Texts:
Exodus 21 and 22
Psalm 17
Exodus 21 and 22
Psalm 17
Exodus 21 and 22 are quite interesting to read through. They are a list of laws regarding property, restitution and social and religious dealings. While I read through it I thought the same thing I do when I read warning labels on appliances and other such products, and that is... someone must have done this for them to warn against it! Poor Moses must have had his hands full!
Psalm 17: A prayer for deliverance from persecutors. It ends with a poetic and beautiful verse. "When I wake I shall be satisfied beholding your likeness."
Some of those laws don't make much sense to me. There's certainly no sense of equality and sounds like God permitted bad treatment of slaves. Why didn't God tell Moses slavery was wrong? Maybe they made more sense for the time.
ReplyDeleteA lot of the laws and such are about protecting a growing nation. Many of the food laws are sanitation related. As far as Slavery... well, I am glad Marci is back.
ReplyDeleteJulie
Rob, I think you are right. A lot of those laws must have made more sense at the time. And Julie brings up a good point about protecting the nation. If you are trying to maintain an ethnic identity, for example, you don't want your sons marrying foreign women. So Esau gets in trouble back in Genesis.
ReplyDeleteBut I do think that many of those laws were about equality, although perhaps not in a 21st century way. And I think many of them were more just than the laws in the surrounding societies. Yes, slavery is permitted, but Hebrew slaves have to be set free after six years. (Not much different than indentured servitude in the US in the 18th century).
ReplyDeleteThere are accommodations to be made for female slaves, designed to protect them (21:7-11).
Also, there are strict laws about treatment of foreigners living among the Hebrew, "for you were aliens in the land of Egypt" (22:21).