WORD STUDY SOUND A TRUMPET

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Jeffrey Robertson
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1 WORD STUDY SOUND A TRUMPET Matthew 6:2: Therefore when thou doest [thine] alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. I am an ordained Baptist minister and I fear I may get defrocked after this little study. It is studies like these that explain why I use the pseudonym of Chaim Bentorah and not my real name. If it comes back to me I can just say, Yeah, I heard about that Chaim Bentorah fellow/gal, better watch out for him/her. Whenever I read this passage I get a picture in my mind of a righteous Pharisee who has a man with a rams horn or shofar following him around. Whenever he drops a coin into the cup of a beggar the guy with the shofar gives the horn a blast and announces, Hey, everybody, notice what old Reuben did here, he just dropped a whole shekel in the cup, let s hear it for the righteous man. I have really found no historical evidence of a shofar or any trumpet sounding when someone gave alms. Most commentators generally agree that this was just a figurative expression. The word alms in the Aramaic is the word zedhqatha which means a right, or righteous act, the proper thing to do. Many people were forced into begging because of unjust rulers who levied heavy taxes and tributes reducing some people to a level of poverty. They were forced to beg to survive, yet these were hardworking people, the ones who found it extremely embarrassing to beg for a handout. That is why Jesus used an old Aramaic expression when he said do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, in other words do not let anyone know that you are giving alms so as not to embarrass the person who is receiving the support. The Talmud teaches that to humiliate a person in public is as bad as committing

2 murder. Jesus was only enforcing this belief. I remember in the church I grew up we had what was called a benevolent fund. Once a month we collected an offering or on occasion someone who drop an envelope with some money in it designating that his money be used for the benevolent fund. A special committee of three people was given charge over this fund. If there was a need that came to the attention of the pastor he would pass it on to the benevolent fund committee and they would discreetly use the fund to meet that need. No one else in the church was ever made aware of how this money was spent, who the beneficiary was or even how much was in the fund. This was a zedhqatha or alms, the doing of a righteous act. I was reading in rabbinic literature and I ran across an interesting phrase, tamara qarna the exact words used in the Aramaic Bible for sound the trumpet. The rabbinic textual experts, however, render this as do not pass the trumpet. Qarna means the horn of an animal which would fit the description of a shofar. In the first century synagogues the poor box or the alms box was in the shape of a shofar and in many cases was a real shofar. It would be in a discreet area of the synagogue where one could drop coins in for the poor. This was equivalent to the benevolent fund of a church. What was happening was that the men in the synagogue started passing around the shofar and taking note of who gave what and how much. It was sort of like an offering plate and everyone was compelled to give lest they appear to be impious. I know that feeling, I have been guilty of dropping an empty envelope into the offering plate so the usher would not think me a Christian cheapskate (not at my present home church of course). Sometimes the pious men in the synagogue would take the shofar out into the streets and call upon people to drop some coins in the trumpet. Not too unlike Santa Claus standing next to the red bucket outside Walgreens at Christmas time ringing his bell in your face to attract everyone s attention

3 as if to say, Well, let s see if this Chaim Bentorah fellow is really a Scrooge. This may be what Jesus is addressing, not blowing a trumpet but passing a trumpet or offering plate. Do your ever notice that they do not pass an offering plate in a Jewish synagogue? Jews do not tithe. In fact, I would like to quote one rabbi who said: If any member of my synagogue paid tithe in the Scriptural manner, he would be disobeying the law of God he would be sinning against God. Quite amazing as most of our teachings about tithing comes from the Old Testament. So how can the Jews flagrantly disobey such a clear cut law? The rabbi went on to explain that the Torah demands that the tithe be paid to Levite Priests and therefore it would be wrong to pay it to anyone else. Since there is no Levitical order of Priest ministering at a Temple in Jerusalem, this makes it illegal at this period of time to pay any tithe according to the Torah. And no, even though this rabbi was the chief rabbi he was not a Levite and was not going to play that game that he was in the role of a Levitical priest, because he was not. Even Jesus could not have received a tithe, He was from the tribe of Judah. Jews simply raise the money to pay the light bill and all the other activities of the synagogue through a patron system. The members pay yearly dues which is sometimes more than ten percent of their income. This system is not in violation of Scripture as they are paying to a synagogue and not a Levite. Also, I have noticed in some synagogues that there is a little envelop pasted to the back cover of a prayer book where you can discreetly leave a little gift or a little zedhqatha. To be fair, I am not a flag waving radical trying to bring down the church. The use of the offering plate is being debated this day among many top church leaders. Passing an offering plate is really a twentieth century innovation. Many and various methods have been used to try and fund the church institution but the passing of the plate in the early

4 twentieth century was the most successful and it just sort of caught on. However, there are many church leaders who are aware of the inherent social pressure with passing an offering plate, not to mention that it has become a form of worship for many people, so it is a very difficult matter and one that does concern the church. Alternatives are being tried and as we move to a cashless society alternatives will most likely have to be enforced. So please don t misunderstand me, I am not saying it is wrong to pass an offering plate to collect tithes, I am just saying it is not Biblical, that s all. WORD STUDY SEEING VOICES Exodus 20:18: And all the people were seeing the thunder voices and the torches and the voice of the shofar and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they trembled and stood at a distance. This verse presents a very obvious question, how could people see the thundering voices? Many translations will simply render this as thunder and lightning. Still you can not get away from the fact that the words here are raim eth equloth which literally means see the voices. Jewish sages teach that this is expressing a sensory experience beyond the normal division of the five senses. It is an overflow of experience that superactivates all the senses merging them together. In this case you are actually seeing a sound. Your eyes are hearing and your ears are seeing. Then there was the sound of the shofar and the people yarah (saw) the sound of the shofar. How can someone see the sound of the shofar?

5 One thing to note is that yarah can mean both physical seeing and spiritual seeing. What is most likely happening here is that the people were seeing into the invisible, supernatural realm. Their five senses were merged into one super sense. Another way of expressing this is that you are seeing, hearing, and speaking with your heart. It is how Elijah communicated with the bears in the woods II Kings 2:24 and how Daniel communicated with the lions in the lion s den. Your heart is so joined with the heart of God that all others who are joined with the heart of God can see, heart and speak with their hearts through God so that others know our heart like God knows it. Pretty heady stuff if you think about it and it is something you don t care to mess with unless you really have a pure heart. We are not afraid of God knowing our hearts as we are pretty sure He is not going to appear and reveal its contents to everyone. But if your pastor joins his heart with God as you join yours with God and He sees your heart like God sees your heart, he might not be as tight lipped as God would be about it. Fortunately, our hearts will never reach such a pure state in the flesh (or could it?). Possibly this glory cloud brought the people of Israel into such a state when they entered it and they did not like this form of communication, it terrified them such that in verse 19 they ask Moses to speak to them, they did not want to hear directly from God. Moses told them not to be afraid, yet in verse 21, the people stood at a distance and only Moses entered the cloud. What was so terrifying? The word qol for voices is plural. The thundering voices may have been the sound of everyone s

6 thoughts, reactions, and feelings. In that cloud, there were no secrets, no playing games. They were just given the Ten Commandments, such as Thou shalt not commit adultery. A man glances at his neighbor s wife and everyone immediately knows what he is thinking. Thou shalt not steal and a woman looks at her neighbor and instantly knows what happened to her coffee pot. If next Sunday you have an experience of the cloud or glory of God descending upon you and your congregation, what would happen? Most likely there would be rejoicing, celebration, book deals and movie rights. I don t think any of us would have a problem entering that cloud or glory of God. In fact we seek it, pray for it. It is no big deal that God would know our thoughts, He will forgive, it will remain just between us and Him. I don t think the children of Israel were much different from us. But what if your congregation enters that cloud and suddenly everyone knew your angry thoughts about that deacon, or they knew about that little lustful thought you recently had? You might be making for the exit very quickly. Maybe we should not be too harsh on the children of Israel asking Moses to be the spokesmen. Uh, Moses, why don t you go it alone here with God. I just as well not end up as one of God s sermon illustrations. You know, sometimes I think I am really getting close to the heart of God. But then I think, Oh my gosh, what if God repeats the Exodus 20:18 experience at the next church service or even my next class. Am I that sanctified in my thoughts and motives that I would not mind who knew my heart? If not, is my heart really one with God s heart? If my heart and

7 motives were one with God s heart and motives I could easily say: Let the cloud descend for all to know my heart and motives. But if I am hiding something unclean in my heart, I wouldn t mind that cloud as long as it was a feel good cloud of God s presence. But if it was the Exodus 20:18 cloud where everyone could see a voice would most likely make a quick exit. Hey, I am not saying this is really the case and this is really the reason the people feared the cloud, this is all speculation. All I am saying is, What if Word Study: Hiss Sharak WORD STUDY HISS Hiss Hebrew: sharak hiss, whistle, signal. Zechariah 10:8: I will hiss for them and gather them for I have redeemed them. This is really a curious passage. The word hiss is sharak in Hebrew. You may find it translated as whistle or signal. Sharak is used about 7 times in the Old Testament. Five times it is used negatively and two times it is used positively. It is not unusual for a Hebrew word to have both a positive and negative usage. In this passage in Zechariah it is used in a positive sense. The word has it s origin in describing the sound made through a reed. It took on the usage for a musical instrument as a pipe or flute. The context indicates that this sound will

8 cause the redeemed to gather. This is curious in the sense that a gathering is usually called by a shofar. We know that a shepherd in ancient times made reed instruments and would pass their time playing on this instrument as David would have done. In Greek mythology the god Pan was considered the god of shepherds, flocks and rustic music. The god Pan is often pictured teaching shepherds to play the flute and you also see pictures of Pan playing his flute and dancing with a flock of sheep gathered around him. James Merryweather, a Scottish scholar and researcher, observed that when he played a sound on his bagpipes similar to that of a flute he noticed all the sheep would stop what they were doing, usually grazing and eating, and gather together. When he stopped they wandered away from each other and went back to their grazing and eating. The picture of Pan playing his flute and dancing among the sheep really has its origins in a more ancient depiction. We often view shepherds as old bearded men barely able to walk let alone dance. Yet, the job of shepherding was often dumped on the youngest as Joseph and David. I don t think it would stretch the imagination too much to picture David and Joseph playing a flute and dancing among the sheep to gather them together. Perhaps the sheep instinctively desired to share in the Shepherd s joy. This passage could be a Messianic passage. A picture of Jesus playing a flute for us and dancing for pure joy as we, his sheep who have been redeemed gather close around him to share in His joy. Look at Zechariah 10:2: Therefore they went their way as a flock, they were troubled because there was no shepherd. Our Shepherd, Jesus Christ hisses for us or plays a flute for us to gather us together to share His joy with us. As Merryweather s sheep instinctively gathered together at the sound of the pipes to share the joy of their shepherd.

17. And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God; and they stood at the nether part of the mount.

17. And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God; and they stood at the nether part of the mount. Lesson Text: Exodus 19:16-25 Sunday, October 8, 2017 King James Version (KJV) I. THE ASSEMBLY (Exodus 19:16-19) 16. And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings,