Tag-Archive for » Deuteronomy 32:4 «

A Slight Modification

Sunday, July 22nd, 2012 | Author:

Whoever is wise, let him understand these things; whoever is discerning, let him know them.  For the ways of the LORD are right, and the righteous will walk in them, but transgressors will stumble in them.  Hosea 14:9  NASB

Are right – Hosea reveals that YHWH’s darke (paths) are yesharim (straight, upright).  We should notice that the characteristic of the righteous is their consistent direction along these paths.  They “walk” according to the trail God blazes.  Conversely, transgressors (ufoshim – rebels) stumble.  Transgressors are not excoriated because they take another road.  They are on the same path, but they don’t step according to the directions.  When God says, “Put your feet in my footsteps,” they choose to place their feet somewhere else.  As a result, they don’t get lost.  They totter.  They stagger.  They cannot maintain their stride.  They are overthrown.

Hosea’s declaration is in concert with the rest of the Tanakh.  God is yashar.  It is not that His ways are the right directions for living.  They are that, but they are also much more.  As Deuteronomy 32:4, Psalm 92:15 and Psalm 25:8 demonstrate, yashar describes who God is, not just what His directions are.  We say, “God is good,” but now we can add “God is upright.”  There are no exceptions to this rule.  Whatever God does, it is always just, upright, righteous and correct.  It matters not a bit if you don’t like it.  Just as we are not in a position to determine what is good, so we are not able to determine what is just apart from God’s ways.

This has an interesting implication.  It suggests that even those who claim to be on the path but who do not step as He steps are transgressors (ufoshim).  It doesn’t take shaking your fist at God and demanding that you live as you wish.  It only takes walking on the path according to your interpretation of the proper steps.  Hosea tells us that people who decide for themselves where they need to step in order to follow the path are, in fact, rebels and are destined to stumble.

Just think about this.  What it means is that Torah allows no personal exceptions.  It means that you and I don’t get to decide to honor Shabbat on Sunday – or Monday.  It means that we don’t have the right to determine what we eat, when we eat, how we eat.  It means that we are not empowered to change worship to fit our style or the calendar to fit our culture or doctrines to accommodate political correctness.  The Way is the way!   And it is right.

It isn’t necessary to be an atheist or an agnostic to stand in opposition to God.  All that’s necessary is to practice your own form of religion.  Ouch!

Topical Index:  right, yashar, Hosea 14:9, Deuteronomy 32:4, Psalm 92:15

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God in Granite

Wednesday, February 29th, 2012 | Author:

“The Rock!  His work is perfect, for all His ways are just;” Deuteronomy 32:4 NASB

Rock – The Hebrew word sur is used 75 times in the Old Testament.  Many of those uses are metaphorical.  Here, God is likened to a rock.  The attributes of God described by this term are compelling and comforting to every believer.  He is absolutely reliable, completely trustworthy and an unfailing source of strength.   God is completely upright (Deut. 32:4), He is the source of salvation (Ps. 89:26), He is a strong refuge in times of trouble (Ps. 94:22), He is a help and a protector (2 Sam. 22:32), He will either break us in repentance or crush us in judgment (Rom. 9:32ff.).  When we consider how often God’s followers sinned by worshiping an idol carved from rock, it is amazing that the same word is used to describe many of the most important characteristics of God.

Rocks are one of the most common objects of our world.  From pebbles to boulders, we are continually confronted by their beauty, majesty and strength.  They can be the foundation of our edifices or the biggest roadblocks to our efforts.  Moses exclaims that God is The Rock because everything that He does is perfect and just.  Yeshua reminded us that unless we build on a foundation of rock, our lives would fail.  Peter tells us that God is building a house of living stones.  David proclaims that God is the rock of his salvation.  And Paul tells us that Christ is a rock of offense.  Rock is an important spiritual metaphor.

Given the predominance of physical metaphors in the Scriptures, it’s hard to imagine how we ended up with a God whose principle attributes are abstractions like omnipotent, eternal, infinite or immutable.  I rather doubt that any of the prophets would describe God like this.  The journey from The Rock to the First Principle of Causation (Aquinas) is a long and torturous road of commingling Greek philosophy with sacred texts.  The theology sounds majestic (probably because we aren’t quite sure what it means) but it removes God from the everyday world of our lives.  Hebrew points in another direction.  Prayer is like breathing.  The Spirit is like flowing water.  Sin is like disease.  Idolatry is like adultery.  God is like rock.  Perhaps Moses’ exclamation will help you recognize that the hand of divinity is as close as the nearest stone.  Did you notice that Moses’ describes justice as whatever God does?  That’s a bit backwards too.  Our Greek minds teach us that justice is the exercise of certain principles of goodness, but Hebrew thinks differently.  Maybe we need some further revisions here too.

As you journey through this day, keep an eye out for rocks.  Every time you see one, take the liberty to say with Moses – “God is The Rock.  His work is perfect.”  You can stand on that!

Topical Index: rock, sur, Deuteronomy 32:4

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Praise and Worship Music (3)

Monday, August 29th, 2011 | Author:

“The Rock!  His work is perfect, for all His ways are just; A God of faithfulness and without injustice, righteous and upright is He.”  Deuteronomy 32:4  NASB

Faithfulness – Does Moses’ next line describe your God?  Is He a God of faithfulness?  First, we need to know about this Hebrew word, emunah.  We have a lot of background with this word (see February 7, August 15 and 17 for starters).  Right now we need to remember that emunah is about attitude and conduct, not about some abstract idea called “faith.”  In other words, God demonstrates Himself to be faithful because His actions are consistent with His promises.  God does what He says He will do!

Is that your definition of faithful?  Are you a person who does what you say you will do?  Are you a person who keeps your promise?  Perhaps this word emunah is growing in you.  Perhaps you are walking the pathway with God and discovering that you are becoming like Him; someone who is more and more reliable and trustworthy.  What Moshe says about God is exactly the same as what Yeshua asks of us.  Become one who always does what you promise.

It’s important to realize that emunah is not translated by the Greek word alethia (truth) but rather by the word pistis (faith).  This means that the New Testament concept of faith is also about keeping promises!  To have faith in Yeshua is to keep His commandments.  Once we see that emunah stands behind pistis, we understand that the claim of faith without the actions of the commandments is not only mistaken, it is empty.  There is no faith without follow-through, just as there is no promise without performance.  The separation of faith from action is heresy.

God always does what He says He will do!  And what He says He will do never is unjust.  God keeps His promises and His promises are always holy, righteous and upright.  God never fails.  If this sounds a bit like Paul’s dissertation of love (1 Corinthians 13:4-8), we should not be surprised.  Paul, the Jewish rabbi, knew very well that emunah was the bases of agape.

Two important lessons emerge from Moshe’s lyrics.  First, we can count on God’s word.  That’s music to our ears if we are being obedient to Him.  He will not leave us orphans.  He will complete His work in us.  But if we are disobedient, the same faithfulness condemns us.  Those who challenge His emunah in word or deed are in serious jeopardy.  God does what He says He will do.  That includes judgment and, eventually, wrath.  Ignoring the other side of the coin of agape is very dangerous.

Secondly, we see the complete continuity between the God of Moshe and the God of Paul.  Promises without performance are worthless.  No man who puts his hand to the plow of following Yeshua, and fails to till the field, can claim to be rescued.  Faith without works is truly dead.  This requires us to evaluate our own words and deeds.  Where they do not match, we must ask forgiveness and change our ways.  Faith is nothing less than promises fulfilled.

Topical Index:  emunah, pistis, faithfulness, faith, Deuteronomy 32:4

 

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Praise and Worship Music (2)

Sunday, August 28th, 2011 | Author:

“The Rock!  His work is perfect, for all His ways are just; A God of faithfulness and without injustice, righteous and upright is He.”  Deuteronomy 32:4  NASB

Just – Why are God’s accomplishments blameless?  Why are the results of His performance perfect examples of virtue and sacrifice? ki kol-d’ra-kav mishpat (“because all His paths justice”).  Moshe answers with another equivalence.  Every path, every step on the journey, every part of God’s walk is equal to mishpat, justice, what is legally proper, righteous, without the smallest hint of any impropriety.  Everything God does is just!

Are you nodding your head in agreement?  Does your theological sensibility concur?  Great!  Now let’s put it to the test.

Did God allow His people to fall into the hands of Pharaoh?  Did He allow them to be tortured, killed and abused?  Is that just?

Did God permit the Jewish pogroms, the Holocaust, the anti-Semitism of history?  Was that just?

And what about your life?  What about your trials and travails, your illnesses, your heartaches?  Does God stand in the background of your existence?  Is that just?

Now tell me, are all of God’s ways just?  Can you still sing, “ki kol-d’ra-kav mishpat”?

Because our perspective is so influenced by Greek ethical concepts, we often stumble over moral outrage and evil acts when it comes to proclaiming God’s goodness.  We can’t seem to find ways to reconcile our own sense of justice with a God who would allow the innocent to be slaughtered, tortured and abused.  How could Moshe declare that all of God’s ways are upright when Moshe knew the hideousness of ancient Egypt, just as surely as we know the enormity of evil in our world today?  Part of our stumbling comes from a difference in paradigm.  We think of ethics as a set of universally applicable principles that undergird goodness – and we think that a good God should exemplify these principles.  This concept is based in the Greek ideals, the rationally constructed standards of highest intellect.  This puts the principles in first position.  Moshe, and the whole near-Eastern world, thinks differently.

In the ancient near-East, what God does is what justice means!  If God allows, or even commands, the extinction of an entire people, this is not evidence that God is arbitrary, tyrannical or evil.  This is simply a case of another way in which God is just.  The fact that you and I cannot understand it does not mean we may hold court over God’s action.  He is the only Judge, even of His own acts.  When Moshe sings, ki kol-d’ra-kav mishpat, he literally means, “Everything God does is what it means to be just, no matter what it is that He actually does.”  In ancient near-Eastern thinking, there are no first principles of ethical behavior.  There are only the case-by-case examples of what God actually does.

The rabbis also struggled with the view.  One school taught that justice was essentially eschatological.  We will never know how it all works while we are here in this world.  We won’t see the fit of the pieces until the olam ha-ba.  What does not make sense now is not a problem of ethics.  It is a problem of epistemology.  Now we know in part.  That must satisfy for now.

This verse from Moshe’s song is very deep.  Men have struggled with its implications for five millennia.  When a songwriter can pen lines like this, he deserves to be called a master of the trade for these words confront every one of us.  Moshe also speaks to himself.  He will not enter the Land – but, all God’s ways are just.

Are all God’s ways with you just?  Are you willing to live on the basis that they are and not enter the Land?  Can you wait for the answers you don’t have today?

Topical Index:  just, mishpat, evil, path, derek, Deuteronomy 32:4

 

 

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Praise and Worship Music (1)

Saturday, August 27th, 2011 | Author:

“The Rock!  His work is perfect, for all His ways are just; A God of faithfulness and without injustice, righteous and upright is He.”  Deuteronomy 32:4  NASB

The Rock! – You’re standing on the banks of the Jordan.  You’ve been waiting for this day for forty years.  Your parents have died, along with all your friends’ parents.  But they passed along this hope to you.  “One day you will stand on the river’s edge.  One day you will enter the Land.”  Today is that day!

The great leader, Moshe, prophet of God, addresses the throng.  Almost with disbelief you learn that he will not cross over.  Joshua will lead you into the Land.  But Moshe has one more gift to you and to all who wait.  He has delivered the Torah, God’s instructions for life in the Land, once more.  Your parents told you about the day when God Himself delivered this code of conduct.  They told you that they shook with fear when the Lord settled on the mountain.  They taught you Torah since the time you were able to remember.  And now the day is here!

Suddenly Moshe breaks into song.  It is the first song of praise and worship.  Here’s how it begins:

Ha-tzur

tamiym pa-a-lo

ki kol-d’ra-kav mishpat

El emunah ve-eyn avel

Tzadik ve-yashar Hoo.

We don’t know the tune anymore, but we can certainly study the lyrics.  What we discover is the amazing depth of Moshe’s song.

“The Rock!” (Ha-tzur).  Most English translations add “He is” but the Hebrew text doesn’t need this.  Perhaps Moshe’s song begins with a triumphal shout!  The Rock!  In Hebrew metaphor, God is as solid as could be.  He is the firm foundation, the mountain of stone, the unshakeable granite beneath our feet.  The Rock!  Here we stand!  We will not be moved.  Can you hear it?  The thundering clap of hands.  The drum roll.  The entire congregation in one voice shouting, “The Rock!”  This is victory we can touch, see and feel.  Here before us in the Jordan.  God’s promise delivered.  The Rock once more confirmed.

“Tamiym pa-a-lo” (perfect His work).  The second thought draws another equivalence.  If God and Rock are equal, so are perfect and work.  Tamiym is an adjective meaning “blameless, complete” and in a moral sense, “true, virtuous, upright, righteous.”  In more than half of its occurrences, it is about the sacrificed animal without blemish.  Moshe combines this pregnant word with po’al, the Hebrew word for what is performed or completed.  Po’al emphasizes the result of the action (from pa’al – to do or make).  Everything God does is blameless, complete and upright.  And buried in that thought is sacrifice, even the sacrifice of God Himself.  It too is done perfectly.

God unshakeable, God of unmovable foundation, is the God of sacrifice, of blameless accomplishment.  The Rock is the Altar, the place where God demonstrates His complete reliability.

You’re ready to cross the river, but before you do, Moshe reminds you that you did not arrive on the bank by your own effort.  You will not cross because you earned it.  Nor will your occupation of the Land depend on your strength and cunning.  This is God’s day.  This is His plan.  The Rock has arrived at the river and the way is about to be parted.

Topical Index:  ha-tzur, the Rock, Moshe, Deuteronomy 32:4, perfect, work, tamiym, po’al

 

 

 

 

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