CSI - Ancient Israel Water Ritual

What should you do if a dead body is found in a field, and your basic detective work cannot discover a killer? Here is an ancient water ritual that ensured that cold cases didn’t just suffer the indignity of civil neglect.

You can read the extended ritual in Deuteronomy 21:1-9. Here is a brief summary:

"The elders of the town nearest the body shall lead a heifer down to a valley that has not been plowed or planted and where there is a flowing stream. There in the valley they are to break the heifer's neck … and all the elders of the town shall wash their hands over the heifer … and they shall declare:
"Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it done. Accept this atonement for your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, O LORD, and do not hold your people guilty of the blood of an innocent man." And the bloodshed will be atoned for. So you will purge from yourselves the guilt of shedding innocent blood, since you have done what is right in the eyes of the LORD."

Every living person has a right to hospitality and security of the person. The community owes that to locals and visitors alike. If someone should fall victim to foul play, the community cannot plead not-guilty, even though nobody saw the crime perpetrated or knows anything about who committed it. It’s a community code that implies that everyone is their brothers’ and sisters’ keeper.

When a murder is discovered, justice cannot rest until the offense is put right. The victim is as sacred a person as the living, so the community through its elders must take responsibility for the unresolved guilt in their area. If no perpetrator is found, the neighbors have an ethical obligation to address the blood-shed of this innocent person. Six elements are interwoven in this ritual of atonement.

First, all the elders of the town join in the ritual to show full public complicity in what has occurred and the full community need for atonement. Second, the ritual takes place in a virgin valley, never plowed or planted, with a stream running through it, perhaps as a symbol of new beginning.

Third, a heifer is selected that has never pulled a plow – perhaps in recognition of the innocence and the lost employment of the fellow-citizen who has died. The heifer is taken to the stream in the valley and its neck broken symbolizing the seriousness of the crime that has occurred. The sacrificial animal dies in place of the guilty murderer who remains at-large and in place of the townspeople who otherwise carry the burden of guilt for the unresolved crime.

The heifer is slaughtered in the river or beside it, because the sacrifice and the cleansing water are symbolically linked together. The elders wash their hands over the body of the heifer in the flowing stream and figuratively the stream carries away the guilt of the community and purges their land.

The fifth element is a declaration and prayer the elders recite declaring their innocence and asking God to lift the pall of offence that hangs over their town. This declaration recognizes that Yahweh is a redeeming God who regards human life – even the life of strangers - very seriously, but who opens a way for renewal and cleansing when the land and its people have been defiled in some way. The sacrifice and prayer of atonement preserve the sacredness of the bond between God, the people and the land. If this bond is broken and not restored, the land remains defiled.

That is why the final element was especially vital: the attending priests speak God’s blessing upon the townspeople by pronouncing the spiritual all-clear and assuring them that they have done the right thing before God.

Image Sources:
Crime Scene - Wedetectives.com
My Brother's Keeper - Andre Ajibade
Cow at Riverside - Cycleau Project