Laws for the Yahad Isrealite

March 9, 2009, 7:40 am by dc-agape.

Geniza A Col 9:1 – 12:22

The Damascus Document (CD) finishes the laws for the general Israelite population, more likely the other Yahad sects, in these columns.  Some of the topics covered are Lev 27:28, making accusations, oaths, lost property, witnesses, judges, the water of purification, keeping the Sabbath, sacrifices, the sanctuary, the demon possessed, contact with Gentiles, and impure foods.  Most of these laws are barely even a paragraph (no fragmentation) in length.  Only the law of keeping the Sabbath is covered in great detail.  As a result, I will leave that one to last…if the post becomes too long I will cover it tomorrow.

The authors of the CD do rewrite the Word of God in this section of Leviticus.  While the Law of Moses allowed for the devotion of a person to YHWH, here the authors tell us that if any person is proscribed that they should be put to death.  Since the Law talks about setting a person aside to YHWH as holy and yet the authors talk about making a person an outlaw, we must assume that the Gentiles felt that this was illegal.  The required action was to but the person devote to YHWH to death by the Gentile law.

The section on accusations against other Israelites basically ends up that anyone making these accusations without a second witness, or in anger, or to tarnish the other’s reputation is actually a “vengeance-taker” or “grudge-bearer”.  This accuser will actually guilty of breaking the commandment of Lev 19:17.  As a result, anyone holding a grudge is guilty of the same sin that they hold against their neighbor on top of the sin of being a grudge-bearer!  For only YHWH can take vengeance or hold a grudge (Nahum 1:2).  Isn’t YHWH just so sweet and loving, and don’t you just want to snuggle up close to him?

As for the qualification of judges, four must be of the descent from Levi and the other six can be from any tribe.  No tie breaker like the US supreme court.  But they cannot be younger than 25 nor older than 60.  In fact, at the age of 60 they must retire.  The authors believed that not only did YHWH shorten the lifespan of humankind after the fall, but he weakened their minds before life was over!  That idea does not have verse to back it up.  But obviously the authors felt that anyone over 60 had to great a chance of becoming senile.

The waters of purification for a person had to be clean and deep enough to create a ripple.  The waters of purification of a vessel or object had to be deep enough to completely submerge the object.  There was also concern about the cistern used; it could not have been touched by anything unclean.

Any sacrifice made, and any worship attendance must be made while the person had been made pure.  In fact, being ceremonially clean was more important than actually attending assembly.

The city of the Temple was actually a holy place.  As a result, the act of having sex was not allowed in the entire city!  That act of sex would defile “the city of the Temple with their uncleanness.”  Since Jerusalem was the city of the Temple, I wonder how many times a day the Temple was made unclean?  Let’s hope that the Temple Scroll sheds more light on this topic!

The verdict against the demon possessed was not as harsh as that of a necromancer or a medium.  The latter two would be put to death.  It would seem that the demon possessed defiled the Sabbath on occasions.  The demons possessed were allowed a chance to “recover”.  They had to be watched for an entire seven years before being allowed back into the assembly.

Two laws regarded contact with Gentiles.  The first law forbade killing a Gentile for profit.  The only time killing a Gentile was acceptable was when the entire commonwealth of Israel agreed.  The second law was about selling property to a Gentile.  A Yahad Jew could not sell sacrificial clean animals; neither could they sell the produce from the threshing floor nor the winepress.  The fear that these things might be sacrificed to other gods was overwhelming.  Even more the Yahad Jew could not sell servants or maid servants to a Gentile, because these people had entered the covenant of Abraham.

The final section is about the laws that the Yahad Jew had to follow included eating impure foods (like bee larvae) and preparation of fish and locust.  Unclean objects could convey their uncleanness to humans.  And all the items in a house where someone had died were to be treated as an impure work tool.  The treatment of these last items was covered in 4Q271 Frag 2 of my post on Fragmentary Laws.

I will cover the Sabbath Laws tomorrow in a special post dedicated to that subject.  The document writers felt that these laws required extra special details.  In fact it took the writers over 27 rows of the document (nearly one entire column) to cover these laws.  So I feel that I should be as concerned about them as well.

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