th century America to try to toss the garment of legitimacy on the wholesale slaughter of Native Americans and the stealing of their lands, but the concept of "I'm taking your land because God told me he wants me to have it" is as ancient as mankind.

***Seems to me that a whole lot of the troubles this old world has experienced in the past umpteen thousand years stems from the inevitable friction that happens when one Chosen People encounters some other Chosen People and there is a tract of desirable land they are both eyeballing.

$ As I was reading and then typing this installment, a certain political figure kept coming to mind. The Israelites had their Golden Calf, it seems we have our Orange One.