Civil Society
In his book, ‘In God’s Shadow: Politics in the Hebrew Bible’, Michael Walzer reminds us that the laws are embedded in a larger narrative from which they should not be separated. The Law contains significant egalitarian and anti-authoritarian elements which are reflected in the commands themselves.
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To begin with, God speaks to all the Israelites and reveals the commands and the laws. The Israelites, as a whole, are responsible for creating and maintaining justice. This was unique in the Ancient Near East, where rulers made the law and carried it out. Unlike Hammurabi’s law code, the commandments cannot be claimed as the work of any one king or political regime. Indeed, the narrative is decidedly critical of human monarchies, but if Israel has a king, he is subject to the Law in the same way that all the Israelites are subject to the Law.
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As part of this anti-authoritarian narrative, the Ten Commandments and the Sinai Covenant outline a social and moral vision of an alternative community, what Hebrew Bible scholar Patrick Miller calls a ‘good neighborhood’. The Ten Commandments, as it turns out, do not simply dictate an individual and private moralism. Instead, they establish the basic fence-post issues that mark out a moral space within which the Israelites will live. This space, our neighborhood, consists of a web of moral relations.
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The first five commandments establish the relationship between the Israelites and the powers that be, namely, God and one’s parents. But the second half of the Decalogue speaks to social relations, the relationship between the Israelite and his neighbor.
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A covenant creates or repairs a deep bond between unrelated parties. The Ten Commandments mark out the boundaries in which these bonds will be repaired after the dehumanizing and shattering experience of slavery in Egypt. They establish a neighborhood that can be called good because it is different from the imperial politics of Egypt, Assyria, or Babylon.
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Miller’s reading of the Ten Commandments as social vision grows out of Calvin’s third use of the law. He sees a positive role for the law in the Christian’s life, which Calvin identifies as the “principal use”. He divides this third use of the law into two. First, the moral law teaches us God’s will. Second, it not only teaches us God’s will but exhorts us to obedience.
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Miller would have us see that the sixth commandment is about protecting life, the positive action that grows out of the negative injunction “you shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13) Moreover, this commandment, with its particular Hebrew verb for “murder,” rather than the general term for “kill,” subtly undermines absolutist interpretations. The sixth commandment makes fine distinctions, not blanket ones. It invites the community to ponder the difference between these two actions and consider which scenarios might be labeled as murder and which might not.
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The seventh commandment (Exodus 20:13b) is not simply about restraining your sexual appetite: it is more significantly about guarding the boundaries of a neighbor’s family life.
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Finally, the tenth commandment (Exodus 20:14) is about nurturing appropriate desires and the repercussions of an inordinate desire or jealousy of the neighbor. Successfully accomplishing the previous four commandments depends on the tenth commandment. Coveting is an internal disposition rather than a direct and external action against the neighbor. Coveting creates the circumstances that can ultimately lead to the violation of the neighbor’s life, family, and property.
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The commandments contain the right amount of ambivalence and tension on matters of private and public use, obedience and anti-authoritarianism, absolutism, and egalitarianism, to make them of continuing importance to political theological reflection.
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