Wednesday, 26 March 2008

• Sabatical

  Hello again~
  

  
  

  Lent was an interesting time and I've been fairly busy lately. Hence why my posts have been languishing as of late. I've been thinking, perhaps it is time to switch up the format again. A friend discussed my QT times and I think perhaps, it would be good to post up my thoughts from my bible readings. I recently purchased an ESV Bible and having read the NIV from cover to cover, I thought it would be an interesting exercise to read the entire ESV as well to compare between the two versions.
  

  
  

  So I was reading through Deuteronomy a couple of days ago when some passages caught my eye. They are as follows:
  

  
  When you besiege a city for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them. You may eat from them, but you shall not cut them down. Are the trees in the field human, that they should be besieged by you? Only the trees that you know are not trees for food you may destroy and cut down, that you may build siege works against the city that makes war with you, until it falls.
  
  

  Deut 20:19-20 (ESV)
  

  
  

  God said not to besiege trees. :chuckles: I dunno, it just seems so funny in some odd sort of way. "Are the trees in the field human that they should be besieged by you?" Such a nuanced stance on resource usage, when God is talking about war. Seriously. I'm trying to think of a modern equivalent... the only thing I can come up with is something like telling people to not eat seeds while a famine is occurring in the land.
  

  
  
  When you go out to war against your enemies, and the LORD your God gives them into your hand and you take them captive, and you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you desire to take her to be your wife, and you bring her home to your house, she shall shave her head and pare her nails. And she shall take off the clothes in which she was captured and shall remain in your house and lament her father and her mother a full month. After that you may go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife. But if you no longer delight in her, you shall let her go where she wants. But you shall not sell her for money, nor shall you treat her as a slave, since you have humiliated her.
  
  

  Deut 21:10-14 (ESV)
  

  
  

  God wrote a law in regards to captive women. That surprised me. Maybe I'm just a chauvinist and God is poking me. That wouldn't surprise me. Just like Him... But regardless... the mental picture that comes with this passage is just surprising. God is the god of the captives. She has the right to mourn her dead. After you have freed this captive and raised her to a position of authority in your household as your wife, you cannot take the authority or rights back. You cannot reverse things and make her a slave again. It seems to me that God is concerned with the foreigners... I wonder what He would think of the US immigration policies?
  

  
  Do you think I can make it?
  I think someone is pranking me. I got an email the other day.
  ===
  Fighting like an old couple might be a good thing??
  Pluralism goes off the deep end.
  Voodoo meets modern interior deco
  Sleep positions & personality
  Is your chocolate fueling child labor?
  Technology, generation gap, and love meet.
  The Manga Bible!
  The Mom song
  Suicide Bombers, Halo, and an ohh... moment
  

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