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#Deuteronomy 24:17-22
Care for the vulnerable
You shall not deprive an immigrant of justice. Imagine that.
You don’t have to exact every last ounce of value from your property, but should rather make sure those in need have their needs met by your surplus. Imagine that.
Care for the vulnerable
You shall not deprive an immigrant of justice. Imagine that.
You don’t have to exact every last ounce of value from your property, but should rather make sure those in need have their needs met by your surplus. Imagine that.
These laws - which push back with ethical force against the potential abuses of a capitalist and nationalist system - are so important (or perhaps so contrary to some human nature) that they are given justifications looking both forward and backward.
To do this is to bring about divine blessing. It may feel like you’re giving up the fruits of your own success, but in fact you will gain all the more from acting ethically rather than self-interestedly.
#Deuteronomy 24:16
Intergenerational punishment
Parents shall not be put to death for the crimes of their children, and vice versa. What happened to “visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children and children’s children up to the third and fourth generation”?
Intergenerational punishment
Parents shall not be put to death for the crimes of their children, and vice versa. What happened to “visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children and children’s children up to the third and fourth generation”?
What happened is - get this - different texts had different opinions on this matter. (Some picky asshat is gonna be like “well this one is about death and the other one says punishment so they don’t actually conflict blah blah blah” but shove it. This is a contradiction.)
This is, in fact, one of the ongoing points of “discussion” among the biblical sources, in the Pentateuch and prophets and beyond. (Sometimes they’re actually responding to each other; often it only feels that way as we read the canonical text.)
#Deuteronomy 24:10-15
Caring for the poor
This isn’t some generic “be nice to the poor” sort of thing you see elsewhere in D. This is specific law: financial and labor policy insuring that the poor don’t suffer just because they’re poor. It’s about dignity - it’s good stuff.
Caring for the poor
This isn’t some generic “be nice to the poor” sort of thing you see elsewhere in D. This is specific law: financial and labor policy insuring that the poor don’t suffer just because they’re poor. It’s about dignity - it’s good stuff.
No going into someone’s house to collect their pledge. You give them the dignity of bringing it out to you. They may be in debt to you, but that doesn’t give you the right to bust into their home. Because they’re still people even if they’re poor.
Famously, you can’t take the cloak of a poor person as their pledge overnight. Even though they owe it to you, and normally you would keep it, their health - and dignity - override the usual practices.
#Deuteronomy 21:18-21
Killing disobedient children
Here’s a marvelous example of a biblical law so manifestly unacceptable by virtually any standard that it almost single-handedly challenges the notion of the Bible as an ethical or moral guide to be read absolutely literally.
Killing disobedient children
Here’s a marvelous example of a biblical law so manifestly unacceptable by virtually any standard that it almost single-handedly challenges the notion of the Bible as an ethical or moral guide to be read absolutely literally.
No one follows this law. I don’t think anyone even suggests that we follow it. Those who shill for a literal reading, and an application in real-world policy, for other biblical laws (you know which ones) don’t even come close to doing the same for this one.
And that’s not true only of today: the rabbis of the Talmud, in their discussion of this law, spent basically the whole time making it impossible to follow, by narrowing what counts as “stubborn and rebellious” until it was a bar that could never be reached.
#Deuteronomy 11:1-7
What Israel saw
In a vague reference to the plagues, a clearer description of the encounter with the Egyptians at the sea, and a nearly verbatim recollection of Dathan and Abiram, Moses here reminds Israel of all the things they saw with their own eyes.
What Israel saw
In a vague reference to the plagues, a clearer description of the encounter with the Egyptians at the sea, and a nearly verbatim recollection of Dathan and Abiram, Moses here reminds Israel of all the things they saw with their own eyes.
I think there are three big takeaways from this small passage. First is that D here, as everywhere, not only assumes but makes explicit that the Israelites addressed by Moses in the plains of Moab are the same Israelites who left Egypt. No generation change in the wilderness.
Second, D again demonstrates that it picks happily among the narrative fields of J and E, choosing whichever stories and episodes and references are best suited to its rhetorical purposes at any given time. Here it isn’t the moments of disobedience, but the big miracles.
#Deuteronomy 6:5
The Shema, cont.
Another super famous line - “you shall love the lord your god with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might” - that has come to mean something pretty far from what it once did. Lots to unpack here. Sorry in advance.
The Shema, cont.
Another super famous line - “you shall love the lord your god with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might” - that has come to mean something pretty far from what it once did. Lots to unpack here. Sorry in advance.
One of the great scholarly realizations of the mid twentieth century was that Deuteronomy followed the basic form of an ancient Near Eastern vassal treaty (see yesterday’s thread). YHWH is in place of the conquering king, and Israel is the vassal that must obey.
Part of that discovery was that some of the language used in D is actually formal treaty language. Like, imagine that someone wrote something today, and used the “whereas…whereas…therefore” structure. You’d know it was modeled on legal documents. Same thing here.
#Deuteronomy 6:1-4
The Shema, part 1
“Hear O Israel, the Lord is our god, the Lord is one” - that’s how I was taught this verse (6:4) growing up. And I was also taught that this was a, if not the, major expression of monotheism in the Bible. Alas…
The Shema, part 1
“Hear O Israel, the Lord is our god, the Lord is one” - that’s how I was taught this verse (6:4) growing up. And I was also taught that this was a, if not the, major expression of monotheism in the Bible. Alas…
This is one of the (many) verses that really suffers when the name of Israel’s god, YHWH, is rendered as a title, “the Lord.” What’s lost is the very specific, very non-monotheistic sentiment here: of all the gods - and every nation has one - YHWH is ours.
It’s almost the very opposite of what I, and I think many people, are taught. People concentrate on the second half, but the first half is where the real money is. We know all the other national gods of Israel’s neighbors. What would Moab say? “Chemosh is our god.”
#Deuteronomy 5
The Ten Commandments
Here they are, in all their (original) glory. But as I’ve commented on the content of them already, here I’m going to talk about how they function in D, because they do two neat things at once.
The Ten Commandments
Here they are, in all their (original) glory. But as I’ve commented on the content of them already, here I’m going to talk about how they function in D, because they do two neat things at once.
We gotta remember that D never just recounts past events for their own sake. This isn’t a history - it’s a speech by Moses that has a clear purpose, to convince his audience to follow the laws that he’s about to give them. Everything has to be understood through that lens.
So here’s Moses, at the beginning of this second oration, telling them about the Ten Commandments. Why? First, because those laws were the beta version of the expanded laws he’s about to proclaim. They were the wilderness laws, the basic starter package.
@JamesMartinSJ @breeadail @ArchCordileone He is doing his job. Read what happened to #Annanias & #Saphira. @SpeakerPelosi at least is being given time to repent. They were carried out dead for lying to God.
@JamesMartinSJ @breeadail @ArchCordileone @SpeakerPelosi Read #Deuteronomy. If you have asked #Jesus to be your #Savior, but are not walking in obedience to Him, although you are saved, your purposefully #sinful actions have a consequence. We have been grafted in #Abraham, and the #curses for his seeds’ disobedience are ours, too.
@JamesMartinSJ @breeadail @ArchCordileone @SpeakerPelosi Are you purposefully and daily #sinning? Your actions are not allowing #Jesus to protect us. Yes, the sin of non-believers is rampant and awful and would result in these disasters IF WE WERE NOT PROTECTING OUR country. BUT because many of us are acting just as badly,
