And I introduced the idea that is of Hebrew history. It was in their culture and it was their way of honoring the Word of the Lord. So when the teacher, being perhaps a rabbi, would read from the Word of God, he would do so standing. Then when he would prepare to disclose to the people that he just read to them his ideas about what that scripture meant, he would sit down and that chair that he sat in was known as Moses’ chair. Why would they call it Moses’ chair? Because what he had just read from the scriptures was from what’s called the Talmud. No, I’m going to get myself mixed up. It was the first five books of the Old Testament. it was actually Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers in Deuteronomy – The Pentateuch.
The common understanding is, and there’s hardly any debate on this, it was Moses that wrote Genesis Exodus Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. So if you’re going to interpret, try and explain what Moses was trying to communicate, you’d be best to stick with that passage. He would sit down in what was called Moses’ chair and there he would explain. Now, this is not uncommon even to this day, it’s just done in a different fashion. Over the years I’ve had massive, like, tons of books. Most of them are known as commentaries, somebody commenting. And I gleaned a great deal from the commentaries.
I did notice that if I was reading a commentary by … any Lutherans here? … Anybody going to get upset? If I was reading a commentary by a Lutheran, it would have a Lutheran flavor. If I was reading a commentary that had been by somebody who was given to and was thrilled with Calvin, that’s called Calvinism, there’s a lot of denominations that really adhere to it. And it’s really significantly different from our understanding of certain theological facets. But if you’re reading somebody’s comments that believe and hold to Calvinism, you’ll see it throughout.
And then, of course, there’s the Baptists and they’re good people. And you can pick up. So they give their Baptist flavor to it. They’re commentating. So when the Pharisees sat down in the chair of Moses, he was just giving commentary. But Jesus was pretty upset with these fellows because they got a little carried away with their comments. And, you know, when you’re reading the Old Testament laws, every one of us, I suppose, have had challenges by time trying to figure out, well, what does that verse mean? Like an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
So does that mean I get to go to my neighbour and poke out his eye if I’m upset with him? You know, how far do you take this? Another question that might have come across an individual would be, thou shalt not kill. But what if I ended up killing somebody? It was just self-defence.
