Deuteronomy 25:1-10
1 “If there is a dispute between men, and they come to court, that the judges may judge them, and they justify the righteous and condemn the wicked, 2 then it shall be, if the wicked man deserves to be beaten, that the judge will cause him to lie down and be beaten in his presence, according to his guilt, with a certain number of blows. 3 Forty blows he may give him and no more, lest he should exceed this and beat him with many blows above these, and your brother be humiliated in your sight.
4 “You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain.
Marriage Duty of the Surviving Brother
5 “If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the widow of the dead man shall not be married to a stranger outside the family; her husband’s brother shall go in to her, take her as his wife, and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her. 6 And it shall be that the firstborn son which she bears will succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel. 7 But if the man does not want to take his brother’s wife, then let his brother’s wife go up to the gate to the elders, and say, ‘My husband’s brother refuses to raise up a name to his brother in Israel; he will not perform the duty of my husband’s brother.’ 8 Then the elders of his city shall call him and speak to him. But if he stands firm and says, I do not want to take her,’ 9 then his brother’s wife shall come to him in the presence of the elders, remove his sandal from his foot, spit in his face, and answer and say, ‘So shall it be done to the man who will not build up his brother’s house.’ 10 And his name shall be called in Israel, ‘The house of him who had his sandal removed.’
These laws cover measured justice with punishment under constraint and fair treatment even of the animals used to harvest grain. They also cover responsibility of family to look after widows and continue the family legacy. For measured justice, disputes had to be settled fairly and punishment meted out fairly and appropriately, not applying undue punishment but that which fit the crime and no more in the heat of passionate application that is more appropriate than emotional vengeance for retribution. This is the thirty-nine blows of the whip we see later (2 Corinthians 11:24) applied to Paul and (Mark 15:15) Jesus Himself, meant to punish severely but not kill. Then we see the responsibility of caring for the oxen as they did their work in the grain planting and harvesting. They were not to be muzzled to keep them from eating of the grain when harvesting but allowed to be fed as they worked, a fitting picture later used in 1 Corinthians 9:9, 10-11, 14 to allow those preaching the gospel to be able to be fed (supported) as they do so. This is the pattern for paid ministers in our own time also. Then we read about the responsibility of families to care for their own, specifically for continuing the family legacy when a childless widow was to be taken as the wife of her husband’s brother to father an heir to keep the legacy in the family of God’s people and not with an outsider. If the brother was unwilling to do his duty, then a ritual with a sandal removed and spit in the face of the unwilling one would be done in public for refusing to build up his brother’s house. He would then earn the derogatory name, ‘The house of him who had his sandal removed.’ Though the custom or law of a brother taking his widowed sister-in-law as a wife is not practiced today, in a spiritual sense it carries over into marriage in the Lord and not outside the faith (1 Corinthians 7:39, 2 Corinthians 6:14) in Jesus Christ. We see then that measured justice shows mercy and not spite in passing sentences, that responsibility means that those serving God deserve to be fed by we who are ministered to as they work in the gospel, and that responsibility also includes taking care of family and continuing the spiritual family of God in Christ by only marrying fellow believers.
No comments:
Post a Comment