Just And Unjust Societies In Olden Times

Saturday of the 17th week in Course 2023

Our OT reading today continues the narrative of the Book of Leviticus, the main tradition of the Hebrew priestly class, in a sense the memories of the tribe of Levi. We need to remember that Moses and Aaron were members of that class; we need also to remember that much of Torah was written down from the oral tradition of the priests and Levites many years after that first generation. So what we have here is a kind of cosmic expansion of the Biblical Sabbath–the seventh day of the Hebrew week.

First (and we don’t see that in today’s reading) there is the seven year Sabbath. After entering the Holy Land, the shepherd people Israel gradually became the farmer people Israel. Every seven years, then, the land was to be allowed to lie fallow. There would be no organized planting and cultivation and harvest. This allowed the land to recover; modern farmers use this or crop rotation to rejuvenate the soil. It’s kind of like sharpening your plow. But this was not the only such cycle. We hear of the longer one today.

After seven of the seven-year cycles, there would be a jubilee year, a second year of letting the land recover. We see this probably recorded at the time of Isaiah and Hezekiah in the 25th chapter of first Kings. It’s about the only way we can describe what happened. In the jubilee, Hebrew slaves would be set free. Debts would be discharged, and if one had leased a farm to another person, the lease would end. Ancestral lands would be returned to their owners. It was a kind of early economic system that showed respect, not just for the living but also for the ancestors and descendants of today’s generation. It was, more than anything, a sign of respect for God, from whom all land and produce come.

You see just the opposite in the story of the totally unjust execution of St. John the Baptizer. Torah is pretty clear about stealing another man’s wife, although Herod the Great’s family was not great Torah-keepers. And this younger Herod was not too good at controlling his passions, since he was clearly lusting after his stepdaughter. The whole story reeks of “yuck.” Certainly in his cups, Herod promises anything she wants to the girl, and she asks mom. Mom is only looking for what improves her position, and she’s sick of hearing John ranting against her and Herod about their adulterous, incestuous union. So “off with his head,” and she knew that Herod would do it out of sheer human respect. Speaking the prophetic truth to power is a risky strategy, but John did not care for anything except the justice of God. Nor should we care for anything other than loving God and our neighbor, and seeking justice for both.