Add these 11 Commandments to the Ten You Know

Leviticus 19:11-18  – Social Order Basics Part III – Public Relationships

Day 13 of our 14-day self-quarantine. Can hardly wait. My study in the book of Leviticus continues and each day I’m finding it just happens to have more and more to say to us as we live through this Coronavirus situation.  Read on.

The Passage

¹¹ ‘You shall not steal, nor deal falsely, nor lie to one another. ¹² You shall not swear falsely by My name, so as to profane the name of your God; I am the Lord.

¹³ ‘You shall not oppress your neighbor, nor rob him. The wages of a hired man are not to remain with you all night until morning. ¹⁴ You shall not curse a deaf man, nor place a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall revere your God; I am the Lord.

¹⁵ ‘You shall do no injustice in judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor nor defer to the great, but you are to judge your neighbor fairly. ¹⁶ You shall not go about as a slanderer among your people, and you are not to act against the life of your neighbor; I am the Lord.

¹⁷ ‘You shall not hate your fellow countryman in your heart; you may surely reprove your neighbor but shall not incur sin because of him. ¹⁸ You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord.

Thoughts on the Passage

Let’s summarize the orders that God is giving His people in this passage:

i.               Don’t steal from, cheat, or lie to, one another.

ii.             Don’t swear falsely by God’s name.

iii.            Don’t oppress your neighbor (or rob him).

iv.            Pay your hired help quickly.

v.              Don’t tease or abuse the deaf and the blind, etc.

vi.            Let your judgments be just and fair without partiality to the poor or the rich.

vii.          Don’t be a slanderer.

viii.         Don’t ‘act’ against the ‘life’ of your neighbor.

ix.            Don’t ‘hate’ your fellow countryman in your heart, but you may reprove him, as long as you don’t sin in doing so.

x.              Don’t take vengeance, or bear grudges.

xi.            Love your neighbor as yourself.

Most of these are self-explanatory, but let me comment on a few, especially as they relate to the Coronavirus situation:

If this social distancing and other measures we are all taking does not end soon, I can see a day coming when people will indeed be stealing from one another or cheating them in their purchases or lying to them. As God’s people, we are not to do that. We are to trust in Him to provide for own needs.

Although many of our businesses may be suffering during this time, we are to pay our employees what we owe them to the best of our abilities. We are also to try and help them get the financial support available to them from the government and other sources that they are entitled to. We are not to lie for them, however. We are to reduce our income in order to help them out. Under this commandment, as God’s people, we can also include the idea that we are to pay our bills to utilities and other organizations or people we owe money too, to the extent possible.

Chuck Smith has an interesting perspective on being cruel to the disadvantaged:

I'm amazed at how cruel people really are. I'm amazed how cruel children are to a handicapped child. What is that about our nature, that children are so cruel to a handicapped child?

Now in the animal realm, quite often a handicapped animal will be killed by another animal. But unfortunately, sometimes men aren't far from that. Taking advantage of the disadvantaged. How often we see it done, yet there's nothing more cruel in the world taking advantage of a disadvantaged person. There's nothing more dangerous in all the world, because God said He sticks up for the disadvantaged. God said He watches over the widow. Man, when you're doing it to one that God is watching over, you're in big trouble. But you see, man apart from Jesus Christ isn't far from the animal. For an animal has body and consciousness. Man, apart from Jesus Christ has body and consciousness, therefore he relates well to the animal kingdom; therefore, he is cruel to the handicapped or the disadvantaged.

I know I cringe whenever I see clips of men or husbands beating children or women; or anyone in a gang attacking another person who is alone. What cowards.

Some of us are going to be called upon to make some tough decisions in many aspects of life (perhaps in who we lay off and who we keep, etc.). In those decisions, we need at all times to apply justice and fairness, regardless of who is involved.

Here in verse 16 of the passage, God tells us not to be a slanderer. Many may ask what exactly does that mean? I looked it up for us – it is one who attacks the reputation of another by slander or libel. It refers to a backbiter, defamer, libeller, maligner, traducer, or vilifier. Matthew Henry believes this passage is primarily focusing on telling false “tales” about others. So, if we are to take issue with someone on social media, or elsewhere, we need to be sure that a) it is not a false statement and could stand any fact-check someone may apply to it and b) it is not done in a way that entails the attitudes described in the definition just given above.

I found the one about “don’t act against the life of your neighbor” most interesting. Not sure exactly what that means. Matthew Henry says the following which is very helpful:

In witness-bearing: Neither shalt thou stand as a witness against the blood of thy neighbor, if his blood be innocent, nor join in confederacy with such bloody men as those described,’ [Prov. 1:11,12]. The Jewish doctors put this further sense upon it: “Thou shalt not stand by and see thy brother in danger, but thou shalt come in to his relief and succour, though it be with the peril of thy own life or limb;” they add, “He that can by his testimony clear one that is accused is obliged by this law to do it;” [see Prov. 24:11,12].

That’s a tall order, but it is what we are to do even if we consider our neighbor an enemy.

And when it comes to our political differences (related to coronavirus or otherwise), God is very clear when He says don’t hate your fellow countrymen.  You can reprove them, but not in a way that causes you to sin – so reprove them in love. That too requires a lot of work for some of us. But if we do not hate them in our “heart”, then perhaps we may realize we really do not hate them.

We are not to take vengeance when we have been wronged. We know that God will take care of that as He tells us in Deuteronomy 32:35, “Vengeance is Mine; (He) will repay”.  And we are not to bear grudges. My second daughter always reminds me of that. Yes, we are not to bar grudges.  We are to be ready to forgive and to bring back into fellowship with us all who sincerely want to come back with a change of heart.

Finally, we are, to love our neighbor as ourselves.  So, today, think about how you would like to be treated amongst all this social-distancing and treat your neighbor in the same way.

Hang in there, folks. In Ontario, Canada where I am schools will continue to be closed at least until sometime in May.  Please pray for all parents locked at home with their children.  Love to have your comments on any of these thoughts.  

It would be great if you would share your thoughts or questions on this blog in the comments section below or on social media.

God Knew We Would Be Fighting Physically -- Exodus 21:18-19

“And if men have a quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone or with his fist, and 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; he shall only pay for his loss of time, and shall take care of him until he is completely healed.”
 

I find it interesting that God knew His creation so well.  He knew we would fight physically as well as in many other ways.  It is a result of our sinful natures.  We could be filled with His Holy Spirit or we could allow our sinful nature to rule us through the influence of Satan, God’s enemy.  When my own nature and the Devil are in control, my natural inclination is to fight, or to fight back.  Fortunately, in my own life, it has only escalated to physical combat just a handful of times, and thankfully almost every one of them while I was still becoming an adult.  I have, however, witnessed, the physical fighting of other adults and it is not a pretty picture.  We do not have to watch too much of the evening news or read too many pages of our newspapers to see that men (and women) are fighting physically and hard enough that people get seriously hurt, or even die.

Our text refers to “men” but as we have indicated previously, often the message is intended for both genders.  And while verse 18 refers to striking someone with a stone or a fist, we would be foolish not to apply it to any form of undesirable physical contact or impact.  Two modern-day areas of law to consider in relation with this text come to my mind.  One is the area of automobile accidents.  The other is the area of non-consensual sexual activity.  But hold those thoughts for the moment.

The next thing we notice here is that the text seems to suggest a distinction between punishment and payment for one’s violation of the laws under consideration. We read that if the victim survives, the attacker shall go “unpunished” but shall still have to pay for certain things.  Clearly, God’s preference is that we do not fight one another.  Laws are put in place to deal with those individuals that contravene what is that preferred or desired behavior of He Who created us.  Neither God nor man creates laws for things that we do for actions or behavior preferred or desired by the maker of the law.  For example, we do not have a law that says, “Be it decreed that a person who loves his/her wife or parents or children, must . . .” and then describe the remedy for such action.

So clearly laws almost always are put in place for doing something that is in contravention of the desired or preferred action in the eyes and mind of the lawmaker.  And in this case, God is saying, “Do not strike another person.  But if you do, here is how you must be dealt with.”  Then He explains that if the victim dies, the striker is to be put to death (see references earlier in Exodus chapter 21).  But here God is saying, “If the victim survives, you will not be punished (assumedly by death) but you will have to compensate the victim for a number of things.”  Thus the difference between what you may otherwise have deserved (since striking may well lead to death) and what you are allowed to get away with since God did not allow the one you struck to die.

And what is the nature of the compensation that one is to pay if the victim survives?  Well, for starters, God says the aggressor will pay for the “victim’s loss of time”.  This is the idea we have today in our legal system of damages for loss of alternative opportunities.  If you lame me to the point where I cannot work, then the courts help us come to a settlement of what opportunity for me to earn wages you deprived me off and then assign you the responsibility to pay me for the equivalent amount.

God also says here that the aggressor is to pay for the victim’s costs of living until he is completely healed.  Here we get the idea of rehabilitation costs, or damages, which in our justice system have been broaden to include the legal costs the victims incurred in going after the aggressor in the courts.

And before we return to our two areas mentioned above – that of automobile accidents and non-consensual sex – allow me to comment on one other area of broadening of this whole principle that God outlines in these verses.  Our society has taken “striking” and given it many more meanings today.  While God spoke of physical striking here, our society has taken this much further, and perhaps rightly so.  We now include defamation of character, slander, mental anguish, wrongful dismissal in employment, and so much more.

Finally, we can see now how what God outlined to be the course of action for one who strikes another person (keeping in mind all the modern day equivalents of that) if he were to survive, formed the foundational principles for what our justice system often requires today.  That is, compensation of the aggressors in terms of making the victim as “whole” as possible.  Understanding that while one can never get back what they lost – a leg, their reputation, the mental health, etc. – the aggressor is required to compensate them in a way that allows them to have as much of a life as possible.

As we study this book of Exodus, we cannot but marvel at how much our entire legal system and society depend on God’s original thoughts on both punishment and compensation.

I can also see threads of similarity here between how God wants violators of His laws dealt with and how God Himself applies these same ideas to our sin against Him.  We have sinned and deserve to die.  But He wants us to live.  The penalty or compensation for our sin, however, still needs to be paid and He arranges for that payment to be made by His own Son dying on the cross in our place.  The wholeness of God’s Holy nature as far as His willingness to call us sons and daughters because of His love for us has been kept in tact, and we can have a relationship with Him for eternity.

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