10 And the son of an Israelitish woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the children of Israel: and this son of the Israelitish woman and a man of Israel strove together in the camp;
Leviticus 24:10-12 (KJV)
11 And the Israelitish woman’s son blasphemed the name of the Lord, and cursed. And they brought him unto Moses: (and his mother’s name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan:)
12 And they put him in ward, that the mind of the Lord might be shewed them.
Have you ever read Leviticus 24 and thought where in the world did this story come from? Out of the blue, some random guy with no name comes into the camp, starts a fight, curses God, and ends up stoned. What’s going on?
Verse 10 prompts several questions…
- “…son of an Israelitish woman, whose father was an Egyptian…”
What are these details alluding? - “…went out…”
Where is the guy going out from? - “…and this son of the Israelitish woman and a man of Israel strove together…”
What is the fight about?
Verse 11 also prompts questions…
- “…the Israelitish woman’s son blasphemed the name of the Lord, and cursed.”
Why curse God? - “…and his mother’s name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan:”
Again with the weirdly placed details. Why are we learning details about the son’s mother and not about the son himself?
And finally verse 12…
- “…that the mind of the Lord might be shewed them.”
Why do they need to seek God?
So a number of questions have arisen from these seemingly three randomly placed verses in the Bible. Ultimately, the story ends with the son’s death by stoning, but why? What is this story about?
Biblical & historic context to cursing
Certainly, the infraction that requires God’s judgement here is not simply the fight, but rather the cursing of God. It is that action which causes the people to bring the son to Moses, and for Moses to request God’s judgement on the matter. As we can ascertain from the text, cursing is a serious problem.
And he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death.
Exodus 21:17
The Sages have concluded in the past that the death penalty derives from cursing one’s parents in the name of YHVH. This was the factor that enforced the death penalty.
“And if one curses his father and his mother”: with the explicit Name (i.e., the Tetragrammaton). But perhaps an epithet is intended? Let it not be written redundantly, (Leviticus 24:16) “When he blasphemes the Name he shall be put to death.” (It is written thus) to include one who curses his father and mother. He is not liable until he curses them with the explicit Name. These are the words of R. Achai.
Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Nezikin 5
Mechilta, translated by Rabbi Shraga Silverstein
The Sages reasoned that cursing God wasn’t even the final factor that brought forth the death penalty in Leviticus 24, but rather it was cursing God by using the name of God. It’s an interesting juxtaposition. This action combines both a belief and a loss of faith for one to curse God by using God’s own name. To curse someone is to render them as un-holy, and to use the Highest Name to do it, is to recognize the Name’s power over everything.
Son of Israelite woman, father was Egyptian, went out
And the son of an Israelitish woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the children of Israel:
Where was this son of an Israelite woman going out from? As readers, we might just pass right over this simple text, but Rashi found something interesting.
Whence did he go out? Surely not from the camp, since Scripture states “and they strove in the camp”!
A Baraitha states that ויצא means, he came out of the judicial court of Moses where he had been pronounced to be in the wrong in the following matter: although his father was an Egyptian he had gone to pitch his tent in the camp of the tribe of Dan to whom his mother belonged (cf. v. 11).
They (the men of Dan) said to him, “What have you to do here” (lit., what is your character that gives you the right to come here?).
He replied. “I am one of the children of the tribe of Dan”.
Thereupon they said to him, “Scripture states: (Numbers 2:2) “Every man [of the children of Israel shall encamp] by his own standard, that bears the signs of their father’s house”!
He thereupon went in to the judicial court of Moses to have the matter decided and came forth (יצא) declared to be in the wrong. He then stood up and blasphemed (Sifra, Emor, Section 14 1; Leviticus Rabbah 32 3).
Summarizing this, Rashi states the son, being half Israelite by way of his mom, went unto the tribe of Dan to live there among them. The Danites argued that only through his father’s line could he lay claim to part of their territory, and seeing as his father was Egyptian, he had no claim. So the son entered into the judicial court of Moses. Moses found the son in error, and that is the point in which the son of the Israelite woman “went out” into the camp.
You see, Israelite lineage is defined by the mother. Oftentimes when towns were pillaged, and women were raped, it was difficult to know who the father was, so if your mother was an Israelite, you were considered an Israelite regardless. However, the tribe affiliation is determined by the father. If your father is a Danite, then you belong to the tribe of Dan. In this case, the father was not an Israelite.
Now we understand why it was important for the text to explicitly state the mother as an Israelite and the father as Egyptian. We understand how this information leads to a clear line of events. Verse 10 now makes sense.
Cursing God
So the son went out, gets into a fight, and curses God. It’s a good indicator that the son lost the fight because normally the loser is the one who curses his enemy after the loss. But why is he cursing God? Why not just curse the other guy? What does God have to do with this?
To gain clarity, who determined this son’s loss in the first place? The son went to Moses, but Moses is just a judicial figure on behalf of who… God. God’s law that had no defined place for the son. It was almost as if the son was lost without an Israelite home from his time of birth – a life without a place among Israel. Maybe now, we might look upon this man’s life in compassion rather than as a lesson in disobedience. There are two sides to every story, as they say.
The son curses God… in God’s own name. He believes in God and wants a place among Israel, but God’s law does not provide the clarity for him to be established there. It makes sense that the son is angered toward God.
With this knowledge comes another question – one that we did not anticipate. Was the son justified in his actions? Initially we did not have any compassion on this guy. He cursed God, he deserved death. It seemed pretty clear. But now, now it is not quite so cut and dry. Everything we thought about this simple, yet oddly placed story, is turned upside down. The story is no longer black and white… it’s a muddled gray.
Moses’ part in it all
Of all the courts, the people wind up back at Moses’ court almost as if to say, “Moses, you made the problem, now you need to fix it.”
Hearing this problem and judicating it, why didn’t Moses have compassion and offer a solution that helped the son?
The problem I’m writing about here is obviously about a son of an Israelite woman raised under an Egyptian father who goes out among the Israelites and fights. Wait, stop, does this remind you of another story, perhaps one that has to do with Moses himself?
11 And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens: and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren.12 And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand.
Exodus 2:11-12
Moses, the son of an Israelite woman, raised in an Egyptian household with Pharaoh as his father, went out among the Israelites and fought. Moses may be full Israelite, but clearly he was raised as an Egyptian. The son and Moses are both of mixed lineage, they both begin their pivotal moment by “going out” which leads them among the Israelites. They both end up in fights. But what’s really interesting here are the words “an Egyptian man” (אִישׁ מִצְרִי).
You’d think that with all the text about Egyptians, these words would be common, but they are very rare in the Torah – only three times. In Moses’ case, he spies an “Egyptian man” hitting a Hebrew slave. In the case of the son, he is the son of an “Egyptian man.” When two uncommon phrases appear, there is a good chance we may find a connection.
בן איש מצרי THE SON OF AN EGYPTIAN MAN — It was the Egyptian whom Moses had killed (Leviticus Rabbah 32 4; cf. Exodus 2:11 where Scripture also uses the expression “איש מצרי”; cf. also Rashi thereon).
Rashi suggests that this “Egyptian man” is the same person in both stories. The Egyptian man that Moses killed is the father of this Israelite mother’s son. In the first case, Moses kills the father, and in the second case, Moses condemns the son to death.
More questions
This story presented a major twist in how we might read it. The simple black and white lesson is gone and we are left with three new questions.
From the perspective of the son:
Was he justified in his actions?
From the perspective of God:
Isn’t the judgement kind of harsh?
From the perspective of Moses:
Why didn’t you do more to help the son?
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