Deuteronomy

Holy Order

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: 69-110

Genre: Talk

Track: 069

Dictation Name: RR187AL69

Location/Venue:

Year: 1993

Let us worship God. We have not a high priest which cannot b touched by the feeling of our infirmities but was at all points tempted like as we are but without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Let us pray.

Almighty God our Heavenly Father we come into Thy presence rejoicing in all Thy mercies past and present. Rejoicing in the certainty of Thy government that all things come from Thee, all things are ordained by Thee and all things shall accomplish Thy holy purpose. We pray our Father that we might therefore work in and under Thee to be more than conquerors through Christ Jesus our Lord. Strengthen us in Thy service, in Christ’s name, Amen.

Our scripture is in Deuteronomy 22:1-4. Our subject: Holy Order. Deuteronomy 22:1-4.

“Thou shalt not see thy brother's ox or his sheep go astray, and hide thyself from them: thou shalt in any case bring them again unto thy brother.

2 And if thy brother be not nigh unto thee, or if thou know him not, then thou shalt bring it unto thine own house, and it shall be with thee until thy brother seek after it, and thou shalt restore it to him again.

3 In like manner shalt thou do with his ass; and so shalt thou do with his raiment; and with all lost thing of thy brother's, which he hath lost, and thou hast found, shalt thou do likewise: thou mayest not hide thyself.

4 Thou shalt not see thy brother's ass or his ox fall down by the way, and hide thyself from them: thou shalt surely help him to lift them up again.”

To understand this text we must recognize that our brother mentioned in verse one is anyone, whether we know him or not. In other words, it is our fellow man. Verse two says thy brother, if thou know him not, so that this applies to anyone who has this problem. This text deals with our responsibility to our fellow men, to our neighbor or brother. It uses examples of a simple sort, one common when I was a boy, after all, people would in those days on the farm all had milk cows, they would take them during the spring especially and summer along the canal banks, stake them out, so that they could get a lot of free feed and the canal people of course were glad to have the grass eliminated. Very often they would, the ground being soft, pull out the stake and drift off. When that happened you took the cow and put it in your barn, you let someone know in the neighborhood if you didn’t know whose cow it was, that if anyone comes looking for a cow we have it. This was once a common practice. The law deals generally using specific examples with the restoration of lost property. It refers to any kind of property. Animals are cited and also lost garments. Here of course children playing or men working very often will tend to forget something. It refers to any property holder, friend or foe, and we are morally obligated to help. This law is related to Exodus 23:4-5 which read:

“If thou meet thine enemies ox or his ass going astray thou shalt surely bring it back to him again. If thou see the ass of him that hateth thee lying under his burden and wouldst forbear to help him thou shalt surely help with him.”

The practical result of such help will be to heal animosities and bring people together. It is worth knowing that a fallen animal which must be helped up was not of necessity overloaded. Modern readers think of that first but of course elsewhere God does legislate against cruelties to animals. What this refers to here is the fact that even in my childhood was common. We must remember that a great deal of western states, especially some of the larger ones, Texas for example, had if you strayed from the main highways very, very little in the way of paved roads and the roads would often be muddy roads difficult to trespass in wet weather. In such weather men and animals easily slipped and fell. This meant that a loaded animal, an animal who did not carry too great a pack, could not get up without help. The alternative was to unload him, help him up and then reload him, a slow process and it also meant that you would have to unload in to the mud. So this was a very practical commandment, help your neighbor. There is another matter here, property. Whether a garment or an ox the lost item was someone’s property and the eighth commandment says ‘thou shalt not steal’. Simple theft means taking that which belongs to another. There are many, many other ways of depriving people of their property such as by taxation but an indirect means is to refuse neighborly watchfulness. To see a neighbor’s ox, ass or cow go astray and do nothing means that we allow the stray animal to be injured or stolen so we become an accessory to theft. To see his property unprotected because it has been mislaid or in some other way lost and to do nothing when we know something is to help in theft. Biblical laws respecting property are very many. There is a reason for this. In this life property is closely tied to our existence, to our calling and to our freedom. Think of yourself suddenly stripped of all your property. This is something that has just happened in the past few days in Southern California with the fires which destroyed seven hundred homes and other properties.

We are essentially related to our property. Imagine yourself not only without your home, your vehicle or your clothing. Our existence is very closely tied to our property and this is why God’s law is so concerned with property, respect for it and the protection of property. Our freedom, our calling and our very existence are in danger or at the very least limited when our property is lost, destroyed or stolen. We are then required to treat every man as our brother where his person and property are concerned. This is a necessary aspect of social order. So God says you are going to be watchful of your neighbor’s property, whether it’s his sweater or his animal or anything else! Because life and property are very closely linked. Great many totalitarian regimes not only begin by the socialization of all property but when they go after a man what do they do? When they arrest him, take him into a prison cell for questioning, more often than it is reported because it is a very great humiliation that those who endure it find difficult to talk about. They take away all their clothing; they take them in to be questioned in a cold room where they are shivering because they know they’ve stripped them of essentials to life, to dignity, to freedom. It’s a very destructive thing. And so God’s law says you’re going to be mindful of the property of your neighbor, your fellow man, your enemy. In Leviticus 6:1-7 we are told that failure to restore a lost article is theft. The item must be restored and if we’ve kept it for some time before it’s been discovered in our possession we are fined one fifth of the value. The expression in verse one not to hide thyself has been rendered by some versions of it more accurately with ‘not to withhold your help’, not to withhold your help.

The ancient understanding of this law has been that no reward was to be received for restoring the stray or lost property to the owner, even if it meant some work on your part. Even if it meant you took their milk cow in and you fed it in your barn for a day or two or three days. To perform a neighborly moral duty is not to be seen as rendering a payable service. We are commanded by God not to withhold our help. There is another aspect to this law. In verse one ‘go astray’ is literally as C.H. Waller pointed out in the last century ‘being driven away’. This could be by a wild animal or by a thief. There is an issue here which modern law has not fully come to terms with. Some courts have given decisions sometimes favoring this particular aspect of biblical law and some, more commonly, the reverse. As one legal authority wrote, H.B. Clark, and I quote, and this is from a legal study that goes back better than half a century:

“The doctrines of biblical law are not altogether satisfied when one merely refrains from injuring his neighbor. For the law requires the doing of good at all times and so while one should not consider himself as his brother’s keepers and thus perhaps cause himself to be hated he should doubtless help his neighbor as well as his beast of burden when the neighbor calls for help or when it is seen that he is in distress or is about to suffer injury and one can give assistance without serious inconvenience or injury to himself. Such a duty would seem to be implicit in the golden rule and in the commandment of Jesus to a certain lawyer that he should go and do as did the good Samaritan. But difficulty arises when it is sought to assess the liability of one who liketh a certain priest and Levite passed by on the other side. For as the law awards no material compensation to the Samaritan so it seemingly imposes no penalty upon one who fails to do by his neighbor as a good man. The secular law imposes no duty to become a good Samaritan and prevent injury to others. It is said that a bystander, this is quoting from American legal decisions, a bystander may watch a blind man or a child walk over a precipice but yet he is not required to give a warning. He may stand on the bank of a stream and see a drowning man and although he holds in his hand the rope that could be used to rescue the man yet he is not required to give assistance. He may owe a moral duty to warn the blind man or to assist the drowning man but being a mere by stander and in no wise responsible for the dangerous situation he owes no legal duty to render assistance.” Unquote.

In recent years in fact doctors have found that rendering emergency medical aid as at an accident, being a Good Samaritan, can be legally very dangerous so that we have seen a very, very steady drift away from this biblical law in our present legal structure. These verses indicate a double edged aspect of the law of God with respect to our neighbor. First we must love our neighbor which means we must do him no evil and we must see our enemies included in this just treatment. Then second, not only must we do him no harm but we must not hide ourselves or withhold our help when need arises as this law indicates among others. We come now to another aspect of this law which was once basic to our American law and still is there to a very limited degree. Ownership does not cease when our property is lost or stolen. We alone can transfer ownership to our property according to this law. In some areas as with respect to title to ownership to an automobile our civil and criminal laws are reasonably protective of our ownership. In other spheres without any crime on our part the state can and does seize properties against God’s law. In so doing the state becomes a thief in the sight of God. In verse one hide thyself, an expression used, is a literal translation of the Hebrew. Peter Craigie made a brilliant comment, I think, on this, a particular phrase. I quote:

“Unlike Babylonian law, in this law we have no concern primarily with the criminal act such as the illegal procreation of lost property, rather it deals with shouldering responsibility as a member of the covenant community. A man was not to hide himself from responsibility or to take no notice of the happenings around him that required some positive action on his part.” Unquote.

Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, the parable of the Good Samaritan, all are tied to this. We cannot hide ourselves from responsibility and here we have an essential aspect f God’s law. Instead of a finder’s keepers attitude the law demands responsibility on our part for God’s holy order. Its primary concern is not our neighbor’s property important as that may be or our own character but our responsibility to God to establish and further his order. God’s ordering of life as set forth in his law is a holy order and we are responsible for the maintance and extension of that order. I think by now you see what has happened as in this century this law as it has receded in importance in civil law in this country and elsewhere, how much social order has declined as a result. As some have said neighborly kindness is certainly required by this law but its purpose is above all the development of a responsibility to God and His law. Its purpose is a just and holy order. Calvin saw this law as the positive counterpart to the prohibition of theft. The law requires preventing loss to our neighbor by the loss of his property in the manner that the law describes, for it is, Calvin says, abominable to God for us to refuse to be a good neighbor to our fellow men. Calvin said further and I quote:

“Therefore let us mark well this law in forbidding theft has also bound us all to procure the welfare and profit one of another. And indeed it is a rule to be observed of us in all cases that God in forbidding any evil doth therewith command us to do the good that is contrary to it. Thou shalt not steal, said Thee, and why? For he that doeth his neighbor any hurt or harm is abominable before God. Then is it to be concluded that as I would have mine own goods preferred so must I be careful of other mens also and every man must do the like on his own behalf.” Unquote.

There is no penalty attached to the laws of verses one through four, the penalty comes from God in the form of anarchy and disorder. The society falls apart. Because of its closeness to other laws carrying a penalty at some points there could be punishment in terms of a related law. This law was the background and basis of one of the best known parables of our Lord, the parable of the Good Samaritan. He relates its meaning to the law of God, to the love of God and to the love of our neighbor. For as the law of Deuteronomy 22:1-4 which we’ve considered refers to property our Lord takes it and applies it to the case of a man, a victim, in order to make more clear the meaning of a disregard for God’s law order. If you begin by treating his property of no concern to yourself you end up treating him as of no concern to yourself. That’s the meaning of the parable of the Good Samaritan. Let us pray.

Our Father, we thank Thee for this Thy word. Thy word speaks to our every condition, our every need. Give us grace to pay attention, to hear and to obey, that we may again have a godly society. In Christ’s name, Amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Question] I want to make a comment about the Good Samaritan. He realized that he owes a duty to the Jew that was beaten up on the road but also he hated the Jew but he had a duty to help him out.

[Rushdoony] That’s right. There was no love lost between Jews and Samaritans and yet that was the whole point of the parable. Any other questions?

It is interesting that in citation from H. B. Clark whose field is the law that fifty years ago he was aware of the fact of the biblical premises. That’s gone now, half a century ago, that recently. A legal scholar took into consideration what God’s law said and how very different civil law is today. Yes?

[Question] It was the citation that you read, when did it start to drift away?

[Rushdoony] After World War Two, very quickly. In 1952 the Supreme Court began to dismantle the Christian aspects of our legal system and they’ve done it very rapidly since then. So we’ve had forty one years in which decisions have progressively eliminated every aspect of biblical law. One current legal scholar has said that if this continues as it is at present throughout the western world we will early in the next century have a total collapse of western civilization unless in that time there is a return to the biblical foundations. The scholar was Harold J. Berman who was at Harvard at the time and is now at Emery, professor of law. And it is interesting that he saw the foundation of western law in the doctrine of the atonement. Because it was no longer the will of a king or the will of the state that determined law but the doctrine of the atonement, restitution and he does a masterly work in Law and Revolution in tracing that fact. It is really a classic. Yes?

[Question] Can you think of another culture that was based upon biblical law than abandoned it?

[Rushdoony] No, we have, yes, we abandoned it. Well we did before, for example, the Renaissance was an abandonment of biblical law in favor of humanism and the Reformation and Counter-Reformation worked to undo that. So in our society we’ve had two major drifts away from it. The renaissance and the present time. We’ve had minor drifts over the centuries before and after the Renaissance but these are the two great ones and our age represents the greatest abandonment. And it’s for militant humanism of the Sade-ian character, the Marque De Sade. Yes?

[Question] France never had a common wealth or a biblical view of the law at any time?

[Rushdoony] It did in the medieval era, all of Europe did, yes.

[Question unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Well you had first the royalist departure in which royal law culminating in Louis the 14th was basic, so basic that even the royal chapel where the Royal preacher was really a good man, I’ve read his sermons and they are excellent, but the courtiers and all looked to and prayed towards not the altar, it was a catholic chapel, but Louis the 14th. He was now the sun king, he was the sun, s-u-n, the source of life. And of course the Revolution said it was in the people but philosophically both were anti-Christian. And the Marque De Sade was most open because he declared there was one crime only, everything else was legal, and that crime was Christianity.

[Question] Maybe in the future they’ll call this era the new world order.

[Rushdoony] [laughs] Or the new world disorder because it has created massive disorder.

[Question unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Well, that’s been a subject of one or two very interesting studies, the [unknown] social orders have been religious, pagan, but religious. So there still has been authority and as a result in terms of that authority there has been a considerable social order, not necessarily good one always. Often a very bad one, but order and authority. And the modern temper as it has gone all over the world has created more and more disorder so that all over the world disorder is beginning to creep into or gallop into various societies and the results are devastating. Now, it often means that in these social orders people are ready to defend things that are truly evil because they’re afraid of what will happen otherwise. A classic example of that is the caste system in India and if you talk to a Hindu student who is here in this country he will defend the caste system. He will admit that ideally it isn’t everything that it should be, but abolish the caste system and the whole society will be anarchy and murder, theft, everything and the caste system preserves it. So as we face a good deal of the non-Christian world we have to say that they are maintaining order and authority, they are keeping anarchy at bay but at a fearful price. How can that be altered? Well, the modern age as it infiltrates creates more and more trouble in those societies. So that the elderly Japanese will find the current situation a disorderly one. The only thing that can change that into an order is Christianity. You have to replace it with another religious order, a true religious order. And what the modern temper and humanism is doing is to be totally destructive of order as they go into these areas and the revolutionaries all over the world come out of these various societies and come to colleges and universities in Britain and here. I recall years ago the Shah of Iran in a statement said there was only one school in the United States that didn’t send back revolutionists. Cal-poly in San [???] because it was purely geared to practical things like agriculture, wine making and so on, and the students there went back to their countries and became the builders. Well we have just a couple minutes, we have time for one quick question, yes?

[Question unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes they have had a very strict religious order and the Jesuit influence there in the 17th century was very important because the Samurai creed and premises were borrowed from the Jesuits. So there’s been a Christian impact there. Well our time is just about up, let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father, it has been good for us to be here, Thy word is truth and Thy word nourishes and strengthens us by Thy spirit. Grant that each of us in our sphere may serve Thee with all Thy heart, mind and being, grant us Thy blessing, this day and always, upon us and our children’s children. 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.