I am a stranger on the earth; hide not Your Commandments from me. Psalm 119:19

The Seven Principles

One Father created us all. He Who lovingly grants us life and free will also blesses us with the gift of His commandments. Every person of every nation is bound by Divine law.

The eternal sacred movement known as Israel, the Jewish people, an ever-changing world people made up of all peoples and nations, are called to live by the Covenant of Sinai, including the Ten Commandments and the entire Law of Sinai - the Torah.

The vast majority of humankind, non-Jews, or Noahides, are subject to an older, pre-Mosaic covenant, which applies to everybody, including Israel, the Jewish people.

If you ever read the Bible, you remember Noah and the Flood. Think of Noah and the Flood and the rainbow after the Flood. In the Book of Genesis, chapter 9, you read of the covenant - the word "covenant" comes up seven times - between God and "all the Earth." That's the Noahide Covenant. The rainbow, that chapter teaches, is the eternal symbol of that covenant.

The First or Rainbow Covenant consists of seven principles, or laws - just as that chapter refers to "covenant" seven times. Think of them, perhaps, as seven principles.

Believe it or not, these seven principles are the heart of the Bible. They are the bedrock of civilization.

The seven don't include the entire Law that God commanded Israel at Sinai. They don't include the people of Israel's unique cultic or religious "statutes" - because those parts of the Bible are not universal laws. (They are Torah principles - principles of higher consciousness - which exist as "righteous statutes" for the guidance of all humanity, but they are not legally incumbent on all humanity. Those parts forbid the Jewish people from eating pork, for instance. The seven principles, which are universal, don't include any prohibition against eating pork. Those parts include the commandment to celebrate the Seventh Day sabbath; to not harbor envy against one's neighbor; to circumcise male infants eight days after birth, and so on: these are all what the Torah calls "righteous statutes," which exemplify the Torah's greatness, but they are not universal laws. They are not legally binding on all humanity - unlike the Seven Laws.

For more on this distinction, and on the nature of the Torah's "righteous statutes" (see Deuteronomy 4:5), see the series on Torah statutes in our newsletter, Covenant Connection.

The Seven Noahide Principles do include, in outline, every single precept, law and commandment in the Bible that's logical. That is, all the Noahide laws make sense on their own. Human beings have the ability to recognize them as true even if the Bible didn't say so.

Because they cherished it as God's Way and because God designed the human race so that the People of Israel would help show humankind His Way, only the People of Israel kept this ancient tradition intact - by saving it as part of the Torah, the ancient Biblical Tradition.

Declare ye among the nations, and publish, and set up a standard; publish and conceal not. Jeremiah 50:2

We state these seven principles below as they have come down to us, phrased in negative terms - as "thou shall nots." We need to see them for what they really are, however. They are positive principles. They remove the darkness from our lives and replace it with light. They give us a platform, a vantage point, from which we can clearly see what is sacred, sane, true and wise and godly. In essence, these Seven Principles give us the secret of existence.

Go to our newsletter, Covenant Connection, and to our book, Rainbow Covenant, to get more than the summary, cursory description below of this incredibly beautiful, complex body of ethical, moral, and spiritual wisdom. Also, go to the newsletter and the book to get a fuller sense of the real meaning and context of all this Divine legislation and knowledge.

Taking the Seven Noahide Laws from the seemingly narrowest and most mundane to the broadest and most spiritual — the order in which they are discussed in Rainbow Covenant — they are:

1. Dietary Morality

You shall not eat flesh that was cut or torn from a living creature, from any bird or mammal.

Every creature eats. This eternal, universal principle requires us, the creatures whom God made His stewards over the Earth, to treat the animals that we eat (and ultimately, every creature subject to human control) with self-control, self-respect, and a decent regard for other life.

God Who gave humankind dominion over the Earth despises cruelty, indecency and savagery. He calls on us to conduct ourselves better than mere animals - as piggish animals. He didn't create us in His image to waste His Earth's resources or mistreat our fellow creatures.

To treat animals cruelly is wrong. To eat, as animals eat, disgusting things, is wrong. To combine the two wrongs, to be so heedless of one's fellow creature's suffering as to eat its flesh before it's even dead, violates this law.

2. Against Larceny

Larceny - every kind of unrighteous or dishonest taking, including theft, fraud, robbery, receiving stolen goods, rape, kidnapping, assault and battery, defamation, counterfeiting, oppression of debtors or employees, and commercial crimes of every sort — defiles the Earth.

3. Against Sexual Immorality

Not all love is holy. God commands us to refrain from certain acts of perverted love and self-destructive sexuality. Just as sex offers us a means to make ourselves more fully human, it can also reduce us below the level of the animals.

4. Against Murder

One must study this Principle to understand the implications of matters including suicide, self-defense and the defense of others, "mercy killing" and physician-assisted suicide, war, capital punishment and abortion.
* See, for instance, Articles: Terri Shaivo, Life and Death

5. Against Lawlessness

Mankind is divinely obligated to act against injustice wherever possible. Judgment is not something that one can simply leave to Heaven: in matters of goodness and justice, human beings are God's agents on Earth. To fail to act against injustice, when one has the opportunity to act, is wrong - is, in many cases, criminal.

This principle functions as a positive principle - not merely a negative injunction, prohibiting injustice — to create and sustain a fair, just system of laws, police and courts.

6. Against Sacrilege

The sacred principle touches on every Noahide principle. God grants us not only the power to honor Him but also to dishonor Him here on Earth, before one's fellow men. He grants us free will to choose our way for ourselves. He forbids us to dishonor Him.

However we think of God - whether as "Hairy Thunderer" or "Cosmic Muffin," as distant spirit or immanent and physical, as a Being with associates or partners or as absolutely and uniquely One - we need to remember that the things we do in His Name reflect back on Him.

7. Laws against Idolatry

Every Divine principle comes back to this principle, and makes the same all-important point. God is good and He loves goodness. If you try to worship Him by doing evil you are not worshipping Him - you are serving something or someone other than God.

This law and the law against sacrilege work together like the legs of a person walking.

* * * *

These are the Seven Universal Moral Principles - in outline. But the outline is just the beginning of knowledge.

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