Leviticus; The Law of Holiness and Grace

Sexuality and Confusion

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Genre: Lessons with Q & A

Lesson: 41

Track: 41

Dictation Name: RR172W41

Date: Early 70s

In the name of the Lord who made Heaven and earth. The Lord is nigh unto all that call upon Him, to all that call upon Him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of them that fear Him. He also will hear their cry and will save them. “Where two or three are gathered together in my name,” saith the Lord Jesus Christ, “There am I in the midst of them.” Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God, we thank Thee that Thou art here, that Thy presence is ever given to Thy people, that we are never alone, and that Thou wilt never leave us nor forsake us. We thank Thee our Father that whether we be in Thy house or in our home or at our place of work, we are ever in Thy presence, and in Thy kingdom, and we are surrounded by Thy grace and mercy. Make us ever mindful of Thy presence, joyful in Thy Word, and triumphant in Thy service. In Christ’s name. Amen.

Our scripture is from Leviticus 19:20-22, and our subject, “Sexuality and Confusion.” Leviticus 19:20-22:

“20And whosoever lieth carnally with a woman that is a bondmaid, betrothed to an husband, and not at all redeemed, nor freedom given her; she shall be scourged; they shall not be put to death, because she was not free.

21 And he shall bring his trespass offering unto the Lord, unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, even a ram for a trespass offering.

22 And the priest shall make an atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering before the Lord for his sin which he hath done: and the sin which he hath done shall be forgiven him.”

This is an unpopular law, very much bypassed in our day, like so much else in Leviticus. People resent the Bible’s plain evaluation of us and the plain references to disquieting facts. The Law refers to a bondmaid, someone who is in servitude to pay off a debt. Now, the fact of bond service is very, very unpopular in our day, and people look down on the Bible for talking about such things and legalizing bond service. Of course, with our 20 and 30-year mortgages, we are so much better. With our payments, which mean a perpetual payment, virtually of interest, a life-time payment of many, with very little off the principle, that’s not slavery, according to the modern outlook.

Even the Rabbinic scholars are not happy with this passage and have said that it refers to the union of a heathen bondmaid betrothed to a Hebrew slave. There’s no hint of this in the text, and their statement that it was forbidden to Hebrew girls ever to become bondmaids is nonsense. Scripture has a plain reference to the fact, more than once.

The interesting term for bondmaid in Hebrew is the same root as the word ‘family.’ It means “to spread out,” so that the very term indicates something of status. A bond service was someone who owed money—had to work it off for six years, or if the payment could be smaller, for a year or two years or a matter of months even (or weeks). However, the term given to a bondservant indicated they had to be treated as a member of the family. They could not be given the status of an outsider or a slave. Thus, we miss a great deal of the meaning of biblical law here if we fail to appreciate what the term ‘bondmaid’ means.

But of course, all biblical law, ordinary facts dealing with the realities of the life around us is neglected today. Now, it is interesting to analyze when this has happened. Periodically in history, men have neglected much of scripture. They have become, as the old saying has it, too spiritually minded to be of much earthly good. In fact, they have produced a kind of mindless Christianity. A great incidence of this prior to our day was in the century prior to the Reformation. One of the unhappy facts about historians is that they concentrate on all the immorality and the evils that prevailed in the Church prior to the Reformation. Even the Jesuits when they began their reform concentrated on that fact, and more devastatingly and in more detail than any of the Protestants did. But that wasn’t the entire story. It was true.

But at the same time, you had a tremendous amount of spirituality; all kinds of groups meeting together for prayer and for devotions, a tremendous emphasis on the devotional life, but not on law. What had happened? The faith had become egocentric. So that one the one hand you had people who declared themselves to be Christians who were interested in their spiritual condition, in their own salvation, and on the other had you had the egocentricity of those who were interested in their pleasure; self-centered in both cases, whereas scripture says, “…seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness…” It was not surprising that the age was given over to tyranny and to immoralism, because the Christians had withdrawn from the world to concentrate on their spirituality, on their piety. The two great ages of tyrants in the history of the world was in the time of the Reformation when torture, which had been a part of the pagan world, returned into society, and our time, again a time of tyrants, of dictators, or torture and a great deal of spirituality.

We can cite other instance throughout Church History where to a lesser degree, in limited areas this has happened. But these things go hand in hand. You cannot abandon God’s Law, the application of things to the kingdom, to the whole of God’s world, without destroying the world around you—without draining out of the culture Christian influences. This began in Europe after 1660; in the United States, it began about 1815-1820 with the Revivalist Movement and the withdrawal into a purely egocentric spiritual concern—my salvation, my peace of mind, my spirituality.

Two of the disciples of Jonathan Edwards saw this coming and preached against it and had a test question for Christians who wanted to join the church. They know they couldn’t answer it favorably, but it was shock question to wake people up out of their egocentricity. The question was simply this: are you willing to be damned for the glory of God? Are you only concerned about your salvation or do you recognize that God has a work to do in the world and it may cost you a great deal? It may, humanly speaking, damn you—destroy you—what comes first? Well, the Law of God has as its purpose to focus our mind on the kingdom of God, that there’s more involved than ourselves and our relationship to God. Our salvation is the beginning, not the be-all of our life in Christ.

And so the Law deals with bond maids. It deals with every kind of offense, every kind of condition.

Now, in the twentieth verse, we have a sentence, or part of a sentence, “…she shall be scourged…” That unfortunately, is a mistranslation. As a century or so ago, and earlier, one scholar, F. Meyrick noted, “The words ‘she shall be scourged’ should be translated, ‘there shall be investigation,’ followed, presumably by the punishment of scourging for both parties, if both were guilty, or one if the woman were unwilling. The man is afterwards to offer a trespass offering, as the offense had been a wrong as well as a sin, his offering is to be a trespass offering.” The words very literally read, “there is an investigation,” and that was mandatory. Then, these verses should be considered in relationship to Deuteronomy 22:23-24, where the girl is not a bond maid. “ If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour's wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you.”

Now in both Leviticus 19:20-22 and Deuteronomy 22:23-24, we have unmarried but betrothed girls. For the free woman, the penalty is death, as it is for the man. Now, this text has reference not to rape, but to lawless sex. It has reference to family life. It is important to note how severe the penalties of scripture are for sexual offenses against the family, but there is no penalty for prostitution. It is merely condemned. It is outside the family. It is by nature, something that is separated from the heart of a culture. Thus, the reference, “whosoever lieth carnally with a woman who is a bondmaid betrothed to a husband” can apply to the master, his son, a male bondservant in the household, to any other man. The investigation is to assess the responsibility and the penalty. But in any of these instances involving a bondservant, a young woman, the man would have the greater responsibility and power, and therefore the greater culpability.

Now, in Exodus 22:16-17 we have the penalty for lawless sex with an unbetrothed maid. And in that instance, the penalty was the payment of a dowry, whether or not the seduced girl was married, that is, married to the man who seduced her, and it was the father of the girl who decided whether or not that was to be done. If he said so, the man had to marry the girl, and he could not divorce her at a later date. In this particular instance in Leviticus, the investigation determined the penalty.

Now, since Biblical Law protects even women prisoners of war from abuse or degradation, it follows in terms of this that an abused bond maid could gain both her freedom and some compensation as a result of the inquiry.

Moreover, the reference to the girl says of a bond maid, “not at all redeemed, nor freedom given to her…” This could be rendered, “not fully redeemed,” because every day she was working, she was one step closer to having paid off her redemption price—her debt.

The trespass offering was required of the man, but it was not the limit of his punishment; there could be more. As Lang said, “{?} …and authorities vary as to whether the punishment was to be inflicted on both parties or the man alone or on the woman alone. The last is supported on the ground that the man’s punishment consisted in his trespass offering. But his is so entirely inadequate that this view may be dismissed. Probably both parties were punished when the acquiescence of the woman might be presumed and the man alone in the opposite case. This would be in accordance with the analogy of Deuteronomy 22:23-27 and would account for the indefiniteness of the Hebrew expression. The supposition that both were ordinarily to be punished also agrees with the following plural, ‘they should not be put to death.’”

Now, there is another aspect of this law which over the centuries was very clearly brought out, but which today is never mentioned. This law follows Leviticus 19:19, “ye shall keep my statutes; thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind; thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed, neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woolen come upon thee.” Now what’s the connection? Well, as over the centuries it has been pointed out, we have in this law with regard to the bond maid, an improper mixture. It is first of all, a lawless relationship. It is outside of marriage. It is outside the protective bonds of family life and status. And second, the man and the woman are unequal in status—and this is a very important point. While the woman, the bond maid, could be very able and superior to the man, but her status for the time being as a bond servant placed her in a position of weakness in relationship to the man; it was thus an exploitive relationship, hence improper and a lawless mixture.

Man has headship, but God’s Law requires that man’s headship be responsible. His relationship with a woman must be covenantal—contracted and under law; not exploitive. Moreover, the requirement of the trespass offering is very, very significant. As Gustav Ehlert said, “The trespass offerings presupposes and act of defrauding, which though chiefly an infraction of a neighbor’s rights in the matter of property is also according to the views of Mosaism is an infraction of God’s right in respect to Law.”

Now, I began by saying that laws like this are very unpopular and therefor neglected in our time because modern man is not comfortable with references to bond service and other like facts which are now piously disavowed in name, whereas more ugly practices prevail. A century ago, Kellogg’s comment on this was very much in order, and I’d like to quote it in some detail. “We live in an age,” said Kellogg, “When everywhere in Christendom, the cry is ‘Reform!’ And there are many who think that if once it be proved that a thing is wrong, it follows by necessary consequence that the immediate and unqualified legal prohibition of that wrong under such penalty as the wrong may deserve, is the only thing that any Christian has a right to think of. And yet, according to the principle illustrated in this legislation, Leviticus 19:20-22, this conclusion is in such cases, can by no means be taken for granted. That is not always the best law practically which is the best law abstractly. That law is the best which shall be the most effective in diminishing a given evil under the existing moral condition of the community and it is often a matter of such exceeding difficulty to determine what legislation against admitted sins and evils may be the most productive of good in a community whose moral sense is dull concerning them. That it is not strange that the best of men are often found to differ. Remembering this: we may well commend a duty of a more charitable judgment in such cases than one often hears from such radical reformers who seem to imagine that in order to remove an evil, all that is necessary is to pass a law at once and forever prohibit it, and who therefore hold up to shame all who doubt the wisdom and duty of so doing as the enemies of truth and of righteousness. Moses, acting under direct instruction from the God of supreme wisdom and of perfect holiness was far wiser than such well-meaning but sadly mistaken social reformers who would feign be wiser than God.”

What Kellogg noted a century ago has proven to be totally correct. Laws now framed to replace God’s laws are abstract and unrealistic. Laws can control men. They can require them to be outwardly good. But laws cannot give men a new nature nor can they control evil, especially if they mislocate it. And law today increasingly mislocates evil. It puts it in a class, or in society at large or in the environment, or in heredity, in the family—any number of things except the individual. And therefore law today is increasingly off base and contributes to the delinquency of the world, to the growing evil, because it cannot locate evil properly.

Humanistic laws locate evil in a number of things which may be good and which may be bad. Moreover, they see evil by so doing as an abstraction when it is moral perversity in man.

Communism is an abstraction. As an economic system in abstraction it can be conceived of as the solution to all problems, as an ideal system. Except that it is contrary to everything in God’s universe; contrary to the nature of man. We can imagine that Communism might work, if all people were what some people imagine angels are. Then, possibly, Communism might work. But men are sinners, or saved sinners. They are not in nature created for such a society as Communism, even when redeemed, even when totally good, they cannot have such a nature because God did not create them for Communism. And abstractions cannot build a society.

Today, our mathematicians love to spin hypothetical math—the new math is an example, to create all kinds of imaginary mathematics. And the most unpopular course in the university for a mathematician to teach is the required course for engineers, because it’s so confining. After all, theoretical math cannot build engineers. It cannot build bridges. It cannot erect buildings, only dream castles, and they prefer these mathematicians to live in their dream castles with their dream mathematics—totally logical constructs—marvels of logic, but without any relationship to reality.

Humanistic laws such as we have them today are abstract and ideal. They are unrelated to the realities of man’s nature and being and as a result, they bring in social chaos. God’s Law is in terms of God’s creation and of God’s purpose for Man and the World. And the purpose of Leviticus is to prevent the moral confusion that man brings in.

Men must not use their power therefore to destroy God’s order. They must not usher in confusion. Homosexuality and bestiality, God’s Law says, are obvious cases of confusion; mixing wool and linen, breeding an ass and a horse—confusion. But so too, this law tells us, is any unequal and exploitive relationship. This law was once highly respected. But it’s out of favor now. Why? It deals with an unpopular subject: bond service and it came to be seen as encouraging class lines, simply because it bars exploitation. Supposedly there are no classes, and supposedly there are no sinners, according to these dreamers, but God’s Law gives us the reality.

Let us pray.

Lord, increase our knowledge of Thy Word, that we may be relevant to our world and to our time, that the rapid descent into the horrors of tyranny, of world revolution, of world-wide evil may be halted by Thy people, by Thy Church. Bless us to this purpose, we beseech Thee. In Christ’s name, amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson?

[Audience] Well, we have more, more laws now regarding inter-relations. Sex harassment laws, sexua-- {?} than ever. And yet we have more licentiousness than ever.

[Rushdoony] Yes. The laws are not realistic, nor are they based on God’s order, but on imaginary Humanistic orders.

One of the, ah, laws now being proposed—perhaps you’ve seen references to it—and Congress is holding hearings on it, is to give a, both men and women, I believe it is 18 weeks of childbirth leave. And, uh, the fact that most men are very much opposed to that isn’t fazing Congress in the slightest. They seem to feel that their superior wisdom enables them to see things that, ah, these parents who’ve been polled do not see.

Any other comments?

Well, let us bow our heads then in prayer.

Our Lord and our God, we thank Thee that in this world of man’s confusion Thy truth, Thy Word remains unchanged. We thank Thee that though men feel that they govern all things and that their plans shall prevail, it is Christ and Thy kingdom that even now rules and shall overthrow the very gates of Hell. Make us ever joyful in Thee and confident in Thy purpose and in Thy victory. 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.