Long Winter Night of Legalism: The Scribes

The state of religion among the Jewish people during the period of about four hundred years that elapsed between the writings of the prophet Malachi to the beginning of the Christian era was indeed a long winter night.

Information covering this period is scanty at best especially during the first division when the Jews were under the dominion of the Persians. This period, covering nearly a century, we know next to nothing. The one event connected with it of interest to the Bible student is the production of the books of Chronicles, which is generally thought to have taken place towards the close of the Persian period.

This work, which interrelates with Ezra and Nehemiah, affords an interesting glimpse into the way in which pious Jews at the time when it was written regarded the past history of their nation. It is, properly speaking, not so much a history of Israel, but of Jerusalem or the religion of Jerusalem. Chronicles provides us a hasty sketch of ancient history to the time of David, who made Jerusalem the capital of the nation; a recap of the history of the city under David and his successors till the Babylonian captivity, and then in Ezra and Nehemiah the history of the new Jerusalem.

This period under review is known as the inter-testamental period during which important historical events occurred. Considerable extra-biblical literature was written which had a significant effect on the Mediterranean world and consequently influenced the religious thinking, customs, government, and lifestyle of those living in the Jesus era; such as Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic influence.

With Malachi, the healing light of prophecy ends, not to rise again until John the Baptist appears nearly four hundred years later. Psalmists living in the winter night of legalism uttered the complaint; We are given no miraculous signs; no prophets are left, and none of us knows how long this will be. Psalm 74:9. Psalmists were indeed the closest the children of Israel had to prophets in those years. Their sacred odes were the light peering through the long winter night.

How sad this disappearance of prophetic inspiration to a people that had once listened to the great oracles of an Isaiah and a Jeremiah. It was all the more a misfortune if later generations did not appreciate how much they had lost, which appears to have been the sad fact. The age of hierocracy, when priests and scribes ruled, the great prophets were neglected (broadly speaking). Though their prophecies were preserved, they were assigned a secondary place among the sacred writings, not first. The Law alone was emphatically Scripture; all else was of secondary importance. The spirit of the age in Palestine was disharmonious with prophetism and for Judaism of Alexandria it had almost no relevance.

Why did no prophets appear in those four centuries? Probably at this stage in Israel’s history, there were no other words to be spoken on Old Testament themes. The next Word would be that spoken by Jesus ushering the ideal that local, national, and ritual worship must cease and give place to a universal worship of the spirit. The hour for saying that had not yet come. Prophets do not speak until they must. They do not arise until desperately needed, and then they come, give voice to the yearning of a people, and speak the language of hope. Such a crisis could only come after legalism had had full time to develop and sprout its fruits.

At first, like monasticism in the Christian Church, it appeared to be a good thing, and commended itself to the general religious consciousness. Psalmists longed for the return of the sacred seasons and were glad when it returned and summoned them to go up to the house Jehovah (Ps. 122). They sang the praises of the law, declaring that it was perfect for converting the soul and giving wisdom to the foolish (Ps.14). The Chronicler was heart and soul interested in the temple services. He delighted especially in the temple music, and lost no opportunity referring to it in his narratives. He took great pains to give the Levites all due honor. He so discharged the office of historian that in his writings the Levitical law seems to be in full force even in the old times of David and Solomon. Obviously the time for pronouncing the law weak and unprofitable, and the Levitical religion incapable of perfecting the worshipper as to conscience, is not yet come. The priest and the scribes are in the ascendant, and must do their best and their worst.

The scribes had varied and apparently very useful work to do. One task was that of multiplying copies of the book of the law which Ezra, the father of their order, had written in Babylon and brought with him to Jerusalem. The transcription, collection, and editing of other valuable writings, such as those containing the oracles of the prophets, was also part of the scribes responsibilities.

In the book of Nehemiah reference is made to the prophets in terms which very fully acknowledge their importance as God's messengers to testify against the sin of Israel: "For many years you were patient with them. By your Spirit you admonished them through your prophets. Yet they paid no attention, so you handed them over to the neighboring peoples." Nehemiah 9:30. This seems to suggest that the scribes were familiar with their writings and understood their importance and set sufficient value on them to desire their preservation. Yet, they were by no means put on a level with the Pentateuch.

Another essential duty of the scribes was the interpretation of the law. The law of the Lord, might, as the Psalmist said, be perfect, but it was not easy to construct a code of rules, however numerous and precisely expressed, that would be so complete, unambiguous and self consistent throughout, as to make further legislation unnecessary. The Pentateuch contained laws difficult to reconcile with each other, and though when added together the rules of conduct in all areas of life were many, they still proved to be insufficient for guiding people in all particular instances. Thus, there was a need, it was decided, either for new legislation or for expert interpretation. They scribes did not dare to assume the role of legislators; they adopted the safer role of interpreter and made new laws under cover of explaining the old. The decisions of the scribes then became oral law (tradition).

Oral law was destined to grow to arrogant dimensions and to bear evil fruit. Oral law was intended to be a protection for the written law, a means of protecting it from the possibility of transgression. But the business of guarding the law once begun became a serious problem. The law itself, as reconstructed by Ezra, was a guard to the religion of Israel, as a people in covenant relationship with God. And now in turn, it was discovered that it too needed a protective covering. And the second guard needed a third, and the third needed a fourth and so on until there was nothing but a vast expanse of hedges and the law, for which all the hedging had taken place, the true worship of God, had somehow disappeared.

The immense development of concentric hedging of the law found its historic expression in the Talmud, that vast pyramid in which Judaism lies entombed. It was this pyramid the scribes, without knowing it, were busy building stone upon stone, during the long winter night of legalism. The oral law of the scribes, seemingly, trapped the children of Israel in a world far from God.

(Long Winter Night of Legalism: The Gods - coming soon).