Law in the Old Testament
The Old Testament is a collection of diverse types of literature. The first five books, which compose the Pentateuch, are often called the “Torah” or “Law.” However, the Hebrew term torah, as mentioned in the previous lesson, means “teachings” rather than just “law” in the legal, codified sense. Further, even though detailed regulations tend to be centered in the Pentateuch, they are not limited to that section of the Old Testament, nor is the Pentateuch simply a law code in the strictest sense.
Some laws in the Old Testament clearly encompass broad principles while others are quite specific, minute regulations. The biblical text does not itself always clearly distinguish between the more important and the less important. That is why one finds many admonitions to meditate on the law (e.g. Ps. 119:97, 99). Thus, even though these were all laws originating with God, some are more permanent and spiritual in nature than are others. For example, the whole sacrificial system of the tabernacle and temple were important, even vital, for a certain period of time, but the New Testament shows that these regulations are not for all men at all times. They served a specific function for a certain time and in a particular place, while always symbolically pointing to deeper spiritual truths.
Old Testament laws can be broken down into various categories:
1) Broad spiritual principles which cover various lesser laws and regulations. The Ten Commandments are the primary example, as is clearly recognized by Old Testament scholars. For example, the seventh commandment –– specifically against adultery –– is a broad principle regulating human sexual relations. Detailed instructions concerning the types of sexual practices to be avoided are found in Leviticus 18. These latter fall under the category of “civil regulations“ (category no. 2 below) but are summarized by the board principle of the seventh commandment.
2) Civil regulations for the Israelite theocracy. These cover a number of different types of regulations. The laws about building a parapet around one’s roof, cutting down fruit trees while besieging a city, taking the mother bird with her young, inheritance, cities of refuge, covering an open pit, penning up a dangerous bull, leaving the corners and the forgotten sheaf for the poor, and many other instructions had to do with the proper conduct of a physical society within a national state. Since Israel was a theocracy, many of these regulations had religious overtones, even while being primarily civil in function, and often pointed toward the broad principle of the law. To these were added the various decisions made by the judges.
3) Laws of cleanliness and ritual purity. These are hard to separate since both are often included under the same instructions. For example, one who touched a dead body had to wash himself. This is the cleanliness part of the instructions. Yet he also remained “unclean” (Hebrew: tame) for a certain length of time (Lev. 11:39-40). Thus, both physical cleanliness and ritual cleanliness are included in the same instructions.
4) Laws relating to the sacrificial system and other regulations having to do with the religious liturgy or serving a symbolic or disciplinary function. For example, individuals were to sew blue fringes on their garments as a physical ritual to remind them of God’s commandments (Num. 15:37-40). Circumcision was also a religious ceremony of great importance. Whole sections of the Pentateuch (e.g. Lev. 1-10) give detailed instructions about the conduct of the sacrificial system. The sacrifices were, of course, religious in purpose since they had to do with worship and expiation of sin (Lev. 4: 26,35; 5:16).
One can use the analogy of a modern free country to better understand the various levels of Old Testament law. All instructions were part of that law. None were to be slighted or ignored. The breaking of any law brought some sort of penalty on the violator, though the penalties varied in severity. The same is true with the laws within, for example, the United States. The Constitution says nothing about speed limits, property taxes, zoning, or sexual conduct. Rather, laws are broadly laid out and worded to serve as an overall guide for all generations. All other laws –– whether national, regional or local –– must conform to the principles laid down in the Constitution. These laws themselves vary in importance. Some cover only a certain state or region or city. They may need to be changed according to the time and circumstances. In addition, a certain body of common law has grown up through individual court decisions (cf. the “judgments” of the Old Testament).
Category no. 1 might correspond to a national constitution –– such as that of the United States ––and cover all men at all times. Category no. 2 might be analogous to national laws passed by national legislators. That is, they may incorporate regulations which have permanent value for various human societies. On the other hand, some of the regulations may be culturally bound and require modification or replacement to remain relevant in a changing society. For example, the laws of inheritance were very important for ancient Israel but are less useful today. The seventh-year land Sabbath could be applied in a nation under God’s government but is difficult for all Christians everywhere to apply in today’s society. Thus, the specific law sometimes does not fit the changed situation brought about by the vicissitudes of time and circumstance.
Yet, one should not allow the concept of broad principles to devalue minute and detailed regulations. It would be impossible to run a country only on the broad principles of a constitution. Other laws, statutes and ordinances are also required. Speed limits and obedience to traffic lights may not be the most spiritual or “moral” of laws, but they are nonetheless essential for man in a mechanized society. Such ordinances are the result of applying moral and ethical principles (not running into another automobile does, after all, have ethical consequences); chaos would ensue if they were suddenly stricken from the books. To say that a law is of lesser value or more narrow in application than another is not to say that it is of no concern or that it can be ignored. The same applies to the detailed laws of the Old Testament.
No survey, even a lengthy one, can begin to cover all the examples or details of law in the Old Testament. The basic types of law and their function have been outlined above. Following is a brief historical survey, given to illustrate that outline and to show that law was by no means static during Old Testament times, even during the history of Israel.
The Old Testament, especially the book of Genesis, records the existence of extensive legal principles and legal codes long before the foundation of the nation of Israel. The last hundred years of archaeological discoveries have seen the discovery of legal codes and regulations from various parts of the ancient Near East. Thus, the particular codification given under the Sinai covenant was hardly the giving of law where none had previously existed. In fact, many of the regulations found in the books of Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers were only a reaffirmation of accepted regulations which had been known for centuries.
The account of the Garden of Eden is the first reference on instructions to human beings. Adam and Eve were instructed in the proper use and enjoyment of their idyllic physical surroundings; the one thing expressly forbidden was partaking of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This first simple instruction was given for the good of Adam and Eve, yet they disobeyed and reaped the consequences.
Their sons, Cain and Abel, knew of God and worshipped Him by means of a burnt offering. For a reason not fully specified in the Genesis account, Cain’s offering was not acceptable. His jealousy of Abel, whose sacrifice was accepted, produced the first murder. This brief episode shows several important points: worship was permitted through certain ritualistic ceremonies; this worship was regulated by some sort of unwritten code which Cain violated; Cain knew he was wrong to slay his brother and tried to cover it up; two sins –– violations of law –– are pointed out: murder and lying. It is therefore impossible to refer to the period before Sinai as a time of no law.
Similarly, the flood of Noah came because “God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5). Wickedness and evil are capable of existence only when there is a standard against which they can be judged. That standard does not have to be written down or externally codified; it can be a common understanding to which the term “natural law” or perhaps even “common law” could be applied. The point is that law had to exist before actions could be pronounced good or evil.
Throughout the patriarchal period, various statements are made which evidence at least an implicit code or system of law with grave results for violation and great blessings for obedience. Perhaps the classic capsule statement of the situation is contained in Genesis 26 in a reference to Abraham: “Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you, and will bless you; . . . and I will fulfill the oath which I swore to Abraham your father. . . because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws” (vv. 3-5).
Abraham, Isaac and their descendants were blessed for obedience to well-known laws and commandments. The fact that these are not specifically enumerated does not mean that they did not exist. On the contrary, many of them can be known by the specific examples which presuppose them. The following are examples of implicit laws in Genesis. Adultery being punishable: “What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us” (26:10); homosexuality being drastically punished (chapter 19); circumcision being a requirement for descendants of Abraham as a sign of God’s covenant with him (chapter 17); private property being respected (chapter 23); standard weights being used in business dealings (23:16); theft being wrong (31:19, 30, 32). Many other examples could be cited.
Therefore, when God brought Israel out of Egypt, it was no new thing for Him to lay down regulations for them. The first command concerned the institution of the Passover and Days of Unleavened Bread. Between Rameses and Sinai, a number of different commands were given to the Israelites. On Mount Sinai God spoke the Ten Commandments Himself and wrote them on two tables of stone. These two symbolic acts showed that the Ten Commandments were to be considered more fundamental than the other laws. (The Sinaitic covenant included a number of laws besides the Decalogue, Ex. 20-24).
Later, other regulations were added. A significant number of these centered on the sacrificial system at the altar. Sacrifices were not new; they had been offered at least since the time of Cain and Abel. What were new were many of the specific laws about the conduct of the ritual worship. Yet we find that, with the introduction of the temple at Jerusalem centuries later, many of these rules were modified. In fact the rules about building altars in Exodus 20:24-26 were soon changed and no altars except the one associated with the Tabernacle were allowed (Deut. 12). Deuteronomy covers many of the same basic regulations found in Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers but often modifies them or adapts them to new situations. So it is that in the Pentateuch itself we see a development of the legal code. A change in the administration or the environment often changes the interpretation and application of the law without altering the underlying principle. Rules given at one time for one situation were already being modified because of new situations (such as the change from nomadic desert-dwelling, in Exodus, to agricultural living in the land of Canaan, in Deuteronomy). Thus God’s Word establishes from its beginning the responsibility of God’s people to apply His laws to their changing, contemporary situations.
Some of the laws arising with Israel were already known in the same or a similar form elsewhere in the ancient Near East, as the book of Genesis and the literature of other ancient peoples show. A code of law was accepted as in any functioning national state today. Even where the word of the monarch was law, a common system of conduct for the average citizen was still very much in evidence. After all, the king could not judge every single case or decide every little matter in the day-to-day life of even a small city-state, much less a huge empire.
It is true that a number of the laws of the Old Testament can seem somewhat less than ideal from our modern viewpoint. They sound strange, indeed “primitive,“ to our modern ears. For example, slavery is only regulated, polygamy is allowed and women have decidedly inferior position. However, when the instructions dealing with these subjects are viewed against their background in the ancient Near East, many of them are remarkably progressive. That is, they would have been considered extremely liberal, even radical, for that time. These laws appear to have been instituted for the regulation and mollification of previously existing customs. Whether the customs themselves were good or bad was not the point. Rather, since eradication of the bad was impossible, God gave laws to ameliorate the existing situation.
Such accepted institutions as slavery were regulated to help protect the indentured servant and the bondslave. Polygamy was normal for the time, yet the laws of the Pentateuch saw to it that at least inheritance should be conducted fairly. A rapist normally had to marry his victim, if unmarried, to protect her since she would have had a hard time finding a husband. Of course, if the character of the rapist was clearly depraved –– that is, if his crime was not an isolated example of lust getting the better of him, but evidence of a basic flaw of character –– the father of the victim could still disallow it. From our modern point of view, the law may look peculiar. For the society at the time, it was a means designed to make the best of a bad situation. Similarly, just because God gave specific laws regarding divorce, it did not mean that He approved the practice (cf. Matt. 19:8). God was simply eliminating the possibility of continuous wife swapping (Deut. 24:1-4).
These examples are again evidence of a progression in the revelation and the understanding of God’s ultimate spiritual law. Even in the New Testament the institution of slavery is nowhere condemned outright. Yet the Church today, from its perspective of two thousand more years of history and guided by God’s Spirit, clearly recognizes that slavery is contrary to God’s purpose for man.
A look at law in the Old Testament would not be complete without examining certain prophetic Old Testament passages which indicate the reinstitution of a temple and regular sacrificial system during Christ the Messiah’s reign in the millennium (Is. 66:20-23; Ezek. 40-48; Zech. 14:20-21; Mal. 3:1-4; etc.). Why should such physical rituals have a place when Christ Himself is ruling?
There seem to be three interdependent reasons for a temple and sacrificial system. First is because, in addition to allowing Jerusalem to serve as a religious center, such a system shall enable a restored Israel to serve as an example to the world. The priesthood, which in times past did not consistently execute its duties with the proper care and willingness, shall now show the world how those duties should be carried out (Ezek. 44:5 ff). Israel as a model physical nation shall also have an important part in setting the social, ethical and religious examples.
The second reason is somewhat similar. Christ shall have established His rule over physical, unconverted nations. They must be led gradually to the place of repenting, being converted and receiving the Holy Spirit. Just as the temple ritual was important to the ancient Israelites without God’s Spirit, so the reestablished ritual of sacrifices shall give them a physical means of growing towards a spiritual understanding of God. The necessary education shall take a good deal of time. The temple shall serve as an important part –– the center –– of religious education.
Thirdly and finally, just as the sacrifices of ancient Israel pointed forward to a coming Savior who was to pay the supreme sacrifice for the sins of the world, so in the millennium the sacrifices will point back to that sacrifice and give people a greater understanding of Christ our Savior (in much the same way as the Passover service does today), the consequences of sin, and the meaning of salvation.
Questions (Answers Below):
1) The law of God is only found in the Old Testament. True or False?
2) What does our church use as the foundation of its doctrines and teachings?
a) Old Testament
b) New Testament
c) both
3) Law in the Old Testament is limited to the Pentateuch, also know as the “Torah.” True or False?
4) All of the laws of the Old Testament are permanent laws. True or False?
5) Which of the following laws are shown to be in effect in Genesis by direct scripture examples?
a) law against adultery
b) law against homosexuality
c) circumcision being a requirement for the descendants of Abraham
d) private property to be respected
e) standard weights to be used in business
f) law against theft
g) all the above
6) A change in the administration or the environment often changes the interpretation and application of the law without altering the underlying principle. True or False?
7) During the millennial reign of Christ which of the following will be reinstituted?
a) temple
b) sacrificial system
c) both
d) neither
8) Old Testament law only focused on what one did, by external conformity to law. It never addressed attitude and intent of the heart. True or False?
Lesson Sixteen –– Answers:
1. (False)
2. (c)
3. (False)
4. (False)
5. (g)
6. (True)
7. (c)
8. (False)
