And appoint one leader from each tribe to help assign the land. – Numbers 34:18

Today’s Scripture Reading (November 20, 2018): Numbers 34

Over the past few weeks, I think I have heard the word “gerrymander” or its derivatives more often than I have heard the word used at any other time in my life. The word “gerrymander” finds its roots in an article in the Boston Gazette on March 26, 1812. The word was created to describe the way that the Massachusetts state senate districts were being drawn by then Governor Elbridge Gerry. The idea then, and now, is that a party can draw the lines so that they can win an election even if they have fewer votes by placing as many votes for the majority party in as few electoral districts as possible. The result is that the one with fewer votes loses landslide decisions in some districts, but wins closer elections in more districts. In 1812, the recipient of the gerrymandering was Governor Gerry’s Democratic-Republican Party. (Yes, for all of you Democratic and Republican Party members, in the United States you were once the same party chasing after very similar political goals.) Gerrymandering is one of the failures of contemporary politics. It is an attempt to sway the electoral decision in the direction of the ruling party, and possibly the reason why in recent history the United States has had relatively few one term President’s.

Politically, Israel was a theocracy organized around God, but where each tribe, made up of the descendants of each of the sons of Jacob, or in the case of Manasseh and Ephraim the grandsons of Jacob, had a say. Because the system was based on family ancestry and association, gerrymandering was impossible. Some have even argued that the tribes may have voted for who it was that should lead them, based on this verse which says appoint, or choose, one leader from each tribe. If there was a vote, it was likely much more informal than the way we think of voting in our contemporary society.

But the intention was that every tribe would have a say in the future of Israel. Here, the critical subject was the division of the land. It did not matter what the size of your tribe might have been. The largest of the tribes had more than twice the population of the smallest tribe, yet every tribe had the right to have one representative at the meetings of the country. Moses, and after him, Joshua, would stand as the representative of God and the nation.

In this manner, Israel would decide the important issues of the day, at least until the leadership vacuum that followed Joshua. After Joshua, the nation’s leadership would be more episodic during the time of the judges until the rising of the kings who would follow Samuel, which would essentially end the theocracy of Israel.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Numbers 35