Exodus chapter 22

These are rules governing the protection of property and various other rules showing how to act in certain specific situations. They are not meant to cover every situation, but are general guidelines as to what to do. Using these guidelines, the people should be able to set laws that were fair and just.

But as with everything, there would be situations that crop up that are not specifically covered here. I would imagine that is how the Rabbis started giving their rulings on matters, and the whole problem in Jesus' day with the Pharisees having rules governing what you could and could not do on the Sabbath. I mean, if plucking a few heads of wheat from the edge of the field was considered to be harvesting it shows to what extent the rules had become picky.

It is easy to get carried away, to try and come up with something that would cover each and every circumstance, but in reality, that is just not possible. What is necessary is to keep the Ten Commandments in mind, pay attention to these specific examples to see the gist of what is meant, and then follow that. It obviously became commonplace to take everything to the nth degree, and common sense was left behind as strict adherence to the rules became the norm. God did not intend us to live our lives forever watching to see if we were breaking some rule or other. Jesus came to bring us life in all its fullness, not to bring us life filled with petty rules saying we could do this, we couldn't do the other, we must follow this tradition, and so on.

We need to apply the Ten Commandments but keep common sense around as well.