RSEA.D. Week 138

Torah Study Notes for Week 138 of the Torah Reading Cycle

thecord.life/notes/week138

Read
Aloud together to hear the Word (Leviticus 23:1-3; Nehemiah 8:1-4; Luke 4:16-17)

  • Torah (T): Devarim (Deuteronomy) 16:13-22
  • Prophets (P): Micah 6:1-16
  • Apostolic (A): John 7:1-52
  • Additional (ADD): Sirach 4:1-31

Summary
Context and coherence (Nehemiah 8:8)

  1. Deuteronomy 16:13 You will do the feast of booths seven days, after you have gathered in from your threshing floor and from your wine press.
    1. גֹּרֶן goren (H1637) is a smooth level floor for threshing grain harvest to remove wheat berries from the stalk and chaff. This was traditionally done by the feet of people or oxen and later with the use of a threshing tool, called a flail, consisting of a wooden staff with a short heavy stick swinging from it. Threshing is traditionally one of the most laborious and time-intensive parts of hand grain harvesting. After threshing the grain it is winnowed, which means to blow a current of air through grain in order to remove the chaff (cf. Psalms 1:4; Psalms 35:5; Isaiah 5:24; Daniel 2:35).
    2. יֶקֶב yeqev (H3342) comes from a root word which means “to pierce, dig out, or excavate” in the sense of a wine vat or trough below the winepress into which the juice drains (cf. Isaiah 5:2). “Hear another parable. There was a man who was a master of a household who planted a vineyard, set a hedge about it, dug a wine press in it, built a tower, leased it out to farmers, and went into another country…” (Matthew 21:33) The earliest wine press was the human foot or hand, crushing and squeezing grapes into a bag or container where the contents would ferment (cf. Isaiah 63:3; Lamentations 1:15; Hosea 9:2; Joel 3:13)
    3. Both the threshing floor and wine press are used in metaphors about the righteous judgement and wrath of YHWH.
      1. Matthew 3:12; “His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will thoroughly cleanse his threshing floor. He will gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn up with unquenchable fire.”
      2. Revelation 14:19-20; The angel thrust his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vintage of the earth and threw it into the great wine press of the wrath of God. The wine press was trodden outside of the city, and blood came out of the wine press, up to the bridles of the horses, as far as one thousand six hundred stadia.
      3. Revelation 19:15; Out of his mouth proceeds a sharp, double-edged sword that with it he should strike the nations. He will rule them with an iron rod. He treads the wine press of the fierceness of the wrath of God, the Almighty.
  2. Deuteronomy 16:14-15; You will rejoice in your feast, you, your son, your daughter, your male servant, your maid, the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are within your gates. 15 You will celebrate to YHWH your Elohim seven days in the place which YHWH [your Elohim](LXX)(SP) chooses, because YHWH your Elohim will bless you in all your increase and in all the work of your hands, and you will be altogether joyful.
    1. Commanded to Celebrate: חָגַג chagag (H2287) literally means “to feast in a circle” because participants of a festival would gather together and feast and dance in a circle.
    2.  Deuteronomy 12:4-7; You will not do so to YHWH your Elohim. 5 But to the place which YHWH your Elohim will choose out of all your tribes, to put his name there, you will seek his habitation, and you will come there. 6 You will bring your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the wave offering of your hand, your vows, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock there. 7 There you will eat before YHWH your Elohim, and you will rejoice in all that you put your hand to, you and your houses, in which YHWH your Elohim has blessed you. 8 You will not do all the things that we do here today, every man whatever is right in his own eyes; 9 for you haven’t yet come to the rest and to the inheritance which YHWH your Elohim gives you. 10 But when you go over the Jordan and dwell in the land which YHWH your Elohim causes you to inherit, and he gives you rest from all your enemies around you, so that you dwell in safety, 11 then it will happen that to the place which YHWH your Elohim will choose, to cause his name to dwell there, there you will bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the wave offering of your hand, and all your choice vows which you vow to [your Elohim].(LXX) 12 You will rejoice before YHWH your Elohim—you, and your sons, your daughters, your male servants, your maids, and the Levite who is within your gates, because he has no portion nor inheritance with you.
    3. John 4:19-24; “The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” 21 Yeshua said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship that which you don’t know. We worship that which we know; for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such to be his worshipers. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
    4. The Body of Messiah is comprised of whoever does the will of Yeshua’s Father who is in heaven. They are his family (cf. Matthew 12:50). We are “many members in one body, and all the members don’t have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Messiah, and individually members of one another.” (Romans 12:4-5)
      1. 1 Peter 2:5; “You also as living stones are built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to Elohim through Yeshua the Messiah.” (cf. 1 Corinthians 3:16-17; Ephesians 2:18-22; Hebrews 3:1-6; 1 Peter 2:1-10; Revelation 21:1-3)
      2. 1 Peter 2:9; But you are a chosen seed, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for Elohim’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellence of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 In the past, you were not a people, but now are Elohim’s people, who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. (cf. Hosea 1:10; Hosea 2:23)
  3. Deuteronomy 16:16 Three times in a year all of your males will appear before YHWH your Elohim in the place which he chooses: in the feast of unleavened bread, in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of booths. They will not appear before YHWH empty.
    1. Why the males and not females? Would it be sin for a female to not appear before YHWH in the place he chooses?
      1.  The Hebrew word for “male” is זָכוּר zakhur (H2138) because the males of the family remember and pass down the family history through story and family name. Males also act and speak for the family. זָכַר zakhar (H2142) means to recall or act upon events of the past (cf. Genesis 9:16; Deuteronomy 25:17; Numbers 11:5). This word can further mean to remember in thought as a memorial (Exodus 20:8; Numbers 15:39), to mention through speech (cf. Exodus 23:13), to act or speak on behalf of  another (cf. 1 Samuel 4:18). equivalent to the Greek word μιμνῄσκομαι mimnēskomai (G3403) which means to remind; to be recalled or to return to one’s mind, to remind one’s self of, to remember; to be recalled to mind, to be remembered, had in remembrance; to remember a thing; or be mindful of.
  4. Deuteronomy 16:17 Each man according to the gift of his hand, according to YHWH your Elohim’s blessing which he has given you.
    1. Some translations say “as he is able” but the Hebrew term ” אִישׁ כְּמַתְּנַת יָדוֹ ish matana yad” is better translated to “Each man according to the gift of his hand” because in YHWH’s economy and kingdom, all will have something to give and none were to “appear before YHWH empty” (16:16)
  5. Deuteronomy 16:18 You will make judges and officers in all your gates, which YHWH your Elohim gives you, according to your tribes; and they will judge the people with righteous judgment. 19 You will not pervert justice. You will not show partiality. You will not take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and perverts the words of the righteous. 20 You will pursue complete righteousness so that you may live and inherit the land which YHWH your Elohim gives you.
  6. Deuteronomy 16:21 You will not plant for yourselves an Asherah of any kind of tree beside YHWH your Elohim’s altar, which you will make for yourselves. 22 Neither will you set yourself up a sacred stone which YHWH your Elohim hates.

Exhortation
Counsel, comfort, and encouragement (Acts 13:14-15)

  1. Micah 6:8 He has shown you, O man, what is good. What does YHWH require of you, but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your Elohim?
    1. Deuteronomy 10:12; Now, Israel, what does YHWH your Elohim ask of you, but to fear YHWH your Elohim, to walk in all his ways, to love him, and to serve YHWH your Elohim with all your heart and with all your soul, 13 to guard the commandments of YHWH [your Elohim](LXX)(SP) and his statutes, which I command you today for your good?
    2. Matthew 9:12-13; When Yeshua heard it, he said to them, “Those who are healthy have no need for a physician, but those who are sick do. 13 But you go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ (cf. Hosea 6:6) for I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
    3. Matthew 12:1-8; At that time, Yeshua went on the Sabbath day through the grain fields. His disciples were hungry and began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. 2 But the Pharisees, when they saw it, said to him, “Behold, your disciples do what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.” 3 But he said to them, “Haven’t you read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him: 4 how he entered into God’s house and ate the show bread, which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? (cf. 1 Samuel 21:3-6) 5 Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath day the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? 6 But I tell you that one greater than the temple is here. 7 But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ (cf. Hosea 6:6) you wouldn’t have condemned the guiltless. 8 For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
    4. Matthew 23:23-24; “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the Torah: justice, mercy, and faith. But you ought to have done these, and not to have left the other undone. 24 You blind guides, who strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel!
    5. John 7:21-24; Yeshua answered them, “I did one work and you all marvel because of it. 22 Moses has given you circumcision, not that it is of Moses, but of the fathers, and on the Sabbath you circumcise a boy. 23 If a boy receives circumcision on the Sabbath, that the Torah of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because I made a man completely healthy on the Sabbath? 24 Don’t judge according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment.”

Does anyone have specific questions or need any clarification from what was said during the Summary or Exhortation?

Application & Discussion
Living the Word and following Yeshua (Acts 2:37; Romans 2:13)
Questions, input, and sharpening (Proverbs 27:17; Luke 2:46)

Romans 2:13 For it isn’t the hearers of the Torah who are righteous before Elohim, but the doers of the Torah will be justified.

James 1:22 But be doers of the word, and not only hearers, deluding your own selves.

    1. What questions or comments came up during your family’s discussion of this week’s study?
    2. “What other related Scriptures did you find during your study of this week’s portion?”
    3. Have you ever experienced something from this study or something related to it?
    4. “What changes do you need to make in your life to align with what you learned during this week’s Torah Study?”