Friday, November 02, 2012

Jewish Law and Government as viewed by a Protestant – Part 2– The Jewish Theocracy

As stated in the introduction to this series of posts, separation of church and state is a relatively new concept in the history of mankind. Early Anabaptists, especially the Mennonites believed in it, but the separation was based on a total abdication of any role in the state at all. Thus the first government to actively promote the idea was Rhode Island under William Rogers. All nations and states of antiquity had titular deities. While other deities could sometimes be added to the pantheon in polytheistic states, apostasy from the official religion of the state was always punished. In this post I want to look at the Mosaic theocracy in practice. 

This is necessary before we begin to look at some of the legislation in the Mosaic Law that is often seized upon by critics, most of which has been used for centuries. Frankly, one has to feel sorry for the poor old argument trotted out all lame, saddle-sore and hackneyed, thrust into the box to run in the derby of public opinion. The poor thing is so weak that it can scarcely support the weight of even the most mentally anorexic jockey, and yet there it is instead of being mercifully put out to pasture or even turned into dog food, getting its flanks whipped for all it is worth. Arguments such as if you believe the Old Testament why do you eat pork? Do you support the stoning of rebellious children? And many other similar arguments show a fundamental lack of understanding of how Christians view the Old Testament, and even how these laws were often applied even in the Old Testament itself. What is even worse many of these have been used before by men like Celsus (2nd century) and Faustus (4th century) so they are hardly original. The only reason these arguments continue to be used is that many Christians even in this day are ignorant of the Old Testament and its proper application. In this post and subsequent ones I hope to address some of the misconceptions and show the hermeneutic and rationale behind consistently Christian interpretations of the Old Testament. 
Three types of rulers in the Jewish Theocracy 
The Jewish theocracy had three types of rulers each with their own sphere of influence. 

The first were secular and would include the local elders of each village, the judges in the time of the judges, and also the kings and their officials in later times. These were the immediate rulers of each local area and attended on all civil and criminal cases within their jurisdiction. 

The second group was the Levitical priesthood, religious functions and duties were their domain, as seen in Deut. 17:8-13 they also played a vital role as appellate judges. As appellate judges their duty was not usually to confirm guilt or innocence, but instead to judge the case and determine sentencing. They would have almost by default been involved in most capital cases. They would determine whether a killing would be classified as self-defense, manslaughter or murder and would give sentence accordingly. It would appear that guilt or innocence would have already been determined in the lower court unless it was referred to the higher one specifically on the grounds of it being overly complex for that court to handle. It should be noted that the death penalty for disobedience to the priests only applied to their role as appellate judges and to their verdicts in these cases, not for disobedience to whatever they said in a personal capacity outside of the court. Eventually this appellate court would become the Sanhedrin and the wording of Deut. 17 does allow for either priests or judges in the court so the Sanhedrin would be within the framework of the original legislation. 

The third group was the prophets. While there were prophets who had positions in one of the other two groups, the prophetic office itself never had any power other than moral and advisory in the theocracy of Israel. Their authority was not founded in their being part of an office, but instead in having heard and proclaiming the Word of the Lord and in giving needed reproof, guidance and counsel. It is a mistake to equate prophecy with predicting the future. Yes, prophecy did include the prediction of the future, but prophets were not the Israelite equivalent of the pagan oracle. They were the national conscience of Israel, reminding them of their failures to obey God and calling them back to Him. The miracles and predictions were secondary to the main objective, though otherwise important. 

John the Baptist worked no miracles, and gave no notable predictions. His two prophecies were that Jesus was the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world, and that He would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Both were important prophecies and completed the focus of his message of repentance, but neither were visibly verifiable events, even though both were fulfilled. 

In 2 Chronicles 28:9-15 we learn of a prophet named Oded who told Israel of their evil in being unmerciful to their brethren in Judah who they had captured in war. Again there is no prophecy except a declaration of the anger of the Lord because of what they were doing. This resulted in the captives being returned to their homes. More could be written, but to keep it brief the main mission of the prophets was to reform the nation as it began to drift from God. The predictive element was often present to show the consequences of the current course pursued the blessings on reformation and most importantly future further and final reformation and renewal through the Messiah. 

There were of course many false prophets who in general told people whatever they hoped to hear. Their message was one of nationalism and prosperity with a total absence of the moral element. In the time of Jeremiah they promised deliverance to Jerusalem based on the temple of God being present in the city. Jeremiah rightly showed that God moves on behalf of those who are upright, not those who have a formal tie to Him through a building. 

These three classes gave the Israelite theocracy its distinctive character. The two religious classes while very prominent and important were given no direct secular authority; their power was legal and moral. This partly explains why in the period of the judges and even more so during the monarchy the religious obligations were often ignored – there was no direct method of coercion in the system if the local or national government was inimical to the received religion. In such a case the religion could only appeal to individual consciences. In actual fact the theocratic element of the state was always fairly weak. 

The entire book of Judges shows how quickly the people at large became pagan, and how a short lived reform would be enacted by the judges. These reforms appear to have been voluntary with individuals choosing again to follow the Lord. There is no record of a judge leading a force against recalcitrant Israelites in the name of God, the oppressors were mostly foreign. Gideon merely destroyed the altar to Baal in his city; he never killed any of the worshippers of Baal. In the case of Gibeah and Benjamin in Judges 19-21 the offense was not so much religious as moral. The town was in breach of every law and custom of the day, and Benjamin by refusing to deliver the perpetrators was aiding anarchy. 

By the time of the monarchy the religious side of the government was even weaker, judged by the religious standards of the prophets in the book of Kings and with a priestly view in Chronicles the kingdom of Judah had few good kings and the northern Kingdom of Israel had none. That said there was only one overthrow of government in each of these kingdoms that had any appearance of a religious revolt. The first of these would be the destruction of the prophets of Baal by Elijah, and a generation later the overthrow of the dynasty of Ahab and the reign of Jehu. To put these events in proper perspective a few facts should be remembered: 


  1. Ahab due to the influence of Jezebel had made Baal worship the official religion and had killed as many of the prophets of the Lord as possible. Thus when the fire fell from heaven it was those who had been the special agents of persecution on the discomfited side who were seized and killed. They would also likely have been foreigners. It would be hard for anyone to place blame upon a people if when they are being forced to submit to a foreign religion they rise up and destroy those who first applied force. When there is a manifest sign of the superiority of the native religion added in all I can say is if you can call down fire that will burn up water and rocks, then go ahead and complain. 
  2. Elijah never directly attacked Ahab’s rule or his government as such. He reproved Ahab for his establishing a foreign religion and pronounced severe judgment on him for his complicity in the murder of Naboth, but he never advocated a removal of Ahab. 
  3. Jehu was anointed to overthrow the dynasty of Ahab, kill Jezebel and destroy the worship of Baal; however it would be a grave mistake to interpret all of Jehu’s actions as sanctioned by God. He was a vehicle of God’s vengeance and fulfilled some prophecies, but it must be understood that prophecy is God telling what will happen, even in some cases where it is not something that pleases Him. God had told Ahab that his posterity would be all destroyed because of his murder of Naboth. God had also showed Elisha 2 Kings 8:8-15 that Hazael would kill Ben Hadad and become the next king of Syria and carry on some very barbarous wars against Israel. The prophecy was a sign of God’s knowledge of what He would allow to happen, but not of actions of which He approved. Hazael likely already had murderous designs when he saw his sick master lying there sending him on his mission, and Elisha’s words seem to show that in the ordinary course of events Ben Hadad would have lived, but Elisha knew that Hazael would intervene. In the same way a close look at Scripture shows Jehu as a man whom God used to break the foreign oppression of Jezebel, whose own father had come to the throne of Sidon through murder, but Jehu is in no way pointed to as a good example. He appears to have been a man who was happy to use God and the injustice towards Naboth as excuses to further his own agenda. His destruction of the whole family of Ahab and of the Baal worshippers were really more about securing his own rule from those with the best motives to oppose it than anything else. As soon as he had no rivals and no need for any justification for his actions, he promptly dropped any religious façade and did whatever he wanted. 
 The second change of government happened a short time later in Judah, and has really no need of apology at all. The only reason why Athaliah was even on the throne for a day after she had killed all her own grandsons that she could is because the only one that had survived was still a baby. He was rescued by his sister and her husband who was also a priest and hidden in the house of the Lord for several years. This revolution was a clear cut restoration of the rightful royal line in place of a murderous usurper, and while the order was given to kill those who followed her to fight on her side, there is no record of that happening and it seems like she had very little popular support. The reason why is fairly clear. 

It is also worth commenting here that not only Elijah not advocate removal of Ahab, but Samuel did not advocate an overthrow of Saul even though he declared God’s rejection of him. He trusted God to remove Saul and raise a successor in His own way and time. In the meantime he paid Saul the customary respect. These men knew nothing of the medieval idea of releasing the subjects of a recalcitrant king from their oaths of obedience or any other direct subversive measure. 

On the whole then the religious government of the Hebrews throughout its actual establishment had a very limited scope. 

In most cases even those crimes were stated as capital crimes were often punished with lesser punishment in practice. The prescribed punishment was apparently interpreted as being what was warranted by the offense though the option to show mercy in lessening the punishment was apparently considered allowable. As any lawyer will tell you, precedent in interpretation of the law is just as important as the actual wording of the law, and from the records we have most of the religious offenses that required capital punishment were more often dealt with by banishment. This may seem harsh in itself, but it should be noted that even in a western nation of today with freedom of religion it might be theoretically possible to declare allegiance to Baal, Chemosh, Ashtarte, etc. But to actually practice the worship of the these deities as it was practiced at that time with child sacrifice, sex slavery in temple prostitution, and its other rites would still be illegal, and bring about severe civil penalties. God Himself declared that He desires the repentance of the wicked far more than their death (Ezekiel 33:11-15). Even in the Old Testament there was placed by God a provision for mercy to those who gave sufficient evidence of remorse and desire to change their conduct. 

There is much more that could be written, and I hope to continue this series of posts by looking at some of the laws that most Christians would see as restraint of existing customs. Suffice it for this post to close by saying that having looked at the actual historical record of the kings and judges, it is the height of absurdity to compare the Jewish theocracy with either the medieval church or the modern Taliban. It never had that much power, and the prophets who could have pushed for political power such as Samuel, and Elijah never manifested a desire to retain a political hold. They realized their greatest impact was through their moral force of prayer and preaching not through physical coercion. It would be good for modern Christians to also remember this lesson.

2 comments:

Cameron said...


Very interesting Daniel.
In light of what you wrote about the main role of OT prophets, what do you feel the main role of NT prophets is?
And I thought your point near the end about how these religions would still be illegal even in our "liberal" Western nations was excellent.

Daniel Kropf said...

I hadn't exactly considered the role of NT prophets. I do think it would be similar though.

Yes there is prediction of future events, but a lot of prophecy was actually interpretation of events as they occurred. False prophets did not expose iniquity but gave all sorts of false reasons for Judah's troubles (Lam. 2:14).

I think true prophecy must have a strong link to the moral component and by neglecting it the charismatic movement has turned the office into "Christian" psychic reading too often.

The reformers viewed their work of reformation as a sort of prophetic work. That was how they countered the Catholic claim of lack of ordination. They claimed a direct authority from God to show His people their sins as the OT prophets had, some of them like George Wishart also showed some manifestation of the prophetic office.

I am not sure if I overstated my case. I do think proclamations of the future are important and good, but the moral framework must be paramount. Amos is a good example of this, He foretold what would happen and he gave the moral reasons why.