Through this series, I've ranted and rambled about my personal history. Hopefully, this gives non-Jews some perspective on why Jews see themselves (ourselves?) as both White and Non-White. It's because sometimes we're treated as White and sometimes as Non-White.
Yes, it's gross when you see a Jew on Twitter apologizing for being (((White))) one minute and then castigating all Whites the next. But it's not just a strategic issue, it's a dual identity issue.
After all, I'm Jewish enough for Auschwitz but not Jewish enough for Israel. Who does someone like me sympathize with? Anti-Semitic rhetoric makes me nervous, but so does Anti-White rhetoric. If the Revolution comes, I have no disillusions about where I'll stand. The Radical Left might not have the engineering competence to build gas chambers, but do you really think they'll hesitate to shoot you for your side-curls and tassels?
So, I know which side I'm on. Whites may have had trouble understanding who I am, but they've also treated me fairly, with only the rarest of exceptions. While I grew up rubbing elbows with legitimately racist Whites, they've always been (lol) the minority.
So while I get the (((White Person))) problem, I don't sympathize with (((White Person))) politics. Do you really think that the fraction of a percent of White People that want to gas Jews are more threatening than the Muslim world? Do you really think that the civilization that has done more to defend and uplift Jews than any other since Cyrus the Great is a threat?
Look, if this was still pre-WWII times, I might get it to an extent. But as you're so fond of reminding us, it's the current year. America and Europe want to like us. Like, to an embarrassing degree, especially when it comes to Protestants. Certainly more than we deserve, given the extent to which prominent Jews have been complicit in undermining Western Civilization.
Again, I get it. I'm not a neutral witness. As a Christian with Jewish blood in my veins, the average Jew probably finds me more hateful than David Duke. I'm less welcome in the ethnostate than Osama Ford Hitler. But really, in your heart of hearts, are you really so angry at the Blond Goy Jocks at your High School that you want to destroy your Greatest/Only Ally?
I'm not even certain who I'm ranting to at this point. I don't know if there is a point. What I'm trying to say is that when liberal Jews vacillate between being Jewish and (((White))), it's not a deceit. Well, it's not purely a deceit. They know that they'll never be White, but they also know that they'll never be not-White. They know that they'll never be accepted into the WASP club, but they also know they'll never be truly trusted as part of the Rainbow Coalition.
Too White for the Non-Whites. Too Non-White for the Whites. Perhaps driven mad by our inability to escape the politics of race. Thus, (((White))).
But then, I'll never really know what it is to be (((White))). And maybe that's who I'm trying to speak out for. For the Jews who want nothing to do with the lemming-march to destruction. Because maybe we have the slightest chance to help turn this bitch around before it implodes in race war.
Anyway, that's the end of my foray into talking about EGS. Here's hoping it'll be a long time before it comes up again.
Sunday, October 14, 2018
Friday, October 12, 2018
Dear Fellow (((White People))) Part Three
I still remember my Grandmother's funeral. For a variety of deeply personal reasons. But one thing I remember is finding out that I could never be buried in a Jewish cemetery because I was a Christian. For that matter, my Father could never be buried with his parents because he had accepted Jesus as the Messiah.
That wasn't the end of my experiences with being Jewish but not-Jewish. But frankly, it would have been enough. My Gentile friends back in West Virginia might joke about me being a Jew, but they accepted me for who I was. To be frank, they loved me. Outside of my immediate family (who I must stress, never gave me anything but love), the Jewish community had nothing but contempt for me.
I don't want to single out the Jews. The other parts of my extended family also viewed me and my siblings as different. But they also never threw me out of my goddamn Grandparents' apartment while my Grandfather was grieving. They also never told me I could never be buried with my family.
Now, I'm venting this part of my personal history because it's something I want to get off my chest. But I'm also venting it because it touches on why Jews sometimes view themselves as White and sometimes as Non-White.
When I was in High School, I was the most ethnically diverse person in my class. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that's not that unusual of a situation for a Jew. There are times when all of the people around you look at you and say, "You're different because you're not White."
At the same time, when I was in University, I got the same lambasting about how I was an Evil White Male from my Professors that the most Scotch-Irish motherfucker in West Virginia ever got. There are times when all of the people around you look at you and say, "You're 110% White."
I've lived in Japan for over five years, and in the entire time I've been here, no one has seen me as anything other than White. I've even been called Blond on multiple occasions, which is something that could really only happen in Asia. I'm about as Blond as Adolph Hitler, although according to your local Rabbi, I'm also just as welcome to sit shiva.
So what I'm saying is, I kind of get it when my fellow Jews (who 100% do not accept me as Jewish) sometimes refer to themselves as White and sometimes as Not-White. That's just part of growing up Jewish. To a White Supremacist, you're not White. To the Black, Asian, or Hispanic neighbors across the street, you're completely White. And to the State of Israel, it kind of depends on whether or not you accept Jesus as the Messiah.
Okay, we'll finish this up next time.
That wasn't the end of my experiences with being Jewish but not-Jewish. But frankly, it would have been enough. My Gentile friends back in West Virginia might joke about me being a Jew, but they accepted me for who I was. To be frank, they loved me. Outside of my immediate family (who I must stress, never gave me anything but love), the Jewish community had nothing but contempt for me.
I don't want to single out the Jews. The other parts of my extended family also viewed me and my siblings as different. But they also never threw me out of my goddamn Grandparents' apartment while my Grandfather was grieving. They also never told me I could never be buried with my family.
Now, I'm venting this part of my personal history because it's something I want to get off my chest. But I'm also venting it because it touches on why Jews sometimes view themselves as White and sometimes as Non-White.
When I was in High School, I was the most ethnically diverse person in my class. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that's not that unusual of a situation for a Jew. There are times when all of the people around you look at you and say, "You're different because you're not White."
At the same time, when I was in University, I got the same lambasting about how I was an Evil White Male from my Professors that the most Scotch-Irish motherfucker in West Virginia ever got. There are times when all of the people around you look at you and say, "You're 110% White."
I've lived in Japan for over five years, and in the entire time I've been here, no one has seen me as anything other than White. I've even been called Blond on multiple occasions, which is something that could really only happen in Asia. I'm about as Blond as Adolph Hitler, although according to your local Rabbi, I'm also just as welcome to sit shiva.
So what I'm saying is, I kind of get it when my fellow Jews (who 100% do not accept me as Jewish) sometimes refer to themselves as White and sometimes as Not-White. That's just part of growing up Jewish. To a White Supremacist, you're not White. To the Black, Asian, or Hispanic neighbors across the street, you're completely White. And to the State of Israel, it kind of depends on whether or not you accept Jesus as the Messiah.
Okay, we'll finish this up next time.
Wednesday, October 10, 2018
Different This Time, Baby
I know everyone's seen this train wreck already:
Peterson pulled the "It's just a social experiment, Bro!" card and claimed he was trying to think of a way to reduce tensions between the Left and Right. It was a transparent walk away from the backlash, naturally. It was amusing he thought he could fill the roll of the "genius healer" we apparently all need.
But it was more interesting to see that excuse followed up by this:
Is this the next narrative pitch coming down at us from the Left? "If you just start losing again, things can go back to normal. We'll totally start being civil, nice, and reasonable if you stop all of this nasty winning. Can't you see you're forcing us to be mean?"Apparently they think we're tired of winning, or at least tired of fighting.
It's probably projection on their part. They are absolutely getting tired of having an actual fight and so is everyone they know. Even the RINO quislings they rub shoulders with are tired of readjusting their bowties. And since that's the only Right they know personally, they assume we're all feeling drained instead of invigorated.
They're emotionally exhausted and battered by loss after loss after loss. Even by cranking up the crazy and throwing larger and larger tantrums, they're not getting their way. So of course they want to deescalate - or rather, they want us to deescalate so they can go back to a quiet war where no one fights back.
I can see how this pitch might work on Centrists, RINOs, and the most cowardly Civ-Nats. "Listen guys, the Left has totally learned their lesson and they'll never be mean or try to destroy the lives of innocent men again." Maybe there are a few Boomers hoping for a peaceful Thanksgiving with their psychotic daughters-in-law that'll go for it.
I'm not sure how hard or long the Usual Suspects are going to push this meme. I hope it's a big part of their new strategy for the Midterms now that Kavanaugh is confirmed. It's a wonderful mixture of childish ("You owe us a win! It's our turn to win!") and a transparent lie ("It'll be different this time, baby!") that not even the Republicans can lose to it.
Now, there also seems to be a strong current of "Now that Kavanaugh is in, we are justified in being as violent as we want" going around. My guess is that we're in A/B testing for now while the Left sees which message has legs. Of course, it's possible they'll target one message outwards ("We'll be nice this time") and one message inwards ("We can be as violent as we want"), which is the best case scenario.
Dear Fellow (((White People))) Part Two
I grew up in West Virginia, but my parents grew up in New York, New York. Brooklyn, to be specific.
It was a summertime tradition when my siblings and I were growing up to take a pilgrimage back to the Motherland for a week or so. We would stay in Grandma's house in Brooklyn, walk the mean streets, and eat the best pizza on planet Earth.
Driving over the Brooklyn Bridge into the Old Country was always something special back then. While I was culturally Southern and West Virginian (I still have a touch of that back-country accent to this day), I also grew up never meeting a person who looked like me who wasn't a blood relative. But that was different in New York. In New York, I could look out the window of our minivan and see people who looked like me walking the streets.
Of course, there were also Blacks and Russians and Chinese walking the streets, but the point was it wasn't 99.8% Scotch-Irish. It was a window into another world much different from the world I spent 99.9% of my life in. In West Virginia, I was a minority beyond reckoning. In New York, I was still out of place, but culturally instead of ethnically.
Now, I want to be very clear about something. My Jewish extended family never made me feel like an outsider or inferior in any way. This is something I can't say about my non-Jewish extended family. So it wasn't until I was relatively older that I started to understand that I wasn't "really" Jewish.
When I was about 10 years old (11? 12?) my Grandmother died. She was one of the sweetest, most loving women that I have ever known. Her family was Jewish, from Poland. Amusingly, they were kicked out of the country a few years before World War II because Great-Grandpa was a horse thief. So the only reason that branch of the family survived the Holocaust was because they were running from the law.
Now, until my Grandmother died, the only Jews I had had contact with were blood relatives. And again, they never showed me or my siblings anything but love, despite the fact that my Father had converted to Christianity and raised us as Christians. So I never had any sense of antipathy towards my Jewish heritage. If anything, in the Fundamentalist Protestant Wonderland of West Virginia, it made me something closer to a local celebrity than an outcast.
And then my Grandmother died.
My Grandfather was not born Jewish, but converted in order to marry my Grandmother. And when my Grandmother died, we piled into the mini-van and drove up to Brooklyn for the funeral.
Now you need to understand, while I grew up knowing that I was Jewish, my exposure to Jewish culture was strictly limited to matzah and Manischewitz. Hell, I have to rely on spellcheck to type those two right. My Grandparents were fond of making Hypocrite Stuffing for Thanksgiving, a turkey stuffing rich with pork products and irony. So ceremonial cleanliness was not something I was used to.
So imagine this. It's my Grandparents' small apartment in the Brooklyn projects. My Grandmother, one of the best people I have ever known, has just died. My Father is comforting my Grandfather as we kids are doing our best to hold it together. The front door opens. Grim-faced men in black hats and side-curls come into the apartment, men who I have never met before in my life, come into my Grandparents' apartment and demand that we leave.
As a preteen, I have no frame of reference for this. Who are these strange men to come into my Grandparents' apartment, where I have spent every summer of my life, and demand that we leave? In my Grandfather's moment of grief? In my Father's moment of grief? In my moment of grief? And yet, my Father ushers us kids out. On the way to my mother's family's house, he explains. These men are here to sit shiva for my Grandmother, and as Christian half-breeds, our presence would defile the apartment.
Now, I had read enough of the Old Testament as a child to kind of get the general idea. But I had also grown up my entire life being looked at as different for being a Jew. In West Virginia, being 1/4 Jewish made me an outsider, marked out as different and strange. And now, for the first time, being 3/4 Gentile made me the same thing.
What was I? Who was I? Who the fuck were these Rabbi-looking mother fuckers to kick me out of my Grandparent's apartment? I was used to getting strange looks for not being White. I was not used to being treated like trash for not being Jewish enough.
It was a summertime tradition when my siblings and I were growing up to take a pilgrimage back to the Motherland for a week or so. We would stay in Grandma's house in Brooklyn, walk the mean streets, and eat the best pizza on planet Earth.
Driving over the Brooklyn Bridge into the Old Country was always something special back then. While I was culturally Southern and West Virginian (I still have a touch of that back-country accent to this day), I also grew up never meeting a person who looked like me who wasn't a blood relative. But that was different in New York. In New York, I could look out the window of our minivan and see people who looked like me walking the streets.
Of course, there were also Blacks and Russians and Chinese walking the streets, but the point was it wasn't 99.8% Scotch-Irish. It was a window into another world much different from the world I spent 99.9% of my life in. In West Virginia, I was a minority beyond reckoning. In New York, I was still out of place, but culturally instead of ethnically.
Now, I want to be very clear about something. My Jewish extended family never made me feel like an outsider or inferior in any way. This is something I can't say about my non-Jewish extended family. So it wasn't until I was relatively older that I started to understand that I wasn't "really" Jewish.
When I was about 10 years old (11? 12?) my Grandmother died. She was one of the sweetest, most loving women that I have ever known. Her family was Jewish, from Poland. Amusingly, they were kicked out of the country a few years before World War II because Great-Grandpa was a horse thief. So the only reason that branch of the family survived the Holocaust was because they were running from the law.
Now, until my Grandmother died, the only Jews I had had contact with were blood relatives. And again, they never showed me or my siblings anything but love, despite the fact that my Father had converted to Christianity and raised us as Christians. So I never had any sense of antipathy towards my Jewish heritage. If anything, in the Fundamentalist Protestant Wonderland of West Virginia, it made me something closer to a local celebrity than an outcast.
And then my Grandmother died.
My Grandfather was not born Jewish, but converted in order to marry my Grandmother. And when my Grandmother died, we piled into the mini-van and drove up to Brooklyn for the funeral.
Now you need to understand, while I grew up knowing that I was Jewish, my exposure to Jewish culture was strictly limited to matzah and Manischewitz. Hell, I have to rely on spellcheck to type those two right. My Grandparents were fond of making Hypocrite Stuffing for Thanksgiving, a turkey stuffing rich with pork products and irony. So ceremonial cleanliness was not something I was used to.
So imagine this. It's my Grandparents' small apartment in the Brooklyn projects. My Grandmother, one of the best people I have ever known, has just died. My Father is comforting my Grandfather as we kids are doing our best to hold it together. The front door opens. Grim-faced men in black hats and side-curls come into the apartment, men who I have never met before in my life, come into my Grandparents' apartment and demand that we leave.
As a preteen, I have no frame of reference for this. Who are these strange men to come into my Grandparents' apartment, where I have spent every summer of my life, and demand that we leave? In my Grandfather's moment of grief? In my Father's moment of grief? In my moment of grief? And yet, my Father ushers us kids out. On the way to my mother's family's house, he explains. These men are here to sit shiva for my Grandmother, and as Christian half-breeds, our presence would defile the apartment.
Now, I had read enough of the Old Testament as a child to kind of get the general idea. But I had also grown up my entire life being looked at as different for being a Jew. In West Virginia, being 1/4 Jewish made me an outsider, marked out as different and strange. And now, for the first time, being 3/4 Gentile made me the same thing.
What was I? Who was I? Who the fuck were these Rabbi-looking mother fuckers to kick me out of my Grandparent's apartment? I was used to getting strange looks for not being White. I was not used to being treated like trash for not being Jewish enough.
Monday, October 8, 2018
Dear Fellow (((White People))) Part One
Today I’d like to talk a little about something that I don’t like to talk about at all: my ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation. Specifically, I’d like to talk about why I'm going to talk about them.
I'm on the record about why I don't like talking about my EGS. And yet, enough has happened since I made that statement that I'm willing to change my position. So today, I'm going to do something that I have specifically avoided in order to address something that most (((whites))) don't like to address head on.
If you've been on the internet in the last year or so, you probably know where I'm going with (((this))). I want to talk about why Jews sometimes refer to themselves as White and sometimes as non-White.
But in order to get there, first I need to talk about who I am and why I feel comfortable addressing this issue. I am 1/4 Jewish Christian, or in other words, Jewish enough for Hitler but not Jewish enough for Israel. The irony of this is not lost on me.
I grew up in West Virginia, which is one of the whitest, most Christian States in the Union. And I grew up in the 80s, when the non-White population of West Virginia was even higher than it is now. In my Elementary School class photos, I stick out like a big-nosed, dark-skinned, non-blond thumb.
One of my earliest childhood memories is one of my teachers saying that if we had been born before Jesus, everyone in my class would have been going to Hell except me. And how my classmates looked at me. That's the sort of thing that stays with you.
When I was in High School, I took part in a Competitive Preaching competition. Yes, that's a thing. I gave a fiery sermon on the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels. Afterwards, one of my classmates came up to me and said that they were surprised I was willing to preach from the Gospels because I'm Jewish. This was after years of arguing the finer parts of Christian doctrine with my classmates for years. That's what we're dealing with here.
I remember working at a temp agency in college during the summers. Almost every job started with my co-workers asking "What are you?" Not "What's your ethnicity?" or "What race are you?" but, "What are you?" As if I was a thing, not a person.
And the thing about it was, I was accustomed enough to this question to find it amusing. Because frankly, it was a legitimate question in West Virginia. I grew up not knowing a single person like me who wasn't an immediate blood relative. So when someone asked me "What are you?" frankly, I sympathized. What was I?
Because again, frankly, this was something that my encounters with Judaism left me questioning.
I'm on the record about why I don't like talking about my EGS. And yet, enough has happened since I made that statement that I'm willing to change my position. So today, I'm going to do something that I have specifically avoided in order to address something that most (((whites))) don't like to address head on.
If you've been on the internet in the last year or so, you probably know where I'm going with (((this))). I want to talk about why Jews sometimes refer to themselves as White and sometimes as non-White.
But in order to get there, first I need to talk about who I am and why I feel comfortable addressing this issue. I am 1/4 Jewish Christian, or in other words, Jewish enough for Hitler but not Jewish enough for Israel. The irony of this is not lost on me.
I grew up in West Virginia, which is one of the whitest, most Christian States in the Union. And I grew up in the 80s, when the non-White population of West Virginia was even higher than it is now. In my Elementary School class photos, I stick out like a big-nosed, dark-skinned, non-blond thumb.
One of my earliest childhood memories is one of my teachers saying that if we had been born before Jesus, everyone in my class would have been going to Hell except me. And how my classmates looked at me. That's the sort of thing that stays with you.
When I was in High School, I took part in a Competitive Preaching competition. Yes, that's a thing. I gave a fiery sermon on the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels. Afterwards, one of my classmates came up to me and said that they were surprised I was willing to preach from the Gospels because I'm Jewish. This was after years of arguing the finer parts of Christian doctrine with my classmates for years. That's what we're dealing with here.
I remember working at a temp agency in college during the summers. Almost every job started with my co-workers asking "What are you?" Not "What's your ethnicity?" or "What race are you?" but, "What are you?" As if I was a thing, not a person.
And the thing about it was, I was accustomed enough to this question to find it amusing. Because frankly, it was a legitimate question in West Virginia. I grew up not knowing a single person like me who wasn't an immediate blood relative. So when someone asked me "What are you?" frankly, I sympathized. What was I?
Because again, frankly, this was something that my encounters with Judaism left me questioning.
Thursday, July 19, 2018
Strangers In The Land: Ger 020
Numbers 9:6-14
Now there were certain men who were defiled by a human corpse, so that they could not keep the Passover on that day; and they came before Moses and Aaron that day. And those men said to him, “We became defiled by a human corpse. Why are we kept from presenting the offering of the Lord at its appointed time among the children of Israel?”
And Moses said to them, “Stand still, that I may hear what the Lord will command concerning you.”
Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the children of Israel, saying: ‘If anyone of you or your posterity is unclean because of a corpse, or is far away on a journey, he may still keep the Lord’s Passover. On the fourteenth day of the second month, at twilight, they may keep it. They shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. They shall leave none of it until morning, nor break one of its bones. According to all the ordinances of the Passover they shall keep it. But the man who is clean and is not on a journey, and ceases to keep the Passover, that same person shall be cut off from among his people, because he did not bring the offering of the Lord at its appointed time; that man shall bear his sin.
‘And if a ger dwells among you, and would keep the Lord’s Passover, he must do so according to the rite of the Passover and according to its ceremony; you shall have one ordinance, both for the ger and the native of the land.’ ”
What Does It Say?
Numbers 9 takes place in the context of the second Passover, that is, the first one where Egyptian babies weren't being killed by the angel of death. Some of the men of Israel are ceremonially unclean at the time and ask Moses what they should do.
Moses asks the Lord for an answer (which you can read above), and the Lord throws in some bonus advice on ger who might want to celebrate the Passover. The short version: they can, as long as they follow the same rules.
This fits in with many, many other verses we've looked at that mandate one law for the native and the ger. Nothing really new here, but it is interesting to see the ger contrasted with the native born who fail to celebrate the Passover despite being able to. Where the ger can join in, the native-born who don't fulfill the law are cut off. As we've seen before, that may indicate being cast out of the land or perhaps even capital punishment.
Next: Numbers 15
Tuesday, July 17, 2018
Strangers In The Land: Ger 019
Leviticus 25:45-55
Moreover you may buy the children of the towshab who dwell among you, and their families who are with you, which they beget in your land; and they shall become your property. And you may take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them as a possession; they shall be your abad. But regarding your brethren, the children of Israel, you shall not rule over one another with rigor.
‘Now if a ger and towshab close to you becomes rich, and one of your brethren who dwells by him becomes poor, and sells himself to the ger and towshab close to you, or to a member of the ger's family, after he is sold he may be redeemed again. One of his brothers may redeem him; or his uncle or his uncle’s son may redeem him; or anyone who is near of kin to him in his family may redeem him; or if he is able he may redeem himself. Thus he shall reckon with him who bought him: The price of his release shall be according to the number of years, from the year that he was sold to him until the Year of Jubilee; it shall be according to the time of a sakiyr for him. If there are still many years remaining, according to them he shall repay the price of his redemption from the money with which he was bought. And if there remain but a few years until the Year of Jubilee, then he shall reckon with him, and according to his years he shall repay him the price of his redemption. He shall be with him as a yearly hired servant, and he shall not rule with rigor over him in your sight. And if he is not redeemed in these years, then he shall be released in the Year of Jubilee—he and his children with him. For the children of Israel are ebed to Me; they are My ebed whom I brought out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.What Does It Say?
This section of chapter 25 deals with the ownership of human beings. Now, if you recall, towshab are foreigners who have not been circumcised and thus are not subject to the protections of the law to the same extent as ger. Therefore, towshab can be owned as property (abad) and worked hard. They are closer to the modern definition of slaves since they are not freed on the Year of Jubilee.
Israelite can sell themselves as servants, whether to other Israelites or to ger and towshab. However, they cannot be held as property permanently; they must be freed on the Year of Jubilee. Further, they can be freed from their servitude by paying the remainder of the price they were sold for at any time.
The reason given that Israelites cannot be sold as abad is because they are the ebed (servants) of God. In other words, they belong to God. So just as the other parts of chapter 25 deal with the restitution of property, so does this section. In dealing with Israelites, you are dealing with God's property. His claim overrules the claim of the ger and towshab that they are sold to.
We do see some interesting possibilities in this passage. It seems to indicate that it is not just ger, or towshab living as servants that might exist in Israel. It seems that towshab (who are ger in the sense of being ethnically different, hence "ger and towshab") could also live in the land and become wealthy without being circumcised. In that case, one would not have to worship the One True God in order to live in Israel.
Would these towshab also be allowed to practice their foreign religions? That's still somewhat ambiguous in our study. They certainly would not be allowed to sacrifice their children to Moloch, as we have seen in earlier passages. The most we can say so far is that there would be some restrictions on their religious practice.
And with that, we leave the book of Leviticus and move on to Numbers.
Next: Numbers 9
Friday, July 13, 2018
Strangers In The Land: Ger 018
Leviticus 24:10-22
Now the son of an Israelite woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the children of Israel; and this Israelite woman’s son and a man of Israel fought each other in the camp. And the Israelite woman’s son blasphemed the name of the Lord and cursed; and so they brought him to Moses. (His mother’s name was Shelomith the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan.) Then they put him in custody, that the mind of the Lord might be shown to them.
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Take outside the camp him who has cursed; then let all who heard him lay their hands on his head, and let all the congregation stone him.
“Then you shall speak to the children of Israel, saying: ‘Whoever curses his God shall bear his sin. And whoever blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall certainly stone him, the ger as well as him who is born in the land. When he blasphemes the name of the Lord, he shall be put to death.
‘Whoever kills any man shall surely be put to death. Whoever kills an animal shall make it good, animal for animal.
‘If a man causes disfigurement of his neighbor, as he has done, so shall it be done to him— fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; as he has caused disfigurement of a man, so shall it be done to him. And whoever kills an animal shall restore it; but whoever kills a man shall be put to death. You shall have the same law for the ger and for one from your own country; for I am the Lord your God.’ ”
What Does It Say?
This passage is one of the most revealing and complex of all that we have come across so far. There are some challenges to interpreting the mindset of the author, so take what I say with a larger grain of salt that usual. I'll try to make my personal interpretation clear and leave room for other opinions.
Let's start with the obvious: no one is exempt from the law, Israelite or ger. Ger are also required to take part in stoning blasphemers to death.
It's also interesting that this law on blasphemy is included in a list of "eye for an eye" punishments. The implication that blasphemy is so terribly wicked that the only equally appropriate punishment is death. Just as the perfectly proportionate punishment for the destruction of an eye is the destruction of the offender's eye, so the the perfectly proportionate punishment for blaspheming the Lord and Creator of Life is the death of the offender.
Let's look at the more debatable stuff about race mixing now.
The passage starts with the explanation of a legal case. The son of an Israelite woman and an Egyptian man gets into a fight with an Israelite man, and, in the heat of the moment, blasphemes the name of the Lord. It's something we might even find a bit understandable - perhaps he simply lost control of his tongue.
It's not clear where his father is in all this. As the Israelites were recently slaves in Egypt, it's possible the boy is the product of a rape. It's also possible his Egyptian father followed the Israelites out into the wilderness. There is some evidence in Exodus that the people who left Egypt were not purely Israelites. Exodus 12:38 says that "A mixed multitude went up with them also, and flocks and herds—a great deal of livestock." The words translated as "mixed multitude" are ereb rab.
Ereb is used mostly in the Bible to refer to mixed cloths - think a polyester-cotton blend. However, it is also used in Nehemiah 13 to refer to Ammonites and Moabites who had been "mixed" into the Israelite population. Specifically, verse 3 says that these mixed-in people had to be removed. So we know it can refer to a ethnically mixed population. Rab is a more general term used to describe an abundance or great number.
There's also some mathmatical evidence for extended race mixing in Egypt that I'm not going to go into detail on. Here's a link to a blog discussing it (I'm not vouching for the blog, just the math in that post).
If this is the case, it definitely informs our understanding of race mixing in the Bible. While there are many passages where interracial marriage is shown in a negative light (the incident with Phineas springs to mind), these instances are always explicitly mixed with concerns of religious mixing. So if we have this example of interracial marriage being perfectly fine when there's no concern of faith mixing, it clarifies the Bible's stance.
There are of course plenty of individual instances of mixed-ethnic marriages in the Bible, including Moses' previously discussed marriage, and several women in Jesus' own family tree. But it would be interesting if it was happening commonly in the background, not just in special exceptions.
In the interest of fairness, we should say that there is no overwhelming evidence in the Bible for large-scale intermarriage. And even if it was normal at the time of the Exodus due to the Israelites living in Egypt, I'm not familiar with any evidence (so far) that it was normal after the Israelites entered the Promised Land. If anything, taboos against intermarriage seem to increase in Cannan due to the hostile and unrepentantly pagan people surrounding Israel, as well as the tendency of the Israelites to fall into idol worship.
Still, the lack of explicit condemnation of intermarriage per se would indicate it was allowed even if not common.
Next: Leviticus 25
Now the son of an Israelite woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the children of Israel; and this Israelite woman’s son and a man of Israel fought each other in the camp. And the Israelite woman’s son blasphemed the name of the Lord and cursed; and so they brought him to Moses. (His mother’s name was Shelomith the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan.) Then they put him in custody, that the mind of the Lord might be shown to them.
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Take outside the camp him who has cursed; then let all who heard him lay their hands on his head, and let all the congregation stone him.
“Then you shall speak to the children of Israel, saying: ‘Whoever curses his God shall bear his sin. And whoever blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall certainly stone him, the ger as well as him who is born in the land. When he blasphemes the name of the Lord, he shall be put to death.
‘Whoever kills any man shall surely be put to death. Whoever kills an animal shall make it good, animal for animal.
‘If a man causes disfigurement of his neighbor, as he has done, so shall it be done to him— fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; as he has caused disfigurement of a man, so shall it be done to him. And whoever kills an animal shall restore it; but whoever kills a man shall be put to death. You shall have the same law for the ger and for one from your own country; for I am the Lord your God.’ ”
What Does It Say?
This passage is one of the most revealing and complex of all that we have come across so far. There are some challenges to interpreting the mindset of the author, so take what I say with a larger grain of salt that usual. I'll try to make my personal interpretation clear and leave room for other opinions.
Let's start with the obvious: no one is exempt from the law, Israelite or ger. Ger are also required to take part in stoning blasphemers to death.
It's also interesting that this law on blasphemy is included in a list of "eye for an eye" punishments. The implication that blasphemy is so terribly wicked that the only equally appropriate punishment is death. Just as the perfectly proportionate punishment for the destruction of an eye is the destruction of the offender's eye, so the the perfectly proportionate punishment for blaspheming the Lord and Creator of Life is the death of the offender.
Let's look at the more debatable stuff about race mixing now.
The passage starts with the explanation of a legal case. The son of an Israelite woman and an Egyptian man gets into a fight with an Israelite man, and, in the heat of the moment, blasphemes the name of the Lord. It's something we might even find a bit understandable - perhaps he simply lost control of his tongue.
It's not clear where his father is in all this. As the Israelites were recently slaves in Egypt, it's possible the boy is the product of a rape. It's also possible his Egyptian father followed the Israelites out into the wilderness. There is some evidence in Exodus that the people who left Egypt were not purely Israelites. Exodus 12:38 says that "A mixed multitude went up with them also, and flocks and herds—a great deal of livestock." The words translated as "mixed multitude" are ereb rab.
Ereb is used mostly in the Bible to refer to mixed cloths - think a polyester-cotton blend. However, it is also used in Nehemiah 13 to refer to Ammonites and Moabites who had been "mixed" into the Israelite population. Specifically, verse 3 says that these mixed-in people had to be removed. So we know it can refer to a ethnically mixed population. Rab is a more general term used to describe an abundance or great number.
There's also some mathmatical evidence for extended race mixing in Egypt that I'm not going to go into detail on. Here's a link to a blog discussing it (I'm not vouching for the blog, just the math in that post).
If this is the case, it definitely informs our understanding of race mixing in the Bible. While there are many passages where interracial marriage is shown in a negative light (the incident with Phineas springs to mind), these instances are always explicitly mixed with concerns of religious mixing. So if we have this example of interracial marriage being perfectly fine when there's no concern of faith mixing, it clarifies the Bible's stance.
There are of course plenty of individual instances of mixed-ethnic marriages in the Bible, including Moses' previously discussed marriage, and several women in Jesus' own family tree. But it would be interesting if it was happening commonly in the background, not just in special exceptions.
In the interest of fairness, we should say that there is no overwhelming evidence in the Bible for large-scale intermarriage. And even if it was normal at the time of the Exodus due to the Israelites living in Egypt, I'm not familiar with any evidence (so far) that it was normal after the Israelites entered the Promised Land. If anything, taboos against intermarriage seem to increase in Cannan due to the hostile and unrepentantly pagan people surrounding Israel, as well as the tendency of the Israelites to fall into idol worship.
Still, the lack of explicit condemnation of intermarriage per se would indicate it was allowed even if not common.
Next: Leviticus 25
Thursday, July 12, 2018
Strangers In The Land: Ger 017
Leviticus 23:22
What Does It Say?
No, that's not a typo, this verse is almost identical to Leviticus 19:10. This time it comes directly after a list of regulations for the Feast of Weeks, aka Shavuot. It's part of a chapter 23's descriptions of all the various holidays of the Hebrew calendar.
The Feast of Weeks is also sometimes called the Feast of Reaping, as it takes place during the time of the wheat harvest. That's likely why the commandment is repeated here: it's a reminder to make provisions for the poor and the stranger as we celebrate the bounty God has given to us.
As such, it serves as a good reminder that our blessings come from God, and that God wants us to love others as He has loved us. Our treatment of other people should be a reflection of how we believe God treats us.
Is our God a loving God? Then we should be loving. Is our God a just God? Then we must not pervert justice in favor of the poor or in favor of the rich. We make provisions for those who cannot feed themselves just as God feeds us, those who depend on Him.
Next: Leviticus 24
‘When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field when you reap, nor shall you gather any gleaning from your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the ger: I am the Lord your God.’ ”
What Does It Say?
No, that's not a typo, this verse is almost identical to Leviticus 19:10. This time it comes directly after a list of regulations for the Feast of Weeks, aka Shavuot. It's part of a chapter 23's descriptions of all the various holidays of the Hebrew calendar.
The Feast of Weeks is also sometimes called the Feast of Reaping, as it takes place during the time of the wheat harvest. That's likely why the commandment is repeated here: it's a reminder to make provisions for the poor and the stranger as we celebrate the bounty God has given to us.
As such, it serves as a good reminder that our blessings come from God, and that God wants us to love others as He has loved us. Our treatment of other people should be a reflection of how we believe God treats us.
Is our God a loving God? Then we should be loving. Is our God a just God? Then we must not pervert justice in favor of the poor or in favor of the rich. We make provisions for those who cannot feed themselves just as God feeds us, those who depend on Him.
Next: Leviticus 24
Wednesday, July 11, 2018
Strangers In The Land: Ger 016
Leviticus 22:17-19
What Does It Say?
Leviticus 22 mostly deals with priestly regulations: who can offer sacrifices, who can partake of the sacrifices, and what can be sacrificed. We see here that ger can also sacrifice freewill offerings (voluntary sacrifices not required by the law) or sacrifices promised to the Lord in a vow.
In other words, the ger are not cut off from the worship of the true God. They are included in the spiritual life of Israel. This "Judaism" (something of a misnomer) is not an exclusive ethnic club. While the nations around Israel are unclean, it is due to their rejection of the law of God, not because of their heritage - otherwise, they could not have approached the altar.
Next: Leviticus 23
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to Aaron and his sons, and to all the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘Whatever man of the house of Israel, or of the ger in Israel, who offers his sacrifice for any of his vows or for any of his freewill offerings, which they offer to the Lord as a burnt offering—you shall offer of your own free will a male without blemish from the cattle, from the sheep, or from the goats.
What Does It Say?
Leviticus 22 mostly deals with priestly regulations: who can offer sacrifices, who can partake of the sacrifices, and what can be sacrificed. We see here that ger can also sacrifice freewill offerings (voluntary sacrifices not required by the law) or sacrifices promised to the Lord in a vow.
In other words, the ger are not cut off from the worship of the true God. They are included in the spiritual life of Israel. This "Judaism" (something of a misnomer) is not an exclusive ethnic club. While the nations around Israel are unclean, it is due to their rejection of the law of God, not because of their heritage - otherwise, they could not have approached the altar.
Next: Leviticus 23
Tuesday, July 10, 2018
Strangers In The Land: Ger 015
Leviticus 20:1-5
Leviticus 20 is also mostly a list of prohibitions, with one distinct difference from Leviticus 19. Whereas Leviticus 19 has a mixture of both positive and negative commandments (a mix of "do this" and "don't do that"), Leviticus 20 is a list of offensive that warrant the death penalty. In addition to the section quoted above, the chapter lists other capital offenses, such as:
-Consulting familiar spirits (spiritism)
-Cursing your parents
-Adultery
-Incest
Now, a few of these commandments specify that a person who does these things shall be 'cut off' and some of them specify stoning as a method of execution. I suppose you could argue that 'cutting off' is a form of exile, but it's also used to describe the people who perished in Noah's Flood (Gen. 9:11). Most likely, it just means that the method of death does not need to be stoning. In fact, the penalty for consulting a spirit medium is that God Himself will cut off the offender (v. 6).
Molech, of course, is a Canaanite diety who was worshiped by human sacrifice. So 'giving your descendants to Molech' does not mean consecrating them to the worship of the false god, but rather burning them in an unholy sacrifice. This shows why the offense of Molech worship was so evil that it required the death penalty, whether the offender was a native Israeli or a ger.
Once again, we see that ger are particularly required to observe the same religious laws as the Israelis in order to dwell in the land.
Next: Leviticus 22
Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Again, you shall say to the children of Israel: ‘Whoever of the children of Israel, or of the ger who dwell in Israel, who gives any of his descendants to Molech, he shall surely be put to death. The people of the land shall stone him with stones. I will set My face against that man, and will cut him off from his people, because he has given some of his descendants to Molech, to defile My sanctuary and profane My holy name. And if the people of the land should in any way hide their eyes from the man, when he gives some of his descendants to Molech, and they do not kill him, then I will set My face against that man and against his family; and I will cut him off from his people, and all who prostitute themselves with him to commit harlotry with Molech.What Does It Say?
Leviticus 20 is also mostly a list of prohibitions, with one distinct difference from Leviticus 19. Whereas Leviticus 19 has a mixture of both positive and negative commandments (a mix of "do this" and "don't do that"), Leviticus 20 is a list of offensive that warrant the death penalty. In addition to the section quoted above, the chapter lists other capital offenses, such as:
-Consulting familiar spirits (spiritism)
-Cursing your parents
-Adultery
-Incest
Now, a few of these commandments specify that a person who does these things shall be 'cut off' and some of them specify stoning as a method of execution. I suppose you could argue that 'cutting off' is a form of exile, but it's also used to describe the people who perished in Noah's Flood (Gen. 9:11). Most likely, it just means that the method of death does not need to be stoning. In fact, the penalty for consulting a spirit medium is that God Himself will cut off the offender (v. 6).
Molech, of course, is a Canaanite diety who was worshiped by human sacrifice. So 'giving your descendants to Molech' does not mean consecrating them to the worship of the false god, but rather burning them in an unholy sacrifice. This shows why the offense of Molech worship was so evil that it required the death penalty, whether the offender was a native Israeli or a ger.
Once again, we see that ger are particularly required to observe the same religious laws as the Israelis in order to dwell in the land.
Next: Leviticus 22
Monday, July 9, 2018
Strangers In The Land: Ger 014
Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-10, 33-34
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.
...
‘When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field, nor shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest. And you shall not glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather every grape of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the ger: I am the Lord your God.
....
‘And if a ger dwells with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him. The ger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were ger in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
What Does It Say?
Leviticus 19 is another list of various laws and regulations, mostly about how the Israelites are supposed to treat each other. There are a few various laws regarding sacrifices (v. 5-8; 20-22)), idol worship/divination (v.4, 26-28, 31) and a few kosher regulations (v. 19, 23-25), but the overall theme of the passage is how to maintain holiness. As verse 2 says, "You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy."
Part of holiness is how we treat the ger, the ethnic outsider. One of those ways is by providing a form of charity for the poor and the marginalized. By not harvesting the entirety of the field, we leave a small portion for those who have no land of their own (the book of Ruth shows and example of how this works out). By not being greedy for everything that is "ours" by right, we show holiness.
Now, notice that God doesn't require us to give all that we have to the poor (though those that do are called blessed in the New Testament). And also notice that the poor and the ger still have to go and gather the crops we leave for them. But the principle of leaving a way for the poor and the ger to take care of themselves is still there.
Verses 33 and 34 are even more intense in describing the type of love we are supposed to have for the ger. The ger, the non-Israeli who lives in the land is to be treated "as one born among you." While they are often marginalized, needing to glean the leftovers from the field, they are not second-class citizens. Moreover, we are to love them in the same way we love ourselves.
The word translated here as "love" is ahab, and it covers a wide variety of 'loves.' It describes everything from the romantic love that Jacob felt for Rachel (Gen. 29:18) to Issac's love for a good stew (Gen. 27:14) to the love that God has for His people (Deut. 4:37) and the love that we are supposed to have for God (Deut. 6:5, "And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might").
And while we're not called to love the ger will all our hearts, souls, and might, and while the ger are expected to live by the same civic and religious laws as the native-born, there is absolutely no room given here for hating them or driving them out solely on the basis of ethnicity. This too, is part of being holy as God is holy.
Next: Leviticus 20
Tuesday, June 5, 2018
Strangers In The Land: Ger 013
Leviticus 18:24-29
The first half of Leviticus 18 deals with sins of a sexual nature, and the list is a doozy. After warning the Israelites not to be like the Egyptians of Canaanites, the Lord unloads the following prohibitions:
1). No sex with those who are "near of kin."
2). No sex with your step-mom ("father's wife")
3). No sex with half-sisters (your father or mother's daughters)
4). No sex with your grandchildren (your son's daughter or daughter's daughter)
5). No sex with your aunt (father's sister or mother's sister)
6). No sex with your uncle or your uncle's wife (your father's brother or his wife)
7). No sex with your daughter-in-law
8). No sex with your sister-in-law (brother's wife)
9). No sex with a mother/daughter pair
10). No sex with a grandmother/granddaughter pair
11). No sex with a woman's sister while the woman is still alive.
12). No sex while a woman is menstruating
13). No adultery
14). No sacrificing your children/grandchildren (descendants) to Molech
15). No profaning the name of God
16). No gay sex (specifically, lying with a male as with a woman).
17). No beastiality
18). Also, no beastiality for women.
Now, there's plenty to unpack in that list (for example, homosexual sex is the only one of the above acts described as "an abomination," meaning it's worse than incest), not the least of which being that most of the above are wildly popular fetishes in our day. But there's two things that should stick out in our mind here:
1). This is all stuff that the Canaanites were doing on the regular. This should make us feel better about them getting wiped out.
2). All of this stuff is horrible enough in God's eyes that it justifies a genocide.
God says that these things are bad enough to cause the land, the earth itself to vomit a people out of it. And God implies that allowing resident aliens to engage in this behavior will bring the natives under the same judgement. These actions defile the land itself, whether performed by ger or natives.
So we see a further restriction of ger's "freedom of conscience." The ger are not free to perform their sexual abominations (or religious abominations, vis-a-vis child sacrifice) in the midst of God's people. This is not presented only as a violation of Divine Commandments, but as a violation of the natural order.
‘Do not defile yourselves with any of these things; for by all these the nations are defiled, which I am casting out before you. For the land is defiled; therefore I visit the punishment of its iniquity upon it, and the land vomits out its inhabitants. You shall therefore keep My statutes and My judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations, either any of your own nation or any ger who dwells among you (for all these abominations the men of the land have done, who were before you, and thus the land is defiled), lest the land vomit you out also when you defile it, as it vomited out the nations that were before you. For whoever commits any of these abominations, the persons who commit them shall be cut off from among their people.What Does It Say?
The first half of Leviticus 18 deals with sins of a sexual nature, and the list is a doozy. After warning the Israelites not to be like the Egyptians of Canaanites, the Lord unloads the following prohibitions:
1). No sex with those who are "near of kin."
2). No sex with your step-mom ("father's wife")
3). No sex with half-sisters (your father or mother's daughters)
4). No sex with your grandchildren (your son's daughter or daughter's daughter)
5). No sex with your aunt (father's sister or mother's sister)
6). No sex with your uncle or your uncle's wife (your father's brother or his wife)
7). No sex with your daughter-in-law
8). No sex with your sister-in-law (brother's wife)
9). No sex with a mother/daughter pair
10). No sex with a grandmother/granddaughter pair
11). No sex with a woman's sister while the woman is still alive.
12). No sex while a woman is menstruating
13). No adultery
14). No sacrificing your children/grandchildren (descendants) to Molech
15). No profaning the name of God
16). No gay sex (specifically, lying with a male as with a woman).
17). No beastiality
18). Also, no beastiality for women.
 |
| I'll just leave this here. |
1). This is all stuff that the Canaanites were doing on the regular. This should make us feel better about them getting wiped out.
2). All of this stuff is horrible enough in God's eyes that it justifies a genocide.
God says that these things are bad enough to cause the land, the earth itself to vomit a people out of it. And God implies that allowing resident aliens to engage in this behavior will bring the natives under the same judgement. These actions defile the land itself, whether performed by ger or natives.
So we see a further restriction of ger's "freedom of conscience." The ger are not free to perform their sexual abominations (or religious abominations, vis-a-vis child sacrifice) in the midst of God's people. This is not presented only as a violation of Divine Commandments, but as a violation of the natural order.
Monday, June 4, 2018
Strangers In The Land: Ger 012
Leviticus 17:8-16
“Also you shall say to them: ‘Whatever man of the house of Israel, or of the ger who dwell among you, who offers a burnt offering or sacrifice, and does not bring it to the door of the tabernacle of meeting, to offer it to the Lord, that man shall be cut off from among his people.
‘And whatever man of the house of Israel, or of the ger who dwell among you, who eats any blood, I will set My face against that person who eats blood, and will cut him off from among his people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.’ Therefore I said to the children of Israel, ‘No one among you shall eat blood, nor shall any ger who dwells among you eat blood.’
“Whatever man of the children of Israel, or of the ger who dwell among you, who hunts and catches any animal or bird that may be eaten, he shall pour out its blood and cover it with dust; for it is the life of all flesh. Its blood sustains its life. Therefore I said to the children of Israel, ‘You shall not eat the blood of any flesh, for the life of all flesh is its blood. Whoever eats it shall be cut off.’
“And every person who eats what died naturally or what was torn by beasts, whether he is a native of your own country or a ger, he shall both wash his clothes and bathe in water, and be unclean until evening. Then he shall be clean. But if he does not wash them or bathe his body, then he shall bear his guilt.”
What Does It Say?
Leviticus 17 is mostly given over to laws concerning the shedding of animal blood. The earlier part of the chapter deals with God's command that all animals killed be brought to the tabernacle as a sacrifice. This is specifically mentioned as a means to prevent demon worship in verse 7.
I'm going to read into the text a bit, but the logic seems to be that you have to keep track of all the animals killed. If people are out killing animals however and whenever they want, it's a lot easier to offer sacrifice to a false god. But if everyone has to bring the dead animals to the tabernacle, it's harder to offer an animal as a burnt offering to Moloch or whoever.
This commandment (and all the further prohibitions dealing with animal blood) are extended to any ger living in the camp. And it's interesting that this law deals specifically with the camp and the tabernacle, meaning that it's a law that's specifically already in effect during the 40 years of wandering. This would imply that there are already ger living in the camp who are not native-born Israelis (certainly Moses' wife would be one).
Also of interest here is that these laws would prevent ger living among the Israelites from worshiping their gods with sacrifices. So whatever religious freedom would theoretically exist in Israel would not extend to animal sacrifice or consuming animal blood. It also does not exempt ger from cleanliness laws, such as the need to be ritually purified after touching the carcasses of animals that died of natural causes (verse 15-16).
These verses also seem to imply that circumcised ger still count as ger. After all, no uncircumcised male would be permitted to offer sacrifices to God at the tabernacle. So the fact that both the natives and ger are required to bring their sacrifices to the temple implies that ger with access to the tabernacle are still considered ger.
Tuesday, May 29, 2018
Strangers In The Land: Ger 011
Leviticus 16:29-31
“This shall be a statute forever for you: In the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict your souls, and do no work at all, whether a native of your own country or a ger who dwells among you. For on that day the priest shall make atonement for you, to cleanse you, that you may be clean from all your sins before the Lord. It is a sabbath of solemn rest for you, and you shall afflict your souls. It is a statute forever."
What Does It Say?
Leviticus 16 deals with regulations for the Day of Atonement, perhaps the most sacred day in the Israeli religious calendar. This was the one day that the High Priest would enter into the Holy of Holies, the innermost chamber of the temple, in order to make sacrifice on behalf of the nation.
This day, the 10th day of the seventh month on the lunar calendar, was also a sabbath day regardless of what day of the week it fell. Unlike the other sabbath days, on the Day of Atonement the Israelis are commanded to "afflict [their] souls" in sorrow for the sins the High Priest is purifying them from.
It is also in this passage where we first see religious obligations being explicitly put on foreign nationals dwelling in the land. While Passover was extended to any ger who was willing to have their whole household circumcised and the Sabbaths were extended to all who were part of an Israeli household, observance of the Day of Atonement is required for every person in the land.
Unlike the Passover, it is not limited to the circumcised. It is required of any person who is in Israel. The verb translated as "dwells among" is guwr and includes the sense of temporary living conditions (Elijah guwr with the widow in 1 Kings 17, for example). So a ger who is guwr-ing in the area is a temporary resident.
So regardless what else the Bible says about foreign nationals, requiring respect for local religious festivals from non-believers is on the table.
Next: Leviticus 17
Monday, May 28, 2018
Strangers In The Land: Ger 010
Exodus 23:10-13
“Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its produce, but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave, the beasts of the field may eat. In like manner you shall do with your vineyard and your olive grove. Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day you shall rest, that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your female servant (amah) and the ger may be refreshed.
“And in all that I have said to you, be circumspect and make no mention of the name of other gods, nor let it be heard from your mouth."
What Does It Say?
Our next mention of ger is in the same chapter, this time in a list of Sabbath regulations. This Sabbath passage also gives a reason for resting, in this case, to give all of your property and workers a chance to be refreshed. The idea of the Sabbath is also extended to allowing your fields to lie fallow every seventh year, something which the Israelites evidently did not follow and which God brought judgement on them for (2 Chron. 36:20-21).
This passage shows us that there is concern for the ethical treatment of amah and ger in the Law. The Sabbath is not supposed to be about self-denial in the way that a fast is. We're supposed to stress out over a million details on what is and isn't allowed, and we're not supposed to lay motionless in the dark for 24 hours. It's a chance to be refreshed, and to give all those we are responsible for a chance to be refreshed and reinvigotated.
This is nothing groundbreaking in our understanding of ger, but it shows that their existence in Israel is assumed in the law before the children of Israel have even entered the promised land.
Next: Leviticus 16
Wednesday, May 23, 2018
Strangers In The Land: Ger 009
Exodus 23:1-9
“You shall not circulate a false report. Do not put your hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness. You shall not follow a crowd to do evil; nor shall you testify in a dispute so as to turn aside after many to pervert justice. You shall not show partiality to a poor man in his dispute.
“If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you shall surely bring it back to him again. If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden, and you would refrain from helping it, you shall surely help him with it.
“You shall not pervert the judgment of your poor in his dispute. Keep yourself far from a false matter; do not kill the innocent and righteous. For I will not justify the wicked. And you shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the discerning and perverts the words of the righteous.
“Also you shall not oppress a ger, for you know the heart of a ger, because you were ger in the land of Egypt.
What Does It Say?
Exodus 23 also has list of miscellaneous commandments, but they are something of a mirror to Exodus 22. While Exodus 22 deals with not oppressing the poor, Exodus 23 instructs us not to oppress others on behalf of the poor.
There are two passages here the deal with this explicitly; "You shall not show partiality (hadar) to a poor man in his dispute" and "You shall not pervert (natah) the judgment of your poor in his dispute." This ties in with the idea of being an honest witness and not perverting justice in the earlier verses.
The verb hadar means "to honor," so the idea is not to show undue consideration for the poor when rendering judgement. Don't show them favorable treatment due to their poverty, judge rightly. Natah means "to stretch," so the idea is not to stretch the case (we might say 'stretch the truth' or 'stretch the law') in order to render a favorable judgement for a poor man.
 |
| No. Just, no. |
There are many Bible verses that instruct us not to oppress the poor; indeed, there are many that instruct us to actively help them. And while it is a good thing to give of your own wealth to help the poor, some people try to make the Bible into a Marxist text, where the rich are always villains and the poor are always noble.
But we are forbidden to pervert justice in favor of the poor. We are not to rob the rich to help the poor. We are not to lie about the rich to help the poor. While in this world justice is often tipped in favor of the rich and powerful, in the West we're just as likely to unjustly punish the rich (or even the financially stable) just for being rich (or financially stable).
Justice is Justice, and it is the right of the poor, the rich, and everyone in between. It is owed to us as individuals, not as social groups. And while that doesn't relate directly to ger, it does inform our treatment of them: do not to tip justice in favor of ger just because some of them are poor or vulnerable.
The verse dealing with the ger here is almost identical to the Exodus 22 passage, but it goes further. Exodus 22 is a bit "tit for tat" - don't oppress the ger because you were ger in Egypt. Exodus 23 takes it a step further: don't oppress the ger because you know the heart of the ger. You can sympathize, you know what it's like, you know that feel.
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| Ancient Israelis, comforting a ger in their midst. |
In the Bible, God tends to repeat the stuff that's most important. That's part of the reason why we get four Gospels instead of one. So the fact that we get a second appearance of an almost identical commandment reinforces the importance of not oppressing the ger. Just don't do it. Even if we aren't supposed to oppress people in favor of the ger, treating them fairly shows our heart. It's a matter of our identity as people who know what it's like to be strangers in a strange land.
I'm going to preview some New Testament stuff here, but in a spiritual sense, the Church is the New Israel. We too know what it's like to be ger, strangers and wanderers in a world that hates us. We know the heart of the ger, and this should guide us in our treatment of ger.
Next: Exodus 23:10-13
Monday, May 21, 2018
Strangers In The Land: Ger 008
Exodus 22:21-27
“You shall neither mistreat a ger nor oppress him, for you were ger in the land of Egypt.
“You shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child. If you afflict them in any way, and they cry at all to Me, I will surely hear their cry; and My wrath will become hot, and I will kill you with the sword; your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless.
“If you lend money to any of My people who are poor among you, you shall not be like a moneylender to him; you shall not charge him interest. If you ever take your neighbor’s garment as a pledge, you shall return it to him before the sun goes down. For that is his only covering, it is his garment for his skin. What will he sleep in? And it will be that when he cries to Me, I will hear, for I am gracious.
What Does It Say?
Today's ger passage comes in a list of miscellaneous laws that govern how the Israelites were to treat the weak and at-risk. Unlike many Old Testament commandments, these come with explicit reasons for why God gives them as laws. I've included the commandments on widows, orphans, and debtors so you can see the logic at work in those similar situations.
God says that the Israelites are not to mistreat or oppress ger, for they themselves know what it is like to be mistreated and oppressed ger. The word used here for 'mistreat,' yanah, can also be used to mean 'destroy' and has a sense of physical violence (although it is in some places translated as 'oppress', eg. Lev 25:14). The word translated as 'oppress,' lachats, can also mean to literally press (Num 22:25).
So we can understand this to mean that we are not to commit oppressive violence against outsiders. The picture is that of what Egypt did to Israel - to enslave, oppress, and physically harm (for example, by killing all the firstborn males).
This passage shows us that ger are considered a protected class in Israel, presumably because they are so vulnerable. The lives of Abraham, Issac, Jacob, and their descendants are full of examples of their vulnerability as foreigners living in someone else's country.
Even under the old law, we are not supposed to take advantage of foreigners or treat them with oppressive violence of the sort Egypt treated the Israelis with.
Now, we might take a second to remember God is talking about actual violence and exploitation here. There is no concept of microaggressions or stare-rape here. If it's not on the same level as what the Egyptians did to the Israelis (enslaving and attempting to genocide an ethnic minority), then it's outside of the scope of the passage.
“You shall neither mistreat a ger nor oppress him, for you were ger in the land of Egypt.
“You shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child. If you afflict them in any way, and they cry at all to Me, I will surely hear their cry; and My wrath will become hot, and I will kill you with the sword; your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless.
“If you lend money to any of My people who are poor among you, you shall not be like a moneylender to him; you shall not charge him interest. If you ever take your neighbor’s garment as a pledge, you shall return it to him before the sun goes down. For that is his only covering, it is his garment for his skin. What will he sleep in? And it will be that when he cries to Me, I will hear, for I am gracious.
What Does It Say?
Today's ger passage comes in a list of miscellaneous laws that govern how the Israelites were to treat the weak and at-risk. Unlike many Old Testament commandments, these come with explicit reasons for why God gives them as laws. I've included the commandments on widows, orphans, and debtors so you can see the logic at work in those similar situations.
God says that the Israelites are not to mistreat or oppress ger, for they themselves know what it is like to be mistreated and oppressed ger. The word used here for 'mistreat,' yanah, can also be used to mean 'destroy' and has a sense of physical violence (although it is in some places translated as 'oppress', eg. Lev 25:14). The word translated as 'oppress,' lachats, can also mean to literally press (Num 22:25).
So we can understand this to mean that we are not to commit oppressive violence against outsiders. The picture is that of what Egypt did to Israel - to enslave, oppress, and physically harm (for example, by killing all the firstborn males).
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| Along with slavery and genocide, the Egyptians were also known for their offensive Halloween costumes |
Even under the old law, we are not supposed to take advantage of foreigners or treat them with oppressive violence of the sort Egypt treated the Israelis with.
Now, we might take a second to remember God is talking about actual violence and exploitation here. There is no concept of microaggressions or stare-rape here. If it's not on the same level as what the Egyptians did to the Israelis (enslaving and attempting to genocide an ethnic minority), then it's outside of the scope of the passage.
I'll leave the question of whether or not the modern state of Israel is violating this command in their treatment of the Palestinians as an exercise for the reader.
Next: Exodus 23
Next: Exodus 23
Friday, May 18, 2018
Strangers In The Land: Ger 007
Exodus 20:8-11
What Does It Say?
This passage is of course from the Ten Commandments and is the only commandment that deals with foreigners. In short, all who were in the land and attached to an Israeli household were required to keep the Sabbath. This extends not only to ebed (the kinda-sorta slaves) and any foreign nationals staying with an Israeli family, but also to any animals owned by the Israeli household.
Also, bear in mind that the "your"s in this passage are inferred - that is to say, they are added to the text to make it more readable in English. So what we read as:
Originally reads:
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant (ebed), nor your female servant (amah), nor your cattle, nor your stranger (ger) who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it."
What Does It Say?
This passage is of course from the Ten Commandments and is the only commandment that deals with foreigners. In short, all who were in the land and attached to an Israeli household were required to keep the Sabbath. This extends not only to ebed (the kinda-sorta slaves) and any foreign nationals staying with an Israeli family, but also to any animals owned by the Israeli household.
Also, bear in mind that the "your"s in this passage are inferred - that is to say, they are added to the text to make it more readable in English. So what we read as:
"you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your ebed, nor your amah, nor your cattle, nor your ger who is within your gates"
Originally reads:
"son, daughter, ebed, amah, cattle, ger gate"And if you're wondering why I left out "you" from the original, it's because the Hebrew word for "you" (את at, but it depends on gender/number) doesn't appear in the text. It's implies by the context, but Hebrew doesn't require an explicit subject here.
All of that is to say, the text would be ambiguous as to if this is your stranger or not. In my (still limited) opinion, it could refer to any ger in your gates (as we might say, under your roof), whether they are a member of your household. This sheds an interesting light on Jewish customs like the Shabbas Goy, the non-Jew hired to do simple tasks Jews are forbidden to do on the Sabbath.
Now, if you ask three Rabbis what type of work Shabbas Goy are allowed to do you'll get five answers, but in my conversations with observant Jews, Shabbas Goy are used for simple tasks like turning on light switches and so on.
At any rate, we meet our old friends ebed and ger in this passage, but we also find amah. Amah is basically a female version of ebed, a female kinda-sorta slave. For example, Sarah's slave Hagar is called amah in Genesis 21. There is, however, an idea that Israeli women can become amah, for example Exodus 21:7.
Again we see that non-Israelis who are part of an Israeli household are required to live by aspects of the Law, like previous passages requiring circumcision for ebed. This again leans against religious plurality as being sanctioned in Scripture.
At any rate, we meet our old friends ebed and ger in this passage, but we also find amah. Amah is basically a female version of ebed, a female kinda-sorta slave. For example, Sarah's slave Hagar is called amah in Genesis 21. There is, however, an idea that Israeli women can become amah, for example Exodus 21:7.
Again we see that non-Israelis who are part of an Israeli household are required to live by aspects of the Law, like previous passages requiring circumcision for ebed. This again leans against religious plurality as being sanctioned in Scripture.
Wednesday, May 16, 2018
Strangers In The Land: Ger 006
Exodus 18:1-6
And Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses’ father-in-law, heard of all that God had done for Moses and for Israel His people—that the Lordhad brought Israel out of Egypt. Then Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, took Zipporah, Moses’ wife, after he had sent her back, with her two sons, of whom the name of one was Gershom (for he said, “I have been a stranger in a foreign land”) 4 and the name of the other was Eliezer (for he said, “The God of my father was my help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh”); and Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, came with his sons and his wife to Moses in the wilderness, where he was encamped at the mountain of God. Now he had said to Moses, “I, your father-in-law Jethro, am coming to you with your wife and her two sons with her.”
And Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses’ father-in-law, heard of all that God had done for Moses and for Israel His people—that the Lordhad brought Israel out of Egypt. Then Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, took Zipporah, Moses’ wife, after he had sent her back, with her two sons, of whom the name of one was Gershom (for he said, “I have been a stranger in a foreign land”) 4 and the name of the other was Eliezer (for he said, “The God of my father was my help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh”); and Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, came with his sons and his wife to Moses in the wilderness, where he was encamped at the mountain of God. Now he had said to Moses, “I, your father-in-law Jethro, am coming to you with your wife and her two sons with her.”
What Does It Say?
This passage takes place after Moses and the Israelites has left Egypt, passed through the Red Sea, and started on their journey to Canaan. On the way, Moses' father-in-law (who we already met in Ger 003) comes out to meet them and give Moses back his wife and kids.
Now Gershom's name is the only place where ger appears in this passage, but I decided to include it in our study for two reasons:
1). Sheer bloody-mindedness. We're doing every passage with ger, not 99% of passages with ger.
2). With all of the prohibitions against marrying pagans in the Old Testament, I wanted to show that there is no blanket prohibition on marrying non-Israelis. Exodus 18 doesn't say why Zipporah had returned to her father (most scholars speculate Moses sent her back due to the danger from Pharaoh, but the text never explicitly says why), but it does show us that all involved believed her place and her children's place was with their father.
It's important to remember this, along with other instances of inter-ethnic marriage, because there are passages that very violently condemn marrying foreign women. The difference is that the latter passages are condemning marrying foreign women because they bring their foreign gods with them. There are no passages in the Bible condemning marriage with converted non-Israelis. At least, there aren't any as far as I know, and if they do exist, we'll get to them eventually
Next: Exodus 20
Tuesday, May 15, 2018
Strangers In The Land: Ger 005
Exodus 12 Analysis
As we discussed last time, Exodus 12 gives us a variety of different types of non-Israelis. In this post, we're going to speculate on what this variety tells us about what the Bible says about immigration. Let's start by briefly reviewing the different Hebrew words used:
Ben - roughly, "outsider." In Exodus 12, it refers to 'those outside of Israel', but in other passages it can refer to those who are outside of a particular tribe. Basically, anyone who is not part of a given group is ben to those inside the group. Does not refer exclusively to those outside an ethnicity.
Ebed - a purchased human being whose role is between a servant and a slave. Considered part of a household and must be circumcised. Assumed to be non-Israeli.
Sakiyr - a hired servant who is paid wages. Not considered part of a household and does not have to be circumcised. Assumed to be non-Israeli.
Towshab - a temporary non-native resident. Not part of a household, not circumcised. Most sakiyr would also be towshab.
As we discussed last time, Exodus 12 gives us a variety of different types of non-Israelis. In this post, we're going to speculate on what this variety tells us about what the Bible says about immigration. Let's start by briefly reviewing the different Hebrew words used:
Ben - roughly, "outsider." In Exodus 12, it refers to 'those outside of Israel', but in other passages it can refer to those who are outside of a particular tribe. Basically, anyone who is not part of a given group is ben to those inside the group. Does not refer exclusively to those outside an ethnicity.
Ebed - a purchased human being whose role is between a servant and a slave. Considered part of a household and must be circumcised. Assumed to be non-Israeli.
Sakiyr - a hired servant who is paid wages. Not considered part of a household and does not have to be circumcised. Assumed to be non-Israeli.
Towshab - a temporary non-native resident. Not part of a household, not circumcised. Most sakiyr would also be towshab.
Ger - non-native residents. Ger who want to be circumcised can be circumcised and celebrate the Passover. Ger who do this will be under "one law" with the native-born.
This passage shows us the differences between the various types of non-Israelis in ancient Israel and is an important Rosetta stone for unlocking the meaning of future texts.
Exodus here assumes that there will be some number of non-Israelis living in the land. It assumes that some of them will be slaves and some will be workers paid a wage. It assumes some will be temporary residents who will return to their homelands and some point and that some will be long term residents. It assumes that some will adopt the religion and customs of the Jews and that some will not.
So we already so indications of the direction that the Bible is going to go on issues like immigration, migrant labor, freedom of religion (for non-natives working and living temporarily in the land), and naturalization. These ideas are here in seed form; we'll have to wait to see how they develop in the rest of Scripture.
Interestingly, there's nothing here that implies migrant laborers are bad or unacceptable. In fact, it's assumed that some number of them will be present in the new nation. Of course, it also assumes some level of human trafficking and that any slaves purchased will be forcibly circumcised and by extension forced to abide by Jewish religious law.
It implies that some ger will become fully naturalized citizens ("one law"), although it's a bit ambiguous at this point. We should wait and see how other verses treat the ger and if there's any evidence that circumcised ger are treated as second class citizens or otherwise unequal from ethnic Israelis.
One thing that it does not say is if towshab are allowed to practice their own religions (pray, make sacrifices, own idols) while living in Israel. I would assume the answer is 'no,' but I'm going to wait until we see a verse that specifically says that.
Next: Exodus 18
Next: Exodus 18
Monday, May 14, 2018
Strangers In The Land: Ger 004
Exodus 12
[Sections relating to ger are in bold]
Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, “This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying: ‘On the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of the persons; according to each man’s need you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats. Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight. And they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they eat it. Then they shall eat the flesh on that night; roasted in fire, with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. Do not eat it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roasted in fire—its head with its legs and its entrails. You shall let none of it remain until morning, and what remains of it until morning you shall burn with fire. And thus you shall eat it: with a belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. So you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover.
‘For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord. Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.
‘So this day shall be to you a memorial; and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord throughout your generations. You shall keep it as a feast by an everlasting ordinance. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses. For whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. On the first day there shall be a holy convocation, and on the seventh day there shall be a holy convocation for you. No manner of work shall be done on them; but that which everyone must eat—that only may be prepared by you. So you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this same day I will have brought your armies out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as an everlasting ordinance. In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread, until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. For seven days no leaven shall be found in your houses, since whoever eats what is leavened, that same person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a stranger [ger] or a native of the land. You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwellings you shall eat unleavened bread.’”
[omitted]
And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “This is the ordinance of the Passover: No foreigner [ben] shall eat it. But every man’s servant [ebed] who is bought for money, when you have circumcised him, then he may eat it. A sojourner [towshab] and a hired servant [sakiyr] shall not eat it. In one house it shall be eaten; you shall not carry any of the flesh outside the house, nor shall you break one of its bones. All the congregation of Israel shall keep it. And when a stranger [ger] dwells with you and wants to keep the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as a native of the land. For no uncircumcised person shall eat it. One law shall be for the native-born and for the stranger [ger] who dwells among you.”
Thus all the children of Israel did; as the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did. And it came to pass, on that very same day, that the Lord brought the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt according to their armies.
What Does It Say?
This word specifically refers to "hired servants" or those who take wages. This is closer to our modern idea of a servant or an employee, ie, someone who receives money in exchange for their labor. Presumably, it also refers to a foreign employee, since they are forbidden to take part in the Passover.
Since these sakiyr are not Israeli and, unlike the ebed are not part of the household (being free to come and go), there is no need for them to be circumcised. Since they are generally not circumcised, they are generally forbidden from eating the Passover meal. This coming and going may be why they are closely linked with towshab.
Now, there's a lot going on here, so I'd like to put off analysis until next time.
Next: Exodus 12 Analyisis
[Sections relating to ger are in bold]
Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, “This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying: ‘On the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of the persons; according to each man’s need you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats. Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight. And they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they eat it. Then they shall eat the flesh on that night; roasted in fire, with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. Do not eat it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roasted in fire—its head with its legs and its entrails. You shall let none of it remain until morning, and what remains of it until morning you shall burn with fire. And thus you shall eat it: with a belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. So you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover.
‘For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord. Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.
‘So this day shall be to you a memorial; and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord throughout your generations. You shall keep it as a feast by an everlasting ordinance. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses. For whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. On the first day there shall be a holy convocation, and on the seventh day there shall be a holy convocation for you. No manner of work shall be done on them; but that which everyone must eat—that only may be prepared by you. So you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this same day I will have brought your armies out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as an everlasting ordinance. In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread, until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. For seven days no leaven shall be found in your houses, since whoever eats what is leavened, that same person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a stranger [ger] or a native of the land. You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwellings you shall eat unleavened bread.’”
[omitted]
And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “This is the ordinance of the Passover: No foreigner [ben] shall eat it. But every man’s servant [ebed] who is bought for money, when you have circumcised him, then he may eat it. A sojourner [towshab] and a hired servant [sakiyr] shall not eat it. In one house it shall be eaten; you shall not carry any of the flesh outside the house, nor shall you break one of its bones. All the congregation of Israel shall keep it. And when a stranger [ger] dwells with you and wants to keep the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as a native of the land. For no uncircumcised person shall eat it. One law shall be for the native-born and for the stranger [ger] who dwells among you.”
Thus all the children of Israel did; as the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did. And it came to pass, on that very same day, that the Lord brought the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt according to their armies.
What Does It Say?
This passage deals with what we might call the founding of the nation of Israel. This is where the family that went down to Egypt that has grown into a new, unique people of its own. And these people are given their first law; the law of the Passover. While God will institute many other laws on Mt. Sinai, Passover precedes that revelation. It is the turning point between what we might call the Abrahamic covenant and the Mosaic covenant.
And wile this passage focuses on the Israeli people and how they should celebrate the Passover, it also differentiates between different classes of foreign people; those who do not belong to the ethnic Israeli nation and yet live among them.
The Ben
If this word reminds you of the Hebrew word for "son," you're exactly right. The two words are homonyms (spelled and pronounced identically), although context shows they are two distinct words.
While we don't have time to break down every usage of the word ben in the Old Testament, it appears to be best translated as "stranger" or "outsider" since it does not refer exclusively to non-natives. For example, Israelites who are not sons of Aaron (ie, priests) are referred to as ben in Numbers 16:40.
So in order to understand who the ben outsiders are in a given text, we need to know who the 'insiders' are. In Numbers 16, the 'insiders' are the priests, who are qualified to make sacrifices. In Exodus 12, it seems to refer to the uncircumcised residents of the land. We could extrapolate that it refers to non-Israelis who are not permanent residents but are just 'passing through.'
The Ebed
This is the word translated here as 'servant', but since it refers to a human being who is "bought," it also shares similarities to what we would call a 'slave.' It's clear from the context that it refers to non-Israeli slaves, since they must be circumcised before they can partake in the Passover.
This is slightly different from the modern idea of slaves, since they were considered to be part of the household and had certain legal protections. And since they were part of the household, it was necessary for them to be circumcised.
The Sakiyr
This is slightly different from the modern idea of slaves, since they were considered to be part of the household and had certain legal protections. And since they were part of the household, it was necessary for them to be circumcised.
The Sakiyr
This word specifically refers to "hired servants" or those who take wages. This is closer to our modern idea of a servant or an employee, ie, someone who receives money in exchange for their labor. Presumably, it also refers to a foreign employee, since they are forbidden to take part in the Passover.
Since these sakiyr are not Israeli and, unlike the ebed are not part of the household (being free to come and go), there is no need for them to be circumcised. Since they are generally not circumcised, they are generally forbidden from eating the Passover meal. This coming and going may be why they are closely linked with towshab.
The Towshab
We said before in Ger 002 that towshab seems to refer to non-native temporary residents. That rings true in Exodus 12 as well. As temporary, non-native residents, they would almost certainly not be circumcised and, just as importantly, would not be considered part of any Israeli household.
As mentioned, most sakiyr are probably also going to be towshab, that is, people who are in Israeli to work, not to live for the rest of their lives. This is why the two words are mentioned so closely together in the text; they're not the same thing, but they overlap and reinforce each other.
As mentioned, most sakiyr are probably also going to be towshab, that is, people who are in Israeli to work, not to live for the rest of their lives. This is why the two words are mentioned so closely together in the text; they're not the same thing, but they overlap and reinforce each other.
The Ger
Last we have the ger, or the non-native residents. Ger who desire to celebrate the Passover may do so, provided that they and all males of their household are circumcised and, in essence, become Hebrews.
Now, there's a lot going on here, so I'd like to put off analysis until next time.
Next: Exodus 12 Analyisis
Thursday, May 10, 2018
Strangers In The Land: Ger 003
Exodus 2:16-22
Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters. And they came and drew water, and they filled the troughs to water their father’s flock. Then the shepherds came and drove them away; but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flock.
When they came to Reuel their father, he said, “How is it that you have come so soon today?”
And they said, “An Egyptian delivered us from the hand of the shepherds, and he also drew enough water for us and watered the flock.”
So he said to his daughters, “And where is he? Why is it that you have left the man? Call him, that he may eat bread.”
Then Moses was content to live with the man, and he gave Zipporah his daughter to Moses. And she bore him a son. He called his name Gershom [or Gereshom, ger shom, "stranger there"], for he said, “I have been a stranger in a foreign land.”
What Does It Say?
Today's passage takes place in the time of Moses, in the time God prophesied about to Abraham in the previous passage. In the book of Exodus, it follows immediately after the incident where Moses murders an Egyptian who was abusing a Hebrew slave.
Having committed murder, Moses flees out of Pharoah's jurisdiction into the land of Midian, where he meets his first wife. In a classic "meet cute" moment, he helps the daughters of the "priest of Midian" deal with some shepherds who don't know how to share. The text leaves out the details of how Moses drove off the shepherds, but considering his history of violence and shortcomings in public speaking (Exodus 4:10), I'm going to guess he didn't debate the shepherds.
At any rate, Moses' conflict resolution skills earn him the favor of a pagan priest and a free wife. Unlike Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, he does not marry someone of his own ethnicity, of his own people, but a foreign woman. He is a ger to her, someone who "was content to live with the man," that is to say, content to live with a people not his own. And so he names their first son "Stranger Here," confessing that he is a stranger despite living in the land and marrying one of its inhabitants.
Even worse, there is every reason to believe that his wife was a pagan polytheist when they met (and perhaps when they married). Her father was a Midianite priest, and it's hard to believe she had heard of the Jews and converted to the worship of their God before meeting Moses.
This is kind of a big deal. Later in the wanderings of Moses and the Israelites, Moses will sanction the execution of Hebrew men who marry Moabite women and worship their gods (see Numbers 25). And it's not like the taboo against marrying foreign women started at Mt. Sinai - Abraham and Issac in particular go to great lengths to find a woman 'of their country and family' for their sons to marry (see Genesis 24 for example).
And yet, Moses is never taken to task in Scripture for marrying an almost certainly pagan foreigner. In fact, Zipporah is shown in a positive light as she is the one who ultimately circumcises their son (Exodus 4). It's a bizarre relationship that starts with a murder and ends with foreskin-tossing (seriously, Exodus 4:25).
So while it's hard to draw universally valid moral principles from Moses' marriage, we can perhaps get an idea of what the Bible says about ger. Being ger is difficult, painful, and alienating. Even though Moses is "content to live with the man" and content to marry a foreign pagan, he never loses his sense of being a foreigner. Even if he is loved, he is different, strange, foreign. And so he names his son "Stranger There" in memorial to his alienation from his surroundings.
Next: Exodus 12
Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters. And they came and drew water, and they filled the troughs to water their father’s flock. Then the shepherds came and drove them away; but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flock.
When they came to Reuel their father, he said, “How is it that you have come so soon today?”
And they said, “An Egyptian delivered us from the hand of the shepherds, and he also drew enough water for us and watered the flock.”
So he said to his daughters, “And where is he? Why is it that you have left the man? Call him, that he may eat bread.”
Then Moses was content to live with the man, and he gave Zipporah his daughter to Moses. And she bore him a son. He called his name Gershom [or Gereshom, ger shom, "stranger there"], for he said, “I have been a stranger in a foreign land.”
What Does It Say?
Today's passage takes place in the time of Moses, in the time God prophesied about to Abraham in the previous passage. In the book of Exodus, it follows immediately after the incident where Moses murders an Egyptian who was abusing a Hebrew slave.
Having committed murder, Moses flees out of Pharoah's jurisdiction into the land of Midian, where he meets his first wife. In a classic "meet cute" moment, he helps the daughters of the "priest of Midian" deal with some shepherds who don't know how to share. The text leaves out the details of how Moses drove off the shepherds, but considering his history of violence and shortcomings in public speaking (Exodus 4:10), I'm going to guess he didn't debate the shepherds.
At any rate, Moses' conflict resolution skills earn him the favor of a pagan priest and a free wife. Unlike Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, he does not marry someone of his own ethnicity, of his own people, but a foreign woman. He is a ger to her, someone who "was content to live with the man," that is to say, content to live with a people not his own. And so he names their first son "Stranger Here," confessing that he is a stranger despite living in the land and marrying one of its inhabitants.
Even worse, there is every reason to believe that his wife was a pagan polytheist when they met (and perhaps when they married). Her father was a Midianite priest, and it's hard to believe she had heard of the Jews and converted to the worship of their God before meeting Moses.
This is kind of a big deal. Later in the wanderings of Moses and the Israelites, Moses will sanction the execution of Hebrew men who marry Moabite women and worship their gods (see Numbers 25). And it's not like the taboo against marrying foreign women started at Mt. Sinai - Abraham and Issac in particular go to great lengths to find a woman 'of their country and family' for their sons to marry (see Genesis 24 for example).
And yet, Moses is never taken to task in Scripture for marrying an almost certainly pagan foreigner. In fact, Zipporah is shown in a positive light as she is the one who ultimately circumcises their son (Exodus 4). It's a bizarre relationship that starts with a murder and ends with foreskin-tossing (seriously, Exodus 4:25).
So while it's hard to draw universally valid moral principles from Moses' marriage, we can perhaps get an idea of what the Bible says about ger. Being ger is difficult, painful, and alienating. Even though Moses is "content to live with the man" and content to marry a foreign pagan, he never loses his sense of being a foreigner. Even if he is loved, he is different, strange, foreign. And so he names his son "Stranger There" in memorial to his alienation from his surroundings.
Next: Exodus 12
Tuesday, May 8, 2018
Strangers In The Land: Ger 002
Let's continue with our second used of the word ger which again comes from the life of Abraham.
Genesis 23:1-9
Genesis 23:1-9
Sarah lived one hundred and twenty-seven years; these were the years of the life of Sarah. So Sarah died in Kirjath Arba (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan, and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her.
Then Abraham stood up from before his dead, and spoke to the sons of Heth, saying, “I am a foreigner [ger] and a visitor [towshab] among you. Give me property for a burial place among you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.”
And the sons of Heth answered Abraham, saying to him, “Hear us, my lord: You are a mighty prince among us; bury your dead in the choicest of our burial places. None of us will withhold from you his burial place, that you may bury your dead.”
Then Abraham stood up and bowed himself to the people of the land, the sons of Heth. And he spoke with them, saying, “If it is your wish that I bury my dead out of my sight, hear me, and meet with Ephron the son of Zohar for me, that he may give me the cave of Machpelah which he has, which is at the end of his field. Let him give it to me at the full price, as property for a burial place among you.”
What Does It Say?
This passage gives us a preview of another word for foreigners in the Bible, towshab. It also gives us a good example of a literary technique that is frequently used in the Bible, that is, using a series of similar but slightly distinct words to describe a single thing. This device shows up frequently in the Psalms, as in Psalm 1:1
Blessed is the man
Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,
Nor stands in the path of sinners,
Nor sits in the seat of the scornful;
As you can see the ungodly, the sinners, and the scornful are all overlapping but slightly distinct groups. Sinners are ungodly and the ungodly are most definitely sinners, and yet we can see shades of difference. The listing of different yet similar words build the overall picture better than just giving one example.
Abraham uses the same technique to indicate that he is not only ger, but also towshab. So what's the difference?
While the precise distinction might be difficult, it's interesting to note that the Israelites are described as being ger while in Egypt (as in our last passage), but they are never described as being towshab in Egypt. This helps flesh out our understanding of ger. A ger is what we might now call a non-native - he's not of the same blood as the local residents. Like the Israelites in Egypt, a ger may have been born, raised, and a life-long resident in a foreign country, but he is of a different ethnicity.
A towshad on the other hand indicates a status compatible with but distinguished from ger. Abraham's usage here seems to indicate a temporary resident. The problem in this passage is that Abraham owns no land to bury his wife. He owns no land because 1). He is not a native of the country he lives in 2). He doesn't plan on settling down and becoming a permanent resident.
In fact, Abraham is very opposed to becoming a Canaanite. He goes to great trouble to make sure his son Issac does not marry a Canaanite and to maintain a cultural/religious distinction with them. This may influence his determination to buy land (that he doesn't intend to live in) instead of accepting it as a gift.
Next: Exodus 2
Monday, May 7, 2018
Strangers In The Land: What the Bible Says About Immigration (Ger 001)
What does the Bible say about immigration? About immigrants? How should Christians approach the issue?
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| How some people see Deuteronomy 32:8 |
Of course, I also know what many Alt-Right Christians say. It's usually some variant on "blah blah blah God created nations blah blah blah black people have the mark of Cain."
As with most Bible debates, both sides are cherry picking verses and flinging them at each other like they were playing Rock, Paper, Scissors. "John 3:16 beats 1 Peter 1:2, but Romans 9:13 beats John 3:16! Yahtzee!" There's no systematic examination of everything the Bible has to say. So just like our study of the plēroō passages, we're going to do a deep dive and look at every single verse about foreigners and what they have to say.
We're also going to do things a little different this time. In the plēroō study I had already read all the relevant passages and thought through the whole issue before I started writing. This time, you're going to see how the sausage gets made as I make new theories and refine them as we move forward.
The first word we're going to go through is the Hebrew Ger. Here's what Strong's has to say about it:
גֵּר gêr, gare; or (fully) geyr (gare); from H1481; properly, a guest; by implication, a foreigner:—alien, sojourner, stranger.
Now just because that's how Strong's defines it doesn't mean we'll be blindly following that definition. We'll compare it with the texts to make sure it holds up.
The first passage where Ger shows up is in Genesis 15:
After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.”
But Abram said, “Lord God, what will You give me, seeing I go childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” Then Abram said, “Look, You have given me no offspring; indeed one born in my house is my heir!”
And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “This one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir.” Then He brought him outside and said, “Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.”
And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.
Then He said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to inherit it.”
And he said, “Lord God, how shall I know that I will inherit it?”
So He said to him, “Bring Me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” Then he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, down the middle, and placed each piece opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds in two. And when the vultures came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.
Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him. Then He said to Abram: “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers [ger] in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years. And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions. Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age. But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete."
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| Egyptians celebrating diversity. |
Our look at ger starts with a gloomy passage. Abram (later Abraham) is shown a vision of his descendant's future "and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him." Horror and great darkness are generally not what you want to see when God shows you your family's future!
So our first usage of ger definitely has a negative context - not just for the host country, but for the immigrants as well. The Jews, as strangers in a land that is not theirs, will be afflicted slaves subject to the will of a people who bear them no love.
God gives no indication here that being a stranger in another people's land is a good thing. Abram desires his own land. He asks how he can know that he will inherit his own land, not how he can move to Egypt and serve the Egyptians.
Now the situation with Egypt and Israel has some historically unique things that don't apply in all situations. But we do get a sense that being a stranger is difficult and leaves you vulnerable. I think there are many contemporary immigrants who have been taken advantage of in various ways.
When you are a stranger in the land, you have very little protection from the dominant culture. You don't know the language or the law in the same way a native does. And there will always be someone willing to take advantage of that.
So we start with a cautionary tale - being an immigrant, a stranger, is not an easy thing and not something to be desired for its own sake. It can be a "horror and great darkness."
Next: Genesis 23
Monday, April 23, 2018
I have a new job and I love it, but why the hell is everyone here so angry all the time? It's like I never hear anyone talking in a tone of voice that isn't pissed off or stressed. It makes zero sense. No one says anything that they can't scream.
The new job is teaching English at a private school. I wonder if this has something to do with the higher stress of parental expectations? Like, if the kids don't excel, their parents are going to pull them out and send them somewhere else? That makes sense on the surface, but I feel like screaming at the kids constantly isn't going to help them succeed.
I mean, I've come down on kids before for screwing around or talking in class or whatever, but this is a bit extreme. And the worst part is, the fact that I'm not screaming constantly gives the kids the initial impression that I'm soft, so I do have to come down on them more than usual.
It's just very different from what I'm used to and seems very unhealthy. I'm starting to feel stressed out just from constantly hearing people yell and scream. But other than that, yeah, great job.
The new job is teaching English at a private school. I wonder if this has something to do with the higher stress of parental expectations? Like, if the kids don't excel, their parents are going to pull them out and send them somewhere else? That makes sense on the surface, but I feel like screaming at the kids constantly isn't going to help them succeed.
I mean, I've come down on kids before for screwing around or talking in class or whatever, but this is a bit extreme. And the worst part is, the fact that I'm not screaming constantly gives the kids the initial impression that I'm soft, so I do have to come down on them more than usual.
It's just very different from what I'm used to and seems very unhealthy. I'm starting to feel stressed out just from constantly hearing people yell and scream. But other than that, yeah, great job.
Tuesday, April 17, 2018
Status, Credentials, and Language 2
Now lest you think I'm dumping on Japanese people, there's a similar phenomenon that happens when I meet other foreigners in Japan for the first time.
Naturally, ex-pats do not share the belief that foreigners cannot learn Japanese. Many to most of them can speak a little. One of the most common topics of conversations for expats is "Do you speak any Japanese?" As with all ice-breaking topics, there is always a certain amount of jockeying for position in these discussions, the same as when asking where a person went to university or what they do for a living.
Even if the topic doesn't come up directly, there is often a subtle power struggle over who is going to order at the restaurants, talk to the Japanese staff, lead the group the right direction to the next bar. The person with the best Japanese language skills automatically has a valued position within the group, and people generally jockey to be that person.
It is always an amusing spectacle, particularly if it's a group with a lot of young men. You are guaranteed that every man who is at all masculine will take a turn trying to show off their Japanese skills and become the group interpreter.
Since I've been studying for around 15 years, I'm better at Japanese than 99% of the foreigners I meet. Generally, the 'elite' foreigners can speak conversational Japanese, read hiragana and katakana, and maybe a few of the most common kanji. In other words, they're limited to basic communication, but this lets them 'get around' most situations.
This stage of the social bonding process is always a bit awkward for me. I don't like to brag or force myself to the front. On the rare occasion that the group has someone better than me, or it's a group where everyone can fend for themselves, it's a relief - it means I can relax and enjoy myself.
But almost inevitably, something will come up. The menu will have too much kanji and no one can read it. The staff will try to explain how the All-You-Can-Drink system works and no one can understand it. So of course, I fix the problem, and of course, everyone realizes that I'm on a different level linguistically. Inevitably, the question of "why are you so good at Japanese?" comes up.
And just as with Japanese people, the only thing foreigners fully accept is "I've passes the N1." If I say, "I majored in Japanese," people still look troubled or unconvinced - maybe they've met Japanese majors who can barely order in a restaurant. Or if I say I've been studying for 15 years, they still seem a little unsatisfied. But if I say, "Oh, I'm N1," there is instant relief and acceptance. Their faces scream "Oh, of course!"
You'd expect it to run the other way, but the cause and effect get switched. People say "Oh, you're N1, that's why you're so good at Japanese." It's as if being certified N1 makes me good at Japanese, not that being good at Japanese makes me N1.
This is oddly similar to the Japanese. In general, neither group accepts that a Japanese language learner can be good at Japanese unless they have Credentials. At the very least, the existence of Credentials is an effective shortcut to make people accept language ability.
Here's the issue: Credentials are more effective at convincing people of my language ability than my language ability. I can speak, read, and write Japanese in front of them and yet this manifest ability is less effective in convincing people that I can do these things that I am doing than stating that I have passed an exam.
This is deeply troubling for me.
Naturally, ex-pats do not share the belief that foreigners cannot learn Japanese. Many to most of them can speak a little. One of the most common topics of conversations for expats is "Do you speak any Japanese?" As with all ice-breaking topics, there is always a certain amount of jockeying for position in these discussions, the same as when asking where a person went to university or what they do for a living.
Even if the topic doesn't come up directly, there is often a subtle power struggle over who is going to order at the restaurants, talk to the Japanese staff, lead the group the right direction to the next bar. The person with the best Japanese language skills automatically has a valued position within the group, and people generally jockey to be that person.
It is always an amusing spectacle, particularly if it's a group with a lot of young men. You are guaranteed that every man who is at all masculine will take a turn trying to show off their Japanese skills and become the group interpreter.
Since I've been studying for around 15 years, I'm better at Japanese than 99% of the foreigners I meet. Generally, the 'elite' foreigners can speak conversational Japanese, read hiragana and katakana, and maybe a few of the most common kanji. In other words, they're limited to basic communication, but this lets them 'get around' most situations.
This stage of the social bonding process is always a bit awkward for me. I don't like to brag or force myself to the front. On the rare occasion that the group has someone better than me, or it's a group where everyone can fend for themselves, it's a relief - it means I can relax and enjoy myself.
But almost inevitably, something will come up. The menu will have too much kanji and no one can read it. The staff will try to explain how the All-You-Can-Drink system works and no one can understand it. So of course, I fix the problem, and of course, everyone realizes that I'm on a different level linguistically. Inevitably, the question of "why are you so good at Japanese?" comes up.
And just as with Japanese people, the only thing foreigners fully accept is "I've passes the N1." If I say, "I majored in Japanese," people still look troubled or unconvinced - maybe they've met Japanese majors who can barely order in a restaurant. Or if I say I've been studying for 15 years, they still seem a little unsatisfied. But if I say, "Oh, I'm N1," there is instant relief and acceptance. Their faces scream "Oh, of course!"
You'd expect it to run the other way, but the cause and effect get switched. People say "Oh, you're N1, that's why you're so good at Japanese." It's as if being certified N1 makes me good at Japanese, not that being good at Japanese makes me N1.
This is oddly similar to the Japanese. In general, neither group accepts that a Japanese language learner can be good at Japanese unless they have Credentials. At the very least, the existence of Credentials is an effective shortcut to make people accept language ability.
Here's the issue: Credentials are more effective at convincing people of my language ability than my language ability. I can speak, read, and write Japanese in front of them and yet this manifest ability is less effective in convincing people that I can do these things that I am doing than stating that I have passed an exam.
This is deeply troubling for me.
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