Quotes about Israelite

Highlight — Genesis 24:3 Marrying Foreigners From this earliest period of Israelite history, there was an emphasis on not marrying foreigners. The reason had to do with religion, not race—in many cases foreigners were distant relatives, but they worshiped false gods. When foreigners were willing to worship Israel's God, they were welcomed (see the book of Ruth, for example).

This feature of Israelite law stands in sharp contrast to many ancient law codes where certain thefts by certain people were punishable by death. Indeed, it contrasts with British law until fairly recent times (people were hanged for sheep-stealing in Britain until the nineteenth century). On the other hand, as mentioned above, theft of a person for gain (kidnapping) was a capital offence in Israel (21:16; Deut. 24:7). Stealing a human life was different from stealing property.

An Israelite could not have sung the familiar song 'God is so good, God is so good, God is so good, he's so good to me' (though the words echo the Psalms) without being reminded also of its ethical consequence: 'God asks me to show that goodness to others.

The reason Miriam and the other women can sing and dance at the end of the exodus narrative is the emergence of new social reality in which the life of the Israelite economy is no longer determined and compelled by the insatiable production quotas of Egypt and its gods (15:20—21).

The political agency of YHWH comes, in Israelite tradition, to be a stable, orderly cultic presence, but without surrendering any of the force of agency known in the exodus narrative itself. Thus "glory" becomes a cover term that holds together forceful agency and abiding presence