Posted on 02/03/2007 3:55:49 PM PST by Risha
The First Word: Jeremiah's wish
Richard Elliott Friedman, THE JERUSALEM POST Feb. 1, 2007
The Bible plays different roles in the ways that people formulate their views on different issues. On homosexuality or capital punishment, there are passages of law that rule on aspects of it, and there are stories that may involve it. So - even though I still suspect that most people's views of these things are more visceral and cultural - it is possible that the Bible genuinely influences some people's decisions about such matters.
On abortion, however, the passages are few and questionable. After all, it was a revolution in technology that made the procedure safe enough and common enough to turn it into the issue that it is now, and the biblical texts were a couple of millennia too early for this.
So people have been moved to rely on passages like the two men - or is it two people? - fighting in Exodus 21 who cause a miscarriage - or is it a premature labor? - resulting in injury to the pregnant woman - or is it to the baby? - or is it a miscarried fetus? (See William Propp's detailed treatment of this law's many uncertainties in the new Volume II of his brilliant Anchor Bible Exodus commentary to see why no one should rely on this enigmatic passage to form a view on abortion.)
Or people have relied on the Decalogue commandment against murder, without feeling compelled to defend the assumption that abortion is analogous to what is understood there as murder. The commandment refers to taking a human life with malice. It doesn't refer to human sacrifice, even though that would be reckoned as murder in most societies today. Human sacrifice is powerfully forbidden in the Torah, but by way of its own commandment, not by the Ten Commandments.
The Decalogue commandment also apparently does not refer to mercy killing, execution, killing in war or in self defense, killing an animal, or manslaughter. As in most law codes, ancient and modern, murder is distinguished from manslaughter. So if one regards abortion as a violation of this commandment, one must bring arguments and evidence to support that claim.
Therefore it comes as a surprise - at first - that the only explicit reference to abortion in the Bible is rarely cited in debates. Also surprisingly, it occurs in the book of a prophet, not in a story or law. In Jeremiah 20, the prophet, in anguish, wishes that he had been aborted. Jeremiah, the saddest, most depressed, most anguished, most unbelieved of prophets, despite a good record of fulfilled predictions, finally outdoes even Moses, Elijah and Jonah, each of whom wishes for death at some point.
The text:
Cursed be the day in which I was born.
The day that my mother bore me, let it not be blessed.
Cursed be the man who informed my father, saying,
"A male child's been born to you," making him glad!
And let that man be like the cities that the Lord overturned and didn't regret.
And let him hear crying in the morning and wailing at noontime.
Because he didn't kill me from the womb,
And my mother would be my tomb
And her womb an eternal pregnancy.
Why is this that I came out from the womb?
To see suffering and agony
And my days consumed in shame.
THE MASORETIC text is clear and horrid. The Septuagint, in place of "from the womb," reads, "Because he didn't kill me in the womb" - which makes the fact of abortion even more vivid.
Now, the passage likely is extreme hyperbole, and it is poetry, so one would be well advised to use caution when factoring it into any contemporary position on abortion. Moreover, the fact that Jeremiah wishes he had been killed in the womb doesn't mean that he is favoring abortion any more than, when Moses and Elijah and Jonah wish for death, they are coming out in favor of death! Further, this wish may apply solely to Jeremiah himself, and not be a position on whether all human lives - or any other human lives - would be better off aborted.
But, even if kulanu hahamim, kulanu nevonim - we are all wise and understanding - and we're therefore cautious about using this passage as approving or disapproving of abortion, it has significant implications.
First, a passage that is cited in abortion arguments is also from Jeremiah. God's first words to Jeremiah are: "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you" (1:5). Abortion opponents take this to mean that one exists as a person already in the womb.
Now if ever there was a passage of poetry that needed to be taken with a wheelbarrowful of caution, it's this one. One cannot know if it is meant metaphorically or literally - or if it is meant to apply to Jeremiah alone as an extraordinary case or to all human beings. One cannot know if it implies that an abortion could undermine a divine plan, or if it rather means precisely that Jeremiah's destiny was already divinely protected at conception from any possible harm in his infancy - in which case the passage has nothing to do with abortion at all.
What we can know is Jeremiah's own response to this revelation, which is the passage that we have been considering in Jeremiah 20. God says, "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you." Jeremiah looks back at that and says: "I wish someone had killed me in that womb! I wish my mother had been my tomb!" The inaugural revelation's already limited value in abortion debates is all but nullified by Jeremiah 20.
SECOND, Jeremiah's wish may shed light on that classic question of murder versus killing in the Decalogue. When Jeremiah talks about abortion, he uses the term motetani, the po'lel of m-w-t. That verb never means murder in the Bible. It is used for David's killing of Goliath in battle (1 Sam. 17:51; and see 14:13). It is used by the Amalekite who claims to David that he killed Saul at the king's own request (2 Sam. 1:9,10,16; and see Judges 9:54). In Psalm 34 - timotet rasha ra'a - it refers to the just killing of the wicked (v. 22). Only in Psalm 109:16 does it refer to the ill-willed taking of life, and the nature of the act of killing is not identified there.
That is, the word that Jeremiah uses for abortion, the only word used in connection with abortion in the Bible, always refers to killing, never to murder.
The larger question remains: whether Jeremiah's wish that he had never been born applies only to Jeremiah himself or if it sheds light on the nature and value of human life generally - and what that implies for views of abortion. As it stands, it certainly is a personal expression. But related passages in the Bible may broaden its implication.
Visibly similar to Jeremiah, Job's first words are:
Let the day in which I was born perish,
And the night one said, 'A boy is conceived.'
He curses that night, saying:
Because it didn't close the doors of my womb.
And, very close to Jeremiah, he says:
Why didn't I die from the womb,
Come out from the womb and expire!
To add the last piece of the parallel to Jeremiah, Job speaks of that never-been state thus: Like a concealed nepel, I wouldn't be, Like children who didn't see light.
"Nepel" may mean an aborted fetus or a stillborn, so Jeremiah 20 remains the sole certain reference to abortion, but this passage that introduces the whole of Job's words provides another biblical picture of a human - an exceptional human - who judges the preemption of a life to be better than to have lived it. In the cases of Moses, Elijah and Jonah, one could say that each seeks to die after having lived and functioned for some time. But the cases of Jeremiah and Job say that it would have been better to forgo the whole thing.
A life could be too painful to have lived it. I advise students and friends, "Live your life so that when it comes to an end you can answer the question, 'Was the world better because you were here, or was it worse, or did it make no difference?'"
The second and the third possible answers are each fearful in a different way. And the Bible gives us two of its most powerful figures being left with the answer that it would have been preferable not to have been here at all.
THE DEPICTION of a second biblical figure who expresses this view raises the possibility that the implications of Jeremiah's wish may be understood as more than idiosyncratic. And it is the speaker in Ecclesiastes who connects this rejection of life to the human condition broadly, not just to an individual. Kohelet says (4:1-3):
I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun...
And I praised the dead who've already died
more than the living who are still alive,
And better than both of them is one who has not yet been
Who hasn't seen the bad thing that is done under the sun.
And then, giving the case of a long-lived and many-childed man who still ends unfulfilled and unburied, Kohelet says, "Better than he is a napel!" (6:3).
The cautions still apply: Just because Kohelet says it is better to be a nepel, that does not mean that the author advocates causing a nepel by abortion. After all, this author also says that the day of death is better than the day of birth (7:1), but that doesn't mean he favors causing deaths by murder.
But the implications of these Kohelet passages, together with the other passages we've considered, are significant. If an individual human's life is such that it is better to die before birth and not to live it, then what does this imply for views on abortion?
I submit that opposition to abortion is grounded in a belief - or a desire to believe - that a human life has value and has some meaning. The cases of Jeremiah and Job, broadened by the wisdom of Kohelet, question that belief. They still don't make it acceptable to take a human life, because we have an explicit commandment against that. But we have no explicit commandment prohibiting abortion.
These passages taken collectively, therefore, challenge the belief that every life has some inherent value that cannot be prevented from coming into existence.
I am not arguing that abortion is moral, or that it should be legal. What I conclude is that one cannot base opposition to it on the Bible. And, second, on the basis of the principles we have considered here, I would have to say that the weight of the biblical evidence is in the direction that abortion is permissible.
The writer is author of Who Wrote the Bible? and Commentary on the Torah.
bump
I didn't catch the part where the friendly neighborhood abortionist was supposed to do the job.
I say it is the planned (first degree) murder of the most helpless.
It does not!
They were lamenting their own torment, not calling for the slaughter of babies.
This guy can explain anything away, can't he.
So if King David ever lamented that he wished his enemy captured and killed him, would you support murder?
Didn't Satan do just that when he was tempting Jesus in the desert?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1776696/posts?page=2#2
(I think you are on this forum to cause trouble)
Good Lord, they even twist King Solomon's words.
So... a guy who's having a bad time of it and makes an offhand "wish I'd never been born" comment, not only cancels God's infinite power but provides this author with "scriptural support" for his obvious pro-abortion viewpoint.
Uhhhhh-huh.
I admit I read this quickly because I'm in a hurry, but that's the gist of what I see.
Self-bumping is a clue. Usually that causes blindness, apparently not with this one.
most Anti-Christians can explain anythign anyway they like. Heck- most God disobeying churches can too.
What I always find spectacularly ignorant about these rationalizations is the failure to contemplate God's position in these descriptions.
I have heard and read so many rationalizations about how the Bible says abortion is okay.
How about this?
The says abortion is okay if God decides to take the life.
Where in this or any other rationalization does the Bible say, 'yes go ahead and take the life of an unborn child'
The poetic reflection of Jeremiah thinking he wished he had not been born is an emphatic statement that here again God should decide.
Its not very complicated. But oh we must rationalize it. Surely it is okay.
Introduction: The Bible declares that God values all human life and that He wants all people to come to repentance to inherit eternal life. 1 The Bible explains that the entire life of a human - from the beginning to its natural end - is sacred, since God determines the length of those days. 2 When does human life begin? This page will examine that question from a biblical perspective.
When does life begin?
Many Christians believe that the Bible is silent in regard to God's view on life before birth. Although the Bible does not specifically define when life begins, it does give us enough information to formulate a solid biblical position.
The sayings of Jesus: Jesus demonstrated the love of God for children often during His ministry. In one passage, Jesus took a child to him and sat with him. He said, "See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you, that their angels in heaven continually behold the face of My Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 18:10). Jesus tells us not to despise or look down upon the least powerful and significant (by human standards) of humans. It is ironic that the most helpless humans are those inside the womb. Of all the risks that we must face in our lives, the most dangerous place we can be is in the womb, since fully one third of all human babies are aborted in this nation - over one million every year. Greater than 98% of all abortions are done for non-medical reasons.
Old Testament law: The Old Testament provides most of the information on God's view of life before birth, since it gives us the law. The law specifically addresses the issue of taking the life of a fetus in the book of Exodus:
"And if men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she has a miscarriage, yet there is no further injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman's husband may demand of him; and he shall pay as the judges decide. But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life." (Exodus 21:22-23)
Therefore, the law tells us that a man who induces an abortion or miscarriage is to be punished, indicating that God values life before birth. A verse from Hosea 3 says that abortion is a punishment for sin, indicating God views it as bad. Likewise, God expressed His disgust for the Ammonites, who "ripped open the pregnant women of Gilead".
When does this life begin?
Human life begins in the womb: The Bible tells us God is involved in our creation from the womb:
"Did not He who made me in the womb make him, And the same one fashion us in the womb? (Job 31:15)
Yet Thou art He who didst bring me forth from the womb; Thou didst make me trust when upon my mother's breasts. Upon Thee I was cast from birth; Thou hast been my God from my mother's womb. (Psalms 22:9-10)
For Thou didst form my inward parts; Thou didst weave me in my mother's womb. I will give thanks to Thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Thy works, And my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from Thee, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth. Thine eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Thy book they were all written, The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them. (Psalms 139:13-16)
Thus says the LORD who made you And formed you from the womb, who will help you, `Do not fear, O Jacob My servant; And you Jeshurun whom I have chosen. (Isaiah 44:2)
Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, and the one who formed you from the womb, "I, the LORD, am the maker of all things, Stretching out the heavens by Myself, And spreading out the earth all alone, (Isaiah 44:24)
Prophets called from the womb: In addition, there are a number of great men of God (and Jesus) who were called to be God's servants from the womb:
Samson:
Then the woman came and told her husband, saying, "A man of God came to me and his appearance was like the appearance of the angel of God, very awesome. And I did not ask him where he came from, nor did he tell me his name. "But he said to me, `Behold, you shall conceive and give birth to a son, and now you shall not drink wine or strong drink nor eat any unclean thing, for the boy shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb to the day of his death.'" (Judges 13:6-7, see also Judges 16:17)
Jesus (prophecy):
Listen to Me, O islands, And pay attention, you peoples from afar. The LORD called Me from the womb; From the body of My mother He named Me. (Isaiah 49:1)
And now says the LORD, who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant, To bring Jacob back to Him, in order that Israel might be gathered to Him (For I am honored in the sight of the LORD, And My God is My strength), (Isaiah 49:5)
Yet Thou art He who didst bring me forth from the womb; Thou didst make me trust when upon my mother's breasts. Upon Thee I was cast from birth; Thou hast been my God from my mother's womb. (Psalms 22:9-10)
Jeremiah: "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations." (Jeremiah 1:5)
John the Baptist:
"For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and he will drink no wine or liquor; and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, while yet in his mother's womb." (Luke 1:15)
Paul:
But when He who had set me apart, even from my mother's womb, and called me through His grace, was pleased (Galatians 1:15)
In addition, the Bible tells us the wicked are estranged or enemies of God from the womb:
The wicked are estranged from the womb; These who speak lies go astray from birth. (Psalms 58:3)
What is murder? All of the above verses tell us God considers us to be human before we are born, but they don't answer the question of when we actually become so. I propose there is a way to know what God considers the latest point in development at which we must consider a fetus to be a living human. Even before God gave Moses the law, when He gave Noah and his family all the animals for food (in addition to the plants), He told them, "Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood" (Genesis 9:4). At the same time, God gave the law and penalty for murder (described as the shedding of "man's blood").7 Therefore, God considers blood to be the basis for life and the shedding of human blood, which results in death, to be murder. Science tells us that the heart of the human fetus begins to form 18 days after conception.8 There is a measurable heart beat 21-24 days after conception.9 Since blood is flowing at this point, it is likely that blood formation begins well before day 21 (I could find no reference for the date at which blood formation begins). Therefore, this represents the latest date at which we must consider the fetus to be human (according to biblical standards), which is only 7-10 days after a women would expect to begin her menses. Most women have cycles that can vary by this amount, and therefore do not discover they are pregnant until after this point. For all practical purposes, from a biblical perspective, abortion at any point must be considered murder by Bible-believing Christians.
I'm sorry, but this is a really silly argument.
1) Who is the "he" in "Because he didn't kill me from the womb?" The only "he" mentioned in the greater passage is "the Lord" who laid waste to cities. Biblical ethics has always been grounded in the idea that G_d alone has the right to give, and take life--for whatever reason His righteous purpose chooses. The "he" being G_d alone (so he wished G_d had killed him? That makes the purposeful choice to abort by a human morally less abhorant?) makes the writer's argument fall apart.
2) Poetic laments in scripture give a very realistic and true account of how the writer feels....but for that very purpose cannot be weighed heavily in formulating ethics or law. We can get an element (though very small) of the practice of Elizabethan English law by reading Shakespere's sonnets--however for real-life law and application of that law we need to read the law books.
3) I would also reject the idea that "mercy killing" was allowed by the Decalogue. Considering especially how the mercy killer of King Saul was treated, certainly King David didn't agree.
Honestly this just seems to be another attempt to muddy the ethical waters about abortion.
You got it right. There's a bunch of Scripture taken way out of context to support this absurd claim, but you nailed it.
foolish people often twist the words of the wise- the scales that cover their eyes and the blackness of their hearts prevent them from clinging to the truth or even seeing it.
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