Dennis Prager: A Biblical Law That Would Change American Life

The biblical admonition to the Israelites not to hate the Egyptian was meant to benefit them as former slaves, columnist Dennis Prager says 

One of the most remarkable laws in the Bible is in the Book of Deuteronomy: “Do not hate an Egyptian.” It is remarkable because it was given to the generation of Israelites that had just been liberated from slavery in Egypt.

Imagine.

A people who had been enslaved for hundreds of years, and for a period of time had their newborn sons drowned, was instructed — by Moses in the name of God, no less — not to hate the people who had just enslaved them.

This is one of many examples why America’s Founders regarded the Bible as the most important book ever written. According to one historian who studied the issue, the book the Founders quoted most often — more often than any Enlightenment book, more often than any Greek or Roman work — was Deuteronomy, the biblical book in which the law prohibiting hatred of Egyptians appears.

It is difficult to think of a law more relevant to today’s America.

Imagine if the country — especially, though not only, black Americans — adopted this law and substituted “white” for “Egyptian.” Imagine the effect on America if every church, every school, every editorial page and every Democrat repeatedly told Americans, “Do not hate whites.”

Almost overnight, the gratuitous hatreds wrecking our country would begin to disappear.

Hatred of whites is the most prevalent — certainly, the most acceptable — hatred in America today. At almost every college, students are taught, often from their first day, that all whites are racist, that a black person cannot be racist, that America is systemically racist, that every black person is a victim, and that America was founded by whites to be a racist nation. Almost without exception mainstream newspapers and websites regularly publish “news” items and opinion pieces (the two are often indistinguishable) that echo the anti-white hate of the universities. The same for Hollywood and for major corporations such as Nike, and for philanthropies such as the Ford Foundation that have collectively pledged at least $100 million to Black Lives Matter, a white-hating organization.

The most prominent purveyor of this hatred is the president of the United States, who speaks about the alleged scourge of white supremacy in virtually every speech he gives pertaining to race.

To confirm how much lie-based hatred is directed at whites, ask any liberal or leftist in your life how many unarmed blacks are killed by police in an average year. You are likely to be told 1,000 or more, and at the least, many hundreds. The actual number is about 20 — and “unarmed” doesn’t mean they weren’t threatening and dangerous.

You might want to ask leftist friends and relatives another question: If America is systemically racist against blacks, if every white American is a racist, why have more than 4 million blacks immigrated to America from Africa and the Caribbean? Are they dumb? Is there any other example of a vast number of people immigrating to a country that hates them? Did any Jews immigrate to Germany after the Nazis came to power in 1933?

That all — or even most, or even a large number of — whites hate blacks is a lie. It is one of the greatest national lies in history — perhaps second only to the infamous Blood Libel spread among European Christians that Jews slaughtered Christian children to use their blood in baking the Passover matzoh.

This lie that whites bear animus toward blacks is destroying the American nation.

And it is doing irreparable harm to the many black Americans who believe it. Take young blacks, for example. Imagine the harm done to the many black children who are constantly told that the country they live in hates them, that all whites are racist, and that they are all victims of white racism. What kind of an individual do those messages produce? A happy person? A grateful person? Neither, obviously. That messaging produces an angry, unhappy and ungrateful person — the perfect recipe for a miserable life and, in some cases, a person who will act out on their misery and anger.

The biblical admonition to the Israelites not to hate the Egyptian was meant to benefit them — the former slaves — far more than it was meant to benefit the Egyptians.

The most obvious antidote to this white hatred is truth. One truth is that few whites are racist (other than progressives, the people who believe in all-black dorms, all-black graduation exercises, lowering standards for blacks, that being colorblind is racist, and other racist ideas). Another truth is that America — at least until this eruption of white hatred — has been the most successful multiracial experiment in history.

But there is another possible antidote: applying the biblical admonition to the Israelites not to hate the Egyptians to Americans, especially black Americans, not to hate whites. If every church — including, of course, black churches — preached, “Do not hate the whites,” then at least those who claim to take the Bible seriously would feel religiously obligated not to hate white people.

That could change everything — almost overnight.

Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. His commentary on Deuteronomy, the third volume of “The Rational Bible,” his five-volume commentary on the first five books of the Bible, was published in October. He is the co-founder of Prager University and may be contacted at dennisprager.com.
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