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covenants. For example, Hammurabi is “the king of justice,” as presented in prologue and

epilogue of his law collection. Thus the law within this power structure is based on

retribution as threatened by the king and his armed services. Sinai law, on the other

hand, is made not between God and the king but between God and people, within the

structure ofprophetic covenant as proclaimed by Yahweh and mediated through a

prophetic figure, Moses (Exod. 19:3-6; 24:1-8; cf. Hosea 12:13). Thus law’s “ground of

being” is Yahweh’s covenant love as the Decalogue amplifies: forgiveness to infinity (to

the thousandth generation, cf. Exod. 20:6; cf. 34:6-7). Retribution is the prerogative of

Yahweh and is limited by the Decalogue to the third and fourth generation; those

generations which make up the ancient Israelite family at any one time (Exod. 20:5). This

lineal contrast between covenant love and retribution makes sense only figuratively;

God’s covenant love rather than retribution is the fundamental principle ofSinai law.

This principle has tremendous consequences for future law and interhuman relationships.

A second characteristic of Sinai law is its “motive-model clause,” an appeal to the

individual heart on the basis of God’s gracious acts and character—an attempt to imitate

God and to make law inward. There are a variety of these clauses, but the main one is

salvation from state slavery, affirmed already in the covenant introduction and the

Decalogue:

∑

You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and

brought you to myself (Exod. 19:4).

∑

I am the Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the

house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me (Exod. 20:2-3).

This fundamental act of the covenant which enfolds law, redemption from Egypt

(Exod. 6:6; cf. Mark 10:45), thus forms the religious-social goal and impetus for the great

legal principles of the Decalogue, policy law. Israel witnesses to this act as an historical

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event of God’s grace which founded their nation. In their weakness they discover that

“Yahweh is a warrior”(Exod. 15:3) who commands them at the sea to ...stand firm, and

see the deliverance that Yahweh will accomplish for you today.... Yahweh will fight for

you, and you have only to keep still(Exod. 14:13-14).6

This gracious act is found also as model and motivation for some techniquelaws,

laws which originally had applied legal policy to individual cases among the clans,

perhaps at their village gates (cf. Exod. 18:13-23; esp. vv. 19-20):

∑

You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of

Egypt.You shall not abuse any widow or orphan (Exod. 22:21-22).

∑

You shall not oppress a resident alien, you know the heart of an alien, for you were

aliens in the land of Egypt(Exod. 23:9).

This covenant love of God, enfolding all law and foundational to the Decalogue

(policy law), is used by Israel’s lawgivers to motivate and re-form technique law, the

individual application of law to interhuman relationships! (cf. Hanson). Only 17 % of

individual laws in this Sinai “Covenant Law Code” include this and other motivating

clauses(20:22—23:33). Later Deuteronomic ( 12—26, 28) and Holiness law collections

(Lev. 16-26) however, have model-motive clauses attached to more than 60% of their

individual laws. Thus, biblical law in its application at the village or clan gate (technique

law, Exod. 20:22—23:19)is brought into tension with the Sinai covenant (19:4-6; 24:1-8)

and the Decalogue (policy law,20:1-17), and grows increasingly inward in its motivation

and increasingly theological in its modeling,Human behavior is to be motivated by and

modeled after God’s gracious acts for Israel. The word is, Nachfolge Jahwe: emulation

of Yahweh. So the Psalmist can later exclaim, Oh, how I love your law! It is my

meditation all day long (Psalms 119:97).7We will later see in the prophets how this

emulation of Yahweh can change human behavior from retribution to covenant love.

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Rifat Sonsino says of the motive clause: “It is noteworthy that, unlike biblical

laws, no cuneiform law is ever motivated by reference to an historical event, a promise of

well-being or, for that matter, a divine will. In fact, in these laws, the deity is completely

silent, yielding its place to a human lawgiver, whose main concern is economic rather

than religious.”(Quote from Lind, Monotheism:66)

A third characteristic of Sinai covenant law is that laws of worship introduce

policy law (worship of one God, prohibition of idols, etc., 20:2-7) and are at beginning

and end and scattered throughout technique law (worship institutions, 20:22-26; worship

festivals, 23:14-19). Along with covenant, these worship laws provide institutional

structure for laws regulating biblical justice--interhuman relationships. In worshiping

situations, this law was proclaimed at regular intervals to all Israel; and every Israelite

was commanded to love and obey it from the heart (Deut. 30:10-13; cf. 6:4-6; Psalm 15).

In contrast, the body ofHammurabi law and comparable NE collections deal strictly

with interhuman relationships. They contain no laws regulating divine-human

relationships. Their primary home is not the worship institution as known in Israel, but

the kingship institution as known by great NE empires. In the modern situation, it is out

of the life situation of the worshiping community that direction will come for life and

death issues such as capital punishment.

The fourth characteristic of the Sinai Covenant Code is its egalitarian nature.

Unlike other NE codes, the biblical law codes make no distinction between social classes

(cf. ANET:175). An exception to this is the singling out of the slave. Yet in every case,

the slave is singled out to protect slave rights. In defense of these rights, the slave is

given first place in technique law: the first of the interhuman laws in the Covenant Code

protects slave rights of the male, the second interhuman law protects the rights of the

slave female (Exod. 21:1-6, 7-11). No laws protecting slave rights have come down to us