Torah #26

Torah is often translated “law,” but its root sense — from a verb meaning “to teach” or “to point the way” — is closer to “instruction” or “guidance” than to law in the narrow, legal sense. In its narrowest use it names the five books of Moses, Genesis through Deuteronomy, called the Pentateuch; more broadly it names the whole covenant instruction God gave Israel through Moses at Sinai.

Biblical Usage

Deuteronomy presents itself explicitly as Torah given through Moses “before the people of Israel” (Deuteronomy 4:44), and Psalm 119, the Bible’s longest chapter, is a sustained 176-verse meditation on the Torah’s goodness, opening: “Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the LORD” (Psalm 119:1) — delight in Torah, not merely obligation to it.

Theological Significance

Jesus positions his own teaching in relation to the Torah carefully: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17), a claim that has shaped the entire Christian debate over how the Torah’s commands apply to believers under the new covenant.