Biblical Law

Intro

We’ve spent time over the past several weeks discussing the different genres within Scripture and have discussed ways of reading those genres in order to help us read Scripture well. The first genre we covered was narrative, which covers most of the Bible. These are the stories that we come across. There is narrative throughout the entire Bible and these help us visualize the story that leads to Jesus

We just finished a several weeklong discussion about Poetry and how to adjust our expectations of reading in order to appreciate its purpose. About a third of the Bible is poetry, it helps us sense the story that leads to Jesus through imagery and emotion. This includes songs, psalms, and prophecy.

As we move toward discourse we’re going to talk about discourse as it relates to Biblical Law and then the New Testament Letters.

What do you think of when I talk about Biblical Laws? What comes to mind?

Have you ever wondered why there are so many ancient biblical laws in the first books of the Bible? What are modern readers supposed to do with them, and why are some of them so odd? We’re going to explore why the laws were given to ancient Israel and how they fit into the overall storyline of the Bible.

[Watch biblical laws video]

Laws in the Hebrew Bible

611 or 613 Laws, depending on what rabbi you listen to. Babylonian Talmud describes the numeration. One interesting count is that there are 365 negative commands corresponding to the Solar Calendar and 248 positive commands corresponding to the parts of the human body.

Problems with the Laws

To modern readers the laws seem noble and inspiring, odd and obscure, but they also seem primitive and barbaric.

Leviticus 19:9-10 ““When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God.”

Leviticus 19:27-28 “You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard. You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves: I am the Lord.”

Leviticus 20:27 ““A man or a woman who is a medium or a necromancer shall surely be put to death. They shall be stoned with stones; their blood shall be upon them.””

The laws create tension within models of biblical authority. Are we supposed to obey all of them, some of them, or none of them?

This is a problem in both Jewish and Christian history. In Jewish history, sacrificial ritual laws make up one quarter of Leviticus (Lev. 1-7), yet the temple was destroyed in 586 B.C. and again in 70 A.D. making sacrifice impossible. Also, many laws are bound to the promised land, such as pilgrimage feasts and Jubilee.

In Christian history, how do the laws relate to members of the messianic new covenant family? How do Jesus’ statements about the law like “I didn’t come to set it aside but fulfill it” relate to Paul’s statements like “The Messiah is the end of the Law”? But Paul still quotes from the ten commandments, like in Ephesians 5 (“Children obey your parents”) or Acts 15 (about Kosher food laws, circumcision, etc.).

These questions pose problems for both Judaism and Christianity.

Another problem with the laws is their placement. The laws are placed unevenly throughout the Torah, sometimes in odd locations. Within the Torah, there are multiple blocks of law codes embedded in the narrative. And there are different categories of laws. The table below describes the two categories of laws: narrative and law codes (list of commands). (See table)

Another problem is the way the laws sometimes differ from each other, in small or big ways.

Small Ways

Exodus 20:8-11 ““Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”

Deut 5:12-15 ““ ‘Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant, or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.”

What do you think may be the reason behind the small differences here?

Example of Big Difference

Exodus 12:8-9 “They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts.”

Deuteronomy 16:6-7 “but at the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell in it, there you shall offer the Passover sacrifice, in the evening at sunset, at the time you came out of Egypt. And you shall cook it (literally “boil it”)and eat it at the place that the Lord your God will choose. And in the morning you shall turn and go to your tents.”

2 Chronicles 35:13 “And they roasted (literally “boiled with fire”) the Passover lamb with fire according to the rule; and they boiled the holy offerings in pots, in cauldrons, and in pans, and carried them quickly to all the lay people.”

Six Important Perspectives in Understanding the Laws of the Hebrew Bible

1. The Laws Are Terms of a Covenant Relationship, Not a Law Code

The laws are not a constitutional code (divine behavior manual) dropped from Heaven. Rather, they illustrate the official terms of the covenant relationship between Yahweh and the people of ancient Israel.

Law and Covenant in the Bible

In the Bible, the 613 laws are not a judicial code. Rather, they all fall within

the ceremony of God’s covenant with Israel in Exodus 19-24. Prologue to the covenant: Exodus 19:4-6 “‘You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey (listen to) my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.””

Israel was not the only Ancient Near East society with a law code. Most famously is the Code of Hammurabi from Babylon in the 18th Century BC. The code is copied word for word over the course of 1000 years without change, but don’t reflect the actual legal proceedings that took place in Babylon based on legal documents that have been found and translated from that time period. What scholars have discovered is that the Code of Hammurabi was not a Statutory document in the sense that it was the law of the land as we think of it today like the US Code. Instead, the laws of ANE were common law in nature.

In common law, 4 features

The written law describes applications of legal practice, but is not itself “the law.”

The written norm applies an already operating norm outside the text.

The wording of the law illustrates the authoritative norm, but isn’t itself binding.

The written law’s promulgation adds to and complements pre-existing law codes; it does not replace or “amend.”

Opposed to the legislative or statutory society like in America

The written law is itself the authoritative statement of legal practice.

The norm is authoritative from the moment of its publication.

The exact wording of the written law is binding.

The written law’s publication overrides previous statements of legal practice (“amendments”).

Statutory Law

The law itself is contained in a codified text, whose authority combines two elements: (a) the law emanates from a sovereign (a king or legislative body, etc.); (b) the law is a finite and complete legal system, so that only what is written in the code is the law. The law code supersedes all other sources of law that precede the formulation of the code. … Where the code lacks explicit legislation, judges must adjudicate with the code as their primary guide.— Joshua Berman, Inconsistency in the Torah, 109-112

Common Law

The law is not found in a written code that serves as a judge’s point of reference or limits what they can decide. Rather, the judges conclude the correct judgment based on the mores and spirit of the community and its customs. Law … develops through the distillation and continual restatement of legal doctrine through the decision of courts. … Previous legal decisions are consulted but not binding and, importantly, a judge's decision does not create a binding law, because no particular formulation of the law is binding. … [T]he common law is consciously and inherently incomplete, fluid, and vague. … Legal codes are not the source of law, but rather a resource for later judges to consult.--Joshua Berman, Inconsistency in the Torah, 109-112

In metaphor: The common law can change and yet still be considered part of the same legal “system” just as a ship can return home after a long voyage and still be considered the “same” ship, even though it returns with many repairs, new materials, and old materials discarded and replaced. In the same law, law collections create a system of legal reasoning that a judge accesses to apply in new and unanticipated circumstances.--Sir Matthew Hale, a British common-law judge from the 17th century

Law and Order in Ancient Israel

The practice of law by judges in Israel conforms to this ancient portrait of common law society.

Judges were appointed in Israel based on their moral character and not their legal education.

Exodus 18:21-22 “Moreover, look for able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe, and place such men over the people as chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. And let them judge the people at all times. Every great matter they shall bring to you, but any small matter they shall decide themselves. So it will be easier for you, and they will bear the burden with you.”

Deuteronomy 1:15-17 “So I took the heads of your tribes, wise and experienced men, and set them as heads over you, commanders of thousands, commanders of hundreds, commanders of fifties, commanders of tens, and officers, throughout your tribes. And I charged your judges at that time, ‘Hear the cases between your brothers, and judge righteously between a man and his brother or the alien who is with him. You shall not be partial in judgment. You shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not be intimidated by anyone, for the judgment is God’s. And the case that is too hard for you, you shall bring to me, and I will hear it.’”

Judging based on the law was about character and application of principles, not consulting a code-book

There are many cases where narratives about legal decisions either (1) differ from the statements of

practice in the biblical law codes, or (2) the decision is offered without any recourse to a law code.

In 2 Samuel 14, David gives a ruling contrary to every law and principle in the biblical law codes concerning murder. But David simply excuses his son Absalom (who murdered Amnon) with no appeal or defense of his actions, and no mention of a law code.

Jeremiah 26 is the most detailed description of a trial in the Hebrew Bible. Jeremiah is accused of treason for announcing the temple’s destruction. He defends himself by saying that another prophet before him, Micah, announced the same message and he was never imprisoned. This is an argument from precedent, not from a law code. The arguments advanced against him are offered on theological grounds (“he speaks in the name of Yahweh”) and political grounds (“he prophesied against our city”). No law codes are ever consulted to defend or accuse him.

In 1 Kings 3, Solomon makes a famous decision about the two women and the baby. Solomon listens to the witnesses (the two women) and uses his intuition (which is divinely inspired according to the previous narrative) to make a decision. The concluding statement shows the real source of legal authority: “When all Israel heard of the judgment which the king had decided, they revered the king, for they saw the wisdom of God in him to do justice” (1 Kgs. 3:28).

2. The Laws Embody a Set of Symbolic Ideals

Laws related to similar topics work together as a symbolic ritual system. They embody a set of ethical, social, and theological ideals for God’s ancient covenant people, who were to be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” living out the garden of Eden ideal in the world.

•Ritual calendar: The seven-day Sabbath cycle is all about the anticipation and reenactment of the new creation. In the literary design of the “days” in Genesis 1, there is no end to the seventh day.

•Ritual sacrifices: This involves offering up the life of a blameless representative who will “ascend” to the heavenly mountain on someone’s behalf (Lev. 1 begins with the “‘olah ascent” offering).

•Ritual holiness: This involves symbolic purity boundaries that embody the conviction that God’s presence is the source of all life, and health is separate from the mortal and immortal.

•Civil law: This involves creating a new creation community that is structured to carry the poor and prevent injustice against the vulnerable.

•Criminal law: This involves a zero tolerance policy for those who corrupt the holy covenant family through blood feuds, theft, idolatry, or sexual behavior that disrupts the social web.

3. The Laws Embody and Revolutionize Ancient Eastern Concepts of Justice

The laws are formulated in the language and categories of ancient Near Eastern law so that Israel’s laws were comprehensible to their neighbors while also representing an irreversible cultural revolution.

1. In all of the covenant documents (Hittite, Assyria), only one is between a king and a people; dozens of others are all between one king and another king.

Covenants are agreements between kings, but the biblical story depicts the laws as stipulations between God and all of the Israelites. Notice how “I will be their God and they will be my people” mirrors “I am my beloved’s and he is mine.” This is marriage-covenant language.

2. This concept of a human family married to God is founded on the concept of humanity in Genesis 1-2, which claims all humanity, male and female, is the divine royal image over all creation.

And while the Davidic king could be called the “son of God,” it was only as the representative of all Israel who is the “son of God” (Exod. 4:22), and the king and all the Israelites are themselves equals under their divine king, Yahweh.

3. This explains why Israel’s law codes consistently downgrade the role of the king in contrast to neighboring nations.

In Israel, the king is not the sole chief divine authority, but rather Yahweh is king, and the human king is subservient to the Scriptures (Deut. 17) and to the prophets who speak on Yahweh’s behalf.

He is a leader in war, but not the chief. He can participate in the temple, but he is not the high priest. He is not the lawgiver. This is all in contrast to Egypt and Babylon.

4. Israel’s economy was oriented toward landed families who were called to include the immigrant, poor, and orphans in their communities. It is the first ancient example of welfare society. This can be seen in laws about not maximizing profit to allow work in the fields (Ruth 2-3), laws about the seven year debt release and Jubilee land/debt release, laws about no interest loans for the poor, and laws about the tithe for loans for failing farmers.

4. The Laws Play a Subordinate Role in the Biblical Storyline That Leads to Jesus

The laws play an important but subordinate role in the plot of the larger biblical storyline.Humanity’s failure to obey the divine command is part of the plot conflict that prevents them from being God’s image-bearing partners in ruling creation. The laws illustrate the divine ideal while also intensifying that conflict, creating the need for a new human and a new covenant.

1. The first divine command is in the garden of Eden.

The LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of knowing good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”

Genesis 2:16-17

2. The failure to listen to the voice of God (i.e. breaking the divine command) results in exile from the Eden mountain, and this exile leads to death.

Then to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’…" So he banished the human; and at the east of the garden of Eden he stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.

Genesis 3:17, 24

3. Each following generation replays and intensifies the human condition of “not listening to the voice” of God concerning “good and evil” until Abraham’s final act of obedience.

“By myself I have sworn,” declares the LORD, “because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son, indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have listened to my voice.”

Genesis 22:16-18

4. But from the very beginning, Abraham’s descendants consistently fail to obey the terms of the covenant. For example, notice how the golden calf story in Exodus is patterned after Genesis 3.

Exodus 32:1-5 “When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” So Aaron said to them, “Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.””

5. Israel’s covenant choice is the same as that of Adam and Eve and all humanity.

Deuteronomy 30:15-20 ““See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers,…”

6. Israel’s inability to listen to the voice of God leads to death and exile, and their failure traps humanity in the power of death, necessitating the messianic age and the new covenant.

Jeremiah 31:31-34 ““Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.””

5. The Purpose of the Covenant Laws Are Fulfilled in Jesus and the Spirit

The dual role of the laws—to condemn and to point the way to true life—is fulfilled in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and in the coming of the Spirit to Jesus’ new covenant people. Jesus was the first obedient human and the first faithful Israelite who fulfilled the law yet bore the curse of their punishment, so that others could have life and the status of covenant righteousness.

6. The Laws Are a Source of Wisdom for All Generations

The Torah is viewed as a source of wisdom within the Hebrew Bible. The tree of knowing good and evil is the pathway to the tree of life, and in Proverbs, learning wisdom is the pathway to the tree of life.

Paul used the Torah as wisdom literature:

1 Corinthians 9:9–12 ESV

For it is written in the Law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain.” Is it for oxen that God is concerned? Does he not certainly speak for our sake? It was written for our sake, because the plowman should plow in hope and the thresher thresh in hope of sharing in the crop. If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much if we reap material things from you? If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we even more? Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ.

This is often cited as an example of arbitrary proof texting on Paul’s part, but closer observation demonstrates a more complex hermeneutical strategy at play here. First of all, Paul is operating with an explicitly stated hermeneutical principle that God is really concerned about human beings, not oxen, and that the text should be read accordingly (vv. 9-10). Second, a careful look at the context of Deuteronomy 25:4 lends some credence to Paul’s claim about this particular text. The surrounding laws in Deuteronomy 24 and 25 (especially Deut. 24:6-7, 10–22; 25:1-3) almost all serve to promote dignity and justice for human beings; the one verse about the threshing ox sits oddly in this context. It is not surprising that Paul would have read this verse also as suggesting something about justice in human economic affairs.

Richard B. Hays, First Corinthians (Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching), 151

How To Read the Laws in the Hebrew Bible

1. Read each law within (a) its immediate literary context and (b) within the larger narrative strategy of the Torah and the Prophets.

2. Read the laws in their ancient cultural context in conversation with their law codes.

3. Study related laws as expressions of a larger symbolic worldview.

4. Discern the wisdom principle underneath the laws that can be applied in other contexts.

5. Refract every law through Jesus’ summary of God’s will: love God and love people in the power of the Spirit.