While the death penalty is on the books in the State of Israel, the country has only civilly executed one person in its 65 year history.
By DAVID NEKRUTMAN‘The Blasphemer Stoned,’ by Gerart Hoet, 1728(photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
The death penalty is a highly controversial issue in the democratized world. While the death penalty is on the books in the State of Israel, the country has only civilly executed one person in its 65 year history: Adolf Eichmann for his participation in Nazi war crimes.According to rabbinic Jewish law, a criminal can only be sentenced to a biblical death if he or she was warned by two eligible witnesses prior to the act. The perpetrator must acknowledge the warning and immediately commit the wrongdoing. The witnesses must go to the court to testify as well as undergo a rigorous interrogation procedure. The case is determined by at least 23 judges and no circumstantial evidence is allowed. The strict criteria made the enforcement of the death penalty essentially hard to implement.At the end of the Second Temple period, the Talmud says that if a Jewish court executes someone once in 70 years, the judiciary was considered wicked. Some rabbis went as far as saying that “if we would have been part of the court, no person would be executed for we would have inquired of the witnesses questions that they would be unable to answer.”During Moses’ reign over the first Jewish court in biblical history, two people are executed; the Blasphemer (Leviticus 24:10-23) and the Sabbath Violator (Numbers 15:32-36). These nonviolent cases seem to sanction capital punishment and are at odds with the Talmudic statement above.While, the Sabbath Violator and Blasphemer stories share some similarities such as violation of the law, getting caught, a brief incarceration, Moses passing the verdict buck to God and execution by stoning, textually speaking there are some stark differences. The Blasphemer episode identifies the criminal, some of the background behind why he committed the offense as well as an “eye for eye” diatribe. The Sabbath Violator is an open and shut case.According to the biblical text, the Blasphemer is a product of a mixed marriage (Israelite and Egyptian) that goes out one day in the middle of the camp of Israel and ends up in a fight with a full blown Israelite. Why he is going out and what the fight is about are not clear from the text.Some commentators suggest that the Blasphemer is the son of the Egyptian taskmaster that Moses killed. Witnessing the severe beating the Egyptian taskmaster was giving to the Israelite slave in the Book of Exodus, the Holy Spirit revealed to Moses that the taskmaster had sexual relations with the wife of the slave and now he was covering his tracks by getting rid of the husband. Invoking the name of God, Moses kills him. Over six decades later, the son, wishing to be part of a tribe goes out to set up tent in Dan’s camp. However, tribal association is determined by patriarchal descent and a fight incurs and during the confrontation, the full blown Israelite reveals what Moses did to the son’s father.Angered by the tribal rejection and Moses killing his father, “the son of the Israelite woman pierced God’s name and cursed” (Leviticus 24:11). The Blasphemer commits two violations: (1) taking God’s holy name and desecrating it; and (2) cursing Moses.Not wanting to be publicly perceived with judicial bias, Moses has God take care of the verdict. What is interesting is that God punishes the son of the Israelite woman with cursing Moses and not Him (“Take the man who cursed [hamekalel] outside the camp” (24:14), and not “take the blasphemer [hanokev].”It was as if God, while not standing on his own honor, nevertheless would not let Moses’ honor be offended. This was not a case of biblical capital punishment. The diatribe by God before giving His final verdict is a lesson in morality – how careful people must be with their tongues and how it can lead a person to commit irreversible actions. The community being part of the execution should also be noted, since the episode began with communal rejection of a person from a mixed relationship.From the Cain and Abel story to the three dozen times the death penalty is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible for violent and non-violent offenses such as incest, adultery, idolatry, kidnapping and murder, opponents and proponents of capital punishment use scripture to support their arguments. If we can learn anything from the Blasphemer episode is that society must be careful not to produce people who can come to intentionally violate God’s law.
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