Exhortation

We who believe the Bible is God’s word hear this slander all the time: How can you believe a Bible that permits slavery? How can you worship a God who gave Israel the harsh, dehumanizing, bloodthirsty law of Moses?

Our response should be to show them the actual Torah. The Torah is not harsh and bloody. It’s a law of charity, given to Israel by the same God of love who sent Jesus, His living Word.

The experience of Ruth illustrates the point. When she returned with Naomi, Ruth provided for her mother-in-law by gleaning, that is, by gathering grain from fields that didn’t belong to her. To us, this looks like theft, but it was perfectly legal in Israel.

The Torah returns again and again to similar themes. Yahweh exhorted Israel to treat strangers fairly. Every seven years, Hebrew creditors canceled debts and slave owners freed slaves and every fifty years, at the Jubilee, families recovered land they had sold.

Even slavery was an institution of mercy. When an Israelite became too poor to pay his debts, the Torah did not condemn him to debtors’ prison, nor did it leave the creditor high and dry. Instead, the debtor off his debt by serving his creditor for six years, was restored to financial equilibrium, and then was released.

Most legal systems are designed mainly to maintain peace, stability, and property rights. Not Israel’s law. The Torah was designed to train Israel in habits of charity. Had Israel obeyed her law, she would have learned that God gives us wealth not only to meet our own needs, but also to assist our brothers, especially the poor.

This is why Jesus says that He came not to abolish but to fulfill the law. This is why He says that the law and prophets is summed up in this: Do to others as you would have them do to you.