Living Together: Conflict
May 26, 2024Pastor Patrick presented today's message, "Living Together: Conflict." Here's a video of the message.
I locked onto the understanding of slander for "kill" in James 4:2 for a deeper dive...
First thing I thought was that the word translated as "kill" (in the translation Patrick used) was probably not the same word used in "do not murder" in the Septuagent's (Old Testament in Greek) Ten Commandments. I was wrong. It is the same word (phoneuó) in both locations. So James' use was likely not entirely metaphorical. Most commentaries I looked at said something like "it's hard to say just how far the hardcore might have taken things in these early church days." Ouch.
As bad as we think murder is, slander is taken no less seriously in the Old Testament. Among other things, slander would fall under Do Not Steal as in "do not steal a person's reputation." That genie is nearly impossible to put back in a bottle, thereby ruining a person's life forever; in other words, effectively murdering them.
Just two verses before "Love your neighbor as yourself, I am the Lord" comes Leviticus 19:16, "Do not go about spreading slander among your people. Do not do anything that endangers your neighbor’s life. I am the Lord." Here, slander and endangering life are clearly juxtaposed.
Another deadly comparison is in Psalm 140:3 where a sharp tongue is compared to the venom of a snake.
In a court of law governed by the Torah, the punishment for slander spoken under oath (false testimony) is the punishment the accused would have suffered if the testimony had been believed (Deuteronomy 19:16-21). That could be capital punishment in the case of a murder trial. And further, this act is described as evil.
Here's a good one given today's message... "Without wood, a fire goes out; without a gossip, a quarrel dies down" (Proverbs 26:20).
In Psalm 15, having "no slander on your tongue" is part of being able to "abide in God's tent or dwell on His holy mountain." Interestingly, the word translated here as slander is ragal which has a fundamental meaning of "go about on one foot," like a spy does or someone slinking around. The root (regel) also has a sense of haunt, though rare; it mostly means foot.
For an extensive list of verses about slander, including several that link or equate slander with murder, see Slander at Knowing-Jesus.com.
Bonus
Why is There No Tribe of Joseph?
First, the bigger picture... Jacob had 12 sons by two wives (Rachel and Leah) and two concubines/wives (Bilhah and Zilpah). The sons of Jacob are Judah, Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Zebulun, Issachar, Dan, Gad, Asher, Naphtali, Joseph, and Benjamin.
When we say there became 12 tribes of Israel (i.e. Jacob), we are really saying there are 12 tribes that got territory in the Promised Land. The tribe of Levi, the Levites, were deemed the tribe of priests and did not get their own land. The Levites were supported by the land-owning tribes. So, now we're down to 11 tribes with land. Joseph did not get land, that makes 10. Joseph's two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, did get land. So, now we're back to 12 tribes getting land. So, here are the 12 tribes with land: Judah, Reuben, Simeon, Zebulun, Issachar, Dan, Gad, Asher, Naphtali, Ephraim (Joseph's son), Benjamin, and Manasseh (also Joseph's son).
So, now we can ask, why did Joseph not get land? Why was "Joseph's land" given to his two sons instead of to Joseph?
One obvious possible answer is that Joseph was totally "set up" in Egypt and did not want for or need anything. You would assume, however, that this would apply to his two sons as well, but they were each given a "tribe-ship" of land anyway.
As Leon Kass develops fully in his book "The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis," the story of Joseph in the last 14 chapters of Genesis, when studied carefully, reveals that Joseph was a great administrator, but not a great leader. Nor did Joseph have the skills to, as Kass puts it, "perpetuate the way." That is, Joseph didn't have what it takes to pass along the knowledge and skills necessary to be a Godfearing people to the next generation. Kass points out that in the course of the story, we see less and less of Joseph the son of Israel and more and more of Joseph the Egyptian.
Still, if Joseph and his sons were all set up in Egypt, why did Joseph's sons get a tribe-ship with land? It seems that the main reason was to fulfill the promise to Jacob (Israel) that all his descendents would specifically receive land. "To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates” (Genesis 15:18). The promise was unconditional so could not be revoked. The land-owning tribes are enumerated again in Numbers 1:20-43 when a census was taken in order to judge how many men could serve in the army.
By the time the story ends, Joseph the Administrator has set up the Pharoah and his elites with owning everything and the "regular folk" including the Israelites having next to nothing. See Genesis 47:13-26. As Kass puts it, Joseph started by buying low, then selling high; really low and really high. Very high, to the point where eventually all the land and livestock belonged to the government and 20% of the production in the fields was the government's as well. Everyone has become servant to the Pharoah, and remember, the Torah word for servant, eved, is the same word used for slave. A "servant of God" is the same eved as a "slave in Egypt;" context is key. The stage is now set for the Exodus story. Jacob, Judah, and the rest of the clan have withdrawn from Egypt as much as they can (and still survive), but not enough to avoid what's to come. The last words of Genesis are "he [Joseph] was placed in a coffin in Egypt." Joseph is something of a dead end in the story of God's people.
But one of Jacob's sons does rise to the occasion in the Joseph story - eventually: Judah. He gets better and better throughout the story at recognizing God-centeredness, fatherhood, brotherhood, diplomacy, conflict resolution, and the like. His side of the final conversations in Egypt are masterpieces. We finally remember that it is from Judah's name that we get Jew/Jewish, not from Joseph's name or any of the other brothers' names. In Jacob's final blessing to his sons as his death neared, he refered to Judah as the agile young lion ("lion cub") in Genesis 49:9. All of Jacob's deathbed blessings to his sons are in Genesis 49.
5/31/24 Update: A reader responded with "There is a Tribe of Joseph referred to by the House of Joseph also known as the two half tribes Ephraim and Manasseh. I like to view them as a better version of the prodigal son. They were given their inheritance early outside the land of milk and honey and still fulfilled the duty of fighting alongside the other tribes. Some cool stuff tied to those two tribes." For more on the House of Joseph, see What can we learn from the tribe of Joseph? at GotQuestions.com.