Tanak Foundations-Concepts in Deuteronomy-Chapter 25

Deut 25.1-19 gives us different laws concerning the excessive punishment of an offender; kindness to animals; Levirate marriage (marriage to a husband’s brother); shocking immodesty; incorruptible weights and measures; remembering Amalek. From Deut 21.10 to 25.4 there is a concept that stands out, but it is never mentioned. That concept is “kindness” and we have pointed to some of it. That is what Moses is trying to get across. The stubborn son command was never carried out in Israel, and Israel has said it wasn’t, because of kindness (Deut 21.18-21). The command about capital punishment is not out of place in Deut 21.22-23. Yeshua needed to come down from the tree that day (Deut 21.23) because of kindness. We have also dealt with kindness to our neighbor (22.1-4), kindness to animals (22.6-7). The Lord has given us a whole teaching about how to be kind to wives, children, criminals, one cursed, neighbors and animals. Why do people get divorced? Because one decides to quit being kind to the other. When children quit being kind, damage begins. They are punished to prevent future crimes. This is also a warning to parents. There is a deep responsibility in raising children. If not disciplined they can eventually fall into criminal behavior. When dealing with one cursed, no matter how evil he was, once dead we are to be kind to him and his remains. We are to be kind to our neighbor and help him. As far as kindness to animals, there is a common thread that is seen in many serial killers. They abused animals and if you can’t show kindness to small animals, you won’t show kindness to a human being. The command about the mother bird tells us we can’t have everything for ourselves. We send the mother away so she can lay eggs once again for someone else. Kindness is what the Torah has been telling us up to this point. We should train our eyes to see with a “good eye” (ein tov). MIc 6.8 says we should do justice and love kindness. Zech 7.9 says we should dispense true justice and practice and practice kindness. KIndness was the one common trait when the prophets preached repentance, and kindness is a fruit of the Spirit in Gal 5.22. Think on how to be kind as we move through the Scriptures. Deut 21.10 says, “When you go out” so when we go out, be kind to one another, and do unto others as we would have then do unto us.

v 1…”If there is a dispute between men and they go to court, and the judges (there must be at least three) decide their case, and they justify the righteous and condemn the wicked,

v 2…then it shall be if the wicked man deserves to be beaten (with a leather belt, etc), the judge shall then make him lie down (face to the floor) and be beaten in his presence with the number of stripes according to his guilt (eye for an eye).

v 3…He maay beat him forty times but no more (the fixed number was 39 to make sure they did not go over the 40), lest he beat him with more stripes than these, and your brother be degraded in your eyes (as if he was a beast and destroying his dignity).

v 4…You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing (kindness to animals but Paul applied this principle to people in 1 Cor 9.1-18).

v 5…When brothers live together (in the same house and one of them was unmarried; or at the same time) and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the deceased shall not be married outside of the family to a strange man. Her husband’s brother shall go into her and take her to himself as wife and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her (called a Levitate marriage).

v 6…And it shall be that the first-born whom she bears shall assume the name of his dead brother (as believers, we are to raise up “sons” in the name of our dead brother), that his name may not be blotted out from Israel.

v 7…But if the man does not desire to take his brother’s wife, then his brother’s wife shall go to the gate to the elders (the court met there) and say, ‘My husband’s brother refuses to establish a name for his brother in Israel; he is not willing to perform the duty of a husband’s brother to me.’

v 8…Then the elders of his city shall summon him and speak to him (advise him). And if he persists and says, ‘I do not desire to take her,’

v 9…then his brother’s wife shall come to him in the sight of the elders, and pull his sandal off (called “Nitzah” meaning he was giving up the right to some property or right-Ruth 4.7; this alludes to the one whose feet are not shod with the Basar and does not raise up sons in the name of Messiah-Eph 6.15) and spit in his face (before him on the ground), and she shall declare, ‘Thus it is done to the man who does not build up his brother’s house.’

v 10…And in Israel his name (family) shall be called, “The house of him whose sandal is removed.”

v11…If two men, a man and his countryman, are struggling together, and the wife of one comes near to deliver her husband from the hand of the one who is striking him, and puts out her hand and seizes his genitals,

v 12…then you shall cut off her hand, you shall not show pity (pay a monetary price for her immodesty; there is no case for mutilation in the Torah-Exo 21.24; Yeshua is thought to refer to this law in Matt 5.30).

v 13…You shall not have in your bag differing weights; a large and a small (to buy and sell with-Amos 8.5).

v 14…You shall not have in your house differing measures, and large and a small (see v 13).

v 15…You shall have a full and just weight; you shall have a full and just measure, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you (this promotes justice in trade and promotes the life of a nation-Prov 11.1).

v 16…For everyone who does these things, everyone who acts unjustly, is an abomination to the Lord your God.

v 17…Remember what Amalek did to you along the way when you came out of Egypt (Exo 17.15-16),

v 18…how he met you (as a predator) along the way and attacked among you all the stragglers at your rear when you were faint and weary, and how he did not fear God (he was devoid of pity).

v 19…Therefore it shall come about when your God has given you rest from all your surrounding nations (the seen nations), in the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance to possess, you shall blot out (totally destroy them and be devoid of pity) the memory of Amalek from under heaven; you must not forget (their evil and the command to destroy them).”

Posted in All Teachings, Articles, Idioms, Phrases and Concepts, Prophecy/Eschatology, The Festivals of the Lord, The Tanak, Tying into the New Testament

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