16: Genesis: The Laws Derived from the Creation Story

The Book of Genesis opens with two stories that tell how God created the world.

The first recounts that God created the world in six days and sanctified the seventh day since He rested from the work of creation.

The second story focuses on the deed that led to the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, which we will discuss in the next episode.

The episode before us is dedicated to the first creation story, where the fact that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh, forms a legal foundation for many revolutionary laws, unknown to the ancient world, which are an integral part of the creation of the world.

Based on the creation story, the legislator, who according to the Bible is always God, divided the infinite sequence of days into three portions.

The first portion is of seven days, consisting of six workdays followed by a day of rest, to which all humans and working animals are entitled. In every respect, this is the most advanced social law in human history!

The second portion is seven years, and it refers to what the Bible calls a "Hebrew slave," who fell into a severe economic crisis that forced him to take a loan that he could not repay.

To pay his debt, he had to mortgage his land, and if that was not enough, then he and his wife were forced to pay their debt by working for the lender. In practice, they became slaves for six years – and in the seventh year, they were set free.

The third division expands the second division, and it is 49 years, which is a multiple of 7 times 7 years.

We said that a person who took a loan he could not repay was forced to mortgage his land and his labor to the lender. We also said that he and his wife were set free in the seventh year, but in this case, his land remained mortgaged and continued to pay the old debt.

A person who was set free, but whose land remained mortgaged, could never recover economically – and the third division addresses this situation.

If the land was not released earlier, then it was released after 49 years and returned to its original owner, who was likely no longer alive. But his children and grandchildren were alive, and returning land allowed them to rehabilitate their economic lives.

The story that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh is not as banal as many think. A broad reading reveals that all the social laws scattered throughout the Bible are an organic part of the creation and that they were intended to create a society where everyone is equal before the law. A just society that has compassion for the weak.