Strangers In The Land: Ger 013

Leviticus 18:24-29

‘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.

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.

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.