Latest / Scripture Central / Deuteronomy I How the Law of Moses Protected Women I Handmaidens, Harems and Heroines I Lynne Wilson

Transcript

Deuteronomy I How the Law of Moses Protected Women I Handmaidens, Harems and Heroines I Lynne Wilson · Scripture Central

• 0:00
  There is a theological difference in much of
• 0:03
  Deuteronomy than there was in the other books of Moses.
• 0:08
  The Deuteronomist eliminate the key aspects of the First Temple.
• 0:12
  They edit the history to align with their own new theology.
• 0:16
  Exodus says if you're going to sell your daughter into slavery
• 0:19
  and the master wants to marry her, then she doesn't get to go
• 0:22
  free in six years. You take your ear to the
• 0:24
  doorpost and your master will bore a hole.
• 0:28
  And if you have a gold hoop in your ear, that means you're a
• 0:33
  servant for life. When materialism is someone's
• 0:37
  focus, and one marries someone who loves the things of this
• 0:41
  world more than the things of God, they take the hearts of
• 0:44
  their family. These Israelites, as they are
• 0:47
  preparing to enter into the Promised Land, are promised
• 0:50
  something amazing, and the Lord promises these Israelites that
• 0:54
  if they keep his commandments, no man or woman among them would
• 0:59
  be. Hello.
• 1:04
  Welcome back to Scripture Central.
• 1:06
  I'm Lynn Hilton Wilson, part of the team who wants to build
• 1:10
  enduring faith in Jesus Christ by illuminating and defending
• 1:14
  our Scriptures. And in the Old Testament, as we
• 1:18
  look at the women, I want to focus on these handmaidens and
• 1:22
  heroines and harems. And in Deuteronomy, we don't
• 1:26
  have any named women. We've got some Hebrew slaves.
• 1:29
  We've got daughters of other nations.
• 1:30
  We've got barren females and fertile females.
• 1:33
  We've got women in the covenants.
• 1:36
  And I also want to start out with just a little brief
• 1:39
  overview of the book of Deuteronomy for just a minute.
• 1:42
  You know, is Deuteronomy the way Moses wrote it or later editor?
• 1:45
  You know, this is very interesting because we always
• 1:48
  call the first five books of Moses Genesis, Exodus,
• 1:52
  Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, the Torah.
• 1:54
  This is the Pentatuch, as if Moses had them all compiled
• 1:59
  together. But there is a theological
• 2:02
  difference in much of Deuteronomy than there was in
• 2:07
  the other books of Moses. And a lot of scholars, Margaret
• 2:11
  Barker and many others have described a group called the
• 2:16
  Deuteronomist who are suppressing the temple theology
• 2:21
  and building up the theology that it is the law that will
• 2:26
  save us. Now, part of this grew when the
• 2:29
  first temple is destroyed at the time of Solomon, But before
• 2:32
  that, it began growing. Most people see the changes when
• 2:36
  Josiah's reforms come about. Now, poor Josiah is just, you
• 2:40
  know, 8 years old when he's put on the throne.
• 2:42
  He's the one not making these reforms.
• 2:44
  It's there, his priest making the reforms.
• 2:47
  And you remember, they go into the temple.
• 2:48
  We'll talk about this later when we get to that part of the Old
• 2:51
  Testament. But they they pull out a book
• 2:53
  and they read it and they say, oh, we need to change.
• 2:57
  And they have a wonderful Passover.
• 2:58
  They're doing a lot of things right.
• 3:00
  But there is a theological shift that suppressed the temple
• 3:05
  theology. No longer.
• 3:07
  The Deuteronomist eliminate the key aspects of the First Temple,
• 3:11
  including the understanding that the high priest is an anointed
• 3:16
  holy divine figure. They edit the history to align
• 3:20
  with their own new theology. Now it you may be saying, oh, if
• 3:26
  it's not in the Joe Smith translation, then you're wrong.
• 3:30
  I do believe that Joseph wanted the translation published.
• 3:33
  In fact, he asked for it three times.
• 3:35
  I do believe though also that the majority of the theological
• 3:39
  changes were made in the first few months of his translating
• 3:42
  Genesis One through 24. And then of course he goes to
• 3:45
  the New Testament and then comes back to the Old Testament and
• 3:48
  very few changes are made in the rest of the Old Testament.
• 3:51
  That does not mean that it is in its current state is without
• 3:55
  severe editing. I thought to myself, well, I
• 3:59
  want to look at every Deuteronomy statement then in
• 4:01
  the Book of Mormon to see if they were on the brass plates.
• 4:04
  But Lehigh is at the time of Josiah's reform, so that was a
• 4:07
  little bit delicate too. And I did find a lot of things
• 4:11
  in the Book of Mormon from the Book of Deuteronomy, but no long
• 4:15
  quotes. Everything was short little
• 4:18
  statements. That was interesting.
• 4:20
  I found a great article in BYU Studies by Eric Eliason on
• 4:23
  these, Deuteronomous as well, that's available online for
• 4:27
  free. You know, they're not just mere
• 4:29
  reformers. They were actually a puritanical
• 4:32
  party and they're systematically suppressed and corrupted.
• 4:37
  The origins of the First Temple religion of Israel is, is his
• 4:41
  thesis here. And from that perspective,
• 4:43
  Josiah's reformers were a massive, deliberate, destructive
• 4:49
  revision of the Mosaic tradition.
• 4:51
  It's actually a different religion.
• 4:53
  Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers focus on the temple ritual.
• 4:57
  You know, they have this vision of a redemptive God, which the
• 5:01
  Deuteronomists have replaced with a strict obedience to the
• 5:04
  laws. And then of course, they
• 5:05
  numerate the laws. They count the laws, they add to
• 5:07
  the laws. Deuteronomy also, I believe, is
• 5:10
  rewritten history. When I've gone through it, you
• 5:12
  can see these theological differences.
• 5:15
  And I don't think if Moses is the only author and we would
• 5:18
  find those, the Deuteronomists actually are accused of
• 5:21
  rewriting the history from Joshua all the way to 2nd Kings
• 5:24
  as well. I don't know about that.
• 5:26
  The Book of Mormon is my litmus test here.
• 5:30
  And there are 52 short passages or else illusions or echoes,
• 5:34
  something from Deuteronomy, but no long citations like we have
• 5:39
  it now, which we do find with the other books, especially of
• 5:43
  course Isaiah. But we do find longer passages
• 5:47
  of of the other books of the Torah.
• 5:49
  And as we look at the female slaves, these handmaidens, the
• 5:53
  book of Exodus had described the ability for a man to sell his
• 6:00
  wife or children or himself into slavery for a six year period.
• 6:05
  But Exodus says if you're going to sell your daughter into
• 6:08
  slavery and the master wants to marry her or add her into his
• 6:11
  harem, then she doesn't get to go free in six years.
• 6:15
  She's got to stay and serve him and raise up their children.
• 6:18
  Now in Hebrew, we've got at least 5 words that are used in
• 6:21
  the Old Testament for slave or servitude that I've mentioned
• 6:24
  before. It's a little bit different.
• 6:25
  It's more like an indentured servant.
• 6:27
  You know, 1 is just the common word.
• 6:29
  We use it a lot. Then they have one just for
• 6:32
  female slaves, one just for young men who are slaves,
• 6:35
  Another one they use for a hired servant, someone who's a paid
• 6:39
  employee, actually sort of like a day laborer, and another one
• 6:42
  is a volunteer servant. So it's important as we're
• 6:46
  talking about these things to differentiate between what is
• 6:49
  the Hebrew word, because all of these are translated as either
• 6:52
  servant or slave. And sometimes they're, they're
• 6:55
  not the same. I, I studied for extensively
• 6:58
  with there's an encyclopedia on ancient slavery and the words
• 7:03
  really do make a difference as we read here in Deuteronomy.
• 7:07
  The law of Moses is a little bit different here.
• 7:09
  I'm going to read from the NIV chapter 15, verse 12.
• 7:13
  If any of your people, Hebrew men or women, sell themselves to
• 7:18
  you and to serve you for six years, in the 7th year you must
• 7:22
  let them go free. Did you hear that?
• 7:25
  So the Exodus says the daughters do not go out at the end of six
• 7:29
  years if they've joined this man's family.
• 7:32
  But here in Deuteronomy it says the women can go out.
• 7:35
  Now I assume the law is not that different, that the women would
• 7:39
  not be going out if they had chosen to be married to a son of
• 7:44
  the master or the master himself.
• 7:47
  And if this slave girl or this servitude, this father sells her
• 7:51
  into servitude at age, you know, 8910111213 whatever she, she
• 7:56
  joins their family. The law of Moses also protected
• 8:00
  her in, in Exodus. Anyway, it says that the, the
• 8:03
  master has to treat her now as a daughter.
• 8:06
  She needs to have the rights of the first wife.
• 8:08
  That's Exodus 21, verse 10. But if he does not provide these
• 8:13
  things for her, if he doesn't give her clothing and food and
• 8:16
  marriage rights, then she is allowed to go free.
• 8:19
  You know, if she's not married to him or to her son, his sons,
• 8:22
  the master's son, sons, then she's allowed to go free.
• 8:25
  And I was thrilled to see that repeated that she's allowed to
• 8:29
  go free after six years. Now, there's at least four
• 8:32
  different kinds of slavery. There's a slavery where you're
• 8:35
  at in debt. There's also this indentured
• 8:38
  servitude. We read a lot about that in
• 8:40
  Deuteronomy 15. But then there's the war
• 8:43
  captives. Now that is a whole different
• 8:45
  category. If you're an indentured servant
• 8:48
  and you're having a hard time and you're on the verge of
• 8:51
  homelessness, you go move in with someone and you serve them
• 8:53
  and you work with them and and they help you out.
• 8:56
  But if you're a war captive, it's a little bit different.
• 9:00
  Now in other cultures, the war captives were very poorly
• 9:03
  treated, but the Law of Moses included protection for these
• 9:08
  slaves and Deuteronomy 2110 through 14 talks about
• 9:13
  protecting them as well as Exodus 20 and Exodus 14.
• 9:17
  Leviticus 25 S the Lord repeated multiple times the need to
• 9:22
  protect even your slaves. When is time at the end of the
• 9:25
  six years and they're allowed to go.
• 9:28
  Deuteronomy 12 verses 13 to 15 give certain commandments to to
• 9:33
  care for these people after they've been serving you.
• 9:35
  I'm going to read from the NIV. When you release them, do not
• 9:40
  send them away empty handed. Supply them liberally with your
• 9:44
  flock, your threshing floor, your wine press.
• 9:47
  Give to them as the Lord God has blessed you.
• 9:50
  Remember you were slaves in Egypt and the Lord God redeemed
• 9:55
  you. What a beautiful image.
• 9:57
  You know, we don't live in an Eric time when there's a lot of
• 9:59
  servitude or slavery, but at least in my culture, I'm sure in
• 10:05
  some it still exists. And I'm sorry, but this ability
• 10:10
  to be generous and encourage them to leave with plenty so
• 10:14
  that they can have something to start on their own is very
• 10:17
  exciting. And to me, this is all part of
• 10:19
  the law of consecration. Let's share and share alike, and
• 10:23
  we can all work together for the benefit of building the Kingdom
• 10:26
  of God. However, Deuteronomy 15 says if
• 10:30
  you don't want to leave, if your life is happier where you are,
• 10:34
  if you're enjoying living with your master's family and part of
• 10:37
  his household as a teacher or something that you're enjoying
• 10:40
  doing, you are allowed to stay a servant for life.
• 10:45
  But you have to agree. You have the choice.
• 10:48
  If you choose to stay your you take your ear to the doorpost
• 10:52
  and your master will bore a hole.
• 10:55
  And if you have a gold hoop in your ear, that means you're a
• 11:00
  servant for life. And whether or not you were a
• 11:03
  young girl and you chose to stay married or chose to stay in the
• 11:07
  concubine, or if you were a man and chose to stay with your
• 11:11
  master, that you enjoyed being in their home, their household,
• 11:15
  part of their team. You had this choice also of
• 11:19
  staying with them if they wanted you to stay.
• 11:21
  As we move on to Deuteronomy chapter 3, the Israelites are
• 11:26
  preparing to leave their 40 years in the wilderness and
• 11:29
  enter into the Promised Land. However, three of the tribes
• 11:33
  remember, or actually 2 1/2 of the tribes are on the east side
• 11:37
  of the Jordan River. So Gad and Reuben and half of
• 11:41
  Manasseh are over there. And interestingly, the
• 11:45
  Israelites before they left, Moses reminded them, your
• 11:50
  father's, your eight men of fighting age are going to have
• 11:54
  to go over and help conquer the land of Cana.
• 11:58
  But the women and children, you can already start setting up
• 12:00
  home. You can already start a stabbing
• 12:02
  yourself. So these communities on the east
• 12:05
  side of the Jordan, these beautiful areas of where Ruben
• 12:09
  and Gad and half of Manasseh are living, were filled with women
• 12:12
  and children and then older generation men.
• 12:17
  And I get the feeling that they became extremely tight
• 12:21
  communities because they had to do all the work together and
• 12:26
  they were able to only have their male patriarch figures who
• 12:30
  were a fighting age come back periodically when they weren't
• 12:33
  needed in battles. And for the first few years that
• 12:36
  was very often and there's certain seasons of the year that
• 12:39
  are not not used. But as they are preparing to go
• 12:43
  in, the Lord also commanded them to be careful not to marry of
• 12:48
  those that don't share your same religious values.
• 12:52
  Someone that's going to uplift you, someone that's going to
• 12:54
  strengthen you. He calls them the daughters of
• 12:57
  the nations of the land. Chapter 7 of Deuteronomy, verses
• 13:01
  one through 5 reads when the Lord your God brings you into
• 13:04
  the land that you are entering in to take possession of it, and
• 13:08
  then skipping ahead a little bit, you shall make no covenants
• 13:12
  with them, shall no mercy them. You shall not intermarry with
• 13:16
  them, giving your daughters or sons and taking their daughters.
• 13:20
  They would turn you away from following me to serve other
• 13:26
  gods. And we see that now.
• 13:28
  It's absolutely tragic when materialism is someone's focus
• 13:34
  and one marries someone who loves the things of this world
• 13:37
  more than the things of God. They take the hearts of their
• 13:40
  family with them. This message is not just
• 13:43
  appropriate for Deuteronomy, but for now, as our families are so
• 13:48
  important that we focus the husband, the wife, the child,
• 13:52
  the grandparents, that we maintain our devotion and our
• 13:56
  loyalty to God. So God commanded these Israelite
• 13:59
  daughters not to intermarry, and it has nothing to do with
• 14:03
  ethnicity. You know, He's only worried
• 14:06
  about them turning their hearts away in idol worship.
• 14:09
  And our idol worship now is in the shape of an iPhone or the
• 14:12
  shape of a of a, of a computer game or the shape of wasted
• 14:17
  time. It's it, it, we are in a world
• 14:19
  that where idolatry is rampant, but we don't refer to it that
• 14:23
  way. But these Israelites, as they
• 14:26
  are preparing to enter into the promised land, are promised
• 14:29
  something amazing, especially to a culture where you have so many
• 14:34
  of these people who have died in the last 40 years, You know,
• 14:38
  hundreds of thousands of people reproducing and having more
• 14:42
  children would be very important to them.
• 14:45
  And the Lord promises these Israelites that if they keep his
• 14:48
  commandments, no man or woman among them would be barren.
• 14:54
  This blessing stood in sharp contrast to those surrounding
• 14:57
  nations where infertility was so common.
• 15:00
  Now, nowadays, I don't want any man or woman who's infertile to
• 15:05
  think that it's because they're being wicked.
• 15:07
  This was a promise to those people at that time.
• 15:10
  And actually it was quite surprising because as you look
• 15:13
  at Abraham and Sarah, you know they're fertile.
• 15:15
  They're infertile for a long time, about 75 years at least.
• 15:20
  They are infertile of marriage. Isaac and Rebecca were infertile
• 15:23
  for 20 years. Jacob and Rachel were infertile
• 15:26
  and they obeyed God's commandments.
• 15:28
  So this infertility thing has plagued not just our patriarchs,
• 15:33
  but many, many people. Now, it has nothing to do with
• 15:36
  righteousness, but this was a blessing that God gave them
• 15:39
  after killing so many of the older generation that they would
• 15:43
  be fertile for these few years. I don't know how God chooses
• 15:48
  fertility, but I know all of this can learn nurturing and
• 15:53
  giving and loving things in all environments.
• 15:56
  Deuteronomy 9 continues on in the NIV.
• 15:59
  It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity
• 16:02
  that you are going to take possession of their land, but on
• 16:06
  account of the wickedness of these nations, the Lord God will
• 16:10
  drive them out before you to accomplish what He sword.
• 16:13
  This is great. This is the same covenant that
• 16:16
  He's giving to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as well.
• 16:18
  You will have property, this land.
• 16:20
  Now, Abraham was righteous. I'm sure he made mistakes just
• 16:24
  like his descendants did as well.
• 16:26
  But I really appreciate that the Torah here in Deuteronomy is
• 16:31
  clear to say you're not getting this because of your
• 16:33
  righteousness. He says it because many of these
• 16:36
  human nations, and I'm now moving on to Deuteronomy 12 and
• 16:39
  Deuteronomy 18, many of these nations that were living in
• 16:44
  Canaan were practicing child sacrifice.
• 16:47
  It was a religious ceremony and it's in Deuteronomy 18.
• 16:51
  He even connects it with witchcraft and divination.
• 16:54
  Now these are detestable and he specifically mentions these
• 16:59
  daughters as well as the sons who are being sacrificed to
• 17:03
  these false gods in Pagan rituals.
• 17:06
  And that is one of the major reasons why these people were
• 17:09
  kicked off the land. And we live in an era where
• 17:12
  children are not as welcome in homes, especially children with
• 17:18
  handicaps are not even being born because of some of their
• 17:21
  handicaps. The widows are also mentioned in
• 17:24
  Deuteronomy 14. So when the Lord commands Israel
• 17:29
  to share their tithes and offerings, this is verse 29.
• 17:33
  He's doing it to ensure that these women have access to food
• 17:38
  and support. You know, it's it's an enormous
• 17:41
  group of widows right now, especially with the women on
• 17:44
  that east side of the Jordan River.
• 17:46
  You know, they don't have anyone with them and they're some of
• 17:48
  their men are killed. But these foreigners and orphans
• 17:51
  need to be adopted. All people in the land without
• 17:54
  inheritance is who's in this group with the widows.
• 17:59
  God wants to take care of all of them.
• 18:02
  These widows faced absolute economic devastation in ancient
• 18:06
  Israel because there weren't very many ways for women to earn
• 18:09
  a living. But God protects them and now
• 18:13
  girls or women, security typically depended on their
• 18:16
  father or their husband. But the phrase in Deuteronomy
• 18:20
  14, verse 29 says they shall eat and be satisfied.
• 18:25
  You know it. It just reveals God's concern
• 18:27
  for these widows. It's not learning to survive,
• 18:30
  but to have plenty and to have dignity, which I appreciate.
• 18:35
  Moving forward now to Deuteronomy 29, the NIV reads
• 18:39
  carefully. Follow the terms of this
• 18:42
  covenant so that you may prosper in everything you do.
• 18:47
  All of you are standing today in the presence of the Lord your
• 18:52
  God, together with your children and your wives.
• 18:56
  You are standing here in order to enter into a covenant with
• 18:59
  the Lord your God, a covenant with the Lord making with you
• 19:04
  this day and ceiling with an oath.
• 19:08
  And those are the people who are worthy to come into the promised
• 19:11
  land. And in verse 18, continuing in
• 19:15
  the NIV, it reads, make sure that there is no man or woman,
• 19:19
  clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the
• 19:24
  Lord, our God, the Lord. And Moses is begging them to
• 19:30
  hold to their covenants. The end of Deuteronomy includes
• 19:34
  another repetition of the love right marriage laws that if
• 19:38
  there's a widow there, we can take her into our families.
• 19:41
  Do you remember back in Genesis 38 when Tamar encourages her
• 19:46
  father-in-law illicitly, it sounds like.
• 19:48
  But really it's all part of this love right marriage.
• 19:51
  Just refresh your memory of the love right marriage.
• 19:54
  If someone marries into a family and her spouse dies, she can
• 19:59
  raise up seed to her spouse through one of his brothers.
• 20:04
  Now it sounds a little revolting to us sometimes, but remember
• 20:08
  this is a generation that has got to reproduce to survive, and
• 20:14
  the Lord is trying to raise up seed and so He gives this law of
• 20:18
  protection. Under this family, it was still
• 20:22
  in practice at the time of our Savior Jesus Christ in the New
• 20:25
  Testament, Deuteronomy 24 verse 9 also hearkens back and
• 20:31
  remembers Miriam. Now she's been passed away by
• 20:34
  now the promises that are given and the warnings that are given
• 20:38
  is remember that the Lord your God did to marry him along the
• 20:42
  way after you came out of Egypt. You know the Lord is going to
• 20:45
  hold all of you accountable if you have made this covenant or
• 20:49
  else you will be punished. The book receive a stronger
• 20:52
  testimony of Jesus Christ and as we go through our journey, our
• 20:56
  exoduses, our periods of wilderness, I hope that you,
• 21:01
  like the children of Israel, can follow Jesus, Yeshua, Joshua
• 21:10
  into the promised land. And I believe he stands there as
• 21:14
  the way, the truth and the light.
• 21:17
  He stands there as our Redeemer, our Savior.
• 21:21
  He stands there as the Good Shepherd, as our mediator with
• 21:24
  the Father. I'm so grateful for his great
• 21:28
  plan of salvation, of redemption in the name of Jesus Christ,
• 21:32
  Amen.