19:26-28
At first look these commands seem rather random. However, there is more to it than that. This is the value of using commentaries (Hess in my case) as they can give useful insights. The first command talks about not eating meat with the blood still in it, and we have had a few similar commands about this already, so why another one? However, the wording here in the Hebrew is actually different and literally says “upon the blood”, an expression that only occurs in three other places. All these three laws are actually relating to the worship of other deities, in particular the worship of spirits of the dead (Hess). 19:28 prohibits tattoos. This raises the question of whether it is still prohibited for Christians to have a tattoo. Today it is unlikely to be related to idol worship, so perhaps it doesn’t, though the point is debatable.
19:29
Prostitution is evil and is degrading. It is degrading for those who are prostitutes (usually women), and for those who make use of them. Hopefully we recoil in horror at the thought of a man making his daughter a prostitute. However, such things do happen. Moreover, there is an increasing move to normalise prostitution, one example being the use of the term “sex worker”. There are even cases of it being considered a reasonable way for a student to make some extra money. Such moves are lies. As it says here “the land will turn to prostitution and be filled with wickedness”, this is what will happen to any country where prostitution is normalised.
No comments:
Post a Comment