The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible

by Michael S. Heiser

We tend to think of the law as though every one of its 663 commands were an oppressive lynchpin in a relationship to Yahweh. We tend to view the law negatively, as though it were given to produce feelings of guilt or to frustrate Israelites with the impossibility of pleasing God. This is misguided. The laws of the Torah broadly deal with a person’s relationship to Yahweh (e.g., worship, access to sacred space),1 relationships with fellow Israelites or outsiders (e.g., sex, business, property), and the nation’s covenantal bond with her God. The law was not a means of meriting salvation. An Israelite would have known that believing was at the heart of right relationship with Yahweh, not mere mechanical observance of a list of do’s and don’ts. For sure some Israelites would have lapsed into this mistaken thinking, particularly after the shock of the exile, but that wasn’t what the law was about.2