Leviticus; The Law of Holiness and Grace

Justice and Community

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Genre: Lessons with Q & A

Lesson: 38

Track: 38

Dictation Name: RR172U38

Date: Early 70s

Let us worship God. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before His presence with singing. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise. Be thankful unto Him and bless His name, for the Lord is good, His mercy is everlasting and His truth endureth to all generations. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God, Thy truth endureth unto all generations, for Thou art the same yesterday, today and forever. We thank Thee our God that as we face the world of our times, we know that Thy truth is not changed and the powers of evil will founder as they always have because Thou art God, the same yesterday, today, and forever. Make us ever joyful in Thee and in the certainty of Thy victory. In Christ’s name, amen.

Our scripture is from Leviticus 19:9-15, and our subject, “Justice and Community.” “Justice and Community, Leviticus 19:9-15:

“9 And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field; neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest.

10 And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger: I am the Lord your God.

11 Ye shall not steal, neither deal falsely, neither lie one to another.

12 And ye shall not swear by my name falsely, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the Lord.

13 Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbour, neither rob him: the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning.

14 Thou shalt not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before the blind, but shalt fear thy God: I am the Lord.

15 Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour.”

The more liberal the scholar, the less respect he has for past opinions and for Christian thought. In terms of his evolutionary thinking, his evolutionary faith, the liberal scholar holds to the kind of belief which Job denounced, when in Job 12:11, he told his adversaries that “no doubt wisdom was born with you and will die with you.” Such liberals see the Pentateuch (the books of Moses), as a collection of various unrelated documents brought together by editors. In other words, they assume that neither the original writers, nor the so-called editors who put together these books (because they do not believe in the Mosaic authorship), lacked ordinary intelligence, and therefore thy just threw things together. This is not surprising, because these people have a high opinion of themselves, and a very low opinion of anyone else, especially anyone who believes.

Such men love to classify and to segregate, as though they were dealing with dead objects. They see dissection and classification as necessities, as they approach anything. But this is not possible with scripture. The Bible is not a textbook. Theology is not in a separate section from Law or History. Nor are personal experiences abstracted from God’s revelation to the men receiving them. The context is always life. It is not the laboratory or a dissecting table.

The premise of all scripture, as of Leviticus 19 is that God is the Creator and the Law-giver. All aspects of life must be governed by His Law-word. Hence He begins, “I am the Lord.” In these seven verses, Leviticus 19:9-15, charity, honest dealing with workers and neighbors, no lying, no false-swearing or witnessing, no abuse of the handicapped, justice is the concern. It is the unifying force of all life under God.

In verses 9 and 10, we have laws concerning gleaning by the poor. We have similar legislation in Leviticus 23:22 and in Deuteronomy 24:19-22. The beneficiaries in Deuteronomy are to include the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. And in Deuteronomy, Moses reminds the people, “Thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt.” As a result, they are to remember the outside in their charities. If they neglect God’s Law, it is implicit that there will be more bondage for them.

And yet as people approach these laws (and I mean the liberal scholars), they never look at the obvious meaning. What is Leviticus 19:9, 10 about other than charity? And yet, one of the most highly-regarded scholars in the world today, a German scholar, Martin Noth saw these laws of gleaning as primitive, having the pre-Israelite motive, “Of leaving these remains for the fertility spirits of the soil as they share in the crop.” Now, how anyone can read that into the scriptures is beyond me. But this is typical of the spirit of these men as they approach scripture—no evidence whatsoever for their position. But it is a part of the presuppositions of their evolutionary faith that this is the way it had to be. In fact, it fits in with their belief that men first believed in spirits, and then in gods, and then finally in God. Even though one Austrian anthropologist, years ago in studying all the evidence said it’s the other way around! The further back we get in terms of evidence, we find that men believed in one God and degenerated from that faith to believe in spirits and gods. However, this particular Austrian scholar, Schmidt, is rarely ever mentioned in spite of the compelling nature of his evidence.

John Gill called attention a few centuries ago to an important aspect of the law of gleaning, and why it followed immediately after the law of peace offerings. He wrote, “This follows upon the peace offerings and as {?} observes, ‘as the fat of them was to be given to God, so somewhat of the harvest was to be given for the glory of God to the poor and the stranger.’” In the Book of Ruth, we see a practical example of the application of the law of gleaning. Boaz recognizing Ruth’s virtue, made sure that she had an extra amount of gleanings in her path. The gleaners worked just behind the harvesters. This made the gleaning personal. The harvester, very often on instructions from the owner, would drop something. If he dropped a sheath of grain, or if he spilled a bucket, let us say, of fruit—he could not pick it up. That was for the gleaners who were working behind him. And this made it much easier for them to be mindful of the person, to make sure something extra was given to them.

The premise of all gleaning is that the earth is the Lord’s and His Law applies to all. Whereas the law of all other nations in Old Testament times, and Rome subsequently protected the ruling class, God’s Law protects all. God’s Law speaks of the poor as our brother to be helped as a religious duty. And says at the same time that there must be no discrimination against the rich because they are rich, or against the poor because they are poor. Later on, some rabbis held that a person should thank the needy for giving us an opportunity to manifest our faith and to show mercy. There is a hint of this in the Book of Ruth. She may have said of her gleaning when she reported to Naomi, ‘the name of the man I have favored is Boaz.’ This is a possible meaning of the word, but not all together a likely one.

In verses 11 and 12, several offenses against fellow members in the community are cited, and all are seen as related. The Law there reads, “Ye shall not steal, neither deal falsely, neither lie one to another. And ye shall not swear by my name falsely, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the Lord.” How can one steal? Remember the Bible gives us case laws. Theft can be simple theft: taking property from another. It can be complex in which we hire someone to take it, or we use laws to take what belongs to another, or theft can be intangible. If someone by word or by writing, takes away your good name, damages your reputation, that for centuries has been seen as a form of theft. And for example, the rabbi cited Absalom as a thief, because he stole the people’s good opinion of his father, David, by ingratiating himself with all who were impatient because the courts were slow, and he would say, ‘If only I were the ruler, I would expedite, I would speed up justice.’ This he said, not because he was interested in justice but in power. And he was robbing his father of his good name. William Blake had a couplet which spoke of the same thing. A truth that’s told with bad intent/ beats all the lies that you can invent.

The prohibition of theft is tied to the gleaning laws. Since all we have is God’s, we cannot in business or in charity deal falsely with Him. God requires us to help the needy. We swear falsely by God’s name even when we call ourselves His people if we are not honest with other men, nor merciful to the needy. Samuel Clarke, in commenting on these verses, said, “The meaning of the Eighth Commandment is here expanded into the prohibition of theft, cheating, and falsehood. When the act of deception was aggravated by an oath, the Third Commandment was of course broken as well as the Eighth.”

Then, in the next verse, 13, “Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbour, neither rob him: the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning.” This was a restraint upon the strong to prevent the exploitation of the weak, and there are echoes of this comment in Paul and in James. Now, this is case law, although its specific reference is to day-wage workers. Very often in farm labor, a man might work three or four days, and the job is not finished because the weather is bad. For example, to use California illustrations, at fruit-picking time, it may appear that the peaches must all be harvested within a given number of days—just a few days. But let us assume that after two days, the weather unexpectedly changes (and I have seen this in my childhood) so that the harvest is delayed several days. Now, this law states that it is illegal to hold the wages of the man until the harvest is done. He is a day laborer. He is poor. He needs his wages day by day. And if he has to wait a week when he expected it on the third or fourth day, this is going to work a hardship on him, and it will keep him dangling, coming back and forth for his wages when he could be working elsewhere or be in very grave need of the money. Deuteronomy 24:14, 15 declares this sin to be very offensive to God. Bonar wrote a century ago, “Far from defrauding or withholding what is due to thy neighbor, thou shalt not even delay giving what he is entitled to. This precept is directly pointed against incurring debt, fraudulent bankruptcies and pretexts for withholding payments are condemned by it. But willingly remaining in debt to anyone is also pointedly condemned. “Owe no man anything but to love one another.” In James 5:4, this is spoken of as a sin of the last days. The law requires the rich to be honest, to be considerate, and to be helpful to the poor. Where this law is violated, judgment will soon come. Amos 8:4-6 speaks of this.

Then in verse 14 we are told, “Thou shalt not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before the blind, but shalt fear thy God: I am the Lord.” Any abuse of the deaf or the blind is thus forbidden. It is a cheap, fraudulent power to misdirect the blind or to curse the deaf who cannot hear. But God sees and hears. Now, historically, because this is (let us remember) case law. It cites an illustration with many implications. This has applied to abuse of any absent person or to a dead parent or the like. Deuteronomy 27:18 pronounces a curse on all who lead the blind astray. For centuries, this has also been seen as misdirecting the ignorant: false teaching of any kind, defamation of the helpless and so on.

Then in verse 15 we read, “Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour.” Justice means no respect of persons; no favoritism to the poor because they are poor because they are poor, or to the rich because they are rich, nor to anyone in terms of race or anything else. The law does not allow injustice out of partiality or out of false pity. Justice is not a class or race doctrine. It is God’s requirement. To facility justice in trial, some just Jewish authorities in by-gone centuries required that both the rich and the poor had to put on in effect, a uniform, the same garb, and had to be seated alike. Bonar, again very much to the point, said, “Causes must be heard, not persons. There must be in us no affectation of kindness to the poor, even as there must be no fawning flattery of the great, especially in matters of judgment, the judge must be impartial. The eye of God is on him and as He is a just God and without iniquity, He delights to see His own attributes shadowed forth in the strict integrity of an earthy judge. If these are God’s holy principles, it follows that the misery and oppression and suffering of the lower classes will furnish no reason for acquittal at His bar if they be found guilty. Suffering in this world is no blotting out of sin. Hence we find at Christ’s appearing the great men and the mighty men and every bondman cried to the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne.’” The law, in other words, cannot be man’s will or purpose, but only God’s Word, the expression of His nature. As a result, the modern beliefs in class justice, in racial justice, economic justice and so on, are all perversions of justice and law. They enthrone man’s will as law. This verse both sums up the preceding verses and also is a preface to the following verses of this chapter. In other words, we have to see these verses as God’s Law of justice, applying not only to judges but to all members of the community.

The next verse which is closely tied to verse 15 prevents slander. Condemns it.

Now, if these are laws of justice, why are they interspersed with laws requiring charity? The reason is this: if the earth is the Lord’s, then we rob God. As Malachi 3:8-12 tells us, when we do not tithe, when we do not give Him what is His rightful portion and when we are guilty of theft and injustice and when we are not given to charity. Charity is not the poor’s due in essence, but it is God’s requirement of us. It is God’s possession, given by us to those whom He assigns it, not as their right, but as our duty.

Community life thus has a God-centered focus. If we are in communion with God, we are in community with His people, both rich and poor. IN Christ we receive grace, and the grace of God must manifest itself through us to all. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God, grant us that in word, thought and deed, we may be faithful to Thee and to Thy Law Word, that we might be members one of another, that we might be mindful of all those things which Thou doest require of us and that we might rejoice in doing what Thou hast commanded us to do. Grant us this in Christ’s name. Amen.

Are there any questions now concerning our lesson?

Yes.

[Audience] Well the perversion of justice, for racial or economic or social purposes inevitably leads to the intent of the court and the government and sows hatred among the various groups of people in a country like ours.

[Rushdoony] Yes, and I think that’s why our country is in danger now. We do face dangers from the economic situation, we do face dangers from the powers of Marxism, but I think even more from the destruction of justice by these class and economic and racial concepts which intrude into the processes of civil government. I think one of the things coming through loud and clear, certainly from the letters I’ve been getting is that people are realizing right now that, for example, the homosexual community is a privileged group in the United States, and that the welfare of the rest of us means nothing by comparison, so that when prisoners are released from prison as in New York because they have AIDS, and the rest of the people in the state are exposed, but the prison community is not. It tells us something about this country.

Are there any other questions or comments?

If not, let us bow our heads in prayer.

Our Lord and our God, we thank Thee for Thy Word. We thank Thee that Thou hast called us to serve Thee and that we have so great a freedom in Christ and such rich promises. Make us ever diligent to serve Thee so that indeed kingdoms of this world might become kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. Bless us to this end. And now, go in peace. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you this day and always. Amen.