Slave, Personal Injury & Property Laws

Transcript

GRS 2-24
6/19/2005
Slave, Personal Injury and Property Laws
Exodus 21-22
Gil Rugh

We are going to the Book of Exodus and the 21st Chapter. Exodus Chapter 21, tremendously important time in Israel’s history and tremendously significant event for all the rest of the word of God, the giving of the Mosaic Law, which will govern Israel’s conduct for the next 1,500 years until the Messiah comes on the scene and suffers and dies and with His death brings about the completion of the Mosaic Covenant and the establishing of what is known as the New Covenant.

I was reading in a theological journal I got in the last couple of weeks and within one of the articles they have a quote from Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong who has made something of his name for himself by his heretical views. Let me just read you what Spong has to say that relates to what is happening as God gives the Mosaic Law and reflects his views on the rest of scripture as well.

He says the fact remains that these so called laws of God which God was supposed to have written on tablets of stone or the excessive claims made for Holy Scripture in general, which involve the assertion that the Bible is somehow the inerrant word of God or today totally indefensible regardless of who utters those claims or any variation on them. To build a new basis for ethics, we must learn to look in a different place. We look I believe not outside of life for some external and objective authenticating authority, but rather at the very centre and core of our humanity. Now, here is a man I believe retired now and a Bishop in the Episcopal Church. We don’t look outside of ourselves to a God and a revelation from that God for ethics and values and so on. We look inside of ourselves and thus man becomes the standard.

Well, God is speaking to Moses and the children of Israel at Mount Sinai and He is giving them his laws, the instructions rather detail which will govern the conduct of the nation Israel in all of its aspects, not just religious life of Israel, but also the civil and social life of Israel. Their moral conduct, all this will be governed just as any earthly nation needs laws that govern the conduct of its citizens that is what the Mosaic Law would do for Israel. But more because remember the Mosaic Law was given and it has the strong of course religious dimension as we might call it because of Israel’s unique relationship to God as the nation chosen to belong to Him. So Israel is the function as a theocracy under the rule of God.

The Mosaic Law as Paul wrote to the Galatians was to serve as a schoolmaster and that would keep Israel on track as they are brought and prepared for the coming of their Messiah who will bring to fulfillment the purpose of the Mosaic Law. The Ten Commandments are given in Chapter 20 and these serve as a summary of the Mosaic Law and is an introduction to the details of the Law which are now going begin to be unfolded in Chapter 21 and not only through the rest of the Book of Exodus, but the Book of Leviticus and portions of the Book of Numbers. You will have a development and an expanding of what God has given in summary form.

Chapters 21 to 23 are sometimes referred to as the book of the covenant because of the expression in Chapter 24 verse 7, then he took the book of the covenant Moses did and read it in the hearing of the people and they said all that the Lord spoken, we will do and we will be obedient. So he took the book of the covenant, which God had given up to this point and so sometimes they refer to the book of covenant in particular to these Chapters that we are going to look into. Basically, as we will note as you go through as you will observe you have an expansion of what is given in Ten Commandments. More details for implementing of the Ten Commandments in different situations. There will laws regarding slaves in Chapter 21, the first eleven verses and there will be laws relating to personal injuries in Chapter 21, verses 12 to 36. Again, things that, some things which will seem strange to us, but are within the framework of Israel’s life in this time, biblical times. Remember we are roughly around 1445 BC.

Chapter 21, laws regarding slaves, whole issue was slavery. The Bible does not condemn slavery. The bible does not say slavery is wrong. Bible does not say slavery should be abolished neither does it say that in the Old Testament nor does it say it in the New Testament. God gave specific instructions regarding slaves and slavery in the nation Israel. There were special laws governing Jews as slaves. Certain rights are given to Jews when they are slaves within the nation Israel that are not given to non-Jews and certain benefits are given to non-Jews who become slaves. They are given the privilege of circumcision and entering into the religious life of Israel even though they are not Jews by birth. Now then they became non-Jews through conquest or whatever become slaves within Israel then they become part of the nation. They come under the laws of Israel.

It starts out, “Now these are the ordinances that you have to set before them, if you buy a Hebrew slave.” So these are the laws particularly relating to Hebrew slaves and there will be other elaborations that will deal with non-Jews, but this is relating to Jews who for one reason or another becoming slave to other Jews. So if you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve for six years, but on the seventh he shall go out as a free man without payment. So the slavery of a Jew in Israel was limited maximum six years and in the seventh year he goes free. Now there is another provision don’t confuse it, there will be Sabbatical year. Every seventh year will be a Sabbatical year in Israel and in the Sabbatical year, slaves are set free.

So if a man is sold into slavery in Israel, a Jew is sold into slavery and three years later you come to the Sabbatical year, which is set on a regular calendar, he goes free in that Sabbatical year even if he served three or four years whatever. So the maximum he can serve is six years. If he was sold into slavery or sold himself into slavery and became a slave right after the Sabbatical year, he would have to serve six years and in the seventh year he goes free. So there is a limitation on his service. He goes out as a free man. He doesn’t have to buy his freedom. He has no further obligations. So after six years a Hebrew slave is set free. There are some added provisions. If he comes alone, he shall go out alone in other words if he became your slave as a single man then he goes out as single man. If he had a wife when he became a slave, then his wife goes out with him.

Verse 4, if his master gives him a wife, she bares him sons or daughters. The children and wife belong to the master; he shall go out alone, interesting provision. You might have thought within the nation Israel the marriage relationship would have superseded any other relationship, but here if the master gives the slave the wife, the wife continues to belong to the master. You see sometimes we think sometimes our logic will give us the answer and our logic could put us into conflict with the word of God because logically we might say well the marriage relationship now supersedes all other relationships so even though the master gave this woman to the slave as his wife.

Now he and the wife two shall become one, so he goes free, she has to go free. That’s not the provision. I don’t have further explanation for you, that’s just the way it was in Israel. Not only the wife, but the children of that relationship belong to the master. He shall go out alone, but if the slave plainly says I love my master, my wife and my children, I will not go as a freeman, then his master shall bring him to God, he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost and his master will pierce his ear with an awl, and he serves him permanently. So now he is a permanent slave. You know it is by his choice. Obviously there are pressures in circumstance, he has got wife and children, and he decided he doesn’t want to leave. I mean he could do this without a wife and children and decide his circumstances are better with the master that he has, then he have to go out now and try to make it on his own, so he allowed in effect to sell himself into permanent slavery, permanently enslave himself as a Jew to another Jew in Israel, but that’s his decision.

Verse 7, the man sells his daughter as a female slave. She is not to go free as the male slaves do. Sometimes, a father and father had absolute control over here would determine it would be better for his daughter to be enslaved to this man. She might become his concubine, a secondary wife if you will and because perhaps of the poverty of this family he thinks this would be a better situation for his daughter. He sells her, then in the slavery she is not free after six years. Maybe she encompassed in Jubilee year every seventh year. So her slavery will become permanent relationship because in effect she probably becomes something of a secondary wife to the man that she is sold to.

If she is displeasing in the eyes of her master who designated her for himself as the passage elaboration seems to explain that she has entered into again the role of a concubine or a secondary wife something like Hagar in Abraham’s situation with Sarah. Sarah remained dominant wife and the one in charge, but obviously Hagar has a relationship as a secondary wife to Abraham and bears a son to Abraham. If she is displeasing in the eyes of her master and he has designated for himself, but he is not happy with the situation. He shall let her be redeemed. He does not have the authority to sell her to a foreign people because of his unfairness to her and he designated for her son he shall deal with her according to the custom of daughters. So he has failed to fulfill the obligation. This man sold his daughter as a slave to this man with an understanding she will become his concubine or a secondary wife.

He decided not to follow through on that then she is free and he doesn’t have power over her to dispose of her according to what he might want to do and if he has purchased her and gives her to his son then he has to treat her as he would a daughter. This speaks she becomes part of his family. If he takes to himself another woman, he may not reduce her food, clothing, or consumer rights. She maintains her rights. You can understand that there is going to be slavery in Israel, but it is going to have clear laws with the Bible or the Bible does allow for slavery and never condemned slavery as slavery has got specific guidelines.

So within Israel the slave will have more rights if you will, because they are still a slave and that stances still dealt with as the possession of the one to which this person is enslaved, but he can’t now decide he has found another woman, he has taken another wife and so you know I don’t want to be responsible for upkeep for you, fulfilling my responsibilities, he still has the obligations. So even this wife who is on the level of a slave is concubine would have rights in Israel if she is not properly being taken care of. So the laws are for good for the women involved here. If he doesn’t do these three things, the three things mentioned at the end of verse ten, then she is free and that is the costly thing to him and in effect looses a slave in his household. If he will, she will gain her freedom. So he can either fulfill his responsibilities that the law sets down or she is set free and that’s the protection for her.

The rest of the Chapter deals with the personal injury laws and you can understand why they needed. We have a whole industry in this country that is built on personal injury law suits and so on. Well here are the laws that guide and direct the conduct. We had that one of the commandments given that you shall not kill. We note that the emphasis there was you shall not murder, but there are deaths that take place, killings that take place that would be accidental, we would call it manslaughter. Well the law makes provision for that. Verse 12, “He who strikes a man so that he dies shall be surely be put to death, that’s the basic law, you shall not kill, but, if he did not lie in wait for him, but God let him fall into his hand, then I will appoint you a place to which he may flee. If, however, a man acts presumptuously toward his neighbor so as to take him craftily, you are to take him even from My altar that he may die.” Now the distinction is made between accidental death, which is viewed here as an act of God.

Verse 13, “If he did not lie in wait for him, but God let him fall into his hand.” We would call that an act of God, something out of his control. He didn’t do it intentionally. He wasn’t planning to murder this person, something accidental happened. You know they were working together building a fence on the edge of precipice and I turned around and bumped him and knocked him over the cliff and he got killed. I had no intention of killing him and things like that, then I swung the axe back and I didn’t know he was behind me, I split his head and he died. Well, that wasn’t a premeditated murder and so there are provisions for that.

The end of verse 13, I will appoint you a place for you to which he may flee and there will be cities of refuge in the days of Joshua when Israel goes into the land. There will be certain cities, designated cities of refuge and this is where the person guilty of manslaughter could flee. Now, there is a punishment there because he is confined to that city. If he leaves that city, then he is subject to execution for his crime. The relatives of the man who was killed can kill him, take vengeance on him, so in effect his penalty for the crime is not death since it was manslaughter not premeditated, but it is confinement. He has to live now within the confines of this city of refuge. He will not be free to go out to visit relatives and friends and other place and so on. So there is the distinction made.

Taking hold to horns of altar in verse 14, was a place of safety. You know holding to horns of the altar was claiming you know the protection of God. This was an opportunity for a person to avoid being killed by relatives who would take vengeance for example on death. So they claim there and that gave a chance to say this was not a premeditated murder, this person can seek refuge in a city of refuge. But, a person guilty of premeditated murder couldn’t claim the protection of the altar. The guilty of murder, the premeditated murder as we would call it. Then verse 14 says, “You take him even from My altar and execute him.” So this doesn’t become a cover for guilty people if you will. There is a clear distinction made in the law.

Striking your parents in verse 15, “He who strikes his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.” You have to honor your father and mother. So of course striking them so this would involve that persistence opposition to them and of course striking out is a rejection of their authority and asserting yourself over them and you mind in Israel this could be a problem because families live together over time and you know son could be stronger than his parents for example if he strikes his parents then he will become liable for the death penalty. “He who kidnaps a man, whether he sells him or he is found in his possession, shall surely be put to death.”

You see how it is breaking down. “You shall not murder.” Now lets breakdown within this, you are guilty of killing someone, but it wasn’t what we would call a premeditated murder. It was manslaughter, it was accidental, here is the provision. The death penalty does come into play in these other situations. So you can see those who claim all or one of Ten Commandments that you shall not kill therefore we should not have death penalty executions have not even read the next Chapter that go into detail that go into various kinds of situations that entail the death penalty in Israel.

He who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death, because God says you must honor your father and mother. If men have a quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone or with his fist, or he does not die but remains in bed. If he gets up and walks around outside on his staff, then he who struck him shall go unpunished. So they have a quarrel, they got into fight; one man beats the other man up. The other man recovers and he is able to go about his business, then he is free. What he has to do. He goes unpunished, not totally unpunished but he shall only pay for the loss time and take care of him until he is healed. So he goes unpunished in the standpoint you know there are limits on the punishment. He is obligated to pay him for the loss of work because he is the man that he beat up.

So he can’t work for the next month, can’t go out and work in his fields and so on then you have to pay him for what he has lost in income and furthermore you are responsible to take care of him. I mean who is going to take care of him. Well here is the provision, you are responsible, you caused the damage, you beat him up. He is in the hospital though they didn’t have, but he was not able to get out of bed, he is not well enough yet and you are responsible for his care. So you see there is punishment according to the situation. You can understand you have got a nation of several million people here. How many of these kind of cases are going to come up you need these laws to guide them.

Verse 20, “If a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod and if he dies at his hand, he shall be punished.” They are accountable for their actions. Now slaves are treated differently. They are not on the same level as non-slaves. So there are laws in Israel that give protection to slaves in Israel, but that does not mean the slave is viewed on the same level, the slave is the property of the master and within the plan of God dealing with fallen sinful human beings this is not a violation of all being made in the image of God that doesn’t mean that we are all the same and thus have to be on the same level, but the slave is to be treated with proper respect so if you strike a male or female slave with a rod and he dies, then he will be punished. There is an accountability for it.

There will be some of that developed in later legislation here. If he however survives a day or two, no vengeance shall be taken. Now there is a distinction here with the master and if he strikes him so hard and he killed him there is reason to believe he intended to kill him. He doesn’t have that prerogative. So he becomes accountable and the thought would be at this stage he is guilty of murder. If the slave survives a day or two, no vengeance shall be taken, for he is his property. Again, wanted to see what the Bible provides for. For sometimes we take portions of the Bible and use them to build arguments that will not stand in the light of the overall perspective of the scripture. Again, I am not using this to say that slavery is something that ought to be instituted, but the fact is God made provision for it. He didn’t say since you are my chosen nation and every person thus in the nation is my possession, you shall not enslave one another. That’s not what God said.

We may not understand all the reasoning behind, but the fact of the matter is even a Hebrew slave is called the property of his master and so if he struck him you note it doesn’t say that he is not allowed to strike his slave and so he strikes for whatever the reason was and he survives for a couple of days and then dies, the master is free from any penalties or responsibilities. The loss he entails is his slave is now dead and that would be a costly thing and because the slave was a valuable asset and so if there is a punishment here is the fact that he has lost the services of this slave and there was no help to the slave, but that’s the provision the law makes. Okay, it gets a little more involved here, the next section probably enters into much discussion as anything in this portion of the Mosaic Law.

“If men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she has miscarriage literally, so that her children come out, yet there is no further injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman’s husband may demand of him and he shall pay as the judges decide, but if there is no further injury then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise. Before we look into the details of the woman and her children here that come note here is note eye for eye, tooth for tooth and there is an element that that is harsh, but there is an element with the law as bringing in here His fairness in the land. I cannot demand two eyes for one eye, two teeth for one tooth. So the Lord does put boundaries here for what will be fair.

There is punishment, there is restitution, those kinds of things, but it is in balance. So if someone does something that causes someone else to lose an eye you can’t kill him that would be a great a penalty, but you can require of them what they cause to happen an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. Now what about if two men struggle with each other, so when are men in fight there is pregnant woman there and in the middle she gets hit and it causes her to go into birth pains and her children come out and miscarriage is good translation if that is the idea the children are stillborn, but you have that in your margin for most of you are using New American Standard Bible, an untimely birth occurs. Literally, her children come out, and it says there is no injury. That was seemed to indicate that the woman comes through this fine and the children that are born. Child or children come out, okay there is no injury.

Verse 20, if there is any injury then you apply life for life. So it would seem in the context here if the woman dies or the child that she is bearing dies as a result of this action then the penalty is life for life. There is a penalty that is incurred because you have created the difficulty for the woman, you created a crisis, you brought added difficulty to the woman and to her husband so the husband can decide what he thinks would be appropriate fine for what has happened here, but in the context I mentioned this because sometimes this passage becomes an issue in the abortion debates and it doesn’t seem that that is in the perspective here. Abortion as we would talk about abortion was a nonissue in Israel. It would have been an unthinkable action. I mean there is no legislation given for such action, because such action would not be a possibility. So we are talking about here is just as we read, but one need to be careful we don’t try to read back into this, the battles for the day and then find support for our position whatever our position is on the subject in such a passage and such a passage is not addressing that kind of situation.

Here we are addressing two men fighting and a woman gets injured as they are fighting. You could see how that happened. Two men are in the house and perhaps the wife is serving them something and taken into an argument and in the confines there the wife gets injured, gets hit and so premature birth occurs, but no further injury happens. But, if further injury happens, the penalty is life for life and then the context was seem to indicate that the woman and the child in view here and on down it goes life for life, but as we have said if no further injury occurs or no death occurs then the husband can determine the fine. Now it may be something does happen here, doesn’t result in a death. So it is covered by the rest of it, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. I mean so the husband just isn’t free to decide what he wants the penalty to be here.

There are guidelines, so the statement at the end of verse 22 is not absolute. The husband and then the judges at the end of the verse are involved in this and there are guidelines and those are the guidelines that follow. If a man verse 26, “If the man strikes the eye of his male of female slave, and destroys it, he shall let him go on account of his eye.” I mean it he lost his tooth, he should let him go on account of the tooth. So this becomes a protection for the slave, but the master has to exercise some control here. He got to be careful, turn around and hit your slave and you knock his eye out that slave now is a free person and that is a costly thing here. You hit him on the mouth and you knock his tooth out, now the slave can appeal to the judges in Israel and he will be set free. So these are the kind of things that are protection set in that the master is just not free to go to town and beating on his slaves because of property as the slave is given certain rights and protections.

Then you have animals. You know just like we have traffic laws. Well they have animal laws because that’s what they worked with. If an ox gores a man or woman to death, the ox shall surely be stoned and what would we do. We have the debate now, the animal rights just get into this, but you know somebody’s dog is vicious so that dog to be put to death. But, in Israel if an ox gores a man or woman to death the ox shall surely be stoned, his flesh shall not be eaten. The owner of the ox shall go unpunished I mean with the act of the animal without control, however, if the ox was previously in the habit of goring, its owner has been warned, yet he does not confine it and it kills the man or woman, the ox shall be stoned and the owner shall be put to death. He is responsible for the action of his animal. Now, all of a sudden the animal just goes crazy and kills someone he is not responsible for that, but if this animal has exercised this kind of activity before and the man has been given warning before and then ox kill someone, then the owner is viewed as guilty and both the owner and the animal are put to death.

So again you see that these laws would assure that within Israel people are going to function responsibly. We are dealing with sinners even though this is God's chosen nation. The man just can’t continue to keep such an animal around and what are we going to do and that animal has been troubled repeatedly. He has been warned, but he won’t do anything what do we do. Well, he knows he is in danger if he doesn’t get this animal under control alright. If the ransom is demanded of him, he shall give the redemption of his life. There is an option given here because it is not quite the same as the premeditated murder where a man is not allowed to purchase his freedom from the death penalty, but here it since it was committed by an animal, the relatives may say we understand here and even though he was warned we would be satisfied if he made such a payment, verse 30, then that can be worked out.

Verse 31, “Whether it gores a son or a daughter it shall be done to him according to the same rule.” If the ox gores a male or female slave, now it is different. We are talking about the different levels. We are talking about the human beings created in the image of God, but in the functioning of the society, there are different levels and so they are treated differently. If the ox gores, verse 32, the male or female slave, the owner shall give his master thirty shekels of silver and the ox shall be stoned. That is clearly defined, you have the price of the slave and that’s how it is dealt with.

“If a man opens a pit, digs a pit and doesn’t cover it and an ox or donkey falls into it, the owner of the pit should make restitution. He will give money to the owner. The dead animal will become his. You know there was going work. He digs a pit, maybe he is going to make you know a water cistern or something, but he doesn’t finish it, then he goes home and during the day an animal comes across there and falls into the pit, gets injured or killed. Now there is the guideline, man's ox hurts another's so that it dies, he shall sell the live ox and divide its price equally; and also divide the dead ox. If the ox was previously in the habit of goring, and its owner has not confined it, he shall pay ox for ox and then he gets the dead animal, so just endless amount of rules and you see now we all part of the package of Mosaic legislation.

Remember there were no Chapters and verses. So we got the Ten Commandments given and that just flows into the rest of the law. You realize we are going to go through here; we are going to pick out. Well recall the moral aspects of the law and separated what we might call it the civil or the religious. It is an impossible task. So these things are so woven together and will be woven together and that’s why the law stands together as a unit about all of its parts.

Chapter 22 deals with matters, starts out with your property, laws regarding thievery, theft and talk about what happens when you seduce a woman and the obligations there, then there is miscellaneous, civil, and religious laws. You see God has a neatly package the Mosaic Law. Alright now, we are going to deal with the religious aspect. Now the civil and now the moral as I shared with you before as far as we know the Jews never recognized such distinction and divisions because this is the just the law of God and this is what the law is. We don’t find any necessity to try to distinguish within it, oh this is religious part of the law. This is the civil and see we can’t see those distinctions in it, but God has neatly broken it down it that way because it is just His law governing the life of Israel in all of its facets.

So first four verses deal with what you do if someone steals and "If a man steals an ox or a sheep and slaughters it or sells it, he shall pay five oxen for the ox and four sheep for the sheep. If the thief is caught while breaking in and is struck so that he dies, there will be no bloodguiltiness on his account. But if the sun has risen on him, there will be bloodguiltiness on his account. He shall surely make restitution; if he owns nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft. Breaking in at night is viewed in as more dangerous and that is that sense today. If somebody is breaking into your house at night, there is a sense of danger about that and you see someone trying to get in through your window in the day I mean that would be scary, but you see him.

You are going to feel you are going holler at him and there are laws like that now. You know you just can’t run and get your gun because you see somebody at the window and shoot him through the window. I have been talking to a policeman one time about the laws and that and rather you can’t shoot him outside at your house. In certain situations you might be better to shoot him and run out and push him through the window. I don’t think he has given me a true legal advice, but just a practical observation, but you have these kinds of guidelines here. So if he is breaking in at night and you kill him that’s one thing.

Even if you see something and he may be attempting to break in your house doesn’t give you the right to run and kill him. So we see it in the day time you could have probably stopped his action. Now you have the right to defend yourself. That’s is not what this law is intending to cover as someone is threatening your life and you are defending yourself, but just see someone breaking in during the daytime doesn’t give you the right to run and kill them, is the distinction being made. But, they also realize at night things are a lot more uncontrolled, a lot more serious, and you act somewhat out of instinct there for self-preservation and a thief killed at night in the midst of his thievery, there is no responsibility. However, there is different guideline.

Verse 3, “But if the sun has risen on him, there will be bloodguiltiness on his account, restoration and so on. In other words he is what do you do. If he doesn’t have anything, there are the guidelines. If he is stealing this then he has to replace it in the animal certain fowls and all. If he doesn’t have anything then here he is sold into slavery. That’s one way that Jews became slaves. You caught stealing and you didn’t have anything to make restitution, then you are sold and the person receives the price of you sale into slavery. Guidelines regarding other property verse 6. We don’t have to go through all of these since most of you won’t be instituting these and none of you should because they don’t guide us as a nation.

Verse 6, if a fire breaks out, then there is a responsibility. You know they burn the fields there as part of the care and usually the fields are probably be divided by thorn bushes. Well if the fire got out of hand and then you burn your neighbor’s crops, then you are responsible to make restitution. Verses 7 and following, you know they didn’t have banks, what you are going to do. You are going to go away while you entrust your possessions to someone else while you are gone. Well then those guide the responsibility of the person who said yea I will watch out for your possession and guidelines if there is something missing and so on and what is the law there and so how you resolve those kinds of conflict.

Down at verses 11 and 12, in those situations perhaps something happens and the property was destroyed that was entrusted to maybe have a fire in my house and open fires and so on that they use and your property got burned up. Well you know that was an accident. So in that sense there are certain things I won’t be responsible for, but there are things that I would be responsible for, so those guidelines. Verse 14, if a man borrows anything from his neighbor and if it is injured or dies while its owner in other words you might borrow your oxen, need some extra oxen power here to get something done. Well what happens if that animal was killed or dies or injured. So those guidelines in verses 14 and 15.

Verses 16 and 17, “If a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged, and lies with her, he must pay a dowry for her to be his wife.” Here seduction takes place. You know it happens in our days. Young maidens are seduced by young men and those young men walk off to seduce another maiden, but there were laws given. Used to have that kind of responsibility in our country, where there were laws than you are obligated to that woman and so on, that’s kind of the laws here. Man seduces a virgin who is not engaged and lies with her; he must pay a dowry for her to be his wife or to her family. If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money equal to the dowry for virgin; there still damage has been done. We talk about court damage to goods as they used to talk about and these kinds of contacts, obviously her value to the family will be affected. The father’s ability now to if you will. Sell her may not the right, but to get a dowry of equal value will effective because she has been defiled.

So he must pay what the father says would be the fit dowry. Now it says here if the virgin is not engaged because later in the law it would be his guide if he seduce an engaged woman she who is married the man who seduces her and the engaged woman who gave into the seduction are both to be executed. So that’s why talked about here if she was not engaged because once they are in that engagement process and we are familiar with this from New Testament gospel issues she is viewed as a married woman in that sense in a binding relationship. She is not free to give herself to another man. So both the man and woman will be executed for that sin.

“You shall not allow a sorceress to live,” in verse 18 and this law will deal when you get into Old Testament a variety of occult kind of practices who claim to have power from the supernatural world. Well they are not allowed to live. Any woman in Israel who claims to be a sorceress was to be executed. “He who sacrifices to any god, other than to the Lord alone, shall be utterly destroyed.” Bestiality brings the death penalty in the preceding verse.

Verse 21, “You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” So you are to treat strangers properly. So somebody travelling, it becomes a big issue and still is in some cultures in the Middle East. A stranger travelling in your land must be protected and so on. So here, they are guided. You are strangers in Egypt. You know what is like to be a stranger. You have that in your history. So you treat strangers and foreigners properly. You don’t afflict any widow or orphan. You are not allowed to take advantage of the disadvantage. I mean this is the nation, this is a family, the God has chosen for Himself and literally the nation Israel is a family because they are all the descendents of one set of parents Abraham and Sarah.

So there is to be that recognition and if you do afflict the widow or orphan, verse 23 and he cries out to me “I will hear his cry, my anger will be kindled and I will kill you with the sword, your wives shall become widows, your children fatherless.” I mean God is serious about this. In other words what He is saying, “I will bring you enemies against you and you will suffer.” It is a serious matter to take advantage of the widow and the orphan. They are viewed as the most needy people because they are without resources. Who is going to take care of them? We are familiar with this in the Book of Ruth. I mean there is nobody I mean in that society and in that culture and depended upon the man and he is providing the living and the protection for the woman, a widowed woman, an orphan. There is nobody to provide for them, nobody to care for them.

The nation has to be careful that they take care of them properly and don’t mistreat them. “If you lend money to my people to the poor among you, you are not to act as a creditor to him; nor shall you shall not charge him interest. Now again here it is one of those verses that gets misused in the church. He is not talking about whether it is alright to borrow money. He is not talking about whether it is alright to loan money. Some people have used this verse to say we shouldn’t be loaning money to the church. Some of you have loans to the church.

This verse doesn’t have anything to do with that. He talks about taking disadvantage of the poor follows right on talking about the widow and the orphans and now He just go to the poor generally that within Israel some are going through a time of poverty, destitution. You don’t take that as an opportunity to take advantage of them. I will loan you money, but you know I am going to have to get 20% to 22% you know. You are not a good risk and blah, blah, blah and they are not allowed to do that in Israel, take advantage of the poor. You know that’s what they are talking about here, “If you lend money to My people, to the poor among you, you are not to act as a creditor to him; you shall not charge him interest.

So it is not a chance to make money on them, which is the way general societies operate and if you credit is not as good you pay higher interest right and here what are they going to do, how I am going to get my crops in. You know and I don’t have the same resources. I won’t be able to buy the seed or get enough. Oh that’s alright I will loan it to you, but I mean you are not allowed to that in Israel in sense which will create the poverty and accelerate the poverty because they can never get out because now they have to borrow at a greater interest from other people. In those kinds of situations you are not allowed to loan the money with interest and if you take your neighbor’s cloak as a pledge, you are to return it to him before the sun sets, that is his covering, that is what he uses to protect himself as he sleeps and if you do that interesting statement here. And it shall come about that when he cries out to me, I will hear for I am gracious.

You see the point, you are not manifesting my character. You are not being gracious. You are not gracious, but I am and when he cries out to me, I will act on his behalf. So again there will be the poor in Israel, there will be slaves in Israel, but you are not allowed to run over them. You are not allowed to take unfair advantage of them. Even the slave that is viewed as a piece of property has the right that protect them and enable them to maintain a certain dignity if you will. The poor in the land, doesn’t say you are responsible to share your wealth so that we have a communism of you know everybody having equal in the nation. There is no guidelines for that, the poor are there. The poor will be there, but there are certain guidelines on how you deal with the poor and so you don’t take advantage of them.

You shall not curse God nor curse a ruler of your people. Interesting, you shall not curse God nor curse the ruler of your people. I put that in the same, I mean either you know infinite rule to part God and human rulers, but who has appointed the human rulers. We get into this in the New Testament. There is no authority except that is established by God. So in cursing of the ruler in Israel, you were cursing the God who put the ruler in place and we that today. We send an ambassador to a country and he is abused and that is an action against our country right because he represents us. He is appointed to act on our behalf as a nation. So we would be up in arms at that kind of treatment and if they show him disrespect, they are showing disrespect to our country.

So that’s it, you shall not curse God nor you will curse the ruler of your people because that is the one appointed by God as his representative. “You shall not delay the offering of your harvest and your vintage. The firstborn of your sons you shall give to Me. You shall do the same with your oxen and with your sheep. It shall be with its mother seven days; on the eighth day you shall give it to Me. You shall be holy men to Me,” and this is the guide to everything here. “You are my people, you are holy to me, so your conduct is to be the reflection of that. Now note that, “You shall be holy men to me and that governs what you eat and governs what you don’t eat as He goes on to say the rest of the verse and your relationship to one another that does not mean we all have to be the same in Israel.

It does not mean there cannot be slaves in Israel and masters in Israel. It does not mean there cannot be rich in Israel and poor in Israel. It does mean you shall be holy men to me and those guidelines govern the slaves in Israel, the masters in Israel, that is what same thing come to the church, what is Paul do in when he writes to the churches when he gives instructions to masters and to slaves. He does not say that now we are all one in Christ. There should be no masters, there should be no slaves. No, but he does say there are certain things that are to govern the conduct of Christian masters, there are certain things are to govern the conduct of the Christian’s life. There guidelines given for the rich in the church and poor in the church. He doesn’t say there shouldn’t be rich or poor in the church. The rich should give what they have and share it equally with the poor so that all are the same now.

No, none of those kinds of instructions are given in the church anymore and they are never given in Israel. So be careful that we don’t create out of the Bible that which is not there, but which comes out of our own mind and we would like to find support in the scripture for. Indeed God has provision for His people the nation Israel. Some of these provisions since holiness is what He is looking at. He will want to be true of His people in the church and so some of He said in the law will be repeated for the church, some of it won’t. We do it because it is repeated to the church, not because it is part of the Mosaic Law.

But in the Mosaic Law, we are learning something of the character of God and His expectation for his people as a unique people, as a holy people, as a people who are set apart from sin, from the world in a very real sense even though they are in the world and carry on. I mean they have animals, they will do harvesting, they will do planting and lot of things that the world does, yet they are to be distinct while they are in the world and so that’s characteristic, “You shall be holy men to me.” And He tells in the Book of Leviticus “You must be holy for I am holy.” Then Peter will repeat that when he writes his letters and say that in the church we must be holy for our God is holy. You can expect that would be true for all those who belong to God.

Let’s bow in a word of prayer. Thank you Lord for the unfolding of your purposes for Israel. Your great love for them that you Almighty God would take the interest to unfold clearly in great detail what you expect and require of the nation Israel that you have chosen for yourself. What an honor it is for them to belong in a unique and special way to the living God, to be his people, governed by His word. Lord we rejoice to be your people today as the church of Jesus Christ, to live under your authority, under your care, and have your work to guide and direct us in all areas of our lives as well. May we be an accurate and true reflection of the work of your grace in our lives as we serve you in the days of the week ahead of us. We pray in Christ’s name, amen.