9 Law in the Torah

There are various different legal collections found in the five books of the Torah.

• There are the laws that scholars will often refer to as the JE laws, since they are introduced by that narrative and occur in Exodus. They are dated to about the tenth-ninth century BCE  in their written form.
• The laws of the P (priestly) material are primarily found in Leviticus and Numbers, and those were formulated from the eighth to the sixth century BCE.
• During the same period of time as the P materials come the laws of D, which are found in Deuteronomy. These sources are written down and consolidated at about this same time, but these are clearly drawn from much older traditions.

Some of the individual laws are quite ancient and have a great deal in common with other Ancient Near Eastern legal traditions, generally from the second millennium BCE. The more extended laws of Exodus, for example, bear such similarity to the Code of Hammurabi that they are clearly drawing upon a common legal heritage–probably Canaanite law or what would have been known as a legal tradition in Canaan.

The following Hebraic law collections are incorporated in the Torah: (1) the Book of the Covenant, or the Covenant Code; (2) the Deuteronomic materials; and (3) the Priestly or Holiness Code.

The Book of the Covenant has several general sections of law: those dealing with the worship of Yahweh;  laws dealing with individuals;  property laws; and laws concerned with the covenant.  This material is found in Exodus.

The materials found in Deuteronomy are a revision of Israelite law, based on historical conditions as interpreted by the 7th-century-BC historians known as the Deuteronomists.  Deuteronomists attempted to lay out laws that would purify the worship of Yahweh from outside influences. This material is divided into general sections as well: statutes and ordinances dealing with worship in the Temple in Jerusalem, (excluding Canaanite traditions of using high places for worship of El) ; laws (known as sabbatical laws) referring to the year of release from obligations, especially financial;  rules for tribal and religious leaders;  and various ethical laws.

The Priestly or Holiness Code materials are found in parts of Exodus, a portion of Leviticus, and most of Numbers. These writings emphasize ceremonial, institutional, and ritualistic practices. This set of laws and materials comes from the period after 538 BC when the Jewish people had returned from Exile in Babylon and were beginning to reestablish their way of living, religious practices and identity as a country. The Holiness laws reflect a reinterpretation of older materials as seen through their Exile experiences in Babylon. There is some impact from Zoroastrian beliefs.

But in spite of the difference in time during which the various sections of law were written, and whatever their actual origins were in being included in the Torah, the Bible story and narrative wants to show all of these legal materials as having been given to the people at Sinai or else during that 40-year wandering period after the 10 commandments are given.  Including all of this law in that early story is just a literary method of emphasizing their importance–that they are “straight from the mouth of Yahweh”, and not something that the community assembled, which is very clearly what actually happened.

There are mostly 2 forms of law found in the Torah– conditional law and absolute law.

Conditional or casuistic law is the most common form that law takes in the Ancient Near East, and you can see it in the Code of Hammurabi. It has a characteristic if/then pattern. Conditional law tells you that if a person does X or if X happens, then Y will be the consequence. It can be complex. It can be quite specific. If X happens, Y is the consequence, but if X happens under these different circumstances, then Z is the consequence. And it can be a very detailed law giving three or four sub-cases with qualifications about circumstances. Some of this is obvious in the Torah.

Absolute or apodictic law, by contrast, is an unconditional statement of a prohibition or a command. It tends to be general. “You shall not murder”. “You shall love the lord your God.” This absolute law, apodictic law, is known as a form occasionally found in other Ancient Near Eastern cultures, but it seems to be most commonly a type of law that is found in the laws of Israel. More of this absolute law  is found in legal collections in the Bible than anywhere else in the region’s other nations.

The Decalogue sets out some of God’s most basic and unconditional covenant demands. The division into ten commands is a bit awkward, however. It probably should be seen as an “ideal number” in Hebrew beliefs, perhaps as an effort to find 10 statements in there, because the leaders felt that 10 was a spiritual number. Because there are really more like 13 separate statements in the Decalogue!

Ten as an imposed numbering system for the Decalogue doesn’t work very well because, in fact, the commandments are actually numbered differently by Jews and Christians. Even within the Christian community, different Christian denominations number the commandments one through ten quite differently from one another.

The first statements, either one through four or one through five depending on your counting, concern Israel’s relationship with the suzerain, with God. Israel is to be exclusively faithful to God.  The people are not to bow down to any manufactured image. They may not use God’s name in a false oath, to attest to or swear by a false oath. They are to honor God’s Sabbath day.  Honoring of parents might be seen as an extension of God’s authority.

The remaining statements then concern human relationships with other people. This sets up the code of ethics for the community.  The following statements prohibit murder, adultery, robbery, false testimony and covetousness.

It’s important to realize that the Torah contains three versions of the Decalogue.

Exodus 20:2-17 and Deut. 5:6-21 are complete sets of these important commandments. In addition, Leviticus 19 contains a partial set of the Ten Commandments (see verses 3-4, 11-13, 15-16, 30, 32), and Exodus 34:10-26 is sometimes considered a ritual decalogue.  And there are some differences among them.  Later religious traditions have elevated the Decalogue in Exodus 20 to a position of absolute authority. This is a position that is not completely justified, given the Bible’s own fluid treatment of the wording concerning these laws. So the claim that God’s revelation of the Decalogue was fixed in form — the words seen in Exodus 20, for example — and immutable in substance is not a claim that is really justified by the reality found in the Biblical text. This idea that the wording and meaning are literally set in stone is a later imposition upon the legal Decalogue text–scholars expressing a preference for a specific version, if you will.

Many have argued that the principle of divine authorship for the laws found within the Torah has certain implications. 

Israelite law will contain more than just rules and provisions that fall within the power of the state to enforce, although those are present as well. The scope of the Torah law is more holistic. It is going to contain social, ethical, moral, and religious requirements in its laws and commands, and very often they are going to be couched in an authoritative style, particularly the items that are harder to enforce in a court of law.

One key implication is this–the laws that are hard to enforce in a court will tend to be the ones that are backed up by the authority of God directly: “You shall do this, for I the Lord am your God”.  This phrasing is almost always used with those unenforceable kinds of commands. “Love your neighbor as yourself, for I the Lord am your God”.  It is God who is watching out for whether the people are following this law, not the courts.

Leviticus 19:17- 18 says: “You shall not hate your kinsfolk in your heart.” Can you imagine any Congress or parliament or ruling assembly passing a law like that? “You shall not hate your kinsfolk in your heart. Reprove your kin, but incur no guilt because of them.”  It means, of course, that people should not carry around a grudge. Reprove kin, tell them what may be wrong between people, clear the air. But don’t carry around a grudge.  And then the statements is followed by the refrain– “I am the Lord.” That refrain always comes after those kinds of statements.

So the Bible includes norms and broad values for human behavior set by divine will, even though enforcement of many of these has to be left to the individual conscience.  So in the Torah, therefore, life is treated holistically in the realm of law. One’s actions aren’t compartmentalized, and that’s why the legal materials can sometimes seem like an indiscriminate mix of laws concerning all areas of life. It is part of why people get confused by Hebrew law.  The law is the will of God, and God has something to say about all areas of life.

Now, a second implication that flows from the fact that this law is divinely authored is this connection between law and morality. It is clear that in the Biblical legal framework, every crime is also a sin. Law is the moral will of God and nothing is beyond the moral will of God. What is illegal is also immoral, and vice versa; what’s immoral is also illegal. Law and morality are not separate, as modern people tend to think they are and ought to be in our society. Offenses against morality in the Biblical world are also religious offenses because they are infractions of the divine will. So the fusion of morality and law is the reason that Biblical law not only expresses, but legislates, a concern for the unfortunate members of society, for example; orphans, strangers, widows, as well as respect for the aged. From the Priestly source, Leviticus 19:32, “You shall rise before the aged and show deference to the old; you shall fear your God. I am the Lord.” Again, that refrain always has to come with this kind of a moral or value-heavy statement.

Other Ancient Near Eastern cultures desired to help the orphans, the strangers and widows. But when looking at the content of the laws in those societies, one difference is that they do not legislate charity. They do not legislate compassion. It is likely that these were considered acts of personal conscience, religious conviction, something that was between the individual and their God. Charity and consideration for others was considered outside the domain and jurisdiction of the court. That doesn’t mean that charity and compassion were not present in other Ancient Near Eastern cultures. The point is that law was not understood in those cultures as being the appropriate vehicle for the expression of those values. There were other sorts of texts that might urge people to charity and compassion. But law, the legislation, is not understood to be the appropriate vehicle for the expression of those values.

Biblical Hebrew law, because the law is considered to have divine authorship, suddenly takes on a holistic scope and becomes a fusion of law and morality.  Law and morality are kept separate in other ancient cultures and are also kept separate in our own modern culture. But this is not so in Hebrew law.

Some actions are considered absolutely wrong and transcend the power of humans to pardon or forgive. Take, for an example, adultery.

Deuteronomy 22:22:

“If a man is found lying with another man’s wife, both of them — the man and the woman with whom he lay — shall die. Thus, you will sweep away evil from Israel.”

Murder is another absolute wrong.

Numbers 35:16, 31

“…the murderer must be put to death…” “You may not accept a ransom for the life of a murderer” [this is now verse 31] “who is guilty of a capital crime; he must be put to death.”

In the view of the Biblical text, adultery and murder are absolutely wrong. They must always be punished regardless of the attitude of the offended parties. So a husband can’t say “Oh, that’s okay, I forgive her.”  And the family of a murder victim can’t say, “You know, just pay the funeral costs, the person was pretty awful anyhow…” These actions of murder and adultery are absolutely wrong. These deeds, as infractions of God’s will and God’s law, they are always wrong. They transcend the power of human parties to pardon or forgive or excuse.

Compare that with the extra-biblical collections and there is quite a difference. In the Code of Hammurabi, number 129, adultery is considered purely a private affair.

The covenant ceremony at Sinai included God’s announcement of, and Israel’s agreement to, certain covenantal stipulations.

Exodus 24:3 and 4, describe this agreement as follows:

“Moses went and repeated to the people all the commands of the Lord and all the rules; and all the people answered with one voice, saying “All the things that the Lord has commanded we will do!” Moses then wrote down all the commands of the Lord.

So the covenant concluded at Sinai is the climactic moment in the Exodus narrative, not the crossing of the Reed Sea, dramatic as that was. And the covenant came to be viewed as God’s introduction of the laws, rules, ordinances, and instruction by which the ancient Israelites were to live.  The law seen throughout the Torah is part of the extended covenant–expanded by scholars and rabbis and experience, but still the working covenant.

Later editors consequently inserted law collections from later times and circles into the story of Israel’s meeting with God at Sinai, and the sojourn in the wilderness. This was done in order to lend these collections an air of divine sponsorship. The conclusion of most Biblical scholarship is that a number of separate bodies of law have gravitated into the story of the 40-year period of Israel’s formation into a people. All Israelite law is represented in the Biblical account as having issued from that time, that 40-year period of intimate contact between God and Israel.

In Exodus 23 is a law that tells people not to oppress a stranger because each individual was a stranger.  It tells people to observe the Sabbath day rest. No one should mention or regard any other gods. It tells people how to observe the three pilgrimage festivals and rules of ritual offering.  Then there are the civil laws to regulate everything from sexual relations to food. There are ritual laws, civil laws and moral laws all together.

A third implication or consequence of the divine authorship of Biblical law is that the purpose of the law in Israelite society is going to be different from the purpose of the law in other Ancient Near Eastern societies. In non-Israelite society the purpose of the law is to secure certain social benefits. Think about the preamble of the American Constitution, which states the purpose of the law. It reads almost exactly like the prologues to these ancient collections. One can pick out words that are identical. The purpose of the law is to “establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty.”

But for Israel, the law does include these benefits, but it is not limited to these benefits. The law also aims at sanctifying the people. The laws that are presented in the Holiness Code are introduced with an exhortation, not found in other places.

An example in Leviticus 19:2 says:

“You shall be holy for I, the Lord your God, am holy.”

And then the laws begin; “You shall each revere your mother and father,… keep my Sabbath,” etc. But the introduction, “You shall be holy for I the Lord your God am holy” — being holy in imitation of God is emphasized repeatedly as the purpose of the laws in the Holiness Code especially.

The explicit rationale is of imitatio dei. This is what God does and this is what all people should do.

It is also illuminating to compare the Ancient Near Eastern and the Biblical legal materials in terms of the concern for the disadvantaged, the elimination of social class distinctions, and a trend toward humanitarianism. The Torah’s concern for the disadvantaged of society is quite marked in the actual laws themselves.   Other legal codes from that time and area seem to primarily be to the advantage of the upper classes, those with possessions and power.

The holiness motif is represented as being present at the very beginning of the covenant with Israel. When Israel is assembled at Mount Sinai, that opening speech that God makes in Exodus 19:5 and 6 says,

“Now then, if you will obey me faithfully and keep my covenant, keep my laws, you shall be my treasured possession among all the peoples. Indeed, all the earth is mine, but you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”

These are the rules that will show the people as dedicated to Yahweh, a holy people on the earth.

How do these Ancient Near Eastern laws compare to the Biblical law?

There are lots of similarities between Israelite and Ancient Near Eastern laws. There are lots of problems with goring oxen, lots of pregnant women who are in the wrong place at the wrong time and getting struck and accidentally miscarrying. But there are some formal and stylistic differences between Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical law.

Key in Hebrew law is the idea of equality before the law.  This is not common in the other Ancient Near Eastern codes.  The law of talion, which is essentially the principle that a person should be punished according to the injury they inflicted, has been decried as primitive vengeance. The notion of “an eye for an eye” is usually held up as typical of the harsh and cruel standards of the vengeful Old Testament God. But when looked at in its legal context, it goes against the class distinctions that are clear in other contemporary legal systems, such as the Code of Hammurabi.

According to the Bible, the punishment should always fit the crime, regardless of the social status of the perpetrator on the one hand or the victim on the other. All free citizens who injure others are treated equally before the law. They are neither let off lightly nor punished excessively. Compare this to the middle Assyrian laws and see that the Assyrians have multiple punishments that are carried out. Someone who causes a miscarriage has a monetary fine of two talents and 30 minas of lead. They are then flogged 50 times and labor for the state for a month. For sheep stealing, one is flogged 100 times and hair is pulled out, there is again a monetary fine, and forced labor for a month.  These are some harsh and slightly startling consequences.

This idea that the punishment should be neither too little nor too much, it should match the crime, that all free persons are equal before the law, that one standard should apply regardless of the social status of the perpetrator or the victim —this is new, and unique to the Hebrew laws. 

In addition to asserting the basic equality before the law for all free citizens, the Bible mandates concern for the poor.  Deuteronomy 24:20–

“When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it; it shall be left for the alien, the orphan, and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all your undertakings. 20 When you beat your olive trees, do not strip what is left; it shall be for the alien, the orphan, and the widow.

21 When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, do not glean what is left; it shall be for the alien, the orphan, and the widow. 22 Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I am commanding you to do this.” (NRSV)

Deuteronomy and Leviticus support outright charity for the poor in the form of gleanings. This is a little like an early welfare system.  The poor should be working. But one can also assist them with loans, according to Deuteronomy. And these loans should be generous. Here is seen Deuteronomy’s admonition to loan money to the poor even if it means potential loss individually, because the seventh year is imminent; the sabbatical year. In the sabbatical year, according to Hebrew law, all debts were released and cancelled. This is an economic corrective to restore people to a more equal economic situation. So in the sixth year, some people will feel ‘I don’t really want to lend money out. It’s going to be cancelled next year. I won’t get my money back.’ But in Hebrew law, loans must be made even if the debt will be cancelled, for the simple reason that the problem of poverty is a terrible and persistent problem.

Deuteronomy 15:7-11:

⁷ If there is among you anyone in need, a member of your community in any of your towns within the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor. ⁸ You should rather open your hand, willingly lending enough to meet the need, whatever it may be. ⁹ Be careful that you do not entertain a mean thought, thinking, “The seventh year, the year of remission, is near,” and therefore view your needy neighbor with hostility and give nothing; your neighbor might cry to the Lord against you, and you would incur guilt. ¹⁰ Give liberally and be ungrudging when you do so, for on this account the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. ¹¹ Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, “Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.”

See the comment that those in need will always be upon the earth? This is where the idea of the poor always being among people comes from, but it gets misquoted later in the New Testament. It’s taken later (by the reader if perhaps not by the speaker)  to mean the poor are always with you, so you don’t have to do anything. That is not what it means in Deuteronomy. Here it says to lend to the poor because the poor will never cease out of the land,” therefore I command you, open wide your hand.”  Be generous because this is a chronic problem–poverty. It’s a problem that never goes away, so never rest in helping the poor.

There is much in Biblical legislation that offends modern sensibilities. For example, as in the rest of the ancient world, slavery existed in Israel.  Even so, and this is not to apologize for the horror of slavery, there is a tendency toward humanitarianism in the laws concerning slavery. The Hebrew laws affirm some personal rights for the slave, in contrast to the middle Assyrian laws, where a master can kill a slave with impunity. Instead, the Bible legislates that the master who wounds a slave in any way, even including the slave losing a tooth — which is understood to be a minor thing, because it’s not in any way an essential organ —  the owner has to set the slave free. In addition,  the slave is entitled to the Sabbath rest and all of the Sabbath legislation. And quite importantly, a fugitive slave cannot be returned to a master. That is found in Deuteronomy 23: 15-16:

¹⁵ Slaves who have escaped to you from their owners shall not be given back to them. ¹⁶ They shall reside with you, in your midst, in any place they choose in any one of your towns, wherever they please; you shall not oppress them.

This is the opposite of the fugitive slave law in the US in the nineteenth century CE.   The Bible reverses the view of the other codes because in those codes, life is considered cheap and property is highly valued. So Hammurabi’s Code imposes the death penalty for the theft of property, for assisting in the escape of a slave, which is its master’s property, for cheating a customer over the price of a drink. Middle Assyrian Laws causes death to a wife if she steals from her husband and death to any who purchased the stolen goods.  In the Bible life is highly valued and property not quite as much.

There are some very difficult passages in the law that are certainly culturally formed.  There are laws about fabrics able to be worn, about witchcraft, about menstruating women, about skin diseases, about sexual practices, about what kinds of animals one could eat and which are for sacrifice, about temple ritual, about responsibilities in a family–about many small and specific details from everyday living in the era of early Hebrew life.  Most of these are able to be set into context of the ancient civilization–now most cultures don’t stone witches, don’t isolate or consider unclean any menstruating women, do blend fibers in perfectly acceptable clothing, etc.  Some of the most controversial commandments, however, have to do with human sexual behavior, and male homosexuality in particular.

The Bible never imposes the death penalty for violations of property rights — not for personal and private property rights. The death penalty is only imposed for intentional homicide, and certain religious and sexual offenses, which are seen to be direct offenses to God.

The Bible states explicitly that homicide is the one crime for which no monetary punishment can be substituted. One cannot ransom the life of a murderer. A murderer must pay with their life.

In the Bible there is also no “literal” punishment.  Literal punishment is,  for example, found in the Code of Hammurabi, where someone’s ox kills a child, so then the ox owner’s child is killed. The legal subject is the father; he has lost a child. So one has to suffer the literal punishment, as a father,  and lose a child. It is an equivalent,  literal punishment for what was done to the other. The Bible explicitly rejects that idea of literal punishment. In Exodus 21, it explicitly says that the owner’s child is not to be put to death, is not killed.

Deuteronomy 24:16 states that,

“Parents shall not be put to death for children, nor children be put to death for their parents: a person shall be put to death only for his own crime.”

Biblical legal materials contain provisions that contradict one another. Later versions of the law, particularly in D material for example, will update and revise earlier versions of the law. Leviticus takes issue with the whole institution of Israelite slavery that is accepted in the covenant quoted in Deuteronomy and says no, slavery cannot happen. All Israelites are servants of God; none of you can be servants to another. So in these laws, composed at different times and in different places,  there is found to be real contradiction.

Nevertheless, the various legal groupings sound certain common themes. They express certain important principles and values, which include: the supreme sanctity of human life:  the value of persons over property:  the equality of all free persons before the law: the importance of assisting the disadvantaged in society:  the integration and the interdependence of all aspects of human life all coming within the will of God to legislate.