(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)
Deuteronomy 24:14–22, “Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy strangers that are in thy land within thy gates: At his day thou shalt give him his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon it; for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it: lest he cry against thee unto the LORD, and it be sin unto thee. The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin. Thou shalt not pervert the judgment of the stranger, nor of the fatherless; nor take a widow’s raiment to pledge: But thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt, and the LORD thy God redeemed thee thence: therefore I command thee to do this thing. When thou cuttest down thine harvest in thy field, and hast forgot a sheaf in the field, thou shalt not go again to fetch it: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow: that the LORD thy God may bless thee in all the work of thine hands. When thou beatest thine olive tree, thou shalt not go over the boughs again: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow. When thou gatherest the grapes of thy vineyard, thou shalt not glean it afterward: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow. And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt: therefore I command thee to do this thing.”
The Lord’s justice must always be seen in context and that context is found in Gen 18:19 (“For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him.”) Justice is to keep the way of the Lord. Adam’s first task was to keep the garden (Gen 2:15 , “And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.”) While Adam’s task was to keep the garden, he listened to the lies that Satan manufactured for Eve and didn’t keep the garden. After that harmony and peace were replaced by conflict, toil and hardship. However, the Lord in His Law protected the weak and the poor, the widow, the stranger and the orphan. The background to this protection was found in the preamble to the Law. “I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage”. (Ex 20:2) Any person who had come from that kind of background was bound, by the Lord God, to care for anyone who was less fortunate. A stranger was someone who had no inheritance rights in Israel, measured against this was the fact that Abraham was a stranger in the Promised Land. and his descendants were strangers in another Land. (Gen 23:3–4, “And Abraham stood up from before his dead, and spake unto the sons of Heth, saying, I am a stranger and a sojourner with you: give me a possession of a burying place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.” and Gen 15:13, “And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;”) Treating strangers with compassion was not a matter of social justice but of gratitude for the fact the fact that they had been strangers and the Lord had delivered them. The Lord promised Israel that they would be prosperous if they obeyed the Law (Deut 15:6–7, “For the LORD thy God blesseth thee, as he promised thee: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, but thou shalt not borrow; and thou shalt reign over many nations, but they shall not reign over thee. If there be among you a poor man of one of thy brethren within any of thy gates in thy land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thine heart, nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother:”) If the Lord was generous then every person in Israel was to pass that generosity on, in gratitude, to someone who was less prosperous than they were. This was keeping the Law and not allowing sin to triumph so that they would lose their tenure of the Land. The fact that children were not held reponsible for their parents activity and parents were not held responsible for their children’s activity was based on the regulations discussed in Deut 21: 18-21, “If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.”)
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