Proverbs 3:1

Law. Heb. torah, most commonly rendered “law” in the OT. It comes from the root yarah, meaning “to throw,” “to shoot,” and in one form of the verb means “to teach,” “to instruct” (see Ex. 4:12; 24:12; Lev. 10:11; 1 Sam. 12:23). Hence torah means “teaching,” “instruction”; therefore the phrase is better rendered, “Forget not my instruction.” The LXX uses the word nomos here, meaning anything assigned, such as a custom, convention, or law. Nomos is the NT word for “law.” If the OT idea of instruction is applied to “law” throughout the Bible, it takes away from “law” the sense of blind compulsion and turns the commandments of God into guideposts on the road of life, warning against dangerous detours into paths of sin (see PK 179).