Posthumous interest in the גאל הדם‎ legal tradition

1. Introduction

In ancient Israelite tradition, the blood redeemer (גאל הדם‎) is a man who is entitled to kill the killer of his kin. This tradition is encoded in law explicitly in Num. 35.9-34, Deut. 19.6-12, and Josh. 20.1-9, and is inferred through the need for sanctuary in Ex. 21.12-14 and Deut. 4.41-43. Scholarly reasons for the existence of the blood redeemer institution tend to pool around the interests of three parties: the family or clan of the dead person; the Israelite people en masse; and the land those people possess. Frequently, honour and shame, and ritual purity, are cited as principles underlying the practice.

There is, however, another interested party in the execution of the killer, and that is the murdered person. To suggest that the dead have an interest in the execution of their killer is to argue for a belief in posthumous interests, in which people are thought to retain interests beyond their death. This article first establishes that posthumous interest is evidenced in ancient Israelite interment and disinterment practices, and then presents a tradition history of the blood redeemer laws, which laws are placed back into their broader ancient Near Eastern context and concomitant understanding of the dead and the violently dead.

2. Posthumous interest and Israelite interment practice

The term ‘posthumous interest’ describes the belief that the dead either retain or gain interests after they die, and events which occur after death can either harm or benefit the dead person. ¹ Posthumous interest is often assumed in a desire for the bodily integrity of the dead, their dignity, and their good name. Acceptance of posthumous interest runs through film and literature, legal systems, attitudes towards the dead, and often towards our own death.

There is, however, a schism between some philosophical and legal positions and our seemingly ‘intuitive’ feelings concerning the possibility of effecting the dead. In the philosophy of death and throughout the history of philosophy, whether or not the dead can be harmed is and has been a matter for debate. ² Epicurus famously argued that when we are dead, we do not exist, and something that does not exist cannot be harmed. ³ Modern medical ethics also questions whether the dead or unconscious have interests. ⁴ It is not a given therefore that any culture, or movement within a culture, will hold that posthumous events can be harmful or that generally speaking the dead have interests. The biblical texts concerning death and burial, as well as archaeological evidence, however, suggest that the ancient Israelites accepted that the dead had interests and that those interests could be harmed.

According to the textual evidence, proper treatment of a corpse required inhumation (Gen. 23.19; 49.29-32; Ex. 14.11; Deut. 34.6; Isa. 14.18-20; 22.16). ⁵ Archaeological and textual evidence suggests that interment was standard practice even for people who were not of a high social position. The various different burial types in Iron Age Judah, from burial in simple pit graves, to cave, chamber, or shaft tombs, suggest that it was not just the elite who were interred, but that all people received interment of some sort. ⁶ Tobit endangers himself by performing the charitable act of burying any Israelite slain in Nineveh (Tob. 1.17-19), ⁷ and 2 Kgs 23.6 and Jer. 26.23 refer to קבר בני העם‎, ‘graves of the common people’. ⁸

Not all interment was equally honourable, however. According to Saul Olyan, interment in the family plot or tomb was to be preferred, ‘even if death occurred at a distance’ (2 Sam. 2.32; 2 Kgs 9.28; 23.30), while dishonourable interment, ‘inferior to all types of honorable burial’, occurs when the dead are ‘thrown’ (שלך‎) to their graves (Josh. 8.29; 10.26-27; 2 Sam. 18.17; Jer. 26.23). ⁹ Non-burial, an indignity often compounded by being eaten by animals or birds (Deut. 28.26; 1 Sam. 17.44, 46; 2 Sam. 21.10; 1 Kgs 14.11; 21.23-24; 2 Kgs 9.30-37; Jer. 7.33; 16.4; 34.20; Ps. 79.2), could act as an individual or a communal punishment. ¹⁰

Posthumous interest is most clearly evident in cases of disinterment. While it was important for the dead to be interred, and also for that interment to be uninterrupted, posthumous manipulation was not always considered harmful for the dead. This is evident in the practice of disinterment for the purposes of disarticulation and subsequent storage in ossuaries, ¹¹ and disinterment for the purpose of a more honourable secondary burial. In 2 Sam. 21.12-14, for instance, David has Jonathan and Saul’s remains moved from Jabesh-Gilead to Saul’s ancestral tomb, honouring them by elevating them to the most ideal interment. ¹² ‘Since such removal represents a fairly widespread pattern’, according to Olyan, ‘it seems very likely that it was viewed as a legitimate act that did no harm to the dead; perhaps when it was performed with care, it was even beneficial for them in some way we do not understand’. ¹³ However, disturbing the dead could cause harm. This is evident in proscriptions against tomb violation, such as the ‘Royal Steward Inscription’ from Silwan, and the inscription found in a Wadi Kidron tomb, ‘Cursed be the man who will open this’. ¹⁴ Politically motivated grave desecration was intended as punishment of the dead, as in the case of Assurbanipal desecrating the tombs of Elamite kings, whose bones were taken from Susa to Assur, thereby ‘condemning their spirits to restlessness, and depriving them of funerary repasts and water librations’. ¹⁵ It is also evident in such biblical texts as Jer. 8.1-2 and 2 Kgs 23.16. ¹⁶ Jer. 8.1-2 sets out the future punishment of those engaged in an astral cult, drawing on fear of grave desecration or plundering by foreign armies, while in 2 Kgs 23.16 Josiah not only defiles the altar at Bethel through contact with human remains, he also dishonours the dead by removing their bones from their hilltop graves and burning them. ¹⁷ Long after the death of the individual, manipulation of their remains is presented as an ‘act of hostility toward the dead, displacing them not only from their graves but also from their secure place in the underworld and in the ancestral cult’. ¹⁸

Ancient Israelite burial practices and beliefs about interment therefore offer an uncontentious example of a belief in posthumous interest and the possibility of posthumous harm. In particular, belief that placement of the remains of a dead person could function as a punishment for that person shows that the dead were thought to have interests which could be harmed.

3. A tradition history of the blood redeemer

A גאל‎ is a close male relative who performs an act of redemption for a family member in need. The גאל‎ serves the purpose of maintaining tribal solidarity, and ensuring its wealth is not diminished through loss of people or property. ¹⁹ The גאל‎ can redeem finances and property, and a family member from slavery. ²⁰ The גאל הדם‎ is yet another category of גאל‎, a redeemer entitled, under certain circumstances, to kill the killer of his kin. ²¹ Reading the blood redeemer laws synchronically, the blood redeemer could kill the killer of his kin without incurring blood guilt for the act. In order to ensure that an innocent person, a manslaughterer, not be killed out of hand, sanctuary cities were allocated throughout the land. In these cities, the killer, if provisionally found innocent of premeditated murder, would be admitted until tried or until the Kohen Gadol of the city died. Although effectively an exile, this kept an accidental killer safe from the גאל הדם‎. If the person seeking sanctuary had most likely intended the death, they would be cast out of the city, and the גאל הדם‎ could execute them.

The broader legal texts which house these homicide laws are unlikely to have originated or to have been recorded at the same time, but it is difficult to determine when they originated or whether there is any literary connection between them. Some claim there is no way to determine which is the earliest or latest collection, and others are willing to posit a timeline for the collections, and in doing so set up a framework for diachronic exploration of the גאל הדם‎ laws. Pamela Barmash, for instance, states that ‘all date from some time in the First Temple period with no clear evidence for historical priority’, ²² while according to Wellhausen’s classic source-critical framework, the law is traceable from Exodus to Numbers, from altar sanctuary to sanctuary city. ²³ In the below, I will utilise a conservative history of tradition framework through which to explore these גאל הדם‎ texts.

Ex. 21.12-14, found within the Book of the Covenant (Ex. 20.19-23.33), might be the earliest biblical formulation of the blood redeemer law, and contains no reference to a sanctuary city, and no explicit reference to the blood redeemer. In this passage, asylum can be found at ‘a place’ (מקום‎), where the place is refined as ‘my altar’ (מזבחי‎). ²⁴ Though a number of scholars argue that this ‘place’ is a city, ²⁵ it is more widely held that asylum could be sought and found at any altar. ²⁶ If found not guilty of ‘first degree murder’, the killer was free to go. ²⁷ This law might have been an attempt by the emerging monarchy to restrain the clan custom of blood redemption. ²⁸ While there is no explicit mention of the גאל הדם‎, the accidental or purposeful killer is fleeing from someone who poses a mortal danger. The text is also silent on the matter of motivation for executing the killer. Despite this textual silence, the tradition here tends to be viewed as a blood feud. ²⁹ With ancient Israel organized according to kinship to family and tribe, the ‘family in biblical Israel acted as a mutual aid society and, therefore, in a case of homicide, blood feud ensued’. ³⁰

Deut. 19.6-12, part of the Deuteronomic Code of Deuteronomy 12-26, expands on this legal kernel. ³¹ The move to establish specific asylum cities can be understood in light of the abolition of the high places in Josiah’s reform of 622 BCE, ³² though ‘this is not quite certain’. ³³ The killer could no longer take sanctuary at any altar, and one sanctuary might be too far away (Deut. 19.6). ³⁴ The sanctuary cities were established in select locations to service this need, first allocating three cities and then, if the territory is expanded, allocating another three. As in Ex. 21.12-14, the passage describes the difference between manslaughter and murder, but the executioner here is designated גאל הדם‎. Theגאל הדם‎ could now be a functionary of the state, either a family member or a state-designated executioner. ³⁵ For the first time, also, a reason is given for why it will not do to shed the blood of a manslaughterer: ‘so that innocent blood (דם נקי‎) will not be shed in the midst of the land that Yhwh your God is giving you as an inheritance, and there will be blood on you (והיה עליך דמים‎)’ (Deut. 19.10), and why it is necessary to kill the intentional killer: ‘you shall purge (ובערת‎) innocent blood (דם הנקי‎) from Israel, and it will go well for you (וטוב לך‎)’ (Deut. 19.13). These two concerns, that the right punishment be meted out, and that the wrong punishment not be meted out, ³⁶ come together in an underlying concern to avoid incurring blood guilt. ³⁷ The blood guilt in this version of the גאל הדם‎ tradition attaches to ‘Israel’, the people. ³⁸

Num. 35.9-34, in the Priestly Code, offers the lengthiest description of the law, and there is evidence of an evolution or at least a reformation of the law. Here six cities are to be allocated, three within Canaan and three beyond the Jordan. There is an expanded account of what does and does not constitute murder, or manslaughter. A ‘congregation’ (העדה‎) judges between the killer and the גאל הדם‎, hearing the testimony of witnesses (לפי עדים‎), and protects the killer from the גאל הדם‎. If found to be a manslaughterer rather than a murderer, the killer is returned to the sanctuary city within which bounds he must remain until his own death or that of the Kohen Gadol. The reason for the גאל הדם‎, the necessity of killing the killer, has shifted from Deuteronomy’s ‘so that it may go well with you’ by avoiding blood guilt, to the ritual purity of the land. The blood of the murdered person pollutes (חנף‎) the land, and only the blood of the killer can expiate that pollution (Num. 35.33). ³⁹ The Israelites are not to defile (טמא‎) the land in which they live, and in which God abides (Num. 35.34). ⁴⁰

The version of the law in Joshua 20.1-9 is thought by some to be the oldest version of the blood redeemer/sanctuary city tradition, dating to premonarchic times. ⁴¹ This view, however, is not widely held. ⁴² Unlike the versions of the law in Exodus 21, Deuteronomy 20, and Numbers 35, but as in Deuteronomy 4, this passage gives the names and locations of sanctuary cities. ⁴³ Here, the killer is to present himself at the entrance gates to the city, and to speak to the elders of the city, who will allow him to live with them. The elders do not hand the manslaughterer over to the גאל הדם‎, but the killer stays in the city until he stands before the elders for judgement, after which he remains in the city until the death of the Kohen Gadol. The purpose for the sanctuary cities seems to be to ensure that a person might ‘not die by the hand of the גאל הדם‎ before standing before the congregation’ (Josh. 20.9), but there is no explicit discussion of interests. There is no mention of blood guilt, nor of purity of land or people. The text is silent on the matter of interests. This is the case also in Deut. 4.41-43, which seems only to suggest that the sanctuary cities are to be established for the interest of the accidental killer, ‘so that he might live’. ⁴⁴

4. The dead in גאל הדם‎ reception history

It is generally accepted that there is a development of the homicide laws, or at least a reinterpretation of the law within different communities, particularly regarding what is and is not ‘first degree murder’ warranting the death penalty, and the presumed underlying reason for the need for sanctuary. Constant throughout is the presence of the blood redeemer, though in Exodus 21 and Deuteronomy 4 such a figure is inferred rather than named.

Interpretation of these laws tends to focus on issues of either purity, whether ethical or ritual, or the honour of the family. The family of the dead person is undoubtedly a stakeholder in the execution of the killer. The Israelite people and their land are also stakeholders in the execution of the killer, and the non-execution of the accidental killer. I wish, however, to propose a third party to the redemption, the dead person. In much of the critical reception of these laws, the dead go unmentioned, and there is a curious detachment of the blood from the one who bled.

A number of commentators do allow that the dead person might have an interest in the execution of their killer, but this interest is not fully developed in their studies. In the most recent study on homicide, Pamela Barmash mentions the dead person in passing, but these are glimmers within a larger discussion of pollution. Throughout the book Barmash argues that ‘the spilled blood of the homicide victim has a concrete existence that needs to be remedied’, ⁴⁵ and that ‘the blood of the victim as the locus of the victim’s life has an objective existence of its own that requires vengeance’. ⁴⁶ Even so, her interpretation of the blood is focussed on im/purity: ‘the spilling of the victim’s blood is the physical consequence of the sin that must be rectified …. the blood of a murdered person pollutes’. ⁴⁷ Barmash comes very close to inferring posthumous interests when she writes of the redeemer of property, ‘He acts on behalf of a powerless person in the restoration of lost property. In the same manner, the victim’s blood is lost and needs to be recovered’. ⁴⁸ Posthumous interests remain subsumed, however, under the interests of the living: ‘Blood in its capacity as a purifying agent removes the stain caused by the spilling of innocent blood, and when the killer is executed, the pollution is removed. Otherwise, the pollution persists’. ⁴⁹ Barmash allows that the killer offends the homicide victim, but the reading focusses on the offence given to God who refuses to live in land polluted by bloodshed. ⁵⁰

David Daube writes of the גאל הדם‎ practice that ‘vengeance is compensation’. ⁵¹ In line with his claim that the term גאל‎ ‘primarily suggests the return of men or things into their own legitimate place’, ⁵² he states,

As גאל הדם‎, as ‘taker back of the blood’, the ‘redeemer’, I submit, wins back the blood of his murdered kinsman from the murderer … The murderer has obtained control over the murdered man’s soul. So the גאל הדם‎ has to redeem the dead man from the power of the murderer. By killing the murderer, he takes back the victim’s soul. ⁵³

The blood is the dead man’s soul, and the גאל‎ gets it back. Daube’s language, however, remains at the level of the interests of the family or clan. The blood is not returned to the one who had been parted from it. Rather, the murdered man’s soul, his blood, is returned to his family. ⁵⁴

Johannes Pedersen also explains the גאל הדם‎ in terms of restoration and retaliation, ⁵⁵ and also connects the blood to the dead person:

The greatest infringement that can be made upon men is that they are robbed of life. If a man is killed, then life is taken away, not only from him, but also from the family with which he has life in common. This breach must be healed by life being taken from him who robbed him, and this is done by means of blood-vengeance … Vengeance is first and foremost the claim of justice on the part of the person offended … Vengeance is the real restoration of the violated. His name has been lessened, his righteousness has been infringed upon, but the name revives when vengeance is done. ⁵⁶

The dead person has been violated, and so too has his family. Pedersen continues, ‘He [the גאל‎] is the upholder of the family, its restorer. His task as an avenger is of exactly the same kind: he restores the name of the offended, and thus maintains the family of which he himself is a member’. ⁵⁷ Pedersen therefore accepts two stakeholders in the act, the family and the dead person. It is difficult, however, to determine whose interests, the dead person’s or the family’s, are ‘first and foremost’ restored through the redemption.

A little known article from 1918 places the interests of the dead in the forefront of the גאל הדם‎ tradition. Moses Buttenwieser argues,

blood-revenge among the Semites was governed by the same primitive belief as in ancient Greece—the belief that the souls of those who have met a violent death, the βιαιοθάνατοι as they are called in late Greek literature, cannot find rest in the nether world, but are condemned to haunt the earth as wretched spirits until their death has been duly avenged on their slayers. ⁵⁸

Buttenwieser compares Israelite culture with classical Greek culture, with some passing references to Mesopotamian and Arabic traditions. He notes that Greek literature ‘is full of stories of the afflictions visited on people by those incensed spirits; their wrath was believed to remain active even for generations’. ⁵⁹ The interest the living have in executing the killer is therefore linked to posthumous interests: if they do not satisfy the dead, the dead will harm them. Buttenwieser’s thesis is, however, referenced only in one of the studies of the גאל‎, the גאל הדם‎, or homicide consulted for this article, and the writer making reference to him immediately states, without offering critical assessment, ‘but this opinion must be rejected’. ⁶⁰

Far from rejecting Buttenwieser’s conclusions regarding the גאל הדם‎ tradition, I wish to take them seriously, but to do so not with reference to beliefs about the dead in Greek literature, but to the more closely related Mesopotamian, and of course Israelite, beliefs about the dead and the violently dead.

5. The dead in Mesopotamia and Israel

Israelite and Mesopotamian beliefs about the dead share numerous features. Exploring the relations between the living and the dead in Mesopotamian beliefs can therefore improve understanding of those relations in Israel, and potentially shed light on the place of the violently dead in Israelite beliefs about the dead. ⁶¹

In ancient Israel, the dead went to Sheol, a place for everyone, righteous or unrighteous, foolish or wise, king or commoner (Job 3.13-19). The dead were kept in Sheol by gates and bars (Ps. 107.18; Job 38.17; Jer. 15.7; Jon. 2.7; Isa. 38.10), and though this existence was one of ‘darkness, dust, and silence’, ⁶² there is some suggestion that social structures from the living world were retained. In Isa. 14.9, for instance, dead kings rise from their thrones to meet the king of Babylon, and in Ezek. 32.27 dead warriors seem to have their own section in Sheol. ⁶³ Though there are far less ghost texts than in the Mesopotamian corpus, ⁶⁴ there are several significant biblical passages about the powers of the dead. In Isa. 8.19, people consult the chirping and moaning ghosts and knowing ones (אל־האבות ואל־הידענים המצפצפים והמהגים‎), perhaps echoing the Mesopotamian images of the dead as feathered birds. There is also evidence of ancestor worship, and some have gone so far as to claim there was a cult of the dead. ⁶⁵ Grave goods suggest the dead were fed and watered, and feeding the dead is mentioned in such verses as Deut. 26.14, Ps. 106.28, Isa. 57.6-8, and Tob. 4.17. ⁶⁶ Several biblical passages suggest a belief in special abilities of the dead, including prescience and fertility. The living could consult their ‘gods’ (אלהים‎) to divine the future (Isa. 8.19; 1 Sam. 28.13), and the dead, and those who consulted with the dead, are called ‘knowing ones’ (ידענים‎; Isa. 8.19; 19.3; Lev. 19.31; 20.6, 27; Deut. 18.11; 1 Kgs 21.6; 2 Kgs 23.24; 2 Chron. 33.5), perhaps indicating that the dead possessed special knowledge. ⁶⁷ The dead also possibly had the power to revivify and to secure fertility, as in 1 Samuel 1, where Hannah and Elkanah make their ‘annual sacrifices’. ⁶⁸ Fear of the dead might be present in several biblically recorded practices. David has the hands and feet cut off his enemies in 2 Sam. 4.12, an act which could be read as an attempt to dishonour the men, but which also could have been to disable them should they return. ⁶⁹ Fear of disturbing the dead might be behind Samuel’s question in 1 Sam 28.15, ‘Why did you disturb me (הרגזתני‎), to bring me up?’ as well as the ‘fear and dread’ (גאגת ותיראי‎) of Isa. 57.11. ⁷⁰ The mourning practices of tonsuring and laceration (Amos 8:10; Mic. 1:16; Isa. 15:2; Jer. 16:6; 41:4-5; prohibited in Lev. 19:27-28; Deut. 14:1), practices that alter appearance, could stem from the desire of mourners to hide themselves from the potentially malevolent dead, ⁷¹ or perhaps to offer hair and blood to strengthen the newly dead, or ‘to assuage the ghost’s jealousy of the living by showing it how grief-stricken they are’. ⁷²

As long as the ghosts of Mesopotamian dead, Sumerian gidim or Akkadian eṭemmu, receive proper burial and mourning rites and were fed and watered by their living relatives, they could participate in the underworld society. ⁷³ In both the Descent of Ishtar and the Epic of Gilgamesh, the dead ‘are clothed like birds, with feathers’, and Enkidu dreams that he becomes a bird before entering the underworld. ⁷⁴ The dead, who could be called ilani, gods, were kept in the underworld with bars, but could exit the underworld, named variously Irkalla, Arallu, and Ganzer, and visit with their families, especially during the month of Ab, a time of ritual and celebration. ⁷⁵ The families of the dead could request that the dead stop affecting their living kin, and to take illnesses and bad spirits back with them to the underworld. ⁷⁶ Dead family members therefore could be called on to ward off or drive out evil spirits, including ghosts, who might be possessing a person and making them unwell, and also to foretell the future. ⁷⁷

The corollary of ghosts who help is ghosts who harm. Discontented ghosts harmed the living, and needed placating. Witches also could direct a ghost against a living person, ⁷⁸ and the gods could send ghosts to afflict those considered worthy of the punishment, especially murderers. ⁷⁹ Ghosts pursued the living, haunted their dreams, appeared to them in their house or in the street, could physically abuse them, and could possess their bodies through the ears. ⁸⁰ Mesopotamian medical texts such as the Babylonian Diagnostic Handbook describe many ailments as the ‘hand’ of a ghost or a god, ⁸¹ an affliction Bottéro calls ‘the syndrome of the eṭemmu’. ⁸²

Certain categories of the dead were thought more likely to become malevolent ghosts. Ghosts who did not have their afterlife needs met by their family would wander the earth and could haunt the living. ⁸³ Wetnurses who died from breast infections, temple prostitutes, stillborn children who were not buried, and virgins, could all become malevolent ghosts, as could anyone who died slipping off a date palm, or from sinning against a god or the king, or from famine or thirst while imprisoned, or from fire, a chill, or drowning, or while on ‘the steppe’. ⁸⁴ Those who had not been properly interred, whose burial place had been disturbed, and whose corpse had consequently been scavenged by animals, could also become malevolent ghosts. ⁸⁵ Significantly for this article, violent death, such as being eaten by a dog or a lion, also led to posthumous malevolence. ⁸⁶ The ghost of a murdered person, ‘the man killed with a weapon’, could become a malevolent ghost, ⁸⁷ and in the Babylonian Diagnostic Handbook, one affliction attributed to a ghost is named the ‘hand’ of ‘a (violated) oath or murder’. ⁸⁸ It is unclear whether the malignance arose because ‘such deaths damaged the integrity of the corpse, or the ghost was angry due to a premature or violent death’. ⁸⁹ Whatever the case, the vengeful ghost was equally capable of attacking strangers and family members. ⁹⁰

Israelite and Mesopotamian beliefs about the dead are similar in numerous ways, and there is some evidence that Israelite ghosts, like their Mesopotamian counterparts, could assist the living. Both, it would seem, required certain mortuary rituals in order to become a part of the underworld society, and, failing that, Mesopotamian dead would roam the earth as malevolent ghosts. Mesopotamian victims of violent death, including murder, became malevolent spirits. Given the similarities between Mesopotamian and Israelite afterlife beliefs, therefore, it is possible that, as in Mesopotamia, the ancient Israelites believed that the dead held benevolent or malevolent intent towards the living, and that the ghost who had experienced a violent end could visit its malevolence upon the living.

6. Conclusion

It is possible that the גאל הדם‎ laws were in part established in order to restrain blood feuds, which fed into the honour/shame system of the clan. Murder in ancient Israel was also at some point thought of as a matter effecting communal ethical purity, and spilling innocent blood did become an issue of land purity. The family or clan, the land, people, and even God, are then all stakeholders in the just execution of the murderer. But it is unlikely that these are the only interested parties in the גאל הדם‎ laws.

Interment practices and treatment of the corpse infer that posthumous interest was assumed within the culture of ancient Israel. Honourable burial, and an absence of shame in death, reflected not just on the family or clan, but were thought to be experienced by the dead person. Grave or corpse desecration was an effective posthumous punishment because of the belief that the dead had an interest in their bodily and grave integrity. It is a small step from posthumous interest in interment practice to posthumous interest in blood redemption. While interpretation of the blood redeemer laws has tended to exclude the murdered party, and focus on other interested parties, it is not unlikely that, in a culture accepting of posthumous interests, manslaughter and murder victims would be stakeholders in posthumous events concerning the righteous punishment of their killers. It is possible that the גאל הדם‎ sought to uphold the interests of the murdered person, namely the interest in honour, which survived death. As such, interpretations of the blood redeemer laws which allow for the possibility of posthumous interests are to be preferred to those which exclude the possibility of those interests.

There is a significant gap between studies of homicide law in ancient Israel and folk beliefs concerning the dead, and these laws seem to have been interpreted in isolation from the folk beliefs of the culture or cultures which produced them. If it is apt to reconstruct Israelite beliefs about the dead through Mesopotamian beliefs, then it seems likely that there was an ancient Israelite belief that the violently dead became malevolent ghosts. And herein lies the major disjunction between this article and modern philosophical debates about posthumous interest. The interests are not attached to a once-was, now-annihilated person. The dead existed, in some shadowy, dust-filled un-life, and they could themselves act. It is possible that the dead, whose interests were harmed, could harm the living; a murdered person, with an interest in their honour, an interest harmed by the continued life of their killer, might afflict their living family. If so, it would have been in the interest of the clan to satisfy the interests of the dead.