Resumo de Good Samaritan - Walvoord, John F., and Zuck, Roy B.,

GOOD SAMARITAN
And behold a certain lawyer stood up and put
Him to the test, saying,-Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? Jew,
Being in this half dead state he would be unconscious. Since he is
stripped, he then is unidentifiable. Historically, a person can be identified
in one of two ways: his dress and his speech, i.e. dialect. The man is any
person: void of ethnic background, void of stature, void of position. The
priest was most certainly riding because he was in the upper classes of
society. The poor walk. Since, he moves to the other side, probably the
priest did not actually see it happen. How can he be sure the wounded man is a
neighbor since he cannot be identified? If the person lying there is a non Jew
the priest could be risking defilement, especially if the person were actually
dead. If he defiles himself he can not collect, distribute, and eat tithes. His
family and servants will suffer the consequences with him. Priests were
supposed to be ritually clean, exemplars of the law. There would be immediate
shame and embarrassment suffered by them at the expense of the people and their
peers for such defilement. Having just completed his mandatory two weeks of
service, he would then need to return and stand at the Eastern Gate along with
the rest of the unclean. Furthermore, in addition to the humiliation involved,
the process of restoring ritual purity was time consuming and costly. It
required finding, buying, and reducing a red heifer to ashes, and the ritual
took a full week. The priest is in a predicament. Moreover, he cannot approach
closer than four cubits to a dead man without being defiled, and he will have
to overstep that boundary just to ascertain the condition of the wounded man. Levites
were descendants of Levi but not of Aaron, and they assisted the priests
(Aaron?s descendants) in the temple..The road spoken of here is a long
one. It is very likely, according to those who have walked it, that a person
traveling it, could see ahead of him a long way. The Levite, who is of a lower
social class, may have been walking. He most probably saw the priest ahead of
him and could have thought to himself, If the priest may pass then so should I.
Perhaps they might fear for their own safety. What if someone saw them
with the naked and wounded person and reported to the officials that the priest
and/or Levite committed a crime against the injured person?
The Samaritans were a mixed race between the Jews of captivity and the
Samaritan people of the land they were captive in. The relationship between the
Jews and Samaritans was one of hostility because of some bad things that
happened in the past. According to the Mishna, He that eats the bread of
the Samaritans is like to one that eats the flesh of swine (Mishna
Shebiith 8:10). The Mishna is the oral traditions that developed about the law,
containing interpretations and applications to specific questions which the law
deals with only in principle. Specifically, it is the collection of these
traditions. The Samaritan is not a gentile. He is bound by the same law as the
Jews. The Samaritan would not be naturally from that area, so the half dead man
would certainly not qualify as his neighbor. The Samaritan woman therefore said
to Him,-How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a
Samaritan woman?? (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) (John 4:9).
The Samaritan risks defilement. He approaches this unidentifiable man and helps
him. Oil and wine were poured out on the high altar before God. Note how the
usage is mentioned after the Priest and Levite have failed to do their duty. Blood revenge:
Mosaic legislation established cities of refuge for people under the threat of
death from blood vengeance retaliation. This legislation provided an escape
valve for a custom it could not eradicate. Often when the guilty cannot be
reached, vengeance may be administered to a memmber of his family. Often the
vengeance would reach even to the most distant relations of the offending party.
Irrational winds seeking a focus for their retaliation do not make rational
judgments, especially when the person involved is from a hated minority community.

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