Reparations

More numerous than the hairs of my head are my unprovoked foes.  My destroyers grow strong, my lying foes.  What I have not stolen should I then give back? Psalm 69:5 [Hebrew Bible]  Robert Alter

Give back – David knew his enemies, at least most of them.  His poem is addressed to real, tangible foes, people who sought to ruin him.  As he notes, they were unprovoked (ḥinnām), meaning they acted against him despite having no grounds for doing so (the word means “freely, for nothing”).  Furthermore, they are liars (šeqer), not just in words but in breaches of faith.  Then comes the critical question.  “Should I give back to them things I haven’t taken from them?”  He uses the strong verb gāzal (to seize, to tear off, to take away by force).  What is the implication?  David’s enemies expect him to give them something they didn’t earn, something that legitimately belongs to David.  In other words, this is a case of the desire to have what belongs to another.  David rightfully asks, “Should I give it to them simply because they want it?”  The Bible commands that amends be make by the guilty party.  But David isn’t guilty even if his enemies claim that he is.  The real issue here is not about making amends.

It’s about envy.

Modern political ideas about reparations are not biblical.  Real reparations are due when someone needs to make amends for something he has done.  If I steal from someone, I am commanded to not only return what I have stolen but to add a percentage to make amends for my act.  This is true reparation.  Not so today.  Today reparations are about making amends for actions I did not do.  Reparations are no longer about direct involvement in an offense to another or in stealing something that belonged to another.  Now reparations are based on collective guilt.  Reparations in the modern sense are repairs for ancestral sins.  They are effectively the opposite of the mistaken religious claim of ancestral curses.  If I can be blamed because of something my ancestors did, then I am guilty of their crimes.  Therefore, I must make amends for crimes they committed.  One must wonder if the Church hasn’t foisted this contemporary legal fiction upon us with its doctrine of original sin.  If I am guilty because Adam sinned, then I bear his punishment as well.  This is what the Church taught for centuries.  It opened the door for the idea of collective ancestral guilt and that leads directly to the demand that I pay for what my ancestors did.  Of course, the idea of reparations isn’t attached to just those ancestors who acted inappropriately.  It is now attached to the racist concept that I am guilty because of what my race did regardless of the fact that my actual ancestors had nothing to do with the original offense.  This is the Church’s doctrine of the federal headship of Adam politicized.

No prophet in the Bible would condone such nonsense.  Over and over the prophets proclaim that guilt attaches to the actor, not the actor’s progeny.  And this is David’s claim as well.  “I didn’t steal anything.  Why should I have to give it back?  It wasn’t yours in the first place.”  David combats envy, not recompense.  I wonder if we don’t face the same stupidity.

Topical Index: guilt, reparations, steal, gāzal, envy, Psalm 69:4