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Penalties for violent usurpation of authority

Under the fifth commandment we may group all crimes against authority. I would include in this group not only civil rebellions, seditions, and guerrilla war, but striking one's parent, cursing one's parent, kidnapping, and all forms of crime that use threats of bodily injury to accomplish the crime (e.g., armed robbery and rape using a weapon). To see why all these crimes may be called crimes against authority, we must reckon with the basic reality that human beings are made in the image of God. To use force against the body of another human being is therefore very serious business. People can rightly do so only when God gives them authority over other human beings. Parents, state authorities, and masters of Israelite slaves have such authority, but even their authority is limited. When an unauthorized person usurps such authority, he does so in defiance of legitimate authority. The state in particular is the institution of last resort to keep distinct legitimate and illegitimate uses of force.

In Israelite society in Mosaic times the authority of parents, masters, elders, judges, and kings was closely intertwined. Prior to the settlement in Palestine Israel's encampments were organized along genealogical lines--tribes, extended families, households, and nuclear families (Num. 2; Josh. 7:16-18; Exod. 18:25). During the settlement in Palestine the land was parcelled out along genealogical lines. Since most of the people continued to live close to their inherited land, Palestinian villages would have been made up mostly of relatives in an extended family. In these situations most legal cases would have been supervised by elders or leading men in the extended family (Exod. 18:19-26; Deut. 21:19-20; 22:15-21). The elders would usually be one's grandfathers, granduncles, uncles, and their cousins. In practical terms the functioning of the extended family and the functioning of the "state" would be virtually the same. A meeting with the elders at the city gate (Deut. 22:15-21) was simultaneously a formal meeting of the family leaders in order officially to decide the business of the clan. The king or judge ruling over all Israel would become involved only in difficult cases (Deut. 17:8-20) or cases of outside threat of war. Such cases would be like a muster of the entire clan to deal with the difficulty. All in all, family and "state" were much more interwoven in Israelite society than what we are accustomed to.

Parents have God-given authority over their children, as is signified by references to the rod (Prov. 13:24; 22:15; 23:13-14; 29:15). Not surprisingly, the same Hebrew word is used for authority on a larger scale (the word "scepter" in Gen. 49:10; Num. 24:17; Ps. 45:6; and elsewhere). Moses' rod, the rod of a shepherd, signifies his shepherding authority over the people of Israel. Hence the authority of rulers is similar to the authority of parents. They are to look after people and protect them from injustice as well as discipline them when they stray. Judges may in some cases beat a guilty person (Deut. 25:1-3), just as parents are given authority to punish children with a rod (Prov. 13:24; etc.). In many cases judges and parents only need to threaten to use bodily punishment. Obedience is forthcoming because of the threat. Of course leaders and parents may also use rewards as inducements, and wise leaders frequently do (cf. Josh. 15:16; Luke 19:16-27). Anyone may offer a reward. Only the person with special authority may give a bodily punishment.

Consequently, for an unauthorized person to use the rod or its equivalent is to usurp authority. All usurpations of human authority are of course usurpations of authority given by God; hence they imply simultaneously usurpation of divine authority. In fact, usurpation of authority is one picture of the nature of all sin. All sin proclaims the ultimacy of the sinner over against God and sets up the standards of the sinner and the behavior of the sinner as more ultimate than God. It thus usurps to itself a god-like authority. Sin receives punishment as God exerts the rod of his authority against the sinner. God thereby "restores" the true picture of who is in charge. He also gives the sinner balanced punishment corresponding to the nature of the crime.

On the cross Christ received the punishment of God's rod. As a result we are delivered from God's wrath and simultaneously God's kingdom is established. God triumphed over the hosts of wickedness through Christ (Col. 2:15). God's authority to punish sin and also his power to establish righteousness were simultaneously asserted in a definitive way. Hence in Christ the abuses of authority were in principle overturned, and in Christ at his second coming fully righteous authority will be established everywhere on earth. Until the Second Coming the state has legitimate responsibility to oversee its earthly execution of justice. Among other responsibilities it redresses crimes against earthly authorities.

On this earthly plane, usurpation may take place with various degrees of seriousness. Civil rebellions, seditions, and guerrilla war all attempt a wholescale overthrow of civil authority. Since they intend the destruction of the authority, they themselves deserve destruction. The just penalty is the death penalty.

Crimes with a threat of bodily injury, such as armed robbery and armed rape, do not intend wholesale overthrow of the authority, but only the setting up of a rival authority for a temporary, limited purpose. Of course such crimes deserve the normal penalty that would be due when no violence is used. But in addition I judge that they merit a beating, just as temporary, limited rebellion by a child against parental orders merits a spanking or beating. Since the offender has illicitly usurped the use of a rod or its equivalent, the rod is in turn used against him. Such is the nature of balanced punishment according to the general principle, "As you have done, it will be done to you."

Some degree of confirmation of this view is found in Deut. 25:1-3. Deut. 25:1-3 specifies that judges may beat a guilty person if he deserves it. But when does a guilty person deserve beating? Nowhere in Mosaic law are we presented with a crime for which beating is the penalty, except Deut. 22:18. Deut. 22:18 involves a newlywed man who falsely accuses his bride of not having been a virgin. The newlywed man is evidently not been guilty of false witness (for which the penalty would be death) but of rashly and foolishly making judicial judgments in a family area over which he has genuine authority. He is beaten, then, for irresponsible use of authority, which has some similarity to limited forms of usurpation of authority. Deut. 25:1-3 seems to contemplate a wider range of cases in which beatings would be appropriate. No such cases can be supplied, unless we infer that there is a more general principle concerning usurpation of authority. The analogy between parental authority and state civil authority does suggest that both kinds of violation of authority ought justly to be punished with the rod.

What about kidnapping? In Israel kidnapping would usually be for the purpose of selling a person into slavery (Exod. 21:16). Since in the Israelite context slavery signified bondage to sin and return to Egypt, we must be careful about generalizing to our own context. Conceivably nowadays the just penalty for kidnapping could be permanent servitude for the kidnapper.

But the most serious issue in kidnapping appears to be the use of violence against another human being. The kidnapper attacks God through an attack on a human being made in God's image. He radically disrupts the victim's God-ordained calling or assignment in life. Hence kidnapping is an exceedingly serious sin against God and against the person kidnapped.¹ The kidnapper's violence is a general violence, not confined to one narrow goal. To be sure, kidnappers usually hope to use their violence only for a limited time. But they have no fixed limit either in time or in purpose. Delivery of a ransom does not guarantee release. Unlike the case of armed robbery, nothing the victim might do can realistically give release. The kidnapper is in effect setting up a mini-state of which he is head and under which the victim dwells. This implication of kidnapping becomes crystal clear when we see modern cases of kidnapping, hostage taking, and airplane hijacking. Despite repeated appeals by legitimate authorities, kidnappers refuse to obey but rather set up a reign of terror within their little circle. Kidnappers attempt to destroy the state within their circle. The just penalty is the destruction of the kidnapper in death, executed by representatives of the state.

Next let us consider violations of parental authority. Parents may themselves be guilty of abusing their authority, as in modern cases of child-beating and neglect. Surely this area is a most difficult one, because the normal prerogatives of parents' authority and state authority come into tension. None of us can produce very satisfactory answers. In such cases I believe that some discretion must be given to judges, just as discretion is given to parents themselves in dealing with difficult cases with their children. The judges are being forced to take into their own hands some judgments normally left in the hands of parents.

It is quite reasonable to argue that blatant abuse of the rod constitutes repudiation of genuine parental responsibility. Parents who repudiate responsibility thereby forfeit legitimate claim to responsibility. That is, their claim to parental authority is forfeited. Their abuse shows them to be no better than children or fools unfit for authority, and consequently the state may act to assign authority to a kinsman. Obviously wise state officers would want in any case to consult with relatives of the family in dealing with such a difficult matter. The nuclear family is not all there is to family, since grandparents have a definite role (1 Tim. 5:4). State action to transfer guardianship to a near relative is not an arbitrary reassignment of authority but moves along God-ordained lines. Since the most immediate authority belonging to parents has effectively disappeared, the more tenuous authority that remains in the more extended family must function as a substitute.² Such a practice would appear to be analogous to the case in Exod. 21:26-27, where a servant is removed from the authority of a master because of physical abuse.³

Now let us consider children's rebellion against parental authority. Mosaic law specifies the death penalty for children who curse parents, strike parents, or are incorrigible (Exod. 21:15, 17; Deut. 21:18-21). The statutes speak directly of the male child, but are clearly generalizable to daughters. The statute about incorrigibility speaks of "purging the evil," which might imply some reference to the special holiness of Israel (Deut. 21:21). Moreover, the family line is the means through which the knowledge of God is passed on (Deut. 6:6-9), the promised land is inherited, and the descent to the Messiah as the offspring of Abraham is traced. We must therefore be cautious about whether the severity of the penalty has been affected by the special holiness of Israel.

First, consider incorrigibility. A careful reading of the relevant statute, Deut. 21:18-21, shows that we are not dealing with a temporary pique on the part of parents whose anger has broken out of bounds. The son has entrenched himself in a permanent pattern of rebellion that the parents are powerless to alter (21:18b). The matter is brought before the elders. As in all judicial cases they would be bound to check the veracity of the claim.⁴ Moreover, in a typical case parents out of sentimentality are the last people in the community to admit the truth to themselves about the hopelessness of their son. Here we have reassuring protection against arbitrariness.

Once we takes these facts into account, we can see that the conduct of an incorrigible son constitutes general rebellion against parental authority. The just penalty is death. As he has attempted to destroy legitimate authority, so he is himself destroyed by legitimate authority.

For similar reasons, general rebellion against state authority, in the form of incorrigible repeated refusal to obey positive commands of the state, merits death. Blatant refusal to carry out a penalty assigned by the state also merits death (in analogy with Deut. 17:12), because the penalty structure is the state's last appeal in its own use of authority. To refuse this appeal is to move outside the bounds of all authority.

Cursing father and mother is a more difficult case. Like the issue of blasphemy and cursing God, this sin may have a penalty intensified by the special holiness of Israel and the holiness thereby pertaining to the Israelite family. First of all, we must realize that within Israelite society cursing was closer to black magic than a modern utterance of "go to hell" would be. The utterer intended damage to the other person. Hence it would be tantamount to blasphemy. Like all blasphemy within Israel it warranted the death penalty.

But what happens in a nonholy society where blasphemy has a different status? We must then deal with this crime as an injury to the parents, not as an injury to the holiness of Israel. Depending on the nature and seriousness of the curse, it might be a comparatively light matter or it might be tantamount to the general repudiation of parental authority. The parents would be the injured party. They would also be the first to judge the seriousness of this attack on their authority. If it was a limited attack, they would administer a spanking or beating. If it was a wholesale attack, they would proceed to take the child to civil authorities and the death penalty would still be appropriate.

Striking father or mother would appear to me to present us with the same complexities as does cursing father or mother. The same penalties would be involved.

The death penalty for wholesale violation of parental authority may seem harsh to modern sentiments. But I would argue that it is not only just but realistic. Parental authority, even if very imperfectly exercised, takes place in the context of personal relationships and natural pressures in the direction of love. Parents have many advantages over the state. If a person does not receive instruction from parents, the chances of receiving instruction from the state's more impersonal discipline are nil. The person who rebels in wholesale fashion against parents will also rebel against the state and create general destruction and disorder until eliminated. It is mere sentimentality to refuse to come to grips with this reality.

The state and parents together have been given a monopoly on bodily punishments. ⁵ Any person who takes punishment into his own hands usurps this special authority and insults legitimate authority. On these grounds, it seems proper for the state to administer punishment in the case of crimes of bodily injury and murder. Murder in Israel was avenged by the nearest of kin, as we have seen. But this requirement was far more practical in a society in which close relatives regularly lived close together. Moreover, the practice of relatives living together and of relatives avenging death was tied in with the fact that relatives inherited neighboring plots of land through the Israelite system of inheritance of the promised land. Murder threatened the blood lines and the inheritance system, and constituted a threat to the holiness of Israel not equivalent to its damage nowadays.

Speed laws and many other rules seem wise in a modern society for the sake of protection and general order. Violation of these nonmoral rules does not, it seems to me, constitute blatant repudiation of state authority or usurpation of state authority. The analogy with parental authority is illuminating. Parents may impose nonmoral household rules for the sake of the proper functioning and well-being of the household. In like manner the state has a discretionary authority based on what seems best according to common wisdom. In the case of parents, punishments for older children may take the form of temporary loss of privileges or deductions against an allowance. Such punishments are appropriate partly because some violations may take place through mere negligence rather than through evil intention. In addition, the parents wish to train older children to calculate more distant consequences of their acts and to live in the light of more distant consequences. Monetary penalties involve distant consequences through the loss of purchasing power. Similar reasoning appears to be valid in the case of state punishments. Because money is the regular means for quantifying gain and loss, monetary penalties are usually the most suitable form for the state to use in imposing penalties on mature offenders.

By contrast, fools and younger children need corporal punishment because they do not calculate more distant consequences (Prov. 10:13; 13:24; 22:15; 23:13-14; 26:3; 29:15). Pain as an immediate consequence represents virtually the only effective way of giving them a reasonable picture of consequences. But it must be understood that such punishment should be avoid serious physical harm and be no more painful than is appropriate for its purpose. On the one hand, we must not use a mere pat on the bottom or the back. Pain should be forceful enough and unpleasant enough to get the offender's genuine attention and make him consider whether his misdeed was worth the cost. On the other hand, we should avoid punishment that debilitates or runs some danger of permanent harm. Deut. 25:1-3 wisely sets a limit of forty lashes, lest "your brother . . . be degraded in your eyes." If excess of shame constitutes a reason for limiting the punishment, surely the possibility of physical harm does also. Since the limit in Deut. 25:1-3 concerns cases involving adult men, parental punishment of children must naturally stop much more quickly. Colossians 3:21 and Ephesians 6:4 also warn us against excessive punishment.

Penalties for crimes against servants

A considerable number of Mosaic statutes introduce special provisions for crimes committed against servants. Servants do have firm legal protection, but the character of the reparations to servants is degraded. This whole area is a very complex one, because servitude in Israel was associated with Egyptian bondage, which in turn signified spiritual bondage and death (cf. Lev 25:42-43). The normal principles of balanced recompense no longer work in quite the same way because the servant's status is subordinate, not merely from a political point of view, but from the point of view of the symbolic significance of the nation of Israel as a whole and the symbolic significance of its holiness code. Thus, only by understanding the significance of these statutes in their own redemptive context would it be possible to infer general principles from them. Such an investigation is outside the scope of this work, but a suggestive beginning has been made by James B. Jordan and Gary North.⁶