Open Bible Data Home About News OET Key
OET OET-RV OET-LV ULT UST BSB BLB AICNT OEB WEB WMB NET LSV FBV TCNT T4T LEB BBE MOF JPS ASV DRA YLT DBY RV WBS KJB BB GNV CB TNT WYC SR-GNT UHB Related Parallel Interlinear Dictionary Search
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W XY Z
CIVIL LAW AND JUSTICE*
Civil law deals with private disputes between individuals occasioned by debt, divorce, inheritance, or other relationships. In contrast, criminal law deals with crimes such as murder, treason, or theft. In civil cases the guilty party is asked to compensate the victim in an appropriate way.
This distinction between civil and criminal law is quite foreign to biblical thinking. Nearly all offenses were matters for private prosecution. If someone was murdered, his relatives were responsible for killing the murderer or chasing him to the nearest city of refuge, where a trial would be held. All offenses in Israel had a religious dimension: theft or adultery was not merely an offense against one’s neighbor but was a sin against God. This meant, in theory, that every Israelite would be shocked by such behavior and would want it punished. If such acts continued, God himself might step in to punish the individual, his family, or even the whole nation. This religious dimension gave an aura of criminality to every offense, even though in most cases prosecution was left in the hands of individuals.
See also Courts and Trials; Criminal Law and Punishment; Dietary Laws; Divorce; Divorce, Certificate of; Hammurabi, Law Code of; Law, Biblical Concept of; Leviticus, Book of; Marriage, Marriage Customs; Commandments, The Ten.