IX

THE SOCIAL PRINCIPLES EMBODIED IN THE PROPHETIC CODE OF DEUTERONOMY

Domestic Relations: Duties of Husbands to Their Wives. The prophets who formulated the laws of Deuteronomy were ardent champions of the defenseless. At the same time they were practical reformers, and therefore did not attempt the impossible. When existing institutions were not absolutely harmful they accepted them. Evil customs they sought to ameliorate by modifying rather than by condemning them. It was because they adopted this mediating method that their laws quickly gained popular acceptance. Thus they made no protest against the old Semitic custom which permitted the victor to marry a woman captured in war, but they commanded that every consideration should be shown for her feelings (Dt. 2110-14). She was to be allowed to put off the garb of captivity and to lament for her father and mother a month undisturbed. Then she was to be given the full rights of wifehood. Her husband could never again sell her into slavery. They also enacted that whoever brought a false charge of infidelity against his wife should pay a heavy fine to her father and should never be allowed to divorce her (Dt. 2219). While they were not able to abolish the Semitic custom which made divorce easy, they did all in their power to make it more difficult for a husband to put away his wife at will. They provided that he must give her a written statement of the grounds for such action and should never be allowed to remarry her (Dt. 241-4). Most men would hesitate long before they committed themselves to a statement which the parents of their rejected wife could and in most cases would compel them to prove before a public tribunal. The irrevocable nature of that act would

DUTIES OF HUSBANDS

91

also deter them from yielding to a passing impulse. In this earliest of marriage laws the aim, therefore, is not to countenance but to put barriers in the way of divorce.

Duties of Parents to Children. Equally progressive is the Deuteronomic legislation that aims to define the duties of parents to their children. The ancient lawgivers have anticipated the fundamental principle underlying the modern religious-education movement. Upon the parents they throw the responsibility of teaching their children the essential principles of religion and morals and of utilising to that end every opportunity presented by their daily life together. These lawgivers also appreciated the large pedagogical value of a question asked by the one to be taught (Dt. 66-9, 20-25):

These words, which I command thee this day, shall be upon thy heart; and thou shalt impress them upon thy children, and thou shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. Thou shalt bind them as a reminder on thy hand, and have them as bands on thy forehead between thine eyes, and thou shalt mark them on the posts of thy house and on thy doors.

When thy son asketh thee in the future, 'What mean the testimonies, and the statutes, and the judgments, which Jehovah our God hath commanded you?' then shalt thou say to thy son, 'We were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt; but Jehovah brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand; and Jehovah performed before our eyes great and destructive signs and wonders, upon Egypt, upon Pharaoh, and upon all his household; and he brought us out from there, that he might bring us in to give us the land which he swore to our fathers. And Jehovah commanded us to act in accord with all these statutes, to fear Jehovah our God, that we might always prosper, and that he might preserve us alive, as at this day. We shall be righteous if we observe faithfully this command before Jehovah our God, as he hath commanded us.'

Duties of Children to Parents. The Deuteronomic lawgivers were strenuously insistent that children in turn honour and obey their parents, for they recognised that this attitude was essential to a stable social order and to the development

of efficient social citizens. They appealed first to the selfinterest of the children themselves (Dt. 516):

Honour thy father and thy mother, as Jehovah thy God hath commanded thee; that thy days may be long, and that it may go well with thee in the land which Jehovah thy God giveth thee.

They fortified this appeal by an educated public opinion, for in the formal liturgy, which aimed to impress upon the national consciousness the major crimes that must be avoided if the common good was to be conserved, they instructed the officiating Levites to say (Dt. 2716):

Cursed be he who dishonours his father or his mother. And all the people shall say, 'So may it be.'

Finally, they decreed that dishonouring and disobeying parents was so grievous a crime that organised society itself should by the most strenuous methods stamp out this menace to its welfare and integrity. There is every reason to believe that parental love always prevented, as the lawgivers anticipated it would, the execution of this grim law, and that its practical value was to emphasise dramatically a vital principle (Dt. 2118-21):

If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, who will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and, though they chastise him, will not give heed to them, his father and his mother shall take hold of him, and bring him before the elders of his city, and to the gate of the place where he lives, and they shall say to the elders of his city, 'This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a spendthrift and a drunkard.' Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death; thus thou shalt put away the evil from thy midst, and all Israel shall hear and fear.

Duties of Masters to Slaves. Though obsolete, the Deuteronomic laws regarding slaves are still richly suggestive in this modern industrial age, for the underlying principles are still applicable. In contrast to the old Babylonian and Roman

DUTIES OF MASTERS TO SLAVES

93

lawgivers, the interest of the authors of the Deuteronomic codes is entirely with the slave. The code of Hammurabi imposed a most severe penalty upon the man who harboured a runaway slave. The Deuteronomic lawgivers, however, with a bold disregard for existing customs and vested interests, decreed (Dt. 2315, 16):

Thou shalt not deliver to his master a slave who has fled from his master to thee. He shall dwell with thee in thy land, in the place which he shall choose within one of thy towns, where it pleases him best, without thy oppressing him.

They also provided that the slaves should share equally with the children of the household in the annual festivities which were celebrated at Jerusalem (Dt. 1217, 18, 1611). To the primitive law of Exodus 212, which enacted that all Hebrew slaves should be freed after six years of service, they added the provision that they be generously supplied with the necessities of life so that they would not be again reduced through poverty to the condition of servitude (Dt. 1513-15):

When thou lettest him go free, thou shalt not let him go emptyhanded; rather thou shalt furnish him liberally from thy flock, and thy threshing-floor, and thy winepress; according as Jehovah thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give to him. And thou shalt remember that thou wast a slave in the land of Egypt, and that Jehovah thy God redeemed thee; therefore I now command thee to do this thing.

It is important to note that the generous giving that is urged is not charity which pauperises the recipient, but a just recompense for services rendered. The social principle here operative is not that of force and might, but of justice and brotherhood and love. As elaborated by the later prophets and Jesus, this is the only principle that will solve the problem of domestic service that looms so large in many modern homes.

Political and Civil Regulations: Obligations of Rulers. The democratic principles for which Ahijah and Elijah contended are definitely incorporated in the Deuteronomic codes.

The entire intent of this legislation is in favour of the common citizen. The king is the free choice of the people (Dt. 1714, 15). He is enjoined to be content with a modest revenue and court and not to amass private wealth (Dt. 1716, 17). Above all, he must rule humbly and faithfully in accord with the democratic principles laid down in Deuteronomy 1718-20:

And when he sitteth upon his kingly throne he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law which is in the charge of the Levitical priests; and he shall have it always with him, and he shall read in it daily as long as he lives, that he may learn to fear Jehovah his God, to take heed to observe all the words of this law and these statutes, that his heart be not lifted up above his kinsmen, and that he turn aside from this command neither to the right nor to the left, in order that he and his descendants may continue long to rule in the midst of Israel.

Duties of Judges. The rules for the guidance of judges are eternally applicable. Here the principles for which Amos and Hosea and Isaiah valiantly fought are writ into Judah's national code (Dt. 117):

Ye shall be impartial in judgment. Ye shall give equal hearing to the weak and strong. Ye shall not be afraid of any man, for the judgment is God's.

The prophetic lawgivers were exceedingly strenuous in their condemnation of bribery, and their position is doubly significant because its background is the Semitic world in which nearly every private and public transaction was accompanied by a gift (Dt. 1619b, 20):

Thou shalt not take a bribe, for a bribe blindeth the eyes of the wise and perverteth the words of the righteous. Justice and only justice shalt thou follow, that thou mayest live and inherit the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

They also placed bribery in the list of the twelve deadly social crimes that were to be denounced publicly by priests and people (Dt. 2725).