Sedra 5, Shoftim: Deuteronomy 16:18 – 22:9
Deuteronomy 16 (cont)
16:18 SHOPHTIM VE SHOTRIM TITEN LECHA BE CHOL SHE'AREYCHA ASHER YHVH ELOHEYCHA NOTEN LECHA LI SHEVATEYCHA VE SHAPHTU ET HA AM MISHPAT TSEDEK
שֹׁפְטִים וְשֹׁטְרִים תִּתֶּן לְךָ בְּכָל שְׁעָרֶיךָ אֲשֶׁר יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ נֹתֵן לְךָ לִשְׁבָטֶיךָ וְשָׁפְטוּ אֶת הָעָם מִשְׁפַּט צֶדֶק
KJ (King James translation): Judges and officers shalt thou make thee in all thy gates, which the LORD thy God giveth thee, throughout thy tribes: and they shall judge the people with just judgment.
BN (BibleNet translation): You shall appoint judges and officials for yourselves, in all your gates which YHVH your god is giving you, tribe by tribe; and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment.
SHOTRIM: We learn more about the political and social structures from this, but it is not absolutely clear what we are being told. SHOPHTIM is straightforward: Judges, as in the book of that name. Though where are the courts of law, the closed doors, the formal benches? There were none. Justice in Mosheh's time took place in the Ohel Mo'ed; once the people were established in Yisra-El, it was carried out in the main square, which was always the plaza (the RECHOV - רחב - or "wide-place", now used to mean any street) immediately inside the main city gate.
But SHOTRIM is not so straghtforward. The root is SHATAR, and it is highly probable that the English "Star Chamber" came from this root. Did I hear you say "what!" and "pardon". When the Jews were first in England, as the financiers of the Norman Conquest, and the required money-lenders for the building of churches, castles and a good deal of the running of the economy in Plantagenet England (the Catholic church didn't allow money-lending by Christians), the king established the Exchequer of the Jews, and appointed a group of officials from the Jewish community to administer it; they were known, by their Hebrew title, as the Shetar, and the room in which they met was mispronounced by the English as the "Star Chamber". When the Jews were expelled in 1290, the Exchequer remained the locus of wealth-collection, and kept the name, with its Chancellor, though it later acquired the addtitional name "The Treasury" when Elizabethan pirates began handing over the wealth they had stolen from the Spanish galleons.
So the probability is that this verse is establishing something of the same order, a group of "officials", not "officers", in the sense of civil servants and city administrators. But if the KJ translation is correct, then these are "officers" in the sense of sentries and security guards, the military or the civilian police - and the modern Ivrit word for "police" is... MISHTARAH (מִשׁטָרָה). So it could be either.
16:19 LO TATEH MISHPAT LO TAKIR PANIM VE LO TIKACH SHOCHAD KI HA SHOCHAD YE'AVER EYNEY CHACHAMIM VIYSALEPH DIVREY TSADIKIM
KJ: Thou shalt not wrest judgment; thou shalt not respect persons, neither take a gift: for a gift doth blind the eyes of the wise, and pervert the words of the righteous.
BN: You shall not wrest judgment. You shall not show favour to anyone in passing judgment, nor may you take gifts; for a gift blinds the eyes of the wise, and perverts the words of the righteous.
LO TATEH MISHPAT: The concept of "just weights and just measures" (Leviticus 19:35/36, and later repeated in Deuteronomy 25:15; see also Proverbs 11:1.
לֹא תַטֶּה מִשְׁפָּט לֹא תַכִּיר פָּנִים וְלֹא תִקַּח שֹׁחַד כִּי הַשֹּׁחַד יְעַוֵּר עֵינֵי חֲכָמִים וִיסַלֵּף דִּבְרֵי צַדִּיקִם
KJ: Thou shalt not wrest judgment; thou shalt not respect persons, neither take a gift: for a gift doth blind the eyes of the wise, and pervert the words of the righteous.
BN: You shall not wrest judgment. You shall not show favour to anyone in passing judgment, nor may you take gifts; for a gift blinds the eyes of the wise, and perverts the words of the righteous.
LO TATEH MISHPAT: The concept of "just weights and just measures" (Leviticus 19:35/36, and later repeated in Deuteronomy 25:15; see also Proverbs 11:1.
LO TAKIR PANIM: See my note to Deuteronomy 1:17, where this instruction was previously given.
SHOCHAD: translated as "gift" but understood as "bribe".
16:20 TSEDEK TSEDEK TIRDOPH LEMA'AN TICHEYEH VE YARASHTA ET HA ARETS ASHER YHVH ELOHEYCHA NOTEN LACH
KJ: That which is altogether just shalt thou follow, that thou mayest live, and inherit the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
BN: "Justice, justice" shall you be your rallying-cry, so that you may live, and inherit the land which YHVH your god is giving you.
SHOCHAD: translated as "gift" but understood as "bribe".
16:20 TSEDEK TSEDEK TIRDOPH LEMA'AN TICHEYEH VE YARASHTA ET HA ARETS ASHER YHVH ELOHEYCHA NOTEN LACH
צֶדֶק צֶדֶק תִּרְדֹּף לְמַעַן תִּחְיֶה וְיָרַשְׁתָּ אֶת הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ נֹתֵן לָךְ
KJ: That which is altogether just shalt thou follow, that thou mayest live, and inherit the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
BN: "Justice, justice" shall you be your rallying-cry, so that you may live, and inherit the land which YHVH your god is giving you.
samech break
16:21 LO TITA LECHA ASHERAH KOL EYTS ETSEL MIZBACH YHVH ELOHEYCHA ASHER TA'ASEH LACH
KJ: Thou shalt not plant thee a grove of any trees near unto the altar of the LORD thy God, which thou shalt make thee.
BN: You shall not plant for yourselves an Asherah, made from any kind of tree, in the vicinity of the altar of YHVH your god, which you shall make for yourselves.
ASHERAH: See the link.
16:21 LO TITA LECHA ASHERAH KOL EYTS ETSEL MIZBACH YHVH ELOHEYCHA ASHER TA'ASEH LACH
לֹא תִטַּע לְךָ אֲשֵׁרָה כָּל עֵץ אֵצֶל מִזְבַּח יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ אֲשֶׁר תַּעֲשֶׂה לָּךְ
BN: You shall not plant for yourselves an Asherah, made from any kind of tree, in the vicinity of the altar of YHVH your god, which you shall make for yourselves.
ASHERAH: See the link.
MIZBACH: Sometimes we are given MIZBACH, at others MIZBEYACH, both meaning altar; I think we have to assume that the two reflect changes in spelling over a period of time while retaining the identical meaning.
Is it just me or is there an inference here that the altar is a type of Asherah and the Asherah a type of altar? To which the answer lies in the phrase "made from any kind of tree"; because the original altar was made from clay, not wood (Exodus 20 - start at verse 19 in my version; verse 23 in some Christian translations), though the possibility of unhewn stone was included in the permission. 2 Chronicles 4:1, however, has Shelomoh making the altar for the First Temple out of NECHOSHET, which is usually reckoned to be bronze. I Kings 8:64 confirms this.
Is it just me or is there an inference here that the altar is a type of Asherah and the Asherah a type of altar? To which the answer lies in the phrase "made from any kind of tree"; because the original altar was made from clay, not wood (Exodus 20 - start at verse 19 in my version; verse 23 in some Christian translations), though the possibility of unhewn stone was included in the permission. 2 Chronicles 4:1, however, has Shelomoh making the altar for the First Temple out of NECHOSHET, which is usually reckoned to be bronze. I Kings 8:64 confirms this.
BUT - and this is where, yet again, we seem to have more than one text, and disagreements between them, Exodus 20 in contradicted by Exodus 25, which has virtually everything of holy usage (including the Ark, though not the altar, though v23 has a table...) made out of acacia wood, for which see in particular my notes at 25:5, which explain the significance of acacia among the non Yisra-Eli cults, and especially those for whom the Asherah provided the central pillar in their natural temple. And just to make this more contradictory, Exodus 30 does have an altar, and it is made of acacia-wood (though it is only to be used for burning incense). And there are several more references to acacia in Exodus 35 and afterwards.
The text says "you shall not plant" an Asherah, though TIT'A could just as correctly be translated as "set up", so it could be a manufactured object on a stand or an actual tree grown in the soil, and there will be several objects in the close proximity of the earth-altar or the stone-altar or the bronze-altar which will be made of acacia, and, depending obviously on their shape, and use, and purpose, could easily be mistaken for, or misunderstood as...
16:22 VE LO TAKIM LECHA MATSEVAH ASHER SAN'E YHVH ELOHEYCHA
וְלֹא תָקִים לְךָ מַצֵּבָה אֲשֶׁר שָׂנֵא יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ
KJ: Neither shalt thou set thee up any image; which the LORD thy God hateth.
BN: Nor shall you set up an obelisk or totem-pole for yourselves, which YHVH your god hates.
MATSEVA: "Image", like "Pillar" in other translations of this verse, simply fails to convey the intention. The Matseva was either an obelisk in the Egyptian style, a massive carved stele with both inscriptions and figurative carvings all along it, and probably a hero, god or ruler enstatued on the top; or a totem pole, of the sort that we would recognise from early Central American culture. What is probably intended here - if this text does belong to the Second Temple period as seems likely - is the original Tsi'un, the great obelisk to Moloch that crowned the Hill of Tsi'on in the days before David conquered the city and tore it down. The Matseva is thus the masculine version of the Asherah.
Deuteronomy 1 2 3a 3b 4 5 6 7a 7b 8 9 10 11a 11b 12 13 14 15 16a 16b 17 18 19 20 21a 21b 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29a 29b 30 31 32 33 34
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