There are two interesting additions God made to His Law that did not originally appear in it. These additions were made because questions were asked about particular situations that occurred that the Law, at that time, did not cover. While they were not a part of the oral law, the principle is similar to that mentioned in Deuteronomy 17:8-11. In these cases, the people with the questions went to Moses and Aaron to ask for a decision on the matters. Moses then went to God for the judgement which was then incorporated into the written Law.
The first of these is mentioned in Numbers 9:6-11. “Now there were certain men who were defiled by a human corpse, so that they could not keep the Passover on that day; and they came before Moses and Aaron that day. And those men said to him, ‘We became defiled by a human corpse. Why are we kept from presenting the offering of the LORD at its appointed time among the children of Israel?’ And Moses said to them, ‘Stand still, that I may hear what the LORD will command concerning you.’ Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Speak to the children of Israel, saying: “If anyone of you or your posterity is unclean because of a corpse, or is far away on a journey, he may still keep the LORD’s Passover. On the fourteenth day of the second month, at twilight, they may keep it. They shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.”
The second of these additions is in Numbers 27:1-8 and Numbers 36:1-12. Again, this was not a part of the oral law but was similar in principle to the oral law as mentioned in Deuteronomy 17:8-11, in that the questioners went to the Levitical priesthood (Eleazar, since by this time Aaron had died) and the judge (Moses) to seek a determination. Of course, in these two cases the determinations became a part of the commandments, statutes and judgements in the written Law.
God intended that the inheritance of a family would be transferred from father to son down through the ages. But in Numbers 27:1-8, a problem arose because a father had no sons but only five daughters. How was the inheritance to be transferred in this case? Numbers 27:1-8, “Then came the daughters of Zelophehad, the son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, from the families of Manasseh the son of Joseph; and these werethe names of his daughters; Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. And they stood before Moses, before Eleazar the priest, and before the leaders and all the congregation, by the doorway of the tabernacle of meeting, saying: ‘Our father died in the wilderness; but he was not in the company of those who gathered together against the LORD, in company with Korah, but he died in his own sin; and he had no sons. Why should the name of our father be removed from among his family because he had no son? Give us a possession among our father’s brothers.’ So Moses brought their case before the LORD. And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying: ‘The daughters of Zelophehad speak what is right; you shall surely give them a possession of inheritance among their father’s brothers, and cause the inheritance of their father to pass to them. And you shall speak to the children of Israel, saying: “If a man dies and has no son, then you shall cause his inheritance to pass to his daughter.”’” In effect, God was making a new law that was not in the written Law until this question arose some forty years after the Law was originally given. This new oral law became part of the written Law.
However, this was not the end of the matter. A later question arose that if the daughter who received the inheritance married into a different family or tribe, she would take the inheritance with her, transferring it to another family or tribe. In this case, Moses was inspired to extend what God had commanded previously, thus extending this particular law. We read this in Numbers 36:1-12, “Now the chief fathers of the families of the children of Gilead the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, of the families of the sons of Joseph, came near and spoke before Moses and before the leaders, the chief fathers of the children of Israel. And they said: ‘The LORD commanded my lord Moses to give the land as an inheritance by lot to the children of Israel, and my lord was commanded by the LORD to give the inheritance of our brother Zelophehad to his daughters. Now if they are married to any of the sons of the other tribes of the children of Israel, then their inheritance will be taken from the inheritance of our fathers, and it will be added to the inheritance of the tribe into which they marry; so it will be taken from the lot of our inheritance. And when the Jubilee of the children of Israel comes, then their inheritance will be added to the inheritance of the tribe into which they marry; so their inheritance will be taken away from the inheritance of the tribe of our fathers.’ Then Moses commanded the children of Israel according to the word of the LORD, saying: ‘What the tribe of the sons of Joseph speaks is right. This is what the LORD commands concerning the daughters of Zelophehad, saying, “Let them marry whom they think best, but they may marry only within the family of their father’s tribe. So the inheritance of the children of Israel shall not change hands from tribe to tribe, for every one of the children of Israel shall keep the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers. And every daughter who possesses an inheritance in any tribe of the children of Israel shall be the wife of one of the family of her father’s tribe, so that the children of Israel each may possess the inheritance of his fathers. Thus no inheritance shall change hands from one tribe to another, but every tribe of the children of Israel shall keep its own inheritance.’ Just as the LORD commanded Moses, so did the daughters of Zelophehad; for Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah, the daughters of Zelophehad, were married to the sons of their father’s brothers. They were married into the families of the children of Manasseh the son of Joseph, and their inheritance remained in the tribe of their father’s family.”
It will be noted that the Levitical priests and the judge were assigned by God to make the determinations in Deuteronomy 17. This is confirmed in Malachi 2:4-7. “‘Then you shall know that I have sent this commandment to you, That My covenant with Levi may continue,’ Says the LORD of hosts. ‘My covenant was with him, one of life and peace, And I gave them to him that he might fear Me; So he feared Me And was reverent before My name. The law of truth was in his mouth, And injustice was not found on his lips. He walked with Me in peace and equity, And turned many away from iniquity. For the lips of a priest should keep knowledge, And people should seek the law from his mouth; For he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts.’”
In Christ’s day, many of the oral law determinations were made by the Pharisees who had become considered by the people to be experts in the law rather than the priests. They were not sons of Aaron but were laymen. The priests, who were supposed to be scribes and should have been making the determinations, had become corrupt. It is stated in Ezekiel 44:15 that this will be corrected and the priests shall once again stand before God. “‘But the priests, the Levites, the sons of Zadok, who kept charge of My sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from Me, they shall come near to Me to minister to Me; and they shall stand before Me to offer to Me the fat and the blood,’ say the Lord GOD.” Ezekiel 44:23-24 reminds us that these priests were to make the determinations as mentioned in Leviticus 17. “And they shall teach My people the difference between the holy and the unholy, and cause them to discern between the unclean and clean. In controversy they shall stand as judges, and judge it according to My judgements. They shall keep My laws and My statutes in all My appointed meetings, and they shall hallow My Sabbaths.”
Again, in Christ’s day, some of the more complicated cases were handled by the Sanhedrin which did include priests, but the majority of its members were Pharisees because they were considered to be the experts in the law. But Christ Himself reminds us in Matthew 23:1-3, “Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to His disciples, saying: ‘The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. Therefore whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not do.’” While the Pharisees had placed themselves in Moses’ seat, which was not God’s desire, Jesus still told the people to listen to them in order to maintain an organized society. The decisions they made from Moses’ seat were for the whole of society, not just for one particular sect or group, provided they were in conformity with God’s Law.
Many times, they were not, and in those cases, Christ did not expect the people to follow them. They had to obey God rather than man, as Peter stated, refusing to follow their directives. For instance, the Pharisees kept the Passover one day too late. The Sadducees however, kept it on the right day, and so did Jesus and the disciples, of course. The Sadducees were in charge of the temple, and the Passover lamb was to be killed at the beginning of the 14th of Nisan, at twilight, between the two evenings, not at the end as to how the Pharisees did it… and most Jews still keep it wrongly today, in keeping the Passover and the Night to Be Much Observed on the same evening/night.
There are some examples of the third category of oral law. Amos 8:4-6 is interesting in that a binding requirement had been added that God did not require. “Hear this, you who swallow up the needy, And make the poor of the land fail, Saying: ‘When will the New Moon be past, That we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, That we may trade wheat? Making the ephah small and the shekel large, Falsifying the scales by deceit, That we may buy the poor for silver, And the needy for a pair of sandals—Even sell the bad wheat?’”
Except for the Feast of Trumpets, God nowhere decreed that the people must refrain from work on the days of the new moons. We have no idea when they began this practice, but it appears to be common practice at this time. This was something that they were keeping as a part of the oral law. It was preventing them from conducting business and cheating on the new moons as well as the Sabbaths. This addition also required determining when the Sabbath and new moons ended. In Jesus’s day, the Pharisees considered the Sabbath was ended when you could see two stars. This, of course, is an unnecessary extension of the Sabbath, introduced to put a fence around it; an extra burden that God did not require. God only required the Sabbath to be kept until sunset.
In Nehemiah 10:29, the people agreed to live by the laws of God. “…these joined with their brethren, their nobles, and entered into a curse and an oath to walk in God’s Law, which was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of the LORD our Lord, and His ordinances and His statutes.” The actual implementation of a new oral law is stated in Nehemiah 10:32-33. “Also we made ordinances for ourselves, to exact from ourselves yearly one-third of a shekel for the service of the house of our God: for the showbread, for the regular grain offering, for the regular burnt offering for the Sabbaths, the New Moons, and the set feasts; for the holy things, for the sin offerings to make atonement for Israel, and all the work of the house of our God.” This was a new oral law that was added and was intended to be binding on the people for as long as the temple was standing. This was not talking about a tithe; this was talking about a yearly assessment fixed at a particular level by their own will, which they then bound upon themselves.
We read in Matthew 17:24-27 that this law was still in force. It was now called a temple tax. Christ had no objection to paying this as it would avoid giving offence and was not in any way against God’s Law. “When they had come to Capernaum, those who received the temple tax came to Peter and said, ‘Does your Teacher not pay the temple tax?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ And when he had come into the house, Jesus anticipated him, saying, ‘What do you think, Simon? From whom do the kings of the earth take customs or taxes, from their sons or from strangers?’ Peter said to him, ‘From strangers.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Then the sons are free. Nevertheless, lest we offend them, go to the sea, cast in a hook, and take the fish that comes up first. And when you have opened its mouth, you will find a piece of money; take that and give it to them for Me and you.’”
So, we can see there were three types of oral law, the first being extra instructions needed to correctly obey the written Law. These instructions would be handed down from the priests in position of authority to those who were expected to take their place in due time. The second type of oral law concerned how to handle situations that were not included in the written Law but had similarities, and the examples in the written Law could be expanded to handle these situations. In some cases, especially the more complicated ones, a determination may have needed to be made by the priests and judges. The third type concerned new oral laws that were made binding on the people and their descendants due to a specific need at a particular time, and this was to carry on into the future—again, assuming they were in harmony with God’s intent, purpose and will. Otherwise, they were not binding on the people.
If God had included all these oral laws in the written Law, the Bible would have become such a large volume or volumes that it would lose practicality. This is remarked upon in John 21:25, “And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. Amen.” Instead of every possible situation being commented on in the Bible, God left it up to those in authority to make the necessary decisions based on the principles of what was already in the written Law.
There is actually one additional aspect that could be included in the oral law and that is regarding God’s calendar. From the Bible itself, it is not possible to know which day is the Sabbath or when the years and months begin. But these determinations have been handed down through the years by the leaders of the Jews. As we can read in Romans 3:1-2, “What advantage then has the Jew, or what is the profit of circumcision? Much in every way! Chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God.”
We have the Old Testament today because the Jews have preserved it over the millennia. But we also have God’s calendar which defines the years, months and Sabbaths due to the Jewish leaders passing on this information from father to son orally again over the millennia, for our instruction today.
So, the oral law is not just something invented by the Pharisees after the close of the Old Testament period, but was necessary to know how to obey God with greater understanding, beginning at the time of the Exodus. Actually, let us look at Genesis 7:2, “You shall take with you seven each of every clean animal, a male and his female; two each of animals that are unclean, a male and his female.” The question arises; how did Noah know which animals were clean and which were unclean? Unlike us, he did not have access to Leviticus 11 or Deuteronomy 14. It might have been revealed by God at the time of the creation and passed down through the generations between Adam and Noah, or it might have been revealed to Noah directly. But we notice that all sacrifices between Abel and Moses were of clean animals, which showed that the patriarchs knew of these oral laws.
Since Abel sacrificed a clean animal, we can assume that God had revealed the law of clean and unclean animals at that time. The same is true of the law of tithing since both Abram and Jacob tithed, Abram to Melchizedek, Genesis 14:20, and Jacob promised to tithe to God, Genesis 28:22. This, of course, was long before the time of Moses when the laws were written down. So the knowledge of these laws would demonstrate that oral laws were in existence well before Moses.
In conclusion, the oral law was a set of instructions additional to the written Law that were necessary to enable the written Law to be carried out correctly and consistently. It was also a method for determining how to apply the principles of the written Law to situations that were similar to, but not identical to, what was described in the written Law. The oral law also contained new laws which were found to be necessary for situations that had not been mentioned previously and were voluntarily accepted by the people. Although, of course, they had to be within the spiritual intent of God’s Law.
The oral law began at, or before, the time of Moses, and additions were made up until at least the end of the Old Testament period. Jesus accepted some of it but rejected those parts that had been added but were against the spiritual intent of God’s commandments.
Lead Writer: Paul Niehoff (Australia)