The Riddles of the Torah

The Bible can be a puzzling book. The Torah – the first five books of the Old Testament – is the most archaic portion of the scriptures. According to tradition, these words were written by Moses more than three thousand years ago. The Torah records the foundational events concerning the nation of Israel: their deliverance from bondage in the land of Egypt and the covenant God established with them at Mount Sinai. Through Moses, God imparted to Israel his law, the code of conduct they would need in order to flourish in the promised land.

Some parts of the Torah make perfect sense. For instance, in the ten commandments, we find the prohibition against murder. Most people agree that the intentional destruction of innocent human life is morally wrong. Murder not only extinguishes the life of the victim, but it destroys the fabric of the surrounding society.

But other parts of the Torah seem quite bizarre to the modern reader. One particular passage of the law seems to have attracted an inordinate amount of attention: “Do not plant two kinds of seed in your vineyard; if you do, not only the crops you plant but also the fruit of the vineyard will be defiled. Do not plow with an ox and a donkey yoked together. Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together.” (Deuteronomy 22:9-11)

Why in the world would God prohibit the people of Israel from wearing clothes made of two different kinds of fabrics? And why would the Almighty care if they ploughed their fields with unmatched animals?

Some have attempted to explain these commands on purely practical grounds. An ox has much greater strength and endurance than a donkey. So perhaps the Lord gave this command in order to prevent an arrangement which would be cruel for the poor donkey trying to keep up, as well as inefficient for the farmer. However, such explanations do not get to the root of the issue.

We’ll have a much better understanding of these commands if we learn a bit more about the world of the ancient Israelites.

Led by Moses’ successor Joshua, the children of Israel entered the promised land of Canaan. Like all of Israel’s neighbors in the Ancient Near East, the Canaanites were polytheists. Baal was the chief god in the Canaanite pantheon. He was considered the god of fertility as well as the storm god. This combination might at first seem odd, but in fact is quite logical. Unlike Egypt, where fertility hinged upon the annual flooding of the Nile River, the land of Canaan depended upon storms to produce the rainfall necessary for crops to thrive.

The Canaanites believed that Baal’s power of fertility extended over all things, not just the crops. His blessing would determine the fecundity of their sheep, goats, oxen and donkeys. Baal even governed human fertility: many sons and daughters were the result of his favor.

The worship of Baal took various forms. The Canaanites often brought sacrificial offerings of grain and wine to the alter of Baal. By offering him a portion of their produce, they hoped to secure the abundance of future harvests. Likewise, animals were sacrificed in order to guarantee the fertility of their flocks and herds.

More ominously, these practices were extended to human fertility. The Bible (and substantial archaeological evidence) clearly indicates that Baal worship involved human sacrifice. Worshipers would cast their own infant sons and daughters into the fire in order to acquire Baal’s blessing on their own reproduction.

Tragically, this vile practice was adopted by the people of Judah and Jerusalem, bringing a stinging rebuke from the LORD through the prophet Jeremiah: “They have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as offerings to Baal – something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind.” (Jeremiah 19:5)

Unsurprisingly, the worship of the fertility god Baal frequently involved ritual prostitution. But the Canaanites developed other, more subtle ways to honor Baal.

Without getting too far into the birds and the bees, we all know that human fertility involves the joining together of male and female – the two different kinds of human beings.

The Canaanites attempted to apply this same principle to many other areas of life. Thus, planting two different kinds of seed in a vineyard was an implicit appeal to Baal, requesting his blessing upon the fruit of the vineyard. Likewise, ploughing a field with two kinds of animals was a plea for a rich harvest of grain. And by wearing clothes made of two fabrics, the Canaanites were asking Baal to bestow his favor upon their lives.

We can now see that these peculiar commands of the Torah were not so strange after all, because the prohibited practices were tantamount to idolatry. They were a flagrant violation of the very first commandment, “You shall have no other gods before me.”

The Canaanites had other superstitious practices. For instance, at the end of harvest, they would boil a young goat in its mother’s milk and then pour this magical soup upon their fields, hoping to ensure future bounty. The Torah forbids this practice no less than three times! “Do not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.” (Deuteronomy 14:21) God wanted to prevent his people from being dragged into idolatry by imitating their pagan neighbors.

It is no coincidence that each time we find this stipulation, it’s within the context of other harvest laws. The Lord clearly wanted the Israelites to recognize that he was the one who provided for their needs and richly blessed them with generous harvests.

This whole discussion has taken on considerably greater importance in the modern world with the rise of the LGBT movement. Just a few verses before the passage we’ve examined, we find this command: “A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the LORD your God detests anyone who does this.” (Deuteronomy 22:5) Meanwhile, the book of Leviticus states, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.”

Many skeptics (along with some ostensibly within the church) have seized upon the commands of the Torah. They argue, “Why do Christians pick and choose? How can they condemn homosexual and transgender behavior when they’re perfectly happy to wear clothes made of two different fabrics?”

The proper response to this question is twofold.

First, the entire law of Moses reflects the love, justice and mercy of God. The ancient Israelites would have easily recognized that, within their cultural context, wearing clothing of two fabrics, or ploughing with two different animals, were forms of idolatry. Idolatry looks quite different in the modern world, where people cast themselves down before the gods of money, sex and power. But the fact remains that idolatry still corrupts and ultimately destroys human beings.

No doubt there are other parts of the Torah which might be equally confusing or disturbing to modern readers. When we encounter these parts of scripture, our baseline posture should be to recognize that we may not understand the original context. We must trust that the profound wisdom which we see throughout the majority of the Torah is also reflected in those ‘odd’ parts of the law which we don’t fully grasp.

Second, even though the Torah has been left behind, it has found its fulfillment in the person of Jesus the Messiah.

Most Christians understand that, in one sense, the Torah no longer applies to the people of God. As the apostle Paul writes, “You are no longer under law, but under grace.”

But as I have written before, this does not mean that the Torah no longer has any relevance. Proper worship and obedience remain vitally important. Jesus himself affirmed, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” Idolatry remains just as sinful and damaging today as if was three thousand years ago. Homosexuality and transgenderism are still horrible violations of God’s good design for human beings.

The law was absolutely correct to condemn these kinds of behaviors, for the Torah rightly reflects the abiding character of God. But the law by itself did not have the power to produce the kind of human beings that God desires. That glorious result can only be achieved through the Holy Spirit, who empowers Christians to imitate Jesus, who is the true human being, the image of God himself.

To that, the Torah would say, “Amen!”