Deuteronomy 24:8-25:4

"God and the Ox"

The Ninth Commandment declares:

"You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor."

The point of this law is to preserve the "reputation, dignity, and respect of people

within the community, whatever their status or condition within the society."

(Richard Olson, Deuteronomy and the Death of Moses, p108).

Moses starts

24:8-9 with the Levitical priests

This law may seem out of place.

What does leprosy have to do with the ninth commandment?

The key is in verse 9.

What happened to Miriam?

Numbers 12:1-8

Miriam had slandered Moses-and God struck her with leprosy.

The point is that you are to honor the name and dignity of the Levitical priests,

by doing all that Moses had commanded respecting leprosy.

To ignore the priests is to ignore the honored name that God has given them,

and there is an implicit warning:

Remember what happened when Miriam did not honor Moses!!

It is worthwhile to remember that Jesus, when he cleansed lepers,

sent them to the priests to be properly restored to the community. (Matthew 8:2-4)

Even Jesus honored the office of the priests-

even while he was in the process of replacing them!

24:10-11 Debtors

You honor your neighbor by trusting him.

To go into his house would be to suggest that you don't trust him to come back out.

24:12-13 a poor debtor

Even more importantly, if the debtor is poor (and presumably only has one cloak),

then you must restore his cloak to him at sunset every night

so that he will not freeze.

You must honor your neighbor-whether he be the exalted priest, or the lowly poor man.

24:14-15 poor laborers

Similarly, a poor laborer must be honored

(regardless of whether he is an Israelite or a sojourner).

You must give him his wages every day.

Most of us get paid every month, or every two weeks.

That's fine-since we are not poor, and we don't need the money immediately.

But the point Moses makes is that if your laborer needs the money

that he has already earned, and you withhold it,

it is not merely theft (that's obvious),

it is also slander: you are saying that he's not important.

You are saying that his honor, his dignity, is irrelevant.

24:16 children and parents

This law teaches that guilt shall not be imputed to other family members.

This is particularly interesting because there are many biblical examples to the contrary.

Achan, in Joshua 7, was killed together with his family.

The earth swallowed up Korah, in Numbers 16, with all his household.

How, then, can Dt 24:16 say that children shall not be put to death for their father's sins?

There is an important distinction between Dt 24:16 and these examples.

Achan and Korah were not merely breaking one of the commandments.

They were directly challenging the entire covenant.

As such, they were leading their families into apostasy.

Dt 13 makes it clear that if a family member tries to lead you into idolatry,

you must refuse-or else you are guilty yourself.

So the households of Achan and Korah,

by standing against the covenant and siding with an apostate father,

were themselves guilty of covenant breaking, and were worthy of death.

Dt 24:16 declares that as a matter of civil polity,

no Israelite should die for someone else's sins.

But this is also a remarkable teaching as we consider our Lord Jesus Christ.

If "each one shall be put to death for his own sin,"

then the death of Christ was blatantly a travesty of justice.

He had never sinned.

24:17-22 resident aliens, orphans and widows

The name of the sojourner, the orphan and the widow, is especially protected in Israel.

"You shall not pervert the justice due to the sojourner or to the fatherless,

or take a widow's garment in pledge."

Why? Because you were a slave in Egypt.

This has been used frequently to remind Israel to treat the poor with respect.

It is used twice in these six verses (v18, 22)

(Also 20:1; 23:4-7; 24:9; 25:17)

What does it mean to do justice to the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow?

Moses spells it out in verses 19-21.

If you forget a whole sheaf out in the field when you reap,

you must leave it there for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow.

It would be unjust for you to keep your whole harvest.

You must NOT glean your whole field;

you must NOT gather all your olives or grapes.

You MUST leave some of your produce in your field for the poor.

You may not consider your whole income to be yours.

So, again we see that Moses would not have much sympathy

for a libertarian economic system,

where you are free to do whatever you like with your property.

"You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt;

Therefore I command you to do this."

Caring for the poor is NOT optional.

Neither is it left to the individual to decide how it should be done.

Now, in our day, we no longer live in an agrarian society.

Moses' law could work well in an agrarian society,

where the widows and orphans could glean the fields,

but an urban, post-industrial society must care for the poor in a different way.

What are the principles involved?

1) there will always be poor people who need assistance

2) everyone who has substantial income (in those days it was land)

must contribute a portion of their harvest/income.

3) those who receive this must work to get it (in those days, by gleaning).

(Although remember that Naomi did not glean-only Ruth)

In other words,

the equity of the Mosaic law suggests that we honor the poor in the land,

by giving a portion of our income for their benefit.

We ought to encourage welfare reform that discourages laziness,

but the principle of welfare is in fact thoroughly biblical,

so long as they are required to work in some form to get it.

25:1-3 criminals

Even the thief must not be dishonored.

If you beat a man with more than forty stripes,

He is "degraded in your sight."

He has earned his punishment-and he deserves what he gets.

But you shall not dishonor him by thrashing him unmercifully.

25:4 the ox

This law also may seem odd.

But by now we have gotten used to Moses speaking of protecting animals and trees

as a part of our calling as stewards of God's creation.

Do not bear false witness against the creature.

Do not dishonor the ox, which God has made to serve you.

He may take a mouthful of grain while he is treading it out.

The laborer is worthy of his hire-even when that laborer is an ox!

Paul uses this verse allegorically in 1 Corinthians 9:8-12. (Read)

Paul points out that this law was given for us.

He speaks somewhat hyperbolically

when he suggests that God is not concerned for oxen,

But his point is that God told us to take care of oxen to teach us something!

If Dt 25:4 is simply about how we treat oxen,

then we will neglect what Dt 25:4 is saying.

The point of the ninth commandment-honoring our neighbor and the whole of creation-

is that we see the end for which our neighbor and the whole of creation was designed.

Paul applies this to why the church should pay their pastors.

Those who proclaim spiritual things--the gospel of the new creation-

should reap material things.

Bearing false witness is not simply a matter of the tongue.

Yes, we are most familiar with the slander of the tongue-

the gossip who spreads rumors and bad reports.

Even when the rumor is true, it is still slander,

because the person being slandered has no opportunity to repent

and correct the fault!

This is the key to understanding and correcting gossip and slander:

if somebody starts to tell you something bad about someone else,

ask them, "have you dealt with this according to Matthew 18?"

If they say no-then send them back to deal with the issue.

If they say yes, then that means that either the person has repented

(and the offended person has forgiven them-thereby closing the case forever)

Or the person has been disciplined by the church,

(which makes the offense public).

I admit that it is somewhat more complicated than that.

But the point is that gossip and slander occurs when people are unwilling to follow Mt 18

But bearing false witness through our actions is just as much of a problem.

You can dishonor your neighbor by how you act towards him as well.

You bear false witness every time you treat someone worse than he deserves.

Because when you mistreat someone,

you are implying that they do not deserve to be treated well.

This is the marvel of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

It would not be false witness for Jesus to stand at the throne of God,

and tell the Father about our sins.

He would be a true witness if he stood there and testified to our wickedness.

But this is not what he has done.

Instead, he humbled himself, took to himself the form of a servant,

and suffered the penalty for our sins.

And now, he has been raised to the Father's right hand,

where he intercedes for us,

vindicating us before the Father.

Every time the Father looks at the Son, he is reminded of that sacrifice.

Why?

Is it simply the scars on his hands and feet?

That is part of it.

But there is something far more basic as well.

It is because the Eternal Son of God has hands and feet.

The eternal Son of God sits at the right hand of the Father still in human form.

Yes, he has been glorified with the glory which he shared with the Father before all ages.

It is undoubtedly the second person of the Trinity who sits there.

But he is at the same time, a man.

And every time his Father sees him, he sees at once the Eternal Son,

and the Second Adam, the Seed of Abraham, the Son of David,

who has brought humanity to the right hand of the Father.

And it is he who testifies of us:

"This one is mine!"

"This one is not guilty-because I bore his sins on the cross."

There is no sign of the covenant more powerful than the resurrected body of Jesus Christ.

There is no witness more eloquent to the justice and mercy of God.

Therefore may we, who are called by his name, live before him,

exhibiting that same justice and mercy to those around us.

Let us pray.