6
objects completely obliterated (Exod 23:23-24, 28-32). The Canaanite "They" were not even to
live with the Israelite "Us" (Exod 23:33). And yet other foreigners, namely sojourners (Heb.
ger), were to be treated decently by the Israelite "Us." They were not to be oppressed or taken
advantage of, but the Us-Israelite readers were supposed to empathize with their plight in view
of Israel own historical experience as sojourners (Exod 22:21; 23:9). Such laws ultimately allow
"Them" to integrated into "Us,"
13
and thereby come to know God as "Thou."
2. Laws are a Means for the Narrator to Portray the Character of God.
A second purpose of the laws within the narrative is to paint the character of God for the
reader. One technique narrators (biblical and non-biblical) can use paint a mental portrait of a
character is through the characters own words.
14
So from the narrative point of view, the law
contributes to the characterization of God. Watts states, "Pentateuchal law not only characterizes
its speakers in order to validate the law, but ... promulgates law in order to characterize its
speakers."
15
The use of civil laws to characterize the lawgiver is not unknown outside the Bible. The
Laws of Hammurabi (ca. 1750 BC) serve a similar function, as is made clear by its prologue.
There Hammurabi boasts that he is a pious provider and protector of the holy city of Nippur, as
well as other cities and their gods (Prologue i 50 - v 13), and just before the laws he claims that
"When the god Marduk commanded me to provide just ways for the people of the land (in order
to attain) appropriate behavior, I established truth and justice as the declaration of the land, I
enhanced the well-being of the people" (Prologue v 14-24). After the laws, in the Epilogue, he
claims the justice of his laws reflects on his "just" and "able" and "wise" character as a king
13
Jackson, "The Literary Presentation of Multiculturalism," 204.
14
Adele Berlin, Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narratives (Bible and Literature 9;
Sheffield: Almond Press, 1983), 38-39.
15
Watts, Reading Law, 90.