Shoftim – Torah with Joseph

Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.

Shalom, my name is Joseph Shulam and in partnership with Brad TV in Korea, we are doing the weekly portions of the Torah that are being read in every synagogue.

And today, just before Shabbat, we are going to do Deuteronomy 16:18-21:9. The portion is called judges, not the Book of Judges, the Torah portion judges from Deuteronomy 16:18-21:9.

Now, let me give you a little bit of historical background. The Book of Judges, the date that is the last possible date for this book, is from the seventh century BC during the reign of King Josiah. Josiah reigned from 640 BC to 609 BC. And during his time there was the biggest religious reformation in Israel. Ancient institutions were changed. Ancient offices around the temple and in the worship of the Israelites, were changed.

There was a centralization of the worship in Jerusalem. What do I mean by centralization? Before Josiah, every village had a priest and every priest had an altar, and with every altar, there was a possibility of offering. People didn’t have to travel a long way to Jerusalem from the Galilee, from the Negev or from Beer Sheva in order to worship God and in order to offer sacrifices to God.

We have the story of the judges like Gideon from Ephra in Samaria, that had an altar there and offered sacrifices there. We had Elijah and not too long before Josiah, the days of Ahab that made an altar on Mount Carmel and offered an offering to the Lord there.

We have many, many examples of Abraham and, our fathers Isaac and Jacob, that made altars all over the land and offered all over the land. And we have archaeological evidence of such altars in Arad and in Megiddo and in Hazor and in other places where Israelites, before the time of Josiah, before the seventh century BC, had high places, altars and temples all over the land.

Josiah centralized the worship in Jerusalem for political and, I think, spiritual reasons, because almost in all the other places that archaeologists dug, they found also side-by-side, with altars to the Lord God of Israel, the almighty God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Also, syncretism idols, household idols were found in Israelite houses, even in Jerusalem and close to Jerusalem.

So, Josiah’s centralization is based on the Book of Deuteronomy. But this week’s portion that is called judges, Shoftim is very, very special. What is special about it? We have ancient codices of law. Like the law of Hammurabi that is hundreds of years proceeding Josiah, and even Abraham. We have the Umnamu code of law also found in Babylon that is even earlier than the code of Hammurabi. But we don’t have, in any of the codes of law or documents of the ancient world, what we read here in this portion of the law of Moses.

Let me read to you the first verses of our Torah portion, Deuteronomy, chapter 16. I’m starting in verse 18 “You shall appoint judges and officers in all your gates, which means all your cities, which the Lord your God gives you according to your tribes. And they shall judge the people with just judgment, righteous judgment. You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality nor take a bribe; for bribes blind the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous. You shall follow what is altogether just that you may live and inherit the land which the Lord your God, is giving you.” Let me stop here in verse 20. Four verses of great importance.

What’s the importance of these verses? That the Book of Deuteronomy, which we believe was given by God, from the Holy Spirit to the children of Israel. Maybe much earlier than Josiah. Maybe much earlier than the seventh century BC. Maybe even written by Moses, but not published until the days of Josiah.

Today in Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, the only democracy among all the Arab countries around us. Such a democracy that in the last three years, we had four elections and before the three years are over, we’ll have five elections. I think you could say, that’s a democracy going to succeed. You could say, that’s a democracy that is vibrant. You could say that this is crazy, but it is a democracy.

But I can’t say that what God commands here in the Book of Deuteronomy, chapter 16 is alive and well and being practiced in my country, in the country of Israel. We’ve had the Minister of Finance in jail. We’ve had the President in jail. We’ve had the Minister of Religion in jail. We had the Minister of Interior Affairs in jail. Right now, we even have a Prime Minister that is accused of taking bribes and is in court. And I hope that he didn’t take bribes and I hope he doesn’t get convicted. But the very strong proclamation of the law of God in the Book of Deuteronomy that says, “don’t give bribes, don’t take bribes, because bribes blind the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous.”

“Inherit the land” is dependent on the purity of our hands, of the righteousness of our heart, of our desire to do right and truth and justice. This is what the Word of God commands us, as the children of God, to make our countries blessed by the almighty God. Justice and righteousness in the land.

Verse one of chapter 17 is another one of these monumental commands that the law of God gives us:

Think about this. When you give something to the Lord, whether it’s your tithes on Sunday morning in an envelope or without an envelope or in a basket or in a plate that is passed from one another in the, through the pews. However you give, what you give, even if it’s money, it has to be clean money. It has to be money you earned with the sweat of your brow. It has to be pure, because God will not accept any gifts, any tithes, any charity that is blemished.

When there were sacrifices in the temple, the priest checked every sheep, every goat, every calf, every cow, every bird to find out if it was healthy or not. If it had a blemish or not. If it was a blind goat, it was rejected. If it was a goat that had a blemish in his leg, it was rejected. It had to be a perfect animal. Our lives and our contributions to the Lord, based on these commands in the law of Moses, also have to be pure, also have to be sincere. Because if our giving is not sincere, it’s blemished. It’s blemished. And the Torah is so clear about these things. There’s so much written in the Torah about this concept.

Dear brothers and sisters, this is the Word of God. I didn’t write it and Martin Luther didn’t write it and John Calvin didn’t write it, and John Wesley didn’t write it, and the Pope in Rome didn’t write it. This is the Word of God delivered to Moses in Mount Sinai. And I said that the finished work of the Book of Deuteronomy, the latest possible date, is seventh century BC. And these commands are so simple.

In my opinion, they’re simple. They’re hard to practice, but they’re simple. And nobody in his right mind will oppose them. Nobody will say, okay, let’s give God a blemished sacrifice. Ah, this goat is sick. Why don’t we just give it to God and get double benefit? No, you’re not going to get double benefit because God knows everything; what’s in your heart. Before you open your mouth and say your words, God has already read them in your heart, in my heart, in our heart.

Another thing that appears in our reading is how do you deal with problems that arise in judgment before the judges, before the officers of the court that are not so simple to resolve. Here chapter 17 of Deuteronomy, verse eight,

Okay. You’re a judge. You’re an officer of the court. A case comes before you, very complicated, and you can’t make up your mind to the right or to the left. You have another higher station to take your judgment to. And that is in the house of the Lord Himself with the priests and with the Levites and the judges that are there in your day. And you bring your case before them and you, together with them, will deliberate and weigh and decide. And whatever conclusion you come to, the judgment that you jointly, in the house of the Lord come to, you will observe and you have to keep it. Arbitration from the divine seat of worship of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is in the one place; in Jerusalem.

By the way, the phrases here in verse 10 of chapter 17 are very important. Why? Because Yeshua uses the same phrase “according to all they order you.” The last phrase of verse 10 in Deuteronomy, chapter 17, Yeshua uses it in Matthew chapter 23, the first verses when he talks about the Pharisees and says the Pharisees sit in the seat of Moses, “whatever they order you, you listen to it.” You observe it.

That is in a case like we have here in the text of Deuteronomy. If you don’t know what to do, you read the law and you don’t know how to slaughter a sheep carefully so that he bleeds. If you go to the Pharisees, when we had Pharisees, God says through Yeshua to His disciples and to people who are around Him at that time, if you go to them, they sit on the seat of Moses. They have the authority to interpret the law, not the prophets and not the writings and not the Song of Songs. The law of God means Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

They sit on the seat of Moses. They have the right to, but if you don’t have an answer and you want to know something, you go to them. And if you ask them to arbitrate for you, whatever they decide, you are obligated to observe.

That’s taken right here from verse 10 of our chapter, chapter 17 of the Book of Deuteronomy. Whatever they sentence you to, whatever decision or interpretation of the law, they are sitting in the seat of Moses, according to Yeshua and you are asking them to interpret the law for you, and when they do, you automatically agree to observe it.

So, all in this portion of the Torah, there are some other things that I want to share with you quickly from Deuteronomy. I will go to chapter 19 of the Book of Deuteronomy, it’s still within our Torah reading of this week. Chapter 19, of Deuteronomy, verse one:

The territory that it is talking about are the cities of refuge.

God had the foresight, had the foreknowledge, of what is going to happen in the court cases in your land. The courts cannot always discern between right and wrong, who did what and why they did and how they did; to seemingly break the law. But for those people who didn’t do something on purpose, didn’t pre-ordained them, planned them, executed them, but did mistakes; and the courts can’t decide between a mistake that was done in good faith, in good intention and accidental from somebody who planned a heist on purpose and killed people during a bank robbery.

Yes, then there is a city of refuge. Three cities of refuge on this side of the Jordan River, three cities of refuge on the other side of the Jordan River. The person, who by mistake killed somebody, by mistake ran over somebody, and is not intentionally guilty, God provided a city of refuge and the people that were in the city of refuge stayed there, ate there, worked there, lived there.

And when the high priest dies the city of refuge empties and everybody is no longer guilty and nobody has a right to touch them. That’s wonderful, wonderful system of supreme justice, reading the people’s intention of their hearts. And God’s grace provides for them, that when the high priest dies, they are free of guilt and free in society. Nobody can touch them.

This is a very important example because it is an example of how a death of a high priest atones for people’s mistakes. That’s a pattern that is fulfilled ultimately for all mankind in Yeshua, who in His house, we find the city of refuge.

And we should appreciate our fellowships, our churches, our communities, as cities of refuge for the innocent who made mistakes and accept them with open arms because our high priest died for all of us, until the end of time, when He returns to Zion in glory.

Hallelujah, God bless you all.