The Ninth Commandment

Slander

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Prerequisite/Law

Genre: Speech

Lesson: 16

Track: 105

Dictation Name: RR130BF105

Date: 1960s-70s

Leviticus 19:16, 17, our subject, “Slander.” Leviticus 19:16, 17,

“16 Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people: neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy neighbour: I am the Lord.

17 Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him.”

This passage is of particular importance because it is often used by those who deny that what Moses is giving us is literally, law. They see it merely as moral counsel. And so this text is commonly cited to state that this is an injunction (a moral injunction) against gossip, that it has nothing to do with the civil law. Now is this true?

The law here states, “Thou shalt not go up as a talebearer among thy people.” It can be translated also because the same word is so translated elsewhere, ‘thou shalt not go up as a slanderer among thy people.’ The word is literally, in Hebrew, ‘slander’ or ‘slanderer.’ Then it goes on to say, “Neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy neighbor; I am the Lord.” That second part of the verse has reference to those cases where, in a trial, false witness involves the life of a man. And the point here is that all false witness in any case does involve the life of a man.

Then, verse 17 is referred to by our Lord when He declares that it is the duty of be believers, when a fellow believer is involved in an offense, to go to him first and then take it to the court of the church, or the court of the law. Matthew 18:15-17 echo this, clearly citing it as a procedure which is a preliminary to law. If a person does not take the rebuke and make amends, restitution, then he is to be as a heathen and a publican to be given over to the processes of law. As a result, our scripture very clearly gives us not merely a moral injunction against false witness, but a law against slander.

It is interesting to see how it was regarded. It was treated as law. All through the history if Israel, these verses were on the statute books, the lawyers, the rabbis, the commentators, all treated them as law—law of the State, because the Law of God. Ginsberg’s comment is very interesting on these verses. “This dangerous habit which has ruined the character and destroyed the life of many an innocent person was denounced by the spiritual authorities at the time of Christ as the greatest sin. Three things they declared remove a man from this world and deprive him of happiness in the world to come:

         Idolatry

         Incest

         Murder

But slander surpasses them all. It kills three persons with one axe:

         The person who slanders

         The person who is slander

         The person who listens to the slander.

Hence, the ancient Chaldea version of Jonathan translates this clause, ‘thou shalt not follow the thrice-accursed tongue, for it is more fatal than the double-edged devouring sword.”

It is interesting to see how seriously in Old Testament times false witness was regarded by God-fearing Israelites. We have in the comments of Ben S{?}, perhaps the most interesting book in the Apocrypha and the superior book, simply, The Reflections of a God-Fearing Man on the Law. We have in Ben S{?} this statement, “Curse the whisperer and double-tongued. For such have destroyed many that were at peace. A backbiting tongue hath disquieted many and driven them from nation to nation. Strong cities have been pulled down and overthrown the house of great men. A backbiting tongue hath cast out virtuous women and deprived them of their labors. Whoso hearkeneth unto it shall never find rest and never dwell quietly. The stroke of the whip maketh marks in the flesh but the stroke of the tongue breaketh a bone. Many have fallen by the edge of the sword but not so many as have fallen by the tongue. Well is he that is defended from it and hath not passed through the venom thereof. Who hath not drawn the yoke thereof nor hath been bound in her band? For the yoke thereof is the yoke of iron and the bands thereof are as bands of brass. The death thereof is an evil death, the grave thereof were better than it. It shall not have rule over them that fear God. Neither shall he be burned with the flame thereof. Such as forsake the Lord shall fall unto it and it shall burn in them and not be quenched. It shall set upon them as a lion with thorns and devour them as a leopard. Look that thou hedge thy possessions about with thorns and bind up thy silver and gold and weigh thy words in a balance and make a door and {?} for thy mouth. Beware thou slide not into it, lest thou fall before him that lieth in wait.”

This is how the Hebrews regarded false witness. We can see why in their courts of law they treated it so severely. The Puritans, because they took the Old Testament seriously, did the same. And in the Puritan era, a gossip was hailed into court and severely punished. But since then, we have come to disregard it. In fact, a folk proverb common among children has it that sticks and stones may break my bones, but angry words can never hurt me; which is {?}, it isn’t true. Angry words, slanderous words, nasty words, they do hurt people. They always have. And so the folk proverb is nonsense.

Now let us look again at the passage, “thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer or a slanderer among thy people, neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy neighbor. I am the Lord.” Now this is a case of what is known as biblical parallelism. Both clauses deal with the same thing, each giving a different sidelight on the same matter. So the first statement: do not be a slanderer; the second: do not stand against the blood of thy neighbor, that is do not murder thy neighbor. The plain statement is that false witness is a murder of our neighbor. It is very deadly. It is easily committed, not readily detected and proven, and it involves many people in a very short time. This is why the lawyers of Israel considered it to be a more fearful offense than idolatry, incest and murder, all of them capital offenses.

In verse 17, it goes on to say if the neighbor or brother is actually guilty of wrongdoing, we must go to them, seek to dissuade them, seek to have them make amends (restitution), or else we become accomplices by our silence. The word brother has reference to a man who is in the covenant. This is the negative formulation of the law, “thou shalt not bear false witness,” and the negative application. The positive application is that we must bear a true and a responsible witness. This means not only bringing slander to the attention of Church and State in godly society, but to conduct ourselves responsibly, to speak responsibly.

But today this is no longer a matter of law. As we have seen, slander has disappeared from the courts as anything significant, and libel also. Anarchism is the order of the day. But if God’s absolute law is replaced with anarchistic freedom, then meaning is withdrawn from the world. Responsible witness ceases, because there’s no one to be responsible to. This is the critical point. This law requires that our witness be responsible, but in a world without God there is no one to be responsible to. Some men say society, but the anarchist says, oh well, I’m as good as the next man; there’s no law that says society is more important than myself. Who’s going to play God and tell me that I have to bow down to society? Take away God and you ultimately take way law. You take away responsibility because there is then no one to be responsible to—no god who can absolutely require man to be responsible to himself and to his world of people.

This is the point that many Christians refuse to accept. And yet the unbelievers are stating this openly. This is declared on many a college campus today. Colin Wilson, an English writer, has stated the implications of anarchism very plainly. He has written, “I thought I had seen the final truth that life does not lead to anything. It is an escape from something. And the something is a horror that lies on the other side of consciousness.” The implications of that when you analyze it are something! What lies on the other side of consciousness—beyond us? God. So what is life then, it is an escape from God. This is the way to be alive; to live. Life does not lead to anything. Therefore, ultimately, you must escape from life. If life is an escape from something, then it is also an escape from truth; because truth is related to reality. A lie is related to fantasy. As a result, reality is anathema to men interested in escape. If a man, if a church, if an institution, if a society is trying to escape from the realities of the world, then the last thing they want is the truth and reality. And as a result, the necessary lie is cultivated by such men.

Thus is it was that Nietzsche said that a lie was more important than the truth. This is what man needs. But his is not all. Not only does the man who does not live in terms of a responsible witness first of all to God and then under God to men, run from reality to a world of fantasy, but he also runs from freedom, because freedom is related to reality rather than to fantasy. And thus, if he is in a world of false witness, he is in a world of fantasy and he is in a world of slavery—not freedom.

To seek any kind of escape from reality, as Colin Wilson advocates, is also to escape from freedom. This has been made by the surrealist school of artists, into a philosophy. The surrealists declare that living with reality is a compromise, that liberty means forsaking the world of man’s flesh and blood existence. They have affirmed (to use their expression) the omnipotence of dreams. Every kind of fantasy, every kind of false witness man invents, they affirm. It’s all the more important. A lie, according to the surrealists, is most important to man, because then he is the god, the creator. But this world out there and the world of truth, this is God’s world. And if you want to escape from God, dream, lie, this is the area where you’re going to find yourself. Because in the world of reality, the world of true witness, man is exploited by God and he has to bind himself to things as they are.

This is why we live in a world of false witness today. If men do not believe that God is the absolute sovereign to whom they are totally responsible, at that point, they are making a false witness. They’re going to run from that God into a world of dreams, into the world of the lie. Not many of them are as honest as the surrealists. They don’t openly say the lie is the way to escape from God because in the world of the lie, we are god; we make that world. But wherever responsible witness ceases, whether in the life of a man or of a church, or of a government, then there is neither the ability to face reality, or to be free. Then men become chained to the false witness of their own imaginations. Living a lie, the unregenerate man has no world, ultimately, but his lie. The Marxists are trapped by their lies. They’ve created a hell and they live in it and they call it the gates of paradise. It’s going to lead to the great utopia of Marxist dreams. The believers in democracy and equality today have created deep and savage class hatred by law and they call it the threshold of peace and equality.

The rabbis were right concerning false witness. it is death to the man who utters it and lives by it. It is death to the society and the church with tolerates it. But to avoid false witness a society must first of all avoid false gods. False gods breed false men and a false witness.

Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God, we live indeed in a world of false gods, false men and false witness. Deliver us from this evil generation and use us oh Lord to establish your Law-Word so that again we may be a people rejoicing in Thee, obeying Thee and magnifying Thee. Bless us to this purpose, we beseech Thee. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Are there any questions now, first of all with respect to our lesson?

Yes.

[Audience] If a, if a Christian slanders someone, in their {?}

[Rushdoony] Not now, no, because you see our Lord says, better to turn the other cheek when you live in a time where the courts are lawless, where there is no godly law order. But supposing we had been living in a Puritan society. You’d go to them and ask them to make amends and then if they would not, you’d treat them as a heathen and a publican and see to it that they were taken to court. And there would have been very prompt punishment.

Yes.

[Audience] So … {?} … not {?} one to another, we’re taught that one person to another {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes!

[Audience] {?} talking about … {?}

[Rushdoony] When Paul gave the advice to the Corinthians not to go to court against one another, what he said was, here you are in Corinth, the most depraved city in the empire, and you who are the saints of God are you going to go before these unregenerate to have justice? Aren’t you going to settle it amongst yourselves? Are not the saints to govern, that is, to judge the world? So why go to men who are completely evil, seeking justice?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Our Lord when He spoke to them about the realities of their situation then, counsels, that they turn the other cheek, that they go the second mile when they were {?} because they were dealing with evil men and the best thing when they were helpless when they were caste as people, was to cooperate.

Yes.

[Audience] Apparently... {?} … knew what was valuable because they did not commit by their standards, … {?} … and also in the {?}

[Rushdoony] Oh yes, they were bearing false witness because they refused to see the truth about things. Now, that’s a different kind of false witness, but ultimately it is a kind of false witness that is intolerable in a society. It’s subversive. False witness is always subversive.

Yes.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] No, that doesn’t pertain to that. What turning the other cheek and going the second mile has reference to is when you’re dealing with a world of evil, courts that are evil, you don’t go to those courts for justice.

Now rendering to Caesar was this: in a sense you are right, it is related, but it’s of a somewhat different nature. They were trying to put Jesus on the spot, because many of the people of Israel were already revolutionaries. They wanted a revolution to overthrow the power of the Romans, who were a foreign people ruling them. And of course, this is what ultimately destroyed them, wiped out the country, destroyed Jerusalem totally, and it was utter folly for them to dream of overthrowing the Roman Empire. So when they came to Jesus to ask Him, is it lawful for us to render tribute to Caesar? They were trying to get Him to say, one of two—either answer in effect was going to make Him unpopular, they figured. If He said, yes, pay tribute to Caesar, then most of the people will say He’s a fake—he’s no good. He’s cooperating with the enemy; He’s an enemy agent. This would have been the response of the people. But if He said it is not lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, then of course He would have immediately been arrested as a revolutionist by the Romans. So this was like, in so many other cases, a question asked deliberately by the Pharisees figuring that any answer He gave was going to wipe Him out. And our Lord said, “show me the coin.” And He said, “whose image and superscription is on this?” Oh. So in other words, Caesar’s already here. He’s the government now. “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” This is Caesar’s money. Pay it to him. He’s providing the government. “…but unto God, the things that are God’s.”

So, you see, He gave them the sensible answer but they couldn’t nail Him on that, and so they turned and left, very disgusted. He’d slipped out of their trap again.

Any other questions? If there are no further questions,

Yes, Luther…

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, if there’s a situation where it will do some good. Now, this is why I pointed out the word talebearer is not proper here, it’s changed its meaning. Slanderer. If you’re telling the truth about somebody, that’s not slander, unless that truth is out of context. Remember I gave the illustration last week about a husband making quite a to-do about his wife being so stupid with the checkbook and all, when actually she was the more capable one financially of the two of them. Now the fact he was citing endlessly was true. But it was a false witness because it was not the truth about her financial abilities. But if a person is a Communist, that isn’t a false witness about his total nature, you see. If a person has been guilty of serious offenses… I’ve known cases where good people cover up an evil and somebody else gets stung!

[Audience] So in other words, to tell the truth about a person, there must be some good … {?}

[Rushdoony] Right

[Audience] Otherwise … {?} Unless there can be some… {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. You’re warning somebody about something to prevent them from being deluded and duped. But also, you must recognize that for some people, truth is nothing. Truth is nothing. They just don’t want it.

Yes.

[Audience] Ah, in … {?} … and you can tell they’ve already had … {?}

Is not tale bearing, but warning {?} of the possible pitfall that…. {?}

[Rushdoony] Right. Very well put. But we also must remember that our Lord said, ‘don’t cast pearls before swine,” unholy things before dogs. With some people, it’s no good telling them the truth. They’re bent on being suckers, as it were. So you warn people when you know it’s going to be a help, to someone who is a godly person, a responsible person.

Yes.

[Audience] … {?} … figurative {?} phrases…

[Rushdoony] Let us suppose there is someone, and I’m an employer, and this person has been in prison, supposedly paid his debt to society. Now, if that were something that took place five or ten years ago and the person has been an honest man in those years, a hard-working man, a responsible person and so on, to bring that up is irrelevant, you see. But, if he has just gotten out of prison and I’m considering hiring him, I should know that. This doesn’t mean I must say, no I won’t hire you, but I should have the knowledge to assess the situation and place him accordingly, you see. Now, it could be, if it were ten years ago, it would still be an important fact and should be told. Supposing he had gone into prison for embezzlement and gotten out ten years ago and had been a good workman in all those years and held a number of responsible jobs, but I was considering him for a job that involved handling money. In that case, I should know about it. Perhaps a man like that has a weakness here where finances are concerned, he’s irresponsible with money and this would be a dangerous place to put him. So you see, you have to judge in terms of the situation and in terms of what involves the best welfare, the most responsible behavior on your part and toward others.

We don’t have too long, but there is one announcement I want to make and some things I’d like to report. This Wednesday at 7:45 p.m. at the Ferdinof Home in San Marino, Gary North will speak to the Christian Current Events Study Group on “A Christian Perspective of Inflation and the Market.”

Then I’d like to report briefly on the Sennholz Seminar which I attended yesterday in Burlingame, in Northern California. Dr. Hans Sennholz, most of you know who he is, was the speaker for an all-day seminar, and an extremely important one. He had predicted, some of you recall, in January, that the market would hit approximately 650 and three months ago when he set up the dates for this seminar, he said by the end of May it will hit 650. So let’s set the seminar for that time, because it will be most timely. We set it up a week ahead to avoid the Labor Da—ah, Memorial Day Weekend so he was just a few points off.

But his predictions concerning the future are rather dim. He states that we had been of course, in a long period of inflation—radical inflation. During the Johnson Administration, we were inflating our money supply at the rate of 15% and 16% per year. In ’69, we stopped it entirely. We held the line. The result has been, we have been moving into a recession because the economy is geared to inflation, not to a free market economy. As a result, with a depression staring them in the faces, they have begun to reinflate now. But the rate of inflation is only 5%. And 5% is not enough when the old rate was 15% and 16%. It would have to probably be more than the Johnson rate to have any effect. So, he feels, the market will go down further, that it will probably by the first of next year, drop below 500, that it is very close to a panic situation now and could tomorrow, this week, next month, develop into a real panic and drop 90-100 points.

He feels that it’s possible we could go into an inflationary kind of depression in the near future in which ¼ of the labor force would be out of work, but unlike the other depression, there would be no drop in prices. And there would be more inflation. Or, we can successfully, sometime by late ‘71 or ’72 get back into re-inflation for another boom before we have the real bust and controls. And move steadily into a controlled economy, in which there will be the shortages that come as the result of controls, in which the salesman will disappear because there are no goods to sell and the buyer who’ll scrounge around to find things for his company will replace the salesman.

He feels there’s a real possibility that it will lead to such a radical economy that the cities will be places of death. He cited the case of Rome, which over some period of time during the days of the Roman Empire, dropped from a population of 2 million, to 50,000. And he said it will be far worse this time because the possibilities of dispersal from the cities are very limited now. There are too many in the cities. And he said, this is a real possibility, or a long period of grinding controls and steadily lower standard of living.

He felt also that there was probably going to be a dollar crisis before the end of this year and a real run on gold, that silver, at this present situation, would only tag along, but the immediate prospect was not too strong for silver; rather weak, that it would just tag along after gold, but that a gold run would probably come as the world saw that we were going to re-inflate.

His picture of that was a rather grim one, the grimmest one he has ever portrayed. He saw no possibility of any change in the picture without a change in the heart of the people—a religious change, a basically religious one. He cited the last Chalcedon Report on anarchy, incidentally, and agreed thoroughly with it. But this was the picture that Dr. Sennholz gave.

Are there any questions?

Yes.

[Audience] … {?} the economy today … {?}

[Rushdoony] Well, his predictions of last year when he spoke at Knoxbury Farm and this January in Glendale have very definitely been accurate. He’s had an amazing rate of accuracy over the years.

I first heard him in 1962. I’ve kept my notes over the years and have the put away somewhere and I checked them once, I think about January, before the meeting and his accuracy has been very remarkable.

Yes.

[Audience] I’ve been hearing a lot about the silent majority {?} right now of being discouraged and, ah, {?}that there’s a {?} to discourage. The silent majority … {?} They’re not quoting … {?}

[Rushdoony] Ah, no, Sennholz would say, in fact he in effect said it both to the group and to me, the—he didn’t use the term ‘silent majority,’ but most people were going right along with this, it reflected their moral condition. The world we have today, he felt emphatically, is—

[Audience] … there is no silent majority?

[Rushdoony] There is no silent majority. The silent majority likes the world they’ve got. They complain about some things that don’t suit them but they don’t want to change anything.

[Audience] They’re not willing to sacrifice {?}

[Rushdoony] No.

Yes.

[Audience] I remember what {?}

[Rushdoony] Oh, yes.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, he said in the short-run, some people can profit in the situation, and he made certain recommendations to various persons as they talked to him specifically. Well, he said for example, as we move into this kind of situation, when controls come, the market will fall on its face. But certain types of industry will flourish. Essential goods, those will not be—they’ll be controlled. But things like theatres will prosper, because what are you going to do with your money if you can’t buy essential goods? In the Soviet Union, there’s not much you can do with your money except to go to the theatre and to travel and to go to the opera. So he said, every little village has an opera house and a theatre, when the people are living in huts with grass roofs. So he said, motels and hotels and railroads, theatres, entertainment places, will do big business. So he said, {?} stocks are good, but those that are real essentials, they will be under controls and won’t be able to produce much and there’ll be shortages.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, he stated that.

[Audience] {?} how long, uh, {?} is inflation … {?} government {?}

[Rushdoony] No.

[Audience] {?} talking about? No {?}

[Rushdoony] No, he didn’t say. He, well, I don’t think it will come to the point of no productivity, but he did not see any possibility of reversing the direction without a reversal in the hearts of the people. The issues are ultimately religious. This was emphatically stated.

Yes.

[Audience] {?} think that {?} controls are {?}

[Rushdoony] He feels they’re coming. When they will come depends on what happens. It could be we’re in for another round of inflation in which the market may soar back up to 1000. But it could be this is the last round, so that the—too much depends on what happens in the days and weeks ahead to be able to predict with certainty. But he feels the prospects are definitely bleak.

Yes.

[Audience] {?} are world-wide, and in particular in a country like Russian, mining {?} gold {?} will this {?}

[Rushdoony] No, you see they have to mine it for their foreign trade or they cannot buy. Their ruble is not exchangeable. He incidentally said that Cuba today is a land of endless fiestas. You can’t buy the essential of life, so what do you do? It’s a country of fiestas.

This is Communist culture, you see. They emphasize culture. They don’t have anything else to offer people except entertainment.

Well our time is up and if you have any further questions, Gary North is speaking Wednesday, and you’ll get a great deal more at that time on this matter. Let’s bow our heads for the benediction.

And now, go in peace. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit bless you and keep you, guide and protect you this day and always. Amen.