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Seven Patterns of Marriage in the Bible

Seven patterns of marriage in the Bible. Concubines, wives, handmaids, levirate, etc.

This isn’t a how-to article. I’m not going to tell you how to have a happy or fulfilling marriage. Marriage advice is vital. No matter how smart or “experienced” you think you are, you can’t figure it out all on your own. You need help.

That’s not this. This is more of a “how-did” kind of article. Good, bad, or ugly…this isn’t about managing the dynamics of person-to-person relationships. It’s about categories of marriage that nobody else seems to want to talk about.

That’s understandable. In modern America today, for the most part, a man and a woman date, get engaged, and get married. That’s pretty much how everyone does it. (For the moment, set aside the world’s wickedness and rare outliers like surrogates.)

But I’ve got some foreign and uncomfortable news for you: Modern America is an anomaly. Most people throughout history–most people in the rest of the world right now–don’t do marriage the way we do. That includes the ancient Hebrews who wrote the Bible and for whom it was written.

Marriage Is Central

The concept of marriage is central to God’s portrayal of his relationship with his people. Adam was made in his image, and from Adam, God extracted Eve, making the two together a more complete image of God than either one separately. Over and over, he describes his relationship with his people as a marriage.

The wedding feast…The bride of Christ…Idolatry is the same as adultery.

If God uses marriage as a metaphor of his relationship with us throughout the Bible, it seems to me that it’s important for us to understand how the Bible portrays marriage.

That’s not to say that every marital arrangement in the Bible is a pattern we ought to follow. The Bible doesn’t hide its characters’ bad choices. In fact, it frequently–almost always–highlights them in order to give us examples of what not to do.

But that’s also not to say that every marital arrangement in the Bible that doesn’t conform to our cultural expectations of right and wrong is actually wrong. God doesn’t care about our cultural standards. He communicates with us where we are, but he doesn’t conform his moral standards to ours. If God says something is morally acceptable, then it is. If he says it’s not morally acceptable, then it’s not. Our preferences carry no weight.

God determines right and wrong. We don’t.

It’s tempting to think that God merely “winked” at the sinful nature of foreign things like concubinage and polygamy, which appear on the surface to be unfair to women, because the ancient Hebrews didn’t know any better, but that was never a consideration for any of the laws that he gave. God didn’t hesitate to give a law against making and worshiping statues of him, even though the Hebrews obviously didn’t know that they weren’t supposed to do that. They struggled with idolatry for another thousand years after Sinai, so suggesting God didn’t outright ban any of these marital arrangements only because the Hebrews wouldn’t have understood is absurd.

Slavery…bride price…capital punishment…polygamy…genocide…. Like it or not, these are things that God allows in his Law under some circumstances, and our gut feelings about how right or wrong they are is completely irrelevant to the reality of their rightness or wrongness.

With that understanding, I’d like to describe seven marital arrangements that you will encounter while reading the Bible, especially the Old Testament. Not because I think we need all of these arrangements now, but because I don’t think you can fully understand the Scriptures without understanding the culture and mindset of the people who wrote them. I am neither promoting nor condemning any of these practices. I’m just telling you how marriage used to work and what God allows in his Law. “Allows” does not equal “desires”. “Allowed” does not mean “ideal”.

  1. Betrothal
  2. Free Marriage
  3. Concubinage
  4. Levirate Marriage
  5. Handmaid Concubinage
  6. Slave Marriage
  7. Captive Concubinage

Betrothal is somewhere between our “engagement” and marriage. Free Marriage is closest to what we call “marriage” today. Levirate Marriage is tied to life in the land of Israel. The other four are all variations of concubinage. I’ll explain what that means later, but it’s important to know that Biblical Hebrew doesn’t have a separate word for any of these, except perhaps for “concubine”, and that word isn’t always applied to concubines. In fact, it doesn’t have specific words for marriage or wife at all.

The Hebrew word for “wife” used in the Bible is ishah (אשּׁה), which really just means “woman”. Except for the Levirate Marriage (yabam / יבם), there is no single word for marriage or marry. For women, the Bible uses phrases like “become a woman” or just “become”. For men, it most often says “master”. For readability, almost all English translations render these terms as some variation of “wife” or “marry”, depending on the context. That’s fine as long as the reader knows this, but if you don’t, I think it can often lose meaning or gain unintended meanings.

The differences between these marital arrangements are fuzzy and often overlap. A captive woman might become a handmaid to a Hebrew wife and then be given to the husband as a surrogate. A concubine might be a man’s only wife and if he dies childless, she might become a levirate wife to his brother. It can be complicated.

The ancient Hebrews probably didn’t categorize their relationships in the way I do below, but I think applying labels and descriptions will help the modern Bible student understand what he’s reading in the Scriptures.

Betrothal

Betrothal is similar to what we think of as engagement, but wasn’t so easily broken. In fact, betrothal was considered tantamount to marriage and could only be broken by a divorce. A woman who was betrothed to one man and had a sexual relationship with another would be guilty of adultery.

A betrothal would begin when a man and woman (and her father) agreed to marriage. Under normal and ideal circumstances, the man would give her and her family a bride price–a substantial gift that would likely be shared between the bride and her father or eldest brother. The woman’s family would reciprocate with a dowry of land, livestock, or some other tangible form of wealth. If her husband ever abandoned or divorced her unjustly, her family would probably try to get her dowry back from him.

Joseph’s betrothal to Mary (Matthew 1:18-19) is an example. The primary laws governing betrothal (apart from to whom you are allowed to marry) are in Exodus 22:16-17, Deuteronomy 20:7, and Deuteronomy 22:23-29.

Free Marriage

A free marriage is one in which a man marries a free (not a slave) woman and receives a dowry as part of the marriage agreement. Although we don’t consciously think of bride prices and dowries, this is what we usually have in mind when we talk about marriage.

If the man paid the woman and her family a bride price and did not receive a dowry in exchange, then she would probably be considered a concubine instead. Recall the story of Jacob’s marriages to Leah and Rachel. He agreed to work seven years for each of them, and if that had been the full transaction, they would have been concubines instead of full wives. When Jacob suggests that it’s time they left his father-in-law, both of the sisters replied by saying “Our father sold us and devoured our money”. They were complaining that Laban had sold them to Jacob for labor and had used up their dowry for himself. Fortunately for them, God intervened and miraculously extracted their dowry from Laban in the form of striped and spotted sheep, ensuring that they were free women. See Genesis 31.

Abraham’s marriage to Sarah, Isaac’s marriage to Rebekah, and David’s marriage to Abigail are all examples of free marriage.

Concubinage

In short, a concubine is a wife who is also a purchased slave, usually belonging to the man to whom she is married. In many ancient cultures, such as the Greek, a slave girl could be used by her master however he saw fit, including for prostitution, but that kind of behavior is forbidden by Torah.

If a man owned a female slave who was married to someone else, usually another slave, and if he had sex with her, then he could be executed as an adulterer. A man could take any of his unmarried, unbetrothed slave girls to be his own concubine, but that would become a permanent relationship. She would be his wife, and he couldn’t then toss her aside or give her to someone else like a party favor.

The primary difference between a concubine and a free wife was her legal/economic status as a slave. She had an added layer of economic obligation to her husband that a free wife did not. This had a huge impact on her social standing and on her options if he were to abandon or divorce her, but–contrary to popular mythology–it did not change the fact that she was his wife. She did not stop being a slave when she became his wife, nor did she stop being his wife just because she was also a slave. God required that he provide for her in the same way that he provided for a free wife. See Exodus 21:10.

The children of a concubine did not inherit her status as a slave if her service was owned by her husband directly, but probably would not be able to inherit as a firstborn unless he had no children by a free wife.

Abraham’s marriage to Keturah (Genesis 25:1; she was not the same as Hagar) and the unnamed Levite’s marriage to the unfaithful woman who was murdered (Judges 19) are examples of concubinage.

Levirate Marriage

The word “levirate” isn’t related to the tribe of Levi. It comes from a Latin word that means “brother-in-law”. In this type of marriage, if a man married a woman and then died without having any children, one of his brothers was to marry his widow and their first-born son would become the legal heir of the deceased. The woman was fully a wife to her new husband, just as she had been to her late husband.

Levirate marriage existed to ensure continuity of inheritance in the land of Israel. In Biblical language, a “name” is more than just a label. A person’s name is their character, reputation, faithfulness, and influence in the community. The story of Zelophehad’s daughters in Numbers 27 and 36 shows that a man’s inheritance in God’s promises is an important part of his name, and the levirate marriage is one way that God ensures his name isn’t lost from Israel.

Exactly how this kind of marriage played out in real life is difficult to discern from historical records, including the Bible, but we can extrapolate a few things from the limited information we have:

  • The deceased’s brother would inherit his land if he died unmarried and without any children, but the brother couldn’t simply take the land if the man had been married and was still childless. In order to take over the land, the brother needed to marry the widow and produce an heir for the deceased. The land would then belong to that heir when he came of age, so the brother would only have control of the land for that period of time. His other children would divide his original inheritance among themselves after his death, while the firstborn of his brother’s wife would be the sole heir of his brother’s estate.
  • There were no exceptions for a man who was already married, so this could result in conflict and complications in his house. A second wife doesn’t just add a second relationship, because she will have to be integrated into the whole family.
  • The widow might also come with obligations to her family, including any stipulations that might have been included in her marriage agreement.
  • The deceased’s brother could refuse to marry the widow but such a refusal would cost him honor and social standing. The levirate obligation would then pass to another brother.
  • If the deceased had no brothers or none of his brothers were willing to marry his widow, it seems from the story of Ruth that more distant male relatives might have the option to marry her and produce an heir for the deceased, although that isn’t explicit in Torah.

Tamar’s marriage to Judah’s three sons (Genesis 38:6-14) and Ruth’s marriage to Boaz (Ruth 3-4) are examples of levirate marriage. See Deuteronomy 25:5-10 for the laws governing levirate marriage.

Handmaid Concubinage

Female slaves weren’t only purchased as concubines. Frequently they were purchased as laborers or as another woman’s personal maidservant, also known as a handmaid. The mistress of such a slave could give her to her husband as an additional wife–usually because she was unable to conceive or bear any children of her own–but this didn’t remove the economic obligation of the slave to her mistress. Hence Abram’s response to Sarai in Genesis 16:6 when she complained about Hagar’s behavior: “Look, your servant is under your authority; do to her as you please.”

A wealthy man’s house could get quite complicated if he had multiple wives, each with their own handmaids. Each wife would constitute a sub-house within the house of the patriarch, and each handmaid and her children would be a sub-house within the house of her mistress. The children of the handmaid were counted as the children of the mistress in some legal sense that’s difficult to make out from scripture, but treated as children of the handmaid in household practice. As with the children of a simple concubine, any sons of the handmaid would likely be passed over as the firstborn in favor of a son born to a free wife, if there was one.

Abram’s marriage to Sarai’s handmaid Hagar (Genesis 16:1-4) and Jacob’s marriages to Rachel’s handmaid Bilhah (Genesis 30:1-5) and Leah’s handmaid Zilpah (Genesis 30:9-10) are examples of handmaid concubinage.

Slave Marriage

In God’s Law, the master-slave relationship takes precedence over the husband-wife relationship. If a man marries his female slave, she becomes his wife, while remaining his slave. If a master gives his female slave to a male slave as his wife, they both remain slaves, and their children will belong to their master.

This is probably one of the most difficult elements of God’s Law for modern Americans to accept, but we don’t get to define right and wrong. That is God’s purview alone.

God requires that Hebrew slaves be set free in their seventh year, but non-Hebrew slaves and their children can remain slaves in perpetuity. If the male slave above is a Hebrew and set free, while the woman is not a Hebrew or has not reached her seventh year, she would not be able to leave with him.

At that point, he can decide between three options:

  1. He can walk away, leaving his wife and children behind.
  2. If his slave-wife is a Hebrew, he can wait for her to reach her seventh year, so that she and her children can join him in freedom.
  3. If she is not a Hebrew or if he doesn’t want to wait for her seventh year, he can choose to remain with his master for life.

I’m not aware of any specific examples of this kind of marriage in the Bible, but it is described in Exodus 21:2-6 and Deuteronomy 15:12-17.

Captive Concubinage

Scripture records numerous instances in which Israel captured the women and children of an enemy people. Although this sounds like a horrible thing, the alternative is that they be abandoned to pagan captors, who did not have God’s instructions on how to treat slaves, or to probable starvation. The most humane thing to do after a war in which all or most of the enemy’s men have been killed, is to take the survivors under your protection, and the only practical way to do that is to put them to work.

Many (most?) of those survivors would become handmaids or field workers, but an Israelite warrior also had the option of marrying a newly widowed or unmarried woman. This would make her a captive concubine. He was not allowed to take her immediately, though. In Deuteronomy 20:13-14 and 21:10-14, God gave instructions intended to add a layer of protection for everyone.

Her new master was required to shave her head, trim her nails, and wait thirty days before he could marry her. This gave her time to mourn her family, time to know if she was pregnant or sick, and time to evaluate her character. If, at the end of that time, the man realizes that he let his passions overrule his good sense, or he changes his mind for some other reason, he is required to set her free. He humiliated her in this process and the recompense is that she had shelter in his house for at least a month and cannot then be made a slave to anyone without her consent. She was free to remain in Israel as a widowed sojourner or make her way to some other land or relatives if she had any.

Although I don’t believe the Bible gives any specific details of these relationships, the sacking of Shechem in Genesis 34:29 and the remnant of Midian in Numbers 31 show two instances when a large number of women were captured in war, some of whom almost certainly became concubines to the victors.

Shadows of the Divine

As I mentioned earlier, throughout the Bible, God uses marriage as a metaphor of his relationship with his people.

Since we are most familiar with the concept of the free marriage, it’s relatively easy for us to understand that metaphor. We are the “bride of Christ”, chosen and betrothed, waiting for the marriage supper of the Lamb. But it’s easy to miss the exchange of gifts: the bride price of the Son’s life and the dowry of gold, frankincense, myrrh, spikenard, and spices. These seem like paltry tokens compared to what we were given, but there is no requirement that the dowry and bride price necessarily have to be of equal value. One could say that we give him our lives in exchange for his, but dedicating our lives to him is the marriage itself, so I don’t think that can be considered a dowry.

When we were transgressors, we were subject to the condemnation of the Law, debtors to the Law under a burden we could never pay. He betrothed us to him while we were still hopelessly in bondage, but then he forgave our debt and redeemed us from bondage so that we could be a free bride.

The freed slave who loves his master and his family and binds himself permanently for their sake of his family. This is connected to the believing spouse in 1 Corinthians 7:14 whose family is sanctified to God because of his faith.

All of the laws governing betrothal, marriage, and servitude in scripture are shadows of greater things designed and implemented in heaven. The shadows are patterns intended for our enlightenment. By studying God’s instructions for marriage–even those marital arrangements that aren’t practiced in our culture–we can learn more about him, ourselves, and our relationship to him.

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Acts 15, revisited

Are Christians obligated to keep the Law of Moses? Should Christians study the Torah?

People frequently point to Acts 15 and the Council of Jerusalem as an argument against Christians keeping Torah. “Peter, James, and the other Apostles said that gentile converts only need to keep these four rules, so we don’t need to keep the Law of Moses.” The obvious counter is that, if eating food that has been sacrificed to idols, sexual immorality, eating animals that have been strangled, and consuming blood (Acts 15:20) is the full moral standard for Christians, then we are free to dishonor our parents, thumb our nose at traffic signs, lie, cheat, steal, and curse God. Yet nobody believes that!

Clearly the ruling of the Jerusalem Council is just a baseline for new converts in the context of the pagan Roman Empire, who already had a basic understanding of right and wrong.

Here’s another statement extracted from a conversation from a long time ago, in an Internet forum far, far away:

Jesus’ entire ministry on earth was centered around clarifying the law, and in many places he criticizes those who live by the letter of the law instead of the spirit of the law. an example is the “good samaritan parable”. The laws were given to the Jews in order to keep them ceremoniously clean and set aside for God. So when Jesus says that he did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it, his blood sacrifice has fulfilled the spirit of the law by making us clean before God and setting us aside for him. I believe as much is stated in John 1:1-14.

I do not believe that Acts 15 is suggesting that Christians can lie, steal, etc. etc., because such things were not included in the letter. Rather I believe that as Jesus said, the sum of the laws and the prophets, the spirit of them, is to love the Lord you God will all your heart, and your neighbor as yourself.

-Mr. B.A.D.

I don’t think that Mr. B.A.D. is very far from the truth here. Yeshua did spend much of his time correcting misunderstandings of the Law. God did give the Torah to Israel to set them apart from other peoples. Yeshua’s life and sacrifice did fulfill the spirit of the Law. The sum of the Law and the Prophets is to love God and neighbor.

But this is an incomplete understanding. Let’s look at each of these points in more detail.

Yeshua criticized those who live by the letter of the law instead of the spirit of the law.

Mr. B.A.D. is talking about the Pharisees in particular, I think. Here are some of the specific complaints Yeshua had against them:

  1. They replaced the commandments of God with the commandments of men. (Matthew 15:9)
  2. They held others to a higher standard than that to which they held themselves. (Matthew 23:4)
  3. Their obedience was done mostly for show and not out of love for anyone but themselves. (Matthew 23:5-7)
  4. Their false teachings made it more difficult for anyone else to know the truth. (Matthew 23:13)
  5. They abused the poor and weak. (Matthew 23:14)
  6. They didn’t make disciples for God, but disciples for themselves. (Matthew 23:15)
  7. They had their priorities all wrong. (Matthew 23:16-22)
  8. They were scrupulous on the minutiae of the Law while they ignored the most important commandments. (Matthew 23:23-24)
  9. Their public behavior was at complete odds with their private behavior and with their hearts. (Matthew 23:25-31)

It seems to me that all of this can be summed up in a single word: hypocrisy. Their problem wasn’t that they were obsessed with the letter of the Law. Their problem was an obsessions with appearing to keep the Law. They were so concerned with this appearance that the Law itself wasn’t enough for them. “Love your neighbor as yourself” isn’t showy enough for the Pharisaical mind. They had to make up more and more rules to follow so that everyone could see how very righteous they were, but in adding to God’s Law they were breaking the very thing they pretended to keep. They were hypocrites from their white-washed facades to their rotted cores.

I think Mr B.A.D.’s main point here is entirely correct. A preoccupation with the letter of the Law to the detriment of the spirit of the Law will destroy you, because it will tend to lead you to less obedience in the end, rather than more. It is easy to get lost in the details and forget what is most important. The individual commandments are not the goal, but only individual stones in the road. The goal is Yeshua, and we would all do well to keep our focus on him rather than on precisely measuring our tithes of mint and cumin.

The laws were given to the Jews in order to keep them ceremonially clean, and set aside for God.

The Law was given for many reasons, one of which was to keep the Israelites separate from the pagan nations around them, but this separateness is really more of an effect of the Law than an intent. God gave Israel the Law to teach them to behave better than the Canaanites, not just differently. The specific commandments weren’t arbitrary. God didn’t randomly pick which animals would be clean and unclean, or which fabrics they could and couldn’t mix.

Israel is a holy nation because God chose them from among all other nations to be his special possession. Holiness means “set apart for divine purpose”. Since he made them holy by election, he also wanted them to be holy by behavior. The goal of behaving differently isn’t just to stand out. The Pharisees were great at standing out from the crowd, but terrible at obeying God’s Law. Rather, the goal of God’s rules about behaving differently than the pagans, was to make Israel more beautiful and pleasing to him.

Why should Israel not eat pigs? Because eating pigs is detestable to God. Why should Israel not wear clothes made of wool and linen woven together? Because, whether we understand why or not, God hates it.

But that’s not the only reason God gave Israel the Law.

Paul wrote that the Law was also given to define sin for the whole world (Romans 3:19-20).

Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
Romans 3:19-20

The whole world–not only the Jews–is accountable to God for their disobedience to the Law. As John wrote, sin is lawlessness, and he didn’t mean the laws of Rome or Babylon. He meant God’s Law. Sin is, by definition, breaking God’s Law. Now that we are saved from condemnation and our sins have been forgiven, are we supposed to forget what sin is and behave in whatever manner we feel is right? Of course not! God’s forgiveness of past sins is not a license to commit future sins.

Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.
Romans 3:31

Now that we have been separated from the world, elevated to the status of a holy people along with the native-born Israelite, we demonstrate our gratefulness and maintain that separation by behaving differently than we behaved when we were still in sin. “Be holy, even as I am holy” in 1 Peter 1:16 is a quote from multiple passages in Leviticus. We have been made holy by divine action, and so God requires us to live accordingly by following the rules he gave for that purpose.

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.”
2 Corinthians 6:14-18

So when Jesus says that he did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it, his blood sacrifice has fulfilled the spirit of the law by making us clean before God and setting us aside for him.

When Yeshua died on the cross he fulfilled the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself more certainly than most of us ever will, but that doesn’t relieve us of the responsibility of continuing to love our neighbors as ourselves. He took our sin upon him and shed his own blood to fulfill the Law’s requirement for the death of murderers, Sabbath breakers, and the sexually immoral. Yeshua’s blood atones for us and removes us from under the condemnation of the Law, but that is still not a license to ignore God’s standards of behavior. He didn’t die so that we can eat bacon cheeseburgers and sleep with whomever we choose. He died so that we can have eternal life despite our failings.

Acts 15 is not suggesting that Christians can lie, steal, etc etc because such things were not included in the letter.

I agree, and this is something that many people overlook when they read that passage. For the sake of theological argument they interpret James’ ruling as the definitive list of moral behavior for Christians, but then say that Christians also have to keep a long list of other rules. This demonstrates that they don’t even believe their own arguments. Very few people actually think the apostles were really giving new converts permission to steal so long as they didn’t drink blood. The only logical conclusion is that the apostles were giving a starting point and expected the converts to continue learning and improving their behavior from there. What curriculum did they expect these gentiles to use for furthering their education in morality and religion? Torah.

For from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues.
Acts 15:21

The controversy in Acts 15 was never about whether the Law applied to gentile believers in Yeshua–Romans 3:19 makes it clear that the Law applies to all people, believers or not–but about whether obedience to the Law was necessary for salvation. We are no longer “under the Law” because we have been set free from its power to condemn, but we are still accountable to God for keeping his commandments and maintaining his standard of acceptable behavior.

But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.”
Acts 15:1

Keeping the Law of Moses cannot remove the guilt of prior sins nor earn you eternal salvation, but if viewed properly, it can improve your life, your community, and your relationship with God. “Be holy, because I am holy,” God said, not because he wants us to be weird, but because he loves some behaviors and hates others. If we are the Bride of Christ, we should behave like it. What man wants his bride to wear filthy rags and smell like an outhouse?

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COVID, Vaccines, and Torah

My personal, commonsense, Biblical approach to COVID-19 vaccines

COVID-19 Is Everywhere.

It’s on everyone’s mind, in our conversations, on the news, and attached to every other Facebook post. They even say that it’s in the air. For almost two years, governments and corporations around the world have mandated lockdowns, social distancing, masks, and now vaccines to combat what we have been told is one of the most virulent and dangerous plagues in history.

Some people say we should ignore the governments and go about our business. If you love your neighbor, you won’t tolerate such tyranny. Others say it’s just common sense to wear a mask and keep your distance to protect vulnerable people. If you love your neighbor, you’ll wear a mask. They can’t both be right, can they?

The idea of masks and distancing make intuitive sense. If the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 can be spread by tiny water droplets in our breath, then a mask to contain those droplets, and a little distance to keep them from getting on other people should help, right?

Well, there’s theory, and then there’s the real world.

I’m no expert–and I’m going to keep telling you that–but I’m also not stupid. I can read, listen, observe, and think for myself. I don’t need to be a doctor or a virologist to weigh the obvious implications of observable reality. I’ll share my conclusions with you, and then I’m going trust you to think through it for yourself and make your own health decisions.

Face Masks

From everything I’ve read, face masks have very limited utility in stopping or even slowing the spread of COVID. The designer cloth masks that so many people like to wear do almost nothing and bandanas and plastic shields really don’t do anything more than attenuate sneezes. I suppose that’s better than nothing.

Surgical masks vary widely in effectiveness based on how they are manufactured and how they are worn, but that effectiveness drops off sharply after…oh….a few minutes of use. They’re really designed for reducing transfer of bacteria from a surgeon’s mouth to a patient’s innards just a couple of feet away over a short period of time and following a very strict protocol. They are definitely not intended to be worn for hours on end, taken off and on with dirty hands, and pulled under chins.

If you wear a face mask for more than a few minutes, it begins to saturate with moisture from your breath, including all the viruses and bacteria that came with it. Much of your breath is then just blowing out the sides of the masks or–much worse–blowing that moisture through and off the outside of the mask in much smaller particles than had originally escaped your mouth, potentially helping any viruses to spread more efficiently than they would have if you hadn’t worn the mask at all.

Reality trumps theory every time.

Social Distancing

Even the deer are getting COVID. Seriously. How can anyone believe that “social distancing” is having any effect at all?

Study after study has shown that six feet of distance is no better than three and no worse than twelve. Don’t be rude and get right up in people’s faces, but skipping rows at church and standing on the Xs at the grocery store are wastes of space.

If you get sick, you should stay home. Otherwise, be social. It’s good for you. And everyone else too. We want to see you!

Like I said, I’m not an expert. I’m just some guy on the Internet who doesn’t like outsourcing my thinking to politicians and reporters who have proven themselves over and over and over to be liars.

So why should you believe me? You shouldn’t. I haven’t included any sources in this article, partly because I haven’t kept track of everything I’ve read and seen over the last 18 months, but also because you really need to do your own research. Don’t rely on me and, for God’s sake, don’t rely on the press!

What’s the Point?

If these extreme anti-COVID measures–businesses destroyed, lonely suicides, skyrocketing mental illness, pastors arrested for holding church–don’t actually do anything to help, why are we doing them?

Call me a paranoid conspiracy theorist if you want, but I am totally convinced that the real purpose of forcing masks, closures, and social distancing on the world has nothing to do with preventing illness and everything to do with promoting fear. Why do politicians and rumor mongers (“reporters” implies they’re reporting something instead of spreading lies) want us to be afraid?

Fearful people are easier to control. When they’re confused, they’re ready to be directed. When the masses are afraid, they beg for more government, to be wrapped up in a comforting, protective blanket of authoritarianism. The bigger and scarier the bogeyman, the more unreasonable the solutions can be.

Like a rushed, emergency vaccine using an experimental method that has never worked despite decades of research and trials.

COVID Vaccines

Various governments around the world have given emergency authorization to a large number of experimental vaccines for treating COVID. Some of them are fairly conventional, while others are just massive medical experiments using the general public as guinea pigs. That doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in me.

Here is a summary of what I’ve been able to deduce from my own reading as a regular guy not being paid by the Gates Foundation, Pfizer, the CDC, or the Department of Division and Slander…

  1. The mRNA and DNA vaccines spread throughout the body and infect healthy cells with mRNA or DNA that hijack the normal processes of the cell to manufacture a portion of the SARS-CoV-2 virus known as a “spike protein”. This process destroys the infected cells, releasing millions (billions?) of the spike proteins.
  2. The cells that have been hijacked to manufacture spike proteins could be targeted by the body’s normal immune processes, creating autoimmune conditions in which the immune system begins targeting healthy, non-hijacked cells of the same type.
  3. The SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins are designed to cause mechanical damage to cells so that the virus can inject its own DNA. The spike proteins created by the mRNA and DNA vaccines must be identical (or nearly identical) to the spike proteins on the virus or they would not work. It is inconceivable that releasing millions (or billions) of those same spikes would not cause damage to cells throughout the body.
  4. Widely available statistics appear to indicate that none of the available COVID vaccines provide any significant protection against the contraction or spread of SARS-CoV-2. Since the vaccines do not provide immunity to vaccinated individuals, they do nothing to achieve herd immunity, but do accelerate mutation and facilitate transmission. The claim that they reduce symptoms of COVID once infected by the virus appears to have some statistical support, but this actually compounds the problems of mutation and transmission.
  5. Many well-credentialed physicians and medical experts have stated that the COVID vaccines pose significant health risks, potentially far exceeding the health risks of COVID itself.
  6. SARS-CoV-2 is already mutating into new strains, which will soon make current vaccines obsolete, and unable to do anything except cause further harm.
  7. Many well-credentialed physicians and medical experts have stated that there are proven and effective treatments for COVID that significantly shorten the duration of illness and lessen its symptoms without the use of vaccines.
  8. Despite official ingredients lists to the contrary, all COVID vaccines that I know of use tissue cultured from aborted babies at some point in the development or manufacturing process. These babies were not voluntary tissue donors, but the victims of elective abortions, also known as murder for convenience. Vaccine makers that use fetal tissue in the manufacturing process attempt to remove that original human tissue to varying degrees through the use of chemical and mechanical means, but it is impossible to remove all traces. Every one of those COVID vaccine doses contains some bits of cells cultured from those murder victims. Vaccine makers that use fetal tissue in the development of their vaccines are still participating in and benefiting from murder for profit.
  9. Vaccine makers are generally exempted from being held accountable for fraud, malpractice, and assault related to vaccines. This alone is sufficient justification for any reasonable person to reject their products.
  10. Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca, and other pharmaceutical companies involved in the development, manufacturing, and marketing of COVID vaccines have decades long histories of fabrication of test results and statistical data, massive fraud, and human rights violations that demonstrate a clear tendency to prioritize profits and technical advancements, while holding the health and rights of real, individual people to be next to worthless. This alone is sufficient justification for any reasonable person to reject the vaccines of these companies in particular.

The Biblical Case for Vaccination

Deuteronomy 22:8 says that, when you build a house, you should build a parapet (something like a railing or low wall) around the roof so that nobody falls off and gets hurt. In the Ancient Near East, where most of the Bible was written, the flat roofs of houses often doubled as an extra room of the home. People would sleep on the roof during hot weather or visit there with guests. The principle of this command is that we should take reasonable precautions within our own spheres of responsibility to prevent other people from being injured. If you have a dangerous animal, keep it penned up. If you have leprosy, stay in quarantine. You don’t have to go looking for problems in other people’s homes and businesses, but you should definitely see to your own.

It only makes sense to take precautions with COVID as well. No good person wants others to be sick and miserable, so why not? If masks work at preventing or “slowing the spread” (they don’t), we should wear them. If social distancing works (it doesn’t), we should keep our distance. If vaccination against COVID works (it doesn’t), we should get vaccinated, assuming there aren’t other good reasons that God might not like it (there are).

If you love your neighbor, you won’t unnecessarily put your neighbor at risk by breathing pathogens at him.

The problem with all of these justifications is that they depend on the first IF statements being true before the THEN statements become true.

The Biblical Case Against Vaccination

As you can see from my list of ten facts about the COVID vaccines , the IF statements above don’t pass the test. Masks don’t work. Social distancing doesn’t work. The COVID vaccines don’t work!

Sure, they probably reduce the symptoms a little, but this actually makes the problem worse, because it tricks people into thinking they’re well, when they’re actually sick. Infected, contagious people are walking around as if nothing is wrong because they’ve been vaccinated, but they’ve become breeding grounds for new strains that they freely pass on to others.

The parapet you build on your roof doesn’t actually fulfill the commandment unless it works to keep people from falling off. If it looks solid, but it’s actually made of cardboard, then it’s much worse than if you hadn’t built it at all. Your neighbor will lean on it, thinking he’s safe; it will collapse throwing him from the rooftop, and that will be your fault.

Concert venues, airlines, and entire countries are refusing to allow people to enter without proof of vaccination, because they’ve been told that vaccination will keep people safe, except that it does exactly the opposite. The vaccines are making people even more vulnerable and spreading COVID even faster.

If you love your neighbor, you’ll accept a little risk on his behalf, and not make panicky decisions that put him in even greater danger than before.

This isn’t even considering what happens when you reward pharmaceutical companies with billions of dollars for buying and using body parts of murdered babies as factory components. Those particular babies were sacrificed on the alter of convenience decades ago, so does that still matter today? If the vaccines were actually saving a significant number of lives, that might be an argument worth considering. But they’re not, and do you think Planned Parenthood isn’t watching today and seeing what sins are being rewarded with fat bank accounts?

Is the COVID Vaccine the Mark of the Beast?

Since the book of Revelation contains so much allegorical imagery, almost anything can be made to fit the descriptions of the Mark of the Beast if you take just the right angle and make the right assumptions. Unfortunately–or fortunately–it’s not easy to make these vaccines fit. Indulge me in making another numbered list…

  1. As far as I can tell, it doesn’t contain the “number of a man” or the number 666 anywhere. 60606, 666.66, and 66600 aren’t 666. John didn’t say that the number of of the beast would contain three sixes. He said it was six hundred, sixty, and six. No more and no less.
  2. Some people are taking the vaccination in their right arm, which, in some languages, equates to the right “hand”. Others are taking in the left arm and nobody is taking it in their forehead.
  3. People are being denied some business opportunities because of their lack of vaccination, but nobody has been blanketly denied all ability to buy and sell. Not yet, anyway.
  4. If the vaccine is the mark, who or what is the Beast? Okay, I’ll give you that one. The government, rumor mills, and pharmaceutical giants are all pretty beastly.

Exodus 13 says that Passover is to be a sign on the right hand and forehead of God’s people. Exodus 31:13 says that the weekly Sabbath is a sign between God and his people. Deuteronomy 6 and 11 say that all of God’s commandments will be a sign on the hands and foreheads of his people. Considering those passages, I am inclined to believe that the mark on the hands and foreheads of the people in Revelation 13 is not a literal mark, but submission to the law of the Beast. God’s mark is submission to his commandments. The Beast’s mark is submission to his.

Revelation says that the Mark of the Beast is the same as the Number of the Beast, and that it is the number of his name. Maybe the preterists are right–I suspect they are partly right–and this refers to some arrangement of the name and title of Emperor Nero. In any case, in biblical language, a name is more than just the label we use to call someone. It is the sum of his character and reputation. In this sense, the name of God is the totality of who and what he is. “YHWH” is a convenient abbreviation of his character.

Just as God’s Law is an extension of his Name, so is the Beast’s Law an extension of his. I don’t expect a stamp, tattoo, or implanted chip to be the Mark that John wrote of. In this light, the COVID vaccines, and even the masks and other restrictions, could be described as the mark of A beast if not THE beast. Just like government-enforced “tolerance”, these laws are an attempt by men to force all people into destructive, unloving behavior under the color of love. This is Orwellian doublespeak. It means the opposite of what they say it is. Their love is not love, but hate. Their “reasonable precautions” are not precautions, but reckless disregard.

Pick a Side

So we are all left with a choice. Who is our master? To whom do we owe ultimate allegiance? Do we pretend to believe that 2+2 equals 5 and obey the nonsensical dictates of men despite good sense and Biblical admonitions? Or do we stand with Peter who said, “We must obey God rather than men.”

I will not comply with the Man’s law to accept the COVID vaccines, aka “the jab”, because I have chosen to obey God rather than man.

There is always the possibility that I am wrong. That everything I have read and chosen to believe is false, that Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates really are selfless humanitarians. I have not done any laboratory tests myself. I have no formal education in virology or medicine.

I know that not everyone who chooses to take one of these vaccines is doing it because they’ve chosen Man’s law over God’s. Many people are probably just scared. Can you blame them? The mainstream press publishes nonstop horror stories about how terrible COVID is and how we’re all going to die if we don’t comply, while the technomafia of social media and technology giants do everything they can to suppress alternative views. Many of these people have never even heard anything but the party line.

However, I suspect that a great many people are more afraid of losing social status than of COVID. I know some very smart and knowledgeable people who have cut off family and close friends for refusing to be vaccinated. They’re not cutting them off because their afraid of getting sick, but because they’re afraid of being ostracized from whatever they view as “polite society”. They’ve chosen status over relationships. I hope they still have consciences when it’s all over.

A few people are actually convinced by the available evidence that the masks, distancing, and vaccines are the best options.

If you have honestly examined the evidence for yourself, rather than believing everything Facebook and MSNBC tells you to believe, and you still believe that masking up and getting vaccinated is the wisest, most loving course, then you should do that. More power to you. I disagree with you, but God bless you and honor your desire to love and protect your neighbor. I won’t stop you.

Please do me the same courtesy.

Read about my personal experience with COVID here.

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Parsha Ki Tetzei – Apostolic Readings, Commentary, and Videos

New Testament readings for Torah portion Ki Tetsei, plus links to commentary and videos. Torah for Christians.

Readings

  • Deuteronomy 21:10-22:7
    • Matthew 5:17-20
    • Galatians 3:13-14
    • Colossians 3:18-21
  • Deuteronomy 22:8-23:25
    • Matthew 5:27-30
    • Luke 6:1
    • Acts 10:9-48
    • Philippians 2:1-11
    • Philemon 1:8-22
    • Colossians 3:22-25
    • Revelation 17
  • Deuteronomy 24:1-25:19
    • Matthew 5:31-32
    • Matthew 6:1-4
    • Mark 10:1-12
    • Luke 20:27-38
    • 1 Timothy 5:1-19

Additional Reading

Videos Related to Parsha Ki Tetzei

  • The King of Ai and the Image of God – What do you do with the body of a dead, wicked king? Joshua 8:28-29
  • Joseph and Mary – Divorced Before They Were Even Married!? – Betrothal is not the same as engagement. In fact, God treats engagement almost the same as marriage. If a man has relations with a woman who is betrothed to another man, the penalty is the same as if she were married: death. The only way to end a Biblical betrothal is through divorce.
  • What Is the Canon and Why Is It Closed? – We say that the Bible is a “closed canon” because, like any other measuring stick, if we keep changing it, nobody will have an objective standard they can use to evaluate extra-biblical works. In this video, I’m going to tell you why a having a closed canon is a very good thing.
  • Marriage and Divorce in Matthew 19:3-9 – God’s Law as given through Moses explicitly allows divorce for sexual immorality, but that right shouldn’t be exercised until all other options have been exhausted. God hates divorce, just like he hates death, but both are still necessary in extreme cases. Yeshua’s main point was this: God instituted marriage. Don’t treat it casually. If you love God, then you will protect and cultivate your marriage.
  • Proverbs 13:24 – How is it hateful to spare the rod? – This verse is very controversial today, but it wasn’t always. The anti-spanking movement that mostly started in the 1960s has created a generation of neurotic adults who have no understanding of God’s standards and very little understanding of basic cause and effect as it relates to life’s major decisions.
  • Marriage and Resurrection in Matthew 22:23-32 – When the Sadducees tried to trap Yeshua using the levirate marriage law in Matthew 22, they put their ignorance of Scripture on full display. The very commandment they cited proved their foolishness.
  • Under a Husband and Under the Law in Romans 7:1-3 – This passage does not say that the Law dies or that the commandments in the Law are not for all Christians today. It’s about authority relationships, not the applicability of Torah.
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Tzitzit, Part 2: Messianics, Hebrew Roots, and Torah

Regarding tzitzit, where does the commandment end and tradition begin?

Recall from part 1 that tzitzit are the tassels that God commanded the Israelites to tie onto the four corners of their garments in Numbers 15:37-41 and Deuteronomy 22:12. Tallits are the prayer shawls to which Jews attach their tzitzit.

See Part 1 here: The Torah and the Rabbis. Make sure you read that before reading this article, because I make some references here that might not make a lot of sense if you haven’t.

The Messianic and Hebrew Roots Application

Messianic Jews, Hebraic Roots believers, and Torah observant Christians have a much wider range of beliefs regarding tallits and tzitziyot than the various flavors of modern Judaism do. Most people who describe themselves as Messianic Jews will tend to adhere to rabbinic Judaism’s rules, but that is far from universal. People who describe themselves as Hebrew Roots will tend to more liberal standards.

Like Jews, Hebrew Roots people often wear tallits for prayer and special occasions and will usually follow rabbinic traditions when they do. However, many believe that tzitzit can be made of any kind of thread, wrapped and tied in any pattern, although the Ashkenazi and Sephardic patterns are very common.

Their tzitzit could be any color, but white, black, and tan are most common, so long as there is a single blue thread. Some believe that the blue (tekhelet) thread must be colored with the traditionally identified dye, while others agree with the Karaites that the dye can come from any source.

Many Hebrew Roots people believe that tzitzit should be worn visibly at all waking hours, often interpreting “four corners” to mean four points or four sides of an outer garment. They might wear a tallit katan for this purpose or they might attach their tzitzit to the hem of a shirt or even temporarily attached to belt loops. A few will wear a small rectangle of cloth suspended on one hip from the belt, called a “micro tallit”.

Where Does the Commandment End and Tradition Begin?

The Material of the Tzitzit

The written Torah doesn’t say what tzitzit should be made of. The rule in Deuteronomy 22:12 is immediately after a rule against wearing garments of mixed fibers in 22:11. Mainstream Jewish rabbis believe this is intended to imply an exception to the mixed fiber rule for tzitzit, while Karaite Jews believe it is intended to underscore the importance of the tzitzit being of the same material as the garment.

The preceding rules in Deuteronomy aren’t just about mixed fabrics, but also about mixed crops and plow animals, while the following rules are about marital troubles, sexual sins, and people who are not allowed to be mixed with Israel. I don’t believe that verses 11 and 12 make up a discrete, separate unit from these other rules, but that they are a coherent whole.

Verses 9-11 forbid certain mixtures of plants, animals, and fabrics. These commands are literal, but are also object lessons against mixing the wrong kinds of people.

Verse 12 commands the wearing of tzitzit “on the garment with which you cover yourself”. It emphasizes “covering” to remind Israel that God’s commands are given for their protection. The tzitzit say, “Keep these instructions, because they protect you from danger.”

Verses 13-21 contain instructions on how to handle a dispute between spouses of very different moral character. The married couple and their families were not careful to keep the commandments against mixing diverse types, and they reaped sorrow because of it. If only they had worn their tzitzit, they might not be in this trouble.

Verses 22-30 forbid certain sexual relationships. The Talmud contains a famous story of a man who resisted temptation because of his tzitzit. I’m sure you can find it if you search.

Verses 1-8 in chapter 23 describe who may and who may not enter the assembly of Israel. This passage looks back to verses 9-11 in chapter 22. It concludes the series by forbidding the mixing of pagan foreigners with Israelites.

Tzitzit are ultimately about relationship between people and God.

I don’t believe the command concerning tzitzit is placed here to say anything at all about the material of the tzitzit. It’s about people. Those who keep the commandments, including wearing tzitzit, are suitable marriage and community material. Those who do not keep the commandments are not suitable.

I take a position somewhere in the middle between the Karaite and Orthodox: If you permanently attach your tzitzit to your garment, then they are a single garment and should be of the same material. If they are not permanently attached, but are removable, then I don’t think it matters what they are made of.

I also don’t believe that the strings used in your tzitzit need to be specifically manufactured for that purpose. That is purely a tradition of man with no Biblical basis.

The Source of Blue

Torah doesn’t specify any particular color for tzitzit and even many rabbis will say that white is only traditional. It’s a good tradition, but you are free to use whatever colors suit you. However, I would avoid using blue, so that the single blue thread that God commanded will stand out.

The Hebrew word for blue, tekhelet, might (or might not) be derived from the name of a particular mollusk that was used to create a blue dye in the Ancient Near East. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the word can only refer to that one, particular dye. In modern English we have many color words that were originally derived from the source of a dye or some object of that color. The words have evolved to refer to the color itself, regardless of the source of dye. Crimson, for example, originally came from the name for an insect used to create a deep red dye, but very few modern English speakers are aware of that etymology, let alone adamant about restricting the use of the word to that dye derived from that original source.

Other sources of blue were known in the ancient world. For example, woad and indigo were both used to make blue dye for clothing, and the Babylonians and Egyptians used a mineral-based blue pigment for paints and construction materials. Tekhelet is the only Hebrew word used in the Bible for the color blue, and it’s used in widely different contexts. The same word is used to describe cloth used in the wilderness Tabernacle (Exodus 25-39), in the Jerusalem Temple (2 Chronicles 2:7 and 3:14), in Persian curtains and robes (Esther 1:6 and 8:15), and in the courts and markets of kingdoms around the known world (Jeremiah 10:9, Ezekiel 27:7 and 27:24).

I think it is extremely unlikely that all of these things were only ever colored with a dye derived from a particular Mediterranean snail. More likely, the name for the color had long ago lost any real connection to the snail. Many centuries after the Torah was given at Sinai, someone mandated that a particular dye be used either because they had a financial interest in the industry or they felt a particular shade of blue was more meaningful than another.

The blue thread in the tzitzit is probably intended to remind us of the blue of the sky or else the sapphire pavement of heaven described by Moses in Exodus 24:10. Is it supposed to be the pale blue we know of as sky blue or is it the deep blue of the night sky? Probably sky blue, but the text isn’t explicit. If it’s blue and it reminds you of Heaven, that I think that’s sufficient.

Knots and Windings

Torah says that your tzitzit must be twisted or wound cord. I agree with the rabbis on this, that the exact manner of twisting is unimportant. It needs to be done so that it won’t come apart during normal wear, but otherwise, do it how you like.

Some people braid their tzitzit, while others like to get creative. I usually use the Sephardic winding and knots (see part 1 for a description of Sephardic and Ashekenazic windings) because it is derived from the four-letter name of God, YHVH, and so reinforces the purpose of the tzitzit and is easier to remember.

Tallits and Beltloops

Does “corners” literally refer to corners or to extremities? In the Bible, the Hebrew word kanaph usually refers to the wings of a bird or cherub, and twice refers to the extremities of either the land of Israel or the Earth. In none of those cases, can it be reasonably interpreted as a literal corner. It either means a pointed end (wing), or the farthest reaches (earth). When it is used in relation to clothing, it usually makes sense to translate it as corner, but does it necessarily have to mean that or can it be interpreted more loosely as in the four corners of the earth?

Most historians say that the outer garment commonly worn at the time was similar to a poncho, a simple rectangle of cloth with a hole in the middle for the head and a belt or girdle to cinch it around the middle. If the standard garment had been a wrap that was wound about the body instead of draped over the shoulder, would God have commanded Israel to switch to a rectangular outer garment or would he have told them to attach tassels on four evenly-distributed points on their hems or belts?

I don’t know the answer. The literal meaning of the command is to attach them to four corners, but I think it’s reasonable to attach them to four “sides” of your whatever outer garments are commonly worn in your time and culture rather than to adopt a new and foreign form of dress.

I don’t believe that the micro tallit fulfills the requirement of the commandment because all four tzitzit are on one side of the body. Torah says that they must be seen, and this purpose, plus the instruction to attach them to four corners requires that they should be seen from every direction. For this same reason, a tallit worn only on special occasions and a tallit katan worn completely hidden from the world are also insufficient.

I attach my tzitzit to my beltloops or to my belt because otherwise I would have to start wearing a tallit katan or else alter all of my shirts. Wearing a tallit katan doesn’t seem like a huge imposition for an office worker like myself, and I can imagine myself adopting that practice at some point.

I do not agree with the rabbinic rules about the minimum length of the garment or the percentage of separation in the seam to qualify as a valid corner. These are rules adopted as practical matters over the millennia probably because someone had an argument about it in the forgotten past, not because obedience to the command actually requires it.

Tzitzit Are Intended To Be Seen

And it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the LORD, to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after. So you shall remember and do all my commandments, and be holy to your God.
Numbers 15:39-40

Tzitzit are not a ceremonial or “Levitical” command. They are moral. They are intended to help you and everyone around you to keep all of God’s Law, not just the sacrifices.

As I already pointed out, the Deuteronomy passage shows that they help protect against joining God’s people with unbelievers. The longer tzitzit command in Numbers 15:37-41 is similarly situated between descriptions of intentional, “high-handed” sins. The passage that comes before, Numbers 15:30-36, describes a man who despised the immediate presence of God and intentionally violated the Sabbath. The passage that follows, Numbers 16, describes the rebellion of Korah. The clear intent of placing the commandment concerning tzitzit between these two stories is, first, to illustrate that we need constant reminders to keep us focused on what is right, and, second, to point out that those, who commit blatant sins in the presence of constant reminders to the contrary, are not merely weak or mistaken, but are openly rebellious.

If everyone who believes in God and keeps his commandments is wearing tzitzit, then those people who do not and those people who sin in spite of the tzitzit are clearly marked by their behavior as unsuitable for marriage or leadership within God’s people.

I Don’t Need to Wear Tzitzit Because I Know the Torah

Recently, I saw a video of a discussion in which several nominally Torah-observant believers all agreed that they had outgrown the need to wear tzitzit because they had memorized the Ten Commandments and no longer needed memory aides. I was stunned that these people appear to have read and seriously considered Numbers 15 and Deuteronomy 22 and somehow came away with the impression that they were free to ignore one commandment because they had memorized ten others.

Tzitzit are not about memorizing anything. They are not training wheels. They are about resisting temptation. Everyone is tempted. Everyone needs reminders to resist temptation.

And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry.
Luke 4:1-2

And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and though she had spent all her living on physicians, she could not be healed by anyone. She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment [his tzitzit], and immediately her discharge of blood ceased.
Luke 8:43-44

Yeshua, the Son of God and full of the Holy Spirit, was tempted and wore tzitzit. Only one man has ever lived a sinless life. So long as the unresurrected flesh remains to tempt us away from the path that God has laid out for us, we need every help we can get to remain faithful to our God and Savior.

I have studied the Torah for decades, yet I still wear tzitzit every day. I am still only human and need minute-by-minute reminders to keep my mind and heart focused on things above.

If you say that you have outgrown the need for tzitzit, then you are claiming to be above all temptation, and more righteous even than Yeshua.

Tzitzit Throughout the Bible

I could spend the next year writing about coverings and tassels from Scripture and probably not run out of material. Garment corners and fringes are a recurring theme in the histories and prophecies and even in the Apostolic writings. They reveal profound truths about the relationships between husband and wife, God and the world, Messiah and Israel.

I encourage you to look back at the words used in these commandments, to study other passages where they are used. Even if you are determined that tassel-wearing is a “Jewish thing” and not for you, I guarantee that you will gain valuable insights from the study.

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Tzitzit, Part 1: the Torah and the Rabbis

When it comes to tzitzit, what traditions really matter?

See Part 2 here.

What Are Tzitzit?

Tzitzit are one of those distinctively “Jewish” things, like tallits and kippahs, that most Christians are aware of at some level, but don’t really understand. Tzitzit is the Hebrew name for the tassel or fringe that many Jews, Messianic Jews, and Hebrew Roots people wear on their clothing. The plural form is tzitziyot—tzitzit is singular—but most people today use the singular form for plural also, like a collective noun.

Tzitzit are also called tassels and fringes. Either of those words might be used in various places, depending on which English translation you are reading.

If you don’t know very many Jews or Torah observant Christians yourself, you’ve probably still seen some people—usually men—with white strings hanging from under their shirt or jacket on television or at the airport without giving it much thought. It’s just part of a religious or ethnic costume, so it tends to get lost in the overall picture of “those people”.

Tzitzit appear either explicitly or by implication in many passages in the Torah, the Psalms, the Prophets, and in the Gospels. Despite this fact, churches rarely teach anything about them. As far as most Christian pastors and theologians are concerned, tzitzit are just one of those things that Jews wore to make sure they looked different than other nations, and since “there is neither Jew nor Greek” in Christ, we don’t need that kind of thing anymore.

Or so we are taught.

That’s really a shame, because tzitzit are connected to some really important spiritual principles. It’s also completely wrong. God didn’t give reasons for all of his instructions, but he did for this one, and it had nothing to do with looking different.

Tzitzit in the Torah

The primary passages that define tzitzit are Numbers 15:37-41 and Deuteronomy 22:12.

The LORD said to Moses, “Speak to the people of Israel, and tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a cord of blue on the tassel of each corner. And it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the LORD, to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after. So you shall remember and do all my commandments, and be holy to your God. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God: I am the LORD your God.”
Numbers 15:37-41 ESV

You shall make yourself tassels on the four corners of the garment with which you cover yourself.
Deuteronomy 22:12 ESV

These commands were given to Israel in the Wilderness. The Numbers 15 command was given at the beginning of the forty years, right after the 10 spies brought a bad report of the land, and the Deuteronomy 22 command was part of a recap of the whole Law delivered by Moses just before the people began their conquest of the land.

What Do the Tzitzit Commands Actually Say?

Let’s examine the Hebrew words in these passages so we know what they are really saying.

Make, in both cases, is from the Hebrew word asah, which can be reasonably interpreted to mean make (as in manufacture) or attach. Some people believe this means you should make your own tzitzit, while others believe it’s fine to buy pre-made tassels as long as you attach them to your garment yourself.

Tassel

  • In the Numbers passage the Hebrew word is tzitzit. It refers to a corner or point, and comes from tzit, which means flower or petal. A tzitzit is the pointy end of a tzit.
  • In the Deuteronomy passage the Hebrew word is gedil. It’s only used twice in the Bible, here and in 1 Kings 7:17 to describe wreaths that were carved into the tops of pillars.

Garment is from the Hebrew word beged. It is used throughout the Hebrew scriptures to refer to all kinds of clothing.

Put is from the Hebrew natan. It means to give, put, set, assign, etc.

Cord is from the Hebrew patiyl, and means strand, lace, or ribbon. It is related to the word patal, which means to be twisted, implying that a strand in this sense consists of multiple threads twisted together.

Blue is from the Hebrew tekhelet. The word might have been derived from the name of a mollusk or snail which was used to make a blue dye. Many people believe that it only refers to that blue dye and no others, but there are good reasons to believe it can refer to the color blue, no matter where the dye came from.

Corner is from the Hebrew kanaph. It refers to a wing, extension, extremity, or border. Corner is a reasonable translation in context, but wing or extremity is probably more literally accurate. Since the standard outer garment of the time was probably a large rectangle with an opening for the head, “four extremities” and “four corners” would be synonymous.

A harmonized rendering of the command from the two passages might read like this:

Make/attach tassels on the four extremities of your garments. Include a strand of blue with the tassel of the extremities. When you look at the tassels, they will remind you of all the commandments of YHWH, so that you will obey Him instead of following your own desires.

Although the commandment seems straightforward, there has always been disagreement on exactly how to apply it.

The Traditional Jewish Application

Judaism has a very long history of cumulative interpretation and application of these commands, and has developed detailed regulations on how tzitzit are to be made and worn. Most of these rules are derived from implications of the Biblical text or from practical considerations at one or another time in history. Few of them are based on explicit instructions in the written Torah.

The Materials of Tzitzit

Tzitzit should be made of white wool, and may or may not have a blue thread, depending on whether or not you believe that the specific mollusk from which the dye was originally extracted in Biblical times has been rediscovered or not. The threads that make up the tzitzit must be manufactured specifically for the purpose and may not be used for anything else.

Karaite Jews believe the tzitzit should be made of the same material as the garment to which they are being attached and that any blue dye can be used for the servant thread.

The Form of Tzitzit

There are a few different traditional methods of winding or twisting a tzitzit. The only firm requirements are that there are four white threads doubled over to make eight, and one longer thread (the blue one, if you include it), called a servant thread, is wrapped around the others. These are the two most common patterns:

The Ashkenazi Tzitzit has a double knot, seven windings, a double knot, eight windings, a double knot, eleven windings, a double knot, thirteen windings, and a double knot.

The Sephardic Tzitzit has a double knot, ten windings, a double knot, five windings, a double knot, six windings, a double knot, five windings, and a double knot.

Both methods use five double knots, one between each set of windings and one on each end to secure the whole, with the loose strings at the end twice the length of the knotted section. There are other methods, but the vast majority use one of these two.

Ashkenazi (white) and Sephardic (blue and white) styles of tzitzit windings and knots. See https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tzitzith.jpg for source information.
Ashkenazi (white) and Sephardic (blue and white) styles of tzitzit windings and knots. See https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tzitzith.jpg for source information.

The Placement of Tzitzit

Tzitzit must be attached to the corners of a four-cornered garment worn on the upper body. The garment can be made of any material, but wool and silk are preferred. In order to qualify as four-cornered, the garment must have a significant split along the side seam, usually interpreted as at least half the length of the garment or 18-24 inches. A full tallit gadol satisfies this requirement by being completely open on the sides and long enough to be draped over the shoulders so that the corners hang down in front and back.

The tzitzit must be permanently affixed to the corners, by a hole placed one to two inches from the edge. Tallits have a square of cloth on each corner as reinforcement for this purpose. Jews only wear the tallit gadol during prayer times or on special occasions, such as Yom Kippur and weddings.

A tallit katan is made more like a t-shirt but with the seams joined for only a short length under the arms in order to be sure there are four legitimate corners. Unlike the tallit gadol, it is intended to be worn as an undergarment during all waking hours. The tzitzit can be worn hanging out from beneath a shirt so they are visible or else completely hidden.

Do Women Wear Tzitzit?

In Orthodox Judaism, only men are required to wear tzitzit, but women increasingly wear them also, especially in Reform Judaism. Opinions on whether or not women should wear or are allowed to wear tzitzit change with time and culture. They rarely appear in ancient and medieval art as obvious tassels, but when they do, men and women are both depicted wearing them. Claims that women never wore tzitzit until the modern era are obviously false.

An image from the Codex Rossianus, dated 1453, showing men and women both wearing tzitzit.
An image from the Codex Rossianus, dated 1453, showing men and women both wearing tzitzit.

Most rabbis believe that women are not required to wear them, but may if they desire to do so. Strict Orthodox Jewish rabbis are likely to be more opposed.

Summary and Introduction to Part Two

In this installment, I examined the text of the two commandments to wear tzitzit and surveyed Jewish traditions about making and wearing them.

I know that this will seem dry and pointless to most Christians who do not themselves believe they should be keeping Torah, but we know from Paul’s instructions to Timothy that all Scripture is profitable for doctrine and reproof.

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
2 Timothy 3:16-17

Joshua concurred and read the entire Torah to the native born Israelites and sojourners alike after they had conquered Jericho and Ai.

And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the Book of the Law. There was not a word of all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, and the women, and the little ones, and the sojourners who lived among them.
Joshua 8:34-35

If you desire to know the mind of God and the manner in which he wants his people to live, then even these seemingly minor matters should not be neglected.

In the next installment, I’ll describe the Wild West of Messianic and Hebrew Roots tzitzit and return to the Torah to add some historical and scriptural context. That is where you will see the real purpose and value of tzitzit.

Continue to Part 2.

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You’re the Ranger, not Ford Motor Company

Recently I quoted John 14:15 (If you love me, you will keep my commandments.) in an online forum and an atheist troll replied with Deuteronomy 25:11-12 (If two men, a man and his countryman, are struggling together, and the wife of one comes near to deliver her husband from the hand of the one who is striking him, and puts out her hand and seizes his genitals, then you shall cut off her hand; you shall not show pity.).

Now, unless I’m in the mood for a fight, I know better than to feed the trolls, so I didn’t respond to him. But even though I know he’s a troll, he has a good point.

As our Creator, God gets to decide what's best for us.God commands quite a few things in Torah that don’t set lightly with most Westerners today. If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them rescues her husband by striking or seizing the other man’s testicles, should we cut off her hand? If a man is caught with another man’s wife, should we drag them both out to the city gates and stone them to death? Should we execute rebellious teenagers?

It all seems a little harsh, doesn’t it? This is a very common and understandable reaction to God’s commands.

Before I say anything else, let me make this clear: God is the judge of right and wrong, not us. Since he created everything, he also gets to define everything, including love and hate. If God says this is love and that is hate, then that’s just the way it is. Get used to it.

Fortunately God isn’t arbitrary. He does everything in good order and with good reason, even though he doesn’t always tell us what his reasons are. If God says that stoning a rebellious son is the loving thing to do, then we can be sure he’s right and that we just don’t have enough information to judge.

Most people who reflexively raise these points as reasons not to obey God are missing one or more (usually many more) pieces of relevant data.

Take this sentence, for example, without punctuation and context.

Lets go eat grandma

You can’t tell from reading that sentence if someone is inviting grandma to eat lunch with them or inviting someone else to eat grandma for lunch. Translators encounter this kind of problem all the time. Hebrew can be especially difficult because the original biblical Hebrew doesn’t have punctuation or vowel markings, and we are separated from the original writers and audiences by thousands of years. Translators have to rely very heavily on contextual clues and traditional interpretations to understand what any given passage is actually saying.

One passage very commonly quoted as an example of Biblical unreasonableness is “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” etc., but how many quoters could actually tell you where it is written in Scripture? It’s actually in several places within the Torah, and the most common interpretation of all of them among both Jewish and Christian theologians throughout the ages is that the lex talionis (law of retaliation) was never meant to be applied literally. It describes a system of tallying monetary restitution, not physical retaliation.

Another common objection is to the stoning of the rebellious youth. This too, is usually cited by people who have probably never read the original passage, let alone attempted to understand it. If they had taken the time to examine the source, they would have discovered that the conditions demanded by Torah before a son could be executed for “rebellion” are quite stringent and that both parents must be agreed that the action is necessary. The requirements are so stringent, in fact, that this trial and punishment have probably never been carried out in all the history of ancient Israel. (See here for further discussion.)

“But what about slavery?” They will inevitably object. Yes, God’s Law allows for slavery, but it doesn’t encourage it and places some restrictions on it that make it a very different kind of institution than what existed in antebellum America and still exists in much of the non-Western world today. For example, Hebrew slaves must be released after 6 years ,and if a master broke so much as a single tooth of a slave, the slave must be set free.

I could address all of the rest of Torah’s presumed draconian requirements, but each and every one would prove to be of the same sort, misunderstandings caused by ignorance and hearsay.

In the end, God created us and knows what we need. If love consists of doing what is best for someone, who knows better what is best, the Creator or the created? If you’re not sure of the answer, then I suggest you ask your auto mechanic who knows best how to service a Ford Ranger, the Ford Motor Company or the Ranger.

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Wise Choices Early in Life Make Happier, Stronger Families

A parallelism in Deuteronomy 20-21
A parallelism in Deuteronomy 20-21

The starts and stops of this parallelism mark it off pretty clearly, but some of the details might be difficult for some to see.

The second half (Deuteronomy 21:10-23) is a progression from what was probably a bad decision to its tragic consequences: A man captures a woman in a raid on a foreign city and decides to keep her. She’s not to keen on the idea and makes life unbearable for him. Their son learns from his mother and becomes a serious problem. At some point either the son has to be killed or he ends up killing someone else.

The first half (Deuteronomy 20:1-21:9) contains separate laws by itself, but the parallelism provides insight into what it’s like living in the crazy house with the captive war bride and her rebellious son. Besieging a foreign city (or being besieged by foreigners) probably isn’t very different from living with a woman you hate & who likely returns your antipathy. Besieging a city of idolaters within your own borders must be something like trying to correct a rebellious and stubborn son before finally giving him up as hopeless and deciding it/he must be excised like a cancer.

The really curious part to me is the reversal towards the end. Why does part one go from trees to an unsolved murder, while part two goes from a solved murder to trees? Perhaps because in the former case the subject acted wisely and preserved the fruit of the land (his children), while in the latter, through foolishness, he turned the rightful order of life on its head and converted his life-giving trees/sons into instruments of death.

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The Cause & Stoning of a Rebel

The Making of a Rebellious SonDeuteronomy 21:10-23, like so many passages in the Torah, at first appears to be a random assemblage of rules. When you look closer, however, you might see a pattern emerge:

V10-14 – A man marries a beautiful woman who was captured in war.
V15 – The man now has two wives, one loved and one unloved.
V16-19 – The son of the unloved wife is also unloved.
V20-23 – The unloved son rebels against his father, turns to crime, and eventually becomes a murderer.

A man has gone out to war and returned home with an exceptionally beautiful woman whose entire family has been killed. She has every reason in the world to hate him, and the wife who was waiting for him at home during the campaign is not likely to be pleased either. The man doesn’t love his first wife or it’s very likely he wouldn’t have wanted the second one, certainly not under these circumstances. Competition, complication, and soon: domestic conflagration.

He follows this unwise decision by diminishing the inheritance of his first wife’s (or second, the text isn’t specific) innocent son who responds by rebelling against the rule of both his parents, eventually resorting to crime.

There are two pieces of evidence that point to the prodigal being very young.

First, the character of a grown man isn’t likely to be terribly effected by his father’s foolish decisions. The character of a child, however, can be scarred, strengthened, or warped beyond repair by experiences early in life.

Second, the Jewish sages say that the law concerning stoning a rebellious son was intended to take the boy out of the world before he does something, like murder, that would place his soul beyond all hope. Hence, it would only apply during a six-month twilight of adolescence between childhood, during which time he would not be held responsible for his criminal behavior, and adulthood, when he would be fully accountable for his own actions.*

I’m not convinced the sages were correct in their assessment of the law’s applicability, but I agree that the placement of that command towards the end of this domestic downward spiral indicates that the first domino was toppled by the boy’s father and not by the boy himself. This doesn’t excuse him. The murderer or adulterer or homosexual in verse 22 is still to be executed for his own crimes regardless of what his father did or didn’t do.

The thing I want you to take away from this, the most important thing that is not even written in the text, is that the consequences of your behavior as a man or woman even in the earliest stages of your marriage–indeed even before you marry at all–will ripple through generations of your descendants.

Be very careful in choosing a mate. “Listen to your heart” sounds honest and sweet, but it might be the most foolish advice anyone has ever given. (On the other hand, anyone who takes advice from pop singers probably deserves his fate.) Don’t marry the first girl who bats her eyelashes at you or the first boy who tells you he loves you. Don’t rely only on your own judgment, but seek out counsel from the elders of your community, from people with many more years of experience and wisdom. Your urges, your instincts, your “heart” is far more likely to lead you to destruction than to happiness.

Being in love is wonderful, but marrying someone just because you’re in love is stupid and selfish. The great secret that none of those pop stars will tell you is that you can choose to fall in love and you can choose to allow yourself to fall out of love again. Physical attraction is important, of course, and requires a certain amount of raw material to work with, but beyond the mere physical, it takes work to build a quality relationship and it takes even more to maintain it. If you aren’t willing to carry some heavy burdens, my advice to you is don’t even start down the road.

Don’t try to be ready for marriage and family before you start. You will never be ready for marriage or children or any other great thing in life until you are well into it, maybe not until it’s long over. Rather, get used to the idea that you won’t be strolling through flowery meadows ever after. There will be cliffs and rivers and mountains to cross. You’ll need determination, and more than anything, you’ll need a map and good directions.

Your stupid decisions today could be devastating for your children ten or thirty years from now. Keep your eyes and ears open, and walk prayerfully.

* Incidentally, the rabbis also say that there has never been an occassion to put this law to use.

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The Heart of Every Enduring Civilization

If we value our nation, our civilization, we must protect the institutions that are common to all strong, enduring peoples, especially marriage.

No sane and knowledgeable person disputes the fact that the nuclear family is at the core of all civilized society. From Israel to China to Britain, every civilization that stood for more than mere decades codified the defense of marriage in their laws. When those civilizations reached their heights and began to suffer all the depredations of pride, they disregarded the sanctity of marriage. Temple prostitution, homosexuality, divorce… They each began to fall. You can’t chisel away the structural support of a building and expect the walls and roof to remain intact for long.

If we value our nation, our civilization, we must protect the institutions that are common to all strong, enduring peoples:

  • Rule of Law
  • Family and Community
  • Cohesive Religion
  • Marriage

Most importantly, marriage.

And I do not mean the equalitarian business partnership which that word seems to bring to mind for most modern Americans. I mean the only form of marriage that has proven itself throughout history as the nucleus of strong families, communities, and nations. The kind of marriage instituted by God, not by men, women, and lawyers.

God’s Law (the Torah, the first five books of the Bible) tells us how God intended marriage to be, and His intentions were not politically correct. Marriage in God’s plan is patriarchal, fertile, and strong. In today’s America marriage is equalitarian, barren, and frail, a very weak support indeed for such a large and diverse nation.

The requirements of God’s Law aren’t always easy. They aren’t always what we would want. But they are always right because God is always right. He knows you and every other person at a deeper level, more intimate and thorough than we or any therapist could ever hope to realize. If we are uncomfortable with God’s prescriptions for healthy relationships, perhaps the problem is not with the Doctor, but with the patient.

If we are to restore a robust and enduring America, then it’s far past time to put God’s plan for marriage ahead of our own. It’s time to get back to the basics and relearn what we once knew about relationships, about men and women and the very core of a strong nation.