The Messiah in Jewish Thought [10] – Measure for Measure

We are continuing in our study on the messiah in Jewish thought from the tractate Sanhedrin between p. 95 and p. 105. This section contains mostly messianic teaching; but embedded in it are all kinds of concepts important for understanding the messianic setting of the Jewish world. We are now on Sanhedrin p. 100a, continuing with the words of R. Judah.

Suffering for the Torah, Rewarded in the World to Come

This is a very interesting statement, but we need to set it in a broader context. The word "emaciates," which the Soncino translation uses, is in Hebrew "blackens" — from the concentration, the suffering, involved in the study of the Torah. So we see an interesting principle. The rabbis teach — in this case R. Judah, son of R. Simeon — that if a person suffers, if a person dedicates himself to the point of pain in the study of the Torah, the Holy One of Israel will make his face shine in the world to come. In other words, if you invest in this world, you will reap in the world to come; if you dedicate yourself and suffer for the sake of the Torah in this world, you will have your reward in the next.

This opens a whole discussion, and we will see how it is paralleled in the New Testament. First, let me read again the verse from which R. Judah draws his conclusion. He takes a verse from Song of Songs chapter 5 verse 15, to say that in the world to come, the person who "emaciates" his face — who suffers — for the sake of the Torah will shine brightly like the Lebanon. (Lebanon, by the way, is one of the names of one of the seven heavens — I think the third heaven, in Jewish thinking; and we know from 2 Corinthians 12 that Paul said he was caught up to the third heaven. Lebanon is a name of one of the heavens, which is why R. Judah draws from it that the man's face will shine brightly in the world to come.)

Let us go to Song of Songs chapter 5. The context is that the bride describes her beloved, beginning at verse 10: "My beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand." She continues with his eyes: "His eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters, washed with milk, and fitly set." Then in verse 15 she describes his legs: "His legs are as pillars of marble, set upon sockets of fine gold: his countenance is as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars."

What Is a Midrash?

From this verse R. Judah, son of R. Simeon, derives that the man's face will be "like the Lebanon" — meaning here Lebanon the third heaven. Of course, in its plain sense, the context of this passage has nothing to do with the world to come. So how did R. Judah, who was no fool, get from this verse to such a teaching?

This is called a midrash. It means using the words of the text apart from their context, applying them to something sometimes entirely disconnected. We see the same kind of usage of the Hebrew Scriptures in the New Testament. When the Gospel of Matthew says, "Out of Egypt have I called my son," it refers to the fact that the child Yeshua went down to Egypt with his father and mother, and then, when Herod died and the news reached Egypt, came up out of Egypt. Matthew says this fulfills the verse from Hosea, "Out of Egypt have I called my son" — which, in its plain sense, has nothing to do with the Messiah at all.

The same kind of usage is what R. Judah makes of this verse in the Song of Songs. Now, to the Western mind that seems ridiculous — why would he do that? But the concepts behind the use of the biblical text in the Jewish world were quite different from our modern attitude toward the text. The rabbis — already in the time of Yeshua, and probably Matthew, and probably Yeshua himself — had a very Jewish view of Scripture. On that view, not only the plain, logical sense of the text applies, but the words themselves contain hints — what is called in Hebrew a remez, a hint, a whiff, like a whiff of a deeper meaning — that can be applied in other contexts, where the plain sense is not the main thing but what the words hint at is a valid understanding. That is how R. Judah uses this verse from the Song of Songs, and that is what we call a midrash. There are many kinds of midrashim; this is just one, used here by R. Judah to make his point.

The Talmud continues the same theme from different sources — the editors collected several rabbis, from different periods, who taught more or less the same idea. So we continue.

R. Tanhum and R. Dimi: Two More Views of Reward

Here R. Tanhum uses the same formula: if someone starves himself for the sake of the study of Torah — that is, he doesn't work, and satisfies himself with very little (in the modern Orthodox world, that means he makes Torah study his life's work and spends his time in the yeshiva) — then God will richly reward him, and he will be "abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house" — the house of God — and "drink of the river of thy pleasures." This is a quotation from Psalm 36 verse 9, again the same kind of midrashic thinking as before. The idea is very similar to the previous one: in the first it was "emaciates his face," and here it is "starves himself" for the sake of the Torah.

(R. Dimi's name suggests "the one who carries a load.") This verse is from Psalm 68:20. (A note on Psalm numbering: the Hebrew and English numbering sometimes differ by a verse — occasionally, in some sections, by a whole psalm — so be aware of this when checking references.)

R. Dimi's statement brings in another dimension. The previous rabbis saw the reward as a counterbalance to one's suffering in this world: blacken your face, and your face will shine; starve for the study of Torah, and you will have food and drink. It was "this for that." But R. Dimi says it is not strictly cause and effect: God will give every righteous person His full hand — not according to the measure of suffering in this world, but a full measure. He will fill your hands with all his glory, not only in proportion to your suffering. This is a new dimension. And the verse he brings — "Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits" — means that the real reward, for R. Dimi, is not only in the world to come, "measure for measure." It is that daily, even now, God loads us with his benefits; and in the world to come — his salvation. It is a new idea, though the formula is the same: not only in the world to come, but daily now, and in the world to come, salvation. Not "if you give up food, you get food," but "if you do what is right before God and live in his righteousness, you receive now — daily bread, as Yeshua said, 'Give us this day our daily bread' — and also salvation."

Abaye's Objection: Is the Reward Measured?

Abaye, one of the famous Babylonian rabbis, demurred — objected to R. Dimi's broadening of the scope of this relationship.

Abaye disagrees with R. Dimi. R. Dimi says God will "fill your hands" — which is not an exact measure; if you are righteous, God will give you everything. That is like what the Gospel of Luke says in chapter 6 verses 37–38. Luke teaches the exact same thing R. Dimi taught, and also the exact thing Abaye is objecting to. Verse 37 is on the basis of "by the measure you measure, you will be measured" — an exact measurement, what you give is what you get:

But in verse 38 Luke says, like R. Dimi:

There is a kind of tension between the two halves. On the one hand, "by the measure you measure, you will be measured" — you receive what you give. On the other hand, "pressed down, and shaken together, and running over" gives the impression that you get more than you give. That is Luke's point, and that same tension is what lies behind the disagreement between R. Dimi and Abaye.

310 Worlds

We'll return to Luke and Matthew shortly. For now, let's see how the Talmud handles Abaye's objection.

(Aggadah here means the teachings of the rabbis brought outside the Mishnah and outside the halachic discussions. And "the West" means the Land of Israel — for the Babylonian rabbis like Abaye and R. Dimi in the Amoraic period, the West was Israel. The Soncino translation, made in England, unfortunately renders it "[i.e. Palestine"]; but we are living in the State of Israel, west of Babylon, so I am simply explaining the English text.)

Here is a glimpse into the world of the rabbis, especially in Babylon in the third and fourth centuries. The reply says the reward is not unlimited but has a measure — and that measure is in the word yesh, whose numerical value is 310. So the righteous man will inherit 310 worlds, derived from Proverbs chapter 8 verse 21, where Wisdom describes her role: "That I may cause those that love me to inherit substance [yesh], and I will fill their treasures." They took the numerical value of the word yesh — "there is," "to have" — and concluded that the righteous man will inherit 310 worlds, not an unlimited amount. To modern thinking this seems a bit odd, but in the Orthodox Jewish world even today they marvel at it: he took a verse, and from the numerical value of one small word drew the conclusion that the righteous will inherit 310 worlds.

Measure for Measure

I'll continue reading, then return to the New Testament parallels.

According to the Talmud, this means: in the same measure that sin spreads, so it is punished; and the same holds for righteousness. This is the concept of "measure for measure." With this word of R. Meir, I want to turn to the New Testament, before we come to R. Judah's words for the conclusion of this teaching.

In the New Testament, in the passage we already read from Luke — "Judge not, and ye shall not be judged; condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned; forgive, and ye shall be forgiven" — this is clearly the concept of measure for measure, and in Yeshua's own words in verse 38: "For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again." The same teaching is repeated in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 7 verses 1–2: "Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." (The word "again" is not in the original; it is an English stylistic addition. The text says, "by the measure you measure, you will be measured.")

The same words that R. Meir speaks — this very early rabbi who lived at the end of the first and beginning of the second century (a Tanna, not an Amora) — are the words Yeshua speaks in the Sermon on the Mount, and they are part of the main moral teaching of the New Testament. Now, that is a very interesting thing. If we ask, who took from whom — did Yeshua take from the rabbis, or the rabbis from Yeshua? — Yeshua precedes R. Meir by about eighty to ninety years. It is interesting to consider, but we need not settle it now. What we do need to consider is how this relates to the Talmudic passage and to our lives.

Here in the New Testament is the concept of measure for measure: judge not, so that you not be judged; condemn not, so that you not be condemned; by the measure you measure, you will be measured. Yeshua has parables about this — for example, the man who would not forgive his fellow servant's debt, whom the king, having forgiven him, calls back and says, "You did not forgive your brother; therefore you will pay your debt to me in full," and sends him to prison until he has paid it all. All these parables come from the principle of middah keneged middah, measure for measure — the same idea we see in the rabbinical world and in the world of Yeshua.

Treasures in Heaven

Now let us return to the first half of our lesson, which dealt with the same principle from the angle of those who sacrifice in this world and inherit in the world to come — the section with R. Judah, son of R. Simeon, and R. Tanhum b. Hanilai. If we read again in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 6 verse 19:

Here is a principle very similar to R. Judah's: if you suffer in this world for the sake of the kingdom of heaven and the Gospel, you will be rewarded — because everything you build up in this world is corruptible: it spoils, it rusts, it is stolen; it is not of permanent value. But whatever you do for the kingdom of God is of permanent value, and you will have a permanent reward for it — very similar to what the Talmud was saying.

The teaching continues in Matthew 6 and comes to its conclusion in verse 33: "But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."

And here is an interesting difference from the Talmud. Yeshua says the same thing R. Judah and R. Tanhum said — "if you deprive yourself for the sake of the study of Torah, you will be rewarded" — but he does not say the reward is only in heaven. The reward here is, probably, both in heaven and on earth. He says: if you put first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, all these things — which he has been speaking of, drawing on the famous saying about the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, which do not labor for food or clothing, yet God feeds and clothes them — will be added to you. This is not brought to tell people not to work, but to tell you that God rewards those who put the kingdom of heaven first. The same principle we read in the Talmud — that if you "emaciate" or "blacken" your face, if you suffer in this world to do the will of God and study the Torah, God will take care of you — but the difference in Yeshua's words in Matthew 6:33 is that he does not say "in heaven." He does not say you will be rewarded only in heaven. The reward comes as God adds to you all the things you need to live now on this earth — food, clothing — as we learn from the larger context of Matthew 6. So the principle of "measure for measure" — that as you act, and as you give to God, so you will reap — runs throughout the New Testament.

The apostle Paul, in 2 Corinthians chapter 9, deals with it the same way: "He who sows sparingly will reap sparingly." Whatever you sow, you will reap — the exact same principle as measure for measure. Sow much seed in the ground, and you will reap much. And interestingly, it is not only in the context of giving money to the Church, the ministry, or the evangelist; the context is everything in life. Judge your brother, and by the measure you judge him you will be judged; condemn your brother, and by the measure you condemn him you will be condemned. This principle is taught too little, and we need to repeat it constantly in our lives, because it can be a wonderful motivation to do what is godly and right in the kingdom of heaven: if we do not want others to condemn us, let us not condemn them; if we want others to bless us, let us bless them. This valid Jewish principle runs throughout the whole New Testament — the Epistles, the Gospels, and all the teaching of Yeshua.

We will continue our study from page 100b in the next teaching.