One of the issues worth looking at is how those from other tribes and nations were to be treated. It is unsurprising for people to wish to treat their extended kin relations better than outsiders, but would a god who created all humanity and who is supposed to be all-loving really try to reinforce and promote such an attitude?
- You shall not eat anything that dies of itself; you may give it to aliens residing in your towns for them to eat, or you may sell it to a foreigner. For you are a people holy to the LORD your God.
(Deut. 14:21)
For an animal to “die of itself,” it is dying of old age or disease. Such animals were nasty enough that God had to tell them not to eat such animals themselves — evidently, doing so would contradict their holiness. But such animals were not so nasty that they couldn’t be fed to foreigners — who, presumably, were just as much this god’s creations as the Hebrews.
This is not the only way in which the alleged god taught them to treat outsiders worse than insiders:
- On loans to a foreigner you may charge interest, but on loans to another Israelite you may not charge interest, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all your undertakings in the land that you are about to enter and possess.
(Deut. 23:20)
- When you buy a male Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, but in the seventh he shall go out a free person, without debt.
(Exod. 21:2)
So, we find that charging interest is a bad thing, but only when charged against other tribe members - it’s OK to do it to outsiders. Keeping slaves is OK, but if the slave is another tribesmember, you can only keep him for six years. Foreigners, evidently, can be kept forever.
Once again, none of this is really surprising for the time — every tribal group did such things. Laws like this are very human, and that’s the point. They were human expressions of human prejudices, fears, and xenophobia. Many people have barely progressed beyond it. Some haven’t managed to progress beyond it at all. If we cannot expect better from a god, then it isn’t worth worshipping. So either the laws come from humans who hadn’t learned any better yet, or they come from a god who isn’t worth our time.
