Hebrew Roots

Thrice: "In Exile" I am an exile - a sojourner; A citizen of some other place. All I’ve seen is just a glimmer in a shadowy mirror, But I know one day I’ll see face to face. I am a nomad - a wanderer; I have nowhere to lay my head down. There’s no point in putting roots too deep when I’m moving on. I’m not settling for this unsettling town. My heart is filled with songs of forever - Of a city that endures, where all is made new. I know I don’t belong here; I’ll never Call this place my home, I’m just passing through. I am a pilgrim - a voyager; I won’t rest until my lips touch the shore - Of the land that I’ve been longing for as long as I’ve lived, Where there’ll be no pain or tears anymore. My heart is filled with songs of forever - Of a city that endures, where all is made new. I know I don’t belong here; I’ll never Call this place my home, I’m just passing through.

It seems that many regard Jesus’s response in Matthew 22:34-40, Mark 12:28-31 as a veiled implication of the nullification of the Torah: 34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[ c ] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[ d ] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” - Matthew 22:34-40 Jesus did state that the entire law hangs on the commandments to love God and our neighbour. This however was not revolutionary, Jesus was stating the standard belief regarding the Torah at the time. A rabbinical sage, before Jesus, has been documented as saying: “That which is hateful to you, do not do unto another: This is the w...

613 Mitzvot So what is the Torah exactly? The Torah consists of the Ten Commandments and more, called “mitzvot” the Hebrew word for commandment or commandments. Some have posited that a distinction exists between the 10 commandments and the Mitzvot. The truth is they are one and the same. When God spoke the 10 commandments it came with a terrifying eruption of smoke, lightning, thunder and the sound of a trumpet. The Jewish “Oral Torah” or tradition claims that Israel had a multi-sensory experience. They not only heard God speak his law, but they tasted it, felt it, saw it, and experienced all its many dimensions. In Exodus 20, after God spoke the 10th commandment he was interrupted. The people couldn’t take it anymore and pleaded to have Moses mediate for them, by writing the rest of God’s commandments in a book. Although the commandments or “Mitzvot” that followed after the first 10 commandments were written by the hand of Moses, they are no less important. They all came from Go...

Torah is the Hebrew word usually translated into English as Law. However, to confine the meaning of Torah to just simply “Law” is an over simplification. The word Torah is derived from the Hebrew word Yerah defined as: 'to shoot out the hand as pointing, to show, indicate', 'to teach, instruct', 'to lay foundations', 'to sprinkle, to water', 'to shoot, as an arrow'. Isn’t the last definition reminiscent of something? Throughout my life as a Christian I have always heard the use of the analogy of sin as missing the mark. This evokes the image of aiming an arrow, and with every decision made in life representing the execution of an arrow launched at a target. Yes this analogy is helpful, but what is the target? To what are we to place our aim? Yerah, defined as “To shoot, as an arrow” is our arrow, and the Torah is our target! To transgress the Torah is to miss the mark/target. Yerah begins with the Hebrew letter Yod which carries with it the...

All you great men of power, you who boast of your feats - Politicians and entrepreneurs. Can you safeguard your breath in the night while you sleep? Keep your heart beating steady and sure? As you lie in your bed, does the thought haunt your head That you’re really, rather small? If there’s one thing I know in this life: we are beggars all. All you champions of science and rulers of men, Can you summon the sun from its sleep? Does the earth seek your counsel on how fast to spin? Can you shut up the gates of the deep? Don’t you know that all things hang, as if by a string, O’er the darkness - poised to fall? If there’s one thing I know in this life: we are beggars all. All you big shots that swagger and stride with conceit, Did you devise how your frame would be formed? If you’d be raised in a palace, or live out in the streets, Did you choose the place or the hour you’d be born? Tell me what can you claim? Not a thing - not your name! Tell me if you can recall j...

“For I tell you truly, until heaven and earth pass away, not a single jot, not a stroke of a pen, will disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. So then, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do likewise will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” - Matthew 5:18-20 The following commentary was written by the ICC – International Critical commentary. Amazon says this regarding the ICC: “For over one hundred years, the international critical commentary series has held a special place among works on the bible. It has sought to bring together all the relevant aids to exegesis – linguistic nd textual no less than archaeological, historical, literary and theological – with a level of scholarship unmatched by any oth...

The Easy and Light Yoke 28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Matt. 11:28 -30 KJV) What is the light yoke that Jesus was referring to? …they are foolish, for they do not know the way of YHWH, the requirements of their Elohim. So I will go to the leaders and speak to them; surely they know the way of YHWH, the requirements of their Elohim.” But with one accord they too had broken OFF THE YOKE and torn off the bonds. (Jer. 5:4-5 see also Jer. 2:20 ) In Jeremiah 5, the Yoke is Torah. Thus said YHWH, stand you in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and you shall find rest for your souls. But they said, we will not walk therein. (Jer. 6:16 ) Notice that this “way” which gives “rest” is “the old path”. Now lets read a...

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them." - Matthew 5:17 There are four reasons why Jesus could not have come to "Abolish" the Torah: Deut 13 - a prophet who leads people away from the Torah should be stoned. Deut 12:32 - Torah prohibits adding or taking away from it. If Jesus removed from the Torah by teaching against it, this would be a violation of the commandment and therefore a sin. Isaiah 8:20 - Isaiah states that anyone who does not confirm the law, there is no light in him. Psalm 40:8 - states that the Torah is written on the heart of the messiah. However, in the end we are interpreting our Lord's statement out of context. Jesus of course was having a discussion with Jews, who would not have been able to make sense of such a sentiment (the way that we understand it) - the Jewish paradigm does not allow for the negation/expiration/end of the Torah. According to ...

Ezekiel the prophet was a Levite priest and among the first wave of God’s people forcefully removed from the land by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon after he had laid siege to the city and removed what treasures he could find. Jerusalem was spared but left bare, pillaged and with only the poor to tend to the land. The Israelites were hardened by the event and turned towards Idol worship and the practices they knew were detestable before God. The book opens when Ezekiel is near the river that ran along the side of the Israelite refugee camp in Babylon. On his 30th year, the year he would have been assigned as an active priest in the Temple, God appears to him in the glorious visage known as “Ezekiel’s Wheels.” Ezekiel observes four cherubim with wings outstretched and touching end to end. Underneath each Cherub was a set of living wheels the followed in perfect synchronicity. Above the Cherubim was a platform that supported a throne and sitting on the throne was “the appearance of the...