Throughout all history the god(s) were called upon – invoked – to empower and bring to pass desired results in every aspect of life for everyone from individuals to empires.
The process often involved making a contract between the god(s), represented by the leader, and the people with laws that end the contract when one party breaches the terms. Think of a rental contract – don’t pay the rent and you get evicted.
As detailed in the previous relevant post, a covenant is different from a contract.
A covenant defines a relationship voluntarily agreed to by both parties and remains intact even if one of the parties breaches it.
Both Hammurabi’s and Moses’ codes share the same claim to further the welfare, not just of one nation, but “for all of mankind”. By now we should recognize that Hammurabi’s government is the Antichrist’s, competing with God’s Messiah / Christ rule over all creation. And his is so right-sounding that it disarms even people who claim to be Christ-ones.
The difference between the two codes – and this is huge – lies in the contractual nature of Hammurabi’s Law and the covenantal nature of the Mosaic Law. There is no consent of the governed in a contract as is found in a covenant, and human nature is such that the powerful rulers exploit the powerless masses.
The Greeks recognized this problem when they replaced their kings with new forms of government. First came Demo-cracy – People Power, as opposed to Aristo-cracy – rule by the aristocrates, or Theo-cracy – Rule by God or gods. In Athens, all male citizens were eligible to participate in the city’s governing assembly. Obviously, this only works in small city states, and most of all, worked because anyone who didn’t fit in was eliminated.
Ostracism was a democratic procedure in which any citizen could be expelled from the city-state of Athens for ten years. It was used as a way of neutralizing someone thought to be a threat to the state though in many cases popular opinion often informed the expulsion. The word “ostracism” continues to be used for various cases of social shunning.
Execution was also used to keep the status quo. The death of Socrates is a famous example. He was an outspoken critic of democracy and associated with some members of the Thirty Tyrants, who briefly overthrew Athens’s democratic government in 404–403 BCE.
Socrates’ student Plato conceived of the Republic – from Latin rēs (“thing”) + pūblica (“public”); hence literally “the public thing”, i.e. rule of the people using representatives.
The Republic, one of the most important dialogues of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, renowned for its detailed expositions of political and ethical justice and its account of the organization of the ideal state (or city-state)…
In the Republic, Plato undertakes to show what justice is and why it is in each person’s best interest to be just…
According to Plato, the ideal state comprises three social classes: rulers, guardians (or soldiers), and producers (e.g., farmers and craftsmen). The rulers, who are philosophers, pursue the good of the entire state on the basis of their knowledge of the form of the Good and the form of the Just…Political justice, then, is the condition of a state in which each social class performs its role properly, including by not attempting to perform the role of any other class.
Surely drawing on his personal experience with his mentor’s murder, Plato recognized that the individuals making up society must also be Good and Just for this system to work.
Corresponding to the three social classes are the three parts of the individual soul—reason, spirit, and appetite—each of which has a particular object or desire. Thus, reason desires truth and the good of the whole individual, spirit is preoccupied with honour and competitive values, and appetite has the traditional low tastes for food, drink, and sex. Justice in the individual, or ethical justice, is a condition analogous to that of political justice—a state of psychic harmony in which each part of the soul performs its role properly. Thus, reason understands the form of the Good and desires the actual good of the individual, and the other two parts of the soul desire what it is good for them to desire, so that spirit and appetite are activated by things that are healthy and proper.
This is baseline Humanism, the belief that humans have the power to achieve spirit-controlled, i.e. a superhuman, state. According to the Bible, flesh and blood humans do not.
the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good…but I am carnal [flesh, hormonal and neurotransmitter-driven]…what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good…For to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not….O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Romans 7)
Hammurabi’s and Moses’ codes both explicitly state that their purpose is “to bring about the rule of righteousness in the land.” Due to mankind’s inherently selfish nature, this requires laws. And here again we see the difference between contractual and covenantal laws.
Hammurabi’s Laws assign socially approved / disallowed behaviors and punishments, while the Mosaic Law deals with the cause of destructive behavior, not just its effects, and prevents, not just punishes, social damage through its demands on personal and national holiness.
Most of all, Hammurabi or the Supreme Court of the United States or any other leadership forum can’t simply arbitrarily call into existence the rightness or wrongness of actions. Just like defying laws of physics will inevitably cause destruction, so too breaking laws of human nature will inevitably lead to destruction.
“After nearly thirty years, the data suggest that abortion has been anything but good for the United States.” The economic consequences alone are that abortion (the modern clinically approved manner of child sacrifice)
- reduced the size of the economy,
- undercut one main cause of the American economy’s current dynamism: innovation,
- reduced the standard of living of the average America household
- is single-handedly responsible for anticipated imbalances in the Social Security retirement system,
- is perhaps the single largest American economic event of the past century, more significant than the Great Depression or the Second World War.
Had abortion remained illegal, the American population would
- be significantly larger
- contain a larger share of intact marriages and two-parent families
- have higher average living standards.
“…the analysis warns that if it continues unchecked, legal abortion will progressively erode both America’s relative economic importance and her average absolute standard of living.”
The evidence-defying political permissiveness of homosexually transmitted AIDS that has been extensively detailed in a previous post is another example of the impossibility of reversing a law of nature by decree.
The Melchizedekian Covenant, defined in great detail in the Mosaic Law, provides greater benefits to its subjects than Hammurabi’s Laws.
the Covenant protects the disenfranchised members of society, regardless of their place or rank in society, while the Code of Hammurabi is interested only in the free men class and gives special protection to the middle and higher social classes of Babylon…the lower classes, the wardu (slaves) and the mushkenu (free person of low estate) have no such protection…While biblical law sees human life as more valuable than material possession, the Code treated significant material loss as sometimes worthy of death (Code of Hammurabi, p 338). Conversely, God requires a life for a life, but the Laws of Hammurabi may only require financial compensation, and the life of a slave might only bring a fine…
The superiority of God’s Laws is that obedience (and holiness) is the desired outcome, so that a relationship with God is made possible, but the Law of Hammurabi’s goal is for longevity of the king and prosperity for the nation, regardless of who gets hurt.
For example, the death penalty for theft (Hammurabi) seems extremely harsh as compared to the Covenant which required restitution. The death penalty for thievery in Babylon seems to indicate that the nation valued goods over human life, while the Covenant valued people over things, not requiring a thief to die. Another example was when anyone caused a pregnant woman’s child to die. The Book of the Covenant required a life for a life while the Code required they pay a fine…God sees the sanctity of life…the Code does not
As much as irreligious people like to fault the laws of Moses, objectively speaking the Mosaic Covenant provides well for the quality of life of its subjects in the kingdom.
- There is one day out of seven free from labor as opposed to the Egyptian and Roman one day out of ten,
- as well as one full year’s vacation out of seven,
- redistribution of resources to those unable to provide for themselves via a low ~22% income tax,
- and periodic elimination of debt.
- ensuring equal distribution of resources to all subjects, with no wealthy elite gaining power over the impoverished.
There is a sharp contrast between contractual laws simply cursing the unrighteousness and covenant blessings giving second chances.
The presumption here is not that loans are made to exploit commercial opportunity, but rather to avert disaster. Indeed the Mosaic law encourages such lending: “If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother. Rather be openhanded and freely lend him what he needs.” (Deut. 15: 7-8, NIV)
Thus in regulating intra-community debt, the Mosaic tradition imposes a structure of obligation that constrains the lender as much as the borrower. Debt, indentured servitude, and the alienation of land are viewed as the result of misfortune, with the result that creditors acquire an obligation not only to lend but also to remit debts periodically in the interest of justice…the obligations of the strong towards the weak…have been a central feature of Jewish belief since ancient times. Permanent bondage of debt or servitude were not to be countenanced within the tribes of Israel, in covenant with the God they believed had delivered them from slavery in Egypt.
Compare the assurances of debt relief in the Mosaic Covenant with the Mesopotamian reactionary debt release practices during crises.
In Hammurabi’s time…The peasantry was provided with land…tools, draught animals, livestock, and water for irrigation, so that they could grow food…they had to pay to the State as rent…When the harvest was poor, they accumulated debts. If peasants were unable to pay off their debts, they could also find themselves reduced to the condition of serfs or slaves…members of their family being made slaves. In order to ensure social peace and stability, and especially to prevent peasants’ living conditions from deteriorating, the authorities periodically cancelled all debt and restored peasants’ rights.”
“historians have identified with certainty about thirty general debt cancellations in Mesopotamia from 2400 to 1400 BC…
No further act of debt cancellation has been found for the period after 1400 BC; inequality increased and intensified. Land was taken over by big private land-owners and debt enslavement became commonplace. A large part of the population migrated north-west towards Canaan, with incursions into Egypt, which displeased the Pharaohs.
The ensuing centuries…have evidence of violent social struggles between creditors and debtors.”
Lebanon’s destruction at the hands of its power hungry government leaders is a prime example of the natural course of unchecked power.
The nation’s leaders mismanaged the economy for decades with a Ponzi-like scheme whisking away the hard-earned money of Lebanese people from banks to keep the government afloat, pay off public debts, and line the pockets of those in charge. The troubled policy screeched to a halt after the country’s banks simply ran out of money last year — meaning Lebanese workers lost savings they’d stored in accounts…
And the big explosion that rocked Beirut [August 4, 2020], likely set off by 2,700 tons of ammonium nitratestored in a port warehouse for six years, showed how Lebanon’s leadership didn’t bother to remove a dangerous substance despite plenty of time and ample warning.
Decades of corruption and financial engineering that had led to stark inequality drove Lebanese into the streets in their hundreds of thousands. Life since then has gotten exponentially worse. The people have faced near economic collapse, a pandemic and the third-largest nonnuclear explosion in the world, which killed almost 160 people…Up to 300,000 were made homeless, and countless businesses are in ruins, in a country where so many already struggled to make ends meet…
Several thousand protesters marched through the destroyed areas of the city Saturday, with rubble piled on either side…By the time the security forces had forced all of the protesters off the streets in the early hours of Sunday, over 700 had been injured, according to figures from the Lebanese Red Cross and the Islamic Emergency and Relief Corps…A researcher for Human Rights Watch reported seeing government forces firing tear gas directly at people’s heads…firing rubber bullets at their upper bodies…an NBC News journalist witnessed men in army uniforms viciously beating protesters, journalists and human rights workers throughout the night…Live ammunition was fired into the air near Parliament, scattering young, unarmed and terrifies protesters – it was unclear whether the army or the Internal Security Force fired the shots.
Those who felt they had nothing to lose stood their ground in resilience and continued to clash with the security forces.
“They have started a war,” several protesters said in response to the government’s violent crackdown.
Contrast with the oversight and restrictions placed on leaders in God’s kingdom.
“Now the sons of Eli were sons of Belial; they knew not the LORD.
And the priest’s custom with the people was, that, when any man offered sacrifice…the priest took for himself… And if any man [objected to improper sacrifice] then he would answer him…give it me…and if not, I will take it by force. Wherefore the sin of the young men was very great before the Lord: for men abhorred the offering of the LORD…
And there came a man of God unto Eli [their father and chief priest] and said unto him… Wherefore… honourest thy sons above me, to make yourselves fat with the chiefest of all the offerings of Israel my people?…thy two sons, on Hophni and Phinehas; in one day they shall die both of them. And I will raise me up a faithful priest, that shall do according to that which is in mine heart and in my mind: and I will build him a sure house; and he shall walk before mine anointed for ever.” (I Samuel 2:12-36)
“And Samuel said to Saul, Thou hast done foolishly: thou hast not kept the commandment of the LORD thy God, which he commanded thee: for now would the Lord have established thy kingdom upon Israel for ever. But now thy kingdom shall not continue: the LORD hath sought him a man after his own heart, and the Lord hath commanded him to be captain over his people…And when he had removed him, he raised up unto them David to be their king…and said, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfill all my will.” (I Samuel 13:13-14, Acts 13:22)
The common feature between the two types of agreements is the eternal condition of the spiritual life of the ruler, sought by every ruler whose god lived through him. Whenever this was achieved by any of the pagan rulers, it was for the purpose of maintaining the life of the god through plundering the lives of his worshippers.
But under YHVH’s covenant, Melchizedek Abraham the Hebrew lived on in Melchizedek David who lived on through a dynasty of heirs culminating in The Seed of the Woman who achieved eternal life through union with God for ALL kings AND subjects in his kingdom by gathering the people in, not an insurrection, but a resurrection.
“...say unto my servant David, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I took thee…to be ruler over my people…And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels….and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever.” (II Samuel 7:1-17)
To determine the type of any nation, we only need to measure the morality of the ruler and the welfare of the people in action, not words. What is America in 2025?
Kingdom Come 