Charity and Civility

Sometimes we miss the forest for the trees in Biblical texts because we are always looking for that personal application or really secret insight no one else has seen. But if we step back, see the communal message and take an interest in how God is working through collective humanity we can see really valuable lessons from the Word of God we may miss otherwise.

Numbers 35 is preparing God's people for living in the land. What will be their values as a culture? A culture is cultivated by certain practices and standards. Americans are often ignorant of just how beneficial the culture of our country is to human life and flourishing. Yet so much of what we take for granted as Americans is rooted in God's culture forming rules here in Numbers 35. Take for instance the two sections dealing with land for the Levites and Cities of Refuge.

Numbers 35:2–4 (ESV) “Command the people of Israel to give to the Levites some of the inheritance of their possession as cities for them to dwell in. And you shall give to the Levites pasturelands around the cities. 3 The cities shall be theirs to dwell in, and their pasturelands shall be for their cattle and for their livestock and for all their beasts. 4 The pasturelands of the cities, which you shall give to the Levites, shall reach from the wall of the city outward a thousand cubits all around.

And:

Numbers 35:10–12 (ESV) “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan, 11 then you shall select cities to be cities of refuge for you, that the manslayer who kills any person without intent may flee there. 12 The cities shall be for you a refuge from the avenger, that the manslayer may not die until he stands before the congregation for judgment.

Think of these concepts for the nation. First, they are going to have to be generous with their property. They are going to have to support the Levites perpetually. For even though the Levites are given some land, commentators I read said the plots were far too small to sustain them. Offerings from the temple and generosity from the rest of God's people would have to continue for them. The people of God were to be a generous and sharing community. Charity would be part of who they were. 

In many respects we see that any culture founded on Judeo-Christian values also exhibits an enormously generous spirit. America may not give much percentage wise but they give a lot. The generosity of our culture is a God-originated idea from here in Numbers 35.

Secondly, the cities of refuge speak to their culture's civility. Israel will not be quick to judge or condemn someone who has committed a crime. There will be an investigation, there will be holding areas for the culprit. There will also be different laws for intentional and unintentional murder. To this day, manslaughter laws are based on this passage of scripture. Israel will be civil and not cutthroat. 

This chapter speaks to the heart of this people. These norms they maintain for their culture requires that they do not live responsively to their environment but intentionally before their God and accountable to one another. A land without laws is chaos. People must learn to get along and work together. You cannot do this without charity for those who will be reliant on others at times and you cannot do this without civility so that vengeance and dog eat dog become the law of the land. Israel set the standard for the world. And we own them a debt of gratitude.