War

Frederick Verinder: My Neighbor's Landmark: Short Studies in Bible Land Laws (1911), Preface

When we meet with a new interpreter, eager to impart a revelation, we set ourselves to challenge and compare his impassioned message with the ruling spirit of the age, the Zeitgeist, as the Germans call it. Thus when Mr. Verinder speaks of the land-usages and laws of our times, and sets against them the ancient orders and directions of the Pentateuch, we are aroused at once to question and to find out how this new view of possession and occupation fits in with the dominant thoughts of today. From these sacred books he builds a creed for working folk: that the earth is the Lord's, and that any occupier who claims more than the ancient Jubilee gave is a bold interloper; and he bases on these early Scriptural regulations a new brotherhood between the man of labor and the soil on which his sinews work.

There springs out of his argument another proof of the universal nature of the Bible. It is alike ancient and modern. He points out to us that private property in land is nothing but a survival of privileges won by the mailed fist. We know that the first settlement of the Jews in the land flowing with milk and honey was really a raid of moving "landgrabbers." After their bad times in Egypt, they fell on the natives of Palestine, drove them out, and took their place: as the missionaries of Jehovah they proclaimed that they had seized it for His use and in His Name; and they went on to show the world a better way of occupation, and a happier and more equable life. ... Read the whole preface

Frederick Verinder: My Neighbor's Landmark: Short Studies in Bible Land Laws (1911) — Chapter 6: Compensation

§ 1. ONE tribe out of all the tribes of Israel was set aside for the performance of important public functions. According to the Theocratic constitution of the Hebrew Commonwealth, the men of the tribe of Levi formed the Civil Service of the unseen King of Israel. In order to set them free for the performance of their duties, they were exempted from service in the citizen army, in which all the capable males of all the other tribes were liable to serve "from twenty years old and upwards, all that are able to go forth to war in Israel." They were the servants of the Lord, and therefore of the Lord's people. Their duties are set forth with great minuteness. They chiefly centered round the one great public building of the nation, the dwelling-place of the Most High, the seat of the national worship, the symbol of the national unity, the central place of assembly for the people.

The Levites were solemnly set apart for their work, to which the prime of their lives was devoted. Their term of full service was from thirty to fifty years of age, apparently after a training of five years; and, when their time had expired, lighter duties were found for them. They were also the official preachers of the Law, and the custodians of the official copy of it. Those members of the tribe of Levi who claimed descent from Aaron formed, within the tribe, a special order with special functions — the priests. They were not only the national clergy — sacrificing, absolving, and blessing — but also the teachers of religion and law, administrators of justice, the medical officers of health and sanitary inspectors, charged with the duties of inspecting, isolating, and (after recovery) disinfecting persons suffering from certain contagious diseases, of disinfecting unclean garments and bedding, of inspecting, cleansing, or, if need be, demolishing infected dwellings; and so on. This mixture of "sacred" and "secular" functions is characteristic of a theory of government which, recognising no king but God, could draw no hard-and-fast line between the service of God and the service of humanity.

§ 2. If the Levites were to give their whole time and attention to the important public duties which have been hinted at above, it was clearly necessary that they should be set free from the necessity of earning their livelihood by ordinary agricultural labor, and that some other provision must be made for them. In order, therefore, that the ministrations of religion and the means of instruction might be brought within the reach of all the citizens, the Levites were provided with residences in forty-eight cities, assigned specially to them "with the suburbs thereof" — a certain amount of surrounding meadow-land for the pasturage of their cattle. These cities were to be taken in fair proportion from all the tribes. Thirteen of them were allotted to the priests. Six were appointed as "cities of refuge," to which "the slayer that killeth unawares and unwittingly" might flee in order to escape lynching and to secure a fair trial.

But it is plain that the provision of an official residence fell far short of what the Levite would have received had he been born into any other tribe. For the Levites had no part in the division of the land, although they obviously had the same "right to the use of the earth" as the other tribes. The families of eleven tribes divided among them land in which the families of twelve tribes had rights to equal shares. The excluded tribe was clearly entitled to compensation for the loss of rights of which, for reasons of public policy, it had been deprived. This compensation was given by means of the tithe. The tribes who had divided among themselves the Levites' share of the land, as well as their own, paid to the Levites one-tenth of the produce of the land, and the Levites in their turn, paid one-tenth of this tithe — "a tithe of the tithe" — to the Aaronic priesthood. ... Read the whole chapter, including footnotes