178 Learning Stuff Out (Deut 25)

I enjoy that I can sit down and watch a TV show with my son, and mercilessly shred it to pieces with rapier wit and buckets of super sarcasm.
It would appear the emotional attachment we share with crazy sit-coms or moving dramas is distinctly lacking.
Of course it could be some action movie. Same thing would happen.
This is a comfort for me.
A pain for Donna.
Luckily for her, the estrogen level missing in her male family members, is strong in our daughter.
As a family we can both cry and giggle uncontrollably at moving classics.
I am no longer allowed to watch "Anne of Green Gables" in mixed company.
(Not really a punishment.)
Guffaws and snide comments mingle easily with expressions of sincerity and concern.
Of course, timing is everything and there is a sure sign when we have crossed a line.
The look.
A withering glance that surely ends the entertainment value for 50% of our family.
The look that cannot be ignored.
We know it well.
And we respect its power.

Deuteronomy 25
I am continually intrigued by the interesting blend of instructions given in these books. In the space of three verses we jump from the beating of a guilty man.
To not stopping cattle feed while working.
To a brother wedding his dead brother's widow.
Without a breather.

And then there is the detail to cover all situations.

v11 ""When men fight with one another and the wife of the one draws near to rescue her husband from the hand of him who is beating him and puts out her hand and seizes him by the private parts,"

There are a lot of circumstances that need to happen to fulfill this criteria.
But, if they ever all occur, there is a penalty.

v12 "then you shall cut off her hand. Your eye shall have no pity."

So did it happen and a rule was needed?
Did it nearly happen, and so you know, you need to clear this sort of thing up "just in case"?
Or was the likelihood of this happening so great, a rule was needed to cover it?

With all things there is a line that when crossed, makes something right, wrong.
So let's make this line as obvious as possible.
Maybe the intent, in this case, is that inappropriate touching is wrong.
How wrong was it?
Well so wrong, that even the most justifiable reason for doing it, protecting your husband, incures a penalty that is severe. So any other reason certainly won't go unpunished.
Maybe?
Perhaps?
That sort of sounds reasonable.
In a really extreme way.
But they were extreme conditions.

Living in the time and place the Israelites did.
Where every other nation's perspective on right and wrong was blurry to say the least.
Strong definitions and clear boundaries were needed.
How do you know right and wrong, if you don't know what right and wrong is?
You are not going to find that out from your neighbours in this neck of the woods.
Enter, stage right, God.
With rules, laws and a willingness to show the difference.
Discipline when required.
Blessings when heeded.
Hard way to learn stuff.
Quick way to learn stuff.