The Torah (2)
Throughout the First Testament

André H. Roosma
13 March 2012

Following on Part 1 on the word Torah, here first something about the beginning. I was always taught that the Torah originated from the time of Moses (about 15th century before Christ). However, that is not the first time that the word תּורה - Torah appears in the narrative of the Bible.
In Genesis 26: 5 God says: Abraham has obeyed תורתי - Torotai - which can be translated as: ‘My Torah’s
Two things are remarkable here: (1) the plural form and (2) that apparently, Abraham already knew those Torah’s of God.

By the way: This confirms what we discovered the previous time: that Torah can better be translated by ‘instruction’ than by ‘law’.

Let’s have another look at that oldest, pictographic, Biblical script.1
In that script, תורתי looks like this: tav: cross markwawu: tent pinraisu: face (sideways)tav: cross markyad: arm with open hand. That is:
- tav: cross mark: cross, mark, signature, confir­ma­tion, end;
- wawu: tent pin: tent pin; security, attachment, safety, to connect, to secure;
- raisu: face (sideways): face (sideways); (higher) other / Other (God);
- tav: cross mark: cross, mark, signature, confirmation, end;
- yad: arm with open hand: hand, arm, He (God) gives, to work, to give.
All together we can read this as: covenant sign of God, given by Himself.
We know that Abraham indeed received instructions and a covenant sign from God Himself!

In Exodus 24: 12 God speaks with Moses:

YaHUaH said to Moses, „Come up to Me on the mountain, and wait there. And I will give you tablets of stone, the Torah, and the commandment which I have written to teach them.

Two things draw our attention here: (1) God gave the Torah to Moses; it was not a clever invention by Moses himself. And (2) the Torah was meant to teach or direct Isra’el.

The last time the word Torah appears in the First Testament is telling as well. That is in Malachi 4: 4, where God tells Israel:

“Remember the Torah of my servant Moses, the statutes and ordinances that I commanded him at Horeb for all Isra’el.”

The Torah – the instructions and the histories on how God walked with His people, as passed on by Moses, are to be remembered. This remembering includes that we fill our hearts with it, like I shared in the series on the Shema‘. From there we come to wonder and stand in awe, and to yield ourselves and worship. Then God can circumcise our hearts (as Psalm 19: 7a notes so succinctly: “The Torah of YaHUaH is perfect, converting the soul; ...”), such that we become full of Him and start to live - from the inside out - after His instructions.

Hallelu YaH !


Notes

1 More information on this old pictographic Bible script in: André H. Roosma, ‘The Written Language of Abraham, Moses and David – A study of the pictographic roots and basic notions in the underlying fabric of the earliest Biblical script.pdf document, Hallelu-YaH Draft Research Report, 1st English version: 18 April 2011 (1st Dutch original: January 2011).
 

Sometimes you suddenly stumble upon an apt and succinct note in old Jewish writings. What about this one, from a 6th century Midrash:

ומה המים מניחין מקום גבוה והולכים במקום נמוך,
כך תורה מנחת מי שדעתו גבוהה עליו ומדבקת במי שדעתו נמוכה עליו
And just as water rests [temporarily] on a high place but roams around in a low place, so the Torah rests [temporarily] on one whose opinion of himself is high but cleaves to one whose opinion of himself is lowly.

Shir ha-Shirim Rabbah on Song of Songs 1: 2b/3
(cited in: ‘The Descent of Torah’, weblog by Carl Kinbar - a Jewish ‘Rav’, 25 Aug. 2011; more extensive in True Joy Through Water .pdf document, webdocument by Canfei Nesharim, Part IV, p.4)


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This is a sequel to: The Shema‘ – the First Testament declaration of faith (1), Part (2), Part (3), Part (4), Part (5), and Torah - Part (1) A series of laws and commandments?

Next article: Torah - Part (3) Absolutely delightful!.

 
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