Lesson 4—Ethical Considerations in the Journeys toward the Promised Land

Introduction

In our previous lesson we saw how the report of the scouts and the reaction of the people delayed the entry into the Land. We mentioned that since the people lacked faith in, and gratitude toward, God, and preferred to head back to Egypt rather than to proceed toward the Promised Land in accordance with the divine plan, God punished them by prolonging their sojourn in the desert for 40 years in which the entire adult population of the Exodus would die out. Thus, the story of the scouts illustrated the importance of religious belief and practice in the journey toward the Promised Land.

In this lesson we will shift the focus from religion to ethics and try to understand the role that ethics played in the journey toward the Land. We will try to show how ethical concerns were of paramount importance from the time that the land was promised to Abraham up until the time that the promise was about to be fulfilled..

Go to the discussion board.

What are the ramifications of categorizing certain countries as the “axis of evil”? That these countries are to be viewed with suspicion, that these countries must be subjected to economic sanctions, or that they should be faced with military intervention and regime change? If the latter, at what stage can military intervention and regime change be justified, when they have merely developed weapons of mass destruction, or have actually put them to use and demonstrate their intention of putting them to use again? Does it matter whether these countries intend to use them to threaten other sovereign nations or whether they intend to use them for the “ethnic cleansing” of large segments of their own population?    

What should become abundantly clear from this discussion is that, on the one hand, the sovereign rights of nations today are to be respected but, on the other hand, there are certain situations in which those rights can be denied. Regimes that are defined as “evil” risk being removed from power by outside intervention or eliminated altogether. This lesson will focus on some of the same principles as they affected the People of Israel on their journey to the Promised Land.

Text Study 1

1. Read Genesis 15:13-16. What does this text tell us about the fulfillment of the promise of the Land?
2. What is the explanation given in this text for the deferment of the promise? At what point can the people of Israel finally take possession of the Land?
3. How might the following texts help us understand why the nations inhabiting the Land lost their territorial rights? A. Genesis 9:18-27, B. 19:4-9, C. Leviticus 18:1-24, D. Deuteronomy 18:9-14

Suggested Answers

1. In this text, God reveals to Abraham the fate of his descendants. Not only will they have to wait to inherit the land; they will have to suffer enslavement and oppression in a foreign land for a period of 400 years before the promise of the Land will be fulfilled.

2. Now, although the text does not explain why Abraham’s descendants must suffer (and any attempt to address this question must include a discussion of some serious theological issues such as the suffering of the innocent and the relationship between God’s foreknowledge and free will, issues which are well beyond the scope of this lesson), it does explain why they must be in a foreign land for so long. The People of Israel cannot take possession of the Land, even though it was assigned to them by God, because the “iniquity” of the nations inhabiting the Land (“Amorites” became a generic term for the nations of the Land similar to the term “Canaanites”) was “not yet complete.”

In other words, from the Torah’s perspective, a nation that inhabits a land acquires territorial rights to it. Those rights, however, are not absolute and inalienable. God may revoke them if the behavior of the people living there exceeds reasonable limits. Thus, as long as the “iniquity” of the inhabitants of the Land was “not yet complete” no other people, even God’s elect, could lay claim of it. Once the “iniquity” is complete, however, the inhabitants of the Land will have forfeited their rights to it and the promise to Abraham can finally be fulfilled. (The phrase “in the fourth generation” must mean four life spans otherwise it contradicts the number 400 year mentioned 3 verses earlier)

3. Just as we today have defined certain countries or cultures as “the axis of evil” because of the violation of certain fundamental ethical norms so has the Bible (the terminology is slightly different but the essence is the same). In these texts the Torah illustrates some of the “evils” or “iniquities” that were intrinsic features of the culture of the nations inhabiting the Land.

A. This text describes an episode in the life of Noah who, along with his family, had just emerged from the flood. The text tells us that Noah planted a vineyard and became drunk after partaking of some of the wine that he made from it. In his drunken stupor, Noah “uncovered himself”. His son Ham, to whom the text repeatedly refers as the father of Canaan, tells his two brothers of their father’s indecent exposure. The two, Shem and Japheth, immediately take a cloth and cover their father while looking in the other direction. Later, when Noah recovered from his drunkenness, he realized what had happened and proceeds to curse Canaan, the son of Ham, and to bless Shem and Yapheth.

Now, Ham’s behavior in failing to protect his father’s dignity and in shamelessly bruiting about what he had seen was certainly reprehensible. This kind of behavior flies in the face of Jewish tradition which places great emphasis on the honoring of one’s parents (it is one of the Ten Commandments) and on avoiding gossip (see Leviticus 19:16 and commentaries). Nevertheless, it is unlikely that such a curse could have been imposed for this reason alone. Rather, as most commentators point out, it is more likely that Ham was cursed because of some immoral act that he committed while seeing his father naked, the details of which the Torah did not wish to mention. Indeed, some commentaries maintain that Ham castrated his father while others claim that he committed sodomy. Furthermore, the fact that he chose to curse Ham’s son, Canaan, and not the perpetrator himself is the Torah’s way of conveying to the reader the corrupt tendencies among the Canaanites, who eventually came to occupy the land bearing their name.

B. This text tells us about two cities which have become the universal symbols of evil, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah which were located on the Eastern border of the original territory of Canaan (see Genesis 10:19-20). Two angels in the form of human beings appeared at the home of Lot, the nephew of Abraham. Upon Lot’s insistence, they entered his home, where he proceeded to welcome them with open arms and to prepare a feast in their honor. Before the angels had a chance to lie down, however, “the townspeople, the men of Sodom, young and old – all the people to he last man – gathered about the house” and ordered Lot to bring his guests out “that we may be intimate (a reference to homosexual rape) with them”.  When Lot shut his door and begged them to back off, offering his own daughters instead, they responded viciously “Stand back! The fellow (Lot)… came here as an alien, and already he acts the ruler! Now we will deal worse with you than with them”.

What is remarkable in this story is not just the extent of the perversion and cruelty but also the fact that it involved every single male citizen of the city – “all the people to the last man”. There was not a single voice of dissent, not a single voice of decency, among them. Thus, it appears that such abhorrent behavior was a dominant feature within Sodomite and Gomorrite culture. It is therefore not surprising that the word “sodomize” became associated in contemporary jargon with sexual perversion of the worst kind.

C. This text spells out in detail the rules of incest as well as other forbidden sexual unions. Included also is the prohibition against offering children to “Molech”, the name of a deity. In other words, the Torah prohibits child sacrifice in the strongest possible terms. But why was it necessary to list prohibitions which should have seemed obvious to a people who encountered God at Sinai and who understood the general thrust of the Torah’s laws? “For it is by such that the nations that I am casting out before you defiled themselves”. The nations that inhabited the Land adopted such abhorrent practices and the danger is that, upon entering the Land, the People of Israel will follow their lead and compromise their own ethical and religious standards.

D. The Torah here warns against imitating the abhorrent practices of the nations that inhabit the Land. What are some of these practices? Included are the consigning of sons and daughter to the fire – probably another allusion to child sacrifice, various types of divination, sorcery and magic as well as consulting of ghosts and inquiring of the dead. Indeed, this text tells us explicitly that it is because of these “abhorrent things that the Lord your God is dispossessing them before you.”

Thus, these examples should suffice to show the moral grounds upon which God revoked the territorial rights of the inhabitants of the Land and allowed the People of Israel to finally take possession of the Land that was promised to them long, long ago.

But as we saw in the previous lesson, the problem was that just when the Land was ready for the people, they were not ready for it. Their violation of all reasonable ethical and religious norms made them unworthy of the Land. Thus, the journey had to wait another 40 years until a new generation would emerge unfettered by the psychological shackles of Egyptian slavery. By this time the journey can now resume without interruption. Or can it?

Unfortunately, the Torah is not Hollywood. There is very little in the way of happy endings (shockingly little!). Just when we think all is in place for their swift journey and entry into the Land they come across more obstacles, once again of an ethical nature.

Text Study 2 – to be studied in chevruta

1. Read Numbers 20:14. What does Moses request from the king of Edom?
2. Find Kadesh (also known as Kadesh-barnea), the town where the people are located, and the land of Edom on the map. What is strange about the route that they are choosing to go toward the Land of Israel?
3. Read Numbers 14:39-45. How might this text help solve the geographical problem?
4. What is the tactic that Moses employs in order to elicit a favorable reply? What assurances did he give?
5. See Genesis 36: 1,8,9,19,43. What is the relationship between the People of Israel and Edom? How might that help explain Moses’ tactic?
6. Read the continuation of the story in verses 18-21. How did the king of Edom respond to the request?
7. What additional assurances did the people give?
8. How did the king of Edom react this time?
9. How did the people respond? Try to explain this response. See Deuteronomy 2:4-5. How might this text help explain the response of the people?
10. Look at the map. What are the ramifications of this response?
11. Try to evaluate this entire episode from an ethical point of view

Suggested Answers

1. Moses requests permission to pass through the land of Edom on the way to the Land of Israel.
2. As the maps indicates, Kadesh (or Kadesh Barnea) is in the southern border of the Land of Canaan. Edom is to the East in Transjordan. It is bizarre that they want to move eastward through Edom in order to go north past the Dead Sea and then enter the Land from the east, when they could have much more easily entered directly from the south!
3. This problem can be (at least partially) solved by this brief episode. Immediately following the sin of the scouts and after God dictated the terms of the punishment the people, in a desperate attempt to reverse their fortunes, proceed northward to take on the Amalekites and Canaanites. The result was disastrous; they were dealt a shattering blow.

It may be that the vivid and frightening memory of their complete devastation at the hands of these nations in the north was enough to scare them away from that direction altogether. Indeed, we must keep in mind that this was the very first battle that they fought as a people (as opposed to the earlier battle against Amalek which was fought by a few. See Exodus 17:8-13 and our introduction to Lesson 3.)  The scars of this particular war were likely to traumatize the people for a very long time to come. Thus, Moses must have figured that, although the route through Edom was circuitous, the people would be willing to go the extra mile (actually many miles) to avoid the kind of “beating” that had been delivered by the nations to the north. This is especially true given the blood relationship between the two peoples that we will discuss shortly.

• Moses approaches the king of Edom as the ultimate diplomat. He refers to the People of Israel as Edom’s “brother”, tells him the people’s sob story about their suffering in Egypt and their miraculous deliverance by God, and assures him that they will not pass through fields and vineyards nor will they drink any water from the wells. They will walk along the highway and not veer in any other direction. Thus, Edom has nothing to lose and should have no cause for concern.

The truth is that this appeal wasn’t purely diplomacy. As the texts in Genesis indicate, Edom is the descendant of Esau, the brother of Jacob/Israel; indeed, as the texts emphasize, Edom is virtually synonymous with Esau because Esau’s descendants eventually settled in the Land of Edom. Thus, Moses was appealing to Edom’s sense of brotherhood, quite literally.

Now, given the fact that according to the Torah’s account the People of Israel must have numbered at least a million (There were roughly 600,000 men over 20 according to Numbers 26:51. If we add the women and the children the number was probably closer to two million.), that is an awfully large number of people trekking through Edom. Quite frankly, I find it hard to imagine that many people traveling on foot in one place and at one time anywhere (Imagine if they were traveling by car. What a gridlock nightmare!). If they were going through my country, I am sure that I would be deeply concerned about potential rowdiness, litter, the attention these people would draw, the disruption of life and the economy, and the general spectacle of it all. But again I imagine I would react differently if these people were my own kin, even if they numbered a couple of million.

6-9. Despite the sincere and passionate appeals and assurances of Moses, the king of Edom adamantly refuses to grant Moses’ request. Not only that; he warns Moses that if they try and defy him they will pay a heavy price: “we will go against you with the sword.” Now we don’t know why the king of Edom was so adamantly opposed to this idea and why he was so abrupt in his reply. Perhaps he was afraid that Moses was deceiving him and that once the people gain a foothold into his land they will try to conquer it. Indeed, he may have had good reason to fear such deception. Wasn’t it Moses’ ancestor Jacob who deceived his ancestor Esau out of the blessing? Alternatively, there may have been a longstanding resentment and bitterness about the whole affair that became embedded in Edomite culture. Perhaps the king was concerned about the geo-political implications of an Israelites incursion into Canaan and the way in which it might affect regional political and economic stability?

Whatever his reasons may have been, Moses was apparently convinced that the king’s refusal was not negotiable and so he backs off. Once Moses disappears from the scene, however, the people decide to take matters into their own hands. They figure that if Moses won’t do the work for them they’ll just have do it for themselves. They had had it with traveling through the desert; they had suffered enough. No more nonsense, no more delays. It was time to enter the Land once and for all. Thus, it is the people who appeal to the king of Edom and it is they who try to calm his fears about their intentions. ‘We will keep to the beaten track…if we or our cattle drink your water, we will pay for it.” In other words, not only will they not drink water from the wells; if they do drink, it will be water from the rivers and springs – which cost the people of Edom nothing – and they will pay for it. Thus, not only do they have nothing to lose; they have everything to gain because their economy will be strengthened!

Despite the people’s collective promises and commitments, the king adamantly refuses yet again. This time, however, the king doesn’t merely threaten them; his people begin to attack, and they do so even though the People of Israel had yet to step foot in their land. And how do the people respond? “Israel turned away from them.” They don’t respond to their aggression with aggression, they simply walk away.

10-11. By turning away and not attempting to enter Edom by force, the People put themselves in a position in which they would have to go all the way down to Eilat and then loop around Edom to its east and then head northward. In other words, instead of a journey of roughly 70 miles through Edom, they had to go around Edom roughly 200 miles on foot, in the hot desert sun, where they had already languished for 40 miserable years.

Given the consequences, we may wonder: why didn’t they respond aggressively and fight when they were under attack? Perhaps, as we mentioned with regard to their avoidance of the direct northern route, it was because they were unprepared, both physically and emotionally, to fight. But were they prepared to walk another 130 miles in the desert?? At some point it must have dawned upon them that fighting is inevitable and, if so, now would be a pretty good time to start. Or perhaps it was due to the fact that these people were their brothers and, despite Edom’s aggression toward them, they refused to respond in kind, on moral and ethical grounds. Brothers don’t fight brothers.

There may yet have been another consideration. According to the text in Deuteronomy, Edom wasn’t just the land where Esau’s descendants chose to settle; it was the land that God had given them as a possession. (Se’ir is more or less synonymous with Edom. See Genesis 32:4, 36:8-9 and others.) Thus, invading their territory, no matter how militant and aggressive were its inhabitants, would have been a violation of the territorial rights assigned to them by God. In other words, although the focus of the Torah and of the People of Israel was on the journey to their Promised Land, they were not the only people promised a land of their own. Not only was God unwilling to usurp the territorial rights of other nations in order to fulfill His promise to His chosen people (unless they had forfeited them on their own, as we mentioned above); on certain occasions He even grants them those rights.    

Thus, the avoidance of a confrontation with the Edomites may have stemmed not merely from practical and military considerations but from ethical considerations as well. Now, while it may seem obvious to us in Western society today (Unfortunately, I have to emphasize Western and today) that the territorial rights of sovereign nations ought to be respected. But for a people who received a divine promise that they were to inherit a land of their own, only to suffer oppression and slavery for 400 years in a foreign land, then another 40 in the desert, and then, when facing the prospect of another extended delay because the people along the way denied them permission to travel through their land, to have maintained their moral and ethical integrity by respecting those people’s territorial rights, was nothing short of remarkable.

Nevertheless, in the following story we will see how the People of Israel didn’t always react in quite the same manner.

Text Study 3

1. Read Numbers 21:21-26. Locate the route that the people followed toward the Land of Israel after their unsuccessful encounter with Edom. What was the geographical significance of the Amorite kingdom?
2. What are the similarities and the differences between the request of Sihon the Amorite king and the earlier request of the king of Edom?
3. What is the difference between the way in which the people responded to the aggression of Edomites and the Amorites?
4. How can we explain this difference?

Suggested Answers

1. As the map illustrates, the people skirted the land of Edom by going southward to Eilat and then around Edom to the East. Once they reached the northern border of Edom they could not have entered the Land through Moab because of the Dead Sea (as well as other considerations. See Deuteronomy 2:9). Thus, the first place they could have entered the Land was through Amorite territory. Thus, once again, the people had to appeal to the good graces of other countries in order to enter the Promised Land.
2. The similarity is that the same request is made and the same assurances are given. In both stories assurances are given that the People will not veer off into the fields and the vineyards and will not drink water from the wells. Indeed verse 22 is almost a verbatim repetition of Numbers 20:17! Nevertheless, unlike the story of the Edomites, in approaching the Amorites no mention is made of the People’s past sufferings, which makes sense since there was no blood relation with the Amorites. Another difference is that no additional guarantees were offered after the initial refusal as in 20:19, which can be explained by virtue of the fact that, unlike the king of Edom who merely threatened to attack the people if they don’t back off, Sihon the Amorite king proceeded to fight them without any hesitation whatsoever. Thus, in our case there was no time for further negotiations. The third and perhaps the most important difference is the one making the request. As we mentioned above, in the encounter with Edom, it was Moses who made the initial request – “Moses sent messenger (20:14)” and it was the people who intervened only after the initial request failed. Here, however, Moses is absent from the scene from the very beginning and it was the people – “Israel now sent messengers (verse 21)” – who made the initial contact.

3-4. Unlike the encounter with Edom, the people do not back down in the face of Amorite aggression. They respond to the show of force with their own show of force: “But Israel put them to the sword”. But not only do they succeed in overcoming Amorite aggression; they take possession of their land and begin to settle in all their towns.

But why did they fight back on this occasion when they had withdrawn earlier in their encounter with Edom?

The most likely explanation is that they had run out of patience for delays and detours. It was bad enough that they had to travel for 40 years in the desert, and then travel eastward to enter the Land through Transjordan because of their earlier defeat at the hands of the Canaanites and Amalekites, and then to circle Edom after the latter refused them permission to go through their Land, despite their promises and commitments. To be refused once again just when they had finally approached the eastern border of the Land – not merely refused but attacked for having dared to ask permission – was the straw that broke the camel’s back. How much should they have to put up with? How much longer should they have to suffer before they can finally enter the Land that God had promised to their forefathers centuries earlier? How much longer should they have to continue being the victims of hostile and often cruel surroundings, bounced around and stripped of their dignity and self-esteem? Enough is enough. The time had come to fight back instead of backing down, to show some pride instead of being pushed around. If they will die at least they will die fighting and not like sheep to the slaughter.

That they had chosen to fight on this occasion makes even more sense given Moses’ absence from the very beginning. This was the people’s initiative, their very first attempt at assuming responsibility for themselves and taking control of their own destiny. In taking charge of their own affairs and asserting their own independence as a people, backing down in the face of the enemy was simply out of the question. If they were ever going to break out of the slave mentality it would be now that they were being attacked for no good reason. And they would not simply retaliate and then call for a cease fire: they would not lay down their arms until they had conquered all the enemy territory and claimed it as their own.

Now we can begin to appreciate the significance of the people’s response on this occasion. This is a powerful statement by the people that they will not be pushed around anymore. Not only will God stand up for them; they are now prepared to stand up for themselves.

The problem of course is ethics. Does military victory in a defensive war justify the conquest and occupation of another land? While we can understand and perhaps even admire the people’s need to react as they did what does the Torah have to say about it?

A careful reading of verse 26 might provide an answer. In this verse the Torah tells us about the Moabite origins of the city of Heshbon which the People had just conquered from the Amorites. Why is this important? If we were on a tour of the city perhaps we would want to know a little of the city’s history. But this is the Torah and the Torah doesn’t generally concern itself with such historical trivia!

It may be that the Torah is providing this information not just to expand our knowledge of history but to address the ethical question that we just posed. How can the People of Israel justify the conquest of a land that was not assigned to them by God, a land upon which they had no legitimate territorial claims and which belonged to another people? Because the Amorites themselves did not have a legitimate claim to the land since they took it earlier by force from another nation – the Moabites.

In other words, when the Torah emphasizes that the entire episode with the Amorites was solely the initiative of the people it may be subtly hinting that the conquest of Amorite territory was not met with divine approval. But the Torah cannot ignore the reality that was created on the ground and that was not about to be reversed nor can it ignore the circumstances that led to that reality. The People of Israel merely sought safe passage through Amorite territory but ended up conquering the Amorite people and taking possession of their land in a war of self-defense. Thus, a way was found to justify, or apologize for, the situation. The conquest of Amorite territory did not constitute a violation of ethical norms since the Amorites themselves did not have legitimate territorial claims to the land.

Go to the Discussion Board.

What are the roles of religion, history, conquest and settlement in determining the legitimacy of a particular nation’s claim to a particular land? What relevance, if any, may this lesson and this discussion have to the current Arab-Israeli conflict?

Bibliography

Leibowitz, N. (1980), Studies in Bamidbar, Jerusalem: World Zionist Organization, pp. 248-254

Milgrom, J. (1990). JPS Torah Commentary: Numbers, Philadelphia: JPS, pp. 167-169 and 179-181