In the Beginning: Torah and Commandments

Many people think that Godʼs commands were introduced at Sinai for the first time. Mt Sinai is where Moses told Godʼs Torah (instruction and teaching) to the people of Israel after rescuing them from Egypt. Many believe that these commandments were introduced for the first time at Sinai, as if they were an innovation and unheard-of. One may wonder, what about the people beforehand, who had not such knowledge? If the commandments were introduced so late in history, they must not be very important. One could reason similar to how St. Paulʼs epistle to the Galatians is interpreted, namely, that after the Torah came, people were brought into a slavish obeisance to rote commandments, but that before the Torah, people were free and lived only by faith and the promise of Abraham. This post seeks to show that such an understanding is not the understanding that the Bible itself presents.

Rather, Godʼs commandments were introduced at the beginning of creation. I will show this understanding by going to the Book of Genesis. I myself am very surprised by this and it is a learning curve for me. I am not going to argue that God taught all 613 mitzvoth of the Torah to humanity from the beginning—only that he taught some before Sinai. The only way to refute these observations of Scripture would be to deny any validity to the historical veracity of Genesis. Those who have already done so will have no issue with this post, but those that take the Bible seriously may need to rethink their understandings of Scripture (as do I).

1. Sabbath

   The Sabbath is taught from the beginning. Genesis 2:2-3, KJV, says: And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. God rested on the Sabbath during the first week of the world and, likewise, taught Adam and Eve and the first humans to do so. Sabbath is not some man-made burden, but rather an essential part of the cycle of the universe, such as winter and weather and gravity. Sabbath comes every 7 days and it is our choice to partake in it or not.

2. Holy Days and Festivals

   On the fourth day of creation, God introduced holy days (holidays) and festivals. In Genesis 1:14, it says that God created lights in the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years. The word that the King James translators rendered seasons is Hebrew moʿedim. Moʿedim is the word that the Hebrew Bible uses for all the festivals of Israel, such as Passover, Shavuot, Sukkot, and Yom Kippur. Shabbat is also a moʿed. Moʿed can mean meeting, and often refers to the ʾohel moʿed, the Tent of Meeting. The word basically means the appointed time and place of meeting with God.

3. Clean and Unclean Animals

   If clean and unclean animals were introduced first in Leviticus 11 at Mount Sinai, then why do they appear in Genesis 7? If the distinction was not introduced until millennia later, then how could God have expected Noah to have known the difference? Apparently, God taught humanity clean and unclean animals from an early time. Genesis 7:2-3, ESV, says, Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate, and seven pairs of the birds of the heavens also, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth. Noah took seven pairs of clean animals and only one pair of unclean animals onto the ark. Even if Noah himself did not drag the animals onto the ark, he still would have known which were clean and unclean.

4. Dietary Restrictions

   The first dietary restrictions may not have been kashrut, but there were dietary restrictions. And from 3, above, we know that early humanity knew about clean and unclean animals. It is interesting that the first dietary restriction that God imposed upon humankind was to eat only plants. In Genesis 1:29-30, KJV, God tells humanity,

   Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

   God gave plants to humans and animals alike to eat. Humanity was vegetarian until after the flood. After the flood, God tells humanity that they can now eat meat: every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things. But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat (Genesis 9:3-4, KJV). But God adds even though you can eat meat, you cannot eat blood. This restriction is the foundation of kashrut, which requires that humans drain the blood out of the animals they kill before they eat it. God tells Noah and humanity they cannot eat meat with blood in it, and he had already told Noah the clean and unclean animals, so that means that God expected Noah and the rest of the humans to eat essentially kosher.

5. Murder

   That murder is a sin to any human anywhere is pretty obvious. But it does not hurt to say that murder was not condemned for the first time in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 19). In Genesis 9, after mentioning the blood of animals, God tells humanity that human blood is also sacred and should not be spilled. God says: Whoso sheddeth manʼs blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man (Genesis 9:6, KJV). One can also discern Godʼs hatred of murder from the story of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4. After Cain murdered Abel, God said to Cain: What hast thou done? the voice of thy brotherʼs blood crieth unto me from the ground. And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brotherʼs blood from thy hand (Genesis 4:10-11, KJV). God condemned Cainʼs murdering of his brother. Murder and hatred was also one of the reasons that God flooded the world: The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence (Genesis 6:11, KJV).

6. Sexual Immorality

   God expected all humanity to live by his standards of sexual immorality that he later re-stated at Sinai. From Genesis 2:24, we know that God expects humans to get married and not have sex with everyone, the implication of the one flesh phraseology. Genesis 2:24, KJV, states: Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. In fact, it was because humanity was being corrupted sexually that God brought the flood on the earth, in addition to their murderous ways. Genesis 6:2 tells us that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. These sons of God were marrying the daughters of men, and Godʼs response to this situation was to destroy humanity because they had corrupted their way on the earth. Whatever was happening, humans were not following Godʼs commandments regarding sexuality.

   And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them (Genesis 6:3, 5-7, KJV).

7. Idolatry

   One would think that if Godʼs commandments were only for a certain group of people, he would not care if other people did not follow him. An interesting note made in the Hebrew text is that then began men to call upon the name of the LORD (Genesis 4:26). If something is mentioned in the Bible, it means itʼs important. This act was important to God. It says humans began calling upon His name. A Hebrew tradition has it that it means they began blaspheming his name at this point in history. Whether it means humanity began worshipping God or blaspheming him, apparently God thinks it important that everybody does so and not have idols instead of him.

8. Tithing

   An interesting observation is if tithing was only introduced in the Mosaic law, why did Abram give a tithe? The word tithe literally means a tenth. God required a tenth of the income of the Israelites, but why would Abram do so 400 years before God introduced the Torah? In Genesis 14, after Abram fights a battle, he presents to the priest of ʾEl ʾElyon (God Most High) a tenth of his assets. And he gave him tithes of all (Genesis 14:20). The later book of Leviticus describes this system of tithing to the priests, but apparently, Abraham knew about tithing to the priests a half-milliennium earlier. But the tithe goes back even in earlier than Abraham — back to Cain and Abel. Cain and Abel brought offerings to the Lord because they knew that he required their tithes. Genesis 4:3-4, KJV, states: And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. Intriguingly, the Hebrew reads literally, And it was, from the end of days, Cain brought from the fruit of the soil a minchah for Adonai. The end of days here means the end of the assigned time period, whether of the year or of the festival. Minchah is the Hebrew word that is used in Torah for an offering, so it is clear that Cain brought a tithe offering to Adonai. Abel, likewise, brought the bekorah for Adonai as a tithe. The system of bringing God the firstfruits (later codified in the Torah) was existent from the days of Cain and Abel.

9. Levirate Marriage

   Levirate marriage was also instructed from an early day, not just in Deuteronomy 25 for the first time. Also known in Hebrew as yibum, levirate marriage is when a man marries his deceased brotherʼs wife (levirate from Latin levir, brother-in-law). The reasoning behind this law was to ensure that a manʼs family name and inheritance would not end. His posterity must continue, so the brother provided children on his behalf by marrying his widowed wife. This situation can be seen in Genesis 38, which is an exceedingly interesting story for many reasons. There was a man named Judah who had three sons: ʿEr, ʾOnan, and Shelach. Judah married ʿEr to the woman Tamar, but ʿEr was evil in the eyes of Adonai; and Adonai killed him (Genesis 38:7). As a result, his brother ʾOnan had to marry Tamar to provide children in ʿErʼs name. Accordingly,

   Judah said unto ʾOnan, Go in unto thy brotherʼs wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother. And ʾOnan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother. And the thing which he did displeased the LORD: wherefore he slew him also (Genesis 38:8-10, KJV).

   Basically, ʿOnan did not want to give his brother children so he ejaculated on the ground instead of impregnating Tamar. God was so enraged that ʾOnan did not obey his commandment of yibum that he slew him.

These are all the commandments I will discuss today, but aside from the last one (which was only commanded after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the patriarchs of the Jewish people), it is clear that God expects these commandments of all humanity. I say that because if he gave them to all humanity, it would follow that he expects them to keep it. It is important to note that the chosen people did not emerge until Abraham, so that means that all the times before Abraham, God was speaking to everybody. Especially in regards to Noah, because according to the biblical understanding of history, Noah is the ancestor of everybody because everybody before had died in the flood. Noah was the only one to survive (with his family), so everyone is descended from him.

The mitzvoth of Shabbat, kashrut, moʿedim, murder, sexual immorality, idolatry, and tithing (giving God his due as the source of all bounty and blessing and recognizing him alone) were given to all humans and apparently God expected them to keep it. This next statement is my own hypothesis. I have always wondered why Israel was called the light to the gentiles. That phrase expects that the gentiles ought to learn from Israel and imitate them because they are following God correctly. Here is my hypothesis: God gave some of the Torah commandments to all humanity at the beginning. However, over time, he realized that they were not obeying. So at Noahʼs time, he wiped them out with a flood to start over. Afterwards, humanity still was not obeying. Accordingly, he decided to call Abraham and his descendants to keep the Torah. It took some years, but eventually, Abrahamʼs descendants, the Israelites and Jews, accepted the Torah and continue to revere it to this day. So: at first, God gave the Torah to everybody; they did not keep it; so he gave it to Israel, in order to show everybody else how they should act.

The Torah was not some innovation at Mt. Sinai. Rather, it existed eternally with God before creation and then he revealed parts of it to the first humans. Later, he fully revealed it to Israel. Nevertheless, the Torah is not slavish legalism, but rather the way God expects and hopes all people to live.

Postscript. I am not intending to be legalistic or judaizing. I am merely sharing my knowledge as I have come to learn it. If you disagree, please feel free to comment and hopefully we can have a fruitful discussion. The conclusions of this article are just as shocking to me as they are to you.