But What Does it Mean?
That little guy in the photo above looks more than a little smug, doesn't he? He's sure he knows what it means!
One of the most distressing...if not THE most distressing thing...about learning Torah within a community is that it too frequently leads to learning Torah outside a community. In our livestream on Shabbat, I plan to present a simple overview of leadership principles that may help you whether you are a congregational leader, home fellowship leader, family leader, or just want to learn how to be a good follower.
Those community principles are often challenged because we don't have good study tools in our toolbox, and without them, we can adopt all kinds of variations of understanding and practice from a single commandment. Those variations become divisive when it affects what the community can observe together.
In this week's newsletter, I'd like to pass on to you what I spent lots of time and money learning in college. No charge! It can be of tremendous help when navigating through divergent understandings of Scripture. If we understand the difference between meaning and significance, it could squash a lot of arguments over what a Scripture means, especially when we look as smug as our friend up there when we're convinced we found THE explanation instead of ONE explanation.
For instance, over the last couple of years, we've been studying the Song of Songs. It is a parable, poetry, song, commentary, elucidation of Torah, and prophecy, so it is rich in symbolism, and we've enjoyed deriving lots of interpretations of each verse's significance based on passages with similar context and even Hebrew wordplay. When one encounters Biblical symbolism, it is important to remember:
When parsing a passage of Scripture, the application of wordplay should not derive a new meaning even though a new significance is expected.
Let’s review these two principles of hermeneutics and the definition of hermeneutics. Don't worry, it sounds really dry and boring, but just look at that little guy up there. We don't want to look like him, do we?
Hermeneutics is the study of principles and methods of interpretation, and it may be applied to the interpretation of any text, not just Scripture. The art and science of hermeneutics traces back to Ezra, who is known as the Father of Hermeneutics, and the scholars of the Great Synagogue in 475 BC. In the reading of the Torah after the return from Babylon, the scholars had to give the Aramaic-speakers the meaning of the Hebrew text (Nehemiah 8). The Jewish word equivalent to hermeneutics is middot, or measures, standards.
Believers today may fall prey to false confidence in devising their own doctrines or interpretations of Scripture. Because access to the internet is easy, a person without training in Biblical research techniques can begin to string together premises in error, or worse yet, simply fall prey to a twisted Torah-teaching website. The endless list of contention points within the believing community is a testament to this illusion of brilliance in working out new calendars, Names and pronunciations, reworking of the Canon, etc. Consider the self-deception made possible with internet searches:
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“Searching the Internet may cause a systematic failure to recognize the extent to which we rely on outsourced knowledge,’ the study said. ‘… People mistake access to information for their own personal understanding of the information.’ …Internet users demonstrated their inflated ego… Though some people’s online searches were unsuccessful, merely typing into Google and scrolling through the results seemed to offer a confidence boost…Even when a filter was put on Google to ensure that the search turned up no results at all — just the message ‘did not match any documents’ and a gentle suggestion to check their spelling — the Internet users remained more confident about the general knowledge assessment than those who hadn’t tried searching at all. Weirdly, it’s the act of searching, not just simple access to the Internet, that gives people the illusion of their own brilliance.” (Kaplan, S. April 1, 2015. How the Internet makes you think you’re smarter than you really are. Retrieved 5-1-2015 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/04/01/how-the-internet-makes-you-think-youre-smarter-than-you-really-are/)
These internet searches are rarely conducted with the entire congregation present. In Yeshua's day, accountability ensured that subtly-twisted doctrines were more difficult to teach to an entire community. Although scholars at individual synagogues in First Century Judea and Galilee may have taught slightly different interpretations, the big rifts were caused by bigger considerations, such as belief in the resurrection of the dead, validation of the political priesthood, or Hellenizing, which formed larger sects among the population.
Today, the internet and openness to multiple sources, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls or Pseudepigrapha, make a disturbing number of individual “experts” out of people with no accountability to even one rabbi or pastor, much less a school of peers educated in the language of the Scriptures.
To prevent the error warned about in 2 Peter 1:20, “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation,” the Jewish sages taught hermeneutics with caution. Therefore, when we look at commentaries or the Midrash, we are reminded of our rule:
When parsing a passage of Scripture, the application of wordplay should not derive a new meaning even though a new significance is expected.
What are we talking about?
Meaning vs Significance
Meaning is that which is represented by a text; it is what the author meant by his use of a particular sign sequence; it is what the signs represent. Meaning is fixed and unchanging. ‘To banish the original author as the determiner of meaning is to reject the only compelling normative principle that could lend validity to an interpretation.’ Meaning is held accountable to the criteria of truthfulness and veracity, and it needs to be ready to set the text in the primary world of realities in which it happened. Interpreters must include the historical referents where the text does.
Significance names a relationship between meaning and a person, or a conception, or a situation, or anything imaginable. Significance is never fixed and always changing. For instance, “synagogue of Satan” had a specific religious and historical significance from around 30 BC to 70 AD. It was applied to the House of Shammai that denied righteous Gentiles any part in the olam haba (World to Come). Shammai was famous for refusing to teach Torah to a Gentile, and the Pharisaic House of Hillel referred to the Shammaiites as Satan’s Seed.
Hillel was famous for teaching Gentiles Torah so that they would convert and serve the God of Abraham. Paul was a Pharisee from the House of Hillel; therefore, once Paul realized Yeshua came to save Gentiles, he became the greatest advocate for Gentile inclusion into the faith. The phrase was used by Pharisees to describe other Pharisees, not all synagogues or every Jew!
One cannot strip the original meaning of the phrase from the writer, which was applied by Jews to other Jews who held a divergent doctrine concerning Gentiles and the covenant. Now could we apply its significance to our own generation? Sure. But I hope not! Could we call believers with divergent doctrines the synagogue of satan? We could, but let's not. It's been abused enough already.
The Hebrew text sometimes adds to the palette of significant possibilities because there are variant spellings. For instance, sometimes David is דָּוִד , and sometimes David is דָּוִיד (2 Ch 7:17).
Since there are no errors, the variants are understood to purposely lend a special significance from that particular spelling in that context. Such a case draws attention to the added letter, a yod. What is the literal meaning of that added letter, and what significance might it add? Usually, there will be no consensus in such a case because it points out an expansion of significance, not of the literal meaning.
David is still David even though significantly, the additional letter's value adds ten to the original gematria of fourteen, coming to twenty-four. From there, one might find significance in the twenty-four elders in Revelation, etc. We don't develop doctrines from significance, but it does expand our insight, appreciation, and helps to establish a way of walking in the understanding of it as long as we don't diverge from the meaning.
This enters into our parsing of the verses in the Song of Songs. In discussions of the Midrash, the sages are flexible as they discuss significance by linking the words and numbers in the verse to other contexts. This recognizes the beauty of the text in significance, not its literal meaning.
“Behold, it is the traveling couch of Solomon; sixty warriors around it, of the warriors of Israel.” (So 3:7)
הִנֵּה מִטָּתוֹ שֶׁלִּשְׁלֹמֹה שִׁשִּׁים גִּבֹּרִים סָבִיב לָהּ מִגִּבֹּרֵי יִשְׂרָאֵֽל
The Midrash elucidates significance:
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“Behold, it is his couch [matot], i.e., His tribes, like that which is states in Habakkuk 3:9, the oath to the tribes [matot]; of ‘Solomon’ hints at ‘of (shel) the King to Whom peace (shalom) belongs;’ sixty mighty men round about it – these sixty men allude to the sixty letters contained in the Priestly Blessing; of the mighty men of Israel – these sixty letters are called thus because they strengthen Israel.” (3§11)
Israel’s call to be a nation of priests as they encamped in the wilderness is ramped up in the vision of them guarding the mitah of Melekh Shlomo as they arise from the wilderness to cross the Jordan and take their inheritance. The number sixty has a significant relationship to the number of words in the Aaronic Benediction, so a nation of priests may understand their role in protecting the resting place of the King to Whom Peace Belongs.
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“Behold, it is his couch (mitato) suggests, ‘Behold, it is His tribes...sixty mighty men round about it-these are the twenty-four priesthood watches and the twenty-four Levites watches, and the twelve monthly divisions, for a total of sixty groups; of the mighty men of Israel; the sixty groups are called thus because they safeguard Israel.”
In this significance, mitato represents the matot, or the wordplay of "His tribes" of Israel. Each “man” represents a whole division of “watches” over the Temple. We even see the appearance of the number twenty-four, the gematria of the variant spelling of "David."
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“In his old age, King David made various preparations for the building, administration, and functioning of the Temple. With regard to the latter, he divided the Kohanim into twenty-four mishmarot, or watches, each of which would perform the sacrificial services on a rotating basis for one week.” (ibid) All would serve during the pilgrimage feasts.
- “King David divided the Levites as well into twenty-four watches. They, too, would serve for one week in the Temple on a rotating basis, functioning as gatekeepers and singers, along with other duties...
- ...from the earliest days of David’s reign, it was instituted that twelve divisions of 24,000 men [from each tribe] each were to be at the king’s disposal to assist in the execution of his royal duties. Each division served for one month on a rotating basis, with the cycle repeating every year...these sixty groups ‘encircle’ and safeguard Israel.” 3§12
Kohanim watches: 24
Leviim watches: 24
Tribes’ watches: 12
TOTAL WATCHES: 60
In this significance, the sixty mighty men serving in Jerusalem are comprised of the twelve tribes of Israel, a nation of priests, and their twenty-four watches from the specific division of Levites, the twenty-four divisions of priests among the Levites, and then separate watches of 24,000 from the remaining twelve tribes each month.
None of these significant contexts changes the simple meaning of sixty mighty men surrounding King Solomon's traveling couch.
This is why the smirking little guy in the photo shouldn't be so smug. He should enjoy finding the treasures of significance in the Word, but he shouldn't be so sure he's found the real meaning of the commandment and start establishing doctrine independently of the great cloud of witnesses.
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