God's Purpose Of The Torah In Israelite Society

God’s purpose for giving the Torah (instructions or teachings) to the Jewish people served a two-fold purpose in the newly formed nation of Israel. Before this is explained, however, the term “theocracy” must be defined to properly understand the position the Torah held in Israelite society. The word is defined as “the rule of a state by God or a god; government by a person or persons claiming to rule with divine authority” (Webster 1484). Since God had delivered the children of Israel from bondage, He had the right to serve as their king and dictate to them how they were to behave within the land that He Himself had given them. With this in mind, the first purpose of the Torah was to nourish and nurture the spiritually minded people within His kingdom. These people would take His word seriously and they would modify their

What they became, however, was a kingdom of idolaters and an abominable scourge in the land that He had given them (cf. Ex. 19:6). In fact, many of the specific laws that God provided were intended to prevent idolatry from being prevalent as it was in the Canaanite nations so that they would be at least slightly different. Yet, even with these laws, the unruly people still went against God’s law and did as they pleased which would lead to statements such as what is found in Judges (cf. Judg. 21:25). After years of abuse, the Torah that God had revealed to Moses became little more than a checklist that the Jews would use and say that they had pleased God. By the time of Christ, the Pharisees and lawyers had such a distorted view of the Torah that they held to the very letter of the law and bound others to this heavy yoke. Jesus pointed out to them several times that they had missed the point, and that the Torah was a law of love and care for the people, not a mechanical machine that you continuously run until it needs to be routinely