Why the Torah Was Given

We come now to the question that lies beneath all the others: why did God give the Torah at all?

The Bible answers with one story, which carries one purpose from the first page to the last, and the Torah stands in the middle of it. In the Old Testament of the YLV, the word Torah appears in 214 verses, 220 times. In these closing chapters those verses tell the story.

Chosen Because He Loved Them

The story does not begin at Sinai. It begins with a choice.

Deuteronomy 7:6-8 For a holy people are you to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be for Him a people of treasured possession, out of all the peoples that are upon the face of the ground (adamah אֲדָמָה ad-aw-maw'). Not because you were more than all the peoples did the LORD set His love upon you and choose you — for you were the fewest of all the peoples — but because of the LORD's love for you, and because He kept the oath which He swore to your fathers, the LORD brought you out with a strong hand, and redeemed you from the house of slaves, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

God chose the fewest of all the peoples, and the text gives two reasons, neither of them Israel’s merit: “because of the LORD’s love for you, and because He kept the oath which He swore to your fathers.”

Then He let them grow strong in a hard place.

Exodus 1:7 And the sons of Israel were fruitful and swarmed and multiplied and grew mighty exceedingly, exceedingly; and the land was filled with them.

Exodus 1:12 But just as they afflicted it, so it multiplied and so it spread; and they were in dread because of the sons of Israel.

“Just as they afflicted it, so it multiplied.” Moses later gave Egypt a name:

Deuteronomy 4:20 But you the LORD has taken, and brought you out from the iron furnace, from Egypt, to be to him a people of inheritance, as it is this day.

He called it “the iron furnace.”

God did not leave them in the furnace. He carried them out.

Exodus 19:4 You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on wings of eagles and brought you to Myself.

Notice the order. The people were chosen, raised, and redeemed before a single commandment was given at Sinai. There were no tablets in the furnace.

Picture a family that adopts a boy who has been living on the street. They do not hand him a list of chores and say, “Do these perfectly for a year, and then we will take you in.” They take him in, and he receives the family name that day. At breakfast the next morning the father sits down with him and explains how this house lives. The house rules were never the ladder out of the street. They are the life of the house he has already entered.

So it is with the Torah. It was not a ladder for slaves to climb out of Egypt, but a gift to a people already brought out.

Nor was it new at Sinai. Centuries before Moses, God said of Abraham:

Genesis 26:5 because that Abraham hearkened to my voice, and kept my charge (mishmeret מִשׁמֶרֶת mish-meh'-reth), my commandments (mitzvot מִצוָה mits-vaw'), my statutes (chuqqot חֻקָּה khook-kaw'), and my Torah."

The first time the word Torah appears in the Bible, it appears in the life of the father of faith. The word torah תּוֹרָה to-raw' means instruction, teaching.

Set Before You

At Sinai and on the plains of Moab, God gave His people the Torah, and He described it in two words.

Deuteronomy 11:26-28 See, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse: the blessing, if you hearken to the commandments (mitzvah מִצוָה mits-vaw') of the LORD your God which I command (tzivvah צָוָה tsaw-vaw') you this day; and the curse, if you do not hearken to the commandments (mitzvah) of the LORD your God, but turn aside from the way which I command (tzivvah) you this day, to go after other gods which you have not known.

Deuteronomy 30:15-16 See, I have set before you this day the life (chai חַי khah'-ee) and the good, and the death and the evil, in that I am commanding you (tzivvah) this day to love the LORD your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments (mitzvah) and His statutes (chuqqot) and His judgments (mishpat מִשׁפָּט mish-pawt'); then you shall live and multiply, and the LORD your God shall bless you in the land where you are going to possess it.

Deuteronomy 30:19-20 I call to witness against you this day the heavens and the earth: the life (chai) and the death I have set before you, the blessing and the curse; therefore choose in the life (chai), that you may live, you and your seed; to love the LORD your God, to hearken to His voice, and to cleave to Him; for He is your life (chai) and the length of your days; that you may dwell upon the ground (adamah) which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give to them."

The Torah sets the two ways side by side, and God does not hide which one He wants His people to take. He calls heaven and earth as witnesses and pleads with them: “therefore choose in the life (chai).”

Deuteronomy 28 spells out both ways.

Deuteronomy 28:1-2 And it shall come to pass, if you diligently listen to the voice of the LORD your God, to keep to do all His commandments (mitzvot) which I command (tzivvah) you this day, that the LORD your God will set you on high above all the nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you, and overtake you, if you will listen to the voice of the LORD your God.

Deuteronomy 28:15 And it shall come to pass, if you do not listen to the voice of the LORD your God, to keep to do all His commandments (mitzvot) and His statutes (chuqqot) which I command (tzivvah) you this day, that all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.

Listen to the two phrases: “All these blessings shall come upon you, and overtake you,” and “all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.” The same words serve for both. Whichever way a person walks, what waits at the end of that way overtakes him.

Why Darkness Before the Light?

This raises a hard question. If God loved them, and had just carried them out of the furnace on eagles’ wings, why set a curse before them at all? Why not the blessing alone?

The answer goes back to the first page of the Bible.

Genesis 1:2-4 And the earth was formlessness and emptiness, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the spirit (ruach רוּחַ roo'-akh) of God was hovering upon the face of the waters. And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided between the light and between the darkness.

Before there was light, there was darkness. Then God spoke, light came, and “God divided between the light and between the darkness.” This present world, the world before the new creation, is a world where light and darkness stand side by side, and God Himself says that He governs both:

Isaiah 45:7 I form light and create darkness, I make peace and create evil; I am the LORD, who makes all these.

In such a world, light is seen because it shines against darkness.

A flashlight switched on at noon shows you nothing, but switched on in a dark field it lights every step you take. That is the kind of world we live in now.

John 1:5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

2 Corinthians 4:6 For God, who said, "Light shall shine out of darkness," is the One who has shone in our kardia καρδία kar-dee'-ah(heart, soul-domain)s to give the Light of the gnosis γνῶσις gno'-sis(knowledge) of the glory of God in the face of Yeshua Messiah.

In the words “God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’” Paul reaches back to Genesis to describe what God has done in our hearts. The prophet saw the same light: “The people who walk in the darkness have seen a great light” (YLV Isaiah 9:1, Masoretic verse order).

And the Torah is that light.

Proverbs 6:23 For the commandment (mitzvah) is a lamp, and the Torah is a light, and reproofs of instruction are the way of life (chai),

Psalm 119:105 A lamp to my foot is your word, and a light to my path.

Here is the answer to the question. In a world where darkness is real, the Torah is the lamp in the hands of God’s people. To walk by it is to walk in the light, and that is the blessing. To turn from it is to walk into the dark, and the curse is what God said would meet the one who goes there.

Yet this stage is not the end. It is a necessary stage before a place where there is no darkness at all.

Revelation 22:5 And there will be no night there, and they have no need of the light of a lamp and the light of the sun, because the Lord God will shine on them, and they will reign forever and ever.

Revelation 21:23 And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine for it, for the doxa δόξα dox'-ah(glory) of God illuminated it, and its lamp is the Lamb.

“There will be no night there,” and “its lamp is the Lamb.” Blessing and curse belong to this present world. In the world to come there is only light.

For Good, Forever

Why, then, was the Torah given? Not to make life heavy. Moses says so again and again, and each time he gives the same reason.

Deuteronomy 4:40 And you shall keep his statutes (chuqqim חֹק khoke) and his commandments (mitzvah), which I am commanding (tzivvah) you this day, that it may go well with you, and with your sons after you, and that you may prolong days upon the ground (adamah) which the LORD your God is giving to you, all the days.

Deuteronomy 5:29 Who would give that this their heart would be to them, to fear Me and to keep all My commandments (mitzvah) all the days; so that it might be well with them and with their sons forever.

Deuteronomy 6:24 And the LORD commanded us (tzivvah) to do all these statutes (chuqqim), to fear the LORD our God, for good for us all the days, to keep us alive, as it is this day.

Deuteronomy 10:12-13 And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve (avad עָבַד aw-bad') the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul (nephesh נֶפֶשׁ neh'-fesh); To keep the commandments (mitzvah) of the LORD and His statutes (chuqqot), which I am commanding you (tzivvah) this day for your good?

Read only the reasons: “that it may go well with you, and with your sons after you,” “so that it might be well with them and with their sons forever,” “for good for us all the days, to keep us alive,” and “for your good.” The goal of the Torah is life and good, forever.

That purpose runs from the first book of the Bible to the last. Genesis shows Abraham keeping God’s Torah, and the last chapter of Revelation says this:

Revelation 22:14 Blessed are those who do His commandments, so that their exousia ἐξουσία ex-oo-see'-ah(authority) will be over the tree of zoe ζωή dzo-ay'(life) and they may enter through the gates into the city.

The blessing set before Israel on the plains of Moab is the blessing at the gate of the eternal city.

None of this is how a person is saved. As this book said in its first chapter, a sinner is made right with God by grace, through faith in the Messiah’s blood, as a gift. Israel was carried out of Egypt before Sinai, and that order has never changed. The Torah is how the redeemed live.

But did they walk by the lamp?