Quotes about message
page 6

Bud Selig photo
Marshall McLuhan photo

“The unformulated message of an assembly of news items from every quarter of the globe is that the world today is one city. All war is civil war. All suffering is our own.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1990s and beyond, A McLuhan Sourcebook (1995), p. 291

K. R. Narayanan photo
Tom Tancredo photo
Sammy Wilson photo

“Our message to the perverts who voted for them [Sinn Féin] is that they will not get anything through this council.”

Sammy Wilson (1953) British politician

Andersonstown News (March 5, 1988)

Ben Gibbard photo
Hillary Clinton photo
Tony Abbott photo

“There is one fundamental message that we want to go out from this place to every nook and cranny of our country: There should be no new tax collection without an election.”

Tony Abbott (1957) Australian politician

Quoted in "Fact file: What Tony Abbott promised on tax" http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-01/fact-file-what-tony-abbott-promised-on-tax/5420226 ABC News, July 23, 2014.
2011

Ellen G. White photo
Howell Cobb photo
Farah Pahlavi photo
José Mourinho photo
Elbert Hubbard photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Vitruvius photo
Noel Coward photo
Sinclair Lewis photo
Farah Pahlavi photo

“I try to forget about the bitter past as I [also] recommend for my fellow countrymen. I do not live in the past, I live in the present, always hoping for a brighter future. This is my message to all my countrymen.”

Farah Pahlavi (1938) Empress of Iran

Interview: Farah Pahlavi Recalls 30 Years In Exile http://www.rferl.org/content/Interview_Farah_Pahlavi_Recalls_30_Years_In_Exile/2111354.html, Radio Free Europe, (July 27, 2010).
Interviews

George Galloway photo

“Your Excellency, Mr President: I greet you, in the name of the many thousands of people in Britain who stood against the tide and opposed the war and aggression against Iraq and continue to oppose the war by economic means, which is aimed to strangle the life out of the great people of Iraq. I greet you, too, in the name of the Palestinian people, amongst whom I've just spent two weeks in the occupied Palestinian territories. I can honestly tell you that there was not a single person to whom I told I was coming to Iraq and hoping to meet with yourself who did not wish me to convey their heartfelt, fraternal greetings and support. And this was true, especially at the base in the refugee camps of Jabaliyah and Beach Camp in Gaza, in the Balatah refugee camp in Nablus and on the streets of the towns and villages in the occupied lands.I thought the president would appreciate knowing that even today, three years after the war, I still met families who were calling their newborn sons Saddam; and that two weeks ago, when I was trapped inside the Orient House, which is the Palestinian headquarters in al-Quds [Jerusalem], with 5,000 armed mustwatinin [settlers] outside demonstrating, pledging to tear down the Palestinian flag from the flagpole, the hundreds of shabab [youths] inside the compound were chanting that they wish to be with a DSh K [machine gun] in Baghdad to avenge the eyes of Abu Jihad. And the Youth Club in Silwan, which is the one of the most resistant of all the villages around Jerusalem, asked me to ask the president's permission if they could enrol him as an honourary member of their club and to present him with this flag from holy Jerusalem.I wish to say, sir, that I believe that we are turning the tide in Europe, that the scale of the humanitarian disaster which has been imposed upon the Iraqi people is now becoming more and more widely known and accepted. Fifty-five British members of parliament opposed the war, but 125 are demanding the lifting of the embargo; and this does not include the invisible section of the Conservative Party who must also be moving in that direction, and Sir Edward Heath is being a very persuasive advocate inside the Conservative Party.It is my belief that we must convey the very clear picture that 1994 has to be the year of the ending of the embargo against Iraq. Otherwise, famine and all the awful consequences, including acts of despair by Iraqis, will be the result; and this is the message we must convey to civilized opinion in Europe.Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability, and I want you to know that we are with you, hatta al-nasr, hatta al-nasr, hatta al-Quds”

George Galloway (1954) British politician, broadcaster, and writer

until victory, until victory, until Jerusalem
"'I greet you in the name of thousands of Britons'", The Times, January 20, 1994, citing BBC monitoring service at 9 PM on January 19 as its source.
Speech to Saddam Hussein, January 19, 1994.
Source: See also David Morley Gorgeous George: The Life and Adventures of George Galloway, London: Politicos, 2007, p. 210-11. Galloway disputes the reporting of this quote and has repeatedly stated that the conclusion was a salute to "the Iraqi people" rather than Saddam Hussein personally.

“The message of Scripture is that God wants us to connect both with Him and also with each other.”

John Townsend (1952) Canadian clinical psychologist and author

Where Is God (2009, Thomas Nelson publishers)

Bill Richardson photo

“Make no mistake, the point of cutting the personal income tax and the capital gains cut is to send an unmistakable message to business.”

Bill Richardson (1947) politician and governor from the United States

upon passage of supply side tax cuts
[Phil, Magers, http://www.upi.com/archive/view.php?archive=1&StoryID=20030219-071745-7704r, "New Mexico cuts taxes to stimulate economy", United Press International, 2003-02-19, 2006-08-21]

Harry V. Jaffa photo
Steven Erikson photo
George W. Bush photo
Norbert Wiener photo

“It is my thesis that the physical functioning of the living individual and the operation of some of the newer communication machines are precisely parallel in their analogous attempts to control entropy through feedback. Both of them have sensory receptors as one stage in their cycle of operation: that is, in both of them there exists a special apparatus for collecting information from the outer world at low energy levels, and for making it available in the operation of the individual or of the machine. In both cases these external messages are not taken neat, but through the internal transforming powers of the apparatus, whether it be alive or dead. The information is then turned into a new form available for the further stages of performance. In both the animal and the machine this performance is made to be effective on the outer world. In both of them, their performed action on the outer world, and not merely their intended action, is reported back to the central regulatory apparatus. This complex of behavior is ignored by the average man, and in particular does not play the role that it should in our habitual analysis of society; for just as individual physical responses may be seen from this point of view, so may the organic responses of society itself. I do not mean that the sociologist is unaware of the existence and complex nature of communications in society, but until recently he has tended to overlook the extent to which they are the cement which binds its fabric together.”

Source: The Human Use of Human Beings (1950), p. 26-27 as cited in: Felix Geyer, Johannes van der Zouwen, (1994) " Norbert Wiener and the Social Sciences http://www.critcrim.org/redfeather/chaos/024Weiner.htm", Kybernetes, Vol. 23 Iss: 6/7, pp.46 - 61

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis photo
Ai Weiwei photo
Peter F. Drucker photo
Clive Staples Lewis photo

“When I attempted, a few minutes ago, to describe our spiritual longings, I was omitting one of their most curious characteristics. We usually notice it just as the moment of vision dies away, as the music ends or as the landscape loses the celestial light. What we feel then has been well described by Keats as “the journey homeward to habitual self.” You know what I mean. For a few minutes we have had the illusion of belonging to that world. Now we wake to find that it is no such thing. We have been mere spectators. Beauty has smiled, but not to welcome us; her face was turned in our direction, but not to see us. We have not been accepted, welcomed, or taken into the dance. We may go when we please, we may stay if we can: “Nobody marks us.” A scientist may reply that since most of the things we call beautiful are inanimate, it is not very surprising that they take no notice of us. That, of course, is true. It is not the physical objects that I am speaking of, but that indescribable something of which they become for a moment the messengers. And part of the bitterness which mixes with the sweetness of that message is due to the fact that it so seldom seems to be a message intended for us but rather something we have overheard. By bitterness I mean pain, not resentment. We should hardly dare to ask that any notice be taken of ourselves. But we pine. The sense that in this universe we are treated as strangers, the longing to be acknowledged, to meet with some response, to bridge some chasm that yawns between us and reality, is part of our inconsolable secret. And surely, from this point of view, the promise of glory, in the sense described, becomes highly relevant to our deep desire. For glory meant good report with God, acceptance by God, response, acknowledgment, and welcome into the heart of things. The door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last.”

Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963) Christian apologist, novelist, and Medievalist

The Weight of Glory (1949)

Russell Brand photo
Marshall McLuhan photo
Margaret Cho photo
Gail Dines photo

“No anti-porn feminist I know has suggested that there is one image, or even a few, that could lead a non-rapist to rape; the argument, rather, is that taken together, pornographic images create a world that is at best inhospitable to women, and at worst dangerous to their physical and emotional well-being. In an unfair and inaccurate article that is emblematic of how anti-porn feminist work is misrepresented, Daniel Bernardi claims that Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon believed that “watching pornography leads men to rape women.” Neither Dworkin nor MacKinnon “pioneers in developing a radical feminist critique of pornography, saw porn in such simplistic terms. Rather, both argued that porn has a complicated and multilayered effect on male sexuality, and that rape, rather than simply being caused by porn, is a cultural practice that has been woven into the fabric of a male-dominated society. Pornography, they argued, is one important agent of such a society since it so perfectly encodes woman-hating ideology, but to see it as simplistically and unquestionably leading to rape is to ignore how porn operates within the wider context of a society that is brimming with sexist imagery and ideology. If, then, we replace the “Does porn cause rape?” question with more nuanced questions that ask how porn messages shape our reality and our culture, we avoid falling into the images-lead-to-rape discussion. What this reformulation does is highlight the ways that the stories in pornography, by virtue of their consistency and coherence, create a worldview that the user integrates into his reservoir of beliefs that form his ways of understanding, seeing, and interpreting what goes on around him.”

Gail Dines (1958) anti-pornography campaigner

Pornland: How Porn Hijacked Our Sexuality, Ch 5, Page 85, Gail Dines

Russell Brand photo

“After the revolution we will be broadcasting constant messages into a microchip inside your brains. It's gonna be great!”

Russell Brand (1975) British comedian, actor, and author

Radio 2 Show (2007–2008)

Kellyanne Conway photo
William Gibson photo
Jane Roberts photo
Mahendra Chaudhry photo
David Miscavige photo

“My first serious programming work was done in the very early 1960s, in Assembler languages on IBM and Honeywell machines. Although I was a careful designer — drawing meticulous flowcharts before coding — and a conscientious tester, I realised that program design was hard and the results likely to be erroneous. Into the Honeywell programs, which formed a little system for an extremely complex payroll, I wrote some assertions, with run-time tests that halted program execution during production runs. Time constraints didn't allow restarting a run from the beginning of the tape. So for the first few weeks I had the frightening task on several payroll runs of repairing an erroneous program at the operator’s keyboard ¾ correcting an error in the suspended program text, adjusting the local state of the program, and sometimes modifying the current and previous tape records before resuming execution. On the Honeywell 400, all this could be done directly from the console typewriter. After several weeks without halts, there seemed to be no more errors. Before leaving the organisation, I replaced the run-time halts by brief diagnostic messages: not because I was sure all the errors had been found, but simply because there would be no-one to handle a halt if one occurred. An uncorrected error might be repaired by clerical adjustments; a halt in a production run would certainly be disastrous.”

Michael A. Jackson (1936) British computer scientist

Michael A. Jackson (2000), "The Origins of JSP and JSD: a Personal Recollection", in: IEEE Annals of Software Engineering, Volume 22 Number 2, pages 61-63, 66, April-June 2000.

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Jane Roberts photo
David Silverman photo

“We are here to deliver a message to America: We are here and we will never be silent again.”

David Silverman (1957) American animator and director

Reason Rally, National Mall, Washington, DC,

William Ernest Henley photo
Joni Madraiwiwi photo
Ken Ham photo
William L. Shirer photo
Rudolf Hess photo

“Thanks to the directors for addressing this message to my home. Written several minutes before my death.”

Rudolf Hess (1894–1987) German Nazi leader

Suicide note, found in his pocket. (17 August 1987)

John Ashcroft photo
Susie Castillo photo
Tunku Abdul Rahman photo

“I'm doing this for the sake of this country [Malaysia], because this nation belongs to us. We were born here and we will die here. If I were to die fighting, let it be… but I can't just stand and do nothing, when I see the things that are happening in our nation. So right now I have to give a message to my brethren: The people who have been living in unity all this time. Don't believe the propaganda of today's government. They go around to kampungs to spread all sorts of propaganda, that whatever they implement must be obeyed. Think for yourself - are they really doing what is right? Don't just follow without question, use your wisdom and think. What is happening is, they take credit for all that is good, their opponents are responsible for all bad things, and they [government he is referring to as "spreading propaganda"] cover up all the bad things they do and point the finger of blame on the people who stand up to them. So this is the situation today, the press has no voice. When a newspaper reports something, the issue is covered up. This just goes to show that the people who stand up to them have no voice at all. This government [todays government] controls everything. But the ones who really hold power in this nation, you, the ordinary rakyat (Dewan Rakyat). So if we don't seek what is true, or use wisdom to discern a matter, this nation will crumble. If only the rakyat could understand all of this, at the end of the day, the rakyat has the right to vote, and the rakyat itself can elect anyone to be the leader here, ordinary rakyat, think for yourselves, because that "magic lamp" is in the hands of the original rakyat. So, ordinary rakyat with power in their hands, use your wisdom, protect your rights, in order to preserve our beloved nation, Malaysia, because it's not only this present generation that depend on our nation, that depends on fairness in our nation, but even our next generation to come all depend on the governance of our nation. If this Merdeka is to have any meaning at all, may they be well until the end of time. This is our responsibility. I pray that all will be well.”

Tunku Abdul Rahman (1903–1990) Malaysian politician

"Tunku Abdul Rahman last speech" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdoxoum02BA, interview taken on National Day, 1988, Malaysia.

William Morley Punshon photo

“Language, intelligence, and humor, along with art, generosity, and musical ability, are often described as human equivalents of the peacock’s tail. However, peacocks afford a poor analogy for the role of courtship displays in humans. Other animal models offer a better fit. In a number of nonhuman species — species as diverse as sea dragons and grebes — males and females engage in a mutual courtship “dance,” in which the two partners mirror one another’s movements. In Clark’s grebes and Western grebes, for instance, the pair bond ritual culminates in the famous courtship rush: The male and female swim side by side along the top of the water, with their wings back and their heads and necks in a stereotyped posture. If we want a nonhuman analogue for the role of creative intelligence or humor in human courtship, we should think not of ornamented peacocks displaying while drab females evaluate them. We should think instead of grebes engaged in their mating rush or sea dragons engaged in their synchronized mirror dance. Once we have one of these alternative images fixed in our minds, we can then add the proviso that there is a slight skew such that, in the early stages of courtship, men tend to display more vigorously and women tend to be choosier. However, this should be seen as a qualification to the primary message that intelligence, humor, and other forms of sexual display are part of the mutual courtship process in our species.”

Source: The Ape that Thought It Was a Peacock: Does Evolutionary Psychology Exaggerate Human Sex Differences? (2013), p. 160

Mahatma Gandhi photo

“There was a time when people listened to me because I showed them how to give fight to the British without arms when they had no arms and the British Government was fully equipped and organised for an armed fight. But today I am told that my non-violence can be of no avail against the communal madness and, therefore, people should arm themselves for self-defence. If this is true, it has to be admitted that our thirty years of nonviolent practice was an utter waste of time. We should have from the beginning trained ourselves in the use of arms. But I do not agree that our thirty years' probation in nonviolence has been utterly wasted. It was due to our non-violence, defective though it was, that we were able to bear up under the heaviest repression and the message of independence penetrated every nook and corner of India. But as our non-violence was the nonviolence of the weak, the leaven did not spread. Had we adopted non-violence as the weapon of the strong, because we realised that it was more effective than any other weapon, in fact the mightiest force in the world, we would have made use of its full potency and not have discarded it as soon as the fight against the British was over or we were in a position to wield conventional weapons. But as I have already said, we adopted it out of our helplessness. If we had the atom bomb, we would have used it against the British.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Speech (16 June 1947) as the official date for Indian independence approached (15 August 1947), as quoted in Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase (1958) https://books.google.com/books?id=sswBAAAAMAAJ&q=%22+I+have+already+said,+we+adopted+it+out+of+our+helplessness%22&dq=%22+I+have+already+said,+we+adopted+it+out+of+our+helplessness%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj6ydqTtK7LAhUI4D4KHW3-DwEQ6AEIHTAA by Pyarelal Nayyar, p. 326 http://www.mkgandhi.org/ebks/mahatma-gandhi-volume-ten.pdf
1940s

Francis Escudero photo

“The Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Justice should immediately and without delay get in touch with their counterparts and demand the attendance of the four witnesses. Such demand is covered by the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) which calls not only for Respect for Law but the obligation to make available the US personnel for investigative or judicial proceedings. As worded in Article V, "US military authorities shall, upon formal notification by the Philippine authorities and without delay, make such personnel available to those authorities in time for any investigative or judicial proceedings." The VFA clearly states that the Philippines has criminal jurisdiction over US soldiers involved in a crime in the country, and it is a matter of invoking it with speed and conviction. The VFA, undoubtedly, is one sided and as such we must always insist and be vigilant with what is accorded us as a matter of sovereign right in that treaty. This is incident calls for the Philippine authorities’ and the Filipinos’ righteous indignation to fight for custody of the suspect and demand for the physical availability of the four American witnesses. We cannot just sit idly by and watch while our laws are being subverted. If we cannot defend, protect nor assist our fellow Filipino right here in our own soil, what chilling message do we get out there to our people and especially to those who are outside Philippine soils? We cannot begrudge the US for acting to protect the interests of its nationals and its interests. Our own officials should also, with the same fervor, do the same. This is why I continue my call for the review of the VFA for clearer, stronger and stricter stipulations which are mutually beneficial to both parties in every step of the way.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

Escudero, F. [Francis]. (2014, December 16). Retrieved from Official Facebook Page of Francis Escudero https://www.facebook.com/senchizescudero/posts/10152798060815610/
2014, Facebook

Patrik Baboumian photo

“Usual messages from the heads of the establishment. The Queen from Windsor, the Pope from Rome: Pilate and Caiaphas celebrating the birth of Christ.”

Joe Orton (1933–1967) English playwright and author

Sunday 25 December 1966 (p. 38)
The Orton Diaries (1986)

Gloria Estefan photo

“"Get on Your Feet" is really my motto. I look always forward. I look ahead. That's why I choose to record that song, because I really love the message.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

iTunes interview (released June 2, 2007)
2007, 2008

Kenneth Griffin photo

“Every organization has two choices. Choice one is to grow. Choice two is to die. If you decide not to grow, it's a clear-cut message to talented people that it's time to leave.”

Kenneth Griffin (1968) American hedge fund manager

Institutional Investor Magazine (September 2001) http://web.archive.org/20060329190803/ddo.typepad.com/ddo/files/Citadel_2001.pdf

Alexander Blok photo

“What message, years of conflagration,
have you: madness or hope? On thin
cheeks strained by war and liberation
bloody reflections still remain.”

"Those Born in Years of Stagnation" (1914); translation from Jon Stallworthy and Peter France (trans.) The Twelve, and Other Poems (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970) p. 139.

Daniel Handler photo
Eric Trump photo

“My father's simple message - it's not an anti-Muslim message, it's [an] anti-terror message, you know, we have ISIS and they're running in rampant around the world and we have to do something about it.”

Eric Trump (1984) American businessman and philanthropist

Eric Trump weighs in on father's feud with fallen soldier's parents https://www.cbsnews.com/news/eric-trump-weighs-in-on-his-fathers-comments-on-the-khan-family/ (August 2, 2016)

Ron Wyden photo
John Rogers Searle photo
Sergey Lavrov photo
Nick Cave photo
Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah photo
Mario Cuomo photo

“Do you blame me, ladies and gentlemen, for being reluctant to deliver to them the message that is traditional on commencement day?”

Mario Cuomo (1932–2015) American politician, Governor of New York

Address at Iona College (1984)

Irina Bokova photo

“The award of the Peace Prize to these two ardent defenders of education sends out a resounding message to the world on the importance of education for building peaceful and sustainable societies.”

Irina Bokova (1952) Bulgarian diplomat

abcnews.go.com http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/peace-prize-childrens-rights-met-praise-26098345.

Joe Strummer photo

“In fact, their contempt for the native converts was deeper than that for their Hindu subjects. They had all along looked down upon the native converts as Ajlãf (low-born) and Arzãl (base-born) as compared to the Ashrãf (exalted) which distinctive designation they had reserved for themselves….. It was at this critical juncture that the frustrated fraternity of foreign Muslims took a very strategic step. They started swearing by a solidarity with the native Muslims whom they had despised so far. They let loose on the native Muslims an army of mercenary Mullahs recruited, mostly from their own ranks. These Mullahs went about broadcasting the message that ‘Islam was in danger’, and that ‘Hindus were out to enslave and exploit the Muslim minority’. It was in this manner that the residues of Islamic imperialism managed to ‘merge’ themselves with the native converts, and to present themselves at the head of a strong phalanx pitted against whatever historical forces threatened their unjust privileges. Hitherto, the haughty Ashrãf had stood strictly aloof from the abject Ajlãf and the despised Arzãl. Now all of a sudden the latter became the former’s ‘brothers in faith’. This was a tremendous transformation of the political scene in the second decade of the 20th century. … The British never attached more than a nuisance value to this noisy fraternity which had to be befriended or ignored according to the needs of British policy at any time. It was the national leadership which was impressed by this mobilisation of the ‘Muslim masses’ and the pathos of ‘Muslim plight’. They accepted not only separate electorates but also weightages for the ‘Muslim minority’ in many provinces.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Muslim Separatism – Causes and Consequences (1987)

Alfred Austin photo

“O'er the wires the electric message came,
"He is no better; he is much the same."”

Alfred Austin (1835–1913) British writer and poet

On the Illness of the Prince of Wales (1910)

An 1871 poem on the illness of the Prince of Wales, although there is some doubt that Austin actually wrote this part. That classic compendium "The Stuffed Owl: An Anthology of Bad Verse" (2d ed. 1930; Capricorn paperback 1962) includes a dozen quotations from Austin but attributes this particular couplet (p. 17) to a "university poet unknown." It also provides a metrically more accurate first line, "Across the wires the gloomy message came," plus "not" for "no" in the second line.
On the Illness of the Prince of Wales (1910)

Ian MacKaye photo
Pope Benedict XVI photo
Shlomo Amar photo

“You represent a large nation of believers that knows what the Bible is, and it is your duty to pass on the message that the Jewish people deserve a renaissance, and a little respect - to live in this land.”

Shlomo Amar (1948) Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem

To Pope Benedict XVI. http://web.archive.org/web/20090514024448/http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1084958.html (12/05/2009)

Daniel Kahneman photo
Tenzin Gyatso photo

“All major religious traditions carry basically the same message, that is love, compassion and forgiveness … the important thing is they should be part of our daily lives.”

Tenzin Gyatso (1935) spiritual leader of Tibet

As quoted in Especially for Christians: Powerful Thought-provoking Words from the Past (2005) by Mark Alton Rose, p. 19

“The messages of the prophets are essentially indictments of Israel for breach of covenant. They preserved some memory of the old traditions, but were not so naive as to think that the literal demands of the old law would be adequate in their own times. There is no condemnation of the stratification of society as such, rather a condemnation of the injustice and extortion which was done by the powerful. To take a specific example, the old law knew as security for a loan only the pledge (Exod. 22:26). In a simple economy, loans were evidently of an amount which would usually be adequately secured by giving to the creditor some property to hold until the loan was repaid. In case of default, the debtor's property simply reverted to the creditor. No other form of security is presupposed in the Covenant Code, and it is specifically forbidden that an Israelite be a "creditor" to one of his fellows. Already in the reign of Saul the situation had changed, Those who gathered about David as outlaws included those who had "creditors" (I Sam. 22:2), and who therefore had to flee. Under the old pledge system of security there would be no possible occasion for flight from the community in case of default. A totally different legal doctrine had come into practice whereby the person of the debtor was security for a loan. Upon default the creditor could seize him (or his family) as a slave, possibly without any legal action at all. The only alternative to slavery would have been flight. This doctrine is identical to that of Babylonian law, and no doubt of the Canaanites as well. It is in the law of the monarchy that Canaanite influence is doubtless to be posited, but it is a legal tradition in total contradiction to the customs and morality of early Israel. Amos protested violently against the way the legal doctrine was practiced, as did most of the prophets (Am. 2:6; Hos. 12:8-9; Mic. 2:1-2). The later lawcodes illustrate beautifully the way in which the early traditions, and the needs of business were brought into harmony. The older pledge system was simply inadequate for a commercial economy; and if the person of the debtor was to be protected, so also must the rights of the creditor to some security for his loan to be guaranteed. Therefore, Deuteronomy and the Holiness Code (Lv. 17-26) accept the doctrine of bodily liability, but place restrictions upon the powers of the creditor over the defaulting debtor. In the Holiness Code he is not to be treated as a slave, nor given the legal status of a slave, but rather to be as a hired laborer.”

George E. Mendenhall (1916–2016) American academic

Law and Convenant in Israel and the Ancient Near East (1954)

Sri Aurobindo photo
Mike Huckabee photo
China Miéville photo