How many rules and regulations did the law of the Jews consist of in Jesus and Paul's day?
In Jesus and Paul’s day, the law observed by the Jews consisted of a whole set of six hundred and some rules and regulations. This was not the pure Old Testament law alone but a body of man-made ideas and rabbinic additions that had been built up through studying various aspects of the Old Testament.
Les teaches that the law in Paul’s and Christ’s day had been watered down with man-made ideas, so that it was a whole set of six hundred and some rules and regulations. That was the law the Jews really attained to—the law the rabbis had put together by studying the various aspects of the Old Testament. Paul still did not forsake the morality of God’s law. He became as under the law to those under the law, and as without law to those without law, yet not without law to God but under the law to Christ, so that he might gain the weak and save some.