Did the Torah really say that?
A widely quoted rabbinic statement is “והתורה אמרה: אם בא להורגך – השכם להורגו” (“And the Torah said: If someone comes to kill you, get up and kill him). This statement can be found in a number of places in the Talmud: B. Berachot 48a; Berachot 62b; Yoma 85b; Sanhedrin 72a. As an aside, it is also the name of a book written by the former head of the Shin Bet, Yaakov Peri. The problem is that this apparent quote from the Torah, “והתורה אמרה”, is not to be found anywhere in the entire Tanakh. There are a number of ways to interpret this apparent problem. Not surprisingly later sources presented this statement a little differently. This statement is brought as the interpretation of a different verse (Numbers 25:17) and it does not say “והתורה אמרה”, rather it says “מיכאן אמרו חכמים” (“From here the sages said…). [See Bamidbar Rabbah 21; Tanhuma, Parashat Pinchas, 3 (Vilna)/4 (Buber); Yalkut Shimon, Parashat Pinchas, 747] Another alternative is not to interpret “והתורה אמרה” as “The Five Books of Moses said.” The word תורה has numerous meanings, among them “teaching” and “instruction”. Look at the entry for תורה in Eliezer Ben-Yehudah’s historical dictionary in order to see the different meanings of the word. I think that there may be another answer which incorporates the different uses of the word “תורה”. The original context seems to be Sanhedrin 72a which discusses the case of the tunneler (Exodus 22:1). In M. Sanhedrin 8:6 we read,
If we look back at the statement אם בא להורגך – השכם להורגו we see that the word “בא” is found in both the mishnah and the statement under discussion. While it would have been better for my argument if the word בא was found in the biblical verse which discusses the tunneler, I’ll take the Mishnah as second best. What the Talmud seems to be doing is incorporating a word from a previous source, in this case the Mishnah, and building a statement around it. A number of other sources seem to make similar paraphrases of biblical verses. Two examples are B. Nazir 25a and 40a. In 25a after quoting Lev. 25:18,
לכל נדריהם ולכל נדבותם
the Talmud says התורה אמרה: מותר נדר יהא לנדבה. This isn’t actually written in the Torah, but it is how the Talmud interprets Lev. 25:18. Similarly, on 40a after quoting Numbers 6:4, תער לא יעבר על ראשו עד מלאת הימם, the Talmud says התורה אמרה: אחר מלאת לא תהא תגלחת אלא בתער. Again, that is not actually written in the Torah, but that is what the Talmud is interpreting the Torah to mean. For similar uses of והתורה אמרה see B. Kiddushin 50b, Sanhedrin 3b, 9b, 25a, Keritut 3b; Y. Terumot 6:1/44a, Shabbat 2:1/4c. Another interesting statement can be found in B. Hullin 37a and 103a and Zevahim 70a, “אמרה התורה: יבא איסור נבלה ויחול על איסור חלב, יבא איסור טרפה ויחול על איסור חלב”. Again, not a direct quote from scripture, but something along the lines of “The teaching based on the Torah is…” I am sure that there is much more to say but enough for now.