BLOOD-GUILT (DEUT.21)
Now suppose the body of a murder victim is found in a field in the land that Yahuah your Alahim is giving you, and no one knows who the murderer is. THE ISSUE IS NOT ABOUT FINDING THE KILLER AND BRINGING HIM TO JUSTICE, RATHER ABOUT WHAT TO DO ABOUT THE VERY SERIOUS PROBLEM OF THE BLOOD-GUILT THAT NOW RESTS UPON THE LAND AND UPON THE PEOPLE OF THE LOCAL COMMUNITY. UNSOLVED MURDER BROUGHT TERRIBLY SERIOUS NEGATIVE SPIRITUAL EFFECTS UPON THE TOWN CLOSEST TO THE PLACE WHERE THE VICTIM’S BODY WAS FOUND BECAUSE THE WICKEDNESS OF BLOOD-GUILT (OR BETTER, THE CONDITION OR STATUS OF HAVING BLOOD-GUILT) HAS BEEN LAID UPON YISHARAL AS A RESULT OF THIS UNSOLVED MURDER.
So the judges and other leaders from the towns around there must find out what town is the closest to where the body was found. Then the leaders from that town will go to their cattle herds and choose a young cow that has never been put to work. Then they and some of the priests will take this cow to a nearby valley where there is a stream, but no crops, and once they reach the valley, the leaders will break the cow’s neck. (The priests must be there, because Yahuah your Alahim has chosen them to be His special servants at the Tabernacle and to bless the people in His Name and to be judges in all legal cases, whether property or injury is involved).
The town leaders will wash their hands over the body of the dead cow and say, “We are innocent and had no part in this murder, and we don’t know who did it. But since an innocent person was murdered, we beg you Yahuah, to accept this sacrifice and forgive Yisharal. We are your people, and you rescued us, so please don’t hold this crime against us.” And if you obey Yahuah and do these things, He will forgive Yisharal.
THIS HAND WASHING WAS SO COMMON IN ITS MEANING IN THE ANCIENT MIDDLE EAST THAT THIS IS ALMOST CERTAINLY WHAT IT MEANT. RECALL THAT A LONG TIME LATER THE MEANING OF THAT HAND WASHING GESTURE WAS STILL IN EXISTENCE AS WE READ IN MATTHEW OF PONTIUS PILATE DOING A SIMILAR THING IN THE `KANGAROO COURT' CONVENED TO SENTENCE YAHUSHA TO DEATH, WHEN (AS HE WASHES HIS HANDS) HE SAYS TO THE CROWD, “I'M INNOCENT OF THIS MAN’S BLOOD”. TO THIS VERY DAY IT IS A COMMON SAYING ALMOST EVERYWHERE IN THE WORLD THAT WE “WASH OUR HANDS OF THE MATTER” INDICATING OUR INNOCENCE.
THESE RITUAL SACRIFICES BROUGHT ACTUAL, REAL, COMPLETE, UNEQUIVOCAL FORGIVENESS, NOT PARTIAL FORGIVENESS, NOT SOMETHING-LIKE FORGIVENESS. THERE IS NO SUCH CONCEPT AS A CRIME BEING COVERED BUT NOT FORGIVEN IN THE SCRIPTURE. COVERED, ABSOLVED, AND FORGIVEN MEANS THE SAME THING AND IT TRANSLATES THE SAME HEBREW WORD (KAFAR) AND CARRIES THE SAME WEIGHT AND HAS THE SAME EFFECT. THE HEBREWS WHO FOLLOWED THE SACRIFICIAL SYSTEM WERE INDEED FORGIVEN FOR THEIR UNINTENTIONAL CRIMES AGAINST YAHUSHA . . . FULLY !
1 COR 11 BYNV :
From time to time, you men will serve as soldiers and go off to war. Yahuah your Alahim will help you defeat your enemies, and you will take many prisoners. One of these prisoners may be a beautiful woman, and you may want to marry her. But first you must bring her into your home, and have her shave her head, cut her nails, get rid of all her foreign clothes, and start wearing Yisharalite clothes. She may then mourn a month for her father and mother, and then you can marry her. But later on, if you are not happy with the woman, you can divorce her, and she can go free. But because you have consummated the marriage (sex) you cannot sell her as a slave or make her into your own slave. YAHUSHA IS SAYING THAT THE WOMAN MUST LEAVE HER PAST AND FAMILY IN HER REVISION MIRROR. “Truly, I say to you, there’s no one who’s left their house, lands, brothers, sisters, father, mother, even husband or wife to follow Me, who won’t get it all back a hundredfold not just here on earth in their lifetime (along with persecution and pressure of course) but eternal life in the age to come. Of course many who are first will be last, and the last first.” MARK 10 BRS
WE ALSO GET THE SAME INSTRUCTION REGARDING MARRIAGE IN THAT A COUPLE IS TO LEAVE THEIR PARENTS (GIVE UP THEIR PRIMARY IDENTITY AS BEING PART OF THEIR PARENTS’ HOUSEHOLD) AND INSTEAD THE COUPLE IS TO CLEAVE TO ONE ANOTHER (CREATING A NEW IDENTITY AS A MARRIED COUPLE, A SHADOW OF THE INTIMACY YAHUSHA DESIRES WITH HIS BRIDE YISHARAL).
Now suppose a man has two wives and loves one more than the other. The first son of either wife is the man’s first-born son, even if the boy’s mother is the wife the man doesn’t love most. And later, when the man is near death and is dividing up his property, he must still give a double share to his true first-born son, because he was the first to be born, no matter whether the wife was the favourite or not. WE DON’T HAVE TO WORK VERY HARD TO CONJURE UP A MENTAL PICTURE OF ALL OF THIS, DO WE? IN OUR ERA OF DIVORCES BEING COMMON, AND THE STANDARD INCLUSION OF STEP-CHILDREN IN BLENDED FAMILIES, DIVIDING UP ONE’S ATTENTION AMONG THESE CHILDREN OF DIFFERENT FATHERS AND MOTHERS IS TOUGH ENOUGH, BUT YAHUSHA STATES WE ARE TO BE FAIR, TRUTHFUL, HONEST, NOT PLAYING FAVOURITES BUT LOVING AND INSTRUCTING ALL EQUALLY.
A father and a mother may have a stubborn and rebellious son who refuses to obey them even after he has been punished. If a son is like that, his parents must drag him to the town gate, where the leaders of the town hold their meetings. The parents will tell the leaders, “This dead-beat son of ours is lazy, stubborn and never obeys us. He spends all his time drinking and partying.” Then the men of the town will stone that son to death, because they must get rid of the evil he brought into the community. And everyone in Yisharal will be afraid when they hear how he was punished. WE WON’T FIND A SINGLE CASE IN ALL THE SCRIPTURE OF PARENTS TURNING THEIR DEFIANT SONS OVER TO THE ELDERS TO BE EXECUTED. BASICALLY THIS LAW WAS ONLY USED AS A MEANS TO STRIKE FEAR INTO AN INCORRIGIBLE CHILD.
Now if a criminal is put to death, and you hang the dead body on a tree, you must not let it hang there overnight, because anyone hung on a tree is cursed by Yahuah, and likewise the dead body of a criminal will bring Yahuah’s curse on the land if not buried the same day. Don’t forget that Yahuah your Alahim is giving this land to you, so don’t make it unclean by leaving the bodies of executed criminals on display for all to see. DEATH BY EXECUTION WAS UNDERSTOOD TO BE A LEGAL, FORMAL AND FINAL SEPARATION OF A PERSON FROM THE COMMUNITY OF YISHARAL AND WITH THAT UNDERSTANDING LET’S NOW LOOK AT THE WELL-KNOWN VERSE THAT SPEAKS OF THE STATE OF A PERSON WHO IS HANGED AS IT RELATES TO MESSIAH: "Yahusha redeemed us from the Curse of the Law, having become a curse for us, for it’s written, “Anyone hung on a tree is cursed by Yahuah.“ GAL 3 BRS
(REMEMBER THE `CURSE OF THE LAW' WAS A JUDICIAL TERM REFERRING TO THE DEATH PENALTY IN A SACRIFICIAL SYSTEM ONLY DESIGNED TO ATONE FOR UNINTENTIONAL CRIMES).
THE CURSE OF THE LAW
Yahusha took upon himself the Curse of the Law (which is the penalty of death in both the sense of physical death and spiritual separation from the Father) as a redemption payment for us so that WE did not have to face that curse. WHEN PAUL SPEAKS OF THE “CURSE OF THE LAW” IT IS SPEAKING OF ONE THING: DEATH, COMPLETE DEATH, PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL DEATH. THE CURSE OF THE LAW IS DEATH. THE BLESSING OF THE LAW IS LIFE. Another parallel term for this is “the wages of disobedience is death”. You receive the curse of the Law (death) because your crime earned it. You merit, or earn death, because of disobedience. These statements about the "Curse of the Law" and the wages of disobedience are simply two ways of dealing with the same thing.
Yahusha was cursed (the proof of which, says Paul, is that He was indeed hung on a tree). Yahusha’s separation from the community of Yisharal (His physical death), and for a few moments His separation from the Father too, was the sacrificial substitution for what should rightfully happen to us.
It was the Divine Law of Deuteronomy 21 that any executed criminal had to be removed from the death stake by nightfall. That the women hurried to get Yahusha taken off that stake and buried because the Shabath would be ushered in at sunset is true, but secondary to the fact that NOT to do so would have broken the Divine Law just mentioned. Even IF the next day had not been a High Shabath, it was still critical that Messiah’s body be taken off the tree and buried. And what would have been the result if they had not been able to persuade the Romans to cut Yahusha down? The land would have been defiled with blood-guilt and the local community of Jerusalem (these women followers included) would have been saddled with blood-guilt.
It is a truly fascinating and a sad commentary on the depraved state of the Jewish religious leadership of Yahusha’s era, that the priests who watched Him die didn’t seem to care one bit about the Divine Laws given to Moses on this matter; they didn’t care whether this Hebrew man might hang on that pole overnight, thereby soaking everyone and everything in blood-guilt. Rather it was the common-folk who knew what had to be done in order to obey Yahusha, and they did it.
NOW LET'S CONCLUDE WITH THIS FRESH ARTICLE :
