Behar-Be-Hukkotai (Leviticus 25-27)
LA JOLLA, California — This text finishes The Holiness Code and ends the book of Leviticus.
Chapter 25 mandates a year of non-cultivation (fallow) for the land each seven years. Spontaneous growth during such years can be enjoyed by anybody, or livestock. It then prescribes each 50th year to be a jubilee, whereby land holdings return to the original owner-families, who have lost possession during the intervening years. It assures that the land will produce adequately to cover needs during fallow years. It allows separately for: redemption of lay persons’ homes within a walled city within one year of sale/loss; liberal permanent protective redemption of Levite properties; generous treatment of fellow citizens in economic straits; slave-holding confined to non-Israelites; and redemption of Israelites held as slaves to aliens.
Chapter 26 prohibits idol worship. It promises, in return for adherence to God’s Laws, prosperity, fertility, health, and peace. If society fails to follow the Laws, it warns of misery, disease, failed crops, rout by enemies, and death. However, upon repentance, God will remember the covenant. This formula repeats in many of the prophets’ declarations.
Chapter 27 specifies the fees for making vows, depending on a person’s sex and age; conditions for vowing animal sacrifices; for vowing and redeeming properties and other tithes. All in all, these are esoteric and likely were obsolete nearly from the beginning.
From all this, I have chosen three passages for comparison with ancient pagan sentiments, from internet sources.
I. Leviticus 25:3-10 Six years you may sow your field…But in the seventh…land shall have a…complete rest…but you…may eat whatever the land during its sabbath will produce…(and) You shall count off seven times seven years…forty nine…and you shall hallow the fiftieth year…proclaim release throughout the land for all its inhabitants…a jubilee…each of you shall return to his holding..to his family.”
In the internet, I find no such sentiments expressed in ancient pagan literature. However, all regions of the Middle East schematized the blessing of good years and the threat of bad years in terms of seven-year cycles. The Gilgamesh epic expresses that the slaying of Gilgamesh would initiate seven lean years. At Ugarit the slaying of the hero evokes a curse depriving the land of rain and dew for seven years. A text purporting to record events of the Pyramid age tells of seven lean years in the third dynasty (c. 2650-2575 BCE). Since seasonal patterns were not fully dependable, the need for order evoked a system of cycles, i.e. seven years. [1]
Periodically, ancient Near Eastern societies did declare non-commercial debts void, usually at the coronation of a new king.
For different reasons, these ideas are expressed in the above Torah passages. It is attractive to think ‘renewal of depleted soil minerals’ was intended, but there is no indication that the Biblical writers had such an idea. Some scholars think that the jubilee insertion of return of lost property was a deliberate attempt to parallel the fact that Shavuot is 50 days after Passover, and follows seven weeks of harvest. [2] Likely Judean Governor Nehemiah applied the Jubilee concept as an attraction to Cyrus’ returnees from Babylon exile.
II. Leviticus 25:39-46 “If your kinsman…must give himself..to you, do not subject him to the treatment of a slave…He shall remain with you as a hired…laborer…until the jubilee year…it is from the nations …about you that you may acquire male and female slaves…shall become your property…for all time.”
Per the internet, slaves have been exploited in most societies as far back as any records exist. The earliest recorded evidence is from Sumer, and continued through Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, China, and the Mediterranean cultures. Slavery included debt-slavery; punishment for crime; victims of piracy; abandoned children; and prisoners of war. The majority of slave-labor was in agriculture and industry, i.e. hard lives. In many cultures, slaves formed a large part of the economy. In the Roman Empire and some of the Greek city-states, a large part of wealth was built on slaves acquired through conquest.
Slavery also had a long tradition in Africa. There most slaves were women, preferred because they bore children and performed most field labor. However some served in royal courts. Youths, usually girls, served as collateral for their families’ debts. Uniquely in Africa, a slave could independently raise a crop, then pay a fraction to his/her owner, and keep the bulk of the profit. Realistically, they functioned as tenant farmers.
The percentage of slaves in the early non-African civilizations was small. This was because male war captives were typically killed, while women were enslaved as field laborers or concubines.
Egypt: Slaves were mainly obtained as prisoners of war, but also via debt or self-sold due to poverty. There, slaves were better off than peasants. They might have special skills, useful to their masters. If one could write, he might become manager of the master’s estate. (This suggests a model for Joseph in the Bible.) The worst assignment was being sent to the mines and quarries. Records of slavery in ancient Egypt began at least in the Eighteenth Dynasty (1550-1295 BCE).
Greece: The first true ‘slave society’ emerged in Greece between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE. In Athens during the classical period, a third to a half of the population consisted of slaves. Greek slaves had some opportunities for emancipation. Records survive of slaves operating businesses. They could earn enough to purchase freedom. During the Peloponnesian War, 20,000 Athenian slaves sent to war, escaped to the Spartans.
Rome: She would become even more dependent on slavery. However, unlike Greece, freed slaves were allowed to become citizens, with right to vote. Skilled slaves were valued, e.g. teachers, accountants, and physicians.
Aristotle developed a new justification for slavery, i.e. the ‘natural slave.’ In his view, slaves lacked the higher qualities of the soul necessary for freedom. In the later Christian world, the most important rationalization for slavery of Blacks was the “Curse of Ham,” a misunderstanding of the Biblical text of Noah. In fact, Noah cursed Canaan, the ancestor of the Canaanites, not Ham.
The Sumerian Code of Ur-Nammu (c. 2100-2050 BCE). the oldest extant law code, contains laws relating to slaves. Hammurabi’s code
(c. 1754 BCE) also referenced slaves.
Hittite texts from Anatolia contain laws regulating slavery. Of particular interest is a law which stipulated that reward for the capture of an escaped slave is higher if the slave had already succeeded in crossing the Halys River, ie. far from the center of Hittite civilization! [3] [4]
Slavery persisted throughout most of medieval Europe.
III. Leviticus 26:3-45 “If you…faithfully observe my commandments…earth will yield its produce..you shall eat your fill…and dwell securely…I… will..grant peace…your enemies will fall.. I will..make you fertile…slaves no more…But if you do not obey…I will wreak misery upon you…you shall be routed by your enemies… I will…discipline you sevenfold…destroy your cult places…lay your cities in ruins…you I will scatter…put…to flight…then at last…humble…and atone for their iniquity…will I remember my covenant…in…favor…with the ancients…freed from…Egypt…”
A search of the internet fails to uncover any such mandates, or promised rewards or punishments by pagan gods. They were plentiful among Israel’s ancient neighbors, and Israelites frequently were drawn to worship and sacrifice to them. Pagans invented many stories about their gods, but they did not receive ethical words or dictates from gods. The sacrificial service to gods, both by pagan neighbors and the attracted Israelites was purposed to seek agricultural and livestock favors and avoidance of tragedy.[5] [6]
*
[1] Encyclopedia Brittanica, Middle East Religion, 2020
[2] Wikipedia, Jubilee
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org.wiki/Slavery_in_antiquity
[4] Digital History, Copyright 2019
[5] https://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/gods-and-goddesses-pagan/
[6] https://www.thathe worldmayknow.com/fertility-cults-of-canaan
*
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.