The Concept of Obedience in the Old Testament

Subject Areas : Judaism

Abdul Hussein Latifi ¹ (Faculty Member of Islamic Azad University, Yadgar Imam (RA), Ray Town)

Received: 2019-08-05 Accepted : 2019-08-05 Published : 2018-07-23

Keywords: Yahweh, obedience, Old Testament, Ten Commandments, People,

Abstract :

Among Middle Eastern religions, Judaism has the most extreme and inflexible Law which can be summarized in the concept of obedience. In Judaism, obedience has an ethnic and individual dimensions. According to this concept, there is a relationship between God and the People, so the obedience that God demands them to do, should be multilateral and complete like the wife’s obedience to her husband and the children's obedience to their father. However, obedience to God that is manifested originally in the Ten Commandments, has gradually been generalized to a wider range of people such as sages, prophets, parents, etc. Emphasizing on the rigidity of the Jewish law, this article firstly seeks to assert the importance of obedience and its dimensions; and secondly by investigating the Old Testament, as the fundamental document of Judaism, it tries to give a true perception of the Yahweh's tremendousness and His extreme sovereignty over the People. Consequently, it can be said that according to the teachings of the Old Testament, Yahweh’s sovereignty over the People and the individuals which mostly conduced to some worldly rewards, on top of which their settlement in the Promised Land, is so extreme and inflexible that disobedience from it ended up to a severe punishments throughout the history, such as diaspora, People's dependency to other nation and alteration or even invalidity of their selectness.

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