Day 17, Deuteronomy 20-31

Today's reading was so golden that I'm not even sure how I'm going to get through it all without leaving out a few gems. Here I was, expecting pages upon pages of boring law about how to sacrifice goats, and instead I find some of the raunchiest material that the bible has had to offer so far! It's still law, sure, but law filled with sex, violence, and even the grand fusion of the two, sexual violence. Let's jump right in.

Chapter 20 provides instructions for how to conduct battle with both neighboring and distant cities. Certain men are exempt from the army: newlyweds, people who have recently planted vineyards (because wine is important), people who have just built a new house, and people who are afraid to fight. Before attacking a city the Israelites are supposed to make a peace offering, the terms of which are that "the town [will open] its gates to [the Israelites], then all the people who live there are to be put to forced labor and work" (Deut 20:11). Wow! What a swell peace offering! Of course, the alternative is not much better. If the city is distant, the army is to kill every man and take the women and livestock for themselves; if the city is nearby, the Israelites "must not leave a soul alive" (Deut 20:16). That's pretty brutal!

Chapters 21 through 25 comprise mostly civil and domestic laws in no particular logical arrangement. There's a lot of material here, so I will leave out a few of the more boring laws, drawing attention only to my favorites.

To begin, we have some stellar discourse on taking a prisoner of war as a wife: "When you go to battle against your enemies and the Lord your God delivers them into your hands and you take some of them captive, then if you see a comely woman among the prisoners and are attracted to her, you my take her as your wife" (Deut 21:11). Gotta love the phrasing of this... "Comely", what a great word! The law goes on to explain that this woman must stay in her prospective husband's house for a month, shave her head, pare her nails, and mourn her dead parents. After that the man is free to take her as a wife, but if he changes his mind (maybe he realized that she wasn't as cute bald as she was with hair) he must set her free. That's kooky!

Another law explains that if a man has two sons, the elder from his unloved wife and the younger from his loved wife, he must still respect the rights of the oldest and give him the greater share of the property. Someone should have told this to Jacob!

After this, we are advised on how to deal with unruly children: "When a man has a son who is rebellious and out of control, who does not obey his father and mother, or take heed when they punish him, then his father and mother are to lay hold of him and bring him out to the elders of the town gate, and say, 'This son of ours is rebellious and out of control; he will not obey us, he is a wastrel and a drunkard.' Then all the men of the town must stone him to death" (Deut 21:20-21). Man, do I ever love the cute little dialogues that Moses puts in his discourses. I was thinking, for a guy who described himself as a bad public speaker back in Exodus, he has really taken this role in stride. He is an inspiration to all of us with lisps.

That being said, what a brutal law this is! I guess the whole idea of loving the prodigal son in spite of his transgressions was an innovation of Jesus's time. Back in the early days, people were more into stoning the prodigal son to death.

Chapter 22 opens with a rather nice few lines about how if your neighbor loses his goat or cloak or Nintendo, you are supposed to return it. How pleasant! Then it goes on to denounce crossdressers, saying "no woman may wear an article of man's clothing, nor may a man put on a woman's dress" (Deut 22:5). Sorry Boy George. That's tough.

This chapter also contains some really random laws which, according to the footnotes, do not have a known origin. These include not sowing two kinds of seed between vine rows, plowing a field with a donkey and ox yoked together, and wearing clothes woven with two kinds of yarn. Well, okay. Whatever you say, God.

Next we get to some good raunchy stuff. If a woman gets married and her husband "turns against her and brings trumped-up charges against her, giving her a bad name and saying, 'I took this woman and slept with her and did not find proof of virginity in her,' then the girl's father and mother should take the proof of her virginity to the elders of the town at the town gate" (Deut 22:14-15). According to the footnotes, the "proof of virginity" is the bloodstained sheet. Ew! Goddamnit, this is so intrusive and inappropriate!

Incidentally, if proof of virginity can be found, the man must pay a fine and is forbidden to divorce his wife (great, because I'm sure she really wants to stay married to him at this point). If it cannot be found, the girl must be stoned to death!

On a related note, when a man sleeps with a married woman, both are to be put to death. More remarkably, when a woman is raped in the city, she and her assaulter are to be stoned to death. However, if a woman is raped in the countryside, only the attacker is to be stoned to death. The logic of this is that in the city, a woman can cry for help, whereas in the country help is less accessible. What perfect logic!

This section ends with a brief reminder not to have sex with your mom, however much your Freudian psyche wants it. Good to know.

Chapter 23 is mostly about congregation membership and hygiene. For instance, "no man whose testicles have been crushed or whose organ has been cut off may become a member of the assembly of the Lord" (Deut 23:1). Quite frankly, if my "organ" had been cut off I would have a lot bigger concerns than joining the assembly of the Lord.

This chapter also contains a rather lengthy description of how to properly poop in the woods, but neglects to mention the importance of not wiping with poison ivy!

Moses warns the people not to let Ammonites or Moabites into the Assembly of God, but he tells them that Edomites are okay -- even though the Edomites were total jerks to the Jews when they were wandering through the desert -- and also Egyptians! "Do not regard...an Egyptian [as an abomination], for you were aliens in his land" (23:7). What? I'm sorry, what? Egyptians are okay for the Jews to be pals with because they enslaved them? What?

There are also provisions for escaped slaves: "You must not surrender to his master a slave who has taken refuge with you" (Deut 23:15). Apparently this sort of custom was rare in Near Eastern cultures, and although the biblical story of Ham was used to justify slavery in Antebellum America -- even though it never actually mentions slaves -- no one ever took this law into account! Poor Jim. Poor Uncle Tom. Should have lived in biblical Palestine.

We are also informed that "no Israelite woman may become a temple prostitute, nor may an Israelite man" (Deut 23:17).

As you can see, this chapter is full of good stuff. Here's one final law that I enjoyed: "When you go into another man's vineyard, you may eat as many grapes as you wish to satisfy your hunger, but you many not put any into your basket" (Deut 23:24). This is totally the logic I use when I steal food from my landlady! Thanks for the support, Moses!

Chapter 24 lays out criteria for divorce and lending money, as well as the penalty for kidnapping (being stoned to death, comme d'habitude). There are quite a few provisions in here that protect the poor, such as the requirement that you leave behind leftover food in your field for the hungry to collect, which is nice. Chapter 25 returns to the realm of the scandalous, explaining the "levirate" marriage (the duty of the brother-in-law to procreate with his brother's widow if she is childless after her husband's death). Apparently, if the man does not comply with this tradition, the widow must "go up to him in the presence of the elders, pull his sandal off his foot, spit in his face, and declare: 'Thus we requite the man who will not build up his brother's family.' His family will be known in Israel as the house of the unsandalled man" (Deut 25:9-19).

Also of note: if a woman intervenes in a fight between two men and inadvertently "catches hold of the man by his genitals" (Deut 25:11), her hand must be cut off! Jesus Christ!

Chapter 26, the last chapter of laws, consists of boring stuff about offering fruit and "tithes" to God. Then in chapter 27, Moses begins his final discourse by dividing the tribes into groups of six and assigning the two groups to different mountains. The first six are to recite a list of blessings, while the second group recites a list of curses. As per usual, we start with the blessings and hear about all the nice things that will happen to the Israelites if they obey the covenant. Then, just when we're starting to feel like this God guy is pretty cool, we shift over to the curses and are reminded that he is, in fact, A SCARY MOTHERFUCKER!!!! We are told that the disobedient Israelites, reduced to dire straits, will "eat [their] own children, the flesh of [the] sons and daughters whom the Lord... has given [them]" (Deut 28:53). This is further emphasized with the description of a "delicately bred and sensitive woman...[who] will not share with her own husband or her son or her daughter the afterbirth which she expels, or any boy or girl that she may bear. During the siege she herself will eat them secretly in her extreme want" (Deut 28:56-57). Holy shit! This is disgusting! I'll definitely follow all your weird rules if this is the consequence, God!

In chapters 29 and 30 Moses wraps up this part of the sermon by urging the Israelites to be well-behaved, reminding them that they have a choice between the blessing and the curse and that if they choose the former "God will circumcise [their] hearts and the hearts of [their] descendants, so that [they] will love him with all [their] heart and soul and [they] will live" (Deut 30:6). Circumcise their hearts? What a metaphor! In chapter 31 Moses announces to the people that he will not be able to continue with them to the promised land; he is one hundred and twenty years old, and God has decided that his time has come to die. He takes aside Joshua, his successor, and tells him, in essence, to be tough, because the Israelites are a real piece of work. The Lennon and McCartney of biblical times, he and Joshua proceed to pen a little song that the Jews can sing, to remind them of their promise. He also provides Joshua with a written list of all the laws, for future reference.

Quite unfortunately, today's reading does not contain the lyrics of the song; we must wait until tomorrow for that. Tomorrow will also take us to the end of Deuteronomy, and likewise we can expect that Moses will die. This is a bummer! Although Moses was not the perfect leader, we have been following his activity for three whole books and I profess I will miss him a little. Compared to Genesis, where the most exposure we got to a character was ten chapters, we have really gotten to know him. I will be sad to see him go.

On the other hand, this should not obscure anyone's joy at the progress we are making! Tomorrow we will finish with the Torah, that is pretty darn cool.