Many people have probably heard about the Ten Commandments which God gave Moses on Mount Sinai. But though these summed up the basic moral laws that God told his people to keep, they were not the only laws that he passed on to his people.
All in all, there were 613 laws for the ancient Jewish people to live by. Many of the laws involve Jewish rites and are related to Jewish festivals. There are also more practical laws which relate to properties, legal procedures, and health. But there are some laws that may sound strange.
For example, there is the law that acquits a person who killed a burglar before sunrise. Now, although it sounds like it's giving an okay to violence or murder, the core of the provision is that a thief must make restitution for what he has stolen.
In the case that the owner accidentally kills the thief at night, then the owner will not be guilty because it is presumed that it is difficult for the owner to identify who the thief was. If it were during the day, then the owner could simply accuse the thief publicly and they will be brought to justice.
It is also possible that killing a thief at night exonerates the killer because it might be that the owner of the goods (let's say, livestock) was under the impression that the thing that trespassed and tried to do away with the livestock is a wolf or a wild beast.
Another strange law is the one that involves a woman drinking bitter water to prove that she did not commit adultery. The whole procedure is called the ordeal of bitter water, which is an elaborate trial in which a husband who suspects his wife to have committed adultery brings her to a priest, and the priest then lets the woman drink bitter water.
The priest says to the woman that if she is innocent of adultery, then let no harm befall on her from drinking the bitter water. If she is guilty, then curses will be brought upon her, causing her womb to discharge and her uterus to drop.
Whether or not such cases actually happened is uncertain, although it is believed that these laws might never have been observed, for some due to the highly specific nature of the circumstances.
(Image credit: Hendrick de Somer/Wikimedia Commons)