Withces - Exodus 22:18

22:18 - Kind of like I was talking about the other day, the seriousness with which the law of Moses took straying from the prescribed path, the laws continue, “thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” This of course, brings to my mind the Salem witch trials and all the other things that go into priestcraft, etc. but really, we can look back just a few chapters to see that while Moses was doing the whole song and dance with Pharaoh to get the people to be freed, Pharaoh had his own magicians and it was pretty standard religiosity. TB notes that sorcery and magic were pretty universal throughout the ancient world and the fact that Israel did nothing like that was very well known.

Additionally, like we also discussed the other day, Sherem coming to Jacob and accusing him of not following the law of Moses was an accurate statement if we look at the differences between how the Nephites followed it and how the Hebrew in Palestine followed it. By this logic, that “witches” or people who try to get away with not following the law of Moses, Sherem, Nehor, and Korihor should have been executed. But that’s now what happened. Sherem was struck down by God, which was a very dramatic and powerful statement by God that his prophets were to be followed and that the law of Moses was not to be practiced the way that they did it in Jerusalem. Nehor was executed but only because he murdered Gideon, and Korihor was struck mute by God and couldn’t get money for his lies anymore and was trampled to death by a mob. God handled the deaths of these people in Nephite times, but in ancient Israel, there were to be executed.

I think it’s pretty obvious that God didn’t mean to kill witches who were actively summoning the devil and perpetrating evil under the guise of magic. Given the context of the Egyptian magicians, I think this statement could be looked at as anyone who was trying to turn the people away from God and back to some other type of religion. If that’s the case, then it begs the question, why kill them? Why not grant Israel religious freedom, the freedom to choose what religion they want to follow? This is one of those concepts that takes me some time to think around, and maybe it’s because I live in the western world where freedom to choose is important, but that wasn’t God’s plan for Israel, they weren’t allowed to choose which religion or god they wanted to follow, which is an interesting thought experiment.

My brother lives in Asia and he says that eastern cultures are much more focused on what’s best for the greater good for society, not what the individual wants to do and that might be the mindset that’s at play here. God wants Israel to be devoted to Him and His purposes, and to accomplish that, he can’t allow them to stray from him at all, which is very much human nature. The concept of doing what’s for the greater good according to God’s commandments, even if the result is death for a certain individual is the logic behind Nephi killing Laban so that he could take the brass plates back to his family. It ensured that the whole Nephite nation had the word of God for the next 1,000 years.

In fact, I just listened to the part of the Book of Mormon tonight where Mosiah leaves the people of Nephi and meets the people of Zarahemla and they are so happy that Mosiah had the brass plates with him because that meant they could all finally speak the same language and they then had the word of God with them. And this is why having the brass plates was important, and that’s why Laban’s death was acceptable to God to make that happen. Just as a side note, I read an article once about why Nephi killing Laban was legal under the law of Moses, which I thought was pretty interesting, I’ll see if I can find it again and I’ll link it here for anyone who is interested. All of this is to say that killing a witch meant that the people remained faithful to God, and as the giver of life and death, it is God’s prerogative to decide the conditions under which a life can be taken. It’s just an interesting concept to think about, how religious freedom might be the society that we live under now, but it hasn’t always been God’s plan for his people.