Your Daily Slice

 

IYAR 14

Distortions

 

“Hear this, I pray you, you heads of the house of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel, who ABHOR AND REJECT justice and PERVERT all equity …” (Mic 3:9 AMPC, emphasis mine)

 

The Hebrew word that has been translated into the word ‘abhor’ is the word tâ‛ab (Strong’s H8581), and means, literally, to regard as an abomination.  Some versions of the Scriptures use the word ‘despise’ instead of ‘abhor’, both are correct.  Noah Webster defines ‘abhor’ as “To hate extremely, or with contempt; to loathe, detest or abominate; To despise or neglect; To cast off or reject”^[1] (emphasis mine).  Regardless of which definition we use, the word tâ‛ab has a strong, negative connotation. 

‘Pervert’ is the word translated from the Hebrew ‛âqash (Strong’s H6140) – a word which is only found five times in the Tanakh (Old Testament).  To twist, to pervert, and to make crooked are all meanings found within this word ‛âqash, further endorsing the ugly and negative undertones we discovered with the word tâ‛ab.  Mr. Webster includes in his definition of the word ‘pervert’ the following: “to pervert the laws by misinterpreting and misapplying them; to corrupt”[2]; all of these are actions that our Elohim is NOT happy with.

And just what is ‘justice’, and ‘all equity’?  Is it not the divine instructions in moral and righteous living that our Elohim has laid out for us in His Torah?  To ‘loathe, detest and despise’ the Word of our Creator, and then to ‘turn and twist it’ to mean something that is completely unrecognizable – is this not something that we are STILL seeing today?  And what is disturbing is that it is predominantly those who are in the positions of authority, those who are in leadership that continue to operate in this fashion.  They are the ones who dictate just what is the proper interpretation of the Scriptures, when in reality, the truth is far from them (see John 14:6; Mat 15:8).

Look at the fruit of those people you see in leadership positions (Mat 7:16-20).  Please, folks, do not confine this search to just those in the westernized church system, but include all within the Messianic/Torah Observant/Hebrew Roots circle as well.  Do they truthfully love the Elohim of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (see Deu 6:5)? Or are they in love with the power that their position gives them?  Do they cling to the Torah of our Creator, and strive with everything in them to walk in ALL His ways (Deu 10:12-13)?  Or do they pick and choose – like a smorgasbord – only those parts of the Word that they believe are relevant for today (see Mark 7:6-9)?

Be careful, folks, whom you follow.

 

©2022

---

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

[2] ibid