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MessianicMusings.com

Not quite Jewish, not quite Christian … totally commited to Torah and Messiah Yeshua.

Posts Tagged ‘Ruth’

Leaving David…

Monday, July 28th, 2008

I’m nearly done with Part 11 of my character study on David and soon we’ll be leaving David behind for one final, new study before we reach Simchat Torah, begin the Torah cycle over, and I start writing Torah Cycle lessons for my bar and bat mitzvah kids.

I never realized when I started that my character study of David would go 11 lessons. I also never thought I’d be just scratching the surface in those 11 lessons, and if I ever come back to the topic once I’m ordained (provided God wills that I become ordained), I could break David’s life down into even more lessons, taught in even greater detail.

So what’s next? I’m not sure yet, but I’m leaning toward a book study focusing on Ruth; after all this time on David, I think it’s time to do something for the young girls in this class. Always nice at that age to have something to focus on other than the latest acne outbreak.

Goliath’s lineage

Sunday, April 20th, 2008

Goliath does not appear from nowhere in the Torah account. While it is well-known that he is a Philistine, less well-known is his parentage.

Without the benefits of an ECA stack, Goliath grew to be nine feet nine inches tall, so his parents had to be giants as well, right? Not so.

According to Jewish tradition, Goliath (or Golyat, to use his genuine name in Hebrew), was one of the four sons of Orpah. Readers of the Book of Ruth will recognize Orpah as the daughter in law who did not stand in loyalty to Naomi after Naomi’s sons die, but returned to her own people, the Moabites.

According to the Babylonian Talmud, Sotah 42b, because Orpah parted from Naomi reluctantly and shed four tears, she was given four sons, all of them giants. This interpretation means that Orpah is oen and the same as Harafa.

All four of Orpah’s sons were giants, although the Talmudic literature makes it clear that Golyat was the tallest and strongest of them. At nine feet nine inches, one would hope so.