3.1. The Foundation of the Mosaic State. Theocracy and Its Significance. The Principles of Political and Social Life Deriving From the Theocratic Principle. Equality as the General Principle of the Mosaic State

The people of Israel were the only people in the Old Testament world whom Jehovah chose as His own “kingdom,” so that within it, amid a universally corrupted humanity, the seeds of salvation might be preserved and nurtured—salvation destined to spread subsequently to all of humanity.

To achieve this purpose, He concluded with the Hebrew people a covenant (compact), by which supreme authority over the state was given to Jehovah—as though He became the king of the people. The essence of this covenant is expressed in the law as follows. When the Israelites were at the foot of the mountain (Sinai), “Moses went up to God (on the mountain), and the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying: ‘Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob, and tell the people of Israel: You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession (λαὸς περιούσιος — according to the LXX) among all peoples, for all the earth is mine. And you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation’” (Exod. 19:3–6). “You are standing today, all of you, before the Lord your God: the heads of your tribes, your elders (your judges), your officers, all the men of Israel, your little ones, your wives, and the sojourner who is in your camp, from the one who chops your wood to the one who draws your water, so that you may enter into the covenant with the Lord your God and into his oath, which the Lord your God is making with you today, that he may establish you today as his people, and that he may be your God” (Deut. 29:10–13). “Let there not be among you a man or woman or clan or tribe whose heart is turning away today from the Lord your God to go and serve the gods of those nations” (Deut. 29:18). The primary purpose of the establishment of the special “kingdom of Jehovah” is, as is evident from the passages cited, the preservation of the idea of monotheism—of the teaching and worship of the one true God, as opposed to the polytheism of other peoples. A corresponding purpose is served also by the covenant of Jehovah with the people. In order to preserve the true teaching about God, Jehovah concludes with the people a covenant on those conditions—if one may so put it—that He, the king of all the earth, becomes preeminently the king of the Israelite people, receives supreme authority over it, becomes its lawgiver, and the people undertake to accept His ordinances and to preserve them inviolably. By preserving this union with Jehovah as their supreme ruler, the people could look forward to special protection from Him. The essence, thus, of this solemn covenant between Jehovah and the people—the covenant that lay at the foundation of the Mosaic state—consisted in the following: if the Jews willingly consented to acknowledge Jehovah as their Lord and king, to keep His covenant and fulfill His laws, to recognize Him as the one true God and worship Him—in contrast to the idolatry of other peoples—then Jehovah, being God and supreme ruler of the entire world and of all the peoples of the earth, would take the people of Israel under His special protection, would govern them by particular laws, would secure for them the enjoyment of the inestimable privileges of the true religion, and would give them, as His beloved and chosen people among all the peoples of the earth, all the blessings of freedom, peace, and prosperity. The totality of such relations of Jehovah to the people is “theocracy.” But from what has been expounded it is evident that theocracy is not some particular form of state government in contrast to monarchy, oligarchy, or democracy—as Josephus Flavius understood it, he being the first to introduce this term into use—but expresses only a special relation of Jehovah to the people as the chosen, a relation expressed in His spiritual headship over the people by means of the obligation to maintain the covenant and to fulfill the legislation. True, the headship of Jehovah as king and lawgiver penetrates the entire life of the people, since by the covenant the people were to conform in all their life to the voice of the supreme King and to the ordinances of the supreme Lawgiver, to obey His decisions as judge (Exod. 33:22) and to submit to Him in war as commander (Num. 10:35; 23:21); nonetheless, all such relations had for the people only the significance of a principle, since Jehovah could realize all these His relations to the people only through the people themselves, through His organs taken from the people. Thus theocracy must be understood not as a form of state government, but as a principle giving the general form of social life—in conformity with which the people had full freedom of development, and could work out from within themselves, according to their needs, historical circumstances, and conditions, all the particular forms of state and social life.

Theocracy, understood in the sense of a general theocratic principle, is the foundation of the Mosaic state. Since the theocratic principle, as the expression of divine sovereignty, is a combination of the highest principles, free from human weakness and imperfection, it is natural that the political life formed under its influence and guidance should not have those defects and imperfections that characterized it among all ancient peoples. The essence of the political order among ancient peoples consisted in the irreconcilable division between rulers and subjects, expressed in the division of the people into castes—of which some occupied a dominant position and enjoyed all the rights and advantages of that position in the juridical and economic sense, while others, by contrast, were rightless instruments of the first, serving merely as a means to secure the best position for them. Such injustice was not to have a place in the theocratic state, where by the very essence of the theocratic principle there was no division of the people into fully-enfranchised rulers and disenfranchised subjects, because all members were equally subject to the supreme King—Jehovah—and consequently all were equal before Him, which is why all equally participated in the “solemn covenant with Him”: the heads of the tribes, the elders, the officers, the women, the children, and the sojourners, from the one who chops wood to the one who draws water (Deut. 29:10–13). If thus all members of the people participated with equal rights in the covenant with Jehovah that lay at the foundation of the state, then naturally all of them were to have equal rights in the state they themselves had established, and all were to be equal. From this flows the chief consequence of the theocratic principle for political life—the equality of all in the state. And this equality becomes the foundation of all state and social relations. The great lawgiver, having placed the theocratic principle at the foundation of the state with its indicated general consequence, extended through particular provisions the operation of this principle to all particular relations, so that in addition to religious equality (which is self-evident and requires no proof) he established economic, social, and political equality. Viewed from this angle, the Mosaic state—in its foundation and essence—stands in sharp contrast to all the ancient Near Eastern states, which had violence and injustice at their foundation. In contrast to them, having perverted the primordial truth of human relations, it represents a realization, within the bounds of the possible, of the true idea of the state in its normal condition—a realization, of course, conceivable only under the condition of the special guidance and care of the supreme King. To confirm the general ideas set forth, we shall examine the principles of Mosaic statehood in their application to the principal relations of social life.