Just punishment shall be applied in the presence of the one who judges. The law given to us in the Torah is often deemed as primitive and brutal compared to our view of modern law and our greater sophistication. Deuteronomy 25 begins with words that may affirm that viewpoint at first, but a careful examination of the text reveals some aspects of grace that are missing from our contemporary legal system. Deuteronomy chapter 24 instructs us that God desires his people to be judged by those who are from the community they judge.

Here in chapter 25 we see God also desires these judges to show restraint in how severe the judgment can be. Not only that, but the judge must witness first hand the application of their
sentence. The judge must sleep each night pondering what they watched, and ask themself whether the community was healed or wounded by his decision. Our contemporary judicial system is process driven, merely moving the defendant through the system, being handed off to the prosecutor, to the judge, to the incarceration system and/or to parole. In each handoff the person is moved out of mind, and more significantly out of sight. The judge who condemns does not see the imposition of the sentence carried out. Somewhere down the line the defendant’s outcome becomes a statistical point for judicial review of thousands of cases. How much does a judicial review impact a judge’s sleep in thinking about whether the community was served well in the process?

God’s law in the Torah does indeed seem impractical to us, and yet we miss the part grace holds in the ancient law of God. Torah law was always relational, and not meant to be practical. The impractical is God’s way. We may ask how well such a practice of law would work today. While we can’t answer that objectively, we can ask ourselves how well the practical process of our age is working. Have we heal or have we wounded? Do we know?

How often do we let our perspectives and actions as Christians trend towards the practical and away from the grace found in real relationships? How often do we see the eyes of the ones we believe we helped? Whose eyes do we see when we tithe only our money but not our living, perceiving selves? How do we tell if our works have healed or wounded? How do we know if we can’t see— and what do we ponder when we sleep each night?