Grainfield innuendos

Morsels of food are delicious because of the little things, the subtle seasonings, the dash of salt, the sprinkle of garlic, the garnish of parsley, the touch of glaze, or the hint of lemon.  Ahhhh - so delicious!

It was an old law.  It dated way back.  Its origins could have dated back to the time when the original group of Hebrews left Egypt.  Since it comes to us from Deuteronomy, which means second law, the date could also be a little less ancient by about 400 years, but either way, the law was very, very old.  It was found among several laws that told the people of Israel how to live as brothers and sisters with each other.  It stated that if you were walking along the road and were hungry, you could pick the heads of grain in the field.  There was the restriction not to bring a container to load up on grain.  That would be theft.  But, to satisfy one's hunger, by all means the field's owner would want to help a brother or sister in time of need.  Deuteronomy 23.25 contains the exact law.

A sister law, also ancient, required bread to be baked for God and put on a table in the Holy Place.  When the priests ate a loaf of this bread, they were to put incense in its place as a place holder offering until the bread could be replaced.  Since the bread was presented to God, then eaten by those serving God directly for the people, it was considered to be sacred.  Priests had kept the tradition alive for a few hundred years.  Leviticus 24.9 contains the instructions for this tradition.

So, one day Jesus was walking down a road with his Twelve.  They were hungry and partook of some heads of grain from a grain field.  That was a perfectly legitimate thing to do.  They must have partaken of the grain close to a village because the group had onlookers who saw them eating.  The whole scene should have come under the category of No Harm Done, EXCEPT that the day Jesus and his Twelve were walking together was the Sabbath.  Matthew 12.1-8 carries the story.

Sabbath rules had been around at least as long as the other two laws above, and Sabbath rules had had a huge oral tradition in the Talmud to accompany the Old Testament reminder to keep the Sabbath holy.  Every Jew was well versed in what the Sabbath meant and how it was to be observed.  Of all the laws, this law and all its accompanying comments by various popular and esteemed rabbis, appears to have been the one most strictly followed.

According to Matthew 12, several villagers from the Pharisaical group saw Jesus and his party picking the grain and eating it from the field, evidently near the village.  They felt compelled to approach Jesus to contest his terrible example in front of his followers.  Jesus had a really surprising answer for them using the episode from David's life in 1 Samuel 21.1-6.

Matthew 12

Verse 3

ὁ δὲ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς· οὐκ ἀνέγνωτε τί ἐποίησεν Δαυὶδ ὅτε ἐπείνασεν καὶ οἱ μετ’ αὐτοῦ

(He asked them, "Haven't you read what David and those with him did when they were hungry?)

Verse 4

πῶς εἰσῆλθεν εἰς τὸν οἶκον τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ τοὺς ἄρτους τῆς προθέσεως ἔφαγον, ὃ οὐκ ἐξὸν ἦν αὐτῷ φαγεῖν οὐδὲ τοῖς μετ’ αὐτοῦ εἰ μὴ τοῖς ἱερεῦσιν μόνοις

(That he went into God's house and ate the bread put out for God.  It was permissible for the priests only to eat, not for David and those with him.)

And Jesus wasn't quite finished.  Priests actually had to offer a meat sacrifice with grain and wine, thus breaking, technically, the prohibitions of working on the Sabbath.  The sacrifice of lamb, grain, and wine can be read in Numbers 28.9-10.

Verse 5

ἢ οὐκ ἀνέγνωτε ἐν τῷ νόμῳ ὅτι τοῖς σάββασιν οἱ ἱερεῖς ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ τὸ σάββατον βεβηλοῦσιν καὶ ἀναίτιοί εἰσιν

(Or haven't you read in the law that on the Sabbath, the priests in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and are not considered at fault for doing so?)

I'm sure that the Pharisees felt like Jesus had just aligned a few of the sacred writings in really creative, but unwarranted ways.  It sounded like rationalization to the max.  A person can tell this by the number of times Pharisees approached Jesus about his Sabbath practices.  His "malpractice" of the Sabbath became a real issue between Jesus' teachings and the Talmud traditions as taught by the Pharisees.

Ironically, the Jews' view of the Sabbath slid into the background given what Jesus said after he had gotten the Pharisees' attention with his application of Old Testament laws to his current activity.  Jesus' next statement was beyond bold because it made a matter of supreme importance, the observance of Sabbath rules, invisible to this conversation.

Verse 6

λέγω δὲ ὑμῖν ὅτι τοῦ ἱεροῦ μεῖζόν ἐστιν ὧδε.

(I tell you that someone greater than the temple is here.)

A person can see the sequence of thought here for the Pharisees keeping up with Jesus' words as they were being spoken.  They were thinking He just justified breaking the law in this modern society by quoting from our scriptures.  Absurd!  He took a really unorthodox view of the priests eating the bread presented to God to justify his own actions.  Unthinkable!  But putting his teachings higher than temple teachings is a level above arrogance!  It had their heads reeling. However, Jesus had one more statement to make that the Pharisees could never acknowledge.

Verse 8

κύριος γάρ ἐστιν τοῦ σαββάτου ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου

(for the Lord of the Sabbath is the Son of Man!")

Jesus didn't have time to spare.  He was on a mission.  He had a message to deliver.  He delivered it quickly, precisely, and succinctly.  Jesus had three years. He had to get the word out that he was the Messiah.  He did so through direct statement occasionally, but through innuendo a lot. And the innuendo part is the delicious morsel in this passage because it is through the innuendo that the Pharisees thought Jesus' teachings were heretical.

Messiah in the Outer Court
Bill Stephens

Verse 8 is many times translated "for the Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath."  In this way of thinking Jesus uses the name he has assigned himself, the Son of Man, to refer to himself as being Lord of the Sabbath, and above the rules that deal with the Sabbath.  The words in Greek have a different order, however.  They translate as "The Lord of the Sabbath is the Son of Man."  At first glance this translation merely seems like a reverse version of the first translation used.  Since the copula (is) is used, some say that there is no difference in meaning.  The Lord is the son, the son is the Lord.  One nominative phrase reidentifies the other, and the phrases are of equal importance.  There is no difference in meaning.

A linguist would say that order does matter because the semantics are different.  The subject of the sentence has primary emphasis and the predicate nominative has secondary significance.  If this is true, the second way of translating the order of the Greek means that the Lord of the Sabbath is emphasized and the Son of Man is further identification.  The phrase of primary importance in this case changes the meaning of Jesus' words.  Jesus wasn't saying that he was the Lord of the Sabbath and, therefore, above the rules.  There was only one Lord of the Sabbath, and that was God.  Jesus was saying that God was the Son of Man.  Jesus was claiming that he was God.  The Jews didn't miss the implication.  And that implication began causing a great rift between Jesus' teaching and their own.

Jesus was also the master of the pun.  He made many a statement with double-intended meanings.  This could easily be one of those statements.  He was God.  He was Lord of the Sabbath, above the man-made rules for any day of the week.  He was the Son of Man, the Jews' term for the messiah.  He was and is all of the above.  And even though he created a chasm between him and the Pharisees, he confounded them at the same time.  They didn't exactly know what their next move should be nor could they predict well what Jesus would say.  His teachings were not rote.  They were spontaneous, yet deeply rooted in scripture and history, and sometimes, first-hand sounding knowledge.

I strive harder at times to rid myself of useless traditions of religion than at other times.  But, in the last decade, I have been better able to shake off the dust of the man-made rules of the image that Christians are expected to maintain.  I need to do even more dusting off.  I need to merely be able to see God clearly enough to act immediately and effectively without running the appropriate response through a filter of any expectations other than God's.  I think this episode from Jesus' life is not so much about the relative nature of truth as it is about immediately reacting to situations that face us with what is good, right, and true to God's nature.  Make me that way, please God.



[The beginning song is Yahweh by Elevation Worship, the ending song is Say the Word by Hillsong United]
[Artwork is Messiah in the Outer Court by Bill Stephens retrieved from
http://www.art.com/gallery/id--b12115/Christianity-posters.htm?RFID=054402&domain=com&KWID=892929202&VTP=Start&NetWorkType=g&PAdCopyId=7603601950&ClickPos=1t2&GeolociId=9027304&IntLocId=&AudId=kwd-17171282&Device=c&VTP=End&gclid=CPjYw8z0nM4CFcKGaQod5HYHkA&pe=true]

[The Greek text used is the Nestle 28th edition]
[Translations from Greek are my own.]

A joint way of life

Morsels of food are delicious because of the little things, the subtle seasonings, the dash of salt, the sprinkle of garlic, the garnish of parsley, the touch of glaze, or the hint of lemon.  Ahhhh - so delicious!

At the outset of Jesus' public teaching, people probably thought that it was a bit unusual.  But then, people come along from time to time who present the unusual to us.  We recognize it and take it in stride.  Jesus' teaching was unusual, but it very quickly hit a different level.  Changing water to wine was a benevolent thing to do as a first miracle.  But Jesus' response to John the Baptist in the early part of Matthew 11 shows a broader scope.  Jesus had made the lame walk, the deaf hear, the lepers whole, and the blind see.  Those who had had the life seep out of them, had had that life returned to them.  That was far  more than a bit unusual.  It was over the top, extreme, unimaginable, and inimitable.  And his teachings were every bit the same way.  They were distinct, easy to implement, sensible, and irreplicable.

From the beginning of the time Jesus had appeared in public, he had referred to his father.  As the Jews listened, they knew he wasn't speaking of Joseph.  In fact, he claimed not just to be a child of God like everyone else, he claimed to be the personal child of God whose origin was in a different realm.  In the closing part of Matthew 11, the clarity of his words about God cannot be missed.

Verse 25

Ἐν ἐκείνῳ τῷ καιρῷ ἀποκριθεὶς ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν· ἐξομολογοῦμαί σοι, πάτερ, κύριε τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καὶ τῆς γῆς, ὅτι ἔκρυψας ταῦτα ἀπὸ σοφῶν καὶ συνετῶν καὶ ἀπεκάλυψας αὐτὰ νηπίοις

(At that time Jesus began speaking, "I agree with you, Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth to have hidden these things from the clever and educated and disclosed them to those with childlike understanding.)

Verse 26

ναὶ ὁ πατήρ, ὅτι οὕτως εὐδοκία ἐγένετο ἔμπροσθέν σου

(Yes, Father, it was pleasing in your eyes for it to happen this way.)

Verse 27

Πάντα μοι παρεδόθη ὑπὸ τοῦ πατρός μου, καὶ οὐδεὶς ἐπιγινώσκει τὸν υἱὸν εἰ μὴ ὁ πατήρ, οὐδὲ τὸν πατέρα τις ἐπιγινώσκει εἰ μὴ ὁ υἱὸς καὶ ᾧ ἐὰν βούληται ὁ υἱὸς ἀποκαλύψαι

(Everything has been given to me by my father.  No one understands everything about a son except a father, nor about a father by anyone except a son and others the son wishes to disclose him to.)

This, of course, set the stage for his teachings.  After giving teachings about having God's favor and shouting sounds of pain (Luke 6.20-26), slightly earlier in his public teaching, Jesus wanted to further distance God's way from the teachings so prevalent in the current instruction of the Talmud.  Topics in the Talmud were tedious, long, easy to forget, and applied to selective areas of life.  Although there were many topics in the Talmud, the sabbath topic was a long-standing one, and one surely Jesus heard often as a child.  It serves as an example to illustrate the laborious nature of an expounded topic.  Below is a sampling of this teaching from the Babylonian Talmud.
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Mishna II - The principal acts of labor (prohibited on the Sabbath) are forty less one: sowing, plowing, reaping, binding into sheaves, threshing, winnowing, fruit-cleaning, grinding, sifting, kneading, baking, wool-shearing, bleaching, combing, dyeing, spinning, warping, making two-spindle-trees, weaving two threads, separating two threads (in the warp), tying a knot, untying a knot, sewing on with two stitches, tearing in order to sew together with two stitches, hunting deer, slaughtering the same, skinning them, salting them, preparing the hide, scraping the hair off, cutting it, writing two single letter characters, erasing in order to write two letters, building, demolishing (in order to rebuild), kindling, extinguishing (fire), hammering, transferring from one place to another.  These are the principal acts of labor - forty less one.

Gemara - For what purpose is the number (so distinctly) given?  (They are enumerated.)  Said R. Johanan: if one labored through total ignorance of the (laws governing the) Sabbath, he must bring a sin-offering for every act of labor performed...

... Said R. Aha in the name of R. Hyya b. Ashi quoting R. Ami "One who prunes is guilty of planting, and one who plants, transplants, or grafts, is guilty of sowing."  Of sowing and not of planting?  I mean to say of planting also...

... "Binding into sheaves."  Rabha said: One who gathers salt from salt works is guilty of the act of binding into sheaves.  Abayi, however, said that binding into sheaves applies only to produce of the soil.

[For the complete Chapter VII on Acts of Labor on the Sabbath containing the complete Mishnah II and four other Mishnahs concerning the Sabbath, click or press here.]
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One of the groups the gospels refer to as trying to trap Jesus in his words is the "scribes" as they have been called for many years.  The word is γραμματεῖς (scholars of the law).  These were the people who studied the Law and Talmud and could cite them by heart. They were scholars and treated Jesus as an upstart who didn't know the depth of God's law as they did.  Thus, it became important to Jesus that he show his connection to God as his son in order to demonstrate that he was every bit as knowledgeable as the γραμματεῖς, and more so.

Guardian Angel
by Danny Hahlbohm

Jesus set his words against such teachings as those above.  His sayings were original.  They may at times have contained echoes of others' teachings to reference his breadth of knowledge, but they would have an original twist.  Matthew 11 illustrates this well.  Jesus echoes The Wisdom of Sirach.  In Sirach 6.21, 23, the author spoke of those to whom Wisdom revealed herself as being the unwise, the unlearned.  Likewise, Jesus thanks God in Matthew 11.25-27 for showing his teaching to the unwise and unlearned as well as God revealing himself to the son and those whom the son reveals himself.  In Sirach 6.24-30, readers were encouraged to put themselves under Wisdom's yoke and in her fetters, and they would find rest and joy.  Sirach 51.26 suggests putting the yoke of Wisdom on one's neck and receiving her instruction.  Changing it from from a personification about wisdom to a metaphor about himself, Jesus takes the idea of finding rest and putting on his yoke and makes it original about following his teachings.  In addition, Jesus hints that he is Wisdom, thus, his hearers should accept his instruction.  But, even though Jesus refers to his teachings as a yoke, showing a knowledge of Sirach, one has to think that Jesus' main purpose was to take full aim at teachings like the sabbath topic above (and representative of all the others found in the Talmud) which turned the ways of God into something laborious and odious.  The Talmud's yoke was tedious, heavy-handed, and hard.  In contrast, Jesus said his yoke was light and easy.

Verses 28

Δεῦτε πρός με πάντες οἱ κοπιῶντες καὶ πεφορτισμένοι, κἀγὼ ἀναπαύσω ὑμᾶς

(Everyone who is tired and carrying a heavy load - come to me.  I will allow you to rest.)

Verse 29

ἄρατε τὸν ζυγόν μου ἐφ’ ὑμᾶς καὶ μάθετε ἀπ’ ἐμοῦ, ὅτι πραΰς εἰμι καὶ ταπεινὸς τῇ καρδίᾳ

(Put on my yoke and learn from me because I am gentle and unpretentious.)

Verse 30

ὁ γὰρ ζυγός μου χρηστὸς καὶ τὸ φορτίον μου ἐλαφρόν ἐστιν

(My yoke fits you exactly and my load is light. )

A couple of the subtle seasonings used in these last two verses are the puns that Jesus uses.  Since people translate this verse one way, that is, using the yoke and the heavy load, the value of the pun is lost in the translation.  By using the other meanings of the double entendre, the yoke becomes a symbol for shouldering a load together and light burden becomes a contrasting idea to the extensive rules of the Talmud about certain topics.  The following translation can be made.

Put on the bar that joins us together and acquire my habits because I am easy to work with and don't mind joining you.  The bar that joins us benefits you, my load isn't tedious, long, and odious.

The word ζυγός (yoke) can at times refer to a balance beam or just a balance.  So, really, yoke is a triple entendre.  The scholars of the law would not have missed this intended meaning.   It meant,

Take on my teachings because they are balanced.  My teachings are not rigid and don't make you high and mighty.  The balance makes you good and keeps you steady.

That's my goal - to put on Jesus' yoke and learn from him.  It's a beneficial way of life.  It's a fluid way of life because his teachings apply to every situation, at least that I have ever encountered.  It's a steady way of life that people learn to count on you for.  It's a joint way of life.

[The beginning and ending songs are different versions of Prince of Peace by Hillsong United]
[Artwork is Guardian Angel by Danny Hohlbohm retrieved from
http://www.fulcrumgallery.com/Danny-Hahlbohm/Guardian-Angel_69658.htm]
[For a suggested text of the Wisdom of Sirach click here.]
[For a suggested text for the Babylonian Talmud of the Mishnah used above click here.]

[The Greek text used is the Nestle 28th edition]
[Translations from Greek are my own.]