Canter Bridge

The Mosaic blueprint for an emerging nation does not wallow in sentimental egalitarianism. Nor is it precisely a meritocracy. Critical offices that the nation will require are allocated by a mixture of inheritance and charism. Yet whatever route brings a priest or prophet to his task, the burden of responsibility does not rest lightly.

In a tribal assignment that has generated libraries of inky pages produced by scholars who reconstruct a history behind the text, the Levites inherit a great share of the new nation’s priestly responsibilities. Ironically, they inherit little else:

The levitical priests, the whole tribe of Levi, shall have no allotment or inheritance within Israel. They may eat the sacrifices that are the LORD’S portion but they shall have no inheritance among the other members of the community; the LORD is their inheritance, as he promised them. This shall be the priests’ due from the people, from those offering a sacrifice, whether an ox or a sheep: they shall give to the priest the shoulder, the two jowls, and the stomach. The first fruits of your grain, your wine, and your oil, as well as the first of the fleece of your sheep, you shall give him. For the LORD your God has chosen Levi out of all your tribes, to stand and minister in the name of the LORD, him and his sons for all time.

On the surface, this might look like a cushy guaranteed salary. No matter the work ethic of an individual priest, he’ll eat well on the bounty of meat and vegetable over which less privileged Israelites will have sweat days of hard labor. Yet the prophetic literature alludes with some regularity to tithes that were not given and offerings not brought to the temple precincts for their proper, priestly management.

It would seem that the conceptual architecture of the new nation of Israel contemplates a kind of modified profit motive: the status of the Levitical pantry will to some degree hinge upon the spiritual state of the people. A nation that is casual or even resistant to YHWH’s commands will not bring sacrifices. Priest will grow thin, then gaunt, then perhaps rebellious, and even lethally inventive.

It might have been better to have one of those ordinary inheritances, with soil to turn over and grapes to savor.

The Mosaic legacy also creates space for that odd, anointed fellow the prophet. This figure is not anticipated in a vacuum. To the contrary, the prophet is the Yahwistic alternative to a thousand less focused sources of data and knowledge. The prophetic office is, in the strictest sense of the word, counter-cultural. What is more, his people will see a bit of Moses in him:

When you come into the land that the LORD your God is giving you, you must not learn to imitate the abhorrent practices of those nations. No one shall be found among you who makes a son or daughter pass through fire, or who practices divination, or is a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, or one who casts spells, or who consults ghosts or spirits, or who seeks oracles from the dead. For whoever does these things is abhorrent to the LORD; it is because of such abhorrent practices that the LORD your God is driving them out before you. You must remain completely loyal to the LORD your God. Although these nations that you are about to dispossess do give heed to soothsayers and diviners, as for you, the LORD your God does not permit you to do so.

The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet. This is what you requested of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said: ‘If I hear the voice of the LORD my God any more, or ever again see this great fire, I will die.’ Then the LORD replied to me: ‘They are right in what they have said. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their own people; I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet, who shall speak to them everything that I command. Anyone who does not heed the words that the prophet shall speak in my name, I myself will hold accountable. But any prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, or who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded the prophet to speak—that prophet shall die.’ You may say to yourself, ‘How can we recognize a word that the LORD has not spoken?’ If a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD but the thing does not take place or prove true, it is a word that the LORD has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; do not be frightened by it.

Unlike the priest, the prophet’s emergence—at least according to the pattern set forth in this constituitive text—will be a surprise. No gene pool will prepare him for his arduous role, nor pedigree make it only a matter of time before he puts on his mantle and does the thing in earnest. The prophet will arise. He will not be groomed.

Yet his task, like that of the priest’s, is heavy. A precision and clarity must shape his words, for he speaks as though he were the very mouth of YHWH. Indeed, the priest’s hand might tremble on a given day, he might feel a bit under the weather and persuade a colleague to fill in for him until things come around. The prophet is a singular figure, alone against the backdrop of a collection of eager soothsayers and their ilk. Rarely does he bring welcome news. Always he is to bring truth.

If he errs, he proves himself not to be what he has pretended.

This nation will be well served by faithful, energetic officials. Or find itself in the most dire of straits because suitable incumbents were nowhere to be found. Blessing is practically defined by the former, YHWH’s curse by the empty, leaderless poverty that is the latter.