18 COVENANTAL FRUIT And when ye shall come into the land, and shall have planted all manner of trees for food, then ye shall count the fruit thereof as uncircumcised: three years shall it be as uncircumcised unto you: it shall not be eaten of. But in the fourth year all the fruit thereof shall be holy to praise the LORD withal. And in the fifth year shall ye eat of the fruit thereof, that it may yield unto you the increase thereof: I am the LORD your God (Lev. 19:23-25).
When we consider a biblical case law, it is best to begin theocentrically. God established this prohibition, so it must have had something to do with His relation to the land through His agents, men. The problem that the commentator faces is to specify three things: 1) what this relationship involved; 2) which men it applied to, men in general or the Israelites of the Mosaic covenant; 3) its proper application today. Was it a universal prohibition, or did it apply only to the Promised Land under the Mosaic economy?
This is another seed law. The seed laws were laws of separation. That is, they placed judicial boundaries around living organisms. We need to determine what this law meant. Because this statute invokes the language of circumcision, it has to refer symbolically (i.e., representatively) to the covenantal separation between circumcised and uncircumcised people. Tribal or family separation within Israel is therefore not in question here. What kind of separation was involved? Did this law refer to the legal boundary separating circumcised and uncircumcised men dwelling in Israel? Did it refer to the separation between circumcised and uncircumcised nations? Or was there some other separation involved? I believe that it referred to a unique form of covenantal separation, one which is represented by no other law in Scripture: a separation whose origins were in Israel's past. This separation was the 40-year period of wandering in the wilderness in which the Israelites of the exodus generation refused to circumcise their sons. I need a whole chapter to prove my point.
This law applied to orchards. God marked off the fruit of newly planted trees for His own purposes. He set this fruit outside of covenant-keeping man's lawful access. That is, He placed a "no trespassing" boundary around the fruit of newly planted trees for three years after they began to bear fruit. Then he announced that the fruit of the fourth year was holy: set aside for him. This was analogous to what He had done in the garden with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: setting it aside for a period, keeping men away from it.
The question is: Why?
Temporarily Forbidden Fruit Two facts need to be noted. First, this prohibition applied to the first four years of fruit borne by a tree that was planted in the Promised Land after the land had come under the control of the Israelites. As we shall see, the prohibition did not apply to fruit from trees that had been planted by the Canaanites just prior to the invasion of Canaan by Israel. It was not "trees as such" whose fruit came under this ban; it was trees that had been planted after the conquest.
The seeds or cuttings that would serve as the parents of Israel's first crop would have come from the existing trees of Canaan. The new trees' fruit was to be set aside for three seasons and offered to God in the fourth. This indicates that there had to be a discontinuity between the trees and seeds of the old Canaan and the trees and seeds of the new Canaan. Like the leaven of Egypt that had to be purged out during the first Passover, so were the firstfruits of Canaan. The leaven (yeast) of Egypt could not be used as "starter" for the leaven of the conquered Canaan. It was different in the case of Canaan's trees. They had to be used as "starter" for Israel's new orchards. Thus, God prohibited access to their fruit for a period, thereby emphasizing the covenantal discontinuity between the old Canaan and the new Canaan.
Second, God called "uncircumcised" the forbidden fruit of the first three seasons. This is a peculiar way to speak of fruit. Circumcision was the visible mark of the Abrahamic Covenant: the visible legal boundary separating the heirs of the promise from non-heirs. That is, circumcision determined inheritance (point five of the biblical covenant model: succession/inheritance). In Mosaic Israel, circumcision separated those who had lawful access to the Passover meal from those who did not (point four: oath/sanctions). The legal basis of separation was inclusion vs. exclusion inside the formally covenanted people of God (point three: boundaries). Incorporation into the covenanted nation was by covenantal oath-sign (point four). The uncircumcised individual was institutionally outside God's covenantal boundary. He was therefore judicially unholy, i.e., not set apart legally. He would profane a ritually holy place by crossing its legal boundary. But who was this uncircumcised person? Was he a resident alien? If so, what did the mandatory three years of separation have to do with him?
A judicial separation of this kind implied a threat -- negative sanctions -- to the violator of the boundary. Whom did the forbidden fruit threaten? Not the birds or other beasts of the land. They had lawful access to the fruit during the first three years. The fruit was not poisonous, obviously. Then why was it prohibited to an Israelite? Why was there a legal boundary placed around it? What did this boundary symbolize?
It could be argued that mankind poses a threat to young trees or to the orchard itself. Perhaps the law was ecological in intent rather than ritual. But then why was the new fruit of young trees that had already been planted in Canaan at the time of the conquest not placed under the ban? And why was the covenantal-legal language of circumcision invoked?
Uncircumcised Fruit The language of the law is clear: "And when ye shall come into the land, and shall have planted all manner of trees for food, then ye shall count the fruit thereof as uncircumcised." The trees of Canaan that were already bearing fruit at the time of Israel's conquest of Canaan were not under any prohibition. They were to be considered by the invading Israelites as part of the spoils of war. "And I have given you a land for which ye did not labour, and cities which ye built not, and ye dwell in them; of the vineyards and oliveyards which ye planted not do ye eat" (Josh. 24:13). This verse does not say that young trees were excluded; it does imply that the whole land was God's gift to Israel. Where a prohibition was placed around spoils, which was uniquely the case with the city of Jericho, God warned them in no uncertain terms through Joshua (Josh. 6:17-19).
Uncircumcised fruit was analogous to an uncircumcised male or a woman who was under the family jurisdiction of an uncircumcised male: outside the covenant. This was a legal issue, not ritual: incorporation. The fruit of the Canaanites' existing orchards was not identified as judicially uncircumcised. It could immediately be consumed or sold by the land's new owners. So, the prohibition had nothing to do with any supposedly ritually polluting effects of the land of Canaan. In fact, the reverse was the case: the land was holy, but the Canaanites were not. The land was part of Abraham's legacy to his heirs (Gen. 15:16). It was judicially holy land. God's promise had made the land definitively holy. Subsequently, the land had been progressively polluted by the Canaanites:
Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you: And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants. Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations; neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth among you: (For all these abominations have the men of the land done, which were before you, and the land is defiled;) That the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you (Lev. 18:24-28).
The Canaanites' ethically perverse behavior had defiled the holy land, i.e., profaned it. They were unholy men dwelling inside a holy boundary. Finally, the land purged itself of those who had defiled it. It was a holy land, so it vomited out those who were unholy. But why didn't the land do this long before Joshua's generation? Because the cup of iniquity of Canaan ("Amorites") had not been filled up (Gen. 15:16b). A progressive process of profanation had to take place first, just as a progressive process of holiness had to take place among the Israelites. By Joshua's day, this progressive profanation by the Canaanites had reached its fullness (final profanation), as had the progressive sanctification of Israel. It was time for the land to begin vomiting, i.e., time for Israel to invade. The land became finally holy at the time of the invasion by a judicially holy nation. It was circumcised Israel's presence in the land that made the land a finally holy place. The judicially mandatory cleansing process began. The separation was to be total: the annihilation of the Canaanites (Deut. 7:16).
When the land attained its status as finally holy, it gained its status as ritually holy. The finalization of the land's holy status in history came only with the circumcision of Israel inside the land (Josh. 5). The Israelites had been ritually unholy until they were circumcised at Gilgal. Their circumcision anointed them as a nation of priests, and they could then lawfully offer sacrifice: Jericho, Israel's firstfruits offering to God (Josh. 6:24). The battle of Jericho marked the beginning of the land's vomiting process. The land began serving as God's covenantal agent: "And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee" (Ex. 23:28).
It was the presence of the circumcised nation of Israel in the land that made the land and its existing fruits holy. Except for Jericho, which served as the firstfruits for the Lord, none of the land and its fruit was declared off-limits to covenant-keepers. The land had become totally off-limits to the covenant-breaking Canaanites who were residing in it.(1) When the Israelites inherited the land, the land gained a unique judicial and ritual status as God's dwelling place. It became the land of the tabernacle and, later, the temple. It was the only place on earth where lawful sacrifices to God were offered by God's corporately covenanted people.
Who Planted Which Trees?
Why, then, was the early fruit of newly planted trees identified as uncircumcised? Uncircumcised means unholy: not set apart by God, i.e., not incorporated. How could the land, which had been made finally holy by the invasion of the Israelites, produce unholy or uncircumcised fruit? Clearly, the new fruit was declared uncircumcised, but the land could not have been at fault. Conclusion: if it was not the land that was the source of the new fruit's unholy status, then it must have been the Israelites. But why?
To find the answer, we need first to ask: What was judicially or ritually different about fruit trees that had been planted by the Israelites in the Promised Land, as distinguished from young trees that had been planted by Canaanites immediately prior to Israel's invasion of the land? When an Israelite was the agent who planted seeds in the land, the judicial status of the fruit of the trees changed. The fruit was placed inside a legal boundary for four years. It was declared off-limits. Normally, we would expect any set-apart status to be called holy by God, but in this case the fruit was called uncircumcised. This is peculiar. What was special about the fruit of young trees planted by Israelites? What was the point, ritually and judicially?
Trees and edible fruit pointed back to the initial test of mankind in the garden. Adam was prohibited from eating the fruit of a specified tree. It was off-limits to him. This is not to say that it was to be kept away from him forever. What Adam should have done was to eat from the tree of life before he went to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. His spiritual maturity was supposed to be based on his participation in a meal from the tree of life, not on his access to instant knowledge. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil served as a reminder to Adam that God is sovereign, for He places lawful boundaries around anything He chooses. He does whatever He chooses with everything that belongs to Him, and no one can call Him to account.(2) He calls His creatures to account, not the other way around.
What was God's reason for calling the fruit of the first three years uncircumcised? What did circumcision have to do with fruit? Biologically, nothing at all; symbolically, everything. In Israel, not to be circumcised was to be judicially unholy, i.e., common or "gentile." Those people who were holy had been set apart judicially by God: incorporated into the covenant people. The new fruit was identified by God as judicially unholy -- not ritually unclean, but judicially unholy, meaning common. The unholy or gentile judicial status of the fruit was not produced by the land, which was itself holy; it therefore had to be produced by the Israelites who did the planting. Conclusion: the judicial status of being uncircumcised came from men who were circumcised. Why was this the case?
History and Eschatology Obviously, there was nothing unholy about the judicial status of the circumcised Israelite at the time that he planted an orchard. What was it about judicially holy men that produced an opposite judicial status in the fruit of young trees? Here is the dilemma: the Israelite's present judicial status at the time of planting was holy; the land's present judicial status was also holy; yet the fruit would be judicially unholy for three years. The judicial question has to be turned away from the Israelites' present judicial status in Mosaic Israel to their past, their future, or both.
The frame of reference surely was not eschatological in the way that the seed laws of Leviticus 19:19 were. The orchard statute had nothing to do with tribal separation, the way Leviticus 19:19 did. The law of uncircumcised fruit did not refer Jacob's promise to a specific tribe of Israel, nor did it mandate the permanent separation of tribal inheritance until the Promised Seed appeared. I therefore conclude that this statute's primary frame of reference was historical. The anomaly of two holy things -- land and circumcised planter -- producing something temporarily unholy points back to the generation of the conquest of the land: the fourth generation after Abraham's covenant (Gen. 15:16). Why do I conclude this? First, because that generation was temporarily unholy. Second, because of the representative numerical relationship between 40 days (the time the twelve tribal spies spent in the Promised Land: Numbers 13), 40 years (the time of the wilderness wandering), and four years (the period of the two-fold boundary around the fruit).
Forty Years
For four decades, the Israelites of the exodus generation had wandered in the wilderness without circumcising their sons. Why 40 years? Because the spies had been in the land for 40 days:
Say unto them, As truly as I live, saith the LORD, as ye have spoken in mine ears, so will I do to you: Your carcases shall fall in this wilderness; and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, which have murmured against me, Doubtless ye shall not come into the land, concerning which I sware to make you dwell therein, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun. But your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye have despised. But as for you, your carcases, they shall fall in this wilderness. And your children shall wander in the wilderness 40 years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcases be wasted in the wilderness. After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye shall know my breach of promise. I the LORD have said, I will surely do it unto all this evil congregation, that are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die (Num. 14:28-35; emphasis added).
Except for Joshua and Caleb, the men of the exodus generation had been designated by God as unholy because of their disbelief and rebellion. They could not enter the land, which would become finally holy at the time of their sons' mass circumcision at Gilgal. They could not lawfully cross this boundary; to have done so would have been a profane act. Thus, that first generation had to be kept outside the land by God. They were not allowed to profane the holy land by violating its boundaries.
When they were all dead, as prophesied, their sons were allowed to cross that boundary. But they, too, were unholy. They had never been circumcised. So, Joshua had them circumcised at Gilgal after they came into the land (Josh. 5:6-12).
The male children in the wilderness should have been circumcised on the eighth day after each was born. Their parents had refused to do this. The text does not say why. I think the most likely economic explanation is that the parents thought they might return to Egypt at some point. They were "keeping their options open" covenantally with respect to their children. The children were not formally placed under the covenantal protection and obligations that God requires of His people. That is, their parents did not incorporate them into the nation.
The parents had been told by God that they would not enter the land (Num. 14:23). They regarded their possession of the land of Canaan as the only meaningful public validation of God's covenant; their deliverance from bondage in Egypt was not sufficient in their eyes. They were basically announcing: "No immediate payoff in real estate; so, no mark of covenantal subordination in our sons." They wanted an immediate payoff, just as Adam had desired in the garden; they were unwilling to trust God with respect to the inheritance of the land by their children. So, God kept that uncircumcised younger generation in the wilderness until the exodus generation died, except for Joshua and Caleb.
There may also have been a judicial reason for their refusal. The nation had rebelled against Joshua and Caleb, and then against God when they attacked the Amalekites and Canaanites against God's specific command (Num. 14:39-44). The 10 cowardly spies had been killed by God through a plague (Num. 14:37). The nation had become unholy: separated from the definitively holy Promised Land for one generation. The fathers may have concluded that they had lost their status as household priests. So, they refused to circumcise their sons, or have the Levites circumcise them. Whether this was at God's command is not revealed in the text. But these people were cowards, and they had seen what happened to the 10 cowardly spies. They may have decided that discretion was the better part of valor with respect to circumcising their sons.
After entering the land, the sons who had been born in the wilderness were immediately circumcised. At that point, they celebrated the Passover with the existing fruit of the land (Josh. 5:11). Immediately, the miraculous manna ceased. The people lived off the fruit of the land from that time on (Josh. 5:12). They had moved from miraculous food to miraculous warfare (Jericho). After the conquest of the land, they moved to non-miraculous planting.(3)
To recapitulate: Canaan's conquerors had been uncircumcised for up to 40 years. The close of the wilderness period came with their celebration of the Passover as household priests: heads of their own households. Then the conquest began. The firstfruits of the conquest was the city of Jericho, which had to be burnt as a whole offering to God. None of its treasure was to be taken by the Israelites personally; everything was either to be burned or used to make the treasures of the tabernacle (Josh. 6:19). Jericho was to be cut off completely: a foreskin.
Four Years
We return to Leviticus 19:23-25. The fruit of newly planted trees was off-limits to them until the fourth year. "But in the fourth year all the fruit thereof shall be holy to praise the LORD withal." The question is: What were they required to do with the fruit in year four? Were they to take it to the priest, as they were required to with the firstfruits offering (Lev. 23:10-11)? Or was it analogous to the required third-year tithe feast in Jerusalem (Deut. 14:22-23)?
Because the forbidden fruit is called uncircumcised, it is best to treat the fourth-year harvest as analogous to the Passover feast. Only after circumcision was Passover legal. This fourth-year feast provided each family with the first lawful occasion for enjoying the fruits of their own labor -- the trees they had planted and nurtured -- in the Promised Land. What had been uncircumcised fruit and therefore forbidden to them became circumcised in the fourth year, and therefore eligible to serve as food for a mandatory holy feast. They would have had to invite the Levites to the feast, and presumably also widows and orphans, just as they were required to do in the third-year festival: "And the Levite that is within thy gates; thou shalt not forsake him; for he hath no part nor inheritance with thee. At the end of three years thou shalt bring forth all the tithe of thine increase the same year, and shalt lay it up within thy gates: And the Levite, (because he hath no part nor inheritance with thee,) and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, which are within thy gates, shall come, and shall eat and be satisfied; that the LORD thy God may bless thee in all the work of thine hand which thou doest" (Deut. 14:27-29).
Historical References
It is time to make some connections. We have to ask ourselves: What did this prohibition represent?(4) First, young fruit trees are immature. So were the children born in the wilderness. Such fruit was designated as uncircumcised. The children in the wilderness era had been uncircumcised.
Second, the "harvesting" of Canaan militarily began after 40 years. The unrestricted harvesting of fruit trees began lawfully after four years of fruitfulness.
Third, there is the question of inheritance. Caleb said that he had been 40 years old in the year that he had been sent in to spy out the land (Josh. 14:7). This was one year after the exodus (Num. 10:11-12; 13:17-20). Israel wandered for 39 years after the spying incident before entering Canaan. Caleb was 79 (40 + 39) when the invasion began, and 85 when it ended (Josh. 14:10). So, it took Israel six years to conquer Canaan.(5) The text says that the land then had rest from war (Josh. 14:15). This means that there was rest from war in the seventh year -- a sabbatical symbol. Therefore, during the fifth decade after the exodus, Israel took possession of the whole land as its inheritance. Similarly, the fifth year of fruit was the first year in which the fruit of the trees belonged to the individual.
There is a parallel between the wilderness years the uncircumcised generation of the conquest and the ban on eating the fruit of new trees planted in Canaan. The fruit did not belong to the owner until after the holy feast of year four. That is, he took possession of the fruit in year five. This parallels Israel's taking possession of Canaan during decade five. This four-year prohibition pointed symbolically back to Israel's rebellion in the wilderness: four decades of deferred possession.(6) This seed law for orchards referred back to the unique historical experience of the conquest generation: Israel's seed.
Eschatological References
Yet in several ways, this law also typified the ministry of Jesus Christ. In this sense it was eschatological. Jesus did not begin His public ministry until He was 30 years old: "And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age" (Luke 3:23a). Thus, for three decades -- the years of Jesus' youth -- the nation of Israel did not have access to His ministry. After spending 40 days in the wilderness (Luke 4:2), Jesus approached His cousin John to be baptized by him. In the beginning of His fourth decade, then, Jesus began to preach.
His ministry seems to have lasted three years.(7) Then, in the fourth year, He was tried and crucified. This took place immediately after the Pharisees' and Galileans' Passover ("Thursday" evening: Nissan 14) and just before the Sadducees' and Judeans' Passover ("Friday" evening: Nissan 15).(8) This tree of life never again bore fruit for Old Covenant Israel. Jesus was the Passover lamb. If I am correct in suggesting an analogy between the fourth year's holy fruit and the Passover, then it can be said that the Jews symbolically took the Passover fruit and had the Romans nail it back on a tree. The Jews, given a choice, chose unholy fruit (Barabbas) in place of the holy fruit:
And Pilate, when he had called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people, Said unto them, Ye have brought this man unto me, as one that perverteth the people: and, behold, I, having examined him before you, have found no fault in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse him: No, nor yet Herod: for I sent you to him; and, lo, nothing worthy of death is done unto him. I will therefore chastise him, and release him. (For of necessity he must release one unto them at the feast.) And they cried out all at once, saying, Away with this man, and release unto us Barabbas: (Who for a certain sedition made in the city, and for murder, was cast into prison.) Pilate therefore, willing to release Jesus, spake again to them. But they cried, saying, Crucify him, crucify him (Luke 23:13-21; emphasis added).
The theme of three years and a fourth year is clear in Jesus' parable of the fig tree:
He spake also this parable; A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none. Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground? And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it: And if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down (Luke 13:6-9).
If the tree failed to bear fruit in the fourth year, it was fit for burning. That was Old Covenant Israel in Christ's day. God publicly burned this barren fig tree in A.D. 70.(9)
The Initially Confusing Economics of This Law Gordon Wenham has very little to say about this law. He sees it as part of the laws imposing personal economic sacrifice: giving one day in seven to God, tithing, and the dedication of the firstfruits. This makes sense both economically and theologically with respect to the fourth year's crop, but it makes no sense with respect to the first three years. Why should God want men to offer Him the less valuable fruit of a tree's life cycle? Wenham's confusion escalates when he begins to discuss the economics of the prohibition. "In the case of fruit trees, however, little fruit is borne in the early years, and this law specifies that it is the fourth year's crop that counts as the firstfruits and must be dedicated to God. Old Babylonian law (LH 60) also reckons it takes four years for an orchard to develop its potential. Similarly sacrificial animals may not be offered till they are at least eight days old (Exod. 22:29 [Eng. 30]) and boys are not circumcised till the eighth day (Gen. 17:12)."(10) His assumption is this: youth = less value; hence, the Israelites had to wait for a time before offering such reduced-value sacrifices, including circumcision.
Wenham refers to the Hammurabi Code, but this passage presents formidable problems to anyone who would identify this law with the law of uncircumcised fruit. The law reads: "If, when a seignior gave a field to a gardener to set out an orchard, the gardener set out the orchard, he shall develop the orchard for four years; in the fifth year the owner of the orchard and the gardener shall divide equally, with the owner of the orchard receiving his preferential share."(11) First, this referred to the time of growth for the trees, not the first four years of actual fruit-bearing. Second, the gardener was not prohibited from appropriating fruit in years one through four; he could. Only in the fifth year did he have to divide the crop with the owner. In other words, the gardener, as the subordinate, kept whatever the trees produced in years one through four; beginning in the fifth year, the owner was entitled to half. That is, in the trees' lean years, the gardener kept it all. But the Levitical law established the opposite system: the gardener kept nothing in years one through three of actual production. Only in year four did the firstfruits principle go into effect: a joint feast. God received it all ritually in that year. Afterward, He took only the tithe.
There is clearly an economic element in all this. The owner of the land (God's "gardener") did without for at three years. In this sense, he did make an economic sacrifice. But why did God impose this economic sacrifice? Why did He declare the less valuable fruit off-limits? He did this in no other formal sacrifice in the Old Covenant. To offer a less valuable asset to God as a lawful sacrifice seems to testify falsely to the value of the ultimate sacrifice for sin: the death of His Son. So, what we have to conclude is that leaving the young fruit to drop and rot on the ground was not an aspect of the laws of formal sacrifice. As we have seen, this prohibition was a symbolic negative sanction against them for their uncircumcised status in the wilderness. The three-year delay was not a ritual sacrifice, although the fourth-year feast probably was.
Rabbinical Interpretations Rabbinical commentators have pointed to the obvious fact that this case law imposed a cost on the owner, namely, forfeited fruit. They have not traced the origin of this law back to a specific Israelite rebellion: Israel's refusal to challenge the Canaanites for control over the land and the refusal to circumcise their sons. They have not seen the law as God's subsequent imposition on that generation's heirs of a restitution payment to both the land itself (the environment) and God. Instead, they argue that there is something instructive in this law regarding man's general moral condition. Rashi,(12) the late eleventh-century commentator, cited Rabbi Akiba, who had lived over nine centuries earlier.(13) "The Torah says this because it has man's evil inclination in mind: that one should not say, `Behold, for four years I must take trouble with it for nothing!' Scripture therefore states that the result of your obedience will be that it will give you its produce in larger quantities."(14) Rashi identified mankind's universal time-preference -- discounting the future value of scarce economic resources compared to their present value -- as "man's evil inclination."
S. R. Hirsch, the early nineteenth-century defender of what has become known as Orthodox Judaism, also placed the meaning of this law within the boundaries of man's evil (animal-like) preference for present gratification. He, too, transformed the prohibition into a general moral issue: "The Jew waits three years before he enjoys the fruit for which he has planted the tree. And in refraining from using the fruit at God's command, he strips himself of the rights of property before God, and so for three years he practices by this restraint the self control which is so necessary for keeping enjoyment within the limits of morality. . . . [H]e learns to bring even the enjoyment of his senses out of the chains of animal greed into the sphere of self-controlled, God-remembering and God-serving happiness, and so remains worthy of being a human being and near to God also in the enjoyment of his senses."(15)
Time-Preference
What the rabbis have criticized is the phenomenon of time-preference: the preference of all acting men for immediate gratification compared to deferred gratification, other things being equal. Time-preference is an inescapable aspect of man's existence. If I offer you, free of charge (including any storage or insurance costs you may have to pay), the choice between a gift received today or a year in the future, you will take it today, assuming that you expect other things to remain equal. You prefer to begin receiving the psychic income stream from the gift immediately rather than a year from now. Besides, you have no assurance that you will even be alive a year from now.
The rabbis have argued that this universal preference for goods in the present vs. the same goods in the future is somehow evil. They are wrong. Time-preference is not something evil; it is a rational response to man's inescapable judicial status as an agent who lives in the present and who is responsible for taking action in the present. A person's present decision counts for more ethically and judicially than some future decision. He is responsible for actions taken now. To live is to act. To act is to make choices.(16) No one can evade this responsibility except through death. Man's judicial status imposes economic costs on him. One of these costs is the reduced present value of expected future assets compared with the same assets possessed now. This inescapable fact of life does not imply that the future is economically irrelevant. It also does not mean that the present value of expected future goods is zero. The covenantally faithful man looks to the future, especially his resurrection and the world beyond the resurrection (Dan. 12:1-4). But to equate man's time-preference with evil or animal-like behavior is a very serious mistake, both exegetically and economically.(17)
Forfeited Income and Class Position There is no doubt that one economic effect of this law was to force the orchard's owner to forego three years' worth of the orchard's output before he could celebrate before the Lord in year four. No doubt this law did pressure obedient men to count the costs of their decision: planting an orchard vs. planting something else (or planting nothing). But being required to count the costs of our actions is not in and of itself an incentive to become more future-oriented. No law can force men to become more future-oriented. The function of biblical civil law is not to make men positively good; it is to reduce the level of public evil. This law merely sorted out those who were more future-oriented (less present-oriented) from those who were less future-oriented (more present-oriented). Those residents of the holy commonwealth who were more future-oriented were more likely to plant orchards. Those who were less future-oriented were more likely to plant a crop that was not under a temporary harvesting restriction. Each man made his choice. So, there was no necessary connection between this case law and a general increase in men's future-orientation. But there was a necessary connection between future-orientation and the kinds of crops individual decision-makers planted.
Edward Banfield has linked time perspective with class position. An upper-class person is someone with low time-preference, i.e., a future-oriented person.(18) A society that views an increase in future-orientation as a virtue -- and the Bible indicates that it is a virtue(19) -- does pressure individuals to become more future-oriented. But civil law cannot accomplish this.(20) Then what does? Such psychological factors as fear, education, and moral persuasion. At best, widespread obedience to the uncircumcised fruit law would have enabled local residents to identify families whose heads of household were (or had been) future-oriented. The presence of an orchard on a person's land so identified such an individual, or at least such a family.
In the moral environment of covenantally faithful Israel, the presence of an orchard became a kind of status symbol. The orchard took on the characteristic of a consumer good. Like a very expensive automobile in today's world, the orchard testified to someone who had "made it" because of his (or his father's) diligence and willingness to defer gratification by planting the orchard. In this sense, the uncircumcised fruit law may have indirectly promoted future-orientation, but only because this outlook on deferred gratification was already widely acknowledged to be positive -- a sign of character in a person or family. The presence of an orchard became a visible manifestation of a desirable character trait. In short, "if you've got it, flaunt it!"
When God says "Wait!"
There is a secondary aspect of transgression associated with time-preference. When God says "Wait!" men are supposed to wait. This imposes a cost on man and therefore requires faith, for there is no escape from time-preference, meaning a discount of future vs. present economic value. There is, however, a very high present value on waiting when God commands us to wait (Ps. 27:14; 37:34; Prov. 20:22). Avoiding God's wrath is a fundamental component of rational cost-benefit analysis. So, the benefits of waiting are in such cases greater than the costs. Men are supposed to believe this and then act (i.e., do something else besides the prohibited act) in terms of this fact.
The fruit of trees planted in the Promised Land by the priestly people of Israel was completely off-limits to the covenant-keeping Israelite for three years. The fruit of a young tree was protected. That is to say, this young fruit was reserved by God for Himself, just as the forbidden fruit in the garden had been. He allowed the birds and animals of the field to eat it, but not His human covenantal agents. Each tree planted after the conquest was to receive care from the husbandman without having to produce income for him in the short term. The gardener had to wait.(21) At the very least, this was a reminder to covenant-keeping man that he should not plan for a rapid return on his investment. The lure of legal short-term profits was removed from this aspect of agriculture. The person who planted trees had to have a longer-term outlook on the economic fruits of investing than the person who planted only a grain field.
When Adam ate the forbidden fruit, he was announcing by his action that he was unwilling to wait for God's decision to allow him lawful access to such judicial knowledge. Adam's act was a premature grab for the robes of judicial authority. It was not primarily his present-orientation as such that was his fault; it was his unwillingness to celebrate with God in a communion meal at the tree of life. Adam's act was an assertion that the terms of life and death are based on man's autonomous knowledge of good and evil: a false assertion. It was the other way around for Adam. He could not attain eternal life through specialized knowledge of the law. He could gain an indeterminate extension of his life on earth only through obedience to the one law that he had been given. (He could gain the blessing of eternal life only by eating from the tree of life.)(22) Adam violated God's "no trespassing" sign and became a sacrilegious thief. It was not simply that he was unwilling to wait on God in order to receive lawful access to the tree of knowledge; it was that he was unwilling to subordinate himself to God and accept first the grace of lawful access to the tree of life. The primary judicial issue was not Adam's degree of time-preference; the issue was his willingness to submit to God.
Which Decalogue Commandment? Rushdoony writes that this law was an aspect of the sabbath laws of the land. He discusses it in a chapter on the fourth commandment. "This law clearly is linked with laws previously discussed which bear on soil conservation, the fertility of the trees, and respect for the life of all creation."(23) If he is correct, then this law also governed the non-priestly nations besides Israel: a cross-boundary law. It is therefore universal and still in force. As part of the laws of the sabbath, it refers to the legitimate rest that the land deserves, all over the world.
I argue that this law was unique to the history of Israel. It was imposed by God on the whole nation because of the restitution that was owed to the land of Canaan by all of Israel, including the heirs of the exodus generation. The land had to be compensated for the extra generation of living under the authority of the Canaanites: an extra generation of slavery. This law imposed costs on the heirs of that rebellious generation.(24) This law was not a cross-boundary law. It was exclusively a Mosaic seed law: the uncircumcised sons of the exodus generation and their heirs' uncircumcised fruit. It was tied exclusively to the Promised Land, and even more narrowly: to the Promised Land after the circumcision of Israel (Josh. 5). Rushdoony subsumed this law under the wrong commandment. It had nothing to do with the sabbath.
The land of Palestine no longer enjoys a unique covenantal status before God. That status finally ended with the land's purging of the Israelites in A.D. 70. What God warned in his law came true: the land vomited them out. Just as the Israelites had been the agents by which the Promised Land spewed out the Canaanites, so the Romans became the agents by which the land spewed out covenant-breaking Israel. The Israelites had used Roman law and Roman power to crucify Jesus; Roman law and power were then used to crucify tens of thousands of Jews in A.D. 70. Josephus' contemporary account records that five hundred a day were crucified.(25) He says that over a million people died in the siege, with 97,000 taken captive.(26) Michael Grant says that this figure is probably an exaggeration, but the losses were "appallingly high."(27) Some 30,000 captives were sold at auction.(28) At Caesarea Philippi, 2,500 Jews were slaughtered in gladiatorial games in honor of the birthday of Titus' younger brother Domitian. Later, at Berytus, to celebrate the birthday of their father Vespasian, his sons burned to death even more than this.(29) These doomed Jews became living sacrifices -- burnt offerings, in fact -- to the military hero of Rome who had just become emperor. Four decades earlier, we read, "they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar" (John 19:15). Power religion giveth, and power religion taketh away.(30)
Annulment
When the temple's sacrifices ended, and God no longer dwelt in the Promised Land, Leviticus 19:23-25 was annulled by God. The land of Palestine today is no longer owed any restitution payment. It no longer spews people out of its boundaries. Its unique covenantal status ended in A.D. 70.
This law was never part of the sabbath rest laws. It was part of the restitution laws. It therefore came under the general category of theft laws: the eighth commandment. But the Promised Land's owner was God; thus, this law relates also to the third commandment: the boundary around God's name. God placed a "no trespassing" boundary around the fruit of young trees, just as He had placed such a boundary around the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He had originally placed no such boundary around the tree of life. It was not trees in general or fruit in general that came under the original ban in Eden; it was only one tree. This Edenic prohibition had nothing to do with soil conservation. It was not universal. It was in fact a temporary ban. So was the Mosaic law's ban on uncircumcised fruit. At the very least, that law ceased to have any judicial authority when circumcision ceased being a covenantally relevant mark (I Cor. 7:19).
The church has lawful access to the tree of life through baptism and holy communion. "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie" (Rev. 22:14-15). There is no need to delay in partaking of the holy meal of communion. There is no temporal barrier today. But there is a judicial barrier: only those who have been baptized have legal access to God's holy meal.
The rite of circumcision is annulled. Therefore, there is no longer any legal status of fruit known as "uncircumcised." What had been forbidden to Israelites in the Mosaic Covenant on the basis of the circumcision laws is today ritually and judicially irrelevant: "Is any man called being circumcised? let him not become uncircumcised. Is any called in uncircumcision? let him not be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God" (I Cor. 7:18-19).
Conclusion The law governing the harvesting of fruit from a young tree was a law unique to ancient Israel. It was not intended for the nations around Israel, for it was part of the seed laws and land laws that applied only to Israel as a holy nation. This law was a negative sanction imposed on Israel by God because of the wilderness rebellion. God imposed this law as a negative sanction because of the failure of the exodus generation to invade the land of Canaan after hearing reports and military analysis from Joshua and Caleb. The land of Canaan had deserved deliverance from the Canaanite rule 40 years before the children of the exodus generation invaded the land. It therefore was owed restitution by the heirs of the exodus generation. This law had nothing to do with biological health, contrary to Rushdoony.(31)
This law was also an aspect of the parents' failure to circumcise their sons in the wilderness. This is why the new fruit was called uncircumcised. This was to remind them of the sons' own temporary status as unholy -- culturally unfruitful -- during the 40 years of wilderness wandering. This law was never designed as a universal statute; it was a specific negative sanction on the people of Israel and a positive sanction on the Promised Land itself. It was not a cross-boundary law.
This law's underlying judicial foundation is still in force, however. That foundation is God's declaration regarding legal access to particular trees. In the garden of Eden, only one tree was prohibited: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. After Adam's rebellion, a "no trespassing" boundary was placed by God around the tree of life (Gen. 3:24). Because of the New Covenant in Jesus Christ, the fruit of the tree of life is now available to covenant-keeping men. Because of this, God has removed the "no trespassing" sign from every tree.
What had been a prohibition under the Old Covenant has become a positive injunction under the New Covenant. God's covenant people are commanded to come to the communion table; this is not an option on their part. Like the tree of life, which was open to covenant-keeping man before Adam ate from the forbidden fruit, so is the communion table open today. Baptized people can lawfully celebrate the modern Passover feast without having to wait. This is an argument for infant communion. It is also an argument for weekly communion.
A proper understanding of the judicial connection between the food laws and seed laws of the Mosaic Covenant and the communion table in the New Covenant leads to an acknowledgment of the New Covenant's annulment of the Mosaic Covenant's seed laws and food laws. God places only one boundary around food: the communion table. It is open only to Christians. There are no other food restrictions (Acts 10).(32) It is therefore wrong to continue to honor the specific terms of Leviticus 19:23, a law that applied only to national Israel. When a young tree bears fruit, we are to enjoy it. But we must also pay our tithe to the local church on whatever we harvest.(33)
Summary The "uncircumcised fruit" law was a seed law: separation.
God placed a boundary around new fruit trees.
The law applied only to fruit trees planted by Israelites after the conquest.
The language of circumcision implied a visible boundary: holy vs. unholy.
The prohibition had nothing to do with any polluting effects of the land, since Canaanite fruit was lawful to the conquerors.
What was holy was the post-conquest land.
Israel's crossing of the land's boundaries, coupled with God's promise to Abraham, had made it holy.
The four-year delay on eating the fruit pointed back to the 40 years of wandering before Israel's sons were circumcised.
The fourth-year offering probably was a family religious feast to which the Levites were invited.
Parallels: young children -- young fruit; 40-year delay of harvesting Canaan -- four-year delay in eating fruit; fifth-year inheritance (conquest) of Canaan -- fifth-year harvest.
The law also was eschatological: Jesus' ministry.
The delay was a restitution payment to the land and to God for the delayed conquest.
The law has nothing to with man's evil moral condition.
The cost of obedience was forfeited income.
Israelites with new trees identified themselves as future-oriented (upper class).
A new orchard was a status symbol.
God said "wait" to Israel's gardeners.
This law was unique to Mosaic Israel.
Palestine no longer enjoys a special covenantal status.
The land is owed no restitution payment.
Restitution placed it under the eighth commandment: point three.
Circumcision is annulled; so is God's "no trespassing" boundary around circumcised fruit or any fruit.
God's command is now positive: partake of the communion meal.
Footnotes:
1. The exceptions, of course, were the Gibeonites (Josh. 9), who lost their land and citizenship, becoming slaves to the Levites (Josh. 9:23, 27), who also owned no land outside cities.
2. This is the primary message of the Book of Job.
3. There would still be one remaining miracle: the triple harvest just before the seventh sabbatical year (Lev. 25:21).
4. The issue of symbolism in the Bible is judicial representation, point two of the biblical covenant model. We seek to learn what a particular symbol represented judicially.
5. James B. Jordan, "The Chronology of the Pentateuch (Part 6)," Biblical Chronology, VI (Aug. 1994), pp. 3-4.
6. It also pointed forward to the ministry of Jesus Christ. See Gary North, Boundaries and Dominion: The Economics of Leviticus (computer edition; Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1994), ch. 18, subsection on "Eschatological References."
7. Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, edited by John M'Clintock and James Strong, 12 vols. (New York: Harper & Bros., 1894), IV, p. 881; The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, edited by James Orr, 5 vols. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, [1939] 1943), III, p. 1629.
8. Harold W. Hoehner, Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1977), p. 89.
9. David Chilton, The Days of Vengeance: An Exposition of the Book of Revelation (Ft. Worth, Texas: Dominion Press, 1987).
10. Gordon J. Wenham, The Book of Leviticus (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1979), p. 271.
11. Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, edited by James B. Pritchard (3rd ed.; Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1969), p. 169.
12. Rabbi Solomon (Shlomo) Yizchaki.
13. Akiba is sometimes suggested as the successor to Gamaliel. He participated in the disastrous Bar Kokhba rebellion against Rome in the early 130's, A.D. He was the first compiler of the Mishna, or Jewish oral tradition.
14. Chumash with Targum Onkelos, Haphtaroth and Rashi's Commentary, A. M. Silbermann and M. Rosenbaum, translators, 5 vols. (Jerusalem: Silbermann Family, [1934] 1985 [Jewish year: 5745]), III, p. 89a.
15. Samson Raphael Hirsch, The Pentateuch, translated by Isaac Levi, 5 vols. (Gateshead, London: Judaica Press, [1962] 1989), III, p. 546.
16. Ludwig von Mises, Human Action: A Treatise on Economics (New Haven: Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1949).
17. For a consideration of mistakes that can follow, see Gary North, Tools of Dominion: The Case Laws of Exodus (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1990), Appendix G: "Lots of Free Time: The Existentialist Utopia of S. C. Mooney."
18. Edward Banfield, The Unheavenly City (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970), pp. 48-50. On the middle class, see pp. 50-53. On the lower class, see pp. 53-59. On the importance of Banfield's book, see Thomas Sowell, "The Unheavenly City Revisited," American Spectator (Feb. 1994).
19. At the margin, of course. An increase to total future-orientation is not possible, for we must eat, drink, and be clothed in the present.
20. This includes tax policy. Lowering capital gains tax rates, for example, does not make someone more future-oriented. It merely raises the after-tax return of future profits. The fact that a person can legally keep more in the future than less in the future will affect his present investment decisions, but this change has nothing to do with a change in his time-preference: the discount of future value in relation to present value.
21. This requirement to wait was imposed even on Jesus. It is significant that Mary first identified the resurrected Jesus as a gardener (John 20:15). As the Second Adam, He was God's new designated gardener of the world. He had to wait until His resurrection before He was allowed to celebrate the firstfruits of His ministry. This shared meal took place on the fourth day after He had celebrated Passover (Luke 24:41-43). He now shares this firstfruits feast only with His designated priesthood: the church, His true bride.
22. It is worth noting that Adam and Eve were kept outside the garden after their rebellion in order to keep them from eating from the tree of life (Gen. 3:22-23). What had been not only legal for them but expected of them before their rebellion became illegal afterward. Similarly, the Israelites were expected to conquer the land immediately after the giving of the law, but when they rebelled against the testimony of Joshua and Caleb, they were kept outside the land until they died.
23. R. J. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law (Nutley, New Jersey: Craig Press, 1973), p. 147.
24. This included resident aliens in the land. It applied to every resident, not just Israelites.
25. Flavius Josephus, Wars of the Jews, Book V, Chapter XI, Section 3.
26. Ibid., VI:ix:3.
27. Michael Grant, The Jews in the Roman World (New York: Dorset, [1973] 1984), p. 202.
28. Ibid., p. 203.
29. Idem.
30. Cursed be the name of power religion.
31. Rushdoony, Institutes, p. 87.
32. James B. Jordan, Pig Out? 25 Reasons Why Christians May Eat Pork (Niceville, Florida: Transfiguration Press, 1992).
33. Gary North, Tithing and the Church (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1994).
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