Short Lessons from the Proverbs

The Book of Proverbs records many (but far from all!) of the sayings of King Solomon, plus the words of a few other wise men and women. It includes profound wisdom on living a godly life, on finances, leadership, relationships, and even on farming and war.

Between January 2020 and April 2021 (and later), I recorded eighty-four (and counting) short video teachings on the Proverbs and how they apply to life in modern America. I have also linked almost all of them to one or more of the annual Torah portions. Those links can be found in YouTube playlists and in the topical tags on each video at Rumble, Daily Motion, and YouTube. 

These videos are also in a Rumble playlist.

Don't forget to subscribe to my Rumble, Daily Motion and YouTube channels.

Short Lessons from Proverbs:

• Introduction to the Book of Proverbs, Proverbs
• The Fear of Our Fathers, Proverbs 1:7
• Proverbs 1:7 and the fear of the LORD, Proverbs 1:7
• When is it OK to lie, biblically speaking?, Proverbs 1:10-19
• Wisdom is free to whomever is willing to go get it., Proverbs 1:20-33
• The Book of Proverbs Is about Principles, not Laws, Proverbs 1
• Honoring Your Parents, Even the Bad Ones, Proverbs 2
• The Escalating Quest for Wisdom, Proverbs 2:1-8
• Fathers above and below, Proverbs 3:1-12
• The Man of Violence, Proverbs 3:31-32
• The Wisdom of Our Fathers, Proverbs 4:1-4
• A Heritage of Wisdom, Proverbs 4:1-19
• Prize Her Highly, and She Will Exalt You, Proverbs 4:8-9
• The Fires of Youth, Proverbs 5
• The Forbidden Teacher, Proverbs 5:5-6
• Your Sins Will Find You Out, Proverbs 5
• Defeating Laziness, Proverbs 6:6-11
• Fake News, Proverbs 6:12-19
• The Utility of Moral Boundaries, Proverbs 7
• Why so much about women in the Proverbs?, Proverbs 7-8
• Leveling Up in Wisdom, Proverbs 8:1-4
• Four Characteristics of Wisdom, Proverbs 9:1-6
• Teaching Fools and Wise Men, Proverbs 9:7-9
• The OTHER Proverbs 9 Woman, Proverbs 9:13-18
• Three Truths about Diligence and Sloth, Proverbs 10:4-5
• Three Kinds of Speech, Proverbs 10
• Speaking Up and Keeping Silent, Proverbs 10:10-11
• Systemic Injustice in Our Weights and Measures, Proverbs 11, 20
• Civil Government and God's Law, Proverbs 11:7-11
• Ensuring Your Legacy by Honoring Your Parents, Proverbs 11:29
• Two Characteristics of the Super Successful, Proverbs 12:1
• Five Times to Keep Silent, Proverbs 12:22-23
• Parents Just Don't Understand!, Proverbs 13:1
• How is it hateful to spare the rod?, Proverbs 13:24
• Nothing Happens without Some Mess, Proverbs 14:4
• My Best Advice for the Hebrew Roots Movement, Proverbs 14:23
• Tyrants, the People, and God, Proverbs 14:28
• Identifying Good Counsel, Proverbs 14:33,15:22
• Don't Let Your Dark Side Speak for You, Proverbs 15:28
• How to Be a King of Righteousness, Proverbs 16:10-16
• Pride Invites Destruction, Proverbs 16:18
• The Crucible of Hearts, Proverbs 17:3
• The Poor and Rich Alike Bear the Image of God, Proverbs 17:5
• A Deceitful Heart Sees a Deceitful World, Proverbs 17:20
• You weren't meant to be alone - Proverbs 18:1
• Think Before You Retort!, Proverbs 18:2
• There Are Always Two Sides, Proverbs 18:17
• Friends of the Rich and Poor, Proverbs 19:4
• Some People Have to Learn the Hard Way, Proverbs 19:19-20
• The Man of Chesed, Proverbs19:22
• The Dangers of Wine and Kings, Proverbs 20:1-2
• Plow today. Harvest...next year?, Proverbs 20:4
• Beware the Walkers!, Proverbs 20:18-19
• The King's Heart, Proverbs 21:1
• Pure Religion, Proverbs 21:3, 21:27
• The Importance of Diligence and Persistence, Proverbs 21:5
• Choosing a Good Name, Proverbs 22:1
• The Disciplining of a Child, Proverbs 22:15
• Does God Really Repay the Unjust? Proverbs 22
• Ancient Boundary Stones and Traditions, Proverbs 22:28
• Be Not A Friend to Drunkards, Proverbs 23:20-21
• Proverbs 24:1-6 and Enduring Conquest through Self-Discipline, Proverbs 24:1-6
• The Home Is for Healing, Proverbs 24:15-16
• Rejoicing over the Fall of Your Enemies, Proverbs 24:17-18
• Faithless Advisors are Poison to Leadership, Proverbs 25:4-5
• Words Fitly Spoken, Proverbs 25:11-12,15
• Love Your Enemy, Proverbs 25:21-22
• The Causes and Solutions to Laziness, Proverbs 26:13-16
• The Words of Whispers and Sycophants, Proverbs 26:22-23
• Hidden and Fake Love, Proverbs 27:5-6
• A Little Bitter Makes Your Whole Life Sweeter, Proverbs 27:7
• Social Justice vs God's Justice, Proverbs 28:4-5
• Invest God's Resources Wisely, Proverbs 28:19
• When the Righteous Hide, Proverbs 28:28
• Who Understands Justice for the Poor?, Proverbs 29:7
• Sons and Servants, Proverbs 29:21
• Of Whom Should We Be Afraid?, Proverbs 29:25
• Who Wrote Proverbs 30?, Proverbs 30:1
• There's no Compromising with Fire, Proverbs 30:15-16
• Of Mice, Men, Ants, and Lions, Proverbs 30:24-31
• The Burdens of Authority, Proverbs 31:1-9
• A Woman of Valor, Who Can Find?, Proverbs 31:10-12
• The Proverbs 31 Woman Reaches Out to the Needy, Proverbs 31:20-21
• The Gates of Proverbs 31, Proverbs 31:23,31

Progressivism is Satanism

 ALL leftist "progressive" politics boil down to two things: rejection of YHVH and the accumulation of power over others.

It's about breaking down resistance, not to vaccines or masks or any other supposed "good for you" commandment of Father State, but to people who rage with revulsion in every cell of their body at the mere existence of people who do not worship them as supreme gods. They point to the golden calf in Washington and say "Here is the god that brought you out of racism and sexism and income inequality!" but the calf is just a wooden puppet that dances and speaks on command from these would-be deities.

Social justice is a scam. Progressives don't care about racism or equality or actual justice. They care about power, about dominating their neighbors, and about eradicating the name of YHVH and everything godly from public society. They are modern day Hamans furious and terrified that Mordechai won't bow, and they are ready to murder anyone who stands against them. 

There is no such thing as a progressive Christian. Progressivism is Satanism.

Chiasm in 1 Timothy 6

 

• v3-5 - Beware of false teachers
• v6-12 - Warning to the rich
• v13 - Praises to God/Jesus
• v14 - Keep the commandments until Jesus appears
• v15-16 - Praises to God/Jesus
• v17-19 - Warning to the rich
• v20-21 - Beware of false teachings

Detestable Abominations and the Like

I did a quick survey of "abomination" and its close synonyms in the Old Testament in response to a question from a good friend. I had to correct a couple of misconceptions that I have entertained for years. There are several Hebrew words used for this idea, but two in particular stood out:

Hebrew: Shekets/shakats/shikuts שׁקץ
English: Something detestable/abominable, to detest, to make detestable
Context: 

• Unclean animals of all kinds are to be considered detestable to you. Leviticus 7, 11 
• Eating unclean animals will make you detestable. Leviticus 11:43, 20:25
• Unclean animals offered as sacrifice or impure sacrifices. Deuteronomy 29:17, 2 Chronicles 15:8, Jeremiah 4:1, Jeremiah 16:18, Ezekiel 5:11 (Sometimes translated as "abominable idols" or something like that, but "idols" is an assumption of the translator. I'm pretty sure it's referring to the sacrifice, not the idol.)

Hebrew: Toebah תּועבה
English: Abomination
Context: 

• Sexual immorality including temple prostitution. Leviticus 18, 20:13, 1 Kings 14:24, Jeremiah 6:15
• Human sacrifice, necromancy, and related practices. Deuteronomy 18, 2 Kings 16:3, 2 Chronicles 28:2-3
• Idolatry and general pagan religious practices. Deuteronomy 20:18, 32:16, 2 Kings 21:2, 23:13, 2 Chronicles 28:2-3, 34:33, Jeremiah 16:18
• Generally wicked behavior. Proverbs

There is definitely a difference between the two words, but it seems to be lost on the English translators. That's more the fault of the English language than of the translators, though. The major difference that I can see is that "shekets" and it's relatives is used when God commands us to hold a thing to be detestable, especially unclean animals, like trying to train a child not to eat something he found on the ground. It’s not that the parent is repulsed by the child eating it (although he is!) so much as he needs to teach the child to be repulsed for himself. On the other hand, whatever is "toebah" is more offensive personally to God. It is behavior that he hates: idolatry, sexual immorality, and a love of death. I don't think that English has such a distinction.

With that perspective, it seems perfectly reasonable to say that God told us not to eat unclean animals because it's bad for us to do so. Whether it's bad physically or spiritually or both is another question. The last option gets my vote.

The Weightier Matters: Love Your Neighbor

Over the past two decades I have spent a lot of time discovering what it means to follow Torah. We all know that the essence of the Law is love: Love God with all your being, and love your neighbor as yourself. I have tried to learn how that applies to waking up in the morning, to eating lunch, to watching television, and to building relationships.

I can follow the right calendar, keep all the biblical feasts, not keep any "pagan" feasts, and avoid all the wrong foods and still not really live Torah. I know people who have never given a thought to whether or not they should eat a seafood salad, but who follow Torah much more closely than I do. The couple who give all their time to the spiritual redemption of murderers and thieves, the man who volunteers day after day to serve hot meals at the Rescue Mission, the woman who spends her afternoons teaching art to neglected and hard-to-teach children, the child who saves his allowance all year to buy Christmas presents for everyone but himself.

For if anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is like a man studying his natural face in a mirror. For he studied himself and went his way, and immediately he forgot what he was like. But whoever looks into the perfect Law of liberty and continues in it, he is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work. This one shall be blessed in his doing. If anyone thinks to be religious among you, yet does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their afflictions, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world….If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and if one of you says to them, Go in peace, be warmed and filled, but you do not give them those things which are needful to the body, what good is it?

-James, the Just

The Biblical Symbolism of Seventy

Bullinger's Number in Scripture says that the number 70 "signifies perfect spiritual order carried out with all spiritual power and significance" because it is 7 (spiritual perfection) multiplied by 10 (order). I believe he's correct, but possibly not in the precise way that he thought. Look at these 70s:

• 70 nations of Genesis 10
• 70 persons of the house of Jacob in Genesis 46:27
• 70 days of mourning by the Egyptians for Jacob in Genesis 50:3
• 70 anointed elders of Israel in Numbers 11
• 70 palm trees in Numbers 33:9
• 70 kings subdued by Adoni-bezek in Judges 1:7
• 70 sons of Gideon in Judges 8:30
• 70 silver paid to Abimelech to depose the sons of Gideon in Judges 9:4
• 70 sons of Abdon the judge in Judges 12:14
• 70 men struck by God for mishandling the Ark in 1 Samuel 6:19
• 70 sons of Ahab in Samaria in 2 Kings 10
• 70 Shemitot not observed by Israel in 2 Chronicles 36:21
• 70 years of life in Psalm 90:10
• 70 years that Tyre will be forgotten in Isaiah 23
• 70 years for the days of a king in Isaiah 23:15
• 70 years to serve the king of Babylon in Jeremiah 25
• 70 elders of Israel in Ezekiel 8:11
• 70 cubits for the building wall in Ezekiel 41:12
• 70 years of exile in Daniel 9:2
• 70 weeks of judgment in Daniel 9:24
• 70 years of judgment in Zechariah 1:12 and 7:5
• 70 disciples sent out by Yeshua in Luke 10

I see two common themes in almost all of these instances, and they do seem to be associated with divine order imposed on the affairs of mankind:

First, seventy represents the delegation of authority. God delegated authority to the 70 elders of Israel, while judges and kings delegated authority to their 70 sons, and Yeshua delegated authority to 70 disciples. Several times, God assigned one people to punish another for a period of 70 years or 70 weeks, effectively delegating his authority for a period of 70 units of time rather than to 70 individuals.

Second, seventy represents the transformation of patriarchs into nations. Noah became 70 nations in Genesis 10 and Jacob grew from one man who left Canaan to four wives who bore twelve sons and finally to seventy descendants who entered Egypt. This might even constitute another kind of delegation.

Of course, these two possibilities don't explain every instance of the number seventy. For example, what are the 70 cubits measured in Ezekiel 41:12? A metaphor of the 70 elders, perhaps?

Different Priesthoods for Different Covenants

Torah portion Vayeshev (Genesis 37-40), contains one of many stories of misdeeds and poor decisions of the patriarchs. In this particular episode, Tamar, the widow of Judah's son, disguises herself as a prostitute in order to trick Judah into sleeping with her. He has no idea it was her, and three months later, when he learns that she is pregnant, he suggests that she be burned as punishment.

That seems excessive, but there's always more to the story than the bare text might imply.

Leviticus 21:9 prescribes burning as punishment for the daughter of a priest "if she profanes herself by whoring, profanes her father". Since Tamar was accused of "whoring", some believe that she was the daughter of a priest. Clearly she was not the daughter of a Levitical priest, because the Levitical priesthood would not be instituted until a few generations later. If her father was a priest, then he was a priest of some other order, one we don't know anything about.

It seems as though every covenant between a god and mankind requires the mediation of a priesthood. In many cases, that priesthood is as simple as the father or eldest son. In others, the priesthood might be large and complex with castes and compartmentalized responsibilities, like that of Aaron and his sons. The requirements, rituals, and laws that govern each priesthood are necessarily different because they have different purposes, serve different covenants, and often even different gods. 

Keep that in mind as you read this article I recently wrote for Founded in Truth: Priests, Laws, and Covenants in Hebrews 7-8.