Shofetim Deuteronomy 16:18-21:8
LA JOLLA, California — This parsha focuses on morality issues. They were written in an ancient setting, inserted just “prior to entering the promised land,” but they clearly are applicable today. I have chosen two passages for examples, and herein I explore their beginnings.
I. Chapter 16: vv. 19-20 “You shall not judge unfairly, you shall show no partiality; you shall not take bribes, for bribes blind the eyes of at the discerning and upset the plea of the just. Justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may thrive and occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you.”
As best I can tell, the origin of bribes grew out of peoples’ dealings with powerful strangers. If one wanted to meet a more powerful person and avoid a hostile reaction, he brought an offering. The aim was reciprocity.
Though a clear ancient precedent to the above Biblical passage is hard to come by, I discovered a story from Mesopotamia from 1500 BCE, called ‘The Poor Man of Kippur.’ Poor Gimil Ninurta wants to rise in the world, but all he has is a goat. With the goat as a gift, he visits the mayor of Nippur, who accepts the gift and enjoys a feast. He gives Gimil only stale beer and a bone from the goat, and has Gimil thrown out. Gimil later acquires a fortune through other means. He returns in disguise as a royal emissary and has his revenge. The point: bad reciprocation is punished.
Something fairly different occurs in Egypt, as recorded in “Books of the Dead.” Its story depicts a nobleman named Ani. In scene 1, Ani’s hands are filled with gifts. In scene 2, Ani’s soul is being weighed on scales, with the gifts over to the side. The gifts are not in the hands of the ‘judging god,’ which is a hint that the moment of judging is not the moment at which gifts are presented. In scene 3, Ani’s soul has been weighed and found to balance with truth, and so he is admitted to the god Osiris. In the last scene, he presents the gifts to Osiris. The message is that following a favorable decision, the petitioner gives gifts to the judge!
A clear break in the above patterns occurs in the Hebrew Bible, attributed to the force of God. Israelites are told in Deuteronomy that God takes no bribes in exercising judgments. This became the model for the human judges of Israel, who are told to imitate God.
Taking the evolution of the idea a step further, the Romans developed professional orators of prosecution and defense, to argue a disputation, with a decision to be determined by the merits of a case.
II. Deuteronomy Ch. 17: vv. 15-20 “…you shall be free to set a king over yourself….one of your own people; you must not set a foreigner over you, one who is not your kinsman. Moreover, he shall not keep many horses…And he shall not have many wives, lest his heart go astray, nor shall he amass silver and gold to excess. These are symbols of excess militancy and power.
“When he is seated on his royal throne, he shall have a copy of this Teaching written for him on a scroll by the levitical priests. Let it remain with him and let him read in it all his life, so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God, to observe faithfully every word of this Teaching as well as these laws. Thus he will not act haughtily toward his fellows or deviate from the Instruction…”
It is suspected that this passage was inserted and edited after the examples of Solomon’s abuses as king, which largely continued under his successors into the Babylonian exile. Scholars think these words were initially targeted at Solomon, guilty of these charges, leading to moral decay.
Why must a king not acquire too much wealth? The concept is that property acquired while in office is theft, simply economic exploitation. By extension, Proverbs 23: 1-3 states “When you sit to dine with a ruler….Do not crave his delicacies, for that food is deceptive.”
How like this is to today’s political machinations. Apparently we haven’t yet learned the Bible’s lessons.
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Irv Jacobs is a retired medical doctor who delights in Torah analysis. He often delivers a drosh at Congregation Beth El in La Jolla, and at his chavurah
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