land

Cowardly Slave Industries

eejoseph, , ,

When we read the Ten Commandments in original context we find that they are followed immediately by what we should recognize as the first statute or judgment in the Torah an entry about slaves and ownership or to put it mildly how to treat a servant.  This is not a coincidence or disjointed alert.  Exodus 21:2 is the slice that complements Exodus 20;2, the preamble to the Ten Words; a deliberate attempt by the Lord’s servant Moses to raise Israel’s morality at least to golden rule level.  

If you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve for six years; but on the seventh he shall go out as a free man without payment.

(Exodus 21:2, NASB)

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”

(Exodus 20:2, NASB)

The privilege of having servants was as destructive for ancient Israel as it is for European kingdoms, the United States of America and the British Empire.  It is difficult to recover from centuries of pursuing dominion over our fellows.

Imagine connecting your head to your torso without your neck

The corrupting of love into a loyalty trip has caused untold misery and confusion with the onslaught of misogyny and racial discrimination.  Even at the  level of golden rule love we have been misled.  Messianic love surpasses “do to others as you’d like done to you”.  People and nations that like to think of themselves as Christian had better start looking for a makeover.  The ten commandments without statutes and judgments are a monster of Frankenstein proportions.  There is no practical good to “You shall not steal” without the judgments of reconciliation and repayment.

The surprising test for governments

Treating workers with the deference due is the benchmark.  After all,  if a man needs servants, he is indebted to them.  His status is tied to their wellbeing and labour.  Having to give them leave every 24 hours, for one day per week, for one year every 7 years and for one year in every 50 years was more than most employers could stand. 

“You shall thus consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim a release through the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, and each of you shall return to his own property, and each of you shall return to his family.” (Leviticus 25:10, NASB)

Leviticus 25:10

Land abuse and perversion

There are few public policies that defy God’s intentions for every human than the real estate confusion. Governments and influential entities affirm the right of each individual to life but not the space to live. The search for space to live outside of earth’s boundaries a denial of mankind’s basic need. Remember the founding of Australia! The export of unsavoury types is still a plank in misanthropic circles. Think again about how every good thing gets corrupted when there are avowed rebels around.

The land, moreover, shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; for you are but aliens and sojourners with Me. (Leviticus 25:23, NASB)

Leviticus 25:23

Resisting the call to treat employees with respect ends badly for the employer, and whether the employer is a nation, a corporation, family or individual. Ends quite badly. Time to pay and send away cannot be ignored.

The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people who were in Jerusalem to proclaim release to them:

Jeremiah 34:8, NASB

Making a covenant means cutting a deal,  karat berit.  The infinitive steers us towards the material deal and not the features of the action.

Freedom for workers is supposed to be cyclical and most people actually cherish having the same employer for life.  Capitalism is the love of money authorized and celebrated and subjected to daily speculation (stock trading  etc).

This agreement could have saved Judah from exile and destruction of the temple and city.  Its failure demonstrated that people who are capitalist will chose God’s anger over doing the right thing.  

Thus begins the sages’ folly

eejoseph, , , ,

Make the employer an employee?

At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath, and His disciples became hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat.
But when the Pharisees saw this, they said to Him, “Look, Your disciples do what is not lawful to do on a Sabbath.”

Matthew 12:1-2

What madness streams from unrepentant hearts!

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The Lord’s contemporaries invented a controversy about the sabbath because they were unaware  of the difference between a weekday and God’s means of refreshing the human race.  The sabbath as a sign in ancient Israel exposed to the light (a) the decree of death (b) the continuing imprisonment of the human race, (c) the reality of labour and (d) the rest yet to be bestowed by God in person. Who needs a sign when the reality is present?

Yeshua made the Sabbath, Joshua lead to rest, but Yeshua has the rest we need and can get only from him.  The rest that God gives to working people – the labour force – is a 24hour deal.  We are so fortunate to have, in many cases, 48 hours every week.  The rest God gives to the busy and burdened is in His Son.

The unemployed and disabled have a rest period too; every day.  Does rest have a better face than “pause from creating “? Does rest have a better face than “land to call my own”?  Yes.  Yes.

Rest denied the unbelieving (death in the desert)


3) For we who have believed enter that rest, just as He has said, “As I swore in My wrath, They shall not enter My rest,” although His works were finished from the foundation of the world.

Rest shared without charge (His) at creation)

4) For He has said somewhere concerning the seventh day: “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works”;

Rest offered the people in the land of rest/promise

5) and again in this passage, “They shall not enter My rest.”

Hebrews 4:3-5

Shut out for the common interest

Living for ever is not natural and Adam’s death proves it.  The opening of the prison and the release of the Holy Spirit are decreed and carefully put on the timetable.

Spirit not given until Yeshua’s glorification

But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

John 7:39

Shut out with purpose

22) Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”– 23) therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. 24) So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.

Genesis 3:22-24

Access to life is the core of Messianic revelation. That Christ gives full and abundant life is beyond question. The life is rest, pardon, and fellowship with the heavenly Father.

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