Assorted laws

In today's reading there are many, many tangents I could chase down, as some of these laws raise eyebrows. The first few laws deal with fair treatment for a slave, married then divorced, as well as inheritance rights for the firstborn child of a less-loved wife. Both of these laws regulate two practices that God condemns...divorce and polygamy. This has perplexed me for a while. I couldn't understand why God wouldn't just say "don't marry more than one woman, and when you marry, don't divorce". That certainly simplifies things. We know from the Ten Commandments that He values the purity of marriage, and from creation that He intends marriage to be one man and one woman cleaving to become one flesh. So why simply regulate what He means to condemn? I think I finally got it... and once again, things are made clear by virtue of parenting my own rebellious children.

We have a discipline chart in our home that outlines the consequences for various crimes and misdemeanors. We have them there because we know the hearts of our children and the likelihood that these behaviors will occur. We do not condone potty talk or whining or hitting or disrespect, but we have to regulate those behaviors because we know we will see them. It would be much easier to simply say "don't do those things", but not very realistic. In the New Testament, Jesus says that Moses allowed divorce and gave people this precept ( see Dt. 24:1) because of the "hardness of their hearts". He knew that mankind would be disobedient in this area and set rules in place for that eventuality. We do the same thing with our justice system. We would prefer that people not murder, but we have a system in place in case they do. So while divorce and polygamy were not God's ideal, He regulated both practices until such time as men became convicted and enlightened about them and consequently turned from them.

Other rules listed in this section are just bizarre to us, such as those dealing with proof of virginity, uncleanness from nocturnal emissions, admission to the assembly of the Lord with damaged testicles, wearing clothes made of two fabrics or plowing with two different animals. We can attempt to make sense of such things. In fact, my dad found something about the reason for not wearing clothes made of two different fabrics having something to do with the way those fabrics breathed and promoted mildew. But ultimately, as my pastor reminded me, we have to remember that we are thousands of years removed from those cultures and really cannot appreciate the logic behind rules that would have been very straightforward to them. There are antiquated laws in our our legal code, less than 200 years old, that are completely nonsensical. In NC, a Bingo game cannot last more than 5 hours unless it is held at a fair. In Texas, a person cannot take more than three sips of beer while standing up. In Kansas, it is illegal to fish bare-handed. In Honolulu, it is illegal to sing loudly outdoors after sunset. There are many, many more like this. If it is impossible for us to recognize the logic in our own culture just 200 years ago, how could we possibly expect to understand laws that were deemed relevant 2000 years ago in a culture far removed from our own?! No need to even attempt it!

Tomorrow's reading: Deuteronomy 26-29:1