The casting of lots is speaking positively about, not always negatively, in Scripture. Note the following two examples:
And we cast lots--who
of us should go into the house of Laban. And it came to pass that the lot fell
upon Laman; and Laman went in unto the house of Laban, and he talked with him
as he sat in his house. (1 Nephi 3:11)
And they appointed
two, Joseph called Barsabas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias. And they
prayed, and said, Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men, shew whether
of these two thou hast chosen, that he may take part of this ministry and
apostleship, from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his
own place. And they gave forth their lots; and the lot fell upon Matthias; and
he was numbered with the eleven apostles. (Acts 1:23-26)
For those who wish to know what the casting
of lots in antiquity entailed, note the following useful discussions of “lots”
(Heb: גּוֹרָל):
The Old Testament contains multiple examples
of lot-casting.
The primary Hebrew word for “lots” (גּוֹרָל, goral) refers to small stones cast
to produce a decision. The Israelites believed that Yahweh brought about the
result of cast lots
(Prov 16:33). God Himself commanded the use of lots
for the fate of the two goats used in the Day of Atonement (Lev 16:5–10). The
Urim and Thummim may have functioned as a divinely sanctioned type of lot (Exod 28:30; Kitz, “Urim and Thumim,” 401–10). (Rob Fleenor, “Lots,”
in John D. Barry et al. eds., The Lexham Bible Dictionary [Bellingham,
Wash.: Lexham Press, 2016)
II.
Secular Usage.
In everyday life, people frequently used the lot,
especially if they wanted to make an impartial decision. Furthermore, it was
easy to use the lot, its use hardly required
an interpretation, and it was relatively secure against manipulation. Lot casting was
practiced in the secular realm. Primarily it had the character of chance and
luck, even if sometimes it was believed that God was the one who made the
decision in a particular case (Prov. 16:33).
The OT writers frequently mention the lot in connection with distributing goods,
especially “booty” in the broadest sense of the word. The one making the
complaint in Ps. 22:19(18) sees that the “enemies” persecuting him are already
counting on his death. They have taken his garments, and divide them up as their
booty by casting lots.
According to Sir. 14:15, the descendants divide up the hereditary property by casting lots (cf.
also Prov. 18:18). Behind Prov. 1:14 lies the custom thieves had of dividing up
their booty by casting lots.
Lot casting was
also a commonly used method in martial law. According to Nah. 3:10; Ob. 11; and
Joel 4:2f.(3:2f.), victors in war disposed of the people and their property by casting lots. Ezk.
24:6 could refer to the carrying off of the inhabitants of Jerusalem in 587 b.c., which was done indiscriminately
(possibly in contrast to those that were carried off in 597 b.c.). Finally, Job compares his
heartless friends with men who treat persons like things: when helpless orphans
are brought to them as a pledge, they see to it that they are sold by casting lots (Job
6:27).
Tasks and services were also determined by casting lots. This
is the way the Levites arranged the service at the various gates of the temple
(1 Ch. 26:13–16), and how the priests and singers arranged their service at the
sanctuary (1 Ch. 24f.). The lot was used under
Nehemiah to determine the sequence in which the various individual families
were to provide the firewood for the altar (Neh. 10:35[34]). Also under
Nehemiah it was decided that not only the leaders of the people would be
allowed to live in Jerusalem, but also a tenth of the rest of the people. The
latter consisted partly of volunteers and partly of those who were compelled to
live in the holy city by the process of casting
lots (Neh. 11:1f.).
The book of Esther states twice that Haman,
the enemy of the Jews, cast lots in order to determine a favorable time for the
massacre of the Jews (Est. 3:7; 9:24). In light of 3:7, it seems that this was
the method used to determine the time: Haman cast
two lots for each day (one negative and the
other positive), until finally he received an affirmative reply on the
thirteenth day, and then for each month, until he hit upon the month of Adar.
III. Theological Usage
1. Casting Lots
“Before Yahweh.” The OT gives particular consideration to casting lots
“before Yahweh.” In other words, Israel is convinced that God holds the fate of
man in his hands and reveals his will immediately and unambiguously through lot casting.
Therefore, the people of God in the OT regard lot
casting as a sacral act. They inquire of
Yahweh in both public and private affairs (e.g., Ex. 18:15; 33:7; Jgs. 1:1f.;
etc.). Along with dreams and prophetic oracles (cf. 1 S. 28:6), the lot is regarded as the answer and final decision of
Yahweh, against which there is no appeal. Of course, it is uncertain how many
of the numerous inquiries of Yahweh were actually answered by casting lots.
The main intention of the “Priestly” authors
in Josh. 18–20 is to declare that the distribution and allotment of the land
was undertaken by Yahweh himself. They state that this was done at the central
sanctuary in Shiloh, at the door of the tabernacle, and frequently emphasize
that Joshua, the priest Eleazar, and the heads of the families cast lots “before
Yahweh” (Josh. 18:6, 8, 10; 19:51; 21:1f., 8; on the allotment of the land, cf.
Nu. 26:55f.; 33:54; 34:13; 36:2f.; Josh. 13:6; 14:1f.; 23:4; 1 Ch. 6:39, 46,
48, 50[54, 61, 63, 65]; Ezk. 45:1; 47:22; 48:29; Isa. 34:17). Dalman thinks
there were two steps in the process of distributing the land. First, it was
decided what territory was to be given to each tribe (cf. Josh. 15:1). The size
of the territory given to each tribe was determined by the number of families
or conscripted soldiers belonging to it. Then, secondly, the territory
belonging to each tribe was distributed among the individual families (cf. the
stereotyped formula in Josh. 18 and 19: “The lot
came out for the tribe of … according to its families”). Possibly two
containers, from which the marked lot stones
were drawn, were used. One container had the stones with the names of the
various territories on them, and the other, the stones with the names of the
individual families.
According to Lev. 16, the high priest is to
present two goats “before Yahweh” at the door of the tent of revelation
(certainly in a special rite). Then, by casting
lots, he is to ascertain which goat God wishes
for himself, and which goat he wishes to be sent away to the wilderness demon,
Azazel. The procedure used in casting lots here has been explained as follows: The priest
puts two lot stones into a container with the
names or symbols of Yahweh and Azazel upon them, and shakes it before the first
goat. The lot stone that comes up (ʿalah) first designates this goat for
its special purpose. The goat selected for Yahweh is offered as a sin-offering,
while the other is loaded with human guilt and driven far off into the
wilderness, and there he dies with the sin.
Jgs. 19–21 tells of the crime of the people
of Gibeah in Benjamin. The tribes of Israel assemble at the Mizpah sanctuary to
decide what to do about Gibeah, and the lot
plays a role in this decision. Because of the brevity of the statement in
20:9b, it is impossible to determine very precisely what was supposed to be
determined by the casting of the lot. The next verse would seem to indicate that it
was used to determine which soldiers would fight and which would carry the
provisions.
2. The
Lot Oracle. In the sacral realm, the lot was also used in connection with
the oracle and the ordeal. In ancient Israel, the lot oracle is a legitimate,
priestly means of inquiring of Yahweh. It is used not so much to look into the
future as to bring one’s own deeds into conformity with the instruction of God.
E.g., in Nu. 27:21 Israel is instructed to carry on its campaigns according to
Yahweh’s regulations, which the priest seeks by means of the Urim-lot.
Urim here stands as pars pro toto for the exclusive priestly lot of the Urim and Thummim. At the present stage of research, it is thought that
originally the Urim and Thummim were two cubic stones, one white and the other
black, which represented the answers “Yes” or “No.” Accordingly, questions
designed to receive a positive or negative answer were characteristically asked
in connection with the Urim and Thummim. It is usually thought that one of
these stones was made of limestone and the other of basalt. The words “Urim”
and “Thummim” cannot be explained etymologically from the Hebrew vocabulary.
Israel took them over from foreign people dwelling in the land of Canaan, but
we do not know the language from which they were taken. The mimation indicates
that they are very old.
Later, we are told that Saul inquired of
Yahweh because of the Philistines, but Yahweh did not answer him, “either by
dreams, or by Urim, or by prophets” (1 S. 28:6). Between the period of the
judges and that of the time of David, the Bible relates several instances in
which men inquired of God. Although it cannot be proved, it is natural to
assume that the Urim and Thummim were used as a means of receiving an oracle
when the questions were asked in such a way as to expect a positive or negative
answer (Jgs. 18:5f.; 20:26ff.; 1 S. 23:2; 2 S. 5:19).
1 S. 23 and 30 refer to still another means
of obtaining an oracle, viz., the ephod (ʾephodh).
In both instances, David asks the priest Abiathar to bring the ephod to him
that he might inquire of Yahweh. (Cf. 1 S. 14:18, LXX.)
There is still no convincing solution to the
problem of the ephod. The main difficulty is that this word denotes different
things in the OT. It is quite probable that the root word means “clothes” in
the broadest sense of the word, thus some sort of material that goes around a
person or an object (Jgs. 8:24–27; 17:5). This must have had a large pocket or
receptacle of some sort in which the lot stones were kept, when ephod is used
to mean an instrument for obtaining an oracle. 1 S. 21:10(9) must also have in
mind a garment with a pocket that held the lots used for divination. This
garment stood upright, and was large enough to hide something behind it, for
the text states that “the sword of Goliath … is behind the ephod.” Later (in
P), the ephod is a part of the official garments of the high priest. Here it is
more of a garment worn around the shoulders, but a fundamental part of this
garment is a breast pocket (choshen)
with the Urim and Thummim. The oldest texts of the OT refer to an ʾephodh badh, “a linen ephod,” which is
a short garment that a priest girds about himself (1 S. 2:18; 22:18; 2 S.
6:14).
Thus, inquiring of the oracle-ephod with the
lot stones is not basically different from using the Urim and Thummim. This
conclusion is confirmed by the method that David uses in asking questions when
he consults the ephod: Will Saul come down? Will the people hand me over? Shall
I pursue them? Will they overtake me? (1 S. 23:11f.; 30:8). The questions are
phrased so that they can be answered “Yes” or “No.” The answers that are quoted
are certainly expanded statements of the answers that actually came from the oracle,
which were simply “Yes.” (W. Dommershausen, “גּוֹרָל,” in G. Johannes
Botterweck and Helmer Ringgren, eds. Theological Dictionary of the Old
Testament, Volume 2 [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1977], 451–454)
