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LAWS PROHIBITING MIXTURES Thou shalt not sow thy vineyard with divers seeds: lest the fruit of thy seed which thou hast sown, and the fruit of thy vineyard, be defiled. Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together. Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woollen and linen together (Deut. 22:9-11).
These laws do not clearly reveal their theocentric principle. The first prohibition was a law governing ritual pollution. What was the basis of this pollution? The text does not say. The law of the plowing team and the law of mixed clothing seem to be in some way related to the first law. Separation had something to do with ritual pollution, but what?
The theocentric principle seems to be God's separation from evil. The land of Israel was holy, sanctified. This is a typical explanation for laws of separation.(1) But why were mixed seeds evil? What did they symbolize? Israel's separation from Canaan? Israel's separation from the nations around her? Or one tribe's separation from another?
Leviticus and Boundaries I have already analyzed the parallel verse in Leviticus: "Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed; neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woolen come upon thee (Lev. 19:19). I have decided to reprint portions of that chapter in this volume, since some readers will not have a copy of my Leviticus commentary.(2)
The theocentric meaning of this passage is the meaning of the entire Book of Leviticus: God's boundaries must be respected. This case law establishes three boundaries, each referring to a specific economic activity: animal husbandry, agriculture, and textiles. Except for the products of mining and metalworking, these were the primary categories of economic goods in the ancient world. Leviticus 19:19 established rules for all three areas. That world is long gone. Beginning no later than the fifteenth century, A.D., and accelerating rapidly in the late eighteenth century, a series of improvements in all three areas transformed the traditional economy of Europe. The modern capitalist system -- with its emphasis on private ownership, the specialization of production, and the division of labor -- steadily replaced the older medieval world of the common fields. This comprehensive economic transformation was accompanied by the violation of at least the first two, and seemingly all three, of the statutes of Leviticus 19:19. The question we need to answer is this: Was this law annulled by the New Covenant, or was the Agricultural/Industrial Revolution illegitimate biblically? I argue that the law was annulled.(3)
Hermeneutics Hermeneutics is the principle of interpretation. My theonomic hermeneutics enables me to do three things that every system of biblical hermeneutics should do: 1) identify the primary function of an Old Covenant law, 2) discover whether it is universal in a redemptive (healing) sense, or whether 3) it was conditioned by its redemptive-historical context (i.e., annulled by the New Covenant). In short: What did the law mean, how did it apply inside and outside Mosaic Israel, and how should it apply today? This exegetical task is not always easy, but it is mandatory. It is a task that has been ignored or denied by the vast majority of Christian theologians for almost two millennia.
The question here is the hermeneutical problem of identifying covenantal continuity and covenantal discontinuity. First, in questions of covenantal continuity, we need to ask: What is the underlying ethical principle? God does not change ethically. The moral law is still binding, but its application may not be. Second, this raises the question of covenantal discontinuity. What has changed as a result of the New Testament era's fulfillment of Old Covenant prophecy and the inauguration of the New Covenant? A continuity -- prophetic-judicial fulfillment -- has in some cases produced a judicial discontinuity: the annulment of a case law's application.
I begin any investigation of any suspected judicial discontinuity with the following questions. First, is the case law related to the priesthood, which has changed (Heb. 7:11-12)? Second, is it related to the sacraments, which have changed? Third, is it related to the jubilee land laws (e.g., inheritance), which Christ fulfilled (Luke 4:18-21)? Fourth, is it related to the tribes (e.g., the seed laws), which Christ fulfilled in His office as Shiloh, the promised Seed (Gal. 3:16)? Fifth, is it related to the "middle wall of partition" between Jew and gentile, which Jesus Christ's gospel has broken down (Gal. 3:28; Eph. 2:14-20)?(4) These five principles prove fruitful in analyzing Leviticus 19:19 and Deuteronomy 22:9-11.(5)
Let us ask another question: Is a change in the priesthood also accompanied by a change in the laws governing the family covenant? Yes. Jesus tightened the laws of divorce by removing the Mosaic law's exception, the bill of divorcement (Matt. 5:31-32).(6) Similarly, the church from the beginning has denied the legality of polygamy even though there is no explicit rejection of polygamy in the New Testament except for church officers: husbands of one wife (I Tim. 3:2, 12). Polygamy is rejected by the church on the same basis that Jesus rejected the Mosaic law's system of easy divorce: "from the beginning it was not so" (Matt. 19:18). Did other changes in the family accompany the New Covenant's change in the priesthood? Specifically, have changes in inheritance taken place? Have these changes resulted in the annulment of the jubilee land laws of the Mosaic economy? Finally, has an annulment of the jubilee land laws annulled the laws of tribal administration?
Case Laws and Underlying Principles Laws governing agriculture, plowing, and textile production had to be taken very seriously under the Mosaic Covenant. The expositor's initial presumption should be that these three laws constitute a judicial unit. If they are a unit, there has to be some underlying judicial principle common to all three. All three prohibitions deal with mixing. The first question we need to ask is the crucial one: What was the covenantal meaning of these laws? The second question is: What was their economic effect?
I argue here that the fundamental judicial principle undergirding the passage is the requirement of separation. Two kinds of separation were involved: tribal and covenantal. The first two clauses were agricultural applications of the mandatory segregation of the tribes inside Israel until a unique prophesied Seed would appear in history: the Messiah. We know who the Seed is: Jesus Christ. Paul wrote: "Now unto Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ" (Gal. 3:16). The context of Paul's discussion is inheritance. Inheritance is by promise, he said. The Mosaic law applied "till the seed should come to whom the promise was made" (Gal. 3:18). Two-thirds of Leviticus 19:19 relates to the inheritance laws of national Israel, as we shall see. When the Levitical land inheritance laws (Lev. 25) ended with the establishment of a new priesthood, so did the authority of Leviticus 19:19.
The final clause of both Leviticus 19:19 and Deuteronomy 22:11 deals with prohibited clothing. This prohibition related not to separation among the tribes of Israel -- separation within a covenant -- but rather the separation of national Israel from other nations. The principle undergirding second form of separation -- clothing -- is more familiar to us: covenantal separation.
Boundary of Blood: Seed and Land The preservation of Israel's unique covenantal status was required by the Mosaic law. The physical manifestation of this separation was circumcision. A boundary of blood was imposed on the male organ of reproduction. It was a sign that covenantal life is not obtained by either physical birth or through one's male heirs. Rushdoony has written: "Circumcision witnesses to the fact that man's hope is not in generation but in regeneration. . . ."(7) To escape Adam's legal status as a covenant-breaker, a man must re-covenant with God, a human response made possible by God's absolutely sovereign act of regeneration. The mark of this covenant in ancient Israel was circumcision. Ultimately, this separation was confessional. It involved an affirmation of the sovereignty of Israel's God. This was a different kind of boundary from those that divided the tribes, for the tribes were united confessionally: "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might" (Deut. 6:4-5). The nation of Israel was separated from non-covenanted nations by geographical and covenantal boundaries.
Tribal and family units separated the covenant people within Israel. This separation was always to be geographical, usually familial,(8) but never confessional. Every tribe confessed the same confession. They were divided tribally because they would have different heirs. Only one tribe would bring forth the promised Seed. Tribal separation was therefore based on differences in prophetic inheritance.
Israel's tribal divisions had political implications. They guaranteed localism. This localism of tribal inheritance was the judicial complement of the unity of national covenantal confession. Tribal boundaries were part of an overall structure of covenantal unity.
Family membership and rural land ownership in Israel were tied together by the laws of inheritance. A rural Israelite -- and most Israelites were rural(9) -- was the heir of a specific plot of ground because of his family membership. There was no rural landed inheritance apart from family membership. Unlike the laws of ancient Greece, Mosaic law allowed a daughter to inherit the family's land if there was no son. But there was a condition: she had to marry within the tribal unit (Num. 36:8). The landed inheritance could not lawfully move from one tribe to another (Num. 36:9).(10) A man's primary inheritance in Israel was his legal status (freemanship). Land was tied to name. The land of Israel was God's; His name was on it. The family's land was tied to the family's name.(11) Jacob had promised Judah that his blood line would rule until the promised heir (Shiloh) should come (Gen. 49:10). Thus, the integrity of each of the seed lines in Israel -- family by family, tribe by tribe -- was maintained by the Mosaic law until this promise was fulfilled. The mandatory separation among the tribes was symbolized by the prohibition against mixing seeds. The prohibition applied to the mixing of seeds in one field (Lev. 19:19). The field did not represent the whole world under the Mosaic Covenant; the field represented the Promised Land. The husbandman or farmer had to create boundaries between his specialized breeds and between his crops.
So closely were seed and land connected in the Mosaic law that the foreign eunuch, having no possibility of seed, was not allowed to become a citizen in Israel. (The New Testament's system of adoption has annulled this law: Acts 8:26-38.)(12)
Leviticus 19:19 is part of the Mosaic Covenant's laws governing the preservation of the family's seed (name) during a particular period of history. It was an aspect of inheritance: the necessary preservation of genetic Israel. The preservation of the separate seeds of Israel's families was basic to the preservation of the nation's legal status as a set-apart, separated, holy covenantal entity. This principle of separation applied to domesticated animals, crops, and clothing.
Covenantal Separation Let us now consider the law prohibiting the linking an ox and a donkey in plowing (Deut. 22:10). In Leviticus 19:19, the prohibition was against the mixing of breeds in order to develop specialized breeds. This was a seed law: there was a possibility of interbreeding. Such was not the case in the law against joint plowing.
The ox and the donkey work differently. They are not beasts with the same strengths and habits. To use them in a joint plowing effort is to reduce the productivity of both. Neither can achieve its proper calling before God if they are linked by a yoke in the same work effort. The yoke makes each of them a poorer servant. This prohibition was not a seed law; it was a covenantal law. Paul writes: "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty" (II Cor. 6:14-18). The law against joint plowing is a law against putting covenanted people with noncovenanted people in the same covenantal institution. The issue here is theological confession. A common theological confession is the biblical yoke. Those who refuse to take a covenantal oath are not to be joined in a common covenantal task with those who take it.
This law was symbolic of all three covenantal relationships in society: church, family, and State. Israel was not to join with other nations in a covenantal bond; neither were Israelites to marry foreigners. The church was to be kept pure. Modern humanistic political theory denies that this principle of separation applies to the civil covenant, but clearly it applied in Mosaic Israel. Where Israelites exercised lawful civil authority, they were not voluntarily to share political power with covenant-breakers. Those Christians who invoke Paul's authority to prohibit marriages between Christians and non-Christians are necessarily invoking Deuteronomy 22:10. No one should assume that Paul annulled the principle of unequal yoking in the civil covenant while affirming it in the church and family covenants. The case for Paul's supposed annulment must be proven exegetically. Israel was under civil bondage during the captivity and after, so this law could not be applied in civil government, but this is not proof that this law has been partially annulled. Christian political pluralists assume that the law of unequal yoking has been partially annulled, but they do not offer proof.(13)
Clothing Mixed clothing made of linen and wool was under a different kind of prohibition. It was illegal to wear clothing produced by mixing these two fibers. There was no law against producing mixed cloth for export, however. Why was wearing it wrong but exporting it allowed?(14)
No other form of mixed-fiber clothing was prohibited by the Mosaic law. Did this case law by implication or extension prohibit all mixed fibers? This seems doubtful. It would have been easy to specify the more general prohibition rather than single out these two fibers. Deuteronomy's parallel passage also specifies this type of mixed fabric (Deut. 22:11). Then what was the nature of the offense? Answer: to wear clothing of this mixture was to proclaim symbolically the equality of Israel with all other nations. This could not be done lawfully inside Israel. It could be done by non-Israelites outside Israel.
Linen was the priestly cloth. The priests were required to wear linen on the day of atonement (Lev. 16:30-34). Linen was to be worn by the priest in the sacrifice of the burnt offering (Lev. 6:10). During and after the Babylonian captivity, because of their rebellion in Israel, the Levites and priests were placed under a new requirement that kept them separate from the people: they had to wear linen whenever they served before the table of the Lord. They had to put on linen garments when they entered God's presence in the inner court, and remove them when they returned to the outer court. No wool was to come upon them (Ezek. 44:15-19). The text says, "they shall not sanctify the people with their garments" (Ezek. 44:19). Priestly holiness was associated with linen.
Inside a priestly nation, such a mixture was a threat to the holiness of the priests when they brought sacrifices before God. As between a priestly nation and a non-priestly nation, this section of Leviticus 19:19 symbolized the national separation of believers from unbelievers. Deuteronomy 22:11 is the parallel passage: "Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts: [as] of wool and linen together."
Inside the boundaries of Israel, this law symbolized sacrificial separation: the tribe of Levi was set apart as a legal representative before God. In this intra-national sense, this law did have a role to play in the separation of the tribes. This is why it was connected to the two seed laws in Leviticus 19:19.
It is still prohibited to mix covenantal opposites in a single covenant: in church, State, and family. But is the wearing of this mixture of these two fabrics still prohibited? No. Why not? Because of the change in the priesthood (Gal. 3). Our new covering is Jesus Christ. Paul wrote: "For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise" (Gal. 3:27-29). Here it is again: inheritance is by God's promise to Abraham. The sign of this inheritance is no longer circumcision; it is baptism. This is our new clothing. The old prohibition against mixing wool and linen in our clothing is annulled. The new priesthood is under a new covering: Jesus Christ.
The Question of Jurisdiction Was this a civil law or an ecclesiastical law? To identify it as a civil law, we should be able to specify appropriate civil sanctions. The text mentions none. The civil magistrate might have confiscated the progeny of the interbreeding activities, but then what? Sell the animals? Export them? Kill them and sell the meat? These were possible sanctions, but the text is silent. What about mingled seed? Was the entire crop to be confiscated by the State? Could it lawfully be sold? Was it unclean? The text is silent. This silence establishes a prima facie case for the law as ecclesiastical.
The mixed clothing law refers to a fact of covenantal separation: a nation of priests. The Israelites were not to wear clothing made of linen and wool. Mixing testified symbolically to the legitimacy of mixing a nation of priests and a common nation. This is why wearing such mixed cloth was prohibited. This aspect of the case law's meaning was primarily priestly. Again, the prima facie case is that this was an ecclesiastical law and therefore to be enforced by the priesthood.
The maximum ecclesiastical sanction was excommunication. This would have marked the law-breaker as being outside the civil covenant. He faced the loss of his citizenship as well as the disinheritance of his sons unless they broke with him publicly. Instead of a mere economic loss, he faced a far greater penalty. This penalty was consistent with the status of this law as a seed law. The prohibition of mixed seeds was an affirmation of tribal separation until Shiloh came. An attack on tribal separation was an attack on Jacob's messianic prophecy. The appropriate penalty was ecclesiastical: removal from both inheritance and citizenship within the tribe.
Conclusion In this chapter I have attempted to answer three questions: What did these verses mean? How were they applied? How should they be applied today? This is the three-part challenge of biblical hermeneutics.
The prohibition against the mixing of seeds -- animals and crops -- was symbolic of the mandatory separation of the tribes. This separation was eschatologically based: till Shiloh came. The prohibition against wearing a mixed cloth of linen and wool was a priestly prohibition: separation of the tribe of Levi within Israel and symbolic of the separation of the priestly nation of Israel from other nations, i.e., a confessional separation.
The law prohibiting mixed seeds was temporary because it was tribal. It ended with the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ, or, at the latest, at Pentecost. Spiritual adoption has overcome tribalism as the basis of inheritance in the kingdom of God. The gift of the Spirit, not physical reproduction, is the basis of Christians' inheritance. National Israel was disinherited in A.D. 70.(15) The kingdom of God was taken from national Israel and given to a new nation, the church (Matt. 21:43). The jubilee land laws (Lev. 25) have ended forever. So have the prohibitions against genetic mixing and mixed crops. When people are baptized into Christ through the Spirit, this new priesthood puts on Christ. The older requirements or prohibitions regarding certain types of garments have ended forever. What remains is the judicial boundary between covenant-breakers and covenant-keepers. This separation is eternal (Rev. 20:14-15).
The biblical principle of not mixing seeds, whether of animals or crops, in a single field applies to us only indirectly. The basic judicial application is that we must be faithful to Jesus Christ, the promised Seed, who has come in history. In Him alone is true inheritance. But there is no application with respect to tribal boundaries. The tribes of Israel are gone forever. Thus, there is no application of this verse genetically. We are allowed to breed animals and plant various crops in the same field at the same time.
The other applications of the principle of separation prohibited 1) plowing with both an ox and a donkey, 2) the wearing of mixed fiber garments: linen and wool. The prohibition against plowing with different species reflects the biblical principle of covenantal relationships: the prohibition against unequal yoking. Israel was to have no covenantal relationships with the nations around her. That law is still in force.
The prohibition against mixed clothing applies to us today through baptism, for by baptism we have received our new clothing in Christ. This principle of separation still holds nationally, for it is covenantal, not tribal. It refers to the distinctions between priests and non-priests, between priestly nations (confessionally Christian) and non-priestly nations. It refers to the distinction between Christendom and every other world system. But it has nothing to do with fabrics any longer.
Footnotes:
1. Samson Raphael Hirsch, The Pentateuch, 5 vols. (Gateshead, London: Judaica, 1989), V, p. 438.
2. Gary North, Leviticus: An Economic Commentary (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1994), ch. 17.
3. A preliminary version of this chapter appears in Theonomy: An Informed Response, edited by Gary North (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1991), ch. 10. See also, Gary North, Boundaries and Dominion: The Economics of Leviticus (computer edition; Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1994), ch. 17.
4. This application is especially important in dealing with Rushdoony's theory of "hybridization." See North, Boundaries and Dominion, Appendix H: "Rushdoony on `Hybridization': From Genetic Separation to Racial Separation."
5. There are several other hermeneutical questions that we can ask that relate to covenantal discontinuity. Sixth, is it an aspect of the weakness of the Israelites, which Christ's ministry has overcome, thereby intensifying the rigors of an Old Covenant law (Matt. 5:21-48)? Seventh, is it an aspect of the Old Covenant's cursed six day-one day work week rather than the one day-six day pattern of the New Covenant's now-redeemed week (Heb. 4:1-11)? Eighth, is it part of legal order of the once ritually polluted earth, which has now been cleansed by Christ (Acts 10; I Cor. 8)?
6. Greg L. Bahnsen, Theonomy in Christian Ethics (2nd ed.; Phillipsberg, New Jersey: Presbyterian and Reformed, [1977] 1984), p. 99.
7. R. J. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law (Nutley, New Jersey: Craig Press, 1973), p. 43.
8. There could be inter-tribal marriages. Daughters received dowries rather than landed inheritance. Dowries could cross tribal boundaries.
9. This is not to say that God intended them to remain rural. On the contrary, the covenantal blessing of God in the form of population growth was to move most Israelites into the cities as time went on. See Leviticus, ch. 25, section on "The Demographics of the Jubilee Inheritance Law," pp. 416-22.
10. The exception was when rural land that had been pledged to a priest went to him in the jubilee year if the pledge was violated (Lev. 27:20-21). See Leviticus, ch. 37, "The Redemption Price System."
11. North, Boundaries and Dominion, ch. 17, subsection on "Family Land and Family Name."
12. North, Leviticus, p. 471.
13. Gary North, Political Polytheism: The Myth of Pluralism (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1989).
14. In biblical law, if something is not prohibited, it is allowed.
15. David Chilton, The Days of Vengeance: An Exposition of the Book of Revelation (Ft. Worth, Texas: Dominion Press, 1987).
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