When It’s All Over

The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. Ecclesiastes 12:13 NASB

The conclusion – “King Solomon summarizes all his teachings with the words ‘the sum of the matter.’ The word sof is written with an enlarged samech to emphasize the fundamental requirement of reliance on God’s support (Osios R’ Akiva).”[1] English translations of this word include “the end of the matter,” “the conclusion of the whole matter,” “here is the conclusion,” “that’s the whole story.” But clearly none of the glosses communicate the deep respect that Rabbi Akiva found in the text. For Akiva, fearing YHVH and keeping His commandments is not simply the end of the story. It is the fundamental orientation of life. As Heschel reminds us, “A Jew without Torah is obsolete.” We might be inclined to read this verse as if Solomon is advocating a final line of some apologetics argument. “When it’s all over, we must conclude that serving God applies to everyone.” But that’s not how the rabbis understood the meaning of sof. For them, sof is a summary of life’s goal, not the end of a debate. Torah is God’s will for us. Period!

When we realize the central role Torah plays in the thinking and behavior of orthodox Jews, it is simply impossible to contend that the Jewish authors of the apostolic writings moved away from this crucial footing. Torah is the difference between pagans and Jews in the first century. Yeshua clearly lived in accordance with Torah. Paul proclaims over and over that his life is measured by Torah. James’ request of Paul concerning the vow is obviously an effort to put to rest the charge that Paul denied the fundamental place of Torah. “A Jew without Torah is obsolete,” right? That includes all the Jews that wrote what we call the “New Testament.” None of them would have had any problem at all with sof. In the end, fearing God and keeping the commandments is the most important requirement of life.

This raises serious questions for those who contend that the New Testament authors replaced Torah with a doctrine of grace. The early Church fathers introduced this idea by claiming that Torah was “completed” in the life of the Messiah and therefore no longer applies. These Gentiles retained their Greco-Roman view of “law” in opposition to the Jewish view of Torah. Coupled with anti-Semitism, they differentiated themselves from the Jews by deliberately reformulating the believer’s relationship to Torah. As many contemporary scholars have observed, the result is a complete fabrication of the opposition of “law versus grace,” something no author of the apostolic material would have ever considered. In Jewish thought, there simply is no opposition of law and grace. They fit together in the practice of fearing God and keeping His commandments, because Torah is an expression of God’s love for us and our gratitude toward Him. When it’s all over, Torah is not rules. It’s life in alignment with the design of the Creator.

Topical Index: Torah, sof, in conclusion, Ecclesiastes 12:13

[1] Rabbi Michael Monk, The Wisdom in the Hebrew Alphabet, p. 159.