Numbers 30
In most things under law a woman has the same rights and duties as a man, and this chapter just does not ring right to me.
If I make a promise to God it is fully and legally binding according to this chapter and if I fail to fulfil this it is on my head.
If a legally responsible woman (such as a widow of divorcee) makes a vow it is legally binding too.
However, and this is the tricky bit if a daughter living at home makes a vow or a wife living with her husband makes a vow, her husband or father can say that he does not approve and agree and the vow is then not binding. However he has to object immediately - if he takes time to think then the lack of immediate response is taken that he accepts and the vow is binding, should he change his mind later, he will bear the responsibility of upsetting God by preventing his wife or daughter fulfilling her vow.
Part of me says - that is patronising and making women second class citizens, but then another part of me thinks nice one ladies, you can promise God things and if dad or husband objects it is not your problem or your fault.
I wonder if this law takes effect in the wedding service? For example could the husband say that he does not agree to his wife promising to obey him?
Numbers 31
This chapter makes really uncomfortable reading - God calls on Moses to take vengeance on the Midianites, who have been responsible for tricking Israel into abandoning God.
This act of what would be called Genocide today took place and 12,000 Israelites including their kings.
Balaam has apparently not departed far enough - having blessed Israel when Balak had paid him to curse them, he is killed in the action, which is a shame I would have liked him to disappear into the mists of history proclaiming disasters. But there you go.
Moses hits the roof when he finds that the army only killed the men basically saying that it was the women who drew Israel aside from God's laws.
Moses insists that the boys and married women are to be executed and the young girls can be kept.
To me this is pretty gruesome, and in these days it is very barbaric, but certainly Rome and barbarian hordes did similar things and worse, there are some gruesome reminders of this - there is a fort in Israel today called Masada where the Jewish defenders eventually killed themselves rather than surrender to the Romans.
Closer to home, in the city of York in 1190 400 Jews chose suicide in Cliffords tower rather than a mob of anti-semitic locals.
After this - the soldiers are deemed unclean and any plunder that they took has to be ritually purified.
The plunder was split 50:50 between the community of Israel and the fighting men, with a portion for God of everything 1 in 500 from the army share and 1 in 50 from the civilian share.
I'm not going to describe the plunder, you can read about it for yourself, but there is one more interesting thing, The officers having done a roll call found nobody had died and the officers donate their share of the gold to God as an atonement gift, the gold weighed the best part of 190 kg which is quite a bit.
I don't want to gloss over the brutality in this chapter - it is awful, but no worse than other civilisations before and after, and while I try and make excuses, I do find this very difficult from the vantage point of the 21st century
I don't think that the entire Midianite civilisation was destroyed - I seem to recall they turn up again later....We shall have to wait and see.
In most things under law a woman has the same rights and duties as a man, and this chapter just does not ring right to me.
If I make a promise to God it is fully and legally binding according to this chapter and if I fail to fulfil this it is on my head.
If a legally responsible woman (such as a widow of divorcee) makes a vow it is legally binding too.
However, and this is the tricky bit if a daughter living at home makes a vow or a wife living with her husband makes a vow, her husband or father can say that he does not approve and agree and the vow is then not binding. However he has to object immediately - if he takes time to think then the lack of immediate response is taken that he accepts and the vow is binding, should he change his mind later, he will bear the responsibility of upsetting God by preventing his wife or daughter fulfilling her vow.
Part of me says - that is patronising and making women second class citizens, but then another part of me thinks nice one ladies, you can promise God things and if dad or husband objects it is not your problem or your fault.
I wonder if this law takes effect in the wedding service? For example could the husband say that he does not agree to his wife promising to obey him?
Numbers 31
This chapter makes really uncomfortable reading - God calls on Moses to take vengeance on the Midianites, who have been responsible for tricking Israel into abandoning God.
This act of what would be called Genocide today took place and 12,000 Israelites including their kings.
Balaam has apparently not departed far enough - having blessed Israel when Balak had paid him to curse them, he is killed in the action, which is a shame I would have liked him to disappear into the mists of history proclaiming disasters. But there you go.
Moses hits the roof when he finds that the army only killed the men basically saying that it was the women who drew Israel aside from God's laws.
Moses insists that the boys and married women are to be executed and the young girls can be kept.
To me this is pretty gruesome, and in these days it is very barbaric, but certainly Rome and barbarian hordes did similar things and worse, there are some gruesome reminders of this - there is a fort in Israel today called Masada where the Jewish defenders eventually killed themselves rather than surrender to the Romans.
Closer to home, in the city of York in 1190 400 Jews chose suicide in Cliffords tower rather than a mob of anti-semitic locals.
After this - the soldiers are deemed unclean and any plunder that they took has to be ritually purified.
The plunder was split 50:50 between the community of Israel and the fighting men, with a portion for God of everything 1 in 500 from the army share and 1 in 50 from the civilian share.
I'm not going to describe the plunder, you can read about it for yourself, but there is one more interesting thing, The officers having done a roll call found nobody had died and the officers donate their share of the gold to God as an atonement gift, the gold weighed the best part of 190 kg which is quite a bit.
I don't want to gloss over the brutality in this chapter - it is awful, but no worse than other civilisations before and after, and while I try and make excuses, I do find this very difficult from the vantage point of the 21st century
I don't think that the entire Midianite civilisation was destroyed - I seem to recall they turn up again later....We shall have to wait and see.
No comments:
Post a Comment