| Candace was the Queen of one of the Ethiopian countries and her eunuch was sent to Jerusalem to worship the Creator God of the Hebrews when Philip came upon his chariot in the city of Gaza over on the coast. He was entrusted with her treasury and was well enough educated to not only have a rare copy of the book of Isaiah but was able to read it in the language of the Hebrews which would not have been his native tongue. ( Acts 8:26-39) Queen Esther who was the wife of the Persian King Ahasuerus had a eunuch assigned to serve her personal needs showing that in this time period it was common for the women of the household to be attended by castrated males. " Then Esther called Hathach, one of the king's eunuchs whom he had appointed to attend her, and she gave him a command concerning Mordecai, to learn what and why this was." ( Esther 4:5) The major problem with being a eunuch or someone who was blemished in any way according to the judgments in Leviticus 21:20 was that it made a male unworthy to worship in the temple near the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This law was established by the
same being who became Jesus the Christ some 1500 years later in the times of the Romans. Now Jesus instructed the people in Matthew 19:12 that being a eunuch is sometimes better in the same way that it is better for an unmarried individual as both can devote their whole being on the study of God's Word and the development of His Way as they do
not get tangled up in pleasing a mate or be driven to sin because of their sexual appetites as he was trying to explain. But he qualifies this teaching with the admonition that it is only for those that it is given by the Father to be able too this. Of course he did not mean that humans should stop
procreating within the marriage covenant or none of us would be alive today. The idea that even a eunuch could be baptized and close to God and be begotten into God's family shows the impartiality of our Father in all things. It also shows the better covenant in Jesus and why the old covenant became obsolete in some things. To
show his impartial treatment of slaves read the book of Philemon which in a nutshell says that both the slave master and the slave are equal in the sight of God and each should be respectful to the other. This was an unheard of concept in that culture and is not readily understood even today.
For the most part this practice is not openly done in the modern world and it is unfortunate when some have had accidents or are born with congenital deformities but they are not left out of God's family because of it. Other Recommended Bible Study Materials: Written by: Charlotte Grantham |
