LAW IN THE OLD TESTAMENT (תּﯴרָה, H9368, Aram. דָּת, H10186, LXX νόμος, G3795).

Outline

1. Meaning of the word Torah

a. Etymology of the word. This is not an easy subject to discuss for many reasons. First, the legal terminology of Sem. is very different from that of the familiar Indo-European languages. This in itself raises problems of interpretation and communication; but more serious is the fact that this difference in terminology corresponds to a basic difference in concept. Even Lat. “lex” is not the same as Gr. nomos (though perhaps Lat. ius or fas would come closer): but both words are totally different from Heb. tōrāh. There are several other words used for “law” in the OT, some of which will be discussed; but whether used of part or of the whole, torah is the most frequent and the most characteristic.

Etymology is always a dangerous guide to the meaning of a word, esp. if used as the only method (as James Barr has most recently pointed out). Ultimately the meaning of a word is not determined by its etymology (of which most of its users are unaware) nor by the meaning in cognate languages, but by contemporary usage. Nevertheless, it may be significant that most scholars are now agreed that torah originally meant “direction” or “guidance” from the verb יָרָה֙, H3723, which does not itself occur in the Qal form. A cognate root yārā exists and in its various forms means to “throw,” “to shoot” (arrows). Whether this once had reference to shooting of arrows, or “shaking” them out of a quiver, or the “casting” of lots as methods of obtaining divine guidance, is quite uncertain: the Babylonians certainly used all these methods (Ezek 21:21) and Israel had the sacred lot (1 Sam 14:41), though this verb yārāh is not actually used in Heb. in connection with drawing lots. There are cognate Sem. roots meaning “to guide, show the way” but older ideas of direct borrowing of the word from Babylonian tertu, “oracle,” are now generally rejected, although the rhythmic form of many of Israel’s laws does suggest a priestly oracle. Other forms from the same root are common in Heb.: מﯴרֶה is “teacher” (Isa 30:20), and הﯴרֶה (the Hiphil) is “to teach,” “to instruct” (Exod 24:12). The etymological meaning at least seems clear in broad outline as “teaching, guidance instruction.” (See Bentzen, pages 213, 214 for further discussion.) Next, this must be tested from actual usage in the OT.

b. Usage in the OT. Here Ludwig Koehler’s divisions (in his Lexicon) seem sound. He sees Torah as initially being direction or advice in a given situation, asked from God and mediated through the priests or perhaps also “prophets.” Haggai 2:10-13 is an example of this custom. It does not appear that in historical days the priest necessarily gave such direction by the sacred lot, Urim and Thummin, or by the ephod, although such methods were certainly used at times (1 Sam 28:6; 30:7). Rather the priest seems to have acted as a prophet did later, in giving a spoken utterance (Hag 2:12).

Second, torah may be advice or instruction given by one human to another (e.g. Prov 1:8, a mother to a son). This is a useful corrective, for it shows that the noun was by no means restricted to the religious or legal sphere; indeed, such specialization of reference is foreign to the thought world of the OT. Third, it means a single law or instruction (not apparently an enactment or a legal decision, however). Leviticus 6:8 is an instance of this, where torah clearly means “instructions about” a particular offering. In this sense the word approaches “regulation” in meaning. Fourth, it is used (esp. with the definite article, or with the addition of a proper name to make it definite) to mean the totality of all such “instruction” in Israel. It may be in the sing., or in the pl. (the latter is also true of many synonyms); in either case, in a collective sense. The pl. noun may possibly denote a greater stress on separate laws, or separate codes of law.

The proper name, qualifying torah and thus making it both definite and collective, is either Yahweh (Exod 13:9), or the more general אֱלֹהִים, H466, “God” (Josh 24:26) or else Moses (Josh 8:31). In this last case, Moses is regarded as mediator, not source, of the law. At first, to judge from these contexts, the word is used as referring to the injunctions and commands in the law; then it is extended to cover narrative and all other parts of the Pentateuch. This is part of a general broadening of concept; by NT days, either “the law and the prophets” or just “the law” is a general term embracing the whole OT (Matt 22:40 and John 12:34).

2. Other terms for law. There are several other words used in the OT to describe individual laws, rather than a complete corpus; nevertheless, when such a word is used in the pl., often with a second word also in the pl. as parallel, it does approach the collective meaning of תﯴרֹ֣ות, “laws” meaning the totality of God’s revelation in this field. Unfortunately there is no agreement among scholars as to the exact correspondence of these other terms to Eng. words. This may be simply because of the different Sem. understanding of the nature of the law; or, as many have suggested, particularly because of the frequent use of different terms in close parallelism in the Psalter, it may be that old distinctions of meaning had been blurred, and that the varied terms are really synonyms in many cases.

Nevertheless, there is at least one which is both clear and theologically important, in that the Ten Commandments are called by the Jews the “Ten Words” (דְּבָרִ֑ים, Deut 4:13). This certainly corresponds to a basic difference in attitude: the Eng. term “commandment” concentrates on the authoritarian nature, while the Heb. “word” concentrates on the revelational nature. Authority is in the Ten Words, but it is not the primary thought, and the “words” only gain this authenticity because they are the revelation of Yahweh’s will and purpose for the Israel whom He has redeemed by a revelation of His power. Weiser well points out that this combination of law and saving acts, Exodus and Sinai, with both equally regarded as the revelation of God, is typically Israelite. This attitude to the Ten Commandments, as shown by the use of the name děbārīm, is thus not an isolated phenomenon. Indeed it also corresponds to the way in which all legal matter is seen as tōrāh, “instruction,” as much as any of Israel’s history of salvation, Dābār is not the name for a particular type of law; it is an expression of an attitude to law as a whole, a part of an Israelite philosophy of revelation. Some scholars have tried to distinguish between sacred debārīm and secular mishpātīm. Even if meanings had corresponded, this would have been an impossible distinction for Israel to make, seeing that all process of judgment was to them a sacred task (Deut 1:17).

For this meaning of dābār, cf. the common OT usage דְבַר־יְהוָ֤ה (“Yahweh, Yahweh’s word”), to describe an oracle or a revelation (Judg 3:20). Such revelation came with authority, and could not be ignored. חֹק, H2976, traditionally tr. “statute,” is another word of a general nature. By etymology it would seem to mean something “engraved” (or perhaps “fixed”) from the root חקק. This could perhaps refer to something “engraved” on tablets, like the Ten Words (Exod 32:16), but Psalm 2:7 shows a much wider use of the hōq in the sense of “decree” or “divine oracle,” so that Koehler considers it as a mere parallel to Torah. Others, however, have regarded the word as referring to Israel’s fixed annual festivals, perhaps once marked by notches on a stick, but this seems farfetched. Yet others have seen it as referring to the “categoric” sections of Israel’s law. the absolute commands of God (as in the Ten Words or the Twelve Curses) rather than the case-law, arising from judicial decisions. This is possible but cannot be proved. In any case, in later days such linguistic distinctions were blurred, if they had ever existed, esp. when the word is used in the pl.

מִשְׁפָּט, H5477, is quite clearly, from its linguistic form, a “judicial decision” or “act of judgment” or “precedent,” which itself becomes law. It has been suggested, with some plausibility that the mishpātīm in Israel’s law are the sections of case law, beginning “If...” or “When....” No doubt in the lifetime of Moses himself there was much need for this sort of law, esp. if the tradition of a forty-year stay in or around Kadesh is taken seriously (Deut 1:46). In Genesis 14:7, the old name of Kadesh is in fact given as עֵ֤ין מִשְׁפָּט׃֙, “the well of judicial decision”: and in Numbers 15:35 there is an example of Moses himself being compelled to seek a decision, in this sort of case-law, also called casuistic law, from Yahweh. Further, the story of the appointment of the seventy elders to share the burden of Moses shows that Moses was compelled to give many such decisions (Num 11:16-25). The activity of Deborah (Judg 4:5) or Samuel (1 Sam 7:15) or his sons, bad though they were (8:1-3) shows the continuance of this responsibility in Israel. Indeed it was through failure to fulfill it that David nearly lost his throne to Absalom (2 Sam 15:3).

מִצְוָה, H5184. “command,” may, like hōq, correspond to the categoric framework of Israel’s law, rather than its largely “casuistic” content. To put it in another way, miṩwāh would be a definite order issued by Yahweh, rather than the case-law based upon, and interpretation of such principles. The etymology of the word would support this interpretation. It corresponds in association most to the Eng. “command,” though not, perhaps, to “law.” However, like all the other terms, it frequently is used in the pl. in a collective sense to describe Yahweh’s law as a whole; in such cases, all distinctiveness of meaning has long since disappeared. In modern Heb. usage, בַּר מִצְוָה, “son of law,” means “under obligation to keep the law,” and is used of the Jewish boy when, at puberty, he accepts the “yoke of the law” as his own responsibility. Here miṩwāh has become, even in the sing., a full equivalent of tōrāh “law.”

3. Two forms of Israel’s law. Whatever the reason, there are two distinct forms clearly discernible in Israel’s law, even when broken into the smallest possible units. The two are not always as clearly marked now as they may have been initially, partly because of explanatory editorial additions, which blur the original clarity of the outline, and partly owing to the existence of “mixed forms” combining in one whole, features drawn from both forms.

The first form is that usually called categoric or apodictic, and is best illustrated in the format of the first part of each of the Ten Commandments. It is characterized by its terseness and abruptness, and is an absolute command, apparently admitting no exceptions, usually making use of the second person sing. of the future (either in the positive or negative form). Sometimes the second person pl. is used, and sometimes the imperative is substituted for the future. The style is heavy and impressive; the structure is rhythmic, assonant, parallel and poetic. Presumably this was for ease of memory (cf. the NT beatitudes) and perhaps for ease of recitation, if laws, or collections of laws, were indeed liturgical texts, read at the great religious folk-meetings of Israel, as many modern scholars believe, and as the law itself enjoins “When all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God at the place which he will choose, you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing” (Deut 31:11). Another early form, using the participial form instead of the second person sing. is the pattern “whoever strikes a man....shall be put to death” (Exod 21:12 and following vv.). In this type there is deliberate rhythm and assonance. Genesis 9:6 is an instance from a very early period. Bentzen reckons this type of law as belonging to the second or casuistic form, but it contains so many early features that it is best treated with the categoric commands of the type found in the Ten Words.

Both of these, from their rhythmic nature, have been associated by some scholars with the concept of the divine oracle or Torah, given originally by a prophet or priest of Yahweh. Whether this is so or not, it is quite clear that in Israel, like all law, they are regarded as a divine revelation. Moses by tradition was both prophet and priest as well as law-giver.

This apodictic law used to be described as “desert law,” somber and authoritarian, with no concessions to the complexities of urban or even agrarian life in highly developed Canaan. Its Puritan austerity was therefore held to be typically Israelite, and it was considered to be the only original law of Israel. By contrast, all law belonging to the second or “casuistic” type was held to be a borrowing from the Canaanites after the Israelite entry into the land. Neither of these theses can now be sustained at least as far as the argument is based on the format of the laws. In the second instance, as far as the “casuistic” law is concerned, direct borrowing from Canaan is not now held to be nearly as likely as inheritance from the “common law” of Western Sem. folk, in which Israel shared as much as did the Canaanites, and which Moses must have known. Regarding the uniqueness of the apodictic form, de Vaux has shown that, while it is not characteristic of Sem. law as known largely from heavily settled Mesopotamia (naturally, no written laws from the desert survive), it is characteristic of some Hitt. treaties (R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel [1961], p. 147). In view of the known fact that the Israelite theory and practice of covenant has many similarities with Hitt. “suzerainty treaties” made by an imperial overlord with subject peoples, this is interesting as perhaps showing further Hitt. links. It can, therefore, no longer be claimed that this form is either “desert” or “pure Israelite”; thus, any judgments as to the originality of the material, if based only on the form, would be erroneous. A safer position to take is to regard all Israel’s laws, whether categoric or apodictic, as permeated with the light of the new revelation of Yahweh.

The second type of law to be found in the Torah is casuistic, or case-law. This normally introduces an instance, ending with a “then...,” as in the Mesopotamian case-law codes. Such laws should not be regarded as hypothetical instances, but as actual precedents or case judgments, whether earlier or Sinaitic or later. It is in these areas that Israel’s case-law approaches most closely that of her immediate Sem. neighbors. This is natural enough, since, given roughly similar levels of civilization and circumstances of life similar problems were liable to arise, and broadly similar solutions to be found (although Israel’s law is always more humane). Semitic law is most familiar to modern scholars in its later codifications, like that of Hammurabi of Babylon, or the Middle Assyrian law code, or the neo-Babylonian laws. None of these were in any sense innovations. They were merely codifications and systematizations of far earlier laws, as can be seen from comparison with the Lipit-Ishtar Code and the Eshnunna Code. How many of these precedents rested ultimately on early Sem. “common law” and how many on Sumer. codes, it would be hard to say; perhaps it would be wrong to consider these as ultimately distinct. In view of the proven widespread knowledge of these later codifications among the W Sem. peoples (annotated copies of Hammurabi’s laws have been found in Egypt) one may safely assume a widespread knowledge of the earlier “customary law” that underlay them. There is no need to assume any direct or conscious borrowing by Israel of Canaanite case law at a comparatively late date (the Conquest), the more so as there is no reason to assume that Canaanite law was any different from the general Sem. pattern. Naturally, where it is a matter of the content, Israel’s laws throughout are dominated by the revelation of God received at Mount Sinai. There is a humaneness, an avoidance of mutilations and other sava ge punishments, and an awareness of the value of human personality and the individual, for which we would search in vain in other codes. This, and not any outward form, is the distinctiveness of Israel’s law. One example will suffice: the small space given in Israel’s code to property laws, and the large space to personal relations between man and man. Even in the case of the land laws, the motivation for every law is strongly personal and religious.

4. Contents of the law. It comes as a surprise that, in the so-called law of Moses, strictly legal matter takes quite a minor place. Even if the area is enlarged to cover all matter of religious or ceremonial interest, it is still not dominant. If the basic meaning of Torah as “instruction” is kept in mind, this will no longer surprise. Israel’s ancestral traditions—the salvation story of Exodus—the bittersweet experiences of the desert wandering—teach about God and His ways as surely as the Ten Commandments, or as the distinctions between “clean” and “unclean” which occupy esp. Leviticus chs. 11-15. History is not law, but history seen through God’s eyes is indeed Torah (instruction)—just as later Israelite history was reckoned as “prophecy,” and included the books of the prophets in the “second canon” of the OT. This also explains another aspect—the evident love of Israel for the Torah, expressed, for instance, in Psalm 119. Few men except lawyers could love a legal system (although the Pharisees of NT days seem to have done so); but all men could love the Torah, with its combination of poem and history, law and exhortation, for this was the very lifeblood of early Israel, cast in a literary form.

For the analysis of the material contained within the law, R. H. Pfeiffer may be followed in the main, with minor modifications. 1. The origin of the world and of the nations of mankind (Gen 1-11) 2. The Patriarchs (12-50). 3. Moses and the Exodus from Egypt (Exod 1-18). 4. The divine revelation at Sinai (19-40). 5. The Levitical legislation at Sinai (Lev 1-27). 6. The last events and laws at Sinai (Num 1-10). 7. The journey to the plains of Moab (11-21). 8. Events in the plains of Moab (22-36). 9. The last discourses of Moses (Deut 1-34).

At first sight, this looks like a coherent whole; and it is, in point of fact, a coherent historical arrangement of much diverse material. Even a cursory glance at the analysis above will show that of “law” in the narrower sense, only half of Exodus and all of Leviticus are constituted. Both Numbers and Deuteronomy contain sections of laws, but in the first, legal matter is subordinate to narrative, and in the second, to exhortation. Therefore the Torah has at least as good a claim to be called a history book as a lawbook; and considered from either angle, it is still uniquely God’s “instruction.”

5. Codes of the law. Form criticism has brought a new freshness to Biblical studies, by its isolation and study of the different “forms” within the books of the Bible instead of the endless documentary analysis. Where form criticism restricts itself to descriptive study, it can be a valuable analysis of Biblical matter along entirely new lines; when some of its advocates push it further and base unwarranted value-judgments on its conclusions there is no need to follow them. Therefore, in isolating various “codes of law” within the Pentateuch for study, there is no necessity for postulating different sources or different dates. Indeed, all might well have originated in the Mosaic age, for all we know. Many of the codes cannot in any case have had an independent existence at any time in Israel’s history. With this proviso, some seven or more separate codes may be cataloged as follows. They are mainly taken from Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy, with small sections from other books.

a. The Ten Commandments (to the Jews, the “ten words”) stand at the very heart of the law and are fundamental to the whole. They appear twice, with minor differences in the explanatory additions (which may well themselves be early) in the second half of each verse. (See Exod 20:1-17 and Deut 5:6-21.) It is these laws, prob. in the shorter form consisting of the first half of each v., without the explanation, which according to the Bible were engraved on the tablets in the Ark (Exod 24:12). Violent controversy has raged over the date of the Commandments (see Rowley, “Men of God”). Scholars like R. H. Pfeiffer reject any possibility of Mosaic mention of Sabbath or non-iconic worship, and are even doubtful as to the forbidding of the worship of other gods as early as Mosaic times. Scholars of the Albright school, on the other hand, point to the literary form of the Commandments, as well as their contents, as indicating “an original date of the Decalogue no later than the thirteenth century b.c.” (W. F. Albright, Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan [1968]). With this, the basically aniconic nature of Israel’s worship (as witnessed archeologically for the days of the Judges) agrees; there is no valid reason to doubt a Mosaic origin. It often has been argued that what is taught in the Ten Words is properly monolatry, not monotheism—the exclusive worship of one God, rather than the denial of the existence of all others, as presented in the second half of Isaiah. But this view usually assigns such passages as Genesis 1 to the postexilic period and fails to reckon with statements like Exodus 12:12, or misinterprets Exodus 15:11 and other such passages.

The Ten Commandments can be seen only, like the rest of the law, against the background of the Covenant; this in turn rests on the salvation-history of the Exodus. Other codes within the law are basically an expansion and application of these principles to various facets of life, rather as the NT epistles apply the truth of the Gospel. Thus the Commandments became the root of all subsequent Israelite morality as well as of religion.

b. Immediately following the Ten Words (Exod 20:22-end of 23), is the Covenant Code, often called the Book of the Covenant. It seems to be regarded in Scripture not only as having been promulgated at the time of the covenant made between God and Israel at Sinai, but also as being the actual terms of this Covenant. Whatever the underlying reason, it certainly is a coherent whole, and may be studied in isolation from the rest of the law without doing violence to its context. Some scholars today, following the Albright school, would see it as a typical piece of Bronze Age legislation, and therefore of Mosaic date, although others would claim that it was borrowed at that date from Canaanite or other sources. Much depends upon whether the historian accepts the Biblical tradition of a generation of semi-settled life around the oasis of Kadesh, before the conquest of Canaan (Deut 1:46). Clearly the Covenant Code contemplates settled agricultural life of a simple nature such as could well be practiced there. Sheep and oxen and slaves are the usual forms of wealth; the old generic name “Hebrew” is still used, prob. with a wider meaning than “Israelite” (Exod 21:2); altars are of earth (20:24); crops are sown (22:5; 23:10); three agricultural festivals are kept (23:14-17). None of this goes beyond what was possible in that semi-settled generation.

It is possible that much of this Code (as no doubt parts of the Ten Commandments, cf. Gen 26:12) antedates Moses. Whatever the duration of the Israelite stay in Egypt, they were certainly settled, not nomadic, in Goshen. Even in the earliest days of the migration, Israel’s ancestors had been ass-nomads, not camel-nomads, which implies certain contacts with settled life. The branch of the clan settled at Haran seems to have progressed in this direction even more rapidly than Abraham’s group. It is therefore inconceivable that Moses should have been ignorant of all these legal traditions of his people. If it contains many of the customary laws of Israel’s forefathers (no doubt now transformed by the fuller revelation given to Moses at Sinai), it is not surprising that the Covenant Code bears many similarities to other codes preserved by Israel’s Sem. neighbors (likewise no doubt crystallizations of Sem. traditional law). Nor is it surprising that in part Deuteronomy repeats the provisions of the Covenant Code, in part supplements them, presumably by including other areas of the same ancestral law, purified by the clear light of “Yahwism.” Whether or not Moses’ stay in Midian had any influence on the law as a whole and the Covenant Code in particular is a question that cannot be answered with present limited knowledge. The Biblical tradition is clear that Moses spent a generation in Midian, that he married a Midianite girl, and that her father was a priest of Midian (Exod 2:17-21). Midian was at least half-settled at the time; Jethro was associated with Moses in judicial activity (18:13-22). It is thus unthinkable that Moses should have been ignorant of Midianite law and custom; it is highly likely that this was only another form of ancestral Sem. law.

c. The Deuteronomic Code, found in Deuteronomy 12-26, is another coherent code about whose separate existence there can be no doubt. Even the most extreme critics usually recognize the Book of Deuteronomy as an independent literary unit. While in some ways, it is a summing up of the whole of the law and history of early Israel (a sort of “multum in parvo”) in other ways it is only a “supplement” of earlier codes, esp. the Covenant Code, by covering areas initially omitted, as well as re-interpreting the old. That is why its position may be compared to that of John’s gospel in the NT. Much of it is cast in discourse style, a sort of “reminiscences of Moses,” with which the speeches in Acts may be compared. The new understanding of the historicity of the material of John (see Dodd and Albright) is not without significance in such a parallel. Deuteronomy is infused throughout with a warmth of love that continually introduces new motives for keeping the law (Deut 25:3) and humanitarian application of the law, even extending to wild animals (22:6). “Covenant love” so dominates the code that it has a right to be called a “Covenant Code” (Exod 20-23), which it so closely resembles.

Many scholars have considered Deuteronomy a post-prophetic production, both from style and language (where it closely resembles Jeremiah) and also from its theology. But, it does not in theology differ essentially from the Ten Words or the Book of the Covenant, indeed, it is precisely because of this similarity that some critical scholars “late-date” these two latter codes. In addition many undoubtedly early features appear in the Deuteronomic Code (cf. the valuable study on Deuteronomy by M. Kline, The Treaty of the Great King [1963]). The old terminology “Hebrew” is still used (Deut 15:12). Life is still basically simple and rural, though houses (Deut 22:8) and towns (Deut 13:12) are known. If, as suggested, Deuteronomy draws heavily on ancestral Sem. law (like the Covenant Code) then all is explicable. Similarities to Hammurabi’s Code are likewise explicable, if the latter is only a codification of common Sem. law: in any case, Moses would have known Hammurabi’s Code, since it was widely studied in Egypt. If Deuteronomy was the law book found in Josiah’s day in the Temple (2 Kings 22:11) it would certainly have existed in 621 b.c. That does not necessarily prove that it was only produced then, the more so as, when read, it was immediately recognized as being the well-known substance of the “Law of Moses.” Some scholars like Robertson have considered that it was the formulation of Mosaic law made in Samuel’s day; others have considered that it was a North Israelite law book, based on Mosaic tradition and preserved at some northern sanctuary. Samuel wrote out some constitution for the kingdom (1 Sam 10:25) which must surely have had some relation to the material of Deuteronomy 17:14-20. Perhaps all that can be said is that Deuteronomy, like the Book of the Covenant, is an instance of formulation of part of one and the same early Heb. legal tradition apparently adopted and purified by Moses for the use of his people. The two vexed questions of Deuteronomy are the socalled “Law of the Kingdom” (Deut 17:14-20) and the “Law of the Single Sanctuary” (12:5). These are both reckoned as showing late dates, the first because of the non-existence of kingship in Israel till two centuries after Moses; the second, because it seems to contradict Exodus 20:24, which appears to allow worship wherever Israel has received any divine revelation or theophany. As this included the patriarchal age, obviously there could be many such sites; and the OT does show that there was worship at Bethel, Beer-sheba, Gilgal, Jericho, etc. Neither of these passages are decisive, in themselves alone, as proving a late date for the material of Deuteronomy. Israel might not have had kings, but all her sister peoples had kingship long before the time of Moses (Edom, Moab, Ammon as well as the Canaanites); and from earliest days, while perhaps worship of Yahweh was tolerated elsewhere, there had only been one “amphictyonic sanctuary” where the annual religious folkmoots were held (cf. Josh 22:10-12).

d. The Code of Holiness is contained in Leviticus 17-26, which again seems a cohesive “whole within a whole.” It is dominated by the same lofty thought of the holiness and transcendence of God as is found in Ezekiel. The code is full of elaborate instructions as to how to maintain, even in the physical realm, this holiness that comes from being the people of God. Leviticus, as a whole, makes less appeal to modern man than, say, Deuteronomy; partly because all of Leviticus is virtually a “Priest’s Handbook” on technical matters of religion, and partly because such rules of cleanliness and worship have ceased to be directly applicable or practical in modern life. With no Temple, no sacrifice, no distinction between clean and unclean food (Mark 7:19), much of the direct relevance has gone for the Christian today. If Deuteronomy 6:5 contained the first part of the Lord’s summary of the law (Thou shalt love the Lord thy God...), Leviticus 19:18 contained the second (Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself). No code that contains such a statement can be considered barren, and this v. is by no means an isolated instance of what might be called a “Deuteronomic attitude.”

Further, the Code of Holiness contains the same sort of motivation as the Ten Commandments, by which ethics are deduced directly from theology (in the proper sense of that word, as being the known and revealed nature and will of God). A keynote of the Holiness Code is Leviticus 19:1, “You shall be holy, for I (Yahweh) your God am holy.” Put more succinctly, the keynote becomes the simple phrase, “I am (Yahweh)” (Lev 19:4 and many other places) placed at the end of a v. as the reason for the command that has gone before. No code can be called barren that contains such motivation, and the sonorous rhythm of the phrase sounds early. The Code of Holiness usually is associated closely with the teaching of the prophet Ezekiel; as he was a priest himself, this is not surprising. The minor differences between Ezekiel and the code may perhaps be explained by the possibility that Ezekiel recognized in the captivity the judgment of God, and was concerned to recall his people to the ancient law. Minor differences need not disturb, for in time some laws become inapplicable and disused. Ezekiel quotes from the Code of Holiness (Ezek 20:11, 13, 21). The literary style may not be due only to a late date. Certain aspects may be typical of the clipped conservatism of religious and liturgical language.

e. The Priestly Code may be a useful name to apply to the material of the rest of Leviticus, which has no such one compelling motive as the Code of Holiness, and perhaps to certain other parts of the Pentateuch. To describe it as a code, as though it had existed in isolation, seems a misnomer; it is only a convenient term for the vast body of traditional material which every sacrificing priest in Israel must know. As he was not only priest, but also doctor, and health inspector, as well as custodian of public and private morals, the Priestly Code covers a wide area of life.

The archeological discoveries at Ras Shamra and elsewhere in the Middle E have shown by the existence of parallels, the probable age of the material contained therein, whatever the date of the transcription. Perhaps therefore in the ritual area, too, Moses adopted and purified many of the sacrificial practices of Israel’s ancestors. Although there appears to have been no specialized priesthood in Israel until Mosaic days (Exod 32:29) it is hard to believe that the patriarchs had no customary rules governing their offerings and sacrifices.

f. So far, the codes isolated have had at least some claim to individual identity. Whether the so-called Ritual Decalogue (Exod 34:10-26) ever existed independently of its context, or whether it is a creation of Biblical scholars, is most uncertain. It is undoubted that various ritual prescriptions existed; it is even possible that they were combined into lists or catalogs and read at festival times at one or other of the great early meeting places (Gilgal, Shechem or Shiloh). There is no reason to isolate ten or twelve arbitrarily to make either a Decalogue (corresponding to the Ten Commandments) or a Dodecalogue (corresponding to the Twelve Tribes). Indeed, the first of these names is prob. influenced by the false idea that there must be a set of “ritual” rules corresponding to the “ethical” rules of the Ten Words. This, however, ignores the fact that no such distinction was felt in early days; even the Ten Words contain two provisions that might be described as ritual (that prescribing aniconic worship, and that enjoining observance of every seventh day). With this proviso, it may be admitted freely that there is a concentration of “ritual laws” governing Israel’s worship found in Exodus 34:10-26. R. H. Pfeiffer finds traces in various other parts of the Covenant Code and the Deuteronomic Code. Certainly this Exodus passage is couched in typically abrupt early Israelite style, with the use of the second person sing. (“you shall...you shall not...”). The chief items are the destruction of Canaanite altars and images, and the observance of Sabbath and the three great annual festivals of Yahweh.

In the Biblical account, these laws are prefixed by a revelation of Yahweh’s name and nature, accompanied by the re-carving of the tablets of the law, and introduced by the words, “Behold, I make a covenant” (Exod 34:10). Perhaps therefore “Second Book of the Covenant” would be a better name for this material. Verse 27 is particularly clear; “In accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you.”

g. Blessings and curses (cf. the NT “Beatitudes” and “Woes”). The modern fashion is to see these as liturgical forms, pronounced solemnly and in public at great religious ceremonies, and believed to be effective in themselves as producing the result described. While many will dissent from the latter part of such a definition, there is evidence in Scripture that the first part is true, at least on certain historic occasions, if not as part of the regular worship of Israel. Deuteronomy 27:15-26 is a good example, where twelve solemn curses are to be pronounced by the Levites at an assembly on the hills above Shechem (cf. Josh 8:34). Two things, however, should be noted: the liturgical curses pronounced are not on a set of new offenses, but on offenses condemned elsewhere in other Israelite “codes.” The list of curses is only a summary of the negative aspect of Israel’s law, and their direction and rhythm is that of the early Israelite Torah. Second, the curses are not pronounced in isolation. This is no magical ceremony, but a proclamation of the consequences of either obeying or disregarding the revealed mind of God. Six tribes are to stand on Mt. Gerizim to bless, while the other six tribes stand on Mt. Ebal to curse. Presumably the “blessings” are substantially those contained in Deuteronomy 28, perhaps originally expressed in a more succinct form, corresponding to the form of the curses in the previous ch. For examples of similar blessings see the poetic Blessings of Jacob in Genesis 49 (which also contain curses in the case of Reuben, Simeon and Levi: see vv. 3-7) and the Blessing of Moses (Deut 33), with the other smaller fragments. Numbers 23 and 24 also contain some very oracular poems (the Oracles of Balaam), which combine blessings with curses; nevertheless, it is hard to think that such found any regular place in public worship.

h. Moses and the law codes. Apart from these seven codes, others have been isolated from time to time with varying degrees of plausibility by different scholars, but none has commanded general acceptance. Even these seven are mainly of interest as showing the possible raw material that underlay the law of Moses.

Surely the background, training, and education of Moses was God’s preparation for the writing of his great lifework. By birth an Israelite, and also a member of the wider Heb. group, and thus an inheritor of the common law of all Sem. people; by training an Egyp. noble, and thus familiar with Hammurabis law and Egyp. juristic comment on it; by force of circumstance, a great man in Midian, and both a spectator and participant in the legal processes of the semi-desert. Who was better trained and equipped than he to become under God the great lawgiver of Israel, and codifier of his people’s law? No doubt in the Torah of Moses’ day, there was much that was new, in the shape of the fresh and deeper revelation of Yahweh. No doubt, since Yahweh was also expressly the “God of the Fathers,” even if His name was not known to them (Exod 6:3) there was also much that was old and familiar although now purified and transformed by the new revelation. Both parts alike are God’s self-revelation and the Torah.

6. Land laws in the OT. As Israel was basically an agricultural people from the conquest of Canaan until the Babylonian captivity (with a brief essay to the world of commerce and manufacturing, under Solomon) a study of their land laws may be of some interest. First, it is well to notice that no complete system of land laws can be built up from the Pentateuch alone; and yet no other codification of early Israelite laws is known, except for the Mishnah, which seems to preserve additional laws in force at the time of the destruction of Herod’s Temple. Obviously, Israel had more land laws than these two works contain; therefore it is only reasonable to assume that in this area (as doubtless in that of commerce and elsewhere) she simply used the common Sem. law, supplementing it by specifically Israelite regulations where such were necessitated by Israel’s revelation of Yahweh. Only some such practice can account for the otherwise inexplicable “gaps” in the Torah, here and elsewhere.

Second, Israel must have had some “land laws,” even if only customary law, long before Moses. Nomads need no such laws, but Abraham seems to buy the sepulcher for Sarah by good Hitt. law (Gen 23) which would illustrate both the need for land laws and the “law borrowing” mentioned above. As soon as Isaac began to sow crops in the coastal plain (Gen 26:12), there must have been need to observe the local land laws, in so far as such laws were neutral religiously. Genesis 26:17-22 suggests considerable litigation over water rights. In Egypt, whatever the exact duration of the stay of the Israelites, they seem to have been market gardeners as well as herdsmen, otherwise they would scarcely have longed for cucumbers, melons, onions, leeks and garlic, when wandering in the Sinai desert (Num 11:5). Complicated land laws would have been necessary for those whose garden plots were annually flooded by the Nile, obliterating all divisions. If Israel was semi-settled at Kadesh for a generation (Deut 1:46), she surely grew crops around the oasis, as well as sending her flocks and herds to graze in the desert, at least primitive land law would be necessary. Jacob bought land legally from the sons of Hamor in Genesis 33:19, though the sons held the Shechem area by right of conquest (Gen 34:25-29), as Israel under Joshua held her Canaanite acres. Once the sacred lot had apportioned conquered land to tribe and family it must be held legally or not at all, and since the land was Yahweh’s gift, such land law was religious law. This last attitude can be seen clearly as late as the reign of Ahab in the N, where Naboth asserts it (1 Kings 21:3). This, too, is why the removal of a neighbor’s land mark was such a serious religious offense in Israel (Deut 19:14), as well as stealing land from a neighbor. Jacob bequeathed his plot to Joseph, as he lay dying (Gen 48:22), by legal act of inheritance. Once land was owned and assigned, the aim of the law was to keep it in perpetuity in the same family or clan. The principle had been established already by the Mosaic judgment (Num 27:1-11), whereby a brotherless heiress could inherit her father’s estate. In such cases, the husband who married her must belong to her own clan, lest the land should leave their possession. (See Num 26:33; 27:7; 36:11; Josh 17:4 for the “test case” of the daughters of Zelophehad.) Numbers 27 and 36 are important passages for understanding this fundamental principle of Israelite land tenure, and also for seeing the importance gradually assumed by the “next of kin” to whom the land fell in default of direct heirs.

In pursuance of the same principle, land might not be permanently alienated by its owner. Numbers 36:4 refers to the peculiarly Israelite custom of the “jubilee year” when all lands reverted to their original owners. While it appears that this law actually became a dead letter in Israel, in principle it corresponded to the modern practice of “leasing” land for a period of years, after which the land would revert to the State or the original landlord. Seven sevens of years was a doubly sacred number, and for the Israelite corresponded to the “ninety-nine years” or “nine hundred and ninety-nine years” of British leases. There is nothing inherently improbable in such a regulation, the more so as it is linked with the agrarian system by which fields were to be left fallow every seventh year—a wise provision in a marginal country with inadequate use of fertilizers. Leviticus 25:1-12 deals in detail with both Sabbatical and Jubilee years. Verse 23 enunciates the great principle upon which all is based: “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine.” Naturally this custom, if observed, would govern the buying and selling prices of land. Leviticus 25:25 also introduces the “redeemer kinsman,” and his duty to buy back temporarily alienated land, and thus keep it in the clan. Leviticus 27:16-25 shows that such “reversion” in the Jubilee year was even intended to be true of land dedicated to God, so strongly was this legal principle felt. This provision prevented the accumulation of large landed estates to the detriment of the poor.

The custom of “levirate marriage” by which a husband’s brother (or failing that, a husband’s nearest male relative) was bound to marry his brother’s childless widow, was doubtless connected with this desire to keep land in the family. There is detailed evidence of the persistence of this custom in the Book of Ruth (where land inheritance rights were also involved, Ruth 4:5) and Deuteronomy 25:5-10 contains the legal basis. By the date of Ruth, apparently the transference of the loosened sandal had lost its original meaning, and corresponded to the transference of the land. The presence of ten witnesses (Ruth 4:2) is an interesting legal point; witnesses also appear essential in the land transference recorded in Abraham’s day (Gen 23:10) and Jeremiah’s time (Jer 32:10), where there is a full deed of purchase. It seems certain that this simple agrarian system broke down under the twin impacts of industrial development and rapid urbanization from the time of Solomon onward. The increased importance of trade and consequent high rates of interest bore hard on the farmers. To judge from Amos and Hosea, many became landless laborers, and were even enslaved for debt, with their lands first mortgaged and then permanently alienated. But, the example of Naboth in the northern kingdom of Ahab’s day (1 Kings 21:3) shows the persistence with which some Israelites still clung to the old ideas long after Solomon. From Jeremiah’s day there is full and detailed record of a land transaction (Jer 32:6-15, apparently a “redemption,” though with no marriage involved) mentioning witnesses and documents, both sealed deeds and open deeds, containing terms and conditions of purchase. Such deeds were stored, like the DSS, in earthenware jars (Jer 32:14). The probable nature of the documents can be seen from such of the Elephantine papyri as deal with pro perty transfers. Jeremiah’s action presupposes that the Jews would return to their ancestral properties after the Exile (Jer 32:15) and, to judge from Ezra and Nehemiah, many did. No doubt the old legal forms of land tenure were resumed. This was possible because, unlike northern Israel, Judah had not been “settled” by foreign farmers, but had apparently remained fallow during the Exile. However, Judah seems to have learned little from the punishment of the Exile; for the same agrarian troubles appear almost at once (high interest, mortgages, slavery for debt, and alienation of land, Neh 5:1-13).

7. Attitude to law in the OT

a. In early days. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that not only did observances like the Sabbatical year or the Year of Jubilee quickly become a dead letter, but that most of the law was treated in the same way. True, archeology shows that images appeared very slowly and late in early Israelite settlements in Canaan (presumably under Canaanite influence), so that the basic aniconic principle lasted for a time; in fact, images of Israel’s God have never been discovered by archeologists. Even that principle began to crumble, as the very national fabric of Israel seemed to break up in the days of the Judges. Some such declension was known by the authors of Joshua 24:31 and Judges 2:10-13. Gideon’s family openly worshiped symbols of Baal and Asherah (Judg 6:25); he himself made a golden “ephod” (prob. an idol) in Ophrah with the spoils of victory (8:27). Judges 17 and 18 contain the remarkable story of how an image was stolen from Ephraim and carried off by the men of Dan to their new northern sanctuary. But this declension does not prove that the law was not known, still less that it did not exist; for Gideon knows that Yahweh alone is King in Israel (8:23). Jephthah will not take Yahweh’s name in vain (11:35); and Samson is a Nazirite (13:5). Even the darkest pages of Judges (the “holy war” against Benjamin in ch. 20) corresponded to an article of the old law, as recorded in Deuteronomy 13:12-16. At least one of the yearly feasts of Yahweh was still being kept at Shiloh (Judg 21:19), and pious farmers like Elkanah went up regularly to worship there (1 Sam 1:3). Indeed, the whole story of Samuel shows how the daily life of the simple Israelite was bound in a nexus of religious custom that stemmed from Israel’s law, however little he might know of its detailed prescriptions. The same could be said for the idyllic picture of the country life in the Book of Ruth.

b. The prophetic period. A generation ago most OT scholars considered that Israel’s prophets were from the beginning sharply opposed to her priests. The prophets were held to be great moral and ethical innovators, and thus foes of the entire sacrificial system of the law. Such scholars did not usually consider that the law contained any moral teaching, except perhaps general principles. Passages like Hosea 6:6 and Amos 5:21-24 were adduced to show the prophetic opposition to sacrifice (and indeed to all outward forms of religion) while Amos 5:25, like Jeremiah 7:22, was sometimes used to deny that even Israel’s sacrificial system was truly Mosaic in date. But Amos 2:4 distinctly says that God’s punishment will come on Judah “because they have rejected the law of the Lord, and have not kept his statutes,” and 5:21, 22 mentions by name several ritual ordinances of the law. Hosea 4:6 gives the reason for God’s rejection as “you have forgotten the law of your God.” The true prophetic attitude seems thus to be that expressed by Samuel to Saul in 1 Samuel 15:22; “to obey is better than sacrifice.” No man could say that this statement came from an enemy of the law; Samuel was a sacrificing priest, whose initial rift with Saul took place on a question of the propriety of a “layman” sacrificing (1 Sam 13:12, 13). The prophetic attitude is not a rejection of the law, but an emphasis on the moral basis that had always underlain it. Amos and Hosea, the first of the “writing prophets,” certainly show knowledge of the Torah, the former perhaps mostly of the “history of salvation” (Amos 2:9, 10) and the sacrificial system (Amos 5:21-25); the latter of the ethical law (Hos 4:1, 2, apparently referring to the Commandments; cf. Hos 12:9; 13:4), and the covenant (8:1). Hosea seems to know some written law (8:12) a tradition which, as seen above, goes back through Samuel (1 Sam 10:25) and Joshua (Josh 8:32) to Moses himself (Exod 24:4).

The pendulum has swung completely to the other extreme. With the view that prophets in Israel were “cultic prophets,” usually organized in bands at Israelite sanctuaries, and possibly identified with the Levites, and that they had a definite place in the liturgical life and worship of Israel, such opposition to the priesthood as that postulated above becomes unreal. While this is certainly over-emphasized, it is a useful corrective to the older view. It is true that Jeremiah and Ezekiel were priests, and that Isaiah received his call in the Temple (Isa 6:1); but all three reserved their prophetic freedom to criticize sharply any leaning on outward observances to the exclusion of the spirit of the law. This was thoroughly Mosaic.

c. In later days. The great change in Israel’s attitude to the Torah is marked not so much by a date as by an event, the Babylonian Exile. In a foreign land, the law took on a new importance, by which Israel was distinguished from the countless other small racial groups of a polyglot empire. The Exile was realized as the final result of failure to keep and obey the law, a lesson brought home by all the pre-exilic prophets. The law was certainly read in the returned community at Jerusalem (Neh 8). As far as could be, it had become the state law of this tiny group; religious leaders like Ezra and political leaders like Nehemiah enforced it wherever they could. This was possible not only because of the preference of the imperial Pers. government to rule subject peoples according to their own laws; it corresponded to a new will and purpose in Israel herself. The number of references to “law” in Ezra and Nehemiah is remarkable, and it is undoubtedly no accident. Not since the old wilderness days had Torah held such a central place in Israel’s life; its prestige was enhanced by the dying of the voice of prophecy (Zech 13:3, 4), and the fact that priests could apparently no longer give guidance by the use of Urim and Thummim (Neh 7:65). Even such prophetic voice as still existed was raised in defense of the law; for Malachi 4:4 closes the OT with the words, “Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and ordinances that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel,” followed by the promise of the “second Elijah.”

It must have seemed to many as if the great promise of the New Covenant (Jer 31:33) had been fulfilled already, as though God had already written His law on human hearts. The bitter experiences of the returned community give the lie to this; both Ezra and Nehemiah found, as Moses no doubt had, that man’s heart is still the same (