Life in ancient Israel was grinding. Every able-bodied person struggled valiantly from sunup to sundown against weather, birds, brigands, and erosion, to eke out a meager subsistence of barley, a little wheat, olive oil, lentils and chickpeas. Rocky terraces, temperamental rainfall, and untreatable disease conspired to make life precarious. Clothing was of goat hair. Few people wore shoes. Plows, tools, jars, and lamps were made in the home. Houses were thatched and susceptible to wind and rain, and there was little furniture. If you had livestock, they slept in the room with you, and water had to be toted uphill in dripping buckets. Your roommates included fleas, lice, rats. The slightest infection could kill.
We need to hold these hardships in mind before we ramble on about topics like "love life and marriage in the Bible." If you were a young man in a village of thirty or forty residents, there might be one, or maybe two young women of marriageable age. And you would marry the one, or the other one. No honeymoon, no nights on the town, nothing but backbreaking labor just to survive. Children were a necessity, for they were additional workers, and the only social security for your old age. Yet they were the gravest risk, as women frequently died during childbirth.
Yes, women were oppressed, so was everybody. The men didn't pop a beer and watch TV while the women slaved in the kitchen. The division of labor did leave women at home - because they were nursing children, and it was perilous for the woman to venture far away in hunting and gathering. Interestingly, the Bible tells startling stories of women wielding immense power - like Deborah, one of the most brilliant, crafty generals of the Bronze Age - although generally, women were not landowners and depended on the mercy of men.
We also need to be careful when we raise issues like "Why do bad things happen to good people?" In Bible times, bad things happened to everybody, all the time. Death was common, life expectancy hovered no higher than 30 years, suffering was everywhere. In those days, nobody looked upon a child's misery or a young adult's death and asked, "How can there be a God?" This is a modern question, raised only in times like ours when healthcare is so successful as to trick us into thinking death and suffering are the surprise.
Affluent Americans latch on to passages that speak of God "blessing" his people. By "blessing" we mean a big house, nice clothes and cars, a sumptuous retirement. But for biblical people, the blessing for which they gave thanks was simply that it actually rained and they scraped together a meal of bread and soup so they could get some sleep before another gruelling day. To us, their lot was brutal, but they sang, knew joy, and gave thanks: they were "blessed."
James
james@mpumc.org
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