One could steal a sheep anywhere in the world and the locals will have a way of dealing with it. In some places they would restore the sheep and impose a fine, or the penalty might involve prison or even cutting off a hand. The process might be formal with police and a magistrate or it might be handled ad hoc by the men of the community. The point is that every human society has laws and norms, either written or implied. The Israelites, though joined to God, would be no exception. Thus, after taking Israel as His own people, God gave them the set of laws that would govern their society as members of His household. Israel had agreed to this when God sent Moses to ask their consent to the relationship.

Moses went up to God. The Lord called to him out of the mountain, saying, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the people of Israel: You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.”

So Moses came and called the elders of the people and set before them all these words that the Lord had commanded him. All the people answered together and said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do.” (Ex 19:3-8)

According to generally accepted Rabbinic count, the following chapters and books in the Torah then lay out 613 laws. Of the 613, 248 are positive, ‘You shall...’; and 365 are negative, ‘You shall not…’ Most of the positive laws concern specialists within the society, priests, Levites, judges, etc. Those laws have to do with how they perform their duties. For example, the duties of the High Priest on Yom Kippur take up the entirety of Leviticus 16.

Of the laws that apply generally to everyone, some are positive, e.g., ‘Be fruitful and multiply,’ or ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself;’ but most are negative. Since some 60 percent of all the laws are negative, setting aside those applying only to specialists, that makes the general laws overwhelmingly negative.

Many of the negative laws concern “industrial hygiene” for a people who live with God present in the camp. For example, bodily discharges or touching a dead body make one personally unclean and barred from entering the tabernacle on pain of death. Further, some categories of uncleanliness are communicable – whoever comes into physical contact with such a person becomes unclean himself. If, for example, a person ministers to a deceased relative and then inadvertently touches a priest, the priest might not know that he was barred from the Tabernacle for a period of time. God, however, would know. So it would be the responsibility of the (temporarily) unclean person to know his status and take measures to protect the rest of the community.

Most of the remainder of the laws represent God’s prescription for a healthy community: restrain dangerous animals; don’t steal; don’t show favoritism in judgments; don’t slander each other; etc.

How then do all of these negative laws promote human liberty? Consider that, broadly speaking, the two extremes of societal order are: if something is not expressly forbidden, then it is allowed; and at the opposite end, if something is not expressly allowed then it is forbidden.

God’s rules are based on the former principle. That is to say, if one’s behavior does not violate one of His prohibitions then it is permitted. It might be unwise, but not sinful. The area of wisdom is covered by the Bible’s stories which are case studies into human behavior and the consequences of unwise acts. Similarly, books like Proverbs and Ecclesiastes present encoded human experience and wisdom. For example, putting up surety for your neighbor is not sinful, it is just stupid. So Scripture gives abundant advice on how to behave when one’s actions are not specifically prohibited by God.

The latter principle, anything not permitted is forbidden, is to varying degrees favored by people and regimes who want societal power. Consider, for example, the attitude of the Pharisees in their contentions with Jesus. Objectively, all of His actions – healing the sick, casting out demons, etc. – were good and beneficial. Yet the religious authorities were angered and sought to put Him to death. The Gospel accounts explicitly say that their motivation was concern for money, power and societal place.

The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed him. (Lk 16:14)

So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the Council and said, “What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all. Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.” He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. So from that day on they made plans to put him to death.

(Jn 11:47-53)

Their attitude that whatever is not permitted is forbidden can be seen from the following:

One day, as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple and preaching the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes with the elders came up 2 and said to him, “Tell us by what authority you do these things, or who it is that gave you this authority.” (Lk 20:1-2)

There is no intimation that anything He was saying was in error. The assumption was simply that He was speaking without official permission. This attitude would have been proper if there were some sort of Temple service going on. In that case, interrupting would have been out of order. There is nothing of that sort here. He was simply speaking in the ‘public square.’ The confrontation bespeaks their attitude toward law and societal norms – whatever was not explicitly permitted by some recognized authority was forbidden by default.

As mentioned above, human societies all have laws, rules, and behavioral norms. The conflict between God’s desire for maximum human liberty and man’s desire to exercise power and control is clear. Imagine for a moment the entirety of possible human behavior as a great park with gently rolling hills and lush grass. God simply says, “Stay out of these places that My law forbids. I’ve put a fence around those so you can recognize them. You are free to do whatever you like in the rest of the park.” The human government tendency is to say, “You are only allowed to be within that area that we have fenced off. Everything outside of the fence is forbidden.” It shouldn’t require too much imagination to realize which area is larger. There are only 365 laws defining the space that God wants us to stay out of. Going to the law library of pretty much any human government should quickly convince one that there are more than 613 laws involved. (Not all of these laws are improper. Traffic regulations, for example, are benign limitations on freedom: “You shall come to a complete stop at a stop sign and only proceed when the way is clear.”)

Harken back to Genesis and the Garden. The forbidden space as defined by God was to not eat from a single tree. Everything else was permitted. To illustrate the human tendency in that situation, when the Serpent tempted the woman, she said, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ” God said nothing about touching the tree. Perhaps the man had told her that, perhaps it was her own invention, but it was the beginning of humanity’s placing limitations upon the liberty that God intended for us to have.

At the founding of the United States, those writing the Constitution clearly had God’s perspective on law. The document laid out the responsibilities of each of the branches of government and the limitations on their powers. The Bill of Rights explicitly defines a negative space that Government is to stay out of. It further states that all powers and authority not allowed to the Federal Government are reserved to the States or to the people. Said another way, the fence surrounding acceptable behavior was placed around government, not around the people or the States.