Scripture often presents salvation and redemption in legal imagery, including court scenes. Genesis 18, for example, is a court hearing in which Abraham argues the fate of the city of Sodom before Yahweh, “the Judge of all the earth” (Gen. 18:25). Just because it does not have all the trappings of legal procedures that we are used to in the modern world does not make it any less a proper legal hearing. The ancient world did things in a less complicated but no less formal way. The vision of the last days in Daniel 7 is structured in courtroom imagery. Another cosmic courtroom scene appears in Zechariah 3. And the New Testament is replete with judgment and other legal metaphors and images, including Christ’s parables and the book of Revelation.
Because God chose to reveal His plan of salvation through such imagery, we need to understand biblical concepts of justice if we are to grasp what He is seeking to tell us through such figures and metaphors. The legal images in the Bible derive from Israelite custom and culture rather than from the modern legal systems familiar to us. Viewing Scripture through modern concepts of justice—especially criminal law—can dangerously distort the biblical teachings of salvation and divine justice.
When we hear the words “justice” and “judgment,” most of us automatically think of punishment. The goal of much modern law is to seek out the guilty and to punish them for their crimes. Thus we equate justice with getting what a person really deserves. Biblical courts were not concerned with punishment to the same extent that modern courts might seem to be. The ancient court had primarily problem-solving as its goal. These problems covered the whole range of life, including boundary disputes, inheritance, business transactions, adoption, and marriage, plus what we today would call “criminal” infractions. The court acted as arbitrator in disputes and quarrels, or in any situation that might require a decision. Though it did have a policy function, it performed a large number of what we would today consider as social or welfare services.
A fundamental difference between Israelite justice and much modern law was the way it approached a case. For example, what we would classify as larceny, the Israelite court treated as a civil offense rather than as a crime against a state. Such a case would consist of a suit with the property owner as the plaintiff and the person who took or damaged the property appearing as the defendant (see Exod. 22:1-5). A crime was never against an impersonal state, but always against a person. Even treason would be against the king or ruler, not an abstract nation. It was up to the victim to bring the problem to the attention of the court, and then the court would deal with it. But when a case did come before it, it zeroed in on how to solve the problem that the act or situation had created. For example, livestock law dwelt on terms of settlement and not on establishing guilt. It was a positive goal rather than exclusively a negative one of punishment.
The primary task of an Israelite judge was to hear the disputants in a case and decide who was in the right and who was guilty of wrongdoing (Deut. 25:1). The word Deuteronomy uses for rendering justice means “to set right,” a clear indication of the goal of Israelite jurisprudence. It sought to restore the community to health by recognizing the righteous party and imposing on the guilty a penalty proportionate to the wrong; forty blows were the maximum allowed (Deut 25:3). Notice that the point of punishment is not an end in itself, but to bring the community back into harmony.
By modern standards, legal proceedings were extremely informal and community-oriented. There is clear evidence of higher courts to which lower courts could send cases that were difficult for them to handle (see Deut. 17:8-13; 2 Chron. 19:5-11). Under the influence of the Greeks and Romans during later Jewish history, though, the court system did become more structured.
The king might act as a judge in the capital city, but that was not usually the case elsewhere. Otherwise, there was no formal class of legal officials such as we know today. The “judges” depicted in the book of that name primarily acted as deliverers of their people from their enemies. Instead, biblical judges were individuals respected by the community, though often from the wealthier landowners or leading citizens or the priesthood. There was no group comparable to modern lawyers during the Old Testament times. The Bible does not mention legal training as a requirement but instead stresses high ethical qualifications.
The best way to understand how biblical justice worked is to look at a representative case in action. We shall consider one involving the theft of a sheep. Because there was no such thing as a public prosecutor or a counterpart to the idea of crimes against the state (God often refers to Himself as the advocate or defender of the poor and other disadvantaged), the person who suffered the loss had to bring a suit against the alleged thief. Thus even “criminal” cases were handled in a manner more like modern civil cases.
In a small Palestine village, a person would often have a good idea of who a potential thief might be. Generally, it would be a neighbor. The victim would go to the open area by the city gate, perhaps dragging the accused with him and some witnesses. There he would round up some of the men present and state his problem to them. He would ask for justice. The appeal itself would bring the court into existence. Unlike modern legal systems, the biblical court did not seem to exist in and of itself. It came into being only when needed and would disband the moment the case was settled.
Standing before the assembled group of elders and the ever-present audience of fellow villagers, the plaintiff would state his case. The defendant or other party would present his side of the controversy or problem. The impromptu court could summon witnesses to determine or verify the facts. In capital cases, no decision could be made without the testimony of at least two or three witnesses (Deut. 17:6). As in modern trials, either party might offer physical evidence. A herdsman accused of stealing or losing an animal had to support his claim that a predator had taken it by producing the mangled remains (Exod. 22:13).
In cases of theft, biblical justice called for the thief to restore the stolen object (the sheep) with compensation. If he had slaughtered or sold the sheep, he had to pay back four sheep (Exod. 22:1). However, if it was found in his possession, he had to pay back double (v. 4). Since people had to continue living together in the small, intimate communities, justice always sought some means of fairly restoring harmony between the plaintiff and the defendant. This applied even to capital cases. The execution of a murderer did not only serve to enforce the deserved punishment, but it also released the tension between the family or tribe of the victim and the murderer’s own clan.
It is this type of justice and legal system that God chose as a source of illustrations to communicate His love and plan of salvation to us. Unless we understand and keep in mind the type of justice the Bible sought, we will miss or distort many of the messages that He couched in imagery taken from it. The Lord wants us to understand that He is a God of concern, restoration, and reconciliation but also punishes the guilty. Consider the cosmic court scene in Zechariah 3, one with cosmic dimensions that rightly understood can give us a powerful assurance and confidence in God’s gift of salvation.
Zechariah portrays a heavenly courtroom where Satan—a name meaning “accuser”—has brought a lawsuit against Joshua, the high priest of God’s people, and their representative. Satan points to the man’s filthy garments. The clothing symbolized the priest’s evident and undeniable guilt. He was unclean, defiled, and could no longer serve as a high priest. And by extension, his sin involved God’s people themselves. The judge before whom the two stand is the Angel of the Lord, who represents God in His role as divine Judge. Desiring reconciliation rather than the punishment Joshua deserved, the Lord, out of His mercy, ruled in the high priest’s favor. He has the soiled robes removed from the guilty man and replaces them with “rich robes” (Zech. 3:4). This occurred outside the human legal system and was based on God’s forgiving grace. The gift of clean clothing is God’s gift of salvation. Justice in the cosmic courtroom is on the side of the guilty and needy. The goal of divine justice is to dispense salvation. Yet punishment is meted out to those who refuse to accept God’s salvation (Rev 20:11-15)
Unfortunately, Israel did not live up to its high ideal of justice. As wealth and power began to fall into the hands of a few wealthy landowners, the tradition of community justice began to decline. Bribery and dishonest practices undermined the courts. They became more concerned about property interests, reflecting justice of the other nations and their laws. God tried to call the people back to the true goal of justice. Amos and the other prophets appeal for respect for justice “in the gate” (Amos 5:10, 12, 15; Zech. 8:16). By the time of Christ, Israelite justice had come to imitate the other Near Eastern legal systems, especially in its desire to protect the wealthy class over people, relationships, and needs. The Herodian and Roman governments overshadowed or practically displaced the community courts. But a memory of the ideal remained and stood behind the New Testament usage of legal imagery. And the village court concept would be reconstituted in rabbinical Judaism, where traces still linger today.
Israelite justice existed primarily to restore and reconcile. People did not fear the court, but eagerly and confidently sought its aid. When God, through His spokesmen, described His salvation through imagery borrowed from the justice and court, He intended it to inspire the same confidence and eagerness.