Shalom everyone
If there is just one thing that we can learn from being followers of the Prophet Yeshua, it is that we should always seek to interpret the Hebrew Bible with compassion, mercy, forgiveness, and love. If we are instead tempted by our baser natures to interpret the Hebrew Bible literally, with harsh judgment, violence and anger, we cannot truly label ourselves as disciples of Yeshua, because instead we have become followers of the stony callousness of our own hearts.
Even traditional, rabbinic Judaism does not interpret the harsh verses literally. If you were to take the Hebrew Bible literally, then you would expect the Jewish people to have a religion identical to the violent and homicidal practices of ISIS, the Taliban, or Boko Haram. But that’s not what we see; that’s not what Judaism has evolved into. We don’t stone people to death, we don’t execute Sabbath-breakers, apostates, adulterers or gay people. We don’t force a woman to marry her rapist, and we don’t stone disobedient children to death. The Jewish people have always found a way to be merciful, because we have always known that YHVH our God is a merciful God, not a tyrannical god of cruelty.
The God of Yeshua was therefore not a new god that Jewish people had never known. Yeshua did not have a revolutionary or original understanding of God which no human being, let alone any Jew, had ever known before. His was Israel’s God of justice and compassion, the God of the biblical prophets, and the God of Abraham.
Modern religious people unfortunately interpret what God is only through the words of the Bible. However, that was not how the ancient Hebrews did things. They were told to seek YHVH first (1Chron 22:19), to know YHVH first (Jer 31:34, 1Chron 22:19, Hos 2:20, 6:3), and then interpret the Bible through their experiential knowledge of God. Only by knowing YHVH, could a person figure out whether a commandment was a test, and therefore not to be carried out literally. Only by knowing YHVH, could a person figure out the compassionate interpretation of a commandment.
If we ever doubt this, we should remember that every biblical figure before Moses had no Bible or any kind of holy scriptures. The only way they could know what the values, ideals and principles of Yahwism were, would have been to seek to know YHVH. Only by knowing YHVH will you ever have the right mind to practise the Israelite faith with the right heart, and know what is upright and pleasing in the sight of God. YHVH is a knowable God – maybe not perfectly or completely, but YHVH is nevertheless knowable. Only a false god is unknowable.
It is indeed unfortunate that certain unhinged religious preachers want to you abandon your living knowledge of God, because only then can they convince you to follow the cruel whims of their own dark minds. If a fundamentalist teaches you something about YHVH which you know not to be true, YHVH has given you permission not to listen to them (Dt 13:1-3).
Only by knowing YHVH’s personality, can we truly come to understand that mercy, fairness, justice, compassion and love are the guiding principles by which we are to interpret Torah. These principles and values come first.
The Overall Tone of Deuteronomy
Yom Truah is fast approaching, so before I start going through the various principles to bear in mind whenever we encounter harsh verses in Torah, I think it’s important first of all to look at the main purpose of Deuteronomy. Many scholars now think that the original written version of Deuteronomy was edited by the prophet Hosea, who was active in the period 793–753 BCE. The prophetic book which bears his name has a lot of linguistic and lexical similarities to Deuteronomy, but the one similarity which is relevant to our current discussion is its tone.
The northern kingdom (Israel), where both Hosea and Deuteronomy originated, had its own version of the Mosaic Torah. Until the time of Hosea, it was likely transmitted mostly in an oral form, from teacher to pupil, from generation to generation. Hosea was likely the first to set the Mosaic Torah down in writing. During his time, the northern kingdom had become both decadent and corrupt, forgetting the values and ideals of YHVH that had made them successful in the first place. Hosea had also been called by God as a prophet, to warn the northern kingdom that a time of exile was fast approaching.
Hosea therefore likely set Deuteronomy down in writing as part of his prophetic ministry, to warn the people of the north that they had abandoned YHVH’s values, and so that is why Deuteronomy has this overall tone of gloom and harsh judgment. However, coupled with this – just like his prophetic book – it also contains the theme of restoration. Both Deuteronomy and the Book of Hosea contain the balance of judgment and exile, with hope and restoration.
When we read Deuteronomy, we have to bear all this in mind. Most of its negativity is down to the prophet Hosea using the Teaching of Moses as part of God’s warnings to the northern kingdom of Israel. I’m certain that if the northern version of Torah had been written down much earlier, in a time of faithfulness and peace, it would have been more upbeat and positive. We have to take the time-period during which Deuteronomy was first written down into account, and not let its doom and gloom drag us down.
That is why, when Deuteronomy was first read out on the first Yom Truah after the Babylonian Exile, the Judeans who heard it became despondent at first (Neh 8:9c – ‘For all the people had begun to weep when they heard the words of The Teaching’). As a result of this reaction, the priests and Levites told them not to mourn or weep (Neh 8:11b – ‘Be calm, for this day is holy; do not grieve’). As a result of how the Levites then explained Deuteronomy to the people in their translation to give them its sense, they finally understood that the purpose of the book was to rejoice in YHVH, ‘for the joy of YHVH is your strength’ (Neh 8:10c).
We too, therefore, should not dwell or linger on the harsh or negative words, but instead, concentrate wholeheartedly on all the positive, just and compassionate verses, which uplift the soul and give stability to Israelite society, so helping us to endure as a people.
The Principles to bear in mind when reading the harsh verses
Now that we understand the general tone of Deuteronomy, here are the main points to bear in mind when interpreting the harsh verses anywhere in Torah:
1. They are a test, to see whether someone can remain true to God’s just commandments – by giving a harsh commandment which is not meant to be carried out, it is a test to see whether you will instead stay true to God’s just, merciful and compassionate commandments (consider God’s instructions to sacrifice Isaac, which were never meant to be carried out, but were instead a test, to see if Abraham trusted in God’s promises – he passed)
2. They are not intended to be carried out; rather, they are intended to frighten people into staying on the path, and follow God’s commandments (‘Then all the people will come to hear of it and be afraid’; the Latin term for this type of law was lege in terrorem – a law for the purpose of fear)
3. They impress upon us the seriousness and importance of a particular commandment; harsh punishments are there purely to impress upon us the utmost seriousness of the commandment they are attached to (eg the breaking of the Sabbath, going after other gods), rather than to actually be carried out
4. There is both a harsh way, and an alternative compassionate way of interpreting a commandment, and God is testing us to see whether we will choose the harsh or the compassionate interpretation, in order to bring out the true content of our hearts
5. Things are not what they seem; some verses seem unreasonable, because we are reading them against the social conditions of the 21st century, and the culture of the Christian West. When you reset your footing to the cultural background of the ancient Middle East, you realise that the real premises of the commandment are not what your previous assumptions thought they were (eg Dt 22:28-29 is not about a woman being forced to live with her rapist; in a culture where a woman in such circumstances would find it difficult to find anyone else willing to marry her, they are about providing financial support for the victim. The woman lived out her life with her father and mother, but the rapist had to support her financially for the rest of his life; he could never see her again, he could never marry anyone else, and so would never have any legal heirs to perpetuate his name – his name would die with him). Nevertheless, no Jewish community today would ever try to enforce this commandment
6. Genocidal commandments were written to explain the absence of certain groups of people in post-Exile, 6th century BCE Israel; historians and archaeologists cannot find any evidence of any of the genocides commanded in the Bible. Therefore, genocidal commands were never given by God, but were written by the authors of the Bible to explain the contemporary absence of certain peoples
7. Some harsh teachings are not actually spoken by God, but rather by Moses (or more likely, Hosea). The tone of Deuteronomy is generally harsh, and intended by way of warning; that harsh tone is mostly from what Moses says, rather than God.
8. Even if a commandment is completely unambiguous, one principle still applies: ‘Mercy triumphs over judgment’.
Yeshua’s approach
Yeshua shows us that there is always a compassionate way of approaching Torah. Instead of being stoned to death, the adulteress was forgiven, and advised not to sin this way again; instead of executed, the disobedient son was encouraged to change heart and obey his father.
There are many harsh punishments commanded in Torah, but on the whole, most Jews have always found a way not to carry them out. Our God is a just, merciful and compassionate God – that idea comes first, and as a society, Jewish people have always known these things. The Quran has virtually identical harsh punishments, but a fundamentalist Islamist government is much more likely to carry out these harsh laws; I’ll leave it up to you to figure out why there is such a contrast in approach.
Will you choose blessedness, or accursedness? When you read Torah, and you encounter difficult verses, always remember that you are being tested by God to see what the true content of your heart and mind is – whether you are callous and cruel, or whether you are compassionate and merciful.