Better by Far – Old Testament Law in the Ancient Near East
**Ed. Note: This post is part three of a three-part series on the foundations of a Christian Worldview. Faith Beyond Belief offers a 12 session Worldview Course, suitable for small groups, Sunday School classes etc. Part one of this series, Does the Right Worldview Matter, highlights the topics covered by the course. Part two, A Mousetrap for Darwin, talks about design in nature which is covered in sessions three and four of the course. Part three covers how the Old Testament, which is foundational for the Christian worldview, enacted laws that underscore the dignity of human life to this day.
Better by Far – Old Testament Law in the Ancient Near East
By Amy Beange
There is a satirical post that has been circling the internet for several years in which someone has written a letter to famously conservative radio family therapy guru Dr. Laura, thanking her for condemning homosexuality because it is described as an “abomination” in the book of Leviticus. The writer then asks for clarification on other Old Testament laws and how to apply them. Since the OT permits foreign slaves but not Hebrew slaves, the writer states, “my friend says that means I can own a Mexican but not a Canadian. Can you please explain why I can’t own a Canadian?” The point of the parody is to attack the OT as an ancient religious text that cannot serve as a consistent guide for 21st-century life.
I’ve addressed the status of Old Testament law and its relevance for us today in another post (Shellfish, Tattoos and Sacrifices). What I want to address here is the notion that undergirds the “letter to Laura,” the idea that Old Testament law had serious deficiencies and can’t be taken seriously by any fair-minded person today. While I don’t advocate that we “go back” to OT law, given its fulfillment by Christ, I think the first five books of the Bible get seriously short-changed in the pulpit, with the consequence that many Christians doubt their efficacy and would often rather they not be in the Bible. I can understand their discomfort as those laws can be a bit boring to read through. Whole sections are given over to mundane matters, such as dealing with excrement and gross skin diseases—ew! —and others do not always make sense to us. Really, what is the big deal with pork?
What really hampers our understanding is distance. We in the West are separated by thousands of years and thousands of miles from the people who lived in that ancient world. Moreover, we have grown up in a free and prosperous society in which human rights and the dignity of the individual are received as givens. We are charmed by the story of the Exodus from Egypt—way to go God for freeing the Hebrews! But most of us do not really “get” the revolutionary nature of the law God gave the Israelites to govern daily life in the Promised Land. When compared to all other societies of the time it is difficult to overstate the strikingly different template God gifted the people He called His own. Perhaps this is where we can come to understand God’s compassion best, when it is compared to the human cruelty and crudity found outside His law.
First off, we can see this difference in most ancient near eastern (ANE) societies in the form of social classes in which rights, privileges and wealth were profoundly unequal. The clearest distinction was between the large class that produced the wealth, i.e., the masses, and the small class that consumed the wealth, the elites. That ordering of society was taken for granted. The Greek philosopher Aristotle (d. 322 BC) wrote “From the hour of their birth some are marked out for subjection, others for rule.” The Sumerian upper class had the two-story whitewashed homes in the center of town while the commoners and slaves lived in mud huts out on the fringes. The early Romans had the patricians (rulers), plebeians (tradespeople) and slaves. In the medieval period there were the nobility, the clergy and the peasantry. Each of these systems concentrated wealth, power and dignity at the top.
This is where the Pentateuch is singular. The template it provided for society served to minimize the difference in privilege and economic status between the classes and raised the dignity of the common man to heights unheard of in the ancient world.
In order to see how this is so we must go back to the beginning. The Law did not spring up out of nowhere but was given in a particular context, to a people who could trace their lineage, not just back to Abraham, God’s chosen father of their nation, but back to Adam, the first man. The difference this makes is profound once we contrast the origin story of the Hebrews with that of another ANE culture, the Mesopotamians.
In the Mesopotamian creation account, Atrahasis, there are many gods with many needs. The more powerful gods delegate the dirty work to the lesser gods who protest their lot and who are relieved of their burdens when the superior gods consent to create human beings to do the hard labour. The humans reproduce “like rabbits,” and to deal with the overpopulation the gods send various ills upon them, including a flood, to diminish their numbers.
Contrast this dim view of human life with the Genesis account which tells us that the first humans were created “in the image of God, male and female” and were given dominion over the whole earth. In a limited way they shared in God’s nature—his creativity and intelligence and relational capacity—and were given the earth to manage for their own benefit and for the glory of God. On the other hand, God makes it clear He has no need of man’s labour and encourages human beings to “multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.” Why? Because human life is blessed.
When the Hebrews fell into slavery in Egypt and cried out to the Lord, the book of Exodus says, “God heard their groaning and God remembered his covenant with Abraham…and God looked upon the children of Israel and God acknowledged them.” He saved them from their misery and set them up as a new, independent nation in a new territory.
“While I don’t advocate that we “go back” to OT law, given its fulfillment by Christ, I think the first five books of the Bible get seriously short-changed in the pulpit, with the consequence that many Christians doubt their efficacy and would often rather they not be in the Bible. ”
Thus, the stage was set for God’s new law code. Everything he commanded of the Israelites, every regulation and ordinance, was couched within a matrix of God’s love for humanity, his faithfulness to his covenant with Abraham, and his desire for relationship with his people. The Mesopotamian gods did not love humans or care about their lives. The only people the gods had anything to do with were the political and religious elites—the king and the priests. Only those at the top had any chance of meriting the notice and good will of the gods. Everyone else was simply part of the “unwashed masses” who labored for the benefit of others.
The formulation of the covenant God establishes further shows us God’s revolutionary dealings with humans. In the ANE it was common for a more powerful king to subjugate a less powerful king, put him under tribute, and enact a treaty with him to govern their relations. The Hittite kingdom existed between the 17th and 13th centuries BC in what is modern day Turkey, where several of the “suzerainty treaties” they created with other people groups have been found. In these treaties the superior king is given honour, tribute and loyalty by the subordinate king in exchange for protection. The subordinate king is held responsible for the terms of the treaty, is often required to journey to the superior king’s residence for face-to-face meetings and is regularly required to read out the terms of the treaty.
God’s covenant with Israel is similar in that God as the superior sets the terms, requires loyalty, and promises protection of the people in case of need. But what makes God’s covenant so strikingly different is who God’s covenant is with. This is not a case of God making a deal with Moses and only dealing with him. Yes, Moses represents the people. But the covenant itself is made with the people: “And Moses called all Israel, and said to them” ‘Hear O Israel, the statues and judgments which I speak in your hearing today, that you may learn them and be careful to observe them. The LORD our God made a covenant with us in Horeb’” (Deut. 5:1-2). Further, the “average Joe” Israelite is responsible to keep the terms of the covenant: “But as for you [Moses]…I will speak to you all the commandments… which you shall teach them that they may observe them…you shall walk in all the way which the LORD your God has commanded you, that you may live and that it may be well with you” (Deut. 5:31, 33). In addition, God required “three times a year all of your males shall be seen by the face of the LORD” (Exod. 23:17) and “every seventh year…when all Israel comes to be seen by the face of the LORD your God…you shall read this teaching aloud in the presence of all Israel. Gather the people—men, women and children…that they may hear” (Deut. 31:10-13).
These details are striking because they place the people, collectively, in the place of the subordinate king of a typical Hittite suzerainty treaty. The masses are no longer the faceless worker bees, toiling for the benefit of others. Rather, they are all elevated to the place of the “servant king” who is the object of the attention of the superior ruler. It is difficult to convey how much dignity is conferred on the Hebrews with this covenant because we are so used to being free and having rights. But keep in mind, the objects of this covenant were ex-slaves.
In addition to elevating the common man in the covenant, its terms went further to reduce inequality between human beings. First, it put limitations on the person who was assumed to warrant the most privilege and status in the ANE—the king. The eventual king of Israel was no one special. He was not a god, nor possessed of special intrinsic value to the gods. Saul and David were both ordinary Hebrews from ordinary families. David may have been “a man after God’s own heart” but he was still just a man.
Further, Israelite kings were ordered not to create an order of military elites. In the ANE, the royal chariot force had special status. We see this in the Roman “equestrian” class of military men. But of the Israelite king it is said: “he shall not multiply horses for himself nor shall he cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, for the LORD has said to you, ‘You shall not return that way again” (Deut. 17:16).
In the ANE kings achieved political alliances by marrying princesses of other nations and by marrying the daughters of the wealthy and powerful, thus consolidating and increasing their own power. Consider Solomon, Israel’s most notorious lady’s man. Yet Israelite kings were not to so distinguish themselves: “neither shall he multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away” (Deut. 17:17).
Finally, the king was himself subject to the law: “when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of this law in a book…and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God and be careful to observe all the words of this law…that his heart may not be lifted above his brethren” (Deut. 17:18). Not only was the king subject to the law but all the people were required to listen to the law being read publicly on a regular basis—abuse of power is more likely to happen behind closed doors when people are kept in ignorance (Deut. 31:11).
“In the Mesopotamian creation account, Atrahasis, there are many gods with many needs. The more powerful gods delegate the dirty work to the lesser gods who protest their lot and who are relieved of their burdens when the superior gods consent to create human beings to do the hard labour. ”
Regulations regarding resources also encouraged equality in ancient Israelite society. Being free and having rights is well enough, but without equity, without owning at least some resources, a man was little better than a slave. Israel was an agrarian culture; land and animals were the means of production, meaning the ability to have your own land on which to grow crops and raise animals was critical for keeping people from destitution.
An economy that makes retaining ownership of your land difficult is going to be full of people who are economically insecure. For instance, if a small landowner in the ANE had to go into debt—maybe he had a poor harvest or there was illness or an accident—he could obtain a high-interest loan. If things did not go well, and the loan came due, he could sell a family member into debt-slavery. If that was still not enough, he might eventually need to sell his land, and if things continued to go badly, he might finally have to sell himself into debt-slavery. This was what happened to the people of Egypt during the days of Joseph’s famine—first they bought food until they had no money left, then they sold all their animals to Pharaoh, and when nothing else was left they petitioned, “Buy us and our land for bread and we and our land will be servants of Pharaoh” (Genesis 47:19). In normal situations, the peasant in such straits had no land of his own, no means of production, and was probably in debt for the rest of his life. Life is lived on a knife’s edge when there is no insurance, or charitable relief program, to fall back on.
By contrast, the land of the Hebrews was parceled out by tribe and no member could permanently sell his portion. This approach kept people related by blood close together and also motivated those relatives to help one another in times of distress. Further, the people were not weighed down with taxes. The only financial regulation was payment of the temple tithe, a tenth of what you produced, and that was used to sustain the tribe of Levi. The Levites had no land of their own to cultivate because God had designated them caretakers of the tabernacle/temple, ministers at the altar, and teachers of the people. Having no land, they relied on the faithfulness of the other tribes to offer tithes, while the other tribes relied on the Levites to faithfully offer service to God on their behalf.
Moreover, the tithe did not enrich the Levites, since some of it was used in celebration by the same person who brought it. Most sacrifices were occasions of feasting—the priest received a portion and the one giving the offering also had a portion. In sharing the meat of the sacrifice, the average person had further opportunity to participate in worship: “But you must eat [your portion of the tithe] before the Lord your God in the place which the Lord your God chooses, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, and the Levite who is within your gates; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God in all to which you put your hands” (Deut. 12:18).
Further, a portion of the tithe was given to those in need: “At the end of every third year you shall bring out the tithe of your produce of that year and store it up within your gates. And the Levite…and the stranger and the fatherless and widow who are within your gates may come and eat and be satisfied” (Lev 14:28-29). The excess that was produced in any given year was earmarked for the relief of those whose own resources were lacking and was not to be used for conspicuous consumption.
“, the king was himself subject to the law: “when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of this law in a book…and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God and be careful to observe all the words of this law…that his heart may not be lifted above his brethren””
For those who, for whatever reason, needed a loan, the Hebrews were prohibited from charging interest to fellow Hebrews and those who made the loan were prohibited from arbitrarily seizing collateral (Deut. 24:10-11), or taking something that the debtor needed for doing his work, such as his millstone (Deut. 24:6). Not only that but debts were automatically forgiven every seven years (Lev. 25:6). This made it risky to offer loans since the lender might not get his money back, but it also made it risky to default on loans since anyone abusing the system would quickly gain a bad reputation and have few offers of help down the line.
Lastly, every 50th year land that had been sold to pay a debt automatically went back to its original owner. This latter regulation ensured that no family perpetuated generational destitution. One generation might have a rough time, but the children had the benefit of a reset to help them get back on their feet again.
All these regulations discouraged exploitation of the needy and encouraged people to simply be generous and to care for one another. The effect of all this was to reduce inequality, both in essence, i.e., no one is inherently special and therefore deserving of elite status, as well as in economic terms. The well-off were not so wealthy as they might have been and the less-well-off were also not as poor as they might have been.
This is a critical test of any worldview; is it able to support the notion of human equality and human rights? Does it offer any guidance from which we might pattern our social lives in such a way that discourages disparity between groups? Christianity is rooted in the epic story of the Old Testament and it is there that we find, not just the foundation for human equality—being made in the image of God—but an early template for how that image might be lived out in an age when “human dignity” was a relatively unknown concept.