IBL06: Sixth Commandment

Military Laws

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Prerequisite/Law

Genre: Speech

Track: 42

Dictation Name: RR130W42

Location/Venue: ________

Year: 1960’s-1970’s.

Our scripture is Deuteronomy 20, verses 19 and 20. Our subject, military laws.

Deuteronomy 20:19-20.

“19 When thou shalt besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, thou shalt not destroy the trees thereof by forcing an axe against them: for thou mayest eat of them, and thou shalt not cut them down (for the tree of the field is man's life) to employ them in the siege:

20 Only the trees which thou knowest that they be not trees for meat, thou shalt destroy and cut them down; and thou shalt build bulwarks against the city that maketh war with thee, until it be subdued.”

There are a great many military laws in the scripture, and the law of Moses has not only all of this chapter but a number of other passages, a number of chapters we might say, which involve laws of warfare. But they involve not only laws of warfare but broader principles. In particular one very broad and central principle... let us survey therefore the various laws of warfare in the scripture and as we do call attention to the general principles which they embody. First of all, the wars were fought to suppress evil, to defend the homeland. And warfare in this sense is in scripture a necessary part of the work of restitution or restoration. Therefore the scripture speaks of Godly warfare, warfare in the defense of justice and of the homeland, as “wars of the Lord” in Numbers 21:14 and elsewhere.

Thus the preparation of the soldiers involved the religious dedication of the men to their task. Second, the law specified the age of the soldiers: all able bodied men twenty years old and older are eligible according to scripture in Numbers 1, 22, and many other passages. This incidentally was the same standard used in this country at an earlier date. However, although the law specifies all those who are able bodied twenty years old and older, it was still a selective service and the term able bodied of course makes that clear. Third, since the war was when it was a just war, a war against evil to serve God’s task of restoration, God promises to protect his men if they moved in faith and obedience. In Exodus 30:11-16 at the time of the military census, every man was to give a ransom or a covering or atonement for himself. This is translated as a protection from plague, but the word plague here can also be rendered (and in this passage more accurately) as from defeat. In the battle, in other words, God promises to defend his people if they move in terms of faith.

Fourth, exemption from military service is also provided in the law. The purpose of the battle is to fight God’s war without fear, according to Deuteronomy 20:1-4. Therefore exemption was given to several classes of men; these exemptions are quite interesting in terms of their departure from modern practice! Among these exemptions are these: One who has planted a vineyard or an orchard and had not yet enjoyed the fruit thereof. One who had built a new house and had not yet dedicated it or enjoyed it. One who had become engaged, and yet had not married. And all who were fearful and fainthearted.

Now, exemptions could be made from this, that is, those who had dedicated a new house or built up a new house and had not yet dedicated it and inhabited it could still serve, as well as those who had planted a field and had not yet enjoyed it’s fruit. But, the exemption of the newly wed’s was mandatory. For a full year after marriage they were exempt from military service, according to Deuteronomy 24 verse 5.

Finally there was an exemption for the Levite’s, who could volunteer, but were not subject to the draft. Now at this point we can see very clearly a general principle behind these laws. And it is very obviously this: the family has has priority over work! The family must be preserved. And therefore, the new home comes before the cause of national defense, important as defence is, the continuity of life and Godly reconstruction are more important. And therefore, the newlywed could not be drafted, nor could the newly wed volunteer. This of course militates directly against much of common practice today.

But it is important to note how important the family is the sight of God. Then fifth, among the laws of warfare is the requirement of cleanliness in the camp, In Deuteronomy 23:9-14. The laws specify the details: a latrine outside of the camp, a spade for latrine purposes and so on, and it specifies the reason; God is holy, and when a people are engaged in his warfare the camp must be holy and his people must be holy. Thus again we have another principle. It is not enough for the cause to be holy, but the people of the cause must also be holy both spiritually and physically.

Sixth, another warfare principle is that prior to an attack there must be a declaration of way, an offer of peace, but an offer of peace without compromise. The offer of peace must require that the enemy recognize their wrong and submit in terms of it. Only after such a proclamation or announcement of terms toward the enemy can there be an attack. Warfare was declared and then there was a formal blowing of the trumpets, to place the cause before God in expectation.

Seventh, the scripture makes clear that warfare is not childs play. When you go to war you go to war only because you presume that your cause is just; and you make sure that it is! And that the enemies cause is  evil; and you make sure that it is! Therefore the scripture has a great many laws -laws, incidentally, which have been subjected to bitter attacks by liberals- which specified punishment of the enemy. Indemnity is to be required of them, in other words, they are to pay the cost of the way if they are guilty. In some cases some must be executed, and in the event of some canaanites (who were a particularly depraved people, with whom every kind of perversion was a religious ritual and requirement) there was to be extermination.

The general principle therefore was and is, if warfare is to punish or destroy evil the work of restoration requires that this be done. That an evil order be overthrown sometimes means that a great many must be executed. It is an obvious fact that if there is no guilt in a war then there is no justice either! Thus, since war is to be waged in a just cause then there must be some kind of punishment as a result of the waging of that war. Now, an eighth kind of law it deals with the normal purpose of warfare, that is, it is to be defensive.

Therefore, in Deuteronomy 17:16, Israel was forbidden to multiply horses unto itself. Now horses were weapons of offensive warfare, not defensive warfare, and therefore they could not have a large cavalry lest they be tempted to take the offensive in warfare. As a result, another general principle emerges. There can be the right of conscientious objection if the warfare is either not just, or it is offensive warfare. This principle incidentally was embodied in the constitution, which specified that men could be drafted only for three reasons: to repel invasion, to enforce the laws of the union, and to suppress insurrection.

This is why until world war one, no draftee was ever used outside of the territorial boundaries of the United States. And they were used then simply by overriding the constitution. In terms of the biblical law we must say that our warfare since 1917 has not been scripturally sound. And it is not surprising that such actions have plunged us steadily since 1917 into the pathway of collectivism.

Ninth we come to the law of warfare which is most central and most revealing, that which our scripture cited. Deuteronomy 20:19-20. War cannot be waged against the earth, but against men! Fruit trees could not be destroyed in the course of warfare, nor vineyards. This is a very important fact very strongly emphasized in scripture. If they were besieging a city and they needed wood to build bulwarks then they could use other trees then fruit trees, but only for purposes of warfare, not for sheer destruction. In other words, they were waging war against men, not the earth. That even more centrally, life must go on. And the fruit trees, the vineyard, all represent at all times an inheritance from the past and a heritage for the future. They are not to be destroyed.

There is a related statement by Solomon which is based on this law, it appears in Ecclesiastes 5:9 where Solomon declares “Moreover, the profit of the earth is for all. The king himself is served by the field.” Now, this verse has another translation: “The profit of a land every way is a king that maketh himself servant to the field.” In other words, this other translation which is from the masoretic text in the Jewish version is even stronger. Even the king must be a servant of the field! What is the significance of this? It brings us the central principle, with respect to military law. Production is prior to politics. Production is prior to politics.

Now war is an aspect of political order and political life. War is what takes the place of diplomacy. When diplomacy (which is the process of settling differences between nations) reaches an impasse, or breaks down, then warfare takes it’s place as a means of settling disputes between nations. The role of the political order is important, but production is more basic. Without production, without the fruit tree and the farmer, the worker and the manufacturer, there is no country to defend. In other words, to put it in very modern terms, economics is prior to politics.

The priority of politics is a modern heresy, which is steadily destroying the world, and today you find whether it is in left wing circles or in conservative circles, the priority of politics is asserted! And this goes directly contrary to biblical law. It is only the great vitality of free enterprise in maintaining the productive level in the face of great political handicaps and interferences that has kept this country going. The production, economics, is prior to politics and cannot be governed by politics even in wartime! Finally the laws provided also for a reward to the soldiers. That is pay. Numbers 31:21-31, Deuteronomy 21:14, and other passages so that the laws of scripture provide not only for pay but pension, as well as a war indemnity to be imposed upon the enemy for their offenses.

One biblical scholar in summarizing the laws of warfare in scripture has summed it up thus... I think Clark’s statement is worth quoting: “According to the scripture there is no peace unto the wicked, and it is futile to cry ‘Peace, peace’ when there is no peace. If men would have peace they must seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, for peace is the work of righteousness, and there can be no lasting and universal peace until righteousness and peace have kissed each other. There shall be peace when the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness. It is in the last days and when the Lord alone shall be exalted, that the nations shall beat their swords into plough threads, and their spears into pruning hooks, nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” Unquote.

The laws of scripture therefore with respect to warfare are extremely important in that they strike both against what the leftists are doing today, and also against what the conservatives are advocating. Namely, the priority of politics over economics. This must be set aside. This, in the war of independence, was the rule. The priority of economics over politics. What did this mean specifically? It meant that during the war of independence, the Americans were selling to the enemy. So that the British were waging war in the colonies with American food and American materials! Cite this kind of thing to conservatives today and they go through the roof! “This is terrible.” Was it? Well indeed it seems as though it was, and many Americans were definitely killed with American materials in the war of independence. But actually America won that war against a very powerful empire precisely because economics was given priority and never was any attempt made by any of the states or by congress to give priority to politics. So much gold and silver, because ecomics being prior politics, and everything being in terms of hard cash, flowed to the United States flowed to the United States during the war of Independence that the bank of England and the bank of France virtually had to close their doors for a time. The bank of France actually did and the bank of England was in peril.

When the war ended the amount of gold and silver in the colonies was enormous! The colonies had become very powerful, and therefore very quickly politically because their economic strength had not been paralyzed but had been developed and built up through the war years. An American independence owes a great debt to the fact that economics, or business as usual, went during the war of independence.

Of course the left wingers have taught us that business as usual is the epitome of evil, the vote is capitalists whose selling to both sides and killing his own boys with his equipment. But the bible clearly says production is prior to economics. That we have no right to destroy the enemies means of production, his fruit trees! Man made means of production, yes.... but not those things which are the gift of God. One of the reasons for impasse today is precisely because we have made politics the be all and the end all of life, the cure all for everything. SO the priority is given to politics not only over economics but over tate over the family, hence the draft of married men is not something that they hesitate to ask in crisis; every area politics predominate.

This is in terms of scripture wrong. Are we going to stand therefore in terms of the modern political heresy or in terms of scripture? Let us pray.

Almighty god our heavenly father we give thanks unto thee for thy work. Indeed, O Lord thy word is the judgement upon our life today, but we thank thee that thy word is also grace unto us. Healing and refreshing unto our souls. Give us grace therefore our father to reorder our lives as persons and as a nation in terms of thy sovereign works. In Jesus name, Amen.

Are there any questions now? Yes?

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Yes. You’re partially right. Those who are trying to get us out of Vietnam are allies of the enemy, but would you not call those who put us into Vietnam, Kennedy and Johnson, allies of the enemy also? Isn’t it our duty to say to both of them “A plague on both of your houses. You’re both in the wrong.” When the vietnam war began, one of the most interesting articles on it in the new leader of socialist periodicals was written by Ryan Neborse[?] the socialist theologian at union theological seminary. And he said “in that that the naive left, the childish youthful left, was against Kennedy and Johnson for the Vietnam war; but the sophisticated knew that this was superb and {?} politics on the part of a master politician, Johnson.” Now I think Neborse[?] stated it very well.

Here we have something because we have the left wing students who have an axe to grind and they don’t want to go over there, and you can’t blame them for that! So they’re against the war. So we assume that the conservative position is on the opposite side, but the conservative position should be against both of them, against both because we are not fighting a war against communism there, we have destroyed south vietnam to a great extent by gutting it’s political order, we’ve done everything possible to make it impossible for the south vietnamese to win.

And we’re doing that today under the present administration. So, we began some years ago by violating God’s law, by setting aside the constitution in 1917 and we’ve gone further and further into evil so that now what we offer to people are two courses both of which are premised on sin.

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Yes. Mhm. Well, yes. Well it’s like the story, perhaps it’s not the best to tell... about the man who was committing adultery and the husband came home unexpectedly and suspected that he was there in the closet and ordered him to come out. The man was debating what to do; if he stayed there he was going to be shot at, if he came out he was probably going to be shot... well the answer to his mental debate was that there was no way out! He was in it, and now he had to take it. Well in a sense that’s our predicament.  You see, we keep looking for some kind of solution when we’ve gotten ourselves into a bind and we pay the consequences for it.

So one answer that we can give is, there is no solution we can offer. Because with the men in charge they’re not going to fight it out and win, which would be the logical thing from our perspective “Alright we’ve made a mistake but at least lets get out with some kind of honor and save that country, having done so much damage to it.” But we’re not going to do that, so what we we have to do is to say since we know there is no way out and the people in charge are not going to take any sensible way out, we need to step aside and say here is a situation where there’s nothing we can do. Our nation has to pay the penalty one way or another, whichever way it goes.

Like the man in the closet, there’s no answer. You’ve sinned alright, and one way or another, whether you stay behind the door or whether you come out, you’re in for it. Yes?

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

The scorched earth policy, if it deals with, say, factories and that sort of thing is one thing. God law doesn’t govern that, but the scorched earth policy with regard to fruit trees.

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Well grain can be re-planted again the next year, but fruit trees and vineyards represent many many years of development and growth.

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Yes, right. Yes?

That’s a matter of personal choice, that’s entirely up to you. If you want to boycott them, fine. But if you don’t, that’s up to you. This is a matter of things indifferent, were you yourself can make your moral choice. In other words, if that store has something that you regard to be the best product or the best price, there’s no sin in you going in and buying it. Yes?

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Not entirely. Is the best defence always a strong offense in the sense that you go across the world to fight an enemy? In other words, to put it down into very practical terms (because you can argue theoretically all day), what’s the best defense against communism? Is it an offense in Vietnam or Korea, or in the Middle East? Or is it to clean house here? I say, it’s to clean house here which is practical defense! And this we’re not doing.

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

But let’s consider what we are doing in terms of offense we have all kinds of atomic warheads stationed in different parts of the world, close to the soviet union, but we have neglected elementary defenses with respect to the united states to the point where it is a scandal. In other words if you get back to the biblical principle then you work in terms of the protecting the people! But today because we are not moving in terms of it, you and I are progressively defenseless not only against the past but we are defensive against criminals in the street. We have a perverted perspective today that is making us Messiah’s all over the world, we’re going over as though we are going to save the world, and we are destroying our own heritage here at home.

Yes?

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Well, I’m not so sure, there have been some small countries that have been taken but history doesn’t give us perfect justice. Yes, you had a question?

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Mhm. Yes I would! I would say we should give up Okinawa, we should give up Puerto Rico (it’s given us nothing but headaches), and what we should do is to get back to taking care of the United States. Now consider what we have done in the way of interfering all over the world in foreign affairs and at the same time destroying ourselves internally and the two go together. They are the Messianic perspective with respect to the world but no more integrity within our country.

We have by our policy supposedly been at war with communism for some years and have been maintaining vast military establishment all over the world. And yet at the same time, from the early twenties the soviet union has been kept alive by credit from us. Now I believe in dealing with the enemy on a hard cash basis. I say, sell all you please to soviet union anytime, if they pay for it in gold and silver. But never on credit! They have enough to keep them going from the early twenties, either as gifts or on credit! And they would have crumbled if we had said ecomics before politics. If we had said, no business with you except on a hard cash basis. There would be no soviet union today.

Yes?

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

A Korean definitely has one of the strongest Christian elements of any country in the world today, but let us consider the Korean crisis. Who created it? We did. The strong industrial north with a tremendous Christian population was turned over against it’s will to Stalin at the end of World War II by the United States. Within a matter of weeks, every Christian pastor in the north was executed. A potentially strong country was made a permanent cripple, a strong southern agricultural has alone been given a limited freedom. Now we’re responsible for that. So, we create these crisis and then say, “You see, we had to go over there to save these people” well, we killed them off in the first place. We’ve embarked on an evil course and we are compounding on that evil. We have given over Christian people (as you’ve clearly stated) to evil.

Yes?

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Yes. The pope doctrine and the Monroe doctrine were the two basic instruments of American foreign policy in the last century. The pope doctrine is forgotten now entirely. They were both thoroughly Christian in their perspective, the Monroe doctrine stated that the western hemisphere was not to be an area of colonization or interference by the powers of Europe or of Asia. The Pope doctrine said that the European powers with their balance of powers politics with it’s endless evil could not involve any American states in their balance of power. And this is why we went to war against Mexico to defend that Pope Doctrine, which was an excellent one.

And as I say today, it’s disappeared from history books. It’s been replaced by internationalism. I might add that the Monroe Doctrine was something to which the American states all agreed. It met with their approval and their favor. But today we’ve replaced that with foreign aid and foreign involvement. So we have to recognize that there was a Christian purpose behind the politics then. Now, there is a humanistic world Messianic purpose.

Yes?

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Yes. The Civil War is a long difficult story to summarize very briefly, but it was in a sense a war that was engineered by radicals for the purpose of destroying the United States. And the best and the wisest in the North and the South were against it. There isn’t time enough now to go into it, I deal with it in part with my book “The Nature of the American System” but there was an intention then to utilize the civil war having helped incite it, to intervene. And this is why Maximilian was sent to Mexico for an intervention with five powers providing the army into the united states, to destroy the united states, both north and south. And the one thing that prevented this attack by this five power european force because of their hostility to what the pope doctrine represented was the arrival of the russian fleet.

The russians are the Christians which refused to go along with this five power plan for invasion and sent his fleet to both the pacific and the atlantic, to san francisco and boston and new york. And if you read the New York Times of the day, they were greeted with tears by the Americans, who said “You have saved us.” But this is no longer in the history books. And with that, the European powers knowing that they would have the power of Russia behind their back in Europe and face the war there withdrew their army from Mexico, their invasion army, and Maximilian (who was stupid enough to think that the Mexican people wanted him) remained behind and the Mexican people shot him. The five powers were: France, Spain, Austria, Germany, and England.

Our time is up, but I’d to call to your attention the fact that we do have a monetary crisis upon us now which is a part of this whole business of politics ahead of economics. It’s interesting that the papers and the radio and television are insisting it’s nothing but a mini crisis, the monetary crisis in Europe, although their having a major meeting this weekend in Switzerland. The papers here say that the franc is in danger of collapsing and the pound is shaky, in Europe the papers are speaking of a dollar crisis, that the dollar is in danger of collapsing. They’re all right. Because the dollar, the pound, the yen, the franc, the lyra,... they’re all in danger.

Of course they are blaming it on the speculators who are buying gold in the gold market. This is like saying the ship is sinking because the people are getting into the lifeboats! It is interesting to see that the price of gold, the bullion, has been advancing steadily; and the bullion is not easy to find, it’s illegal for many people to buy it. So the bullion market is not entirely a free market. It has reached well over 48, 48.31 in Paris, 43.50 approximately in London, Frankfurt, and Missouri, in Japan it is 70. Meanwhile the coins, the double eagles, are going up, they are a low of about 78-79 and then up to 86 and 90. The most interesting bit of news here is that one of the biggest wholesalers of gold coins is now thinking of no longer selling, but if he can raise up enough capital to start buying at $100.00 a coin.

Because he figures that if he offers only $90.00, he won’t get enough of them, most people will not tell, but he can tempt them at a hundred so that he can get quite a few million in anticipation of a marked price rise in the near future. This is a man who is not informed on economics, he just knows his business. So that while we will almost certainly not have the evaluation this weekend in spite of the meeting, they are going to try to brazen it out, we are on the brink and the price of gold is going up there will be an all out effort to sink the price tomorrow, it will probably be set in the morning at a lower price but this will have very little and at the most brief effect. This is the product of our whole modern policy of politics as capable of creating it’s own world and overriding all problems with legislation and despising economics. Well our time is up and we are adjourned.

[audio ends]