Cherith
March 27th 2004, 04:37 PM
If Jewish descent is passed through the mother, they [Christians] ask, how is it that Moses' children could be Jewish when their mother was a gentile?
A better question would be to ask why Moses' marriage to a gentile woman wasn't held against him since the Torah prohibits intermarriage.
Deuteronomy 7:3 Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. (KJV)
While this may seem like answering a question with a question, it is necessary to draw attention to this issue. Moses' marriage to Zipporah was not a sin because the commandment prohibiting intermarriage had not yet been given. As such, the declaration of which parent decides Jewish status was not made until the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. To prove this, we need an example that shows Jewish descent through the mother that took place after the giving of the Torah. Providing this example is easily done:
Ezra 10:3 Now therefore let us make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives, and such as are born of them, according to the counsel of my lord, and of those that tremble at the commandment of our God; and let it be done according to the law. (KJV)
In the Hebrew text of Ezra, the last word in this verse, "law," is the word "Torah." ...
The Torah prohibits Jews from marrying gentiles. The Torah further teaches that if a Jewish man marries a gentile woman, he must divorce her, send her away, and send the children who resulted from this illegal union as well.
This last part is critical.
The wife had to be divorced and the children sent away with the mother.
Hashem wants the Jews to do what the Torah says. If the father determines whether or not the child is Jewish, what sense does it make to send Jewish children away from the Jewish people, where those children will be taught how to properly fulfill their responsibilities?
Now, if Jewish descent is passed on through the mother, then this passage makes complete sense. A father has no obligation to bring up a gentile child as a Jew. A non-Jewish child in his home could thus potentially be a bad influence on Jewish children. For example, little Yosef will be asking his daddy why his brother John is allowed to eat bacon but Yosef is not.
The only logical answer based on this biblical evidence is that the mother determines who is a Jew, and that this has been the case since the Jewish people stood at Sinai and Moses declared the Torah which Hashem had given him.
SOURCE: http://messiahtruth.com/descent.html
Since this repeatedly comes up, I thought I would post some of the relevant O.T. scriptures on marriage/intermarriage.
--Exo 34:11-16 "Obey what I Command you today. I will drive out before you the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. {12} Be careful NØT to make a treaty with those who live in the land where you are going, or they will be a snare among you. ...{15} "Be careful NØT to make a treaty with those who live in the land; for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you and you will eat their sacrifices. {16} And when you choose some of their daughters as wives for your sons and those daughters prostitute themselves to their gods, they will lead your sons to do the same."
--Lev 22:12-13 "If a priest's daughter marries anyone other than a priest, she may not eat any of the sacred contributions. {13} But if a priest's daughter becomes a widow or is divorced, yet has no children, and she returns to live in her father's house as in her youth, she may eat of her father's food. No unauthorized person, however, may eat any of it."
--Num 36:2-13 "They said, "When The LORD commanded my lord to give the land as an inheritance to the Israelites by lot, he ordered you to give the inheritance of our brother Zelophehad to his daughters. {3} Now suppose they marry men from other Israelite tribes; then their inheritance will be taken from our ancestral inheritance and added to that of the tribe they marry into. And so part of the inheritance allotted to us will be taken away. {4} When the Year of Jubilee for the Israelites comes, their inheritance will be added to that of the tribe into which they marry, and their property will be taken from the tribal inheritance of our forefathers." {5} Then at The Lord's Command Moses gave this order to the Israelites: "What the tribe of the descendants of Joseph is saying is right. {6} This is what The LORD Commands for Zelophehad's daughters: They may marry anyone they please as long as they marry within the tribal clan of their father. {7} No inheritance in Israel is to pass from tribe to tribe, for every Israelite shall keep the tribal land inherited from his forefathers. {8} Every daughter who inherits land in any Israelite tribe MUST marry someone in her father's tribal clan, so that every Israelite will possess the inheritance of his fathers. {9} No inheritance may pass from tribe to tribe, for each Israelite tribe is to keep the land it inherits." {10} So Zelophehad's daughters did as the LORD commanded Moses. {11} Zelophehad's daughters--Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah and Noah--married their cousins on their father's side. {12} They married within the clans of the descendants of Manasseh son of Joseph, and their inheritance remained in their father's clan and tribe. {13} These are The Commands and Regulations The LORD Gave through Moses to the Israelites on the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho."
--Deu 7:1-12 "When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations--the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you-- {2} and when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. {3} Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, {4} for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, and the Lord's anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. {5} This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire. {6} For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession. {7} The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. {8} But it was because the LORD loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. {9} Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands. {10} But those who hate him he will repay to their face by destruction; he will not be slow to repay to their face those who hate him. {11} Therefore, take care to follow the commands, decrees and laws I give you today. {12} If you pay attention to these laws and are careful to follow them, then the LORD your God will keep his covenant of love with you, as he swore to your forefathers."
--Deu 17:14-20 "When you enter the land the LORD your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, "Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us," {15} be sure to appoint over you the king the LORD your God chooses. He must be from among your own brothers. Do NØT place a foreigner over you, one who is not a brother Israelite. {16} The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the LORD has told you, "You are not to go back that way again." {17} He must NØT take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold. {18} When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the priests, who are Levites. {19} It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the LORD his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees {20} and not consider himself better than his brothers and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel."
--Deu 21:15-17 "If a man has two wives, and he loves one but not the other, and both bear him sons but the firstborn is the son of the wife he does not love, {16} when he wills his property to his sons, he must not give the rights of the firstborn to the son of the wife he loves in preference to his actual firstborn, the son of the wife he does not love. {17} He must acknowledge the son of his unloved wife as the firstborn by giving him a double share of all he has. That son is the first sign of his father's strength. The right of the firstborn belongs to him."
--Deu 25:5-10 "If brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son, his widow must NØT marry outside the family. Her husband's brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to her. {6} The first son she bears shall carry on the name of the dead brother so that his name will not be blotted out from Israel. {7} However, if a man does not want to marry his brother's wife, she shall go to the elders at the town gate and say, "My husband's brother refuses to carry on his brother's name in Israel. He will not fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to me." {8} Then the elders of his town shall summon him and talk to him. If he persists in saying, "I do not want to marry her," {9} his brother's widow shall go up to him in the presence of the elders, take off one of his sandals, spit in his face and say, "This is what is done to the man who will not build up his brother's family line." {10} That man's line shall be known in Israel as The Family of the Unsandaled."
--Deu 29:10-29 "All of you are standing today in the presence of the LORD your God--your leaders and chief men, your elders and officials, and all the other men of Israel, {11} together with your children and your wives, and the aliens living in your camps who chop your wood and carry your water. {12} You are standing here in order to enter into a covenant with the LORD your God, a covenant the LORD is making with you this day and sealing with an oath, {13} to confirm you this day as his people, that he may be your God as he promised you and as he swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. {14} I am making this covenant, with its oath, not only with you {15} who are standing here with us today in the presence of the LORD our God but also with those who are not here today. {16} You yourselves know how we lived in Egypt and how we passed through the countries on the way here. {17} You saw among them their detestable images and idols of wood and stone, of silver and gold. {18} Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the LORD our God to go and worship the gods of those nations; make sure there is no root among you that produces such bitter poison. {19} When such a person hears the words of this oath, he invokes a blessing on himself and therefore thinks, "I will be safe, even though I persist in going my own way." This will bring disaster on the watered land as well as the dry. {20} The LORD will never be willing to forgive him; his wrath and zeal will burn against that man. All the curses written in this book will fall upon him, and the LORD will blot out his name from under heaven. {21} The LORD will single him out from all the tribes of Israel for disaster, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this Book of the Law. {22} Your children who follow you in later generations and foreigners who come from distant lands will see the calamities that have fallen on the land and the diseases with which the LORD has afflicted it. {23} The whole land will be a burning waste of salt and sulfur--nothing planted, nothing sprouting, no vegetation growing on it. It will be like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the LORD overthrew in fierce anger. {24} All the nations will ask: "Why has the LORD done this to this land? Why this fierce, burning anger?" {25} And the answer will be: "It is because this people abandoned the covenant of the LORD, the God of their fathers, the covenant he made with them when he brought them out of Egypt. {26} They went off and worshiped other gods and bowed down to them, gods they did not know, gods he had not given them. {27} Therefore the Lord's anger burned against this land, so that he brought on it all the curses written in this book. {28} In furious anger and in great wrath the LORD uprooted them from their land and thrust them into another land, as it is now." {29} The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law."
--Josh 23:12-13 ""But if you turn away and ally yourselves with the survivors of these nations that remain among you and if you intermarry with them and associate with them, {13} then you may be sure that the LORD your God will no longer drive out these nations before you. Instead, they will become snares and traps for you, whips on your backs and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land, which the LORD your God has given you."
--Judg 3:1-8 "These are the nations the LORD left to test all those Israelites who had not experienced any of the wars in Canaan {2} (he did this only to teach warfare to the descendants of the Israelites who had not had previous battle experience): {3} the five rulers of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites living in the Lebanon mountains from Mount Baal Hermon to Lebo Hamath. {4} They were left to test the Israelites to see whether they would obey the Lord's commands, which he had given their forefathers through Moses. {5} The Israelites lived among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. {6} They took their daughters in marriage and gave their own daughters to their sons, and served their gods. {7} The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD; they forgot the LORD their God and served the Baals and the Asherahs. {8} The anger of the LORD burned against Israel so that he sold them into the hands of Cushan-Rishathaim king of Aram Naharaim, to whom the Israelites were subject for eight years."
--Judg 21:6-23 "Now the Israelites grieved for their brothers, the Benjamites. "Today one tribe is cut off from Israel," they said. {7} "How can we provide wives for those who are left, since we have taken an oath by the LORD not to give them any of our daughters in marriage?" {8} Then they asked, "Which one of the tribes of Israel failed to assemble before the LORD at Mizpah?" They discovered that no one from Jabesh Gilead had come to the camp for the assembly. {9} For when they counted the people, they found that none of the people of Jabesh Gilead were there. {10} So the assembly sent twelve thousand fighting men with instructions to go to Jabesh Gilead and put to the sword those living there, including the women and children. {11} "This is what you are to do," they said. "Kill every male and every woman who is not a virgin." {12} They found among the people living in Jabesh Gilead four hundred young women who had never slept with a man, and they took them to the camp at Shiloh in Canaan. {13} Then the whole assembly sent an offer of peace to the Benjamites at the rock of Rimmon. {14} So the Benjamites returned at that time and were given the women of Jabesh Gilead who had been spared. But there were not enough for all of them. {15} The people grieved for Benjamin, because the LORD had made a gap in the tribes of Israel. {16} And the elders of the assembly said, "With the women of Benjamin destroyed, how shall we provide wives for the men who are left? {17} The Benjamite survivors must have heirs," they said, "so that a tribe of Israel will not be wiped out. {18} We can't give them our daughters as wives, since we Israelites have taken this oath: 'Cursed be anyone who gives a wife to a Benjamite.' {19} But look, there is the annual festival of the LORD in Shiloh, to the north of Bethel, and east of the road that goes from Bethel to Shechem, and to the south of Lebonah." {20} So they instructed the Benjamites, saying, "Go and hide in the vineyards {21} and watch. When the girls of Shiloh come out to join in the dancing, then rush from the vineyards and each of you seize a wife from the girls of Shiloh and go to the land of Benjamin. {22} When their fathers or brothers complain to us, we will say to them, 'Do us a kindness by helping them, because we did not get wives for them during the war, and you are innocent, since you did not give your daughters to them.'" {23} So that is what the Benjamites did. While the girls were dancing, each man caught one and carried her off to be his wife. Then they returned to their inheritance and rebuilt the towns and settled in them."
--1 Ki 11:3-13 "He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray. {4} As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been. {5} He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites. {6} So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the LORD; he did not follow the LORD completely, as David his father had done. {7} On a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable god of Moab, and for Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites. {8} He did the same for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and offered sacrifices to their gods. {9} The LORD became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice. {10} Although he had forbidden Solomon to follow other gods, Solomon did not keep the Lord's command. {11} So the LORD said to Solomon, "Since this is your attitude and you have not kept my covenant and my decrees, which I commanded you, I will most certainly tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your subordinates. {12} Nevertheless, for the sake of David your father, I will not do it during your lifetime. I will tear it out of the hand of your son. {13} Yet I will not tear the whole kingdom from him, but will give him one tribe for the sake of David my servant and for the sake of Jerusalem, which I have chosen.""
--2 Chr 29:6-11 "Our fathers were unfaithful; they did evil in the eyes of the LORD our God and forsook him. They turned their faces away from the Lord's dwelling place and turned their backs on him. {7} They also shut the doors of the portico and put out the lamps. They did not burn incense or present any burnt offerings at the sanctuary to the God of Israel. {8} Therefore, the anger of the LORD has fallen on Judah and Jerusalem; he has made them an object of dread and horror and scorn, as you can see with your own eyes. {9} This is why our fathers have fallen by the sword and why our sons and daughters and our wives are in captivity. {10} Now I intend to make a covenant with the LORD, the God of Israel, so that his fierce anger will turn away from us. {11} My sons, do not be negligent now, for the LORD has chosen you to stand before him and serve him, to minister before him and to burn incense.""
--2 Chr 31:16-20 "In addition, they distributed to the males three years old or more whose names were in the genealogical records--all who would enter the temple of the LORD to perform the daily duties of their various tasks, according to their responsibilities and their divisions. ... {18} They included all the little ones, the wives, and the sons and daughters of the whole community listed in these genealogical records. ..."
--Ezra 9:10-15 ""But now, O our God, what can we say after this? For we have disregarded the commands {11} you gave through your servants the prophets when you said: 'The land you are entering to possess is a land polluted by the corruption of its peoples. By their detestable practices they have filled it with their impurity from one end to the other. {12} Therefore, do not give your daughters in marriage to their sons or take their daughters for your sons. Do not seek a treaty of friendship with them at any time, that you may be strong and eat the good things of the land and leave it to your children as an everlasting inheritance.' {13} "What has happened to us is a result of our evil deeds and our great guilt, and yet, our God, you have punished us less than our sins have deserved and have given us a remnant like this. {14} Shall we again break your commands and intermarry with the peoples who commit such detestable practices? Would you not be angry enough with us to destroy us, leaving us no remnant or survivor? {15} O LORD, God of Israel, you are righteous! We are left this day as a remnant. Here we are before you in our guilt, though because of it not one of us can stand in your presence.""
--Ezra 10:1-3 "While Ezra was praying and confessing, weeping and throwing himself down before the house of God, a large crowd of Israelites--men, women and children--gathered around him. They too wept bitterly. {2} Then Shecaniah son of Jehiel, one of the descendants of Elam, said to Ezra, "We have been unfaithful to our God by marrying foreign women from the peoples around us. ...."
To be continued...
A better question would be to ask why Moses' marriage to a gentile woman wasn't held against him since the Torah prohibits intermarriage.
Deuteronomy 7:3 Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. (KJV)
While this may seem like answering a question with a question, it is necessary to draw attention to this issue. Moses' marriage to Zipporah was not a sin because the commandment prohibiting intermarriage had not yet been given. As such, the declaration of which parent decides Jewish status was not made until the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. To prove this, we need an example that shows Jewish descent through the mother that took place after the giving of the Torah. Providing this example is easily done:
Ezra 10:3 Now therefore let us make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives, and such as are born of them, according to the counsel of my lord, and of those that tremble at the commandment of our God; and let it be done according to the law. (KJV)
In the Hebrew text of Ezra, the last word in this verse, "law," is the word "Torah." ...
The Torah prohibits Jews from marrying gentiles. The Torah further teaches that if a Jewish man marries a gentile woman, he must divorce her, send her away, and send the children who resulted from this illegal union as well.
This last part is critical.
The wife had to be divorced and the children sent away with the mother.
Hashem wants the Jews to do what the Torah says. If the father determines whether or not the child is Jewish, what sense does it make to send Jewish children away from the Jewish people, where those children will be taught how to properly fulfill their responsibilities?
Now, if Jewish descent is passed on through the mother, then this passage makes complete sense. A father has no obligation to bring up a gentile child as a Jew. A non-Jewish child in his home could thus potentially be a bad influence on Jewish children. For example, little Yosef will be asking his daddy why his brother John is allowed to eat bacon but Yosef is not.
The only logical answer based on this biblical evidence is that the mother determines who is a Jew, and that this has been the case since the Jewish people stood at Sinai and Moses declared the Torah which Hashem had given him.
SOURCE: http://messiahtruth.com/descent.html
Since this repeatedly comes up, I thought I would post some of the relevant O.T. scriptures on marriage/intermarriage.
--Exo 34:11-16 "Obey what I Command you today. I will drive out before you the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. {12} Be careful NØT to make a treaty with those who live in the land where you are going, or they will be a snare among you. ...{15} "Be careful NØT to make a treaty with those who live in the land; for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you and you will eat their sacrifices. {16} And when you choose some of their daughters as wives for your sons and those daughters prostitute themselves to their gods, they will lead your sons to do the same."
--Lev 22:12-13 "If a priest's daughter marries anyone other than a priest, she may not eat any of the sacred contributions. {13} But if a priest's daughter becomes a widow or is divorced, yet has no children, and she returns to live in her father's house as in her youth, she may eat of her father's food. No unauthorized person, however, may eat any of it."
--Num 36:2-13 "They said, "When The LORD commanded my lord to give the land as an inheritance to the Israelites by lot, he ordered you to give the inheritance of our brother Zelophehad to his daughters. {3} Now suppose they marry men from other Israelite tribes; then their inheritance will be taken from our ancestral inheritance and added to that of the tribe they marry into. And so part of the inheritance allotted to us will be taken away. {4} When the Year of Jubilee for the Israelites comes, their inheritance will be added to that of the tribe into which they marry, and their property will be taken from the tribal inheritance of our forefathers." {5} Then at The Lord's Command Moses gave this order to the Israelites: "What the tribe of the descendants of Joseph is saying is right. {6} This is what The LORD Commands for Zelophehad's daughters: They may marry anyone they please as long as they marry within the tribal clan of their father. {7} No inheritance in Israel is to pass from tribe to tribe, for every Israelite shall keep the tribal land inherited from his forefathers. {8} Every daughter who inherits land in any Israelite tribe MUST marry someone in her father's tribal clan, so that every Israelite will possess the inheritance of his fathers. {9} No inheritance may pass from tribe to tribe, for each Israelite tribe is to keep the land it inherits." {10} So Zelophehad's daughters did as the LORD commanded Moses. {11} Zelophehad's daughters--Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah and Noah--married their cousins on their father's side. {12} They married within the clans of the descendants of Manasseh son of Joseph, and their inheritance remained in their father's clan and tribe. {13} These are The Commands and Regulations The LORD Gave through Moses to the Israelites on the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho."
--Deu 7:1-12 "When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations--the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you-- {2} and when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. {3} Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, {4} for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, and the Lord's anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. {5} This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire. {6} For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession. {7} The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. {8} But it was because the LORD loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. {9} Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands. {10} But those who hate him he will repay to their face by destruction; he will not be slow to repay to their face those who hate him. {11} Therefore, take care to follow the commands, decrees and laws I give you today. {12} If you pay attention to these laws and are careful to follow them, then the LORD your God will keep his covenant of love with you, as he swore to your forefathers."
--Deu 17:14-20 "When you enter the land the LORD your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, "Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us," {15} be sure to appoint over you the king the LORD your God chooses. He must be from among your own brothers. Do NØT place a foreigner over you, one who is not a brother Israelite. {16} The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the LORD has told you, "You are not to go back that way again." {17} He must NØT take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold. {18} When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the priests, who are Levites. {19} It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the LORD his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees {20} and not consider himself better than his brothers and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel."
--Deu 21:15-17 "If a man has two wives, and he loves one but not the other, and both bear him sons but the firstborn is the son of the wife he does not love, {16} when he wills his property to his sons, he must not give the rights of the firstborn to the son of the wife he loves in preference to his actual firstborn, the son of the wife he does not love. {17} He must acknowledge the son of his unloved wife as the firstborn by giving him a double share of all he has. That son is the first sign of his father's strength. The right of the firstborn belongs to him."
--Deu 25:5-10 "If brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son, his widow must NØT marry outside the family. Her husband's brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to her. {6} The first son she bears shall carry on the name of the dead brother so that his name will not be blotted out from Israel. {7} However, if a man does not want to marry his brother's wife, she shall go to the elders at the town gate and say, "My husband's brother refuses to carry on his brother's name in Israel. He will not fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to me." {8} Then the elders of his town shall summon him and talk to him. If he persists in saying, "I do not want to marry her," {9} his brother's widow shall go up to him in the presence of the elders, take off one of his sandals, spit in his face and say, "This is what is done to the man who will not build up his brother's family line." {10} That man's line shall be known in Israel as The Family of the Unsandaled."
--Deu 29:10-29 "All of you are standing today in the presence of the LORD your God--your leaders and chief men, your elders and officials, and all the other men of Israel, {11} together with your children and your wives, and the aliens living in your camps who chop your wood and carry your water. {12} You are standing here in order to enter into a covenant with the LORD your God, a covenant the LORD is making with you this day and sealing with an oath, {13} to confirm you this day as his people, that he may be your God as he promised you and as he swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. {14} I am making this covenant, with its oath, not only with you {15} who are standing here with us today in the presence of the LORD our God but also with those who are not here today. {16} You yourselves know how we lived in Egypt and how we passed through the countries on the way here. {17} You saw among them their detestable images and idols of wood and stone, of silver and gold. {18} Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the LORD our God to go and worship the gods of those nations; make sure there is no root among you that produces such bitter poison. {19} When such a person hears the words of this oath, he invokes a blessing on himself and therefore thinks, "I will be safe, even though I persist in going my own way." This will bring disaster on the watered land as well as the dry. {20} The LORD will never be willing to forgive him; his wrath and zeal will burn against that man. All the curses written in this book will fall upon him, and the LORD will blot out his name from under heaven. {21} The LORD will single him out from all the tribes of Israel for disaster, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this Book of the Law. {22} Your children who follow you in later generations and foreigners who come from distant lands will see the calamities that have fallen on the land and the diseases with which the LORD has afflicted it. {23} The whole land will be a burning waste of salt and sulfur--nothing planted, nothing sprouting, no vegetation growing on it. It will be like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the LORD overthrew in fierce anger. {24} All the nations will ask: "Why has the LORD done this to this land? Why this fierce, burning anger?" {25} And the answer will be: "It is because this people abandoned the covenant of the LORD, the God of their fathers, the covenant he made with them when he brought them out of Egypt. {26} They went off and worshiped other gods and bowed down to them, gods they did not know, gods he had not given them. {27} Therefore the Lord's anger burned against this land, so that he brought on it all the curses written in this book. {28} In furious anger and in great wrath the LORD uprooted them from their land and thrust them into another land, as it is now." {29} The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law."
--Josh 23:12-13 ""But if you turn away and ally yourselves with the survivors of these nations that remain among you and if you intermarry with them and associate with them, {13} then you may be sure that the LORD your God will no longer drive out these nations before you. Instead, they will become snares and traps for you, whips on your backs and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land, which the LORD your God has given you."
--Judg 3:1-8 "These are the nations the LORD left to test all those Israelites who had not experienced any of the wars in Canaan {2} (he did this only to teach warfare to the descendants of the Israelites who had not had previous battle experience): {3} the five rulers of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites living in the Lebanon mountains from Mount Baal Hermon to Lebo Hamath. {4} They were left to test the Israelites to see whether they would obey the Lord's commands, which he had given their forefathers through Moses. {5} The Israelites lived among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. {6} They took their daughters in marriage and gave their own daughters to their sons, and served their gods. {7} The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD; they forgot the LORD their God and served the Baals and the Asherahs. {8} The anger of the LORD burned against Israel so that he sold them into the hands of Cushan-Rishathaim king of Aram Naharaim, to whom the Israelites were subject for eight years."
--Judg 21:6-23 "Now the Israelites grieved for their brothers, the Benjamites. "Today one tribe is cut off from Israel," they said. {7} "How can we provide wives for those who are left, since we have taken an oath by the LORD not to give them any of our daughters in marriage?" {8} Then they asked, "Which one of the tribes of Israel failed to assemble before the LORD at Mizpah?" They discovered that no one from Jabesh Gilead had come to the camp for the assembly. {9} For when they counted the people, they found that none of the people of Jabesh Gilead were there. {10} So the assembly sent twelve thousand fighting men with instructions to go to Jabesh Gilead and put to the sword those living there, including the women and children. {11} "This is what you are to do," they said. "Kill every male and every woman who is not a virgin." {12} They found among the people living in Jabesh Gilead four hundred young women who had never slept with a man, and they took them to the camp at Shiloh in Canaan. {13} Then the whole assembly sent an offer of peace to the Benjamites at the rock of Rimmon. {14} So the Benjamites returned at that time and were given the women of Jabesh Gilead who had been spared. But there were not enough for all of them. {15} The people grieved for Benjamin, because the LORD had made a gap in the tribes of Israel. {16} And the elders of the assembly said, "With the women of Benjamin destroyed, how shall we provide wives for the men who are left? {17} The Benjamite survivors must have heirs," they said, "so that a tribe of Israel will not be wiped out. {18} We can't give them our daughters as wives, since we Israelites have taken this oath: 'Cursed be anyone who gives a wife to a Benjamite.' {19} But look, there is the annual festival of the LORD in Shiloh, to the north of Bethel, and east of the road that goes from Bethel to Shechem, and to the south of Lebonah." {20} So they instructed the Benjamites, saying, "Go and hide in the vineyards {21} and watch. When the girls of Shiloh come out to join in the dancing, then rush from the vineyards and each of you seize a wife from the girls of Shiloh and go to the land of Benjamin. {22} When their fathers or brothers complain to us, we will say to them, 'Do us a kindness by helping them, because we did not get wives for them during the war, and you are innocent, since you did not give your daughters to them.'" {23} So that is what the Benjamites did. While the girls were dancing, each man caught one and carried her off to be his wife. Then they returned to their inheritance and rebuilt the towns and settled in them."
--1 Ki 11:3-13 "He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray. {4} As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been. {5} He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites. {6} So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the LORD; he did not follow the LORD completely, as David his father had done. {7} On a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable god of Moab, and for Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites. {8} He did the same for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and offered sacrifices to their gods. {9} The LORD became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice. {10} Although he had forbidden Solomon to follow other gods, Solomon did not keep the Lord's command. {11} So the LORD said to Solomon, "Since this is your attitude and you have not kept my covenant and my decrees, which I commanded you, I will most certainly tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your subordinates. {12} Nevertheless, for the sake of David your father, I will not do it during your lifetime. I will tear it out of the hand of your son. {13} Yet I will not tear the whole kingdom from him, but will give him one tribe for the sake of David my servant and for the sake of Jerusalem, which I have chosen.""
--2 Chr 29:6-11 "Our fathers were unfaithful; they did evil in the eyes of the LORD our God and forsook him. They turned their faces away from the Lord's dwelling place and turned their backs on him. {7} They also shut the doors of the portico and put out the lamps. They did not burn incense or present any burnt offerings at the sanctuary to the God of Israel. {8} Therefore, the anger of the LORD has fallen on Judah and Jerusalem; he has made them an object of dread and horror and scorn, as you can see with your own eyes. {9} This is why our fathers have fallen by the sword and why our sons and daughters and our wives are in captivity. {10} Now I intend to make a covenant with the LORD, the God of Israel, so that his fierce anger will turn away from us. {11} My sons, do not be negligent now, for the LORD has chosen you to stand before him and serve him, to minister before him and to burn incense.""
--2 Chr 31:16-20 "In addition, they distributed to the males three years old or more whose names were in the genealogical records--all who would enter the temple of the LORD to perform the daily duties of their various tasks, according to their responsibilities and their divisions. ... {18} They included all the little ones, the wives, and the sons and daughters of the whole community listed in these genealogical records. ..."
--Ezra 9:10-15 ""But now, O our God, what can we say after this? For we have disregarded the commands {11} you gave through your servants the prophets when you said: 'The land you are entering to possess is a land polluted by the corruption of its peoples. By their detestable practices they have filled it with their impurity from one end to the other. {12} Therefore, do not give your daughters in marriage to their sons or take their daughters for your sons. Do not seek a treaty of friendship with them at any time, that you may be strong and eat the good things of the land and leave it to your children as an everlasting inheritance.' {13} "What has happened to us is a result of our evil deeds and our great guilt, and yet, our God, you have punished us less than our sins have deserved and have given us a remnant like this. {14} Shall we again break your commands and intermarry with the peoples who commit such detestable practices? Would you not be angry enough with us to destroy us, leaving us no remnant or survivor? {15} O LORD, God of Israel, you are righteous! We are left this day as a remnant. Here we are before you in our guilt, though because of it not one of us can stand in your presence.""
--Ezra 10:1-3 "While Ezra was praying and confessing, weeping and throwing himself down before the house of God, a large crowd of Israelites--men, women and children--gathered around him. They too wept bitterly. {2} Then Shecaniah son of Jehiel, one of the descendants of Elam, said to Ezra, "We have been unfaithful to our God by marrying foreign women from the peoples around us. ...."
To be continued...