In the Oral Torah (Babylonian Talmud, Tractate
Sanhedrin, chapter 7), it is explained that all of these Seven Noahide
Commandments are encoded within a single verse in Genesis, chapter 2.
But first let's start with the five Noahide Commandments which are
explicitly found in different verses in the Book of Genesis, and one
which is found in Leviticus:
1. Do Not Murder.
The edict against murder, and the punishment
for this transgression, 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 that 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 explicitly 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). This Noahide
commandment was cited explicitly by Abraham in Genesis 21:25.
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. It should
also be noted that all the men of Shechem were also guilty of the sin
of idolatry, as evidenced by the idols which the sons of Jacob removed
from the city (Gen. 35:2,4). Also, note that Jacob called for the
judgment of a court of law in Gen. 31:37.
5. Don't Eat Meat that was Taken from a Live
Animal.
Adam and Hava (Eve) were not given permission
to kill animals for food, and this remained in effect 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 meat that was
severed from a living animal (even if it was stunned and insensitive).
This commandment given to Noah is recorded in Genesis 9:4.
("Nevertheless, you may not eat flesh with its life, which is its
blood.")
6. Do Not Commit Blasphemy.
Leviticus 24:10-17 relates the incident of a
Jew who violated the injunction of Exodus 22:27 and blasphemed in
anger, and the Divine edict proclaiming this to be a capital offense.
Moreover, it states in Leviticus 24:15, "ish
ish (any man) who curses his G-d shall bear his
sin." Why the double expression of ish
ish (literally: a man, a man)? To include all
mankind, Jews and Gentiles. This demonstrates that blasphemy thus is
prohibited to Gentiles as a capital offense even as it is for Jews.
(Tractate Sanhedrin, p. 56a)
7. Do Not Worship a False Deity.
The source for this remaining Noahide Commandment is explained below.
But first note that the recounting and recording of the Seven
Noahide Commandments 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 Commandments and three
additional Jewish Commandments, which the Children of Israel had
already been commanded before they arrived at Mt. Sinai. (Moses told
this total of 10 commandments 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 verses which inform us of
the earlier Covenant of the Rainbow and the Noahide Commandments, and
the Book of Exodus up to that point. G-d thus commanded the Jewish
People to publicize the Noahide Commandments, to teach them to all the
nations of the world for all generations (whenever possible), and to
require acceptance of the Noahide Commandments by all Gentiles who
choose to live in the Land of Israel under Jewish authority.
In the Oral Torah,
given to Moses at Mount Sinai and passed down through the Jewish
prophets and sages and recorded in the Talmud, it is explained
(Tractate Sanhedrin, p. 56b) that all these Seven Noahide Commandments
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 E-lokim 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 Noahide Commandments are coded
into Gen. 2:16 as follows, as explained by the Talmudic sage Rabbi
Yochanan:
1. The word E-lokim is
one of the Divine Names that 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 statement to Adam in Gen. 2:16 implies
that only G-d should be worshipped, but not an idol. Accordingly,
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 judgment; 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 Havayeh,
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/Havayeh
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, as explained in
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 [while she is married to the other
man]? Would that not bring profound guilt upon the land? Yet you have
committed adultery with many lovers and would now return to Me [without
repenting] - 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 E-lokim/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. |