Blood Guilt
So you shall not defile the land in which you live; for blood defiles the land, and no atonement can be made for the land for the blood that is shed on it, except by the blood of the one who shed it. Numbers 35:33 NASB
Defiles – ḥānēp. That should be a word added to your vocabulary because it has plenty of application today. It means “to pollute, to profane, to corrupt.” One of the derivatives means hypocrisy. According to the biblical text, the land (notice that it is not “the people”) can be polluted because of human actions. “. . . the transgression of laws, violation of statutes and the breaking of the covenant, all of which pollute the land (Isa 24:5) . . . a favored people who drifted back and forth between devotion to idols and the Lord, pollutes the land (Jer 3:1). The evidence of immorality and other gross wickedness of the Canaanite fertility cult was to be seen on every hilltop in the land, thus polluting it (Jer 3:2, 9).”[1] Are the people polluted? Not exactly. They are sinful. But sin has consequences that affect the environment. Adam’s disobedience affected the earth which bore the scars of his decision. So it is with our actions.
However, and it’s a big “however,” pollution, just like “sin,” is a religious, not an ethical idea. Note Feinstein’s remark:
“Pollution, in other words, is not a product of the moral system, nor is morality based on pollution. The intersection of the two is, rather, a function of the fact that both are cultural products, shaped by the structure and values of the societies from which they emerge. It is clear that disgust and the pollution beliefs to which it gives rise are both natural and cultural: People seem hardwired to be disgusted by particular types of things, but exactly which of these entities disgusts and pollutes and in which contexts is in large measure determined by culture and learning.”[2]
Biblical ḥānēp applies to those who are part of the tribes originating in Abraham. What pollutes is determined by the God they serve, the God of Israel. Other cultures may have different ideas of what pollutes, but for those who count themselves among YHVH’s children, He decides. End of story.
Well, almost. Remember the rape of Dinah? Remember Hamor’s solution to the problem? Intermarriage. Intermarriage means that the two tribes become one tribe, under the same authority. If that were to happen, then Shechem’s action would be dealt with according to the tribal laws of Israel, and marriage would resolve the conflict. But Jacob’s sons refuse this solution. They make it appear as if they accept it, only to find a way to kill all the males of the other tribe. “There is another reason that Shechem’s violation of Dinah is not ultimately handled in accordance with the legal tradition, and it brings us back to the aspect of the story that centers on intermarriage and relations between tribes. As Paul Keevers points out, “laws are intended to regulate behavior between members of a single group who accept a common source of authority.”[3] Keevers comment is especially important. In any society, once the members of the society no longer acknowledge a common authority, the society cannot survive. It will either collapse or divide. That’s why citizenship in the Kingdom of God is so threatening to the kingdoms of this world . . . and why the kingdoms of this world are also threatened by dissenting groups within their borders. Common authority, in persons or papers, means civilization. Lack of common authority means chaos. The biblical view may have been about God’s intention for the land, but the lesson is equally valid for any society. Sow disrespect for authority, reap pollution.
Topical Index: pollution, ḥānēp, hypocrisy, Numbers 35:33
[1] Goldberg, L. (1999). 696 חָנֵף. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 304). Chicago: Moody Press.
[2] Eve Levavi Feinstein, Sexual Pollution in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford Univerity Press, 2014), p. 36.
[3] Eve Levavi Feinstein, Sexual Pollution in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford Univerity Press, 2014), p. 88.
And after they had stopped speaking, James answered, saying, “Men and brothers, listen to me! Simeon has described how God first concerned himself to take from among the Gentiles a people for his name. And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written: ‘After these things I will return and build up again the tent of David that has fallen, and the parts of it that had been torn down I will build up again and will restore it, so that the rest of humanity may seek the Lord, even all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who makes these things known from of old.’ Therefore I conclude we should not cause difficulty for those from among the Gentiles who turn to God, but we should write a letter to them to abstain from the pollution of idols and from sexual immorality and from what has been strangled and from blood. For Moses has those who proclaim him in every city from ancient generations, read aloud in the synagogues on every Sabbath.” (Acts 15:1-21)
God’s own particular choice of Israel—along with Israel’s offspring as God’s own peculiar people, together with the land and the blessing of life lived under the authority of and in relationship with YHVH—incorporate the benevolent intentions and desire of God that all mankind experience living the wholeness and fulfillment of God’s intentions and purposes in the shared human experience of such “life lived.”
Pollution spoils or ruins that pristine or pure. In the rhetoric of Israel’s testimony pollution refers most often to a spiritual reality—i.e. that spiritual and real manifest in the conditions of our primarily physical existential experience. Polluting agents, even those affecting the physical realm, are often unapparent. Israel’s testimony speaks of that characteristically unseen and spiritual as able to be both affected by and affecting that which is seen.
Therefore, is there any wonder that disregard and sowing disrespect for the Sovereign authority of all spirits, souls, and persons—the One who spoke the authority of His self-existent living being over non-being and His order over chaos—should “reap spiritual pollution” in the created order for such disregard and disrespect?