The Heart of the Torah

Torah Scroll

Torah is a Hebrew word which has more than one meaning. At its core, Torah means teaching or instruction. But it is most often translated as “law” in English Bibles - Bible Hub [1]. Torah has taken on other meanings over time. It is also used to mean the Ten Commandments, or the first five books of the Bible, that is, the five books of Moses. For this article, when I use the word Torah, I am referring to the five books of Moses.

We will be looking for the “heart” of the Torah, but it won't be the mathematical center of the Torah, it will be the thematic center. To do this we will look at the structure of the text to reveal its meaning.

Scholars have come to appreciate the significance of literary structure for determining the meaning of a work: that the form conveys meaning.

This quote and most of the quotes here come from the L. Michael Morales book Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?  [2].

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Form Conveys Meaning

The form that I'm talking about is the chiasm, a literary device in which ideas or simply words are presented and then repeated in reverse order. Often, the chiasm will have a center passage which can be the main point, or simply a turning point in a story (Esther is such a story - Luke 810 [3], Chiasmus Exchange [4]). See my blog post Rhythm and Rhyme [5] for an introduction to chiasms in the Bible.

Simple Chiasm

The first thing to notice is that there are five books in the Torah. It's easy to see that Leviticus is the center book. But that's not quite enough for us to jump straight to Leviticus, but yes, we do end up there. Think of Genesis and Deuteronomy like bookends, framing the Torah as a chiasm, these two books end with a patriarch blessing the 12 tribes of Israel (Jacob and Moses). One scholar called them Prologue and Epilogue. Surprising to me is a Jewish custom for children to begin their Torah education in Leviticus, not in the fascinating stories of Genesis or Exodus - Israel Bible  [6].

The chiastic elements are more numerous in Exodus and Numbers, meaning that events in Exodus are mirrored in Numbers in reverse. In broad terms, in Exodus, Israel journeys through the desert TO Sinai. In Numbers. Israel journeys through the desert FROM Sinai.

Smith also points out how the second half of Exodus deals primarily with setting up the tabernacle, while the first half of Numbers is concerned with taking it down, Leviticus itself comprising God’s speeches from the tabernacle. [2]

Not only does Leviticus take place in Sinai, but it takes place in the Tabernacle. The chiasm identifying Leviticus as the center of the Torah shown in Morales' book is eight levels deep.

A Exod. 15:22–25 transformation of water from bitter to sweet

  B 17:1–7 water from the rock

    C 17:8–16 Amalekite–Israelite war

      D 18 leadership relief for Moses

        E 18:27 the Midianite Hobab, Moses’ father-in-law

          F 19:1–2 arrival at Sinai

            G Exod. 40:17 1/1/2 the tabernacle was raised up

              X SINAI and Leviticus

            G' Num. 1:1 1/2/2 the tabernacle of meeting

          F' Num. 10:11–23 departure from Sinai

        E' 10:29–32 the Midianite Hobab, Moses’ father-in-law

      D' 11 leadership relief for Moses

    C' 14:39–45 Amalekite–Israelite war

  B' 20:1–13 water from the rock

A' 21:16–18 the spring

Note the pattern of the chiasm: every item A - G in Exodus is mirrored as G' - A' in Numbers.

*Moses appoints judges in Ex 18 at the suggestion of his father-in-law. He appoints elders at God's command in Num 11.

**That is, Leviticus occurs between these dates  (1/1/2 is shorthand for the first day of the first month of the second year), that is Leviticus takes place during the first month of the second year after leaving Egypt. In a sense, Leviticus is timeless because it has no chronological markers.

I think it's safe to say Leviticus is the center of the Torah.

One third of the way there. Let's apply chiastic analysis to Leviticus itself.

Chiasm Of Leviticus

Leviticus can be divided into seven sections, though scholars will disagree over the exact boundaries of the sections. These seven sections are not of equal size. However, most scholars do agree that the center of the seven sections happens to be the Day of Atonement.

BTW, the mathematical center of the Torah depends on whether you mean the middle chapter, the middle verse, the middle word, or the middle letter. The middle letter is in Lev 8:28 - Kefirah of the Week [7].

God wanted to dwell with his people Israel, and through the book of Leviticus He is showing them how to do that, how to approach Him, how to be reconciled, and then how to dwell with Him. Think of it as a spiritual journey from common to holy. One moves from a state of unclean to clean to holy, with Atonement being the pivot point in the process. Scholars will label the seven sections differently, I like this one that Morales includes in his book.

R.M Davidson diagram of Leviticus

A 1-7 - Sanctuary Laws

  B 8-10 - Priestly Laws

    C 11-15 - Personal Laws

      X 16 - Atonement

    C' 17-20 - Personal Laws

  B' 21-22 - Priestly Laws

A' 23-27 - Sanctuary Laws

In other words: Laws, Laws, Laws ATONEMENT, Laws, Laws, Laws.

One may consider Leviticus in two halves, with chapter 16 serving as the fulcrum. ... The first half deals primarily with the approach to God through blood, while the second half is taken up with life in God’s Presence through increasing holiness, the overall goal being fellowship and union with God. [2]

This reminds me of

Rom 5:10 … we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son , much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.

Reconciled - Lev 1-15

    Atonement - Lev 16

Saved by His life - Lev 17-27

We can see that Atonement (chapter 16) is the center of Leviticus. Two thirds done. Can we use this chiasm trick once more?

Chiasm of Atonement

Atonement has the most detailed description of any holy day, compare it to the Feast of Trumpets, which is summed up in less than a verse as a memorial of blowing. Atonement is unusual in that the High Priest does almost all the work – sacrificing animals, sprinkling blood, entering the Holy of Holies etc., while the people are told to rest and fast. Morales shows that Leviticus 16, the Atonement chapter, is itself a chiasm. It is a chiasm within a chiasm within a chiasm – Chapter 16 within Leviticus within Torah. The chiasm of Leviticus 16 goes seven layers deep.

FRAME: ‘And YHWH said to Moses . . . ’ (16:1)

  A - Aaron should not go into holy of holies any time he wishes (16:2)

    B - Aaron’s sacrificial victims, special vestment (16:3–4)

      C - Sacrificial victims provided by people (16:5)

        D - Aaron’s bull, goat for sin-offering, goat for Azazel (16:6–10)

          E - Aaron sacrifices bull (16:11–14)

            F - Goat sacrificed as sin-offering (16:15)

              X - Atonement (16:16–20a)

            F - Goat sent to wilderness (16:20b–22)

          E' - Aaron’s closing activities (16:23–25)

        D' - Goat for Azazel, Aaron’s bull, goat for sin-offering (16:26–28)

      C' - People rest and humble themselves (16:29–31)

    B' - Anointed priest officiates wearing special garments (16:32–33)

  A' - Anointed priest makes atonement once a year (16:34)

FRAME: ‘As YHWH commanded Moses . . . ’ (16:34)

*The most holy place inside the tabernacle is called the Holy of Holies. The Atonement ceremony is performed by the holiest person in the holiest place at the holiest time.

**Verses 16-20, between the sacrifice of the two goats, is the heart of the Torah, the center of the innermost chiasm. Summary of vs 16-20 - The High Priest makes atonement for the Holy Place, for the tent of meeting, for himself and his household, and the altar. He purges the holy places from the impurities of the assembly of Israel.

Lev 16:16 He shall make atonement for the Holy Place, because of the impurities of the sons of Israel and because of their unlawful acts regarding all their sins; and he shall do so for the tent of meeting which remains with them in the midst of their impurities. 17 When he goes in to make atonement in the Holy Place, no one shall be in the tent of meeting until he comes out, so that he may make atonement for himself and for his household, and for all the assembly of Israel. 18 Then he shall go out to the altar that is before the LORD and make atonement for it; he shall take some of the blood from the bull and some of the blood from the goat, and put it on the horns of the altar on all sides. 19 With his finger he shall sprinkle some of the blood on it seven times and cleanse it, and consecrate it from the impurities of the sons of Israel. 20 “When he finishes atoning for the Holy Place and the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall offer the live goat.

Morales thesis is that Israel went from unclean to clean through the sacrifices and rituals of chapters 1 – 15, then is made holy by the Atonement ceremony of chapter 16, and then gets laws in chapters 17 – 27 on the subject of holy living, that is, living in communion with God. BTW, this material is from chapter 1 of Morales' book.

Conclusion

Let me share some thoughts about the “Heart of the Torah”

The Bible is more organized than I was aware of. When I read about the chiasms in the Torah in Morales's book, I got excited. Whenever I learn something new in the Bible, I want to share it. I only learned about chiasms five years ago, now I learn that the entire Torah is structured like this. I don't think that Moses could have designed it that way. He was recording events as they happened, he couldn't possibly have known that Israel would fight a second war with Amalek, that he would strike the rock a second time, etc. To me, it shows that God Himself is the author, that the Bible is His word. I find these “wonders in His word” to be faith boosters. And you can see it for yourself, in any translation – I did not resort to Hebrew to show the chiasms. Many more chiasms exist in the Torah and the rest of the Bible (1900 of them  [4]) – just do an Internet search to dig deeper.

One other thought I get from this is the importance of Atonement. We have just reviewed the structure that shows Atonement is the heart of the Torah. The way the text is structured (form conveys meaning) shows that it is important to God. It should also be important to us. To learn more about the Day of Atonement, see UCG Bible Study Tools [8]. It is the pivotal ceremony where Israel became holy. It represents the pivotal atoning work of Jesus where all mankind will become holy.

Heb 9:12 “by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.“

References

1. https://www.biblehub.com/hebrew/8451.htm

2. https://smile.amazon.com/Who-Shall-Ascend-Mountain-Lord/dp/0830826386

3. https://www.luke810.com/esthchiasm.htm

4.  https://www.chiasmusxchange.com/2015/11/27/esther/

5. https://jlfreeman-1.blogspot.com/2017/12/rhythm-and-rhyme.html

6. https://theisraelbible.com/beginning-a-childs-education-with-leviticus/

7. https://kefirahoftheweek.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-center-of-torah.html

8. https://www.ucg.org/bible-study-tools/bible-study-course/bible-study-course-lesson-12/the-day-of-atonement

Wrestling With Strangers

Another Tale Of Two Brothers

I've been puzzling over the story of Jacob wrestling God for a while.  It's a short story, a few verses in Genesis 32.  But it's the way it starts that puzzles me.

Gen 32:24 Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.

Jacob wrestles a "man"

How exactly does one start a wrestling match with a stranger?  Who started it? If this were a fight for survival with a stranger, why would Jacob choose wrestling as the best form of combat? The next verses don't help clarify the story

Gen 32:25  When he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he touched the socket of his thigh; so the socket of Jacob’s thigh was dislocated while he wrestled with him.Gen 32:26  Then he said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking.” But he said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” 

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One theory to explain this is that Jacob wrestled with himself, which fits with "Jacob was left alone". It could be seen as symbolic for when we wrestle with ourselves. That is, we each have a good side and an evil side, and Christians are supposed to wrestle with our evil thoughts and bring them into subjection. This battle takes place "Between The Ears". As much as I like the symbolism, the problem I see with that theory is that no one can dislocate their own thigh.

Another theory is that Jacob thought the man was Esau, and didn't know otherwise until the sun came up. That explains certain facts too, like why Jacob didn't use weapons. If a stranger came on you at night in the desert, you would be inclined to defend yourself in whatever way necessary. If you thought it was your brother, you would exercise restraint.

The Name Change

Focusing on how the wrestling match got started kept me from writing about a more important point in the story, perhaps the main point of the story. So I shelved this for a while because I didn't have a good explanation of how to start a wrestling match with a stranger. When I came back to it recently, I came up with a theory, but I'll get back to that.

Consider that someone gave Jacob the new name Israel.  If someone in a schizophrenic wrestling match renamed himself, would he choose a name that means "prevailed with God" or "prince of God"?  Note that afterwards, Jacob seems convinced he wrestled with God.

Why was it important for Jacob to get a new name?  That has a clearer answer.  It goes back to his birth with his twin brother Esau. The boys struggled [wrestled] so much in the womb that their mother Rebecca inquired of God.

Sibling Rivalry

Gen 25:23 The Lord said to her, “Two nations are in your womb; And two peoples will be separated from your body; And one people shall be stronger than the other; And the older shall serve the younger.”
24 When her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb.
25 Now the first came forth red, all over like a hairy garment; and they named him Esau.
26 Afterward his brother came forth with his hand holding on to Esau’s heel, so his name was called Jacob; and Isaac was sixty years old when she gave birth to them.

Rebekah with Esau and Jacob

It's not apparent in translation, but notice that "THEY called his name Esau", then "his name was called Jacob". Hebrew scholars say that should be translated "HE called his name Jacob". In other words, Isaac AND Rebecca named Esau, but only Isaac named Jacob. Rebecca apparently didn't approve.

Jacob was named Heel Catcher, and he probably didn't like his name, though he fulfilled it.  Jacob tricked Esau out of his birthright, and later tricked his father Isaac out of the blessing meant for Esau. Esau's response:

Gen 27:36  And he said, Is not he rightly named Jacob? for he hath supplanted me these two times: he took away my birthright; and, behold, now he hath taken away my blessing.

Jacob tricks Isaac

There are interesting connections with English here.  We use the word heel as a derogatory term, usually male.  Also, a heel is crooked, we use the word crooked to describe a dishonest person.  Jacob was crooked in his dealings with his brother.  One might say Jacob "heeled" Esau these two times.  But Jacob learned his lesson at the hand of his father in law Laban, who tricked him like he tricked Isaac.  And Jacob wasn't crooked any more.  So he needed his name reset to reflect his new nature.

The Blessing

Right before his name change, Jacob insists on a blessing.  Did he receive some blessing other than the name change?  If he did, it's not in the text, here's all it says.

Gen 32:29 Then Jacob asked him and said, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And he blessed him there.

But look at the major events in the rest of Jacob's life.

• Jacob lost his wife Rachel and his father Isaac a short time later.
• Jacob's daughter Dinah was raped, and his sons took vengeance.
• Jacob's son Rueben slept with Jacob's concubine Bilhah.
• He lost Joseph for 14 years, he thought Joseph was dead.
• He almost lost Benjamin in Egypt.
• He spends his last years in Egypt, a foreign land.

Indeed, Jacob himself characterized his life like this.

Gen 42:9 So Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The years of my sojourning are one hundred and thirty; few and evil have been the years of my life, nor have they attained the years that my fathers lived during the days of their sojourning.”

Few and evil.

The Name Change Is the Blessing

My assertion is the name change IS the blessing.  It is the central point of the wrestling story.  The wrestling story is a chiasm*, that is, verses arranged in a mirror image like a menorah.  One's attention is drawn to the central verse, meaning, it is the point of the story.  In this story, the central verse, which has no mirror image, is the name change.  No other blessings are mentioned.  Note the highlighted words mirrored around verse 28.

24 Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.

25 When he saw that he had not prevailed against him,
he touched the socket of his thigh;
so the socket of Jacob’s thigh was dislocated while he wrestled with him.

    26 Then he said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking.”
    But he said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

         27 So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.”
         28 He said, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, 

              but Israel; for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed.”

        29 Then Jacob asked him and said, “Please tell me your name.”
        But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?”

    And he blessed him there.

    30 So Jacob named the place Peniel, for he said,
    “I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been preserved.”

31 Now the sun rose upon him just as he crossed over Penuel,
and he was limping on his thigh.

32 Therefore, to this day the sons of Israel do not eat the sinew of the hip
which is on the socket of the thigh,
because he touched the socket of Jacob’s thigh in the sinew of the hip.

I ❤ Chiasms ❤ I

Just to make it more obvious, this chiasm is arranged like this.

A. thigh
      B. bless
           C. name     
                 Jacob becomes Israel
           C'. name
      B'. bless
A'. thigh



Jacob's name change was confirmed in Gen 35:9-16, which is also a chiasm, this time unambiguously by God Himself. Some say Jacob's name was changed twice, but my theory is that chapter 35 is a retelling of chapter 32. Esau  (which means doer - Abarim(Esau)) also had another name, which was Edom (which means red).

Jacob became Israel, he reconciled with Esau, and the story should end there, but strife continued between Esau's descendants and Jacob's descendants, and continues to this day. Apparently, Esau's descendants didn't get the memo about reconciliation.  Relations Of Edom And Israel [1]

Back To Wrestling

Jacob wrestled with God (or an angelic representative), not Esau. I find it plausible that he thought he was wrestling with Esau at first. But why wrestling? I got hung up because I had been thinking of wrestling in modern terms, like Olympic wrestling with very specific rules. Biting and gouging the eyes are forbidden in nearly all types of wrestling, modern and ancient. Many styles don't  allow hitting, some don't even allow holds below the waist wiki(Greco-Roman_wrestling) [2], but it was not always so. In ancient times, wrestling was training for soldiers, and in combat, wrestling would have been a fight to the death. In ancient sport wrestling, submission was the goal. Submission wrestling still exists, one match in the 1912 Olympics lasted six hours without a decision - Britannica(Wrestling) [3]. Ancient wrestling was more akin to what we would call hand to hand combat, or mixed martial arts, where anything goes wiki(Pankration) [4].

The notion that Jacob thought it was Esau explains why he didn't use a knife or a rock to win. God (or angel) matched him move for move. The Hebrew word abaq translated here as wrestle Lexicon-Concordance [5] appears nowhere else in the Bible. It's root means dust.  They got dusty.  They wrestled in the dirt. We have an expression 'dust up', meaning a fight. Jacob's wrestling match appears to be more like submission wrestling, but less than a fight to the death.

I still don't know who started it.

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The following is from Gotquestions(chiasm) [6]

*A chiasm (also called a chiasmus) is a literary device in which a sequence of ideas is presented and then repeated in reverse order. The result is a “mirror” effect as the ideas are “reflected” back in a passage. Each idea is connected to its “reflection” by a repeated word, often in a related form. The term chiasm comes from the Greek letter chi, which looks like our letter X. Chiastic pattern is also called “ring structure.”

The structure of a chiasm is usually expressed through a series of letters, each letter representing a new idea. For example, the structure ABBA refers to two ideas (A and B) repeated in reverse order (B and A). Often, a chiasm includes another idea in the middle of the repetition: ABXBA. In this structure, the two ideas (A and B) are repeated in reverse order, but a third idea is inserted before the repetition (X). By virtue of its position, the insertion is emphasized.

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Is this a real chiasm?

Chiasmus Exchange [7] lists all known chiasms in the Bible. The list keeps growing, as of Jan 7 2019, they list 1929 chiasms! There are chiasms in every book of the Bible, Old and New Testament. Genesis for example has 92 chiasms. Some are small, some span several chapters. Chiasms are used as a literary device to focus attention on the center verse or phrase. They also can serve as a memory aid. Feel free to read my blog article Rhythm And Rhyme [8] where I discuss the chiastic structure of Psalm 67. The Bible has fantastic depth of structure that we are not always aware of. Chiasms are a surprisingly common type of structure to help us gain meaning beyond the words written. Nearly all the Biblical chiasms are visible in English too, occasionally a chiasm word will be translated two different ways, but rarely, and Chiasmus Exchange has found those as well.

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References

1. http://biblehub.com/sermons/auth/tuck/the_relations_of_edom_and_israel.htm
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Roman_wrestling
2. https://www.britannica.com/sports/wrestling
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pankration
5. http://lexiconcordance.com/hebrew/0079.html
6. https://www.gotquestions.org/chiasm-chiastic.html
7. https://www.chiasmusxchange.com/

8. https://jlfreeman-1.blogspot.com/2017/12/rhythm-and-rhyme.html