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Noahide Laws Sources Noahide Laws Sources

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Abstract

Universal Noahide code for peace by Michoel Schulman Ask Noah International
Noahide Laws Sources
Noahide Laws Sources
Noahide Laws Sources
QUESTION : (a) Where does the Bible say that these Seven
Noahide Commandments were given to Noah, and where does it say
that they were given to Adam?
ANSWER : The first six commandments were given to Adam. These
commandments were repeated, and a 7th commandment was added,
when G-d made the Covenant of the Rainbow with Noah. Hence
these became known as the Seven Noahide Commandments.
As an introduction before going on to point out the source
verses, note that the Covenant of the Rainbow was not
dependent on these commandments. Rather it was G-d’s promise
to all living creatures that He would never again obliterate
all land-life from the world, no matter how sinful people
would become (Genesis 9:8-17 “Never again will there be a
flood to destroy the earth”). The Covenant of the Rainbow has
an inner meaning as well, which is that G-d promised that He
would always accept a person’s sincere personal repentance if
it was directed to Him.
The entire Book of Genesis, and the Book of Exodus up to and
including the arrival of the Israelites at Mt. Sinai, were
dictated by G-d to Moses when they arrived there. There was
then a first covenant made between G-d and the Israelites (who
at that point were still Noahides) on that part of the Torah,
before the Ten Commandments were spoken openly to all of them
by G-d. The part of Torah which G-d decreed that Gentiles must
observe is the Seven Noahide Commandments (which in essence
are all prohibitions, including all their details). G-d told
Moses at Mt. Sinai that the Gentiles (“all that come into the
world”) would be expected to at least keep those Seven
Commandments from that point on.
Up to that time, the general Gentile population of the world
had forsaken any obligations they had been commanded through
Adam or Noah. So according to His plan, G-d released everyone
from the reward associated with fulfilling those earlier
obligations (since the nations had rejected them), which He
all along intended to be renewed through his greatest prophet
of all time, Moses. Since the whole future existence of the
creation was dependent on the acceptance of the Torah of Moses
and its 613 Jewish Commandments by the Israelites at Mt.
Sinai, G-d’s covenant for the reward of eternal life was made
on the Torah at that time as a heritage for the Jews, and for
Gentiles who wish to accept their part in this Mosaic
Covenant. The revealed Torah is G-d’s “Tree of Eternal Life,”
and from that time on, Gentiles can obtain a share in the
future World to Come (the culmination of the Messianic Era) if
they choose to observe their Seven Commandments as their part
in the Written and Oral Torah which G-d gave through Moses.
G-d also made this understandable by simple human logic. Since
we only know about the Seven Noahide Commandments and all
their details through G-d’s Torah, a Noahide’s reward for
acceptance and fulfillment of them as Divine Commandments must
be accompanied by faith in the Torah. But if a person lacks
this faith, G-d forbid, that does not change his or her
accountability for transgression of any of the Seven Noahide
Commandments.
In the Oral Torah (Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin,
chapter 7), it is explained that all of these Seven Noahide
Commandments are coded within a single verse in Genesis,
chapter 2. But first let’s start with six of the Noahide
Commandments which are explicitly found in different verses in
the Book of Genesis.
Do Not Murder.1.
The edict against murder is stated in Genesis 9:6:
“Whoever sheds the blood of man, among man, his blood
shall be shed; for in the image of G-d He made man.”
Do Not Have Forbidden Sexual Relations.2.
Five of the six types of relations which are forbidden
by G-d to Gentiles are covered in Gen. 2:24: “Therefore
a man shall leave his father and his mother and cling to
his wife and they shall become one flesh.” This verse
explicitly forbids relations with one’s mother, one’s
father’s wife, a wife of another man, another male, and
an animal. A Gentile is also forbidden to have relations
with his maternal sister, which is learned from Gen.
20:13: “Moreover, she is indeed my sister, my father’s
daughter, though not my mother’s daughter; and she
became my wife.” (Note that Abraham said this to appease
Abimelech. It was actually only figuratively true in his
case, since Sarah was the daughter of Abraham’s brother.
So they had the same paternal grandfather, who people
often referred to as “father”.) It also was universally
accepted that father-daughter relations would be
included, as evidenced by the disgrace of Lot after he
had relations with his two daughters, following G-d’s
destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19:29-36, and
Rashi’s explanation of Gen. 20:1). Relations of a female
with a female are likewise an abomination to G-d which
is included as one of the subjects of the verse Lev.
18:3, which speaks against the immoral practices of the
ancient Egyptians and Canaanites, and which Lev. 18:30
refers to as “abominable traditions.” About these the
Midrash (Sifra) specifies: “A man would marry a man, a
woman would marry a woman, and a woman would be married
to two men.”
Do Not Commit Theft.3.
The prohibition of theft is contained within the
permission which G-d granted to Adam and Eve in Genesis
2:16 to eat from the trees of the garden. This implies
that if the permission had not been granted, they would
have been forbidden to do so, because the property did
not belong to them. This applied specifically to the
fruit of the Tree of “Knowledge of Good and Evil” which
was forbidden for them to take, under penalty of death
(Genesis 2:17).
(Note that Adam and Eve were not given permission to eat
animals, so all humans were constrained to be
vegetarians until after the Flood. G-d permitted the
eating of meat for the first time to Noah and his family
after they left the Ark, which is why G-d at that time
added the seventh commandment, which prohibits the
eating of flesh removed from a living animal.)
Establish Laws and Courts of Justice.4.
This can be learned from the story of Shechem, Dinah,
and the sons of Jacob. In Genesis 34:2 it relates,
“Shechem, son of Hamor the Hivvite, the prince of the
land, saw her; he took her, and he lay with her, and
violated her.” His “taking” her against her will was a
form of kidnapping, which was forbidden as a type of
theft. Since the men of Shechem’s city did not convene a
court of justice and convict him for his crimes, they
failed to obey this commandment and also collectively
became accomplices to his crime. Jacob’s sons therefore
formed a court, convicted them, and executed them.
Don’t Eat Flesh Taken From a Live Animal.5.
This commandment (the seventh) was given to Noah in
Genesis 9:4. (“Nevertheless, you may not eat flesh with
its life, which is its blood.”)
Do Not Commit Blasphemy.6.
Leviticus 24:10-17 relates the incident of a Jew who
violated the injunction of Exodus 22:27 and blasphemed
in anger, and the Divine edict proclaiming this to be a
capital offense. Moreover, it states there “ish ish (any
man) who curses his G-d shall bear his sin.” Why the
double _expression of ish ish (literally: a man, a man)?
To include all mankind, Jews and Gentiles. This
demonstrates that blasphemy thus is prohibited to
Gentiles as a capital offense even as it is for Jews.
(Sanhedrin 56a)
Do Not Murder.7.
The edict against murder is stated in Genesis 9:6:
“Whoever sheds the blood of man, among man, his blood
shall be shed; for in the image of G-d He made man.”
The source for the remaining law, which prohibits worship of
false gods, is explained below.
But first note that the recounting and recording of the Seven
Noahide Laws by Moses took place at Mt. Sinai, two days before
G-d spoke the Ten Utterances in Ex. 20:1-14. In Exodus 24:3,
it says “Moses came [before G-d spoke the Ten Utterances] and
told the people all the words of G-d and ALL THE LAWS …” The
words “all the laws” refer to the Seven Noahide Laws and three
additional Jewish laws, which the Children of Israel had
already been commanded before they arrived at Mt. Sinai.
(Moses told this total of 10 laws to the Israelites at Marah,
after they crossed through the sea see Exodus 15:25.) The
next verse, Exodus 24:4, states that “Moses wrote all the
words of G-d …” These words were the Book of Genesis, which
contains the Noahide Covenant and the Noahide Laws, and the
Book of Exodus up to that point. G-d thus commanded the Jewish
People at that time to remember the Noahide Laws, to teach
them to all the nations of the world for all generations, and
to provide for the establishment of Noahide courts in the Land
of Israel for those Gentiles who choose to live there.
In the Oral Torah passed down through the Jewish prophets and
sages and recorded in the Talmud (Sanhedrin p. 56b), it is
explained that all these seven laws given are coded within the
verse Gen. 2:16 (“And L-rd G-d commanded to the man, saying,
‘Of every tree of the garden you may surely eat.”) In Hebrew,
the verse reads, “Va-y’tzav Havaye Elokim al ha’adom laymor
mikol aits hagan achol tochayl.” One of the 13 specific rules
of authentic Torah exegesis is by a tradition of an analogy
between two laws established on the basis of identical Hebrew
expressions. The seven laws are coded into Gen. 2:16 as
follows, as explained by the Talmudic sage Rabbi Yochanan:
The word Elokim is one of the holy divine Names which1.
mean “G-d.” But the same word is used in the non-holy
plural sense to refer to physical or conceptual
idolatries (other “gods”), as in the verse “You shall
have no other gods …” (Ex. 20.3). Thus the above
statement to Adam implies that only G-d should be
worshipped, but not an idol. According to this, a
Gentile is liable for making an idol, even without
worshipping it.
[Note: the Talmudic sage Rabbi Yitzchak offered an
alternative derivation. He suggested that the word tzav
(“command”) in the verse points to a prohibition of
worship of false gods. The verse would then teach that
only G-d, the One True G-d, is the source of all true
commandments, and therefore only G-d is to be served.
The connection to idolatry is evident from Hosea 5:11:
“Ephraim is plundered, shattered by his judgement; for
he has willingly followed after their command/tzav”
i.e., the command of idolatrous priests.]
The unspoken four-letter Divine name in this verse,2.
transposed to spoken form as Havaye, points to a
prohibition against cursing G-d, as evident from
Leviticus 24:16. (“And one who pronounces blasphemously
the Name of the L-rd/Havaye shall be put to death, the
entire assembly shall surely stone him; convert and
native alike, when he blasphemes the Name, he shall be
put to death.” Note: in the painless mode of execution
translated from Hebrew as “stoning”, the convicted
criminal was drugged and thrown to his death from a high
tower onto a stone pavement. See Tractate Sanhedrin.)
The words al ha’adom (“to the man”) point to the3.
prohibition against murder, which is stated in Gen. 9:6
(see above).
The prohibition of the six forbidden sexual relations4.
(see above) is pointed to by the word laymor (“saying”),
as evident from Jeremiah 3:11 (“Saying/laymor: if a man
divorces his wife, and she goes from him and marries
another man, can he return to her again? Would that not
bring profound guilt upon the land? Yet you have
committed adultery with many lovers and would now return
to Me – the word of the L-rd.”)
The prohibition of theft is contained within the general5.
sense of the verse, as explained above.
The word va-y’tzav (“He commanded”) in the verse points6.
to the requirement for courts of justice, as seen from
the similar wording in the verse Gen. 18:19: “For I know
him, that he will command (“y’tzaveh”) his children and
his household after him that they may keep the way of
the L-rd, to do righteousness and justice.”
[Note: the Talmudic sage Rabbi Yitzchak offered an
alternative derivation. He suggested that the
commandment to establish laws and courts of justice is
pointed to by the word Elokim/G-d, which also means
“judges.” This is evident from Exodus 22:27, which uses
this word to simultaneously prohibit cursing G-d and
cursing judges – as explained for example by Maimonides
in his Book of the Commandments.]
The verse concludes, “you may surely eat” of the7.
trees of the garden, but not meat removed from a live
animal.
So there you have it!
QUESTION : (b) Where does it say that the Seven Noahide
Commandments are for all nations?
ANSWER : The simple answer to this question is that when G-d
renewed these universal laws with Noah (see beginning of
Genesis chapter 9), they were meant not just for Noah and his
immediate family, but for all of Noah’s descendents (i.e. all
nations, for all time) as G-d’s basis for civilized human
society.
The complete answer to the question is that when G-d told
Moses to record the Noahide Commandments and the story of Noah
in the first book of the Torah (Genesis), He commanded through
Moses that these seven commandments should be learned and
practiced by all the nations for all time according to their
details which would be revealed in the Torah (G-d’s “Tree of
Eternal Life”), and that that this would be the opportunity
through which Gentiles can merit to receive a place in the
eternal future World to Come.
From various narratives in Genesis, we also learn that a wide
variety of peoples knew about and either practiced or were
held responsible for the Noahide Laws: the Chaldeans (as
demonstrated by Abraham, who personally knew Noah), the
Philistines (as demonstrated by Abimelech), the Hivvites (as
demonstrated by the story of Shechem), and the Canaanites (as
demonstrated by the story of Sodom and Gomorrah).
[A further note. It seems to me, although I have not seen a
source for this, that there is also a way that the universal
nature of the Seven Commandments can be seen from the verses
at the beginning of Genesis Chapter 9. After the Flood, in
Gen. 9:1-7, G-d gives Noah and his family several directives.
These begin with the blessing/directive to be fruitful and
multiply (Gen.9:1). Then in verse 9:4, G-d prohibits the
eating of flesh removed from a living animal. Then in verses
9:5 and 9:6, G-d prohibits murder and explicitly states in
both 9:5 and 9:6 that this prohibition applies to all mankind.
(Note that G-d says that murder is prohibited because He made
mankind “in His image,” which refers to the intellectual human
soul that He invests within the human body.) Then in verse
9:7, G-d repeats the blessing/directive to be fruitful and
multiply. Now the words of the Torah are very concise, and a
verse is not repeated unless the repetition comes to teach us
something new. In this case, it seems to me the repetition in
verses 9:1 and 9:7 shows that G-d has a common intention for
all the directives in this group of 7 verses. Since one of the
directives is explicitly applied to all mankind, it is clear
from the context that this intention applies to all the
directives that are explicit or implicit in this group of
verses i.e., all of the Seven Commandments which G-d
established with Noah and his family when they left the ark.]
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