This is from the Covenant Code (Exodus 20:22–23:33), the oldest collection of law in the Bible — case law, given immediately after the TenCommandments, and startlingly concrete.
What happens
"You shall not molest or oppress an alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt. You shall not wrong any widow or orphan. If ever you wrong them and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry. My wrath will flare up, and I will kill you with the sword; then your own wives will be widows, and your children orphans. If you lend money to one of your poor neighbors among my people, you shall not act like an extortioner toward him by demanding interest from him. If you take your neighbor's cloak as a pledge, you shall return it to him before sunset; for this cloak of his is the only covering he has for his body. What else has he to sleep in? If he cries out to me, I will hear him; for I amcompassionate."
What to notice
The first law comes with its motive attached, and the motive is a memory: ki gerim heyitem b'eretz Mitzrayim, "for you were gerim in the land of Egypt." A ger is a resident alien — someone living among you with no clan, no land, and no legal standing. The reason given is not that it is wrong but that you know what it feels like, and this is the single most-repeated motive clause in the Torah. And then the verb that has been running through this whole month: im tza'oq yitz'aq elai, shamoa eshma tza'aqato, "if he cries out to me, I will surely hear his outcry."Tze'aqah.That is the word from Isaiah 5:7 three weeks ago — he looked for justice and behold, an outcry — and the word for the cry of Israel in Egypt that made Theos come down (Exodus 3:7). It is a legal noun: the cry of the wronged, which obliges the hearer to act. The threat is calibrated in kind: "your wives will be widows and your children orphans" — exactly the two categories you wronged.The law does not say you will be punished; it says you will be turned into the thing you preyed on. Then the loan law: lo tihyeh lo k'nosheh, "you shall not be to him like a creditor" — not about the interest rate, but about the posture. And then the most extraordinary piece of legislation in the passage: a cloak taken in pledge must be returned before sunset, and the reason contains no legal vocabulary at all — ki hi khesutoh l'vadah, hi simlato l'oro — ba-meh yishkav, "for it is his only covering, it is his garment for his skin — in what shall he lie down?"The simlah was worn by day and slept under by night.A man who has pledged his coat has pledged his blanket. And then the clause ending the section, unlike anything else in a legal code: v'shama'ti ki channun ani, "and I will hear, because I am channun."No penalty is attached.The law's final sanction is a statement about Theos's disposition.
The first word of the psalm is why it is here, and it is unique in the Psalter. Erchamkha Yahweh chizqi — "I love you, Yahweh, my strength."The verb is racham — built on rechem, the womb. It is the visceral love of a parent for a child, and everywhere else in the Hebrew Bible it runs downward — from Theos to people, from a mother to her son. This is the only place in the Psalter where a human being says it upward.And it is the root of rachum, "compassionate" — the word that closes the first reading and stands beside channun in Exodus 34:6. Theos says I am compassionate; the psalmist says I womb-love you.Same root, on the Sunday of the greatest commandment. Then the pile-up: chizqi, sal'i, m'tzudati, m'falti, tzuri, maginni, qeren yish'i, misgabbi — my strength, my crag, my fortress, my rescuer, my rock, my shield, the horn of my rescue, my high place.Eight titles in two lines, every one military or geological.A man who has been hunted names the landscape he hid in and calls it Theos. And qeren yish'i, the horn of my rescue, is the phrase from Zechariah's Benedictus on October 8.
The oldest page in the New Testament, continued from last Sunday. Paul is telling a young congregation what its own reputation is — a delicate thing to do, and he does it by reporting other people's speech.
What happens
"You know what sort of people we were among you for your sake. And you became imitators of us and of the master, receiving the word in great affliction, with joy from the HolyBreath, so that you became a model for all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. For from you the word of the master has sounded forth… so that we have no need to say anything. For they themselves openly declare about us what sort of reception we had among you, and how you turned to Theos from idols to serve the living and true Theos and to await his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus, who delivers us from the coming wrath."
What to notice
Typon, "a model," is more physical than the English suggests. A typos is the mark left by a blow: the dent of a hammer, the impression of a seal, the die from which coins are struck.John 20:25 uses it of the nail-marks in the hands. So the Thessalonians have not become an inspiring example; they have become a stamp other people are being struck from.Exēchētai, "has sounded out," is from ēchos, echo — used of thunder, of a trumpet, of a shout coming back off a hillside, and perfect tense: it has sounded and is still sounding.The word did not travel from Paul to the region; it bounced off Thessalonica. And Paul's comment is one of the driest lines he wrote: hōste mē chreian echein hēmas lalein ti, "so that we have no need to say anything."The apostle reports himself out of a job. Then what may be the oldest summary of Christian conversion in existence, three verbs in order: you turned to Theos, away from idols; to serve a living and true Theos; and to wait for his Son.Turn, serve, wait — and the turning is toward first and away from second, the opposite of how conversion is usually narrated. And the last clause is present tense: ton rhyomenon hēmas, "the one who is rescuing us out of the coming wrath."The wrath is future and the rescuing is ongoing.
Still that Tuesday in the temple. This is the last of four attempts to trap him in one afternoon — the tax, the resurrection, and now the law — and Matthew has just told us that he muzzled the Sadducees.
What happens
"When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a scholar of the law, tested him by asking, 'Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?' He said to him, 'You shall love the master, your Theos, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.'"
What to notice
Ephimōsen tous Saddoukaious, "he muzzled the Sadducees" — the verb from the wedding-garment parable two Sundays ago, where the man with no answer ephimōthē, and the verb used of silencing a demon and stilling a storm. Matthew is keeping score. The question is genuine and was genuinely debated: rabbinic discussion distinguished heavy and light commandments and argued about which principles the rest could be derived from — the famous story of Hillel giving the whole Torah on one foot is the same genre. The answer is two quotations. Deuteronomy 6:5, the Shema — and Matthew's version has an interesting seam. The Hebrew is b'khol l'vavkha u-v'khol nafshekha u-v'khol me'odekha — heart, soul, and me'od — and me'od is not a noun at all in ordinary Hebrew. It is the adverb very.With all your very-ness.The Greek translators had to do something with it, rendering it variously dynamis, strength, or dianoia, mind — which is where Matthew's mind comes from. The second quotation is Leviticus 19:18, and its context matters today: the same chapter, sixteen verses later, says the alien residing with you… you shall love him as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt (Leviticus 19:34) — the same motive clause as this morning's first reading.Homoia autē, "the second is like it" — not second in rank but of the same kind. And the last sentence contains the day's best verb: krematai, to suspend, to hang from — used of a millstone hung round a neck, and of a man hanged on a tree. Everything else in scripture is described as a weight suspended from two hooks.
The Gospel gives the principle and the first reading gives the invoice, and the lectionary has put them in that order on purpose.
Matthew's answer is not original and is not meant to be. Both halves are quotations every literate Jew knew by heart, and pairing them was not unheard of. What is distinctive is the last sentence:on these two the whole law hangs, and the prophets.Kremannymi — to suspend.Six hundred and thirteen commandments and the entire prophetic corpus are described as a load hanging from two fixings.Not summarized by them — supported by them. Remove the hooks and the whole thing comes down.
And the second is homoia, like the first — the same kind of thing, not a lesser one. Which means you cannot do one and not the other, any more than you can hang a weight from one hook and call the job done.
Then Exodus, which is what the second hook looks like when it is bearing weight. And it is striking how little of it is general.Do not press down a resident alien. Do not afflict a widow or an orphan. Do not act like a debt-collector toward a poor man. Give the coat back before dark.Four named categories, each defined by having no leverage, and one piece of property specified down to its function as bedding.
And the reason clauses are the heart of it. For the alien: because you were aliens in Egypt — not a principle but a memory. For the widow and orphan: if they cry out to me I will hear — tze'aqah, the same cry Isaiah heard coming out of the vineyard three Sundays ago. And for the man without his blanket, a question rather than a rule: in what shall he lie down?
Then the sentence that ends the section, which no legal code would produce:and I will hear, because I am compassionate.There is no penalty clause. The final sanction is not a punishment but a fact about who is listening.
Which is exactly where the psalm comes in, and its single word does more than its eight metaphors. Erchamkha Yahweh — and the verb is racham, the womb-word, the visceral compassion that everywhere else in scripture runs from Theos downward. The psalmist sends it back up.Theos says I am rachum; the psalmist says I racham you.The first commandment, answered in Theos's own vocabulary.
And then the eight names — crag, fortress, rescuer, rock, shield, horn, high place — which are not poetry so much as topography. A man who has been hunted through that country is naming the places that kept him alive and saying they were a person.
And 1 Thessalonians shows what the two hooks look like carrying a load in an actual town. Turn, serve, wait — and the result is not a doctrine but a typos, a die: people elsewhere in Greece are being stamped out of the shape these Thessalonians took. The word did not spread from Paul; it echoed off them, which is why he can report, drily, that he has nothing left to say about it.
And the load-bearing test is the coat.It is his only covering; in what shall he lie down?You can hold the greatest commandment in your head and be entirely orthodox about it while somebody sleeps cold because you are within your rights.Exodus does not permit that, and it does not appeal to a principle to prevent it. It gives a deadline: sundown.
A Question to Sit With
The greatest commandment is a principle and I can hold it comfortably. The first reading is what it costs: a coat back before dark, because that is what the man sleeps under, and because if he shouts, somebody hears. There is no appeal to a rule in that passage — only a deadline, and a question about where a specific person is going to lie down tonight. Whose sundown am I currently on the wrong side of, while being entirely within my rights?