Revealed in the Law - Some Background

Most of us have known the story of the Ten Commandments (the Decalogue) since our youth, and some of us are vaguely aware that there are many more commandments given after that (613 of them in total!).  But where they are in the Bible, and why they were given, remains distant and inaccessible to many readers, myself included until I went to seminary.

A good place to start would be great summary of the Bible and of the Law, in words we can relate to.  First, read my post "A Synopsis of the Bible in 1200 Words" if you haven't already, and then watch this 6 minute video on the Law by The Bible Project before we continue.  The Bible Project is an outstanding ministry who have dedicated themselves to producing short animated videos to convey these kinds of relatable summaries.  I very highly recommend you explore their website (thebibleproject.com), as they are a fantastic resource to learn more about most of the concepts I touch upon in this study and so much more.

So there are two aspects that this study will focus on as it relates to what you just watched.  First, that there were Mesopotamian laws already in place well before God gave us the Sinai Covenant and it is in a comparison of those laws to God's laws that reveal God's character and His plan for humankind.  Second, we will focus on just one part of the Law in a summarization of the sermonized (by Moses) Decalogue found in Deuteronomy 6-26.

Ancient Near Eastern Law

According to John H. Walton in Ancient Israelite Literature in Its Cultural Context (2.1), there are eight major cuneiform artifacts that preserve for us the laws of the Ancient Near East (ANE).  The most famous one is the Code of Hammurabi, king of Babylon, dated 1792 - 1750 BC.  It documents 282 laws plus a prologue and epilogue which was standard for treaties in that region at that time.  It included civil, criminal, and family law. Apparently, King Hammurabi was quite proud of himself for establishing such a well-ordered society for his subjects and had the laws inscribed on a large stone stele which was put in the middle of the main square for citizens and foreigners alike to see.  It functioned as a kind of advertising for his land as a good place to live, as opposed to other lands that didn't have such protections.

We are all made in God's image (Gen 1:26-27), therefore we are fully capable of developing a framework through which to operate within society.  This is also why even today we see many such frameworks and good acts/organizations all over the world regardless of the faith of the people involved in them. However, since we have sinful natures that distort our ability to fully reflect our Creator's character, laws like these reflect instead our own flawed character and greatly limits our ability to fully achieve or maintain them once they are established.  Human code is also subjective, depending upon the culture(s) and leader(s) who instituted them.

Just as God used an established Egyptian rite (circumcision) to elevate it to new meaning under His covenant with Abraham (Gen 17:10) (and not renewed under the Sinai Covenant!) (2.2), God used ANE law to elevate it to a new meaning as well.  By the time God gave us the Decalogue on Mount Sinai around 1446 BC, these Babylonian laws had been around for about 300 years!  Some critics of the Bible use this to try to discredit the authority of the Bible, but God did this on purpose.  How else can we begin to understand the difference between our own innate goodness made in His image and His truly perfect character than to have a clear before and after picture?  God used this human cultural framework of the ANE (with which the Israelites would have been very familiar) to establish a better framework for His people based on His absolute or immutable (never changing instead of subjective) character.  The foundation for this framework is the Sinai Covenant that is objective for all time regardless of time, culture and human relationship.  As Walton states, "As a generalization, in the ancient Near East violation of law is an offense against society.  In Israel a violation of law is an offense against deity."(2.3)  I'll take advantage of this opportunity here to again state that in the same way we need to understand the context of the ANE laws to better understand God's laws in the Old Testament, we need to understand God's Old Testament laws to better understand the next iteration of God's law, the law of Christ in the New Testament, which we as believers now live under.

Old Testament Law and its context is a large area of study we can only begin to scratch the surface of here.  But I want to highlight a couple of main differences to illustrate my point about the ANE laws.   The Code of Hammurabi had class distinctions throughout to assign monetary penalties and acceptable retaliation for each offense.  Rich males typically got off easier, not surprising right?  In God's law, there are no class distinctions or monetary compensations, and retaliation is bounded.  I'll explain using a couple of examples.

In Old Testament Law for Christians, Roy E. Gane gives an example (2.4) of the difference between the cultural law of retaliation and God's law using Leviticus 24:19-20:

“Anyone who injures their neighbor is to be injured in the same manner: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. The one who has inflicted the injury must suffer the same injury."

The corresponding group of retaliation laws are found between §196-214 in the Code of Hammurabi (as translated by L. W. King).

One example is §200 "If a man knock out the teeth of his equal, his teeth shall be knocked out. [A tooth for a tooth]" and §201 "If a man knock out the teeth of a freed man, he shall pay one-third of a gold mina."  Notice there is only law pertaining to a male of equal status to the offender and to a freed male slave though with considerably less penalty.  There is no penalty for knocking out the teeth of females of any class or non-freed slaves!  And another says §209 "If a man strike a free-born woman so that she lose her unborn child, he shall pay ten shekels for her loss." While §210 says "If the woman die, his daughter shall be put to death."  Notice there is no penalty for a slave woman's loss of her baby or her life, and if the free-born woman dies from her injury inflicted by the offender, the offender's daughter must die for it!

God's law is an equalizer.  It keeps the penalties to the offender only, and sets the boundaries of the penalties to equal the degree of injury so that all people are protected equally regardless of economic status or gender (2.4).  God cares deeply about every person He has created, whether faithful to Him or not, and gives us specific examples like these to give application examples to "love your neighbor as yourself" in Leviticus 19:18. This "eye for an eye" law is given a bad rap by critics, but it takes understanding the context for it that you see God meant to make it an equalizer by eliminating class and gender distinctions.

The law of Christ now takes this many steps further.  In Matthew 5:38-42 in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus revisits this law and elevates it to a whole new level by telling us not only are we not to expect or demand bounded retaliation, but to give them even more than what they are demanding in a show of ultimate love (often without merit)! 

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you."

So it's not even until the New Testament that we fully grasp just a part of the picture that God always had meant for the principle behind that "eye for an eye" law! I can't even imagine what God has in mind for when Jesus returns and His kingdom is fully realized on earth!

Another enlightening illustration from God's law is from this same verse in Leviticus 24:19-20.  According to Gane (2.5), the word used to describe the defect or disfigurement that is a result of such an assault or injury (mum) is also used in Leviticus 21:23 where it is stated that a priest with a mum is disqualified from priestly duties.  In Leviticus 22:19-21, an animal to be used for sacrifice to the Lord must not have a mum.  By these verses, we see that having a mum is not acceptable to the Lord across the board.  Why?  Gane says it "diminishes the holiness of a living being, which means that inflicting a mum on another human being made in the image of God (cf. Gen 1:26-27) is an act of sacrilege." So now we begin to understand God's heart for why any kind of injury, or murder (the ultimate mum), or defect is intolerable to Him and steps must be taken to compensate for them. No such considerations are taken in the ANE cultural laws.  The clean and unclean laws of Leviticus 11-25 take on a whole new meaning in this light! But that's a discussion for another study. 😊  But I do want to draw attention to the fact that when Jesus came, who did He tend to?  Those with mums!  The lepers, the blind, the lame, the sick and dying - Jesus Himself went to these people and touched them and healed them.  By His touch alone, they were once again made holy.  These kinds of breathtaking connections across the testaments just increase the passion in my heart and mind for God and His Word!

While I used two examples above to illustrate what the law says about human to human relationships, it is also of utmost importance to state that God's law was extremely specific about our divine-human relationship with Him as well.  ANE law did not include cultic (worship) laws.  They were meant to be secular economic rules not moral. God's law elevated ANE law by including moral laws about right and wrong (righteousness) and included many specifics that differentiated worship of Him from worship of other gods (so much so that many of His laws spoke directly against specific rituals of the day - more details coming in Commandment 2). In fact, the cultic laws are given many more words within God's law than anything else, thereby giving it the place of highest importance. 

So, with this background, let's take a look now at a wonderful summarization of the sermonized (by Moses) Decalogue found in Deuteronomy 6-26 in my next post.

Here are a few questions to ponder before you continue:

How is your heart responding to what you just learned?  
Can you think of any contemporary examples of laws of your country compared to God's law to see the difference between leadership by human society and by God?
What kinds of "mums" could the things listed in the prohibitions of Galatians 5:19 cause?  

Next Post:  The Decalogue (The Ten Commandments)

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Last updated: June 28, 2018