An Eye For An Eye

Deuteronomy 19:15-21 Sermon ,申命记第19章：15-21章

An Eye for an Eye
Shalom.

After all the killings and cities of refuge shared by Pastor Siow Hwee last week, we shall finish up the remaining portion of Deuteronomy chapter 19. I will be reading verses 15-21 from the New Living Translation. Pardon me if I move around and cause some distractions to you. The ADHD (Hyperactive) genes in me make it difficult for me to stand still.

Deuteronomy 19 (NLT)
15“You must not convict anyone of a crime on the testimony of only one witness. The facts of the case must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.
16“If a malicious witness comes forward and accuses someone of a crime,
17then both the accuser and accused must appear before the Lord by coming to the priests and judges in office at that time.
18The judges must investigate the case thoroughly. If the accuser has brought false charges against his fellow Israelite, 19you must impose on the accuser the sentence he intended for the other person. In this way, you will purge such evil from among you.
20Then the rest of the people will hear about it and be afraid to do such an evil thing.
21You must show no pity for the guilty! Your rule should be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

Isn’t it interesting that the common phrase of eye for eye, tooth for tooth are clearly stated in the bible? Some of you might be thinking, “ha, now I can have my revenge on those people who wronged me as the bible permits it”. Before we study these verses, let me share with you something on an eye for an eye.

A few months ago, we were living under the illusion of being at Genting Highland (see picture). But instead of cool fresh air and refreshing mist, we were surrounded by haze and choking hot air. I heard from the news few days ago that we may be living under such illusion again if the wind changes direction.
There was no escape from the smoke that came from our neighbouring country as we are a “little red dot”. About the same time, the company that operated Singapore Flyer went into bankruptcy. Someone came up with the brilliant idea of converting the Flyer into a gigantic fan, so that we can blow the haze back to that country, especially to the person who said we whined like a little child. Let’s give him eye for eye, tooth for tooth (joke).

Regarding the haze, I must share this testimony of God’s divine intervention. Many of you were involved in the noodles distribution on the Sunday of 23rd June 2013 with Jubilee Community Service. Days before the event, I received many sms to consider cancelling the event. I told my Operation Team members that if the PSI falls below 100, we will proceed. That Saturday before 23rd June, I was giving a Financial Talk at a hotel. My colleague whom has an iPhone was giving me an hourly update on the PSI. I remembered very clearly that at 12 noon, the PSI went up to 321. In my heart I was thinking aloud, “ok, I will have to cancel the noodles distribution as it won’t be possible for the PSI to drop drastically to below 100 within 24 hours”. However, words came to me, “Our God can move mountains, what is haze to Him”. I prayed, “God, may your will be done”. When I finished giving the talk at 2pm, my colleague told me that the PSI had dropped to 72. I was like, “Are you sure? Did you read it correctly? Maybe you missed a 2 in front”. The PSI had indeed dropped to 72 in less than 2 hours.

Few days after the event, I was checking the NEA website for the latest PSI and came upon these satellite pictures. I found the curves in the pictures very interesting and consulted a MOE Geography scholar. He explained to me how the wind (blow blow here) from the South to the North and being intercepted by the wind (that blow blow there) from the West to the East, and that’s how you get that curve. I was like mm-hmm mm-hmm, pretending that I understood his explanation but my mind was blown away long ago. Am glad that my Geography teacher Mrs Ng is attending the Chinese Service at the other hall. When I showed the scholar the next picture, he studied it intensely for a long time, and he told me he did not have an answer on why there was a deep curve like a gulf which excluded Singapore from the thick haze. See the little red dot and how the haze excluded it. It strikes me immediately that it was the hands of God, a divine intervention! A week or so later, a pastor from another church shared a similar NEA picture with the same boundary, and the picture was taken on the 22nd June, the day that PSI dropped from 321 to 72. Many Christians were indeed praying for the haze to go away. While people saw us as whining children, our Heavenly Father heard our cries and intervened. Praise the Lord!

Ok, let’s go back to today’s verses before we get lost into the thick haze.
V15 - 21 were guidelines given regarding witnesses in the judicial system. They were driven by a concern for righteousness and justice in judicial procedures. V15 calls for more than one witness when there is an accusation of crime or offense against another person. There is a need to have two or three witnesses to establish a case.

v16 - 21 are instructions on dealing with witnesses. The men involved must stand before God, priests and judges. They are to be conscious of God’s presence and supervision of the legal process, and thus not to give false testimony. The judges are to investigate the case thoroughly, and punish anyone giving malicious testimony. The punishment will be according to the intended punishment if the accused is convicted. Meaning, if an accuser accused someone of stealing and the punishment for theft is to have his hand chop off; when the accuser is found to have given false witness, he will have his hand chopped off and the accused release.

That’s what v21 is highlighting, eye for eye; tooth for tooth, it is not to condone taking revenge or “getting even”. The purpose of v21 is to flush out the false witnesses, so as stated in (v20) “the rest of the people will hear of this and be afraid, and never again will such an evil thing be done among you”; it acts as a deterrent to false witness in legal procedures. This is generally known as Lex Talionis (Lex Ta Leo Nis), i.e. the law of retribution or retaliation. Interestingly this was also found in ancient Near East documents. This principle was supposed to be a “guarantee” of justice rather than a license for vengeance.

The Old Testament recounted several cases whereby people abused this judicial procedure but God’s justice prevailed. In 1 Kings 21, King Ahab (A-Herb in today’s pronunciation or Ah-Hub in Hebrews) wanted to purchase Naboth’s vineyard. When Naboth refused to sell it as it was passed down from his forefathers, Queen Jezebel arranged for a mock trial in which two villains gave false accusation against Naboth for cursing God and the king. Poor Naboth was then dragged outside the town and stoned to death. If we were Naboth’s family members, would we plot a coup and attempt to assassinate king Ahab?

Before Jubilee Church moved to this place, we were located at the junction whereby CTE sits today. This place was formerly known as the Outram Hill. Believe many of you have not seen these photos and how our former church building looked like. In the late 1960s, the authority wanted to widen Outram Road and requested Jubilee Church to relocate (see picture). We were given three choices; take the compensation (which was pathetic) and find a place on our own; exchange this piece of prime land with another piece outside Tiong Bahru; or accept this piece of forested land at Outram Hill which had no access route. Tough decision for the early leaders and we appeared to be at the losing end.

Jubilee Church’s kindergarten, Chinese Kindergarten also had a wonderful building located at Tras Street used for education and church ministries. Slightly more than 20 years ago, we were told to relocate as the authority had some plans for urbanization. See the vehicles waiting there, not only was Chinese Kindergarten the first kindergarten in Singapore, we were the first to provide school bus services. As king Solomon wrote, there is nothing new under the sun.
Let’s come back to Naboth. Jezebel abused the judicial system but she forgot that God was present. God’s divine sentence of “eye for eye, tooth for tooth” was declared on Ahab and Jezebel. As stated in 1 Kings 21:19, Prophet Elijah told the king that “the place where dogs licked up Naboth’s blood, dogs will lick up your blood” (v19) & “Dogs will eat Jezebel’s body at the plot of land in Jezreel” (v23). In fulfilment of this oracle, King Ahab was shot by a random arrow in a battle to reclaim one of the Cities of Refuge and died on his chariot (what happened was one bo-bo shooter shot an arrow into the air toward the Israelite army and shot him between the joints of his armour - see picture). His blood stained chariot was brought to the pool of Samaria for washing and the dogs indeed licked up his blood (22:38). As for Jezebel who was the main false witness, she lived many more years until she was tossed out from the window of her house and fell to her death, her blood licked up and her flesh eaten by wild dogs (2 Kings 9:30-37).
Wow, that was real bloody wasn’t it?

From the above accounts, we are indeed reminded that God is in charge, Justice is in the hands of our God, and it is God’s timing and not ours.

Coming back to Jubilee’s story, many did not know that Jubilee Church was growing and our numbers were increasing fast that we needed more space. In 1968, we wanted to purchase a piece of land at York Hill to build a new church building but we could not afford it. It would cost us more than half a million and that’s a lot of money at that time (By the way, York Hill is just behind here, where Outram Secondary School is located). Yap, we are actually on very hilly terrain. We have Outram Hill here, York Hill behind, and Pearls Hill near the Outram MRT. Two years later, the authority offered us the options to move. We were given the option to this piece of land, a 40,000 square feet land in exchange for the 8,000 square feet old church. However, this Outram Hill was without an access route. We nearly had to take helicopter to church today (Not a bad idea. Maybe Pastor Siow Hwee can do abseiling from the helicopter to raise fund for the lift project). But God was in charge, and HE is still in charge today! God opened this 36 feet access road for us for a dollar a year. For your information, the hilly road you drove up or climbed up this morning belongs to YWCA. We merely rent it from them. What can you buy with a dollar these days? To rent it would cost us thousands of dollars each month.

So when you walk up the slope next Sunday, instead of complaining, “The slope is so steep, so tired, so hot, church should install a “walkalator” like the airport”. Maybe you should lift up your hands, look up at the cross above our church building and shout “Thank you Jesus for this One Dollar Road!”

At that time, there were also squatters occupying this land. We had to compensate them about $30k to $40k to move out. That was a lot of money as the church had only about $200k left in the bank. The squatters went to see our late Rev Hsu to discuss compensation. However, late Rev Hsu came from China and spoke only Mandarin. The squatters spoke only local dialect; Rev Hsu could not understand them. It was like a chicken and a duck trying to communicate. In God’s timing, the squatters packed and moved out voluntarily and Jubilee Church did not pay a single cent to vacate them.

Going back to the judicial system in Deut 19, Jesus himself was a victim of the abused system. In Matthew 26:59-61, we read that Jesus was framed and this led to his death on the cross. He was mocked, whipped (by the way, the whip used is not the same cane that your parents used on you, but leather strips with sharp bones and metal balls tied to it, sometimes with hooks at the tips. Can you imagine how it tore Jesus flesh when the Roman soldiers pulled back the whip); he was possibly slapped by the soldiers and stoned by the people (people in those days like to throw stones, maybe that’s how they invented shot put in the Olympic game); Jesus was also deprived of food, water and sleep before his death. When he was thirsty, the soldier gave him wine vinegar through a sponge on a stick (Mark 15:36), he suffered further emotional and physical abuses before dying on the cross.

Speaking of sponge on a stick and wine vinegar, have you ever wondered why would someone bring a sponge and a pot of wine vinegar to Golgotha (go ge te) whereby criminals were nailed on the cross? The “Skull Hill” Golgotha looked like this in the 1900 but today it looks like a three eyes monster due to erosion. Was the soldier going to prepare a dish of salad with wine vinegar? Was the sponge meant for washing up the pots and pans after cooking? The sponge was meant for washing up alright, but not for pots and pans.

Let me share with you a little on Romans’ daily living. More than two thousand years ago, the Romans already had top of the art sanitary system.
Archaeologists found this structure which was the mobile toilet of the Romans (see pictures). The people doing their business will sit side by side with their long tunic covering their private parts. Their poo will drop into the drainage system below, whereby used bath water or water not meant for drinking will wash away the poo. They already knew the importance of recycling at that time. After they finish their business, they will use the sponge on the stick; go through the bottom “key hole” to clean their butt. They will then wash the used sponge at the drain in front of them and put it back in the basin for others to use. Well, how clean can you wash that sponge when the faeces get stuck in the sponge? Many were infected due to the sharing of sponge. Maybe you can try washing your used toilet paper, dry it under the sun and put it aside for someone else to use.

To solve this problem, each begins to carry his own sponge stick. They also discovered that wine vinegar can help to disinfect the sponge. That was the abuse Jesus had to go through, filthy sponge meant to clean the butt and wine vinegar meant for disinfecting the sponge given to him to drink.

After all the abuses, when Jesus was on the cross, he did not summon His heavenly angels to come down to return an eye for an eye (whipped for whipped – this man whipped me 10 times, this one gave me 15, Angels OTOT carry on; stone for stone – this woman threw a big stone at my head and gave me this big ba-lu-ku, Angel give it back to her; ah ha, this soldier stuffed the filthy sponge with wine vinegar on my face, Angel, stuff it up his nostril).

Jesus was truly human, but He didn’t do it the human way. He suffered, but He did not take revenge. He merely entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. He displayed Grace and Mercy at the cross. His last words on the cross were: “Father, forgive them. For they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Can you imagine that after all the hurts and abuses, all he said was “Father, forgive them. For they know not what they do”. I believe at that same time, his disciples would have recalled Jesus’ teachings on giving the left cheek when someone slapped them on the right, walking the extra miles (Matt 5: 38-42) and forgiving seventy seven time seven times (Matt 18:21-22).

Some of you might be thinking, elder Jonathan, what happened to the Chinese Kindergarten story. Well, I didn’t forget. Early leaders of the kindergarten worked very hard and negotiated to retain the building or convert it to other uses but were rejected. They went to see MPs and the Prime Minister for help but were not successful. They had no choice but moved. Although they managed to up the compensation from $190k to about $220k, the place was ultimately leased to a night club for $4m (see picture). Till today, there is resentment and bitterness over this issue as it was termed “day light robbery”.
This place was once a noble site in educating the young and a Holy place whereby we worshipped our Lord. Now it’s a filthy place of sins. I visited the place ten years ago and the “Tras Street School” stone was still there. You can see it behind the students in this picture. I went back again recently but it was already gone (see picture). As Christians, how would we see this?

In our lives, we might have experienced many “injustice”; friends belittled us, bad mouthed us, betrayed us; colleagues back stabbed us, gossiped about us; bosses treated us unfairly, robbed us of our deserved credits; you feel like giving him/her “an eye for an eye”, or maybe worst. Ops sorry, that’s Jia Jia and Kai Kai.

I have no idea of what happened to the two officers whom resulted in us losing our building; which is worth millions of dollar now. But I know and believe that God is in charge; justice is in His hands; but it is not His intend for vengeance.

Jesus demonstrated Grace and Love at the cross, by forgiving all whom abused Him.

May the Grace and Love of Jesus fill our hearts, let us hand all injustice and grievances to Jesus, the One whom judges justly, and forgive the way Jesus would. Amen.