Deuteronomy 19

I've embedded a smattering of Calvin and Hobbes strips in these posts, so you can probably tell that it's my favorite newspaper comic. I started reading it in 2nd grade, when my highly discriminating parents bought the collection Yukon Ho! I enjoyed the adventure, imaginative flights of fancy, and richly realized gems of everyday interactions, joys, and struggles. I especially savored the longer stories--Calvin's exploits with his famed cardboard box, the Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs ordeal, the G.R.O.S.S. (Get Rid Of Slimy girlS) fiascos, Calvin's school projects on leaves, bats, insects, and the planet Mercury…. But as I got older, my appreciation of the comic, especially its irony, only increased. And to creator Bill Watterson's credit, he is adamant about protecting the integrity of the comic strip, refusing to license the characters to anyone. (So if you see a shirt, decal, or piece of merchandise with Calvin and Hobbes on it, it's an unofficial product made without Watterson's permission.)

So when I read verse 14, an admonishment forbidding the moving of boundary stones, I could only think of this:

I could go on about the spot-on, hilarious portrayals of the characters' expressions in each panel, but I think I've gone enough off-topic already. Boundaries are important because they establish ownership and responsibility. They can also set apart two vastly different communities. Recall the Berlin Wall, for instance, which separated the more affluent West Germany from the impoverished, Communist-controlled eastern side. As another example, a certain American presidential candidate wants to build a wall between the US and Mexico. But in Deuteronomy, Moses and God emphasize inheritance. When they enter the Promised Land, the various tribes of Israel will each receive their own parcel of land. How petty would it be, then, if they all started squabbling over land after defeating the Canaanites? (Petty? Yes. Improbable? Not at all.)

This chapter's Moses nugget comes in the form of an example Moses uses to clarify the policies for the cities of refuge (already explained in Numbers 35). In verse 5, he offers a situation in which two people are cutting wood in the forest, but then the head of the axe flies off and kills one of them. This morbid tableau has more than a little of a "Final Destination" vibe to it--horrible in its plausibility, yet a little ridiculous in its probability. Moses then says that the accidental killer can flee to the city of refuge before the "avenger of blood" overtakes him. But what if the dead man's brother is chopping wood with them, and the city of refuge is miles away? Nothing would stop the brother from overtaking and having revenge on the accidental killer before he reached the city. Not a perfect system, but I suppose the Israelites were doing the best they could.