COMMERCE AND COVENANT Ye shall not eat of any thing that dieth of itself: thou shalt give it unto the stranger [geyr] that is in thy gates, that he may eat it; or thou mayest sell it unto an alien [nokree]: for thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk (Deut. 14:21).
This was clearly a land law, for it dealt with unclean meat. All such laws ended with the New Covenant. Peter in a vision was told by God to eat unclean animals (Acts 10). Paul wrote: "As concerning therefore the eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice unto idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one" (I Cor. 8:4).
I can see no judicial connection between the second sentence and the first sentence. The first sentence sets forth a law governing ritually clean animals that died naturally. The second sentence governs a specific case: seething a kid in its mother's milk. The second has no specific economic application that I can see. The first does. Theologically, these are separate verses.
There is no reason given in the Bible for either of these prohibitions. This makes it difficult to identify the theocentric focus of either prohibition. The first prohibition cannot have had anything to do with health, since the law specified that strangers in the land were allowed to eat such meat. God would not deliberately have threatened the health of a resident alien. To call biologically contaminated meat a gift would have been a terrible misuse of language. The Hebrew word for "gift" here is found throughout the Old Testament. God's gifts to mankind and to Israel were in no way polluted or threatening; neither was this gift. So, this law was based on something other than health considerations.
The Mosaic law prohibited the eating of animals that had died naturally. The sanctions attached to this prohibition were mild. "And every soul that eateth that which died of itself, or that which was torn with beasts, whether it be one of your own country, or a stranger, he shall both wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even: then shall he be clean" (Lev. 17:15). Because this law applied to the resident alien, it was not exclusively ecclesiastical, since the uncircumcised stranger or "protected stranger"(1) [geyr] did not belong to the congregation. But there were no civil penalties mentioned. So, with respect to the stranger, the law against eating such meat was merely a suggestion. The matter of ritual cleanliness did not affect him. If he ever did approach the tabernacle, which was the only place where ritual uncleanliness was a threat to him or to the nation, it would have been to offer sacrifice (Num. 15:29). In this case, he was under the purity restrictions. Otherwise, he was not holy to the degree that an Israelite was, so the threat of uncleanliness was of no importance to him, just so long as he did not attempt to approach the tabernacle, thereby committing a boundary violation.
He was holy in the sense of being set apart as a resident in Israel, a person living under Mosaic civil law. He was set apart to this degree: he was a beneficiary of the common grace of God that overflowed within the land's boundaries because of the special grace shown to Israel. He was set apart -- holy -- by God in a way that a resident of another land was not. He could eat such meat, but it was not legal to sell it to him. It had to be a gift. The presumption of the Mosaic law was that a stranger in economic need was threatened by poverty more than Israel was threatened by a stranger who ate such meat. It was lawful for an Israelite to make a gift of prohibited meat to him. For a the price of a ritual washing, he could relieve himself of any ritual pollution extending beyond evening. If the stranger had any qualms about eating such meat, he could sell it to a non-resident alien [nokree], just as an Israelite could.
Sacred and Profane I have covered the topics of sacred, profane, and common at some length in Chapter 6 of my Leviticus commentary, and at greater length in the electronic version, Boundaries and Dominion. I discussed why the sacred can be profaned by a boundary violation, but the common cannot be. It is the sacred character of something that creates the possibility of a ritual boundary violation. We cannot profane something that is common.
A holy object is to be protected from violation. The closer a person came to the holy of holies, the more dangerous he became: to himself and to Israel. God did not tolerate anyone except the high priest to enter the holy of holies, and then only once a year (Ex. 30:10; Lev. 16:34). A boundary violation in this case threatened the nation. God might depart from the holy land of Israel.
What was the holy object in question in this verse? The Israelite? The meat? The land? The covenant? The tabernacle? Another law points to the status of the Israelite as holy: the law governing the clean animal slain in the field by wild beasts. "And ye shall be holy men unto me: neither shall ye eat any flesh that is torn of beasts in the field; ye shall cast it to the dogs" (Ex. 22:31). The meat of an animal that had died of sickness, old age, or an accident was not holy. It was not to be set aside to God for His exclusive use. On the contrary, it was to be consumed inside the holy land only by two classes of foreigners: resident aliens [geyr] and foreign visitors [nokree].
The Israelite could not eat it, but he could touch it in order to transport it. If he touched it, he became unclean (Lev. 11:39), but this was not much of a burden. To cleanse himself ritually, he merely had to wash himself and his clothes. "But all other flying creeping things, which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you. And for these ye shall be unclean: whosoever toucheth the carcase of them shall be unclean until the even. And whosoever beareth ought of the carcase of them shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the even" (Lev. 11:23-25). "And he that beareth the carcase of them shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the even: they are unclean unto you" (Lev. 11:28). If an Israelite was not planning to approach the tabernacle, his unclean status did not matter.
The Israelite could pick up the dead animal and transport it to a commercial center. He could then sell it to a visiting foreigner. He could give it to a resident alien who was willing to live under God's civil laws. This alien was the equivalent of a refugee. He was not a citizen, nor was he a member of the congregation, but he was a lawful member of the community.
This indicates two degrees of holiness: the Israelite and the resident alien. It also indicates non-holy status: the non-resident alien. The resident alien was entitled to special consideration. He could not lawfully be charged interest when he sought an emergency loan (Lev. 25:35). It was legal to charge interest to a nokree (Deut. 23:20).(2) In this case, the resident alien could be given an asset that was illegal for an Israelite to use for himself. The non-resident alien could be charged.
Why was there a distinction? If an Israelite wanted to profit from his dead animal, he could sell it to a non-resident alien. He could not profit from a resident alien. He could not enter into commerce in this instance with a resident alien. This would have tended to direct the prohibited meat into commerce. Most people prefer profit to charity most of the time. The meat of animals that had died of natural causes would have tended to wind up on the tables of travellers and foreign businessmen.
The living animal had been ritually clean, no matter who owned it, but it was prohibited to Israelites because of the way it had died. So, the difference in holiness had to be in the judicial status of its original owner. The Israelite was a priest to the nations. He was under God's national covenant. The resident alien was voluntarily under the laws of the land on a permanent basis, but he had not sworn a covenantal oath to God. The visiting stranger was under the law only temporarily. The relationship between the person and the land seems to have been the distinguishing issue here. The Israelite was tied to the land covenantally. The resident alien was tied to the land residentially. The stranger was tied to the land commercially. The commercial tie was seen as having no judicially permanent status. There was no oath-bound bonding in commerce. This is a general principle of biblical economics: the transitory character of commerce. It possesses no covenantal aspect; it is contractual, not covenantal.
The holiness of the land of Mosaic Israel presumed by this law. The degree of holiness of people was tied to the permanence of their connection to the land. The land was holy, so the meat could not be consumed by those who had an oath-bound connection to the land. In the mouths of the permanent residents of God's holy land, the meat became profane. In the mouths of the less permanent resident aliens, it became profane if it had been purchased. In the mouths of non-residents, it was not profane at all.
The most pure individual could not eat the meat because of his permanent connection to the land. The less pure individual could not buy the meat because of his voluntary connection to the land. The impure individual could buy the meat because of his commercial connection to the land.
With the coming of the New Covenant, the land of Israel began to lose its covenantal status. With the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, it lost it completely. There is no longer any holy land except in a travel brochure -- a distinctly commercial artifact. The non-holy status of the land has not changed by the formation of the State of Israel in 1948, contrary to Zionists and dispensationalists. God dwells equally with all of His chosen people today; they approach Him judicially only in oaths and sacraments.(3) Land ownership in the New Covenant has moved from the legal status of holy to that of commerce. While land ownership may possess special characteristics because of the commitment that men sometimes have to a family residence, their constant movement from place to place has undermined this traditional commitment. In the United States, where one-fifth of the population moves each year, land ownership is no longer widely regarded as fundamentally different from the ownership of other forms of wealth. The mobility of people has undermined any lingering sense of the holiness of land. Men move today in terms of market demand, and this has led to the psychological de-sacralization of land. This is less true today in Europe and parts of Asia, but as the free market extends its influence, mobility replaces permanence. It also replaces geographical community. Neither the local geographical community nor the land retains men's permanent allegiance. Consumer demand extends its sovereignty as men seek to maximize their incomes. Consumer demand is constantly changing; so are men's residences.(4)
Commerce and Purity The biological purity of meat was not the judicial question here. Neither was the ritual purity of the meat. The ritual purity of the eater was.
Because the eater's degree of holiness was based on his degree of permanence in the holy land, the meat was available for limited commerce. The market value of the meat would be determined by the market demand for it. The Israelite owner could act as the economic agent of two kinds of aliens: resident and non-resident. The seller could not legally accept an economic bid by a resident alien. The Israelite decided which alien would receive the carcase of the animal. Charity had to govern the transfer of ownership to the resident alien; commerce would govern the transfer to the non-resident alien.
The purity of the land became an economic advantage to the non-resident alien: subsidized meat. He would be the only legal bidder in the auction for this kind of meat. This is another way of saying that it paid foreigners to do business inside the boundaries of Israel. The non-resident alien had an advantage over the residents of the land: monopolistic access to the free market for this form of meat.
The purity of the land therefore served as an economic barrier to entry into resident alien status. A non-resident alien would forfeit his legal access to this segment of the meat market if he decided to take up permanent residence. He might occasionally be given free meat, but he could no longer bid commercially for this form of meat. This was a cost of becoming a resident. Yet the imposition of this cost was unique: the loss of an indirect subsidy. A nation that offered an indirect subsidy to non-resident foreigners was unique in the ancient world.
God did not waste this form of meat, yet He did impose tight holiness restrictions on His people. The animal would not be totally worthless just because it died of natural causes. There would be a market for its meat. This saved the Israelite from a total loss. But this law did impose some loss on the Israelites. There were economic costs of holiness.
Concerns about holiness did not eliminate the market in this case. Did they eliminate the market in other cases? What about unclean animals? Were they under similar restrictions: total for Israelites, partial for resident aliens, and non-existent for non-residents? Could an Israelite lawfully sell pork to non-resident aliens?
I think the purity laws were designed for the sake of the land. The degree of one's legal connection to the land marked the degree of restriction in the case of the animal that had died naturally. Such deaths would occur from time to time. The economic question was: How to minimize this loss without compromising the purity of the land? The law allowing sales to non-resident aliens reduced the risk to Israelites of raising ritually clean animals. There would at least be some local demand for such dead beasts. But had this specific limitation on unavoidable losses been applied generally, it would have led to the commercialization of unclean foods. Had it been legal for Israelites to sell pork to non-resident aliens, some Israelites would have begun commercial ventures for this purpose. The land would have become filled with unclean beasts, thereby increasing the likelihood of prohibited contacts by Israelites with such beasts. So, my assessment of this law is as follows: in order to reduce the economic loss imposed by the unforeseen death of a clean animal, the Mosaic law made two exceptions to the rule against eating clean ritually animals that died naturally. This reduced economic risk in the clean animal industry. But the Mosaic law did not encourage the production of unclean animals by opening up a market for them. Commerce was not supposed to increase the number of ritually impure animals; it was merely to decrease the economic risk of an unforeseen loss of a clean animal.
This law must have increased the slaughter of sick but ritually clean animals. The owner's risk of losing access to the broader commercial market increased as a clean animal aged or grew sick. He knew that if it died, the market for its remains would shrink dramatically. To avoid the requirement of providing non-resident aliens with an economic subsidy -- reduced competition on the demand side -- the Israelite had to kill the animal before it died of natural causes. Also, a weak animal would become easy prey of wild beasts. If they got to the animal first, only the dogs would benefit. It should be clear that the economics of the Mosaic law encouraged the slaying of clean animals. The holiness of the land led to the slaying of ritually clean animals. Blood would be shed for the benefit of the righteous. The blood of animals would be poured into the land. "Only ye shall not eat the blood; ye shall pour it upon the earth as water" (Deut. 12:16).(5)
The Annulment of the Mosaic Land Laws The fact that meat which was prohibited to an Israelite could lawfully be sold to a non-resident alien indicates that this law was a land law. He who had no legal attachment to the land had legal access to a commercial market for such meat. The purity of the land was not threatened by the consumption of such meat by aliens. The holiness of the land was not threatened in this case by the eating habits of those with no covenantal connection to the land.
This is another piece of evidence that the Mosaic food laws were land laws, not health laws or laws of moral purity. I have developed this thesis in my commentary on Leviticus.(6) The food laws protected the land's holy status as God's place of residence. These laws tended to keep foreigners out of the nation who might otherwise settle there. Food laws were barriers to entry. People had to change their diets when they entered Israel. People do not like to change their diets. It takes a strong-willed person to make a break with his nation's culinary tradition. If this break must become permanent, it takes considerable will. The cost of maintaining an imported diet was high. It was legal, but the availability of prohibited meat(7) would have been reduced below what it would have been, had there been no dietary laws. Those who were not covenanted with the God of Israel would have had either an emotionally difficult time adjusting their diets or a costly time for not adjusting.
The holy status of the land of Israel ended with the advent of the church. Jesus had predicted this to the Jews: "Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof" (Matt. 21:43). This prophecy was definitively fulfilled with His death and resurrection: the giving of the Great Commission to the church (Matt. 28:18-20). It was extended progressively after the sending of the Holy Spirit to the church (Acts 2). It was finally fulfilled with the fall of Jerusalem, when the temple sacrifices ended forever.
The Annulment of the Mosaic Food Laws The Mosaic food laws had no connection with health considerations. God had not subjected Noah and Abraham to increased health risks by allowing them to eat whatever they wanted. God's covenant with Abraham looked forward to the conquest of the land, but it did not impose either land laws or food laws. The food laws were holiness laws established to reinforce the holiness of the land. This is why they were announced by Moses, not by Abraham or Noah. After the fall of Jerusalem, these laws were finally annulled. But Jesus had already announced their definitive demise. "Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man" (Matt. 15:11). Peter had received a revelation from God regarding the definitive annulment of the food laws.
On the morrow, as they went on their journey, and drew nigh unto the city, Peter went up upon the housetop to pray about the sixth hour: And he became very hungry, and would have eaten: but while they made ready, he fell into a trance, And saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending unto him, as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners, and let down to the earth: Wherein were all manner of fourfooted beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air. And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat. But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean. And the voice spake unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common. This was done thrice: and the vessel was received up again into heaven (Acts 10:9-16).
Peter understood completely what this revelation meant. As he announced to Cornelius, the Roman centurion: "Ye know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company, or come unto one of another nation; but God hath shewed me that I should not call any man common or unclean" (Acts 10:28). This was an announcement by God to the world that the land of Israel had definitively lost its separate judicial status. But Peter forgot, and Paul later called it to his attention. "But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision. And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation. But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?" (Gal. 2:11-14).
Calvin was adamant about the abolition of the Mosaic food laws. In his commentary on Acts 15, he ridiculed those who would revive any aspect of the food laws. Calvin was a master of invective, and we see it here:
As touching meats, after the abrogating of the law, God pronounceth that they are all pure and clean. If, on the other side, there start up a mortal man, making a new difference, forbidding certain, he taketh unto himself the authority and power of God by sacrilegious boldness. Of this stamp were the old heretics, Montanus, Priscillianus, the Donatists, the Tatians, and all the Encratites. Afterwards the Pope, to the end he might bind all those sects in a bundle, made a law concerning meats. And there is no cause why the patrons of this impiety should babble that they do not imagine any uncleanness in meats, but that men are forbidden to eat flesh upon certain days, to tame the flesh. For seeing they eat such meats as are most fit, both for delicacy and also for riot, why do they abstain from eating bacon, as from some great offence, save only because they imagine that that is unclean and polluted which is forbidden by the law of their idol? With like pride doth the tyranny of the Pope rage in all parts of life; for there is nothing wherein he layeth not snares to entangle the miserable consciences of men. But let us trust to the heavenly oracle, and freely despise all his inhibitions. We must always ask the mouth of the Lord, that we may thereby be assured what we may lawfully do; forasmuch as it was not lawful even for Peter to make that profane which was lawful by the Word of God.(8)
Anti-bacon babblers: Calvin had no toleration for such as these! Since Vatican II (1963-65), Roman Catholics have been allowed to eat meat on Fridays. The last traces of "taste not, touch not" (Col. 2:21) were removed. Any attempt to revive the Mosaic food laws for any reason is a move leading out of the church. The only food laws today apply to the Lord's Supper, a mandatory meal for Christians that is legally barred to non-Christians.
Conclusion The law allowing the sale of certain meats to non-resident aliens reduced the burden of an unforeseen loss due to the unexpected death of a clean animal. This preserved the holiness of the land by placing restrictions on Israelites and resident aliens. The non-resident alien received an indirect economic subsidy because of this law. He could buy what Israelites and resident aliens could not.
The resident alien who bought such meat from an Israelite committed no crime. The Israelite did commit an ecclesiastical infraction. With respect to the locus of law enforcement, the food laws were to be enforced by priests and family members; they were not civil laws. They had civil implications -- citizenship through church membership -- but not civil sanctions. If a non-resident alien sold such meat to a resident alien, neither of them committed an infraction, for neither was under the ecclesiastical covenant. This law was ecclesiastical, not civil. No civil penalties were specified. If an alien ate pork, the holiness of the land was not threatened. But ecclesiastical law did restrict what covenant-keeping Israelites could do with meat. This in turn affected market prices, which would have made unclean meat more expensive by reducing its production in Israel.
Prices were affected in Israel by the dietary laws, but there is no indication that these laws applied to resident aliens, other than the general prohibition of eating blood (Lev. 17:13), which was a Noachic law (Gen. 9:4) that is still in force (Acts 15:20, 29). This would explain why there were herds of pigs in Jesus' time (Matt. 8:30-32). Israelites could not produce unclean meat commercially, but resident aliens could. Resident aliens had faced a major problem when the jubilee law was enforced (which may have been never) in pre-exilic times: they could not buy permanent ownership of rural land. When enforced, this law would have tended to eliminate the permanent commercialization of unclean animals. The jubilee law surely would have made the development of permanent herds of such beasts unlikely, for the resident alien could not have counted on access to rural land after the jubilee. Only in the post-exilic era, when resident aliens at the time of Israel's return gained lawful permanent access to the land (Ezek. 47:22-23), would such herds have become more likely.(9)
Footnotes:
1. Jacob Milgrom, The JPS Torah Commentary: Numbers (New York: Jewish Publication Society, 1990), p. 398.
2. Gary North, Tools of Dominion: The Case Laws of Exodus (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1990), pp. 709-11.
3. God has a special protecting relationship with the Jews as self-professed covenantal heirs of Old Covenant Israel insofar as He preserves their separate identity in history. He does this in order to fulfill Paul's prophecy regarding Old Covenant Israel, the branch which God has cut off: "And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in: for God is able to graff them in again. For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree?" (Rom. 11:23-24). But these disinherited heirs of Moses can reclaim their share of the inheritance only by becoming Christians and joining Christ's church.
4. Part of this mobility is a product of government-guaranteed long-term loans in which part of the risk of default by the debtor is borne by taxpayers rather than lenders. This coercive arrangement has subsidized mobility and has undermined community. So have government-funded highway systems.
5. See also Leviticus 7:26-27; 17:10-14; 19:26; Deuteronomy 12:23; 15:23.
6. Gary North, Leviticus: An Economic Commentary (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1994), pp. 340-47.
7. It would have been salted or smoked; there was no refrigeration.
8. John Calvin, Commentary upon the Acts of the Apostles, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker, [1560] 1979), I, pp. 422-23.
9. In the modern State of Israel, pork is produced by Kibbutz "X," but it is not marketed as pork. It is marketed either as penguin or duck. Christian Arabs also produce pork, which is sold through non-kosher butcher shops; Jewish meatpackers act as intermediaries. Felix Kessler, "And on This Farm, He Had a Penguin, With an Oink, Oink. . .", Wall Street Journal (Aug. 2, 1979), p. 1.
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