I was recently posed a question about the terms and conditions of God’s Covenant with Israel, and was asked,
“I don’t know what to make of the covenant that the children of Israel agreed to, because it seems to me that someone in their right mind would not have agreed to all the rules and harsh consequences. If someone says to you, love me or else bad things will happen, how is that love?”
The way the terms and conditions of the Covenant are worded in Torah, are very much those of a human being looking at it all, and writing everything down in human terms.
In Israelite culture, when God says, “Love Me”, it is much more than a matter of merely loving God. To love God, in Jewish culture, means to love and embrace the ethics, values, principles and ideals that God has given us. Conversely, to turn away from God or ‘hate’ God, means to absolutely reject all goodness, all justice, all mercy, and all the positive social values that God has given us.
A human being will phrase the terms and conditions as, “Love me (follow my ways) or else I will do bad things to you”. But in modern, 21st language, God would say, “Follow My ways, because there are natural consequences for not following my ways”. God doesn’t want bad things to happen to us, so God gives us rules to help our society run smoothly.
Here’s an example that is not in Torah, but which might help you understand. Keep in mind that, ‘loving God’ in Israelite culture means, ‘loving God’s ways, God’s values and God’s principles’.
So imagine if God were to say, “Don’t build on floodplains, because if you do, every so often your homes will flood”. Flooding is a natural consequence of living on floodplains. However, a human will reword that as, “Do not build your homes on floodplains, because if you do, God will cause floods to wipe out your homes as punishment for disobedience.”
But the thing is, the flooding is not any kind of punishment from God; it’s a natural consequence of choosing to disregard good advice and common sense.
Similarly, God tells us to look after the poor, the disadvantaged and orphans; God tells us not to oppress foreigners living among us, not to enact unjust laws but pursue justice, and so on. The natural consequence of following these laws is a stable and just society. The natural consequences of not doing these things however, is that society gets more and more angry and fractious, and eventually society will fray to the extent that it turns into something that is no longer a society that will last for thousands of years.
From Abraham to Moses, the Hebrew people had no Bible. They had to rely on their knowledge of a loving and just God. In the Israelite religion, we are told, “Know YHVH” (Jer 31:34, 1Chron 22:19, Hos 2:20, 6:3), and “Seek YHVH” (1Chron 22:19). Christians interpret God through their knowledge of the Bible, but the ancient Hebrews interpreted the Bible through their knowledge of God. YHVH is a living, knowable God (not perfectly, but nevertheless knowable). When you start with God instead of the Bible, you come to learn that YHVH is loving, compassionate, gracious, forgiving, merciful, embracing; this is the God whom Yeshua knew. When you then read anything harsh or unreasonable in the Bible, you realise that that is not YHVH. When the Bible speaks of love and compassion, those are the words of YHVH. When it speaks of stoning people, and any unjust thing, you know that those are the words of humans trying to understand and interpret God’s commandments.
Know YHVH, seek YHVH, and then ask yourself, ‘If YHVH had written everything, how would YHVH have worded it all?’
“Follow My ways, embrace My values, take to heart My good ethics and just principles, and I assure you, your society will last forever, just as I, YHVH, am forever. However, the natural consequences of turning away from my values and hating them, will be that your society will fracture, and you will not last long at all as a people. I will be sad and heartbroken if this happens, because I love you, and because I wanted you all to act as eternal ambassadors for My Ways, and as a Light to the Nations.”
The consequences are not punishments, they are an insight into the natural consequences of turning down good advice. But a human would write all that as, “Love me and obey Me, otherwise I will make bad things happen to you.” This is an unhelpful take on what God actually means. This is portraying God as a dictatorial tyrant, and YHVH is no tyrant or dictator.
The Israelites at Mt Sinai and on the Plains of Moab, would have known the personality of YHVH, and so they would have understood the Covenant as being in terms of the first set of words (highlighted above in red). When we Jews read the Covenant today, it’s not about, “Love Me and obey Me, or I will punish you and I will make bad things happen to you”, because we know that that is not what YHVH is like. It is not YHVH who is making society fracture and fall apart – we are doing all that ourselves, because of our own inaction or wrong action, and because of our failure to follow God’s good advice and wisdom.
So what we agreed to when we took on the Covenant, was not, “Love Me or else bad things will happen to you”. What we agreed to was, “Love Me and love My ways, so that you will have a good life, and your people will last forever.” That is what the Covenant means to Jews.