Replies

http://www.asknoah.org/LocateSources.aspx

Locate Sources

QUESTION : (a) Where does the Bible say that these Seven Noahide laws were given to Noah, and where does it say that they were given to Adam?
> David

ANSWER : The first six laws were given to Adam. These laws were repeated, and a seventh law was added, when G-d made the Covenant of the Rainbow with Noah. Hence these became known as the Seven Noahide Laws. In the Oral Torah (Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin, chapter 7), it is explained that all of these seven laws are coded within a single verse in Genesis, chapter 2. But first let's start with five of the Noahide laws which are explicitly found in different verses in the Book of Genesis.

1. Do Not Murder.
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."

2. Do Not Have Forbidden Sexual Relations.
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 explicitely 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."

3. Do Not Commit Theft.
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.)

4. Establish Laws and Courts of Justice.
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.

5. Don't Eat Flesh Taken From a Live Animal.
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.")

The sources for the two remaining laws, which prohibit worship of false gods and cursing (blaspheming) G-d, are 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:

1. The word Elokim is one of the holy divine Names which 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.]

2. The unspoken four-letter Divine name in this verse, 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.)

3. The words al ha'adom ("to the man") point to the prohibition against murder, which is stated in Gen. 9:6 (see above).

4. The prohibition of the six forbidden sexual relations (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.")

5. The prohibition of theft is contained within the general sense of the verse, as explained above.

6. The word va-y'tzav ("He commanded") in the verse points 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.]

7. The verse concludes, "you may surely eat" - of the 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 7 Noahide Laws are for all nations?

ANSWER : The simple answer to this question is that when G-d renewed these universal laws with Noah through the eternal Covenant of the Rainbow (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).

The definitive answer to the question is that when G-d told Moses to record the Noahide Laws and the story of Noah in the first book of the Torah, He commanded that these laws should be learned and practiced by all the nations, for all time.

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 from the Director: 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.]