Moses found that being in charge of the children of Israel was a job too big for one man. His solution was to appoint elders who would appoint advisors, who would appoint someone under them and so forth. Some point to this as a precursor of our representative form of government as expressed in our House of Representatives or England’s Parliament. Later we have the Roman Republic and I am sure there are other forms of counsels that were formed to give advice or leadership.
I came across something that makes me think of the Senate.
(Revelation 7:4 KJV) And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.And then follows a list of the tribes with 12,000 assigned to each.
In this case each tribe is getting the same number. Granted it was not two but still the same. By the time of Jesus Judah was by far the largest and the other tribes had been hauled into obscurity, yet each one will get the same delegation.
Having said that, these are just seeds. The idea that the common man would have a right to vote and express a binding opinion on the ruling class was the talk of a crazy man. Even in Athens, known for democracy, the only ones who could vote were free, male property owners.
But little acorns to mighty oak trees grow. Or I guess you can say that a strong wind will spread dandelion seeds all over the place.
To be continued...
homo unius libri
"...male property owners..." - At the risk of getting lynched, I'll say that we wouldn't have one-tenth of the problems we have in this country if we'd stayed with these guidelines (which we once had).
ReplyDeleteThe women in my life are in favor of taking the vote away from women so you would have at least those two votes.
ReplyDeleteGrace and peace