Hidden Treasures of Psalms 119 - The Meaning of Torah

Hidden Treasures of the 119th Psalm. So, we are going on a treasure hunt, and the gold we are seeking in this treasure hunt is actually the face of God, pure light. And how fun to actually mine this treasure with King David, a man who sought God with his whole heart and his understanding of God's expression of the Hebrew language itself as he goes through the 119th Psalm, letter by letter, giving us eight verses, which the Jews teach as eight faces, of each letter of expression. So, join us taking this deep dive mining with King David in the 119th Psalm. Oh, on today on Hidden Treasures is really a topic that probably still has me perplexed, but I guess I like that because it means I'm still in the process of learning what this particular word means. So, we're in the dig of digs here into these 10 words that are repeated in the 119 Psalm time and again, and I told you that I had the PDF there in the show notes, and unfortunately, the link was broken, and I just went to Christian Karga.

I got that fixed on the previous episode, so if you've tried to get this PDF before and I've been unable to, you know, by all means, just go to the show notes, click on the link on today's episode or any of the previous ones, because I went back and fixed it everywhere. But I believe that you'll have an easier time, and to me, it shows the Hebrew on each word, and it's just some beautiful stuff to look at. I can just gaze at it for hours and think about how God's expressing himself actually in language through this. And today's word is Torah. So, you know, we've got that word throughout the Psalms, throughout, obviously, the Scriptures, and one of the things that I find fascinating about it really is quite confusing. Because to some people, when you say Torah, they mean, you know, the first five books of the Bible that Moses brought, you know, and that's very specific to what that is.

And a lot of people take that definition, but if you were to talk to an Orthodox Jew, I can assure you, they mean a whole lot more by Torah. You know, they would tell you it's all of their written Scriptures to some extent, but it's also, they have an oral tradition that they have in what they call the Talmud, but originally it was just passed down from person to person, and what they believe is that Moses had more specific instructions than what was just written in the law, the five books, and those he passed down and have been kept orally from generation to generation. And then when they went into the captivity in Babylonia, they wrote them down, and then through the ages, they have been discussed and discussed, and commentaries written by fabulous people.

I mean, there was a commentator by the name of Rashi and one by Ramadan, these people had brilliant minds, and they added so much to their understanding of these oral traditions, and they're quite worth understanding. So to a Jew, when you say Torah, they're not just saying, oh, that's the first five books of Moses, or that would include the Psalms, or would it include the prophets, would it include the poetical books. Yeah, to some extent they would tell you that's all Torah, but there's more to Torah than that. In fact, they would actually probably say that the Torah is alive today and still being written, and I'd go along with that. I would say that, I would say that God has been speaking all along. He hasn't stopped speaking. And when God speaks, that's Torah.

I mean, that's the deal. When his mouth opens up, what he gives is truth, and he gives it in a way that would provide, you know, divine inspiration and insights that you have. And maybe you've received some Torah in your life that you knew that came from God. It's a simple truth that you know was absolutely divine instruction. So when we look at this word in Hebrew, it's very, very, very beautiful, and I think has everything to do with Jesus. And I think that even gets more into why Jesus is the fulfillment of the law, because he is the law. I mean, he is the word, and so the word is the Torah, and it all comes together right there. So if he's the word, then of course it's alive. Of course it continues to go on. Of course he continues to express himself.

He has to me so many times, I would hate to think. So, you know, again, I think, and so like all commentators, all I can say is I feel like God told me this, or I feel like God led me in this particular direction. Well, I can't be absolutely certain, but in my heart, if I believe that it was from God, to some extent that's Torah. And I know that's a really interesting concept for some of you, but if you believe, and I do, that in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God, then the word is Torah. And Torah starts with Atav, and that letter is the end of the Hebrew language, and it's like the final word. I love the way that they look at this, is that, you know, we will know exactly what happened by the end of the story. Did you really hear from God?

Well, we're going to find out. You know, we're going to find out all these things, and that is, in fact, that letter, Atav. And so actually when Jesus came and spoke to John, in my heart he said, he didn't say, I'm the Alpha and Omega, because Jesus didn't speak Greek. He spoke Hebrew, and so did John, and so he would have said, I'm the Aleph, and I'm the Mem, and I'm the Tav.

That's who Jesus is, and I understand that for people that love Greek, they have their view in that, and I have mine. So, but nonetheless, the first letter of the word Torah, when you hear that ta-ta sound, that is Atav, and it by all means is like God's stamp on anything. And the Jews have taught for, you know, all time that this letter, when you see it there, it's like God's stamp on something.

Well, when God stamps a law or a piece of instruction, it then becomes Torah, just saying. So you have this Atav, and then you have above, which again, we've talked about before, is like Jacob's ladder. So this is something, this is something that's coming down from heaven. It's truth, that is what, you know, the letter Atav really means, is truth that is coming down. It has also got a race in it, which we've talked about before, is the head of something, or the beginning of something. And so here you've got truth coming down from heaven that is the head, and of course we couldn't describe Jesus more fully than that, I don't guess. Well, you just keep describing Jesus, and you, you know, the cool thing is you can just keep going and going.

The last letter is the word, or the letter, which is the word hey, which is the letter that's found in Yahweh, you know, that we see this letter as a point of expression. And so this is truth that has come down as the head that of expression. And the law and the Torah is exactly that. When it comes down to how things are supposed to be expressed, I mean essentially, Jesus wrote the book. And so, you know, when you see this word Torah, like you'll see it in the very first verse of the 119th Psalm, you know, people that walk in the laws of the Lord. These are people that walk in His extraction, that are listening for His voice, as sheep hear His voice. And His voice is Torah. His voice is the law. Now I know that may be a broader expression than what you've thought about before, but something worth pondering, because as I've said at the beginning, I'm still learning this, but I will tell you one thing.

If you listen to the Jews speak on Torah very much, they consider it very much alive, very much continuing to grow, and very much that God has not quit expressing Himself. Thank you for sharing this with me today. It does really mean so much to me to share this stuff with people of like minds. Have a great day. God bless.