Mishpatim: Ordinances, Judgments, Rulings
Shemot (Exodus) 21:1 – 24:18
YirmeYahu (Jeremiah) 33:25-26; 34:8-22
MattitYahu (Matthew) 5:38-42; 17:1-11
Okay, so the picture off the internet is kind of corny – an ear of corn on a red door!?! But notice the red cross pattern that the ear is fastened to on the door.
No coincidence, the number 240 above the ear is the value of the Hebrew root word – ‘ram.’ The numerical values of the two letters are 200 for resh, and 40 for mem, totaling 240. We saw this word ‘ram’ last Shabbat in Isaiah’s vision where he ‘saw Adonai (the Lord, Master) sitting on a throne, high (ram – resh mem) and lifted up.”
Who did Isaiah see – this Adonai, the Master, ram – high and lifted up?
Yeshua revealed Who this was:
“And as I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all to Myself.” John 12:32-33
He said this to show the kind of death He was about to die.
After dying lifted up on a bloody red cross, our Father in Heaven exalted the Son of God to the highest place in Heaven and earth. Adonai Yeshua is now high and lifted up on the throne of Elohim. By the way of humility, from the lowest of the low among mankind, the Messiah was lifted up to the utmost, highest place in Heaven.
But He emptied Himself – taking on the form of a bondservant (Greek: doulos), becoming the likeness of men and being found in appearance as a man. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
For this reason, also, God highly exalted Him and gave Him the Name which is above every name, that at the Name of Yeshua, every knee should bow, in heaven and on the earth and under the earth, and every tongue profess that Yeshua the Messiah is Lord – to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:7-11
Lest anyone think that he can somehow be greater than our Messiah – Yeshua Himself, as a man, came here as a bondservant. The way up to exaltation is down through humility. One day everyone will say that Yeshua is the exalted Adonai, that He is the Lord, the Master. Before He comes, His bondservants bow to Him with all their lives, and service.
Who Are the BondServants of YHVH Elohim?
The bondservants of Yeshua will not wait for the day of His return to earth to profess Him as Adonai. Bond servants dedicate their lives in humble submission to their Master.
In the New Testament, the saints of the Most-High were called bondservants 24 times. Even a demon-possessed damsel kept crying out:
“These men are bondservants of the Most High God, who are proclaiming to you the way of salvation!” (Acts 16:17)
Who is the Most High God that the apostles were bondservants of?
Paul and Timothy, bond-servants of Messiah Yeshua (Philippians 1:1)
Jacob (James), a bondservant of God and of the Lord Yeshua the Messiah. (James 1:1)
Not just the apostles, but other believers were called ‘bondservants’ of the Messiah:
Epaphras, our beloved fellow bondservant, who is a faithful servant of Messiah. (Colossians 1:7)
Tychicus, beloved brother and faithful servant and fellow bondservant in the Lord. (Colossians 4:7)
The Revelation of Yeshua the Messiah, which God gave Him to show to His bondservants. (Revelation 1:1)
The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it and His bondservants will serve Him. (Revelation 22:3)
Yeshua is the Most-High God, high and lifted up! He is the Lord of lords, Adonai ha’adonim, the Master. His followers imitate and serve Him as willing bondservants.
Becoming a BondServant of the Master Yeshua
How does a believer become a bondservant of the Most-High God, Yeshua the Messiah? Many struggle with the idea of being a slave to anyone and don’t want to go
Certain Torah teachers have told me that ‘bondservant,’ adding the prefix ‘bond,’ adds to the Word of God and should just be ‘servant.’ Is that true of the Greek word – ‘doulos’?
According to Strong’s #G1210, doulos is stronger than a servant.’ This word means: ‘a slave…in a qualified sense of subjection or subserviency: bond(-man, servant).’
Does the Torah duly back up a sense of ‘to bond’ in the meaning of the word – ‘doulos’?
The Torah gives us a good picture of a bondservant with the first of the Mishpatim (ordinances) given us in the Torah portion.
The bond with a bondservant starts with the bond of love:
And if the slave truly says, “I love my master, my wife, and my children; I do not desire to go out free, his master shall bring him to the mighty ones, and one shall bring him to the door, or the doorpost; and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl, and he shall serve him forever.” Exodus 21:5-6
Why else would we have any regard for this strange set of commandments on Hebrew slaves, if we do not identify ourselves as bondservants who love our Master, the Messiah? This ordinance is like a parable of Yeshua – it is an earthly picture of a spiritual reality.
The first of the ten commandments conveys the idea of becoming a bondservant of YHWH, starting with being free from a former master in a house of bondage.
I am YHWH your Elohim, Who has brought you out from the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. Exodus 20:2
The Mighty God, Master YHWH, has the right to my life of service because He delivered me from bondage and purchased me with the blood of the Lamb. I belong to my Master.
However, it is the redeemed soul’s choice to submit his ear to the awl at the doorpost to hear, believe, and obey Him as willing bondservants of the Master. We still have the free will to remain free men, or become bondservants, only because we do love Him.
The Master of the Hebrew slave is the God Who is in the business of ‘doing kindness to thousands to those loving Me.’ (Exodus 20:6) Now that’s an incentive!
The bond of the bondservant is pictured as the Hebrew slave physically bound to the door of his master by an awl through the ear nailed to the doorpost of his house.
The motivation for his choice of submission? Love for the Master Who loves him.
The Ear of Corn on the Red Door
Back to my corny picture, what does the red door represent? We know Yeshua claims to be the Door (John 10:1-7). By His crucifixion on a bloody red cross, the veil into the Holy of Holies was torn to grant access to the throne of YHWH Elohim. The cross of the Messiah is the doorway to the Father via the torn veil of the Messiah’s bloody flesh.
When the Master pieced the ear of his bondservant with the awl to the door, blood ran down the doorpost, foreshadowing the blood of the Lamb shed for us. The cross pattern on the red door symbolizes the cross of self-denial following Yeshua.
But what about the ear of corn in the picture? When a Hebrew is willing to be in loving submission to his Master, he submits his ear to be obedient to the Master’s every command. The Master’s every word to a submissive servant is like a kernel that is planted and grows within his heart. His every command produces acts of service and words of life out of the mouth of his bondservant. Through acts of love by the Spirit, the bondservant multiplies the seed by bringing abundance and fruitfulness for his house.
The First Commandment of the Greatest for the BondServant
The first mishpat (ordinance) for becoming a bondservant, who loves his master, has a common thread connection to the greatest commandments in all the Word.
“I love my master” (Exodus 21:5) connects to the first commandment of what our Master Yeshua called the two greatest commandments:
Shema Yisra’el, YHWH Eloheynu, YHWH Echad. (Hear O Israel, YHWH your God, YHWH is One) And you shall love YHWH your Elohim with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Deuteronomy 6:5
How can a servant obey his master, unless he first has his ear inclined to hear, believe, and obey (shema) his every command? A bondservant can hear and then do, but he cannot do anything without hearing from his master first.
Those who love YHWH will cherish His Word so much that they will – write them upon the doorposts of your house, and upon your gates. (Deuteronomy 6:9) Willing bondservants want constant reminders of what they had heard their Master commanding them to do.
So those who love YHWH will hear and obey His commandments that are written on the doorposts of their hearts and on their homes. The mishpat of the bondservant connects the ear pinned to hearing the words of the Master of the House at the place where the threshold covenant is made.
Since we are the Body of Messiah, His blood that we apply to our hearing runs down the doorposts. We put our ear to the Gospel of Yeshua which sets us free from sin and empowers us to keep His commandments according to the New Covenant in His blood. Without the Lamb of Elohim, Yeshua, we are slaves to sin and can do nothing right. Where have we recently seen this connection before in the Torah?
Yes – Passover! The Hebrew slave in Egypt applied blood from a lamb without a blemish upon the doorposts of his house at the place of making a covenant with His Elohim. YHWH then kept His side of the covenant and spared the Hebrew slave’s firstborn from death. Israel was free to go to the mount to hear His commandments, the terms of the covenant of YHWH with His people.
Good News for the Hebrew Slave
Now we are going deeper into the meaning of these strange mishpatim (ordinances) on the Hebrew slave. The slave is pinned to the wood where blood runs down at a place of threshold covenant. This scarlet thread foreshadows the bloody cross of our Messiah Yeshua.
Our Messiah loved the house of Israel so much that He offered Himself upon the cross.
There His blood was shed to renew His covenant with her at the place of the threshold. At the threshold, His bride is brought back into His house after being set free from her former, tyrannical master and his cruel taskmasters.
Believing in the Gospel is what sets us free from our separation from Him and His house. Good News! Our Master Yeshua brings His servants back inside, where we choose to love Him and our neighbor as ourselves. The bondservant loves his Master. Why?
We love Him because He first loved us. (1 John 4:19)
Ever since I first experienced the wonderful love of my Savior, I’ve just wanted to pour that love out to others by the Holy Spirit (Rom 5:5), starting in my Master’s house.
Why would a Hebrew slave want to go back and subject himself to his master unless he knew by experience that his master really, truly loved and cared for him and his family? We love Him because He first loved us.
Of all the places he could choose to go out in the world to enjoy in life, he chooses the Master’s house above any other.
For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand without; I have chosen to stand at the threshold in the house of my God rather than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. Psalms 84:10
May our homes be places of love, where our spouses and our children would choose to be rather than anywhere else in the world. May our homes and our places of worship be places of willing service to our Master and His household out of deep love and respect for Him and His family.
The Second Commandment of the Greatest for the BondServant
“I love my master, my wife, and my children; The common thread here also relates to the second of the Master’s two greatest commandments.
And you shall love your neighbor as yourself, I Am YHWH. Leviticus 19:18
The neighbor closest to a man, first on his priority list, is his wife. Then he tends to his children, then whoever else is in his sphere of influence. Guys, if we could just get this one common thread down and apply it every day, how much better our relationships with our wives, children, and everyone else we know would be? First, we love our Master above anyone and anything else. We choose to dwell in His house of living stones where Yeshua is the Chief Cornerstone and the Head of His house.
Then we love our wives, our children, and our mishpocha (family of God) above anything else we choose in life. Let’s keep our ears riveted to His greatest commandments.
Our jobs, sports, hobbies, outdoor activities, hot cars, or truck or macho images should not be more important than family. We should place our affection on nothing else than what the Scriptures lays out for men to be their highest priorities.
There is nothing better in life to live for than the love of the Father in and through us – poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit given to us. (Romans 5:5) It is so simple that we often miss it, maybe because we think we have bigger and better things to do in life than God’s plan for a man.
A man is to initiate selfless love for his wife as the Messiah loves His Bride. He should cherish and highly value her as a valiant woman of dignity (Prov 31). A wife then responds with her love, honoring her husband as head of the household. It follows the example Yeshua gave us when He showed no greater love than to lay down His life for His Bride. As the Bride of Messiah, we love Him because He first loved us. (1 John 4:19)
The Bride in Loving Submission to the Messiah
Married or not, believers in Yeshua are all part of the marriage covenant with the Messiah. Submitting to Yeshua as bondservants and honoring Him as our husband also means we mutually submit to and honor and cherish one another in His love.
Yeshua said it this way:
“I give a new commandment to you, that you should love one another; according as I loved you, you should also love one another. By this, all shall know that you are My disciples if you have love among one another.” John 13:34-35
What did He mean by “a new commandment,” if the Torah clearly commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves? What’s so new about that?
Could it be that it’s because truly loving one another selflessly is something new to a person once they are born anew by the Spirit? The old Adam nature just isn’t capable of true, selfless love apart from being empowered by His Spirit to love one another.
My prayer is that the Master reveals to us the deep things of His mishpatim (ordinances and judgments). As our Rabbi, may He teach us what it means to do His mitzvot (commandments), as His bondservants, in a loving, new covenant relationship with Him.
One day, the good and faithful servants of our Messiah will enter the gates of the golden city, the New Jerusalem, to forever abide in His House. One day we will never again be apart from our Master Yeshua, Whom we so desire and love.
In the service of the Messiah,
David Klug
