Family Matters… (and also neighbors) 🏡🏡
This is another buffet of various laws but they seem to mostly involve matters of family and neighbors.
The first is how to handle the victim of a homicide when there are no witnesses. ☠️
I don’t know about you, but the idea of “cleansing the land of innocent blood” 🩸 always felt like something…well… kind of fictional. Or like something that Native Americans or African Tribal peoples might do but that it’s kinda not real. Like, it would make people feel better to do a ritual, but the ritual didn’t actually accomplish anything real in the actual world.
Does that make sense?
That’s not how these chapters read. They read like the shedding of innocent blood actually has serious consequences for a piece of identifiable real estate. And that there are things people can do to undo those consequences. Namely, the elders from the closest town along with a priest take a heifer to a wadi with a permanent creek and its neck is broken. Then the priest and elders wash their hands over the heifer.
🤔
As with most strange rituals, I suspect this one may have some meaning for us to reflect upon. Now, I could be way out in left field on this one, but here’s what I found.
THE LOCATION – This ritual takes place in a wadi. It’s a small valley that we in the Ozarks would call a “holler.” And this wadi needs to have a stream that flows all year. Most wadis in Israel (and Texas) only have water right after a rain. In Missouri we call those “wet weather creeks” or “high-water creeks.” City folks call ‘em “drainage ditches.” So the fact that there’s a year-round creek in this wadi is the first thing. The second is that it has to be a piece of land that has never been cultivated; never “worked.” That Hebrew word is abad (aw-bahd). It’s meant to remind us of this:
“And Yahweh God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken.” Genesis 3:23 LEB
The Hebrew word for “till” is abad. The ground from which Adam was taken was outside of Eden. It had never been cultivated. Never worked. It was wild. Adam abad-ed the ground inside the garden (Gen. 2:15). And it was an act of worship because the word abad also means to worship. (In the Hebrew mind, work and worship are 2 sides of the same coin. It’s why we have terminology like “worship-service.” Because the two go hand in hand.) But I digress…
The uncultivated ground is indicative of a place where the orderly rule of the Kingdom of God has not yet been established. It is outside of Eden.
Now, the ground wasn’t the only thing in the ritual that hadn’t been worked. The heifer also has not been worked. She is untamed and has not learned submission and obedience to be able to pull a plow or be joined in a yoke. And her neck is to be broken. We’ve already seen how being “stiff-necked” means being stubborn. The neck is indicative of the will. The untamed heifer is to have its “will” broken in this not-Edenic place.
There is an interesting Hebrew word that describes this wadi. It is ethan. Yes, just like the name Ethan (which in Hebrew is pronounced ay-thawn but I’m not going to start saying the name Ethan that way).
All the newer translations I looked at had verse 4 as a “valley with running water” or something to indicate an “ever-flowing” stream. The KJV has it “rough valley.”
Let’s look at the Paleo-Hebrew letters.
Aleph – strong, chief
Yod – hand, make/do, authority
Tav – strong indicator, this/that, cross shape
Nachash – serpent, shiny/reflective, spiritual
Think about this picture for a sec.
There is a mighty hand doing a strong doing with a cross and there’s a serpent.
Remember this?
And this?
The Mighty Hand of God did a Mighty Doing on the cross.
“He made the one who did not know sin to be sin on our behalf, in order that we could become the righteousness of God in him.”
2 Corinthians 5:21 LEB
That’s where the untamed, stubborn, sinful will is broken. The cross stands outside of Eden- God’s dwelling. It’s the unplowed earth from which we came. And we return to it to “break up the fallow ground of our hearts” in order to seek and find the Lord in the cross of Christ. And the crimson stream of Calvary is a permanent stream. It’s not dry or unpredictable. It flows year-round.
And THIS is how the guilt of innocent blood (and everything else for that matter) is cleansed from the land. The leaders – the priests and elders acknowledge the sin and wash their hands while asking Yahweh to forgive them and their people.
“And if a man commits a sin punishable by death, and so he is put to death and you hang him on a tree, his dead body shall not hang on the tree, but certainly you shall bury him on that day, for cursed by God is one that is being hung; so you shall not defile your land that Yahweh your God is giving to you as an inheritance.”
Deuteronomy 21:22-23 LEB
This text RIGHT HERE. This is Yahweh setting Jesus up to bear the curse of sin for us. Paul quotes it in his letter to the Galatians:
“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, because it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree,” in order that the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.”
Galatians 3:13-14 LEB
In the Apostle’s inspired commentary on this verse in Deuteronomy, we find:
- How Jesus redeemed us from the curse of the Law – by becoming a curse for us
- Why Jesus purposely took on the curse of the Law – so that the “blessing of Abraham” (being declared righteous by faith) would become available to the Gentiles
- What the end result of this redemption would be – that we (the Church) could receive – through faith, not works – the promise of the Spirit (the indwelling of God Himself bringing eternal life)
Man that’s good stuff. On to chapter 22. Much of it could be summed up:
“Well, now that’s mighty neighborly of you.”
Moses goes back over the rules about fornication, adultery, rape, and incest. And also false accusations.
Among all these commands, there’s this:
“You shall not sow your vineyard with differing kinds of seed, so that you shall not forfeit the whole harvest, both the seed that you sowed and the yield of the vineyard.
You shall not plow with an ox and with a donkey yoked together.
You shall not wear woven material made of wool and linen mixed together.”
Deuteronomy 22:9-11 LEB
This whole set of commands could be summarized as “Don’t mix.” God disapproves of mixtures.
I’m not sure if only vineyards are in question here, or if allowing my cucumbers to climb my tomato cages along with the tomatoes was in violation of this commandment. I sure hope not. It worked rather well. 🍅🥒 (ha ha… Bob & Larry!)
I have no idea what idiot would try to yoke an ox and a donkey together or why. Anybody with a lick of country sense knows that’s just asking for trouble.
With all the wild fiber mixtures we have, the Lord would probably call the modern textile and fast-fashion industry an “abomination!” (And not just because there’s a bunch of gender-confused people slinking up and down a runway wearing absurd costumes). I mean,honestly… What is this?
a fitted sheet.
“Ode to Ze Dishes.”
That’s a lifetime supply of Brillo pads
on her head.
Hope you enjoyed that. 😏
It’s absurd. It’s as if the designers are just punking everyone now for laughs.
Anyway – back to forbidden mixtures.
I know from a book I got recently that wool is a protein-based fiber and linen is cellulose-based. So don’t mix protein and cellulose? Like most of the ceremonial law, this is probably less about fiber types and more about your heart. ❤️
Man usually does the whole mad-scientist, let’s-mix-things-in-a-lab-and-see-what-happens schtick for the purpose of getting ahead. It’s probably an indicator of a lack of contentment with things as God made them.
It’s mankind “improving” God’s design. 🧬
The ultimate forbidden mixture was Genesis 6 and the sons of God mixing with the daughters of men. It wasn’t just about lust. It was about the sons of God attempting to hijack humanity to make their own species.
There’s a reason many of us avoid “genetically modified” stuff. It’s been mixed. Tampered with. And now the mad scientists are into gene-editing humans. Right now it’s lauded as the best thing ever. It’s already being used to fix genetic diseases. But how long will it be before the changes are so great that someone decides they’ve created a new species of human? And we all need to “upgrade?”
Just remember- don’t be mixing the seed. 👀
To The Reader 