Pslams 34 to 37

More psalm-type things.  (I was going to do the opening chapters of Numbers today, but what I wrote apparently didn't get saved.  Oops).

PSALMS 34

Trying to find something to say about each individual psalm is tricky.  It’s not that this one is worse than many earlier ones, but they do start to read all the same after a while. 

The start to this one is especially generic – it praises God.  That’s nice.  Then you get the sense that the Lord is who the psalmist cries out to when he’s in need.  Again, that’s nice. 

There is one distinctive wrinkle later on.  The psalmist moves off his own personal experience to instruct the others what God is like.  This section even begins “Come, children, listen to me.”  He then says, “I will teach you to fear the LORD.”  What comes next isn’t a bunch of reasons why the Lord is fearful, but wonderful.  The fear line really seems out of place.

But then again, to modern ears talk of fearing the Lord often sounds out of place in general.  People don’t turn to the Bible to fear the Lord but find consolation.  The idea of a Lord of wrath is out, but it clearly had a pull on people for a long time.  It was part of having power.  Many things we explain away casually were attributed to this Lord – things like the weather. 

PSALM 35

This is another psalm that has the feel of junior high school.  The psalmist is outraged and aggrieved.  He’s oppressed and being treated like garbage and he really goes on about his problems.  It reads like a person getting himself worked up over his problems.  He’s really basking in his difficulties. 

The key thing here is that it’s not just random happenstance causing the psalmist problems – it’s his enemies.  He goes on at length about all the abuses they hurl at him  - malicious witnesses accuse him of false doing, they are gleeful when he stumbles, “They slandered me without ceasing; without respect they mocked me.”  Yup – that’s junior high all right. 

Early on the psalmist asks the Lord to destroy his enemies, but at the end he has a more personal request – “Restore my soul from their destruction, my very life from lions!  Then I will thank you in the great assembly.”  Hmmm – being a devout Christian sounds like it would help you get through eighth grade.

PSALM 36 

Again, I’m struck by how psalms can praise God on the one hand as the most merciful and wonderful and kind deity of them all, and on the other hand says everyone must fear him.  I don’t really associate mercy and fear together like that.  I guess we should fear God’s power.  Maybe respect is closer to it.  Certainly, you shouldn’t take God for granted, and if you fear him, then you’re not taking him for granted.

Anyhow, this is a fairly standard psalm along the theme of “smite the enemies, o Lord!”  As always, this isn’t my favorite psalm theme.  It has some nice phrasings in it, though: “Do not let the foot of the proud overtake me.” 

PSALM 37 

OK now – this is a different sort of psalm.  First, it’s one of the longer psalms, clocking in at 40 verses.  Second, each of the 22 stanzas is led off with a letter in the ancient Hebrew alphabet. (Did they have only 22?  I have no idea).  So just on the page it looks different.

More than that, it’s a bit of an extended philosophical rumination – with plenty of religion thrown in, of course. At its heart lay a key question – why do bad people succeed if the Lord is good and all powerful?  Yup, that’s a good question. 

But the answer I find less than satisfying.  It says, OK so the bad people might be ahead right now – but just you wait.  The Lord will give them an All Mighty smackdown.  Oh, and based on the language of this psalm (and the overall theology of the Old Testament), the smackdown will come in this world, not the next.  Really, psalm?  Really? 

In fact, it even goes so far as to say “Neither in my youth, nor now in old age have I seen the righteous one abandoned or his offspring begging for bread.”  The poor are never the holy?  Really, psalm? 

Here’s where Christianity has an advantage – they can say the reward is in the next world.  Can’t argue that.  Can’t prove it either, but can’t disprove it. 

Oh, and speaking of Christianity, this one has some lines that’ll later be reflected in the Sermon on the Mount: “but those who wait for the LORD will inherit the earth.”  “But the poor will inherit the earth.”  “For those blessed by the Lord will inherit the earth.”  “The righteous will inherit the earth.”  

EDITED to add: click here for the next batch of psalms

Leviticus: Chapters 23 to 27

Picking up where we left off - here is the finale of Leviticus:

CHAPTER 23

This is a pretty generic on, in which God tells the Hebrew what holidays they are to celebrate.  OK, but this has been covered previously.  Well, now it’s covered again.  What’ s interesting is how many of these holidays could be celebrated by any religion – including traditional pagan/pantheistic religions.  They have the Pentecost, which is due to bringing in sheafs when farming. There’s the Feast of Booths, which is about the final harvest.  These are the sorts of holidays people had for the spirit of the forest.  While I understand the importance, it seems a little low rent for the Master of the Universe.

Now, there is the Day of Atonement and there is Passover.  Those are the sorts of holidays that set the Hebrew apart, but what’s interesting is how their holidays are a mix of typical and distinctive.

CHAPTER 24

This is a short chapter and the first half just rehashing some of the boring procedural stuff for the Lord’s dwelling that’s already repeatedly put the reader to sleep.

But suddenly, shockingly – the second half gets interesting.  It tells a story – one of the very few in Leviticus.  Someone says the Lord’s name in vain among the Israelites and that of course violates a commandment.  So what should his punishment be?  They ask Moses, who asks God, who tells him – stone the bastard.  Wow.  That’s harsh. 

Strangely, immediately after the stoning, God says his, “Whoever takes the life of a human shall be put to death.”  Look, I get the longstanding tradition of execution not being the same as murder (just like killing in war is approved of), but it’s just so jarring to see that line immediately after someone has been stoned to death for such a petty offense.  Looks like the Bible was trying to make a point there. 

It’s just the start of more laws – really, same laws as before, only this time God farms out his wording to Hammurabi: “fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth.”  However that might sound to the modern ear, the notion was that the punishment must fit the crime.  It should be reciprocal. 

CHAPTER 25

Well now, this is an interesting chapter on economics.  (I never thought I’d write a sentence saying “an interesting chapter on economics.”)  This is about the Jubilee.  Every 50^th year, the Israelites are supposed to have a special year – a full year of celebration.  You’re not to work during it, but use up what you’ve saved.  More than that, you repay debts, and let people out of debts.

Essentially, it’s one big write-off of all debts to your fellow Hebrew.  I’ve heard this referenced with the spiraling cost of student debt and the overall big split in income/wealth in the modern world – that what we need in a modern day Jubilee Year to wipe our debts out and let everyone stand on their own feet.  The notion here is you should treat your fellow Israelite properly.  You should act ethically.  And keeping someone in perpetual debt cuts against that. 

Actually, debt relief is just part of what this is all about.  It also stresses the importance of acting properly the your fellow member of the community at all times.  Don’t charge interest.  If someone has to sell themselves to you to make up for a debt, treat them like a laborer, not a slave.  It’s all based on ethical treatment.  Land can be reclaimed/redeemed as well, not just debts.  Buildings, too.

Oh, and it’s based on who really is in charge.  “The land shall not be sold irrevocably; for the land is mine, and you are but resident aliens and under my authority.”  It isn’t your land – it isn’t your private property – it’s all really God’s property.  And don’t forget it. 

The Bible is typically used for conservative ends politically, but there are plenty here they ignore (obviously) and some of that can be used for liberal ends.  For all the talk of homosexuality being wrong in the Bible, there is more talk about not exploiting each other.  Chapter 25 of Leviticus if the Bible of Occupy Wall Street. 

Oh, but all this stops at the line of the community.  If an Israeli becomes your slave, treat him as a laborer, but if a non-Israeli becomes you slave, sure – treat him like a slave.

CHAPTER 26

This chapter is about how God will treat the Israelites if they’re good and how he’ll treat the Israelites if they’re bad. No real surprises – if they follow God’s laws, they’ll get food, and peace, and plenty, and happiness, and puppies, and rainbows, and unicorns. 

But two-thirds of the chapter is what he’ll do if they’re bad.  Dark things, man – he’ll do dark, nasty, horrible things.  Terror, illness, famine, weakness, bad weather, wild beasts, dead livestock, pestilence, and even worse.  They’ll end up so bad that you will, “begin to eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters.”  Yeah, that’s driving the point home.  Life will be hell, you’ll have no sanctuary in the enemy’s land, you will be “so fainthearted that the sound of a driven leaf will pursue” you. 

He won’t wipe them out.  He’ll just torture the Hebrew until they mend their ways.  Then God will return to the covenant with Jacob.  (God coms off like a stalker here.  Like the boyfriend or girlfriend that just won’t accept a break up).  Really driving it home for narrative effect, it’s not just a litany of bad things he’ll do, but God keeps pausing and saying (in so many words) “and if that isn’t enough, if that doesn’t make you wake up and smell the All Mighty, I’ll do this and hurt you sevenfold worse than before”).  But, once they wake up, he will give them Canaan back.

It is jarring, fearful, wrath of the Lord stuff.  Imagine reading it as a devout Jew in, say, 1944-45.  You’re living through it then if anyone ever has. (And then you get Israel in 1948. Is it any wonder a generation of Jews grew up with first of middle names like “Israel”?)

Oh, and there’s this – a line about if they still live with “uncircumcised hearts.”  That foreshadows Christianity and the debates of the post-crucifixion apostles on if they should accept Gentiles.  There is talk of “circumcision of the heart” by guys like St. Paul.

CHAPTER 27

The last chapter isn’t a very impressive one. It’s about conditional promissory notes and what they are worth.  Men are worth more than women.  People in the prime of life are worth more than the old or young.  It’s usually a flat rate – unless it’s a male in the prime of his life.

I didn’t get much from this one.

Concluding thoughts

OK, that ends Leviticus, famous (infamous?) as the first really boring book in the Bible.  It’s not exciting, but there is some interesting meat there, especially in the middle.  Also, it’s not nearly as boring as the back half of Exodus, with its never ending talk of cubits. 

But this is where Bible readers often stop.  This is when the Torah gets lost in the weeds and details.  It would be like the Constitution spent half of its time setting up laws at length over fishing rights.  This isn’t the essential stuff; it’s the details and implications of the essentials.  But, since it’s written by the priests who spent their time dealing with all those details and implications, we get it in the Bible here.

EDITED to add: click here to begin the next book: Numbers: Chapters 1 to 4.

Leviticus: Chapters 18 to 22

Last time we saw Biblical wisdom on skin disease and scapegoating.  Here's the next chunk of Leviticus.  It's a lot more interesting than I thought it would be.

CHAPTER 18

Welcome everyone to the …. Leviticus Drinking Game.  Every time God says “I am the LORD” or “I am the LORD your God” or something like that – take a shot.  Beginning with this chapter, he starts saying it frequently.  It’s the Almighty Microphone Drop – he says it often at the end of paragraphs. Say it, drop the mike, and walk off the stage before anyone can respond. 

This chapter is all above sex – particularly, what to avoid.  Let’s see – incest, that’s out.  And then it goes into all of the combinations you’re not supposed to get into.  Cousin-on-cousin action is cool with the Lord.  Well, that’s good news for the patriarchs who kept marrying their own cousin.  But marrying your sibling?  That’s out.  Bummer for Abraham and Sarah, who were half-brother/half-sister.  And by the language, it looks like half-siblings are also verboten.  Good thing Abraham came before.  I guess we’ll grandfather in the grandfather of the Hebrew.

Oh, and it’s also a bad idea to sacrifice your children to Molech.  Yeah, I gotta agree with that one.   Sacrificing your kids to false gods does sound like a bad idea. 

Then things take a turn for the ugly and the modern politicized.  Here’s where God tells us “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman, such a thing is an abomination.”  Yup, it’s Leviticus 18:22 that denounces gay sex.  Immediately after, it comes out against bestiality. 

That sums up the key sex laws, but then comes the justification for these things.  Apparently the people of Canaan do all of these things and God ain’t happy with that.  “And so the land has become defiled, and I have punished it for its wickedness and the land has vomited out its inhabitants.”  Few things there – isn’t God jumping the gun with the verb tense?  People will be driven out later, not earlier.  Second, that’s some jarring imagery – “vomited out its inhabitants.”

As a non-believer who supports gay rights, this is a depressing part of the Bible.  I know the standard retort – there are a lot of Bible laws that are ignored.  (We have a doozy next chapter, in fact) and people always pick-and-choose which ones define their religion.  This is very true.  Then again, while the Bible doesn’t make a mania of denouncing gay rights, when the subject comes up, it isn’t just another thing.  It’s always associated with something especially repugnant.  It’s flatly called abhorrent here, and it one of the justifications for depriving the Canaanites of Canaan.  It’s a justification for the wholesale destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.  (There’s more to it than that, though.  They were going to rape angels of the Lord, and weren’t going to treat travelers well).  Later on it’s also used to justify war on the tribe of Benjamin.  I don’t like this aspect of the Bible, but going strictly off the Bible, the anti-gay edicts are a bit more than, say, mixing fabrics.  That said, care for the poor is a far bigger theme throughout.  As I said, anti-gay rhetoric is pretty damn infrequent in the Bible.

CHAPTER 19

OK, if you’re doing the Leviticus Drinking Game, you can get put in a real good mood by this chapter. I count about 10 shots in the course of its 37 verses. 

This is more laws, and much of it is rehashing of all laws we’ve already seen.  It does contain one great bit on justice: “You shall not act dishonestly in rendering judgment.  Show neither partiality to the weak nor deference to the mighty, but judge your neighbor justly.  You shall not go about spreading slander among your people, nor shall you stand by idly when your neighbor’s life is at stake.  I am the LORD” (drink!).  That sounds like a good plan for how judges should act.

If the last chapter had a part that Christian conservatives love to bring up, this chapter gives some meat for religious lefties.  There is a strong concern with social justice.  Don’t use up all your vineyards and fields – leave some behind for the poor and the alien.  So you’re supposed to let the poor pick from your fields.  Don’t exploit your neighbor.  That’s sound advice, but then it comes how you define exploit.  Plenty of legal behavior is exploitation, and this chapter has none of it. 

It’s part of a larger trend toward tolerance toward the meek.  For example, we’re told words that I assume all agree with – be nice to the blind, the deaf, and to your neighbor.  “Reprove your neighbor openly” so that you don’t have bad blood develop silently.

Oh, and then comes one of the strangest laws in the Bible: “do not put on a garment woven with different kinds of thread.”  Why would God care?  Well, he does.   It's become the official passage for people who oppose religious fundamentalism.  OK, so you think homosexuals are evil because of a passage in the Bible - well, what are your thoughts on mixing fabric?  After all, you don't here Pat Robertson & friends worry about this one too much.

Actually, the fabric thing is part of a longer stretch that goes like this: “do not breed ay of your domestic animals with others of a different species; do not sow a field of yours with two different kinds of seed, and do not put on a garment woven with two different kinds of threads.” It’s part of an overall ethos of not crossing streams, not mixing and matching.  It starts off reasonably enough, I guess, but it’s like God is so caught up in this train of thought that he forgets to get off at the right stop.  He just gets a little nutty with things.  Lucky for us that he stopped before telling us to keep our chocolate and peanut butter separate.

Oh, and here’s where we see the origins of Orthodox Jewish facial hair.  We’re told not to clip your hair at the temples and not to spoil the edges of your beard.  For that matter, don’t lacerate your bodies for the dead and no tattoos.  Guns’n’Roses wouldn’t have made it as traditional Jews. 

It ends with some good general advice – respect your elders, be good to aliens amongst you – ‘for you too were once aliens in the land of Egypt”, don’t cheat anyone, and oh yeah – don’t turn your daughters into prostitutes.  Nice of God to point out that last one, but it means people actually did that.

For those playing the Leviticus Drinking Game, the end of chapter 19 is when you’ll be drinking fastest and furiousiest.  You get six “I am the LORD”s in the last eight verses – including three in a row at one point.  It’s mike drop after mike drop.

CHAPTER 20

Now that we’ve been given a bunch of rules, it’s time to spell out the penalties.  It might actually work better if they’d given both at the same time – save on repetition – but no matter. 

This is a combination of sensible stuff (if you sacrifice children to Molech, you’ll be killed) with some ghastly ones.  The most famously and politicized one is gay sex is a capital offense.  Yeah, that sure sounds bad to modern ears.  But that’s not the most horrific thing in here.  20:9: “Anyone who curses father or mother shall be put to death.”  Wow.  Now, the footnotes say this doesn’t mean, “Dad, go fuck yourself” but something more like taking a blood oath to have your father cursed forever.  I sure hope that footnote is right, because that’s ghastly. Even if the footnote is correct, that's still ghastly.  It's hard to believe anyone ever really practiced this.  Combining threads gets the mocking of people who oppose being too fundamentalist in their actions, but this is the one part that no one really ever tries acting on (Marvin Gaye Sr. not withstanding).

Plenty of death penalties here. It’s either that or cutting them off from the community. Remember – there are no prisons to a wandering band in the desert.  A man who makes like Abraham and marries his sister is to be cut off from the people.  If you have sex with a woman during her period, you’re to be cut off from the community.  Well, that’s harsh.

Oh, and there’s a key bit of English history as well.  Really.  20:21: If a man takes his brother’s wife, it is severe defilement and he has disgraced his brother; they shall be childless.”  Catherine of Aragon married Arthur, the firstborn son of King Henry VII.  Then Arthur died, and she married his only other son – who became Henry VIII.  They didn’t have any kids and Henry VIII uses this to try to get an annulment.  Hey, the Bible says we’ll be cursed of having no kids, and we haven’t – clearly God doesn’t approve so this can’t be any holy matrimony!  Now, my memory is shaky but there is reason to think Arthur never consummated his marriage, and of course Henry VIII had his own reasons for a divorce that had nothing to do with religion, but that’s the background. 

There is some very striking language toward the end: “Be careful to observe all my statutes and all my decrees; otherwise the land where I am bringing you to dwell will vomit you out.”  Vomit.  That’s a hell of a verb to use; very graphic.  My theory: this is a bit put in by the Redactor, the editor who gathered the four main sources and created the modern Torah as we know it.  My hunch is that’s the case because, of course, they did lose their Promised Land.  And this is the official religious reasons why – we didn’t follow God’s laws and so we’ve been punished. 

(looks it up).  Nope.  Richard Elliot Friedman lists it as Source P.  Shows what I know – they always had some of this punishment talk in there from the beginning. 

Also, God makes clear that people aren’t to adopt the customs of those around them.  This is actually really crucial.  This is a big part of the reason why Jews still survive as a separate independent people.  They have their own customs, and traditions.  Yes, religion is a huge part of it – central even – but it’s more than just that.  It’s day-to-day practices that help reinforce this sense of separate identity. 

There’s not much drinking in the Leviticus Drinking Game here.  It gives you a chance to recover from the deluges at the end of Chapter 19.

CHAPTER 21

Now we get into priest rules.  Much is what you’d expect.  It’s a little too wordy for its own good.  An early part says he can’t marry a prostitute or someone divorced – then later is say he must marry a virgin (then repeats the bit about no divorced or prostitutes).  If the priest’s daughter becomes a prostitute, to the fire with her.  Lots of prostitute talk here, isn’t there? 

Oh, and there is no equal rights for the handicapped in the priesthood.  The following sons of Aaron need not apply: deaf, blind, lame, split lip, too long a limb, broken arm or leg, hunchback, dwarf, “has a growth in the eye” (?), skin disease, and last by not least – no crushed testicles.  It takes balls to be a priest.

Well, there are some actual physical duties of being a priest, so the above might get in the way. Yeah, but that’s not why they’re banned.  If you look bad or clearly flawed, well, that just looks bad for the whole presentation.  They’re the ones closest to good – so how come they’re messed up? 

CHAPTER 22

It’s more stuff on priests, and it’s largely a rehashing of what’s come before.  Here’s one bit – no priest “who suffers from a genital discharge may eat of the sacred offerings until he again becomes clean.”  Let’s see, if you sleep with your wife you’re unclean until nightfall.  Other “discharges” take a week to cleanse, so there’s definitely making sure people that jerk off aren’t allowed in.  And, of course, priests aren’t supposed to sleep around. 

At the end, the Lord comes back with a bunch of mike drops - -three “I am the LORD”s to drink to in the last four verses.

Click here for the end of Leviticus.

Leviticus: Chapters 13 to 17

Picking up where we left off, more Leviticus

CHAPTER 13

This is all about skin infections.  You got your scaly infections, your boils, your burns, your infections, your blotches – and even going bald.  Oh, and then at the end you even get fungal infections. 

Folks, this is one of the longest chapters in the Bible, weighing in at 59 verses!  I’m not going to go back and check, but I’m pretty sure it’s the longest chapter I’ve read so far. 

That tells us one thing – people really were concerned about skin problems back in the day.  While it reads rather boring and puts us to sleep, it’s worth noting how easy it was to get a skin problem and how difficult it was to treat it.  People didn’t know about germ theory.  They were just groping at proper sanitation.  And who knows how to treat this stuff?  So you get this elaborate section that tells us about the medical issues of the place more than about its religion.

There is one funny moment, when the Bible tells the unclean how they should act: “The garments of one afflicted with a scaly infection shall be rent and the hair disheveled, and the mustache covered.  The individual shall cry out, `Unclean, unclean!’” I just get a kick out of visualizing that. 

Oh, and if you’re wondering – baldness doesn’t make you unclean.  Glad we got that taken care.  UNLESS – yes, there’s an exception – going bald reveals a reddish white infection on the bald forehead.  So Mikhail Gorbachev wouldn’t be well received there.

CHAPTER 14

You’d think a 59-verse chapter on skin disease would be enough, but you’d be wrong.  This chapter – weighing in at 57 verses – is all about purification for those diseases.  Oh, and it also covers if your house gets fungus, and how poor people don’t have to sacrifice as much, being poor and all.

CHAPTER 15

OK, now for something even more exciting than skin diseases – sex!  More specifically, sexual cleanliness.  Most of this chapter deals with male “discharge.”  It says that if a guy discharges, he’s unclean for seven days and most make a sacrifice of some birds to the Lord. 

However, discharge doesn’t apparently mean all kinds of, well, discharge.  Later in the chapter we’re told that if a man lay with his wife, they’re only unclean until evening.  And there’s no call for a sacrifice there.  OK, that makes sense.  They’re supposed to be fruitful and multiply so saying you’re unclean for a full week after each time you have sex would really put a crimp into that. 

Also, just before the marital section, there’s a part my footnotes says is about wet dreams, though the text itself isn’t as clear. Mind you, the text is pretty clear – “emission of semen.”  I guess saying emission instead of discharge means it’s involuntary and while asleep than intended and while awake.  With the “emissions” just clean it up and it’ll be unclean until evening.

So the rest of the chapter’s “discharge” talk must either refer to out of wedlock sex or masturbation.  I assume the latter, as you’re not supposed to do the former.  So there’s nothing about jerking off making you go blind, but there is still a penalty.  This fits in with be fruitful and multiply. Man, you’re wasting your seed! 

Also, the second half of the chapter deals with menstruation.  Like with masturbation, a person (in this case a woman, obviously) is unclean for a week.  If you touch her, you’re unclean.  Anything she sits on for that week in unclean.   There is supposed to be a book called The Year of Living Biblically in which the authors tries to live up to all of the edicts of the Torah.  For this sitting rule, he had to carry around a small portable stool everywhere he went.  When the woman is done with her period, she must sacrifice some birds.

By the way – assuming I’m right about the first half of the chapter being about masturbation – at no point does the Bible consider the possibility of female masturbation.  Just sayin’ ….

CHAPTER 16

Holy crap – the scapegoat is an actual thing!  I know the phrase, and never thought about where it came from – turns out it comes from the Bible. To atone for the sins of the Israelites, Aaron shall bring a goat, confess all sins while laying hands on the goat, “and so put them on the goat’s head.”  Then you sacrifice the goat to absolve the people of their sins.  So that’s where that bit of pop culture folklore comes from.  Huh. 

At any rate, the chapter is on the Day of Atonement, and picks up right after Chapter 10 when Aaron’s sons died.  Why not make this Chapter 11 then?  Eh, I don’t know.  Seems like a mistake on the part of the P author, who wrote pretty much all of Leviticus.

CHAPTER 17

This chapter is on the sacredness of blood.  Among other things, people are told again that else they can’t eat blood.  So there’s some reinforcement of the kosher diet. 

What I found really striking was something near the top of the chapter. We’re told that anyone who kills an ox or sheep or goat without first presenting it as an offering to the LORD shall “be judged guilty of bloodshed – that individual has shed blood and shall be cut off from the people.”  Seriously?  You’re going to cut off someone for doing a sacrifice away from the temple?  That’s rather severe. 

Well, let’s look at who is writing this – the priests.  And they’re saying that if you cut out the priests from the job – well, clearly the priests don’t take kindly to that.  So you get this overreaction.  From what I vaguely know/remember, one problem the priests had was the flock decentralizing their religion and performing duties in their own areas instead of the temple.  This sounds like a strong push back against it.  Assuming I’m remembering future chapters properly.

Click here for the next part of Leviticus.

Leviticus Chapters 8 to 12

Last time, the opening chapters of Leviticus had a bunch of rules for ritual sacrificial offerings.  Things pick up a bit more as we enter the middle of the Book of Leviticus.

CHAPTER 8

This just explains the ordination ceremony for Aaron and his sons to become priests.  It’s basically what previous chapters said should be done, now actually being done.  It’s a snooze.  The one thing I always find striking is the use of blood in the rituals itself.  They are always splashing of sprinkling or dabbing in blood.  Religion was different back then. 

I’ll just note here that almost all of the Book of Leviticus is supposed to have been written by the P source, who is called that because he’s mostly interested in priestly functions. So yeah, I guess it makes sense that he’d be right here.  By and large there is little heroic to hang onto, like Moses and the 10 plagues or Jacob wrestling the Lord.  Now it’s just rules and regulations.  Yeah, I can see what it was put in, but I can also see why this book has a reputation for being tough to read.

CHAPTER 9

More of the same – we’re still doing the ordination ceremony.  A few odd notes.  The ceremony takes eight days.  Eight days?  That strikes me as odd.  Everything else is six or seven days – that goes back to the LORD creating the world in six then resting on the seventh.  Is it really harder to create a priest than to create the world? 

Also, once again we see them burning animal fat for the LORD.  My initial reaction is – oh, yeah – it’s just like Cain and Abel.  The LORD preferred’s Abel’s offerings of meat to Cain’s offering of vegetables and now here they are making sure to offer meat.  Yeah, but disbeliever that I am, I can flip this around.  They decided to offer meats to the LORD because they thought it was more important, and then retroactively created the Cain/Abel story.  Or not.  It could be the story came first – one of those primordial stories like the flood or Tower of Babel that was in Sumeria before Abraham left. 

Oh, and the chapter has – believe it or not – a real wham-bang finish.  It’s the first lively action of Leviticus.  Once they’ve laid out all the stuff for the LORD, “Then the glory of the LORD appears to all the people.  Fire came forth from the LORD’s presence and consumed the burnt offering and the fat on the altar.  Seeing this, all the people shouted with joy and fell prostrate.”  Dang!  He consumed it with fire right after they laid it out!  I’ll bet they yelled and fell prostrate.  I’ll even bet most were happy – “hey, the boss like it!”  But some had to be afraid.  Man, that’s fire coming out of nowhere.

CHAPTER 10

Well now, it turns up the big finish to Chapter 9 was just to set us up for the even more impressive (and ghastly) start to Chapter 10.  Aaron’s two sons (and, of course, priests) Hadab and Abihu goof up.  They put something on the fire they weren’t supposed to and the Lord, being the Lord, notices.  And he ain’t happy. Not at all.  Fire comes down right away and consumes them both.  They die. 

That’s a steep penalty.  I guess there’s no union to file a grievence.  Yeah, it sure is steep, though we did see earlier that the higher ranking the person, the more pressure on them to do well.  The priests have to atone with a whole bull, for instance, for accidental mistakes, while the people can just give a she-goat of something.  So I suppose this error wasn’t intentional – but, hey – they’re dead, so we’ll never know.

You have to feel for Aaron here.  He came off badly with the Golden Calf and hasn’t had much personality aside from that, but here he just watched his two sons died – but as head priest in the middle of the ceremony, he’s got to go on with the show.  Maybe he could have Moses negotiate some time off duty in the next round of covenant talks or something.  Doesn’t sound like Moses would be willing to do so, though.  He tells Aaron to go on with things or he’ll die. 

Moses actually berates Aaron a little bit for not eating in the holy place, but Aaron blasts him back and Moses understands. 

Oh and here’ we’re told that by a “perpetual statute” Aaron’s family is forbidden from drinking any win or strong drink “lest you die.”  Man, they’ll never get to have any fun.

CHAPTER 11

This is the big chapter on Hebrew dietary laws.  At 47 verses, it’s one of the longest chapters in the Bible so far.  There is an attempt at some consistency – saying you can’t have these types of animals, but you can have these.  But what purpose does it all serve?  I can think of two.  First, it’s possible they thought there was some sanitary value involved in avoiding some animals.  The word used to denounce these meats is, after all, “unclean.”  And don’t we all have certain things we try to avoid just because it seems icky to us?  Why, for years I didn’t drink water from the kitchen sink faucet because I associated it with dishwater.  Mind you, it’s the same piping system coming into the house.

At any rate, there’s a second reason to do this.  It creates daily rituals and obligations – things you have to do or avoid doing.  And by making religious obligations part of a vital aspect of life – eating – you can reinforce the religion.  It’s not just something you say and then do whatever.  Every time a person base’s their diet on these laws, it’s a new commitment to their religion.  It’s also a commitment to the community, as following these dietary laws separates them from the rest around them.  It marks them off as a separate people.

As for the laws themselves, the big blow is pig.  You can’t have pig.  Bummer for the Israelites.  Also, they can’t have rabbit, shrimp, lobster, crab, camel, various birds of prey, or bats, among other things.  But don’t worry – grasshoppers and locusts are fine. 

CHAPTER 12

More rules on uncleanness – this time not about food, but about childbirth.  I guess this is a sanitary issue.  The birthing process can be messy, especially back then when it could be fatal.  And it could also give the new mother a chance to recover. 

There’s a difference based on gender of the newborn.  If the mom gives birth to a boy, she’ll be unclean seven days, just like it’s her period, then she will spend 33 days in a state of “blood purity.”  They don’t say what that means – either in the book or in the footnotes?  Wild guess: No sex?  I really don’t know.  At any rate, if it’s a girl, the period is double: 14 days unclean and 66 days in this mysterious blood purity thing.  Not sure why there’s a difference, so I’ll just assume it’s the ancient Near East patriarchal culture at work.

Oh, and it’s in here we’re told that newborn boys are to be circumcised eight days after their birth.  That’s the day after the mother comes through the unclean period.

Click here for the next part of Leviticus.

Pslams 25 to 33

Picking up where we left with psalms, here are #25-33:

PSALM 25

This is called “Confident Prayer of Forgiveness and Guidance.”  One thing I find striking in these psalms is the prevalence of themes of sin, redemption, and forgiveness – themes I associate more with Christianity.   Admittedly, I’m not too familiar with the prophets part of the Old Testament (I read it twice, but more or less read over it both times, retaining little).  I guess these themes help explain why this book is so popular with Christians.

This one asks for help from God, and how wonderful God is.  I can see how this would appeal to those of faith.  I can see how this can help give a person peace of mind to bear their burdens and pull through their problems.

PSALM 26

This is a “Prayer of Innocence” and it’s a bit of an angrier psalm.  “Judge me, LORD!” it starts off and you get the sense this is a man who knows he’s innocent but feels accused anyway.  Dammit, I’m a good person – and I want my named cleared!  No better way of doing that then by going to the big man himself.

PSALM 27

This one is a terrific psalm that has a famous start: “The LORD is my light and my salvation.”  It then takes off from there, with more praising of the LORD as a refuge from burdens, and a place to take refuge when enemies and foes are around.  In many ways it’s a typical psalm, but an extremely well done one. 

The psalmist takes peace and calm from the knowledge that the Lord is out there and that he’s faithful to Him.  In return, he wants to be able “To dwell in the LORD’s house all the days of my life.”  That’s a very near Christian attitude toward heaven, except it says “the days of my life” instead of afterlife. 

There’s been a shift in psalms here in the 20s.  A lot of early ones had some calls for vengeance against the psalmist’s foes, and that I found off-putting.  These psalms are more inward looking and reflective, about what the Lord means to the writer and how that helps him.  These psalms are better because they are less concerned with outsiders.  Yes, there is still talk of foes and enemies, but now that talk is more marginal.  What matters is that the Lord helps the author and that the faith of the writer can pull him through.  It isn’t vital that others suffer. Good. 

PSALM 28

This is like two psalms in one.  Sure, many psalms have multiple parts, but the two parts here sound like two different psalms.  Well, that’s a bit much.  Let me put it this way, there are some psalms about pleading with the Lord for help, and there are other psalms about thanking the Lord for giving help.  This one does both.  In that since, it’s a nice two part job as you see the before and after, the concern and the happy ending.  When I say it reads like two different psalms, that’s not an insult.  It’s just noting an interesting – and effective stylistic choose.

The psalmist really does sound desperate in the first half – “Heard the sound of my pleading when I cry to you for help” and “Do not drag me off with the wicked” among other lines.  But the second part begins, “Blessed be the LORD, who has heard the sound of my pleading.”  He then calls the LORD “my strength and shield,” which is a nice line.  It sounds familiar to me, too, so I guess it caught on. 

PSALM 29

The title of this psalm is “The Lord of Majesty Acclaimed as King of the World” but it should be titled “Damn, Lord – You are Such a Badass!” 

There’s a refrain in the psalm  - “the voice of the Lord” – and the voice of the Lord is a badass.  It is over the waters, is power, is splendor, cracks cedars, makes Lebanon “leap like a calf”, strikes with fiery flame, shakes the desert, and makes the deer dance.  It “strips the forest bare.  All in his Temple say, `Glory!’”  Such a badass.  No wonder he reigns as king forever.

PSALM 30

This says it’s a song for the dedication of the temple of David.  (Wait – I thought it was Solomon’s temple?  Ah, I’ll get there).

This has a nice structure.  It starts off with the typical praising of God.  This always leaves me a bit flat.  The human parts of the Bible I find compelling.  So good for me that this shifts gears.  It goes from talking of God to humanity.  There’s some serious emotion in the middle as the psalmist recounts the moments he felt cut off from God and how he’d lost his way.  He cried out for help – and God answered.  So you go from the bottom of the valley to the top of the mountain and “You changed my mourning into dancing.”  It goes back to praising the glory of God, only now we can see it’s more about the emotions the psalmist feels more than anything else.  The psalm takes the standard/generic praising of God and infuses it with some serious emotion by relating it to why the person praises God.

PSALM 31

This is one of the more emotional psalms.  It’s full of yearning and burning desire for help.  He needs God to deliver him, because my of my is his life really going to hell.  He says he’s in distress, his eyes, throats, insides, and eyes are all giving out.  His bones are wearing down “To all my foes I am a thing of scorn, and especially to my neighbors a horror to my friends.”  Man, that sounds bad.  It actually sounds a bit overblown, but don’t all our emotions feel overblown will things are going so badly against it. 

There is some standard palm talk about enemies being out to get the writer and how he wants the Lord to hurt them – “reduce them to silence in Sheol.  Strike dumb their lying lips.”  However, in this psalm that talk has the advantage of being a minor side note. 

It has a happy ending, as god hears his cry and will make alright.

This has a lot of the elements of psalms I like, but it seemed to be a little less than the sum of its parts.  In parts, it’s the call for hurting the enemies.  It’s also the flaccid moral at the end, “The Lord protects the loyal but repays the arrogant in full.”  Yeah, well, life isn’t a morality play. Instant karma doesn’t always get you. I know the Christian approach is to think of heaven and hell, but these psalms weren’t written from that perspective.  The Hebrew believed in Sheol, not heaven/hell.  From the perspective of the psalmist, talk of everyone being repaid as they deserve means this world, which I don’t buy.

PSALM 32

This is a psalm about how good it feels to come clean.  I don’t think there’s been a psalm quite like this one yet.  Early on, the psalmist feels like he’s wasting away, groaning all the time, with the heavy hand upon him for hiding his guilt.  Then he declares his sin, and it all goes away just like that.  This psalm, which felt so very bad early on, is now ecstatic.

I can see the appeal of this psalm, because it speaks to a very human emotion – the desire to come clean with what you’ve done wrong.  I can also see this being a great psalm for the Catholic Church, given their tradition of confession.

PSALM 33

This is a pretty generic psalm.  It’s about how great God is. Really, it’s hard to say that much distinctive about each psalm.  Though reading 2-3 a day is surely easier to get through than all 150 at once, it is still a bit wearying. 

One notable element here is the notion that God has a plan.  “The LORD foils the plan of nations, frustrates the designs of peoples.  But the plan of the LORD stands forever.”   Well, if the last psalm was a nice Catholic one, this is a good Calvinist psalm.  The Lord has a mast plan, so there you go.  You’re already halfway to the theology of predestination.  

EDITED to add: click here for the next batch of psalms

Leviticus: Chapters 1 to 7

Now that Exodus is done, time for Leviticus.  So -- is this book as boring as its reputation? Well, yeah - the opening chapters are anyway.

CHAPTER 1

This is book is often feared and dreaded as the place where hopes of reading the entire Bible go to die.  OK, so the second half of Exodus was dull, but it at least had the slam bang first half.  There is no moment in Leviticus that hits the popular imagination.  It’s just a bunch of rituals and rules.  OK, but after all the tabernacle talk, this sounds like an improvement.

This is just about what sort of animals a person should offer to the Lord for a ritual sacrifice.  Apparently there is some minor distinction between bringing the Lord an animal from the flock or the herd, but whatever distinction there is – I don’t see it.  In both cases you’re to bring a male without blemish and offer the same parts.   Oh, and the Lord is particular about his birds – pigeons and turtledoves only. 

When you bring an appropriate bird to the priest, the first thing he does is wring its head off.  Yikes.  There is a definite earthy, bloodiness to these old rituals.  After beheading it, the priest drains the blood and burns it as an offering.  Yup, a bit bloody.

CHAPTER 2

This is about grain offerings.  (Of course, as anyone has ever read the story of Cain and Abel knows, the Lord prefers his meat to vegetables).  You’ve got to pour oil and frankincense on it so it’ll smell sweet when given to the Lord.  Baked goods?  Better be unleavened. 

You oddity – “You shall season all your grain offerings with salt.  Do not let the salt of the covenant with your God be lacking from your grain offering.”  The footnotes inform that in the ancient Near East using salt together was a sign of friendship.  Huh.  Learn something new every idea.

I really like that line, though: “Do not let the salt of the covenant with your God be lacking from your grain offering.”  I mean, sure it’s no “Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground” but it’s good. 

CHAPTER 3

This is all about communion sacrifices.  What’s a communion sacrifice, you ask?  Good question.  Turns out, no one really knows what the exact meaning of the ancient Hebrew word “shelamin” is – but it’s typically translated as communion sacrifice.  So not only is this a really boring chapter about a practice that hasn’t been done in nearly 2,000 years, but we’re don’t quite know what exactly makes it different from others.

Oh, don’t worry though – we know how the practice is supposed to go.  Boy do we ever – because that’s what the chapter describes.  It’s the same as all other sacrifices apparently.  Lot of good this chapter did.

CHAPTER 4

We’re still in the section going over sacrifices. 

You know, the Bible is a holy book for two religions – Christianity and Judaism.  The Christians, however, never engaged in ritual sacrifices.  The Jews gave it up after the destruction of the Second Temple by the Roman Empire. So all these chapters, despite being in one of those ever so crucial books of the Torah – have had no application to anyone since nearly the time of Christ. 

Actually, this chapter has one nice wrinkle – it gets involved in the morals of it all.  This is what you should do in case you accidentally commit an affront to the Lord.  Ah, so intent still matters.  That’s a nice foundation for justice.  What also matters is who does it, as the priests, community, tribal leader, and average person all have their own ways to make amends.  The higher ranking the person, the bigger the amends.  A priest or the community as a whole has to sacrifice an entire bull.  For a tribal leader, a goat will do.  For average guy, a she-goat or female lamb.  This is all in case of accidental goof up.  If you intentionally affront the Lord, you should be cut off from the people.

CHAPTER 5

More penalties for accidental crimes.  This is for not giving info under oath, touching something unclean inadvertently, and various others.  You give a sacrifice.  There is an effort made to make it affordable to all.  It should be an animal of the flock, or some birds or at worst some bran floor.  The Bible recognizes economic differences and doesn’t try to treat them all the same. 

One theme here throughout is the bloodiness of the rituals.  You get birds having their necks wrung and the blood sprinkled – and we’ve seen this in nearly every chapter so far.  It’s just how ancient Hebrew rolled.  Earlier I made a joke about how a priest could make a side gig as a butcher, but that isn’t really a joke.  They should end up knowing animal anatomy pretty well. 

The end of the chapter covers intentional errors.  They have to give the same sacrifice (surprising) but also have to make nice with whomever they did wrong to.

Here’s one thing note over all of this – the way you repay your mistakes to the Lord is entirely via action.  There is nothing about asking for forgiveness or mercy or anything like this.  So far, Leviticus is all about good works over faith. 

CHAPTER 6

This is just instructions to priests.  Nothing else.  They have to keep the ceremonial fire going, and handle the offerings. They get whatever leftover grain offerings there are for themselves. 

At least it’s a short chapter.

CHAPTER 7

This is, mercifully, the last chapter on offerings.  It’s mostly the same old same old, but unlikely as it sounds, one fairly important and famous part trips out toward the end.  A dietary law is noted, and I do believe it’s the first time we’ve seen this one.  The Israelites are flatly forbidden by eating any blood.  Anyone who does so shall be cut off from the people.  It’s the birth of kosher meats.  

Click here for the next chunk of Leviticus.

Leviticus Main Page

Chapters 1 to 7
Chapters 8 to 12
Chapters 13 to 17
Chapters 18 to 22
Chapters 23 to 27