40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Episode 88 (Exodus 21:12-22:27)

Episode Date: July 5, 2017

There is a lot about crime and punishment in this episode. Some of these rules seem odd but there may be more going on in them than you think. Chad Bird and Daniel Emery Price talk about the defense of the vulnerable, an eye for an eye and why once the law is given rules for punishment had to follow. Check it out!

welcome to another episode of 40 minutes in the old testament i'm daniel emery price joined by chad bird chad what's going on man hey just uh plowed along through the summertime in the scorching heat yeah a little bit of a little bit of summertime down here in uh in south texas but otherwise we're otherwise we're good all right are you looking forward to san diego that dude okay let me just now that you brought it up let me just say you're gonna plug that a little bit san diego october uh 19 through 21 here we still stand conference you should probably come to that uh if you haven't already signed up here's the deal if you want to sign up for that and you want to uh get 10 off your ticket because you're a podcast

listener you just go over and register and then at the checkout you can enter the code 40 ot all caps so uh the number four number zero capital o capital t that'll get you uh 10 off uh your ticket so uh just for listening to this podcast so you should probably what a deal what a deal 10 off that thing so uh yeah go over there i'll be i'm gonna end up uh i'm gonna end up down there in san diego chad's gonna be there whole bunch of other people you can go over to here we still stand.org check it out uh see everything that's going on there but uh it's gonna be a good time and i'd hate for you to miss it and here's the other thing if you are thinking if you're thinking like oh yeah i'm going and you haven't jumped on that we are over halfway sold out um

so this isn't uh there's not unlimited seating there and um and we are about we're a little over 50 percent uh we're about 55 percent full and we're still about four months out so um i'm not guaranteeing that it's going to sell out but i'm just saying that if you want to go there's reason to go ahead and jump on that ticket before, I don't know, the week before because it is possible that there won't be any left because we are halfway there, halfway to what we can hold. Hey, good deal. Yeah, I hope as many of you as can will join us.

I look forward to meeting a lot of you face-to-face. It'll be a good few days. And we're going to be podcasting live from there. That's what I hear. That's it. So if you want to come sit in on a live recording studio audience of 40 minutes, That's also Thinking Fellow is going to do that. From Porch with the Fitches is going to do that.

And Virtue in the Wasteland is going to do that. So you can sit and listen to a couple of your podcasts that you like and interact with them. So that's going to be fun. That's going to be going on Thursday afternoon before the conference actually fires up on Thursday night. So lots of reasons to come. And the food, the music, the speaking, the whole thing. I mean, the weather, there's really not any reason not to go. Yeah, that's exactly right.

Good deal. Good deal. All right. So from San Diego to Sinai, I guess that's where we're going to go next, right? Yeah, man. I think we got a bunch of laws that are not as well known as the 10 that we went over the last couple of weeks. No, these are not nearly as well known. and it's part of chapters 21 through 23 of Exodus.

I mentioned last time it's called the Book of the Covenant. That's the traditional name for this section. And it really takes at least a few of the commandments and applies them to various situations that the Israelites are going to face. It's not anywhere close to any kind of complete law code, legal code, because there's all kinds of situations which are not addressed. So a lot of these are just kind of episodic things that might occur that the Israelites are going to have at least some of these laws in stone, as it were, in order to address how to deal with them. So we're going to move pretty quickly, actually, to summarize some of these sections and focus for a few minutes on some details, a couple of examples that are given to us. Just kind of give us the flavor for what these are like.

But if you want to read them on your own, hey, open up your Bible, Exodus 21 to 23. They're all there. You can check them out. Last time we began with the discussion of the relationship between the servant or the slave and the master. We're talking about a few situations there. And what we're going to do now is shift to the next main section, which is going to begin at verse 12 and carry us through to the next several verses. Most of these deal with some kind of some kind of bodily assault, I guess would be the way that we could phrase this. It's either premeditated, so you actually mean to hurt somebody or even kill them, to just accidental things that happen.

And it has the situations laid out for us, and then it has the penalty that is going to arise from these. And that penalty could be the death penalty, be some sort of monetary restitution that has to be made in some cases. Let me just give you a couple of examples here. So this is the way it starts out. This is Exodus 21, 12. He who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death. All right, so that's pretty straightforward. I mean, basically, if somebody is lying in wait for somebody, they're out to kill them and they succeed in that.

In other words, if they break the Fifth Commandment, if they murder, then it's going to be life for life. So the death penalty will be exacted upon that person who took another person's another person's life. That's pretty straightforward. But then the very next verse says, you know, well, situations can occur where an accident happens. And that's what this is It says but if he did not lie and wait for him So this wasn't premeditated And he wasn't waiting in a dark alley To pull this guy and slit his throat or something

It was an accident whatever happened It says but God let him fall Into his hand that is to say That in the divine providence This happened God let this happen Then He says I will appoint You a place to which

He may flee this is talking about something we're gonna we're gonna uh see later on later on in the in the torah so this was a this was a time when a lot of the justice took place within the family so if you know if somebody kills my brother then i go after him i become kind of the the judge jury and executioner this is pretty common back in this in this world and so what the israelites did or what god did for the israelites later on is he set up these uh what we might call sanctuary cities today uh this is totally different though these sanctuary cities were places of refuge cities of refuge to which uh a person who was guilty of an accidental killing when he he accidentally uh

killed someone it was not premeditated they could flee to this city for for refuge should the person out to avenge their relative's death come after them so that's what it's talking about here about appointing a city to which you may flee but notice that there's no penalty exacted upon him this is an accident and so there is no penalty attached to that there's just this reality of the need for him to have some place where he's safe should someone someone come after him so I mean, that gives you one example there. This section goes on to talk about their father or their mother, then they're to be put to death. Same with same with kidnapping in verse 16. If someone kidnaps someone or curses his father or mother. So these are, I guess, physical attacks as well as as verbal attacks.

Now, here's here's one. Here's one that is an example in this section that I think is is worthy of reflecting on for a minute. This is verses 18 and 19. So what if two men have a quarrel? So these two guys get into a fight for whatever reason. And one strikes the other with a stone or with his fist. But the guy doesn't die. He has to stay in bed until he gets better. And he gets up and he walks around outside on his staff.

Fight between two guys. And one of them picks up a rock or he hits him with his fist. And this guy's hurt for a while, but he's not killed. is able to get up and get around then it says the one who struck him shall go unpunished he shall only pay for his loss of time so the guy couldn't work for instance let's say and so he he has to make up for that and notice this this is the part that i think is is most interesting and he shall take care of him greatly healed now in some ways that is more of an impediment to uh to hurting somebody than anybody else because nobody wants to get in a fight with somebody, beat the guy up,

and then be forced to nurse him back to health. I mean, that might be the worst punishment that you could inflict upon this other guy. I don't know about you, but if I were getting into a fight, the last thing I want to do is sit by this guy's bed and take care of him until he gets better yeah that's the law god is uh familiar with the hearts of men he's like i got i got a law for you right here you're like can i just uh can i just pay to like have it you know let's pay for the doctor i guess no no you're gonna be the doctor right yeah he needs his bedpan changed that's what you need to do he needs his bandages taken care of that's what you're gonna do so you shall take care of it until he is completely healed uh i mean it's almost comical to think

about uh how this actually would have been carried out out in the in the life of israel so i mean that's one example here of uh of these laws uh there's another one i think is worthy of comment before we move on to the next section and that is from verse 20 uh 22 and and the polymers so these two guys get into a fight over something all right and strike a woman with child all right so these two guys get to a fight there happens to be a pregnant woman there's like right there and they accidentally this is not a purpose but this is they accidentally hit her i mean you can see this happening in a group of people uh so that now i'm reading my translation so that she has a miscarriage literally in the hebrew it says so that her children come out it could be child

it could be children then yet yet there is no further injury that is to say there's no further injury to the child or children if there's twins or to the mother he shall surely be fined as the woman's husband may demand of him and he shall pay of the judges decided okay so two guys get into a fight a pregnant woman standing nearby accidentally gets hurt in in this uh in this struggle and she goes into labor and she has her children her child but if the baby's okay if the mom is okay any other penalty demanded except whatever the husband might ask verse 23 but if there is any further injury then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life if this is interesting is because it takes into account not only any any harm inflicted upon the mother but

also any harm that might befall the child who is prematurely born as a result of this fight between these two guys. We saw earlier there was concern for the servant or the slave. There's a concern here for a woman as well as her unborn child. So these laws are covering all of humanity. It doesn't matter where you fall on that spectrum, slave or free, male or female, born or unborn. Yeah, there is a thing where God is definitely concerned about the well-being of the vulnerable. So you have loads and loads of laws that have to do with slavery and servants. So people that have masters or have people over them, God puts a bunch of laws in place to make sure that they're treated well and that they're not abused and hurt. Likewise, you have, in the case of the unborn, you don't get much more vulnerable than that.

God puts laws in place where, hey, since you guys are prone to scrapping, you need to be careful because if this happens, it's not going to be good. You're not going to be able to write that off As like, well, just a baby Nope He is about protecting You know, I think that I think that God Maybe get a little controversial here

Depending on your position On certain things But I think that the reason One That God So takes care of the unborn child, in this passage and in other passages as well, is because that's the place of the incarnation. And I think that the reason, and I don't mind saying this, I think the reason

the devil hates unborn children is because it's the image of God in the place of the incarnation. I think the reason that that's attacked that is thought to be he is all about devaluing that life in that place has everything to do with the Incarnation he hates the image of God and he hates the place of the Incarnation because that's his end

and so I think you see like this this struggle as it were between God protecting the image of God in that place and the devil wanting to destroy or minimize the image of God in that place. Yeah, that's a great point. When Mary is visited by the angel and is pregnant thereafter with Jesus

and she goes to visit her relative Elizabeth, of course, when hears the voice of Mary greeting her, John the Baptist leaps uh in her in her womb and there you have a great example of the presence of God born within the womb of Mary causing a reaction in not so much Elizabeth but in another unborn child and in John the Baptist I mean it's it's a great testimony to the fact that already within the womb of of mary god is incarnate he is there as a flesh and blood unborn unborn baby and he's already as it were causing reactions in the world uh and he has as he continued to do throughout his throughout his life and ministry

to john the baptist to to leap within within the womb so uh i i agree with you the uh that uh that satan has toward toward uh toward christ and his incarnation is still directed toward those to who bear that image and likeness of christ even in a even in the womb yeah yeah it's um you know this isn't a discussion about uh about abortion or anything but uh but it does tell you theologically anyway what's going on it's it's not as simple as you know is it a life or isn't it a life uh there's there's more theologically there's more going on there i mean um the womb theologically is huge it's what god used to to bring himself into uh into this world It's just a vehicle he used initially to put salvation into motion.

And, yeah, the devil ate into it. Yeah. Yeah, well, he's always going against the vulnerable, and the devil is. And he's also, like us, to take advantage of the vulnerable. and that happens all the time and that's the reason we have laws such as this in order to prohibit that from happening. Spread God's deep and jealous concern

for those who live in a state of vulnerability, whether they're unborn children or aliens or whoever they might be, who don't have power, who don't have prestige, who don't have means of self-protection, who are open to any kind of attacks or abuse or misuse by those who are in positions of power and authority that's right all right so uh the rest of the section uh deals with with a few other a few other concerns about injury that most of it actually is about uh if there's any kind of

injury that is from some kind of uh some kind of beast to the field like an ox that is prone to entering people and what, what needs to be done about that. So, and if any of you, if any of you are, uh, are ranchers and you have a violent ox, then you might find a verse 26 through 32, 32 interesting. I'll leave that to you to take a look at, or if, uh, you know, if you're in the habit of digging pits and leaving them open, you might want to read verses 33 through 36, because that deals with, deals with that. Oh man, that's, that's my go-to. I'm always digging those pits i thought you were it said dan right here to exodus 21 meditate on a chapter all right so uh chapter 22 uh moving on here with the book of the covenant this next section deals

with um primarily with with theft and with other other matters related to to money so it uh it It starts out here with, say you got a thief, an animal thief. He steals an ox or he steals some sheep from your fold. And then he slaughters the ox or he sells the sheep. Well, if he gets caught, he's going to pay, if he stole one ox, he's got to pay five oxen. If he stole a sheep, then he has to pay four sheep to replace the one that he stole and then slaughtered or sold off. We have another scenario, okay? Say you're home, and it's the middle of the night.

It's dark outside, and a thief is trying to break into your home, and you strike him with something, with your sword or with a bat or whatever it is you use to defend yourself, so that he dies. That is the thief. Blood guiltiness on his account. that is to say the the uh the the owner of the home will not be held accountable and the presumption of this is that if you got a guy that is trying to break into your house in the middle of the night he probably has not only the intent to steal but also to kill you because he's using

the cover of the night to do this that's the way this verse is usually explained and so if there's some kind of if if the owner of the house defends himself strikes this guy down then it's basically what we would call self-defense all right but this is interesting verse three says goes on to say but if the sun has risen on him so it's daytime then there will be blood guiltiness on his account now this is this is pretty fascinating so if a guy breaks into the middle of the night you and you kill him in self-defense but if it's daylight and this happens then you're not you're going to be held accountable and uh the way this is usually explained is because like i said if it's at night then uh he's he probably has more nefarious uh

i'm not just to not just to to steal but also to uh to kill but if the sun is risen he's just breaking in to steal something and so you can't defense excuse in this in this case that is bizarre it is it is bizarre i think this is one of those one of those great examples of like if we were there we'd be like raising our hands and say moses hey moses well but what if what if this happens you know what if he's actually it's daytime but he's breaking in to actually hurt us then then what are we supposed to do i mean this is this is only one of a multitude of laws and rules where we wish we had more we wish we could you know list extenuating circumstances or you know other other kinds of scenarios that uh that might that might in some

way connect with this law and say well what about in this case but we don't have that all we have are these kind of blanket statements and we would assume assuming this that in many of these situations that's why you had judges i mean that's why we have judges today because i mean The law does need interpretation and enforcement. And so Israel had judges in order to make these same kinds of decisions in cases that were brought to them. It seems that the motivation behind this distinction, so you can kind of get lost in the lack of details and lost in the hypotheticals, But it seems that the heart behind it is that if somebody is trying to kill you, you will not be held accountable if you strike them down and stop them or they're trying to kill your family or something like that. But what you're not allowed to do is you're not allowed to kill someone in defense of your property.

and i think that this then speaks to the value that god places on life over stuff you know so i don't know and here in the west there's probably a lot of people be like man you try to take my stuff i'll i'll kill you but i mean um it's not how god sees it really um he doesn't uh he doesn't think your property is worth the life of even a thief uh that's not that's not a one for one and so he's using night and day as some kind of way to distinguish between two things these two things so if this guy was sneaking in your house to steal food God doesn't think that you have the right to kill him for it but if he's coming in to kill you and you end up he ends up dead and as you are defending your family well then then you're not going to be held accountable

for that um so i do think that there's something to take away from that that is even the life of the of the unrighteous thief is more valuable than your stuff i couldn't put it any better that was perfect yeah that's that's exactly right that is the concern of uh that's the concern that actually permeates a lot of the book of the covenant is the the ultimate value that is placed upon human life uh that that's where you have the death penalty like in that verse that we've read earlier someone takes another's life with malicious intent then his then his life shall be taken but there is no death penalty here for sheep or oxen or or grain or or anything else instead there's to be uh restitution there is punishment of course there's to be restitution

and a doubling or tripling of that which was stolen. But even, as you say, even the life of the thief is worth more than anyone else's stuff. So even in these laws, there's mercy that is shown to the lawbreaker. There's mercy that's shown to the thief. Well, I think that's an important component of the law is not just the, hey, here's the punishment. I mean, certainly that's there, where if you do this, this is what is going to happen. But when you look at the famous eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, that's not as much, and I don't think these laws are as much, about demanding this amount of restitution or this amount of punishment. But it's also telling you, it's putting limits on how far you can go.

So an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth doesn't mean you have to go take a tooth for a tooth. It means you can't go take his head. That's what it's doing. I mean, and that's why these laws do this as well, where they're saying, look, you can't just say, well, you did this. Now I get to do whatever I want to you. There's limits to how far you can go. Because left on our own, we'll ascribe value to things that we shouldn't. We will punish further than we should.

So the laws of God work both ways. They definitely serve as a deterrent because you don't want some of the stuff to be carried out on you. But they also serve as a restraint for how far somebody can go. um with with what that was the punishment that they demand yeah great points you know that that eye for an eye tooth for a tooth uh section that you that you referenced that that's basically kind of a legal shorthand for saying look the punishment needs to fit the crime the punishment can't exceed the crime i mean so that you're right it's it's not to be interpreted literally i mean your eye is going to be taken if you take a tooth and your tooth is going to be taken it is

simply the legal shorthand for saying look whatever crime is committed the punishment needs to fit that it can't exceed that you can't execute someone uh because he because he he hits you because he punched you in the face there are there are limits to to the punishments and and the reason we know that for instance uh just looking back in that section that where the eye for eye tooth for tooth is quoted which was in the previous chapter after that is stated eye for eye tooth for tooth hand for hand foot for foot so on and so forth we have this verse if a man strikes the eye of his male or female servant and destroys it so so uh you know the master gets mad and he punches his slave and ends up blinding him then it says he shall let him go free on account of his eye

notice what it doesn't say it doesn't say then the master's eye shall be cut out of his face he lets his servant go free so there is no literal eye for an eye here that is to say that the punishment fits the crime he should not have struck his servant they've struck him so hard that he ended up blinding him for one eye and the punishment inflicted upon the master is the the freedom of his of his server right yeah so yeah it fits the crime in other words all right so back to 22 uh the rest of this section deals with with uh with matters i'll let you read let you read on your own uh it uh it covers matters such as if you um if you you catch a thief uh if there's a breach of trust if you borrow something and don't return it all kinds of

situations that uh probably happen on a on a pretty regular basis in the life of israel and these are the ways in which those were to were to be addressed this is a great example of all the non-utopian view of life in israel i mean there's there's nothing in this section that assumes this is going to be some sort of uh utopian society in israel where everything was great and everybody loved each other and everybody got along and kind of this hippie israel no i mean there's going to be a lot of problems you can have people who steal fights you're going to have pregnant women who get hit in the midst of these brawls ended up going into early labor so very realistic understanding of israel as a community of sinners

There's going to be problems, and these laws are designed to address those in a realistic, judicial, fair sort of way. Yeah, I mean it's important to remember that all of this is like on the heels of the Ten Commandments. I mean the Ten Commandments are like hot off the press, and God gives these – like these laws are given with the assumption that the ultimate law is not going to be kept. Like God already knows this Is the case Which tells you Something about the law In other words

Just having the law doesn't make you keep the law God knows that God did not endow the law With the power To cause people to keep it That's not what the law does In fact he gives the law And he's like so here's the law

And not if But when people break it Here's how you're going to deal with it. But it's not as though he's like, here's the law. I guess we're good to go. I mean, that's the assumption so many Christians have. I mean, it's just, you know, post the Ten Commandments in the living room and the family will run smooth. And it's like, that's not how that works.

That will work? That will not work. Oh, man, it won't work. Build a huge statue of the Ten Commandments, put it on the city square, and the community will run well. And this is not the case, man. It's not how that works. Yeah, well, if you believe what Paul says,

it might make matters worse. I mean, the law aggravates sin, right? Yeah, it's almost like God knows that. He gives the law and he's like, here's how you're going to deal with all this sin that this is going to bring about. Yeah, we've all experienced this. You know, we're told not to do something

that we never really thought about doing. And then all of a sudden, we have a desire to do it. i mean i mean if i like this is how the law the way it works the law totally works like that if i was if i'm if you're a thief and you're and you're reading all this you're like well that settles it i'm stealing stuff in the daytime i'm gonna become a daytime thief hey they can't kill me that's how it's the way that mindset works right totally yeah the more we are forbidden the more we desire to do something the more we're told to do something the more that we rebel rebel against it that is the uh that's the old adamant work right there all right so we get we

got a few minutes left i think we can wrap up uh chapter 22 uh is 16 through 31 which are conclude this section are are full of uh what in legal in legal terms are called apodictic laws most of what we've been covering are case laws or casuistic laws deal with kind of, you know, if such and such happens, then such and such is going to be the result of the punishment or whatever it might be. These laws called apodictic laws are like the 10 commandments. Most of them just kind of state things. So just like an apodictic law, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not commit adultery. So there's a lot of, you shall not do this, you shall do this in this particular section for instance uh so say you got you got a guy and a girl and uh they're not they're not

she's not engaged to somebody she's not betrothed to use the old language and these two are uh these two are in love as we say and they end up having sex and it happened then well if that happens, then the young man is to pay a dowry for her to be his wife. It's like the sexual act sealed the deal. That meant that they were betrothed and they were going to get married. And so the young man was forced by law then to make her his wife. He was to pay a dowry to her or to her father all right but what if the dad can't stand this kid he doesn't want this he doesn't want this guy to uh to marry his daughter well then her father he has the authority here her father if her father absolutely refuses to give her to him gotta pay the dowry but he can't have

her for his wife so how's how's that for totally ruining the romantic plans of a young couple so i guess the i guess the the boy needs to either refrain until until they're married engaged and married or uh you better make sure that her dad likes him before he leads himself into temptation because that's the situation that's laid out here yeah that's that that's a pretty strong deterrent yes it is it is i don't know how often it worked but yeah it was a deterrent uh then uh you have a couple of kind of strange situations here uh wait are you trying to are you trying to tell me that god was assuming let me get in trouble here was god was god after he gave the ten commandments did god assume that the young people of israel were going to be having sex

anyway that was going to happen yeah you know it doesn't appear is it that uh a a realistic scenario yeah so so you're saying that like teenagers in uh in israel were just like teenagers everywhere else yeah they were no they were no different there's nothing new under the nothing new under the sun there are there are no teenage emotions new under the sun either sexual sexual drive did not all of a sudden skyrocket in uh in the 21st century so it's been there in full force all along so the just kind of wrap this up uh we got uh uh various laws against sorceresses and uh how to how to deal with with the strangers that is the the sojourners happen to be living in the land of israel to take care of them uh to even if you show even if you

lend money to the poor take care of them uh for instance if you take their cloak as a pledge give it back to them before sunset because that's the only thing that they have to to keep warm so this is like what we talked about earlier a concern for the vulnerable a concern for those who have no one to look out for them so uh that that's that's the way this this wraps up uh the the end of 22 and we'll uh we'll have a little bit more to say about the book of the covenant next time but it's it's a little different is dealing a lot with the sabbatical year and the three big national feasts of israel and then we'll have a real interesting section here at the end where we talk about an angel who bears the divine name right on for that good

a Christological discussion. That sounds mighty Christological indeed. Well, alright. Yeah, we're out of time. So, guys, hey, remember, you can use that discount code if you want to come hang out with me and Chad in San Diego. It's 40OT.

Type it in the box at checkout, and you can get 10% off your tickets if we want to hang out with you. Chad, thanks for hanging out today, man. We'll see you next week. You bet. We'll see you then. © transcript Emily Beynon