Your Daily Slice

 

CHESHVAN 18

RIGHT Ruling

 

 “For I have known him, so that he commands his children and his household after him, to guard the way of יהוה, to do righteousness and RIGHT-RULING …” (Gen 18:19, emphasis mine)

 

‘Right-ruling’, basically, means ruling by a standard of what is right.  Our friend Mr. Webster has included, as one of his definitions for the word ‘right’, the following: “accordant to the standard of truth and justice or the will of God. That alone is right in the sight of God, which is consonant to his will or law; this being the only perfect standard of truth and justice”^[1].  We can see that this phrase, ‘right-ruling’, has everything to do with justice, and making decisions according to what is ‘right’.  Indeed, it would be safe to say the justice is caused by the action of ‘right-ruling’, of doing what is right.

 

The Hebrew word that has been translated as ‘right-ruling’ is the word mishpât (Strong’s H4941), and portrays a sense of balanced scales, such as we find within the ‘halls of justice’ and courtrooms.  One of the actions attached to mishpât is the care of the fatherless, the widows, and the poor, something we are admonished by James, the brother of our Master, to do (see Jam 1:27, also Deu 10:18), again, a sense of balancing the scales.

 

This word, and all that it implies, is important.  Having said this, we must therefore recognize there has to be a standard of what is right and righteous, before we can attempt to walk it.  We have such a standard, found within the pages of what we know as Torah, the first five books of the Bible.   And again, if we do not familiarize ourselves with just exactly how this standard of ‘right-ruling’ reads, we can never know if our actions are correct.

 

 “For יהוה gives wisdom; Out of His mouth come knowledge and understanding.  And He treasures up stability for the straight, A shield to those walking blamelessly, To watch over the paths of RIGHT-RULING, And the way of His kind ones He guards.  Then you would understand righteousness And RIGHT-RULING, and straightness – Every good path.” (Pro 2: 6-9, emphasis mine)

 

“I have chosen the way of truth; Your RIGHT-RULINGS I have held level.”  (Ps 119:30, emphasis mine)

  

©2020

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[1] American Dictionary of the English Language, Noah Webster, 1828