Sermon Tone Analysis

Solomon and His Torah

Hello Again.

We’re going to start this week with my favourite midrash which is derived from the words of Shoftim.

It’s a Midrash about Solomon; about how he did some things he shouldn’t have done (i.e. the minor details of the 700 or so wives etc.) and the Midrash seeks to answer the question of “what the heck was Solomon thinking?”

Now, whilst the Midrash is based on the fact that Solomon strayed from God, and whilst it quotes the verses of our Scripture here, the Midrash itself doesn’t really have much historicity in and of itself; or at least any historicity that can be directly verified with regard to Solomon.

That said, when it comes the historical nature of midrash, one must remember that whilst the stories of midrash themselves might not be true, they remain historical in the sense that they were shared in the time of the Second Temple period and formed part of the cognitive environment for the people who lived in that time.

So, whilst the Midrash might not be historically true of Solomon, the Midrash has historical weight in that it existed and was shared in the time of Yeshua.

Our midrash is inspired by the verses;

(NKJV)

15 you shall surely set a king over you whom the Lord your God chooses; one from among your brethren you shall set as king over you; you may not set a foreigner over you, who is not your brother.

16 But he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, for the Lord has said to you, ‘You shall not return that way again.’

17 Neither shall he multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away; nor shall he greatly multiply silver and gold for himself.

18 “Also it shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this law in a book, from the one before the priests, the Levites.

19 And it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God and be careful to observe all the words of this law and these statutes,

The Midrash begins and informs us that Solomon, as per the above verses, set about writing his own copy of the Torah.

This became awkward for Solomon apparently, especially when he came to the verse of Torah which says of the king ‘neither shall he multiply wives for himself...’ Apparently, Solomon saw this command however noted that the reasoning for the command was so that the King’s heart not ‘turn away’ from God. Solomon then got to reasoning, and he thought, the point of the command to not multiply wives exists only to prevent him from losing his loyalty to God.

Solomon reasoned and told himself, I will not turn away from God, therefor, it is permissible for me to multiply wives.

The sages teach us that herein is the danger of trying to rationalize God’s commandments as a means to avoid fulfilling them.

But Solomon finds himself writing out his Torah Scroll and he sits looking at that part of the verse though which states ‘he shall not multiply wives...’.

The Midrash says that Solomon came to the word ‘yirbeh’, which is the word for ‘multiply’ (as in to ‘multiply’ wives) and he drops the letter yud which is at the front of the word yirbeh (which was meant to be spelled yud, resh, het, hey).

Dropping this one letter had a profound effect on the meaning of the sentence.

Without the yud, not only the meaning of the words slightly changes but also the tense of the sentence changes.

It becomes;

He multiplied wives for himself, and his heart will not turn away.

It becomes a sort of positive commandment whereby the King is able to multiply wives for himself whilst also not been turned away from God.

As we know from the Bible, this is not what happened.

But the Midrash continues and here you have to remember that its a lesson taught via story, as was the way in Hebraic culture.

But the Midrash goes on to say;

At that time, the yod of the word yirbeh went up on high and prostrated itself before God and said; ‘Master of the Universe!

Hast thou not said that no letter shall ever be abolished from the Torah?

Behold, Solomon has now arisen and abolished one.

Who knows?

Today he has abolished one letter, tomorrow he will abolish another until the whole Torah will be nullified

Before I get to God’s response.

I want to stress just how full on changing a little bit of Torah can be.

You’ve seen it so far with Solomon and his Torah Scroll, but here’s another example.

Take the word ‘hallelujah’.

Halleluyah has the letter Hey in it (ה).

Hey is a small little line away from been a Het (ח).

If one should mistakenly join the stroke on the left side of the letter hey to the top sideways stroke, it becomes het.

It’s a simple mistake to make but change the hey to a het in the word ‘Halleluyah’ and it becomes something like ‘Hileuluyah’.

But change the hey to a het in the word ‘Halleluyah’ and it becomes something like ‘Hileuluyah’.

Halleluyah is ‘praise God’ as you know.

Hileuluyah means something like ‘desecrate God’.

The two phrases are only one small stoke away from each other in the Hebrew language.

These small strokes in the words of Hebrew are called ‘jots’ and ‘tittles’.

It’s like dotting your i’s and crossing your t’s, that sort of thing.

We could also demonstrate this in the word for Shua – salvation.

Now if you add a yod to the front of the word for Shua you end up with Yeshua and the meaning for shua becomes ‘YHWH is salvation’ (Yeshua).

If you take the yod out, like Solomon did, you end up with just salvation, and salvation without the Yod, which is the start of YHWH’s name, an impossibility because you cannot have salvation without God.

So our little yod is very important; also the jots and tittles are very important.

But back to the Midrash.

God looks at the yod and He begins to respond and He says;

Solomon and a thousand like him will pass away....

And I’m going to have to leave you there in suspense.

I can be painful like that.

But for profound like reasons I will reserve God’s full response to the yod until the end of our Torah Portion.

You’ll just have to read your way there.

Don’t worry, it will do you some good.

The Judicial layout in the times of Yeshua

The Judicial layout in the times of Yeshua

Our portion begins with;

Explain that heading brosef

(NKJV)

18 “You shall appoint judges and officers in all your gates...

This verse is the call for Israel to establish a judiciary system where an ordered system of judges can administer justice as per the Torah.

In fact, there were 4 classes of ‘human authorities’ that were involved in the administration of justice.

They were the judges, kings, priests and prophets.

These people likely originated from the clan elders and the already existing leaders within Israel.

Notably, as with basically the whole Torah, the commandment here is directed to all of Israel who were apparently involved in the appointment of judges.

Also, the commandments relate to judges etc. but are addressed to all of Israel.

Again in the Torah, God is transparent and whilst people have their roles and responsibilities God made all of Israel responsible for the dispensation of justice.

The actual system itself that was established in the land isn’t neatly spelled out for us.

At any rate the legal system within Israel looked like this;

18 “You shall appoint judges and officers in all your gates, which the Lord your God gives you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with just judgment.

Local courts (beit dins) which were later associated with the synagogues.

These consisted of 3 judges.

The beit din is referenced by Yeshua here;

(The Scriptures)

15 “And if your brother sins against you, go and reprove him, between you and him alone.

If he hears you, you have gained your brother.

17 “And if he refuses to hear them, say it to the assembly.

And if he refuses even to hear the assembly, let him be to you like a gentile and a tax collector.

16 “But if he does not hear, take with you one or two more, that ‘by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word might be established.’

18 “Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be having been bound in heaven, and whatever you loosen on earth shall be having been loosened in heaven.

17 “And if he refuses to hear them, say it to the assembly.

And if he refuses even to hear the assembly, let him be to you like a gentile and a tax collector.

19 “Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning any matter that they ask, it shall be done for them by My Father in the heavens.

18 “Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be having been bound in heaven, and whatever you loosen on earth shall be having been loosened in heaven.

20 “For where two or three are gathered together in My Name, there I am in their midst.”

19 “Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning any matter that they ask, it shall be done for them by My Father in the heavens.

20 “For where two or three are gathered together in My Name, there I am in their midst.”

It well worth noting that the context for ‘where two or three are gathered in my name...’ is a legal context where judges are gathered to make a decision within the confines of acceptability (i.e. the Torah).

This verse has been abused by people who think they can simply gather 2 to 3 at a time and that this somehow gives them greater authority.

This tends to get abused in the context of spiritual warfare where people, praying against unclean spirits, think that the strength in numbers alone allows them to ‘bind’ and/or ‘loose’ spiritual powers.

Another significant misunderstanding is the fact that ‘binding’ or ‘loosening’ in the New Testament has nothing to do with spiritual warfare.

These terms are legal terms used commonly at the time (and throughout the whole Talmud and rabbinic sources) for rendering legal decisions.

To ‘loose’ something was to permit something; to ‘bind’ something was to forbid something.

Simples, but yes, when you gather in the Messiah’s name He is with you, and yes, people can engage in ‘kosher’ spiritual warfare.

I’m not saying these things are bad, I’m saying people are abusing the text and misapplying it to things that are not relevant.