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The Greatest Leaders

Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

Anyone who wants to be President badly enough to make it happen is almost certainly unqualified for the job.

None of the greatest men of God in Scripture sought power for themselves. Consider these highlights from the lives of Abraham, Moses, Gideon, and David, all undoubtedly great leaders.

Abraham

Abraham was an extremely wealthy man, a king in his own right. Everything he did prospered, yet he was never greedy, never took power where he didn’t already have authority, never engaged in military conquest. When he went to war against the four Mesopotamian kings to rescue his nephew Lot, he refused any reward from the five Canaanite kings whose people he also saved.

But Abram said to the king of Sodom, “I have lifted my hand to the LORD, God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth, that I would not take a thread or a sandal strap or anything that is yours, lest you should say, ‘I have made Abram rich.’ I will take nothing but what the young men have eaten, and the share of the men who went with me. Let Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre take their share.” (Genesis 14:22-24 ESV)

After his wife Sarah died, he asked Ephron, a Hittite prince, to sell him a cave as a burial place. During the negotiations The Hittites called Abraham “lord” and “a mighty prince,” and Ephron offered to give him the cave for nothing. He bowed to all the people and paid more than the market value.

Then Abraham bowed down before the people of the land. And he said to Ephron in the hearing of the people of the land, “But if you will, hear me: I give the price of the field. Accept it from me, that I may bury my dead there.” (Genesis 23:12-13 ESV)

Moses

Adopted into the house of Pharaoh, Moses actively tried to protect his people, the Hebrews, from oppression, not as a prince of Egypt, but as a fellow Hebrew.

When he went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together. And he said to the man in the wrong, “Why do you strike your companion?” He answered, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” (Exodus 2:13-14a ESV)

After forty years of exile in the land of Midian, God called Moses to confront Pharaoh, but he resisted. He had no desire to engage in national politics or to be the leader of his people.

But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” (Exodus 3:11 ESV)

But Moses said to the LORD, “Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.” (Exodus 4:10 ESV)

Even after many years as the reluctant leader of Israel, he remained a selfless and humble man.

Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth. (Numbers 12:3 ESV)

And Moses was very angry and said to the LORD, “Do not respect their offering. I have not taken one donkey from them, and I have not harmed one of them.” …And Moses said, “Hereby you shall know that the LORD has sent me to do all these works, and that it has not been of my own accord. If these men die as all men die, or if they are visited by the fate of all mankind, then the LORD has not sent me. But if the LORD creates something new, and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive into Sheol, then you shall know that these men have despised the LORD.” And as soon as he had finished speaking all these words, the ground under them split apart. (Numbers 16:15,28-31 ESV)

Gideon

When the Midianites continually raided the land of Israel, Gideon, also known as Jerubbaal, did all he could just to protect his own family’s livelihood. Leading an army was the furthest thing from his mind when God sent an angel to call him to do just that.

And the angel of the LORD appeared to him and said to him, “The LORD is with you, O mighty man of valor.” And Gideon said to him, “Please, sir, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the LORD has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.” And the LORD turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?” And he said to him, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.” And the LORD said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.” (Judges 6:12-16 ESV)

And when the war was over, Gideon had won a lasting peace against Midian and settled inter-tribal disputes, Israel asked him to rule over them as king. Instead, he gave them a new religion (for what it was worth) and returned to his own home.

Then the men of Israel said to Gideon, “Rule over us, you and your son and your grandson also, for you have saved us from the hand of Midian.” Gideon said to them, “I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you; the LORD will rule over you.” …So Midian was subdued before the people of Israel, and they raised their heads no more. And the land had rest forty years in the days of Gideon. Jerubbaal the son of Joash went and lived in his own house. (Judges 8:22-23,28-29 ESV)

David

When the prophet Samuel anointed David to be the new King of Israel, instead of declaring himself and forming an army, David became the servant, personal musician, and right-hand man of the King Saul who had been anointed before him. He had a number of opportunities to seize power, but he always refrained.

He said to his men, “The LORD forbid that I should do this thing to my lord, the LORD’s anointed, to put out my hand against him, seeing he is the LORD’s anointed.” So David persuaded his men with these words and did not permit them to attack Saul. And Saul rose up and left the cave and went on his way. (1 Samuel 24:6-7 ESV)

Years later when his son Absolom rebelled and David was forced to flee Jerusalem, he humbly accepted severe criticism from a man of Saul’s house, allowing that the man might even be right.

When King David came to Bahurim, there came out a man of the family of the house of Saul, whose name was Shimei, the son of Gera, and as he came he cursed continually. And he threw stones at David and at all the servants of King David, and all the people and all the mighty men were on his right hand and on his left. And Shimei said as he cursed, “Get out, get out, you man of blood, you worthless man! The LORD has avenged on you all the blood of the house of Saul, in whose place you have reigned, and the LORD has given the kingdom into the hand of your son Absalom. See, your evil is on you, for you are a man of blood.” Then Abishai the son of Zeruiah said to the king, “Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Let me go over and take off his head.” But the king said, “What have I to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah? If he is cursing because the LORD has said to him, ‘Curse David,’ who then shall say, ‘Why have you done so?'” And David said to Abishai and to all his servants, “Behold, my own son seeks my life; how much more now may this Benjaminite! Leave him alone, and let him curse, for the LORD has told him to. It may be that the LORD will look on the wrong done to me, and that the LORD will repay me with good for his cursing today.” (2 Samuel 16:5-12 ESV)

When the war was over and Absolom dead, that same man was the first to greet David on his return and begged his forgiveness. His advisor Abishai urged David to have the man killed, but David refused.

Abishai the son of Zeruiah answered, “Shall not Shimei be put to death for this, because he cursed the LORD’s anointed?” But David said, “What have I to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah, that you should this day be as an adversary to me? Shall anyone be put to death in Israel this day? For do I not know that I am this day king over Israel?” And the king said to Shimei, “You shall not die.” And the king gave him his oath. (2 Samuel 19:21-23 ESV)

Susceptibility to political ambition seems to be the greatest weakness of representative democracy. We choose our leaders by how well they appeal to our vanity and greed instead of how well they appeal to God’s Law and mercy.

I don’t have a better suggestion. I don’t have any ideas for fixing a broken political system because I am convinced that no political system can be fixed, that whether we are a democracy or a monarchy has almost no impact on whether we are cursed with great leaders or with power hungry tyrants.

Mohandas Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” However leaders are chosen in any nation and in any political system, history indicates that we almost always get the leaders we deserve. If we want better leaders, we must become a better people. If we want leaders like David and Moses, we must become like David and Moses ourselves, not seeking after power for our own purposes, but able and willing to wield power when necessary on behalf of our families, communities, and nations. We must obey God’s Law, hear his voice, and act fearlessly when we are called.

Nominal leaders are superfluous and incidental in a nation of Davids. As Gideon said, “The LORD will rule over you.”

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Zipporah and the Hebrews

Chiasmus in Exodus 18:1-11
Chiasmus in Exodus 18:1-11 comparing Jethro bringing Moses’ family and Moses bringing God’s family.

Moses & Zipporah had been married for almost 40 years by the time God sent him back to Egypt. His children were probably grown men (or else they were miraculously conceived), which puts a whole new twist on the family donkey ride across the desert interrupted by mom performing a late circumcising. But why did they continue to tag along with Mom instead of going on to Egypt with Dad? Surely it wasn’t just about their safety.

In Exodus 18:2-6, we’re told 3 times that Jethro cared for Moses’ family, bringing them to meet him in the wilderness. Then in 18:7-10, we’re told 3 times that God delivered the Hebrews from Egypt, with Moses leading them out to meet Him at Sinai. Clearly we are meant to see a parallel between Moses’ wife and sons leaving Midian to meet him and the Hebrews leaving Egypt to meet God.

  • Moses brings Israel into the Wilderness to meet God at Sinai.
  • Jethro brings Moses’ family into the Wilderness to meet Moses at Sinai.
  • Moses and God greet one another on the mountain and speak privately in the tent.
  • Jethro and Moses greet one another publicly and speak privately in the tent.

Jethro restoring Moses’ family to him at Sinai is a living metaphor of Moses restoring Israel to God at Sinai. Israel is God’s family.

One reason that Moses’ wife and sons (who were probably grown men) were separated from him was so that God could give us this metaphor of how he feels about us. We are God’s family and He wants us to leave Egypt and go out to meet with Him in the wilderness.

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The Sword of Salvation

Through Abraham, Salvation is available to the whole world in the person of Yeshua/Jesus.

Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven. “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
(Matthew 10:31-39 ESV)

God’s standard of righteousness requires making a distinction between things, separating the clean from the unclean, and much of Creation involved separating one thing from another: light from darkness, water from dry land, woman from man, etc. We should not be surprised that the creation of a new man necessarily involves more separation and loss.

Abraham experienced his share of division resulting from God’s call on his life.

  • He left his childhood home of Ur for Haran.
  • He left his family in Haran for a new, promised land.
  • He left the Promised Land for Egypt.
  • Sarah was taken from him twice.
  • He was separated from his nephew, Lot.
  • He kept apart from the people he lived among.
  • He sent away his second wife, Hagar, and her son, Ishmael.
  • He was resigned to losing his son, Isaac.
  • Sarah died long before he did.

He didn’t seek any of this out. Every loss was born of necessity. He didn’t set out to break up his family or to put walls between himself and the people around him. (Although it was at times a result of his own poor judgment.) Separation, especially from family and community, is difficult and painful, but Abraham’s faith in God and in God’s promises kept him moving in a direction that required division.

God knows what is best for us. He knows what we need and, just as importantly, what we don’t need. If we trust in God, we will obey Him, and this requires a deliberate separation of our old lives from our new. Obedience to God’s commands means that we will look and behave differently from the people around us, and this will, sooner or later, cause us pain. If you are faithful to God, you will experience loss. You won’t have to seek it out–and most of the time you shouldn’t! It will find you all on its own.

Just remember this: despite all of Abraham’s losses, just like Job, in the end he gained much more than he lost. He left Egypt with great wealth. He remarried after Sarah died and had many more children. He didn’t even realize his greatest gains in his lifetime, though he surely knew of them because of his special relationship with God. He became the father of many nations, not just by Isaac, but by Ishmael and all the sons of Keturah. Greatest of all, through Abraham, salvation has been made available to the whole world.

Be faithful. Be obedient. Let God worry about life’s profit and loss.

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A Proposed Solution to the Middle East Refugee Crisis

Territory under the control of ISIS as of November 2015 is marked in gray.
Territory under the control of ISIS as of November 2015 is marked in gray.

Some people insist that the Bible mandates we accept any and all refugees into our own countries with arms opened wide. If you think that’s true, then for the benefit of any onlookers my only possible response must be to demonstrate either 1) your ignorance of Scripture or 2) your abject hypocrisy and then to block you. That might be fun for a few minutes, but I don’t get nearly the kick from inflicting public humiliation that I used to, so don’t waste my time with such pablum.

Instead, I’m going to engage in some fantastic pablum of my own in proposing a solution to the Middle East refugee crisis.

Without further ado…

Step One: Find some poor, but nominally Christian nation with some extra space. Several candidates in southern Africa come to mind. Offer to develop their national infrastructure in exchange for hosting a number of temporary, well-secured cities with adjoining farmland for housing and feeding refugees.

Step Two: Invite any and all refugees from war-torn regions to relocate to these Cities of Refuge with the following caveats:

  • There will be no minarets, no mosques, no public Muslim prayers, and no Muslim services. In short, Islam will be forbidden within the Cities.
  • All refugees, 3 years and older, will attend Bible classes and memorize Scripture. These classes will be taught by volunteers who demonstrate Biblical knowledge and agree to a Statement of Faith that covers only the barest essentials of the Christian faith. Each refugee family may select from whichever teachers are available in their City.
  • All refugees, from 7 to 17 years old, will be required to attend additional classes in reading, writing, and mathematics.
  • All refugees, 13 years and older, will work to produce the necessities of living for their own city of refuge. Trade between the cities will be encouraged if all of the basic needs of the participating cities have been met.

Step Three: All male refugees, 18 years and older, who have publicly disavowed Islam and sworn allegiance to Jesus Christ/Yeshua haMashiach (I don’t care what language they want to use) and obedience to the Ten Commandments (the full Torah would be even better, but the Ten is a good start) will receive military training and appointments in an organized militia with the understanding that they will eventually return and retake their homelands.

Step Four: No male refugee, from 18 to 50 years old, will be allowed to remain in the Cities for longer than one year. At that time, if they have converted to faith in Jesus, they will be deployed with their militia unit, with arms and logistical support from the Cities, volunteers, and supportive national governments. If they have not converted, they will be forcibly repatriated to their homelands with no further assistance possible. They may choose to take their families with them or leave them behind in the Cities.

I fully realize that the current political landscape would not allow such a scheme without the full military backing of the USA and/or Russia, probably both. I could imagine Russia implementing something like this, but not the USA. We’re too emasculated to do anything so bold and decisive.

Honestly, it sounds more like a Tom Kratman novel than anything that would ever happen in our world, but a guy can dream, right?

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Hunter vs Shepherd

Everyone has a role to play in God’s plan. Don’t be afraid to be who God intends for you to be.
Everyone has a role to play in God’s plan. Don’t be afraid to be who God intends for you to be.

Genesis 21:20 And God was with the boy, and he grew, and lived in the wilderness, and became an archer.

At least on a personal level, archery is almost exclusively an offensive art. You can’t effectively defend yourself with a bow the way you can with a shield or even a pike. So it fits with Ishmael’s character and God’s prophecy about him that he would be an accomplished archer.

Like other shady characters in the Bible, Ishmael was a predator by nature. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that; God needs hunters too. They can put food on the table (or the spit, as the case may be) and can take down the enemy’s king from a distance in the heat of battle. But a man who is a predator by nature may not be suitable for certain roles, such as carrying on God’s promise to send a Messiah who would take away the sins of the world.

Of course, this does not mean that Isaac was chosen for that role because of his superior character. He was only an infant. He had no character yet. Isaac was chosen to inherit the blessing of Abraham because that’s what God had promised to do. Nothing more or less. There was nothing Isaac could have done to merit God’s grace.

We all have our roles to play in God’s plan. Some of us are hunters and some shepherds; some are doctors, janitors, soldiers, or millwrights. The important thing is to be who you were called to be and not to be jealous of other parts of the body of Messiah.

(Edited and relocated from “Soil and Stone” where it was originally published on 2/16/2013.)

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Sometimes Faithfulness Requires Coloring outside the Lines

Abraham and Sarah sending Hagar into the wilderness
Abraham and Sarah sending Hagar into the wilderness

Peter told us that Sarah obeyed Abraham, not the other way around. (1 Peter 3:5-6) She respected her husband so profoundly that she even called him “Lord.” Can you imagine what kind of reception that would have in one of today’s churches? They would probably call the police on Abraham and report him for emotional abuse. Even so, Peter points to her attitude as the biblical ideal, saying, “Ladies, if you are Sarah’s daughters you should emulate her.” (See Mutual Submission in Marriage, part 1 and part 2.)

Peter painted a rosy picture of Sarah-homemaker and Patriarch Abe, but it was incomplete. Sarah and Abraham weren’t perfect. Far from it. They didn’t always believe, Abraham wasn’t always wise, and Sarah wasn’t always respectful. Consider the matter with Hagar.

Genesis 21:10-11 And she said to Abraham, Cast out this slave woman and her son. For the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son, with Isaac. (11) And the thing was very evil in Abraham’s sight, because of his son.

Sarah overstepped her bounds when she told Abraham what to do with Hagar and Ishmael. She had every right to make her wishes known and to give Abraham advice (respectfully and gently!), but this was neither a wish nor advice. It was a command. Old Abe would have been perfectly within his rights to tell her to take a hike.

Whatever we may think of polygamy and concubinage, God recognized both as legitimate–if not always wise–marriage. Abraham had a responsibility to Hagar as her husband and to Ishmael as his father. They needed him. He had put them in this position of need and, even if they weren’t faithful to him, he was determined to be faithful to them. He couldn’t just abandon them. The very idea is abhorrent to an honorable man!

Nonetheless, Abraham knew that Sarah was not normally given to such termagent outbursts. Instead of replying in anger and dismissing her words, he considered them and brought them to God who told him she was right. There was much more going on here than just a personality conflict between two women in the same house. Their lives were prophetic. Hagar and Ishmael had to go in order to set the stage for millennia of conflict that was necessary for God’s ultimate plans. They had to go in order to further establish a pattern of dividing sheep from goats.

My point is that despite Sarah’s flawed manner, if Abraham had refused to listen, doing what he thought was right instead of what God said was right, he would have rejected God’s promise too. God would have either made his life very much harder until he complied or Abraham would have become Ishmael, the cast out one. God would have chosen someone else.

Don’t be quick to anger, and don’t be so bound to propriety that you cannot hear truth through a difficult tone of voice.

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God Sees Ishmael

Ishmael & Hagar in the wilderness, kept alive to be a thorn in the side of the whole world.
Ishmael & Hagar in the wilderness, kept alive to be a thorn in the side of the whole world.

Genesis 16:7-15 And the angel of the LORD found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur. (8) And he said: ‘Hagar, Sarai’s handmaid, whence camest thou? and whither goest thou?’ And she said: ‘I flee from the face of my mistress Sarai.’ (9) And the angel of the LORD said unto her: ‘Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands.’ (10) And the angel of the LORD said unto her: ‘I will greatly multiply thy seed, that it shall not be numbered for multitude. (11) And the angel of the LORD said unto her: ‘Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son; and thou shalt call his name Ishmael, because the LORD hath heard thy affliction. (12) And he shall be a wild ass of a man: his hand shall be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the face of all his brethren.’ (13) And she called the name of the LORD that spoke unto her, Thou art a God of seeing; for she said: ‘Have I even here seen Him that seeth Me?’  (14) Wherefore the well was called ‘Beer-lahai-roi; behold, it is between Kadesh and Bered. (15) And Hagar bore Abram a son; and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael.

God sees you. He knows who you are, who you will be. But he sees much deeper than that. He sees your children and your descendants. He knows who they will be 3500 years later.

God knew from the beginning that Ishmael would be at war throughout his generations, and by including this otherwise private interaction in the Torah, he has given the world fair warning.

There can be no peace with Ishmael.

In the collective sense, Ishmael neither understands nor desires peace. He will not be satisfied with democracy, land, prosperity, or the violent death of every Jew in the world. The sooner we believe what God has plainly told us, the sooner we can forget about ridiculous ideas of nation building and exchanging land for peace and focus on strong borders and containment.

Or missions.

Because the one way that Ishmael might find lasting peace is in truly uniting with Israel through her King and Messiah, Yeshua.

P.S. Don’t forget to subscribe for updates, anniversaries from American history, and links to interesting, enlightening, and useful stuff from around the Internet.

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The Shemitah & the Four Blood Moons

Blood Moons & the Shemitah? I'm not impressed, but I've been wrong before.
Blood Moons & the Shemitah? I’m not impressed, but I’ve been wrong before.

A few days ago my mom asked me what I thought of all the talk about the Shemitah and the blood moons. Because I know that many other people are very concerned about these things, here’s what I told her:

Although I don’t believe the Shemitah is commanded outside the Land of Israel, I think keeping it is probably good business and good land management. Shemitah and Jubilee are likely designed to work in conjunction with natural boom-bust cycles. Ignoring them causes “bubbles” and unhealthy accumulations of wealth in fewer and fewer hands until something breaks, like the Great Depression and World War 2.

The blood moons aren’t a totally unique event. Passover and Sukkot are always, by definition, on a full moon, and they’ll land on lunar eclipses in the same pattern every so often. I’m not aware of any world-shattering events that they signified in the past, though I admit I haven’t looked into it too deeply. Signs in the heavens mean things, just not always the spectacular things we expect. On the other hand, sometimes they mean really spectacular things, but they’re on a time delay, like the birth of Yeshua. There was this big, bright star and all kinds of astrological shenanigans going on, but nobody noticed anything significant on earth for another 30 years.

My usual approach to all things eschatological is this: Understand the patterns laid out in Scripture and history and you’ll be better prepared when you see those same patterns unfolding around you. Live to honor God today and you won’t need to scramble to fix all your messes at the first note of the Trumpet, whatever that Trumpet signifies.

I’ve been wrong before, but the Fall Feasts are just days away. I guess we’ll see, won’t we?

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Where Are the Healings?

Whatever Happened to the Power of God by Michael L. Brown
Whatever Happened to the Power of God by Michael L. Brown

I’ve been reading Michael L. Brown’s book, Whatever Happened to the Power of God. I’m not even half-way through the book yet, but I have to share some of my thoughts with you now. In this book, Brown poses the very same questions that have been bothering me lately, and I haven’t been able to find answers. Here’s the crux of the problem:

American Christianity is a lie.

Or at the very least, it’s not what it claims to be.

Jesus said that if we followed after Him, we would heal the sick, raise the dead, and cast out demons. These signs would follow us everywhere we went, but where are any of these things happening? Nowhere that I know of. Sure, a headache fades here, a cold clears up over there, but so what?

How many formerly dead people are walking around in your church? No platitudes about how we were all once spiritually dead and now we’re reborn. No excuses. Why are we still holding funerals in our churches for young people? Why doesn’t everyone in your congregation have at least 20/20 vision so they can see that nobody around them is wearing a hearing aid?

Where has the power of God gone?

Is it in people on all fours barking like dogs or in gold dust blowing out of the ceiling vents? Baloney! That is not the power of God. You can tell me the Holy Spirit is moving in your town all day long and every Wednesday night, but if people aren’t leaving their wheelchairs behind, it’s all just hot air.

God doesn’t change. He makes miracles for His people. Jesus said that we would do greater miracles than He did. I believe in Him. So what’s wrong?

I invite you to read along with me. I hope Dr. Brown has some answers for us. If you know something, please share. Just no second or third hand stories.

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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.