Laws of the Israelites
Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2012 8:26 pm
It seems that the laws that the Israelites followed in the days of Moses were of three types:
1. Laws given by God.
2. Laws given by Moses arising from his own thoughts.
3. Laws given by the elders of the Hebrew people.
Perhaps a clear example of laws given by God to Moses are those found the ten commandments. Moses records that God spoke these commandments to him, and then he (Moses) went down to the people and told the people the specifics of the commandments. (Exodus 20:1-17). Moses also wrote that God Himself wrote the terms of the covenant on stone tablets with His own fingers. (Exodus 31:18).
Now the 6th commandment is, “You shall not kill”. God didn't want his people to kill anyone. But then, according to Moses, immediately after he brought the 10 commandments to the people, he adds some additional commandments which he said God had spoken to him, including these ones:
Whoever strikes his father or his mother shall be put to death. Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death.Whoever curses his father or his mother shall be put to death. (Exodus 21:15-17)
Now this appears problematic. First God tells them the Israelites that they are not to kill — period. (no qualifications are specified). Now He orders His people to kill those who commit particular offenses. This appears contradictory. It makes one wonder whether Moses merely THOUGHT that God told him they were to kill others under these conditions. Perhaps Moses thought that this was the best way to prevent these wrong actions from taking place, and when he thought so, he believed that God had planted that thought. But would Christ, who revealed God to man by His personal life and teachings ever require anyone to kill another? Did He ever do so?
No. Jesus said His disciples would truly be sons of their Father, if they were to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them, for the Father makes his sun shine on both evil people and good, and sends rain on both the righteous and the unrighteous (Matthew 5:44,45)
The apostle Paul understood the teaching of his Master concerning the Heavenly Father. He indicated that God's kindness is meant to lead us to repentance. (Romans 2:4)
Nowhere does Jesus or His apostles ask us to put anyone to death for their wrongdoing. Indeed, Jesus was unwilling to carry out the Mosaic law in stoning to death the adulterous woman. Rather He instructed her to go and sin no more.
Then there is an unusual rule, supposedly God's commandment according to Moses, for judging whether or not a murderer should be put to death:
Whoever strikes a man so that he dies shall be put to death. But if he did not lie in wait for him, but God let him fall into his hand, then I will appoint for you a place to which he may flee. (Exodus 21:12,13)
So if a would-be killer lies in wait for his victim, that is, if the murder is pre-meditated, he is to be put to death. But if he simply kills him in a fit of rage (God having let the man “fall into his hand”), then God will provide a place for the killer to flee so that no one will kill him.
A woman who can find no other recourse for self-protection except to kill her husband, though premeditated, is highly unlikely to kill again. I, for one, would have no fear living next door to such a woman. On the other hand, I wouldn't want to live next door to a man who had killed his wife in a fit of rage. I would fear that he might kill me in a fit of rage if I said or did something which displeased him.
I think it most likely that this law was devised from the thought of Moses himself.Even today's law is somewhat similar to that of Moses. It labels as “first degree murder” the pre-meditated killing of a man by the wife he had repeatedly abused, but it would label as “second degree murder” the man's killing of his wife in a fit of rage. “First degree murder” merits a stiffer penalty than the other.
If Jesus had recognized as God's these commands for God's people to kill sinners or to wreak vengeance upon them, would He not have quoted at least once the many places in which Moses describes God as ordering such acts as genocide, the cutting off of women's hands, the stoning of disobedient sons, etc.? Would He not have at least once described God as a severe dispenser of vengeance in executing judgment by killing people? True, He warned people against Gehenna, and against being destroyed (“perishing”). Surely the painful process of having the dross in one's character destroyed through the fires of Gehenna is worthwhile avoiding. But the judgment of God as described by Moses and other prophets is not remedial. It seems merely retributive. Nowhere does Jesus quote these commands to execute revenge and describe them as God's.
Another law which had its origin in Moses (and Jesus recognized this) was that of allowing the separation of a married couple, providing the husband gives the wife a certificate of divorce. This contradicts God's law which Jesus quoted:
What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. (Mark 10:9)
So Jesus taught that the divorce law not only originated with Moses, but that God's law contradicted it.
The third type of law was that which was given by the elders to the people. Perhaps the commandment, “You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy” is one of the laws which the elders devised. This commandment is not found in the law of Moses. Jesus contradicted this law with the following instruction:
Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. (Matt 5:44,45)
Another example of a law or tradition given by the elders was described by Jesus as follows:
For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, What you would have gained from me is given to God, he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God. (Matt 15:4-6)
Unlike what I am doing, Jesus did not divide the Law into these three categories. He simply said, “It was said to the ancients...” or perhaps, “It was said by the ancients” as the King James has it. For though the dative case of a noun is usually translated with the preposition “to”, there is also the instrumental dative, and apparently the King James translators saw it as such. But either way, Jesus did not ascribe any of the laws to God. According to Jesus these laws were either given to the ancients (He doesn't say by whom) or by the ancients (He doesn't give their origin).
Whatever the category, Jesus either gets down to the basis or intent of the law, or else he contradicts the law.
Even the laws given by God may be divided into three categories:
1. The universal law of God
2. The laws of restraint
3. The symbolic laws
The universal law of God consists of moral principles which apply to all people of all time. Some of them can be found among the 10 commandments. Others outside of them. Jesus taught that all the commandments of God may be summed up in two:
1. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
2. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. (Matt 22:35-39)
Or, to put this in other words:
1. Nothing shall have more importance in your life than God and His will.
2. Love and serve others to the same extent that you love and serve yourself.
But Jesus showed that even the primary laws of God were not actually followed if one only keeps them outwardly:
One may refrain from killing, but if he hates someone, his heart condition is similar or identical to that of a murderer.
One may refrain from adultery, but if he looks at a wife with desire, his heart condition is similar to that of a person who actually carries out the act.
Concerning the laws of restraint, it seems that God gave the law, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” —limited revenge in order to prevent unlimited revenge. But again, Jesus replaced it with a practice which avoids revenge. Indeed, He asks his disciples to yield to the force which anyone tries to impose upon them.
Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. (Matt 5:39-41)
God gave symbolic laws in order to picture a practice which He had not yet revealed. For example, He required the Israelites to keep a sabbath (rest) on the 7th day of every week (from Fri. sundown until Sat. sundown) in order to picture the rest from wrongdoing which every disciple of Christ should practise. The writer to the Hebrews explains the anti-type:
So then, there remains a sabbath keeping (σαββατισμος – sabbatismos) for the people of God (Heb 4:9)
He then indicates what kind of sabbath keeping this is:
For he who has entered His rest has also rested from his works even as God did from His own.
Some in our day think this refers from ceasing from self-effort and allowing God to empower us. But Justin Martyr and other early Christians understood it as ceasing from our evil works. Justin affirmed that Christians keep “perpetual sabbath” in that they have permanently ceased from their evil works.
Other symbolic laws included the command to keep the feasts: Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles, etc. All of these picture some Christian practice or stage of development.
In conclusion, I suggest that it is very important to distinguish between these categories of laws which we find among the ancient Hebrews and which persist in Orthodox Jewry to this day. To ascribe them all to God is to denigrate the loving character of God, who through kindness, attempts to bring people to repentance, and if this result is not obtained, then to discipline them as a loving father would his children. But to ascribe to God acts of revenge such as killing people out of a fit of anger, or cutting off women's hands, etc. is not to do justice to His character, the One who is not willing that any should perish, but that all come to repentance. God who is fully cognizant of the minds of people, whom He created in His image, knows what steps to take to bring people to repentance, steps which may be kind and gentle, severe, or somewhere on the spectrum between these two extremes.
Jesus, the Son of God, revealed the true character of God both in His teachings and by His life of righteousness. When people understand God's loving character, they will cease blaming Him for all the unspeakable misery which some must endure, and which perhaps most endure in some period of their lives.
It is difficult to imagine Jesus carrying out the atrocities often ascribed to God. If people truly understood God's love which manifests itself sometimes in a gentle way, sometimes as tough and severe, but all for the purpose of bringing people to repentance and righteousness, they would be more likely to serve the only God who exists — the God of LOVE and GRACE.
1. Laws given by God.
2. Laws given by Moses arising from his own thoughts.
3. Laws given by the elders of the Hebrew people.
Perhaps a clear example of laws given by God to Moses are those found the ten commandments. Moses records that God spoke these commandments to him, and then he (Moses) went down to the people and told the people the specifics of the commandments. (Exodus 20:1-17). Moses also wrote that God Himself wrote the terms of the covenant on stone tablets with His own fingers. (Exodus 31:18).
Now the 6th commandment is, “You shall not kill”. God didn't want his people to kill anyone. But then, according to Moses, immediately after he brought the 10 commandments to the people, he adds some additional commandments which he said God had spoken to him, including these ones:
Whoever strikes his father or his mother shall be put to death. Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death.Whoever curses his father or his mother shall be put to death. (Exodus 21:15-17)
Now this appears problematic. First God tells them the Israelites that they are not to kill — period. (no qualifications are specified). Now He orders His people to kill those who commit particular offenses. This appears contradictory. It makes one wonder whether Moses merely THOUGHT that God told him they were to kill others under these conditions. Perhaps Moses thought that this was the best way to prevent these wrong actions from taking place, and when he thought so, he believed that God had planted that thought. But would Christ, who revealed God to man by His personal life and teachings ever require anyone to kill another? Did He ever do so?
No. Jesus said His disciples would truly be sons of their Father, if they were to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them, for the Father makes his sun shine on both evil people and good, and sends rain on both the righteous and the unrighteous (Matthew 5:44,45)
The apostle Paul understood the teaching of his Master concerning the Heavenly Father. He indicated that God's kindness is meant to lead us to repentance. (Romans 2:4)
Nowhere does Jesus or His apostles ask us to put anyone to death for their wrongdoing. Indeed, Jesus was unwilling to carry out the Mosaic law in stoning to death the adulterous woman. Rather He instructed her to go and sin no more.
Then there is an unusual rule, supposedly God's commandment according to Moses, for judging whether or not a murderer should be put to death:
Whoever strikes a man so that he dies shall be put to death. But if he did not lie in wait for him, but God let him fall into his hand, then I will appoint for you a place to which he may flee. (Exodus 21:12,13)
So if a would-be killer lies in wait for his victim, that is, if the murder is pre-meditated, he is to be put to death. But if he simply kills him in a fit of rage (God having let the man “fall into his hand”), then God will provide a place for the killer to flee so that no one will kill him.
A woman who can find no other recourse for self-protection except to kill her husband, though premeditated, is highly unlikely to kill again. I, for one, would have no fear living next door to such a woman. On the other hand, I wouldn't want to live next door to a man who had killed his wife in a fit of rage. I would fear that he might kill me in a fit of rage if I said or did something which displeased him.
I think it most likely that this law was devised from the thought of Moses himself.Even today's law is somewhat similar to that of Moses. It labels as “first degree murder” the pre-meditated killing of a man by the wife he had repeatedly abused, but it would label as “second degree murder” the man's killing of his wife in a fit of rage. “First degree murder” merits a stiffer penalty than the other.
If Jesus had recognized as God's these commands for God's people to kill sinners or to wreak vengeance upon them, would He not have quoted at least once the many places in which Moses describes God as ordering such acts as genocide, the cutting off of women's hands, the stoning of disobedient sons, etc.? Would He not have at least once described God as a severe dispenser of vengeance in executing judgment by killing people? True, He warned people against Gehenna, and against being destroyed (“perishing”). Surely the painful process of having the dross in one's character destroyed through the fires of Gehenna is worthwhile avoiding. But the judgment of God as described by Moses and other prophets is not remedial. It seems merely retributive. Nowhere does Jesus quote these commands to execute revenge and describe them as God's.
Another law which had its origin in Moses (and Jesus recognized this) was that of allowing the separation of a married couple, providing the husband gives the wife a certificate of divorce. This contradicts God's law which Jesus quoted:
What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. (Mark 10:9)
So Jesus taught that the divorce law not only originated with Moses, but that God's law contradicted it.
The third type of law was that which was given by the elders to the people. Perhaps the commandment, “You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy” is one of the laws which the elders devised. This commandment is not found in the law of Moses. Jesus contradicted this law with the following instruction:
Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. (Matt 5:44,45)
Another example of a law or tradition given by the elders was described by Jesus as follows:
For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, What you would have gained from me is given to God, he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God. (Matt 15:4-6)
Unlike what I am doing, Jesus did not divide the Law into these three categories. He simply said, “It was said to the ancients...” or perhaps, “It was said by the ancients” as the King James has it. For though the dative case of a noun is usually translated with the preposition “to”, there is also the instrumental dative, and apparently the King James translators saw it as such. But either way, Jesus did not ascribe any of the laws to God. According to Jesus these laws were either given to the ancients (He doesn't say by whom) or by the ancients (He doesn't give their origin).
Whatever the category, Jesus either gets down to the basis or intent of the law, or else he contradicts the law.
Even the laws given by God may be divided into three categories:
1. The universal law of God
2. The laws of restraint
3. The symbolic laws
The universal law of God consists of moral principles which apply to all people of all time. Some of them can be found among the 10 commandments. Others outside of them. Jesus taught that all the commandments of God may be summed up in two:
1. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
2. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. (Matt 22:35-39)
Or, to put this in other words:
1. Nothing shall have more importance in your life than God and His will.
2. Love and serve others to the same extent that you love and serve yourself.
But Jesus showed that even the primary laws of God were not actually followed if one only keeps them outwardly:
One may refrain from killing, but if he hates someone, his heart condition is similar or identical to that of a murderer.
One may refrain from adultery, but if he looks at a wife with desire, his heart condition is similar to that of a person who actually carries out the act.
Concerning the laws of restraint, it seems that God gave the law, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” —limited revenge in order to prevent unlimited revenge. But again, Jesus replaced it with a practice which avoids revenge. Indeed, He asks his disciples to yield to the force which anyone tries to impose upon them.
Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. (Matt 5:39-41)
God gave symbolic laws in order to picture a practice which He had not yet revealed. For example, He required the Israelites to keep a sabbath (rest) on the 7th day of every week (from Fri. sundown until Sat. sundown) in order to picture the rest from wrongdoing which every disciple of Christ should practise. The writer to the Hebrews explains the anti-type:
So then, there remains a sabbath keeping (σαββατισμος – sabbatismos) for the people of God (Heb 4:9)
He then indicates what kind of sabbath keeping this is:
For he who has entered His rest has also rested from his works even as God did from His own.
Some in our day think this refers from ceasing from self-effort and allowing God to empower us. But Justin Martyr and other early Christians understood it as ceasing from our evil works. Justin affirmed that Christians keep “perpetual sabbath” in that they have permanently ceased from their evil works.
Other symbolic laws included the command to keep the feasts: Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles, etc. All of these picture some Christian practice or stage of development.
In conclusion, I suggest that it is very important to distinguish between these categories of laws which we find among the ancient Hebrews and which persist in Orthodox Jewry to this day. To ascribe them all to God is to denigrate the loving character of God, who through kindness, attempts to bring people to repentance, and if this result is not obtained, then to discipline them as a loving father would his children. But to ascribe to God acts of revenge such as killing people out of a fit of anger, or cutting off women's hands, etc. is not to do justice to His character, the One who is not willing that any should perish, but that all come to repentance. God who is fully cognizant of the minds of people, whom He created in His image, knows what steps to take to bring people to repentance, steps which may be kind and gentle, severe, or somewhere on the spectrum between these two extremes.
Jesus, the Son of God, revealed the true character of God both in His teachings and by His life of righteousness. When people understand God's loving character, they will cease blaming Him for all the unspeakable misery which some must endure, and which perhaps most endure in some period of their lives.
It is difficult to imagine Jesus carrying out the atrocities often ascribed to God. If people truly understood God's love which manifests itself sometimes in a gentle way, sometimes as tough and severe, but all for the purpose of bringing people to repentance and righteousness, they would be more likely to serve the only God who exists — the God of LOVE and GRACE.