Boundaries and the Land are at play:
Jewish Children and their parents in the Cross Hairs — no one says a word, no one remembers, most of the world shrugs. The sacrifice and the murder of children is nothing new . . . just ask.
Tel Gezer’s first excavator, R.A.S. Macalister, believed these ten monumental standing stones were part of a Middle Bronze Age Canaanite “high place” dedicated to child sacrifice (also known as baby killing for sacrifice and martyrdom, as a form of sacrifice).*
Before these prohibitions were issued, Jacob, in Genesis (28:18), places a stone (the very one on which he had slept) and sets it up as ‘a pillar’ (מַצֵּבָה, matzeivah), then pouring oil on the top of it (seemingly of a religious significance). At first glance, it seems almost like a ‘boundary issue.’
Perhaps we might also consider Israel’s arrival at the foot of the Mountain (Sinai), where instead of getting what they truly wanted, they receive something else entirely, yes, ‘a set of boundaries,’ carved in a stone set. Looks more like a litany of crossing boundary issues — and not simply something ‘along the lines of borders.’
And yet, in going to Israel, under no circumstances are they to set up stones and pillars. The Israelites arrive with nothing, and yet all they are told about is the work of fields and farming — in a land they knew nothing about, bearing in mind that the last time Israel/Jacob crossed that boundary, he was the one who ‘set up a stone . . .’
What is the issue with these stones?
Here, below, a complicating verse from this week, a verse which appears to delineate boundaries . . . . which cannot or should not be crossed. All of this, regarding the Land.
Leviticus Chapter 26 וַיִּקְרָא
| א לֹא-תַעֲשׂוּ לָכֶם אֱלִילִם, וּפֶסֶל וּמַצֵּבָה לֹא-תָקִימוּ לָכֶם, וְאֶבֶן מַשְׂכִּית לֹא תִתְּנוּ בְּאַרְצְכֶם, לְהִשְׁתַּחֲ ת עָלֶיהָ: כִּי אֲנִי יְהוָה, אֱלֹהֵיכֶם. | 1 Ye shall make you no idols, neither shall ye rear you up a graven image, or a pillar, neither shall ye place any figured stone in your land, to bow down unto it; for I am the LORD your God. |
| ב אֶת-שַׁבְּתֹתַי תִּשְׁמֹרוּ, וּמִקְדָּשִׁי תִּירָאוּ: אֲנִי, יְהוָה. {פ} | 2 Ye shall keep My sabbaths, and reverence My sanctuary: I am the LORD. {P} |
| Parashat Bechuqotai : פרשת בחוקותיי | |
Above, Leviticus 26:1 directs the Israelites not to set up a pillar (matzeivah). In Exodus (23:24) the Israelites were to break into pieces the Canaanites’ pillars (מַצֵּבֹתֵיהֶם, matzeivoteihem). And even Deuteronomy 16:22 prohibits setting up these stones (synonymous with pillars) . . . “which the Lord Your God hates.”
What’s with these “pillars of the community,” and with these stones . . . why?
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This aerial photograph from the early 1980s shows the landscape around the main site of Tel Gezer. Thirteen inscribed boundary stones have been discovered in the area around Gezer.
This final boundary stone at Tel Gezer was rediscovered in this season’s excavation. According to the excavator’s press release, the boundary stones reveal the Jewish occupants’ concern over keeping their fields according to Jewish law. Many of the boundary stones include the inscription “Region of Gezer” in Hebrew along with “Belonging to Alkos” in Greek. The newly-discovered thirteenth stone follows the inscriptions known from other boundary stones very closely, with a few exceptions. The weathered letters are larger than on other known examples, and the Hebrew and Greek text is written on the same side of the stone.
After a century of excavation, Gezer continues to produce interesting finds. In 2011, excavations of a Canaanite water system at Gezer uncovered a natural cave at the base of a tunnel system dug in the early 2nd millennium B.C.E.
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Borders are crossed, babies are murdered, women are raped, college students and international organizations and once friendly nations rejoice or shrug: and the boundaries of humanity are violated on a vast scale. No one chooses to remember what has just happened in a very short period of time. Which, of course, makes this session *that important*
