God’s law: gift or burden? (Neh 9:9-15)

Once my husband and I were driven by our host to an event in a city that we did not know. Our driver was not entirely sure of his direction and his wife, mother-in-law, and Siri were all giving him instructions, most of which he ignored. It was a hilarious little party that eventually arrived at our location after my husband, with his wonderful sense of direction and a map of the city on his phone, got us there. Navigating geographically takes skill, but so does navigating in the moral realm.

Today, many of our moral absolutes have disappeared and people can decide (within the law) what they consider right or wrong. In effect, we have discarded our moral maps and rely on our inner sense of guidance (our conscience) to set our course. Although God has placed His laws in the human heart, so even those who do not know Him can understand what is right and wrong (Rom 2:14-15), our conscience, like some people’s sense of direction, is not an entirely reliable guide. It can be influenced by the values of society around us, as well as by our self-interest to justify our actions.

The gift of God’s good law

As the Levites keep leading the exiles through their confession, they continue the theme of God’s faithfulness in saving them from Egypt (Neh 9:9-11), but the aspects highlighted from the wilderness wanderings are out of chronological order. In the Exodus story, the Sinai revelation was the culminating event (Exod 13:21-22, 16:4; 17:6; 19:18), while in the prayer here, the law-giving is sandwiched between guidance and provision (Neh 9:12-15). The point seems to be to stress that God’s laws are just as much a gift to the people as are directions and food. This is further underlined by the emphatic description of the laws as just, true and good (Neh 9:13).

Moreover, the placing of the law in the centre creates a connection to the other divine gifts listed. Psalm 119:105 describes God’s law as a light that guides one, while Deut 8:3 stresses that we do not live by bread alone, but by God’s Word. In other words, the law is both a guide and enables living in a way that is full and flourishing.

The law as a burden

We know little about how the exiles thought of the law, but Malachi, who is probably contemporary with the restoration period during Ezra and Nehemiah’s ministry, describes an attitude that looks on God’s requirements as a burden (Mal 1:13). In his prophecy he castigates the exiles for giving God second-best, the lame or sick animals for sacrifice. In effect, some wanted to tick off their obligations but did so in a half-hearted way, while resenting God’s demands. This may have been exacerbated by famine and economic hardship (implied in Mal 3:10), but the overall result of their attitude was that they lost their moral consciousness to the extent that when God confronted them, their response was repeatedly incomprehension of what they had done wrong.[1]

From a different perspective, many see God’s commands and moral law today as a burden that stops us from enjoying all the good things in life and bars us from a sense of fulfilment as our culture defines it, materially, socially, sexually. We have enormous personal freedom that the ancients did not have and could not even dream of. We can choose where we live, what career path we follow, whom we marry (including the choice of gender) and whether we marry at all. Biological advances make it easier to push out the limits of our fertility and even change our sexuality if our subjective sense of who we are collides with our biological markers. Yet, all this freedom comes at a cost. While some of the choices we can make bring great blessings, others go against God’s moral order and land us in more pain and confusion. Like the exiles, we need the reminder that God’s laws are for our good and what He requires guides us into living life that is full and flourishing.

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[1] The Book of Malachi consists of a series of statements by God that the people question. E.g. Mal 1:6-7; 2:17; 3:8, 13.

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