Readings for today: Deuteronomy 21-23, Psalms 60
It’s hard to read the chapters assigned for today. They typically elicit confusion, frustration, and even anger at the way women and rebellious children are treated not to mention the laws governing sexuality. This is where the cultural distance between us and the ancient Israelites becomes most obvious. We don’t have the same frame of understanding as they did in their day and so struggle to understand why God would allow such laws to exist. Furthermore, we have significant issues with some of these laws, considering them unjust to the core. So why does God command Israel to follow them? What’s He after here?
The dominant cultural paradigm in the ancient near east - as well as the modern Middle East - is honor/shame. What this means is that the primary purpose of the law is not to determine innocence or guilt but to protect the honor of the family/clan/community/nation. This is why there is a premium placed on ritual purity because the greatest honor for a nation would be for their god to come and dwell with them. This is why we read the phrase, “you must purge the evil/guilt from your midst” over and over again. God wants to dwell with His people. God wants to walk with them as He once did with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. God wants an unbroken relationship with them which means they must pay particular attention to maintaining standards of cleanliness. “For the Lord your God walks throughout your camp to protect you and deliver your enemies to you; so your encampments must be holy. He must not see anything indecent among you or he will turn away from you.” (Deuteronomy 23:14 CSB) Why would God turn away? He turns away from the shame of our sin. The shame of our indecency. The shame of our behavior. All the laws listed in these chapters have to do in some way with honor and shame with the hope that Israel will hear and obey and thereby create an environment where God Himself can be present. By the way, the honor/shame dynamic is still very much a reality to this day in Israel and throughout the Middle East.
So what can we learn from these chapters? What’s our takeaway? Especially since we live in a culture far removed and far different? The dominant cultural paradigm in the United States is innocence/guilt. The primary purpose of our laws is to determine who is guilty and who goes free. We are far more concerned with right or wrong than we are with ritual purity. And we seemingly have no desire to “purge the evil from our midst” as long as it doesn’t “hurt anyone.” Our goal is not to have God walk with us or dwell with us, we’re doing just fine on our own. We actually prefer Him to keep His distance if we’re honest. Despite our sin, God still pursues us. He wants to have a relationship with us. And that’s why He sent His only begotten Son to “hang on a tree” and become the “curse” for us. “If anyone is found guilty of an offense deserving the death penalty and is executed, and you hang his body on a tree, you are not to leave his corpse on the tree overnight but are to bury him that day, for anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not defile the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.” (Deuteronomy 21:22-23 CSB) On the cross, Jesus took our shame and gave us His honor. He took on our guilt and declared us innocent. He became sin - who knew no sin - that we might become the righteousness of God.
Readings for tomorrow: Deuteronomy 24-27, Psalms 61