Judah’s kinsman redeemer: Israelite solidarity in the Parable of the Good Samaritan

Early Christian readers of the Parable of the Good Samaritan favored allegorical interpretations. The Parable’s mysterious central figure, the Samaritan, was a type of Christ the heavenly Savior. Whereas Judaism and the Law of Moses, represented by the priest and the Levite, had failed to save sinners from their condition, God’s divine son, the founder of Christianity, was a capable physician, equipped with all the tools of grace now offered by the Church. In this way God’s love of man was prioritized over man’s love of neighbor.

Modern readers, however, have preferred to see in the Parable an indictment against Jewish ethnocentrism. Whereas the Jewish lawyer sought to cast out non-Jews from his sphere of responsibility, the Samaritan, though despised by the Jews, loved all people as neighbors, regardless of ἔθνος. By issuing the Parable, Jesus thus repudiates Judaism’s narrow and carnal definition of neighbor, and calls his followers to emulate the Samaritan rather that the Jewish lawyer. A debt of brotherly love is owed to all, even to one’s enemy.

To be clear, these are both anti-Jewish readings of the Parable of the Good Samaritan, and are therefore difficult to attribute to the historical Jesus, a Law-observant Jewish teacher who worshiped the Jewish God at the Jewish Temple. For Jesus, obedience to the commandments of the Law, even those pertaining to the cult and its sanctity, constituted the path of life; and like all Jews of the time, not to mention all ancient peoples generally, Jesus prioritized his own nation over others, even to the point of sometimes neglecting or degrading non-Jews. Given the harsh realities of the classical world, solidarity based on kinship was essential for survival, both material and psychological. This was all the more true when one was a member of an oppressed or marginalized group—as were the Jews of Galilee. While most Mediterranean peoples successfully integrated their cults and customs into the Greco-Roman hegemony, Jews often struggled to swallow the spiritus mundi.

Now, if both of these interpretive trajectories are dead ends, the key to understanding the Parable, I would argue, lies in the identity of its hero, the Samaritan, and his relation to the other (Jewish) characters. The Samaritan is not a strange symbol of the Son of God, nor is he merely a hated outsider with no bonds of kinship relevant to the drama of the story. As the following exercise in historical storytelling will seek to capture, the Samaritan is a particular kind of man with a particular kind of socialization, one grounded in Joseph’s covenant with the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and with his brothers, the twelve tribes of Israel.

Our father Jacob gave us the well, and he drank from it, along with his sons and his flocks.

John 4:12

As will become clear, the Samaritan is an Israelite of the Roman epoch; he is who he is, and he loves whom he loves for his own reasons, whether we appreciate those reasons or not. He stares back at us through the annals of time completely indifferent to the moral developments of our age.

An Israelite without deceit

A certain man was travelling down from Jerusalem to Jericho. Like nearly all of the inhabitants of this region, he was a descendant of Jacob, the patriarch of the Israelite peoples who long ago came to possess this corner of the Levant, the land of Israel. This man, moreover, traced his lineage to the Patriarch through Joseph, whose two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, founded clans that dwelt in northern Israel. Becoming dominant, Ephraim, along with many of his brothers, became a kingdom headed in the ancient city of Shechem, the city of Jacob, which was later fortified and renamed Samaria. Two powerful houses once ruled there at the behest of Israel’s ancestral God: the House of Omri and the House of Jehu. Not so anymore. As of late, foreigners from across the sea manage the land promised to the Patriarchs. Yet according to Moses, the great prophet of old, one day God’s face would shine upon his people and he would send a mighty redeemer to expel the pagans and restore true worship. Then the anointed one would proclaim all things to the people of Israel.

For now, this certain Israelite was raised to observe the law book of his people, the Pentateuch of Moses, so as to please the Lord. As instructed by this text, he was circumcised on the eighth day, and every seventh day he rests from his work so as to hear the preaching of God’s word among his brethren. Unlike the gentile peoples who occupy the lands round about, Israelites like him worship one God at one temple in compliance with one book. At the discretion of priests from the tribe of Levi, they offer gifts of grain, oil, wine, and livestock to their deity, celebrate feasts of remembrance such as the Passover, and make purification for those defiling substances that drive away God’s holy presence from the land. Alongside these cultic practices, and in obedience to the laws of God written in the book of Moses, this Israelite traveler also seeks to live among his neighbors with justice, mercy, holiness, and covenantal loyalty. Down the path tread by noble Israelites before him, men like Joseph, Joshua, and Phinehas, he goes and does likewise.

On the way to Jericho, the traveler’s next stop on his journey back north, the man sees pilgrims, tradesmen, and merchants, some friendly, some not. Yet most speak his tongue, Aramaic, the language of the country. Some Israelites prefer to communicate in Greek, the language of the world, but he is not well-educated in such things. He does, however, know how to decipher the writings of Moses in their original form, having had some training in Hebrew. The two experts in Israelite cultus walking up ahead, a priest and a temple officiant, surely possess superior Hebrew. “You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron” one old song says. So it is now with the priests, guardians of the Law and protectors of the people. Perhaps he should engage them in conversation. Perhaps not.

Fortunately for our traveler, mastery of priestly duties and Hebrew script will not be required for the test that draws near. The dictum uttered by one northern Israelite prophet will hold true: “I desire mercy (i.e. chesed)¹ and not sacrifice, knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings” (Hosea 6:6).

Joseph embraces his brother

There on the side of the road lies a man stripped of all his belongings, beaten and bruised by thieves, wearing nothing except the sign of the covenant, circumcision. He appears as good as dead, a corpse. Many would pass by such an inconvenience, especially those far from home. Yet coming near to him and seeing him, the traveler’s insides are torn apart. He loves the half-dead man as he loves himself, as if he were a member of his own body. Though the man in need is an Israelite of the south, a descendant of Judah or Benjamin, no ancient rift will keep the traveler from his kinsman. No trespass will cancel the love of Joseph for his brothers. No animosity will nullify the covenant. No tribal grievance will arrest Ephraim’s love for his neighbor. The Law must be fulfilled.

You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand idly by when the blood of your neighbor is at stake: I am the Lord. You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

Leviticus 19:16-18

The northern Israelite bandages his brother’s wounds, pouring out oil and wine, puts him on his own animal, delivers him to safety in Jericho, and provides for his recovery. He has reclaimed his neighbor from death and in so doing satisfied the second greatest commandment. The covenantal debt he owes to his “neighbor,” defined by kinship and not by proximity, has been paid.

Every seventh year you shall grant a remission of debts. And this is the manner of the remission: every creditor shall remit the claim that is held against a neighbor, not exacting it, because the Lord’s remission has been proclaimed. Of a foreigner you may exact it, but you must remit your claim on whatever any of your brothers owes you… If there is among you any brother in need in any of your towns within the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy brother. You should rather open your hand, willingly lending enough to meet the need, whatever it may be… Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.

Deuteronomy 15:1-11

Joseph imprisons (and then frees) his brothers

This would not have been the first time a northern Israelite was compelled to render aid to his southern Israelite relative. In the days of King Ahaz, long after the fracture of the northern tribes from the southern tribes, the people of Judah were taken prisoner by an Israelite army out of Samaria. Despite the Judahite king’s wickedness, God remembered his friendship with Ahaz’ father, David, and raised up a prophet to save the captives. As the army and its prisoners came near to the walls of Samaria, Oded uttered God’s message. He commanded the apostate northern Israelites, though they were corrupted by idolatry and the worship of other gods, to rectify their disobedience by performing an act of steadfast love.

The people of Israel took captive two hundred thousand of their kin… Oded said: ‘Now hear me, and send back the captives whom you have taken from your kindred, for the fierce wrath of the Lord is upon you.’

2 Chronicles 28:8, 11

Unexpectedly, the faithless men of Samaria heed the prophet’s call and show extravagant covenant loyalty. If only for a fleeting moment, Joseph loves his brothers again. Joseph lets Judah and Benjamin go free.²

[They] took the captives, and with the spoil they clothed all who were naked among them; they clothed them, gave them sandals, provided them with food and drink, and anointed them; and carrying all the feeble among them on donkeys, they brought them to their kindred at Jericho, the city of palm trees. Then they returned to Samaria.

2 Chronicles 28:15

Thus, some 700 years later, our northern Israelite traveler recapitulates the merciful deed of his ancestors by loving his neighbor across divisive tribal lines and in spite of cultic conflicts. As in the time of Oded, the Samaritan Israelite has redeemed his Judean Israelite kinsman in accordance with the ancestral covenant sealed in blood on the altar of the Lord.

A new interpretive trajectory

The above narrative unveils critical elements for the interpretation of the Parable of the Good Samaritan that are habitually concealed in order to further an anachronistic vision of Jesus in light of liberal egalitarianism. From this historical contextualization we can draw out three points.

First, despite the cries of at least a few readers, the Samaritan is not a pagan or a gentile; he is an Israelite. The merciful Samaritan and the tormented Jew share ancestry, customs, and beliefs. The same founding myth (i.e. the Exodus) and same founding constitution (i.e. the Mosaic law) form the core of their identity. Though they hail from two distinct nations (ἔθνη), each with a different homeland and temple, they share the same God, the same patriarchs, and the same religious foundation. While the one nation originates in the remnant of the northern Israelite kingdom following the Assyrian disaster, and the other in the remnant of the southern Israelite kingdom following the Babylonian exile, they were once one people, one tribal confederation.

Second, the Samaritan acts within the bounded rationality of his own identity, not ours. His bowels do not erupt on account of his commitment to the universal brotherhood of man, as if he were a proto-humanist. Like the father who embraces his lost son in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the Samaritan’s heartbreak is driven by familial fondness for his unfortunate kin, a sentiment that was crystallized and codified through the communal trauma of the Exodus and its festal repetitions. Would the Samaritan have done the same for a wounded Roman centurion or a demon-possessed Syrophoenician? We can’t be certain; that’s not what this story concerns. What is clear, however, is that such assistance would not be mandated by covenantal law nor grounded in natural affections (στοργή).

You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it to water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the Sabbath day?

Luke 13:15-16

Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?

Luke 14:5

Third, the priest and Levite must be understood as shepherds of the Jewish nation. They are entrusted with caring not only for the spiritual and moral well-being of their people, but with their material well-being too. Of all Jews, these descendants of Levi, the tribe of Moses and his brother Aaron, should love their neighbors as they love themselves and experience dismay and pity over their demise. They are to bear God’s name and God’s mercy before the whole congregation of Israel.

So, this particular priest and this particular Levite, emblematic of all priests and all Levites, have failed not in that they have passed by the lost sheep of some other fold, a lamb belonging to some other shepherd, but in that they have passed by the lost sheep under their own care. Jesus responds by taking up the mantle of Hebrew prophet, defending the common Jew by excoriating their traitorous Jerusalemite leaders. This, in the end, is the function of the Parable.

Woe, you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep?… You have not strengthened the weak; you have not healed the sick; you have not bound up the injured; you have not brought back the strays; you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and scattered they became food for all the wild animals. My sheep were scattered; they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill; my sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with no one to search or seek for them.

Ezekiel 34:2-6

Rulers who tear the skin off my people

The outrage of the Parable then, the dereliction of duty committed by the nation’s leaders, maps well onto Jesus’ broader prophetic program. Christ’s complaint against the priests and their coterie (e.g. lawyers) is not that they refuse to treat all people as neighbors worthy of sympathy, but that they don’t treat their brothers in keeping with the position God has granted them. They have instead made the Temple a den of thieves, a hideout from which they might rob the children of Israel and devour their widows. They have loaded the people with burdens hard to bear and yet have not lifted a finger to ease them. They have taken the key of knowledge from Jacob and have hindered those who were entering the kingdom. They have attempted to shut out sinners from the covenant, all the while being grievous sinners themselves.

Listen, you heads of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel! Should you not know justice?—you who hate the good and love the evil, who tear the skin off my people and the flesh off their bones, who eat the flesh of my people, flay their skin off them, break their bones in pieces, and chop them up like meat in a kettle, like flesh in a caldron.

Micah 3:1-3

Jesus will not allow this state of affairs to continue. No longer will the priests grow fat off the sacrifices of the people. Instead, Jesus will offer his kinsmen food and drink. At table he will play physician so as to bring Jews to repentance (Luke 5:29-32). He will befriend his folk and rehabilitate them from their condition of covenantal deficiency. He will run out to meet Jacob’s sons and daughters with compassion so that they do not forfeit their seats at Abraham’s banquet in the kingdom of God. He will, like the Samaritan, restore his countrymen to life no matter the cost.

The Good Essene

A final question must be answered in order to bring the meaning of the Parable into full view: Why a Samaritan? Why is it a Samaritan that puts the Jewish temple officials to shame? Why not some other Israelite, some other descendant of Jacob, some other disciple of Moses? Why not a Pharisee, a tax-collector, a Herodian, a zealot, or a gentile God-fearer?

The answer is that Jesus seeks to maximize the humiliation of the priestly class by  undercutting their reliance on the Jerusalem Temple. Jesus selects the Samaritan because he is an Israelite whose cultic service is fundamentally disordered since it is severed from the true house of God on Mount Zion. Even a gentile God-fearer knows that the Lord dwells in Jerusalem—but not the Samaritan. This makes the Samaritan’s obedience to the law of neighbor-love all the more surprising, and the priest’s failure, all the more damning. Orthodox service in the Temple has proven worthless to the religious elite. The priest’s circumsized flesh only conceals his uncircumcized heart: “I desire mercy and not sacrifice.”

There is, however, one other historical figure who has a résumé comparable to the Samaritan. The Essenes, those Jews who seceded from Herod’s Temple and its Zadokite priesthood, also attempted to practice Israelite religion apart from Jerusalem, setting up an alternative cult in the wilderness at Qumran. The idea that an Essene, being both outside of and hostile to the Temple’s jurisdiction, had found a way to observe the weightier matters of the Law more faithfully than Israel’s current leadership would have been highly disruptive. As with a good Samaritan, so with a good Essene.

Ultimately then, while the re-unification of all Israelites is not the aim of Parable itself—the Samaritan serving as an shocking foil for the Jewish establishment rather than as an essential object of Jewish concern—a more permanent reconciliation is within the bounds of Luke’s evangelistic agenda: “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

Appendix: Love your people, hate your family 

The ethnic solidarity that I’ve argued underlies the Parable of the Good Samaritan comes into conflict with Christ’s general dismissal of filial piety. As prophet of the kingdom of God, Jesus both defended the beloved heirs of that kingdom (i.e. Jews), and called disciples to disdain and abandon their families in order to urgently announce the good news of that kingdom. Time was short and stakes were high; those entrusted to warn all the towns of Israel of God’s impending judgement were required to give up everything and hit the road: “Let the dead bury their own dead, but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:60). Such antisocial behavior sprung from a deep anxiety regarding the Jewish people as a whole.

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1—Chesed, often translated “steadfast love,” usually refers to God’s commitment to and love for Israel in accordance with the covenants. An Israelite would practice chesed—allegiance to God—by obeying the Lord’s laws and loving the Lord’s people.

2—“Joseph gave his brothers wagons according to the instruction of Pharaoh, and he gave them provisions for the journey. To each one of them he gave a set of garments, but to Benjamin he gave three hundred pieces of silver and five sets of garments. To his father he sent the following: ten donkeys loaded with the good things of Egypt and ten female donkeys loaded with grain, bread, and provision for his father on the journey. Then he sent his brothers on their way, and as they were leaving he said to them, ‘Do not quarrel along the way'” (Genesis 45:21-24).