David and the Torah

King David's Tomb adorned with crowns from three Torah scrolls

smuggled to Israel by Jewish communities destroyed in the Holocaust

It is an unfortunate thing that the word "law" is used for the Hebrew word "torah" in the Bible. The word "torah" means instruction or direction and its root word means "to throw, shoot (arrows), cast, or pour. So considering this you have the picture that "torah" means "instruction in how to throw, shoot, cast or pour". This makes even more sense when you consider the Hebrew word for "sin", chata", which means "to miss the mark". If you don't want to "miss the mark", learn Torah, learn how to "hit the mark"!

"Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Messiah Yeshua." Phillipians 3:13,14

With that definition in mind I have all the verses from the Psalms (except Psalm 119 which has 25 instances of the word "torah" alone) and have translated "law" as "Torah". Many believers long to be like David "a man after God's own heart" and yet they do not value the Torah that David loved. Review the following and see if you can relate to David.

1:2: "But his delight is in the Torah of the LORD; and in his Torah does he meditate day and night."

19:7: "The Torah of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure,
making wise the simple."

37:31: "The Torah of his God is in his heart; none of his steps shall slide."

40:8: "I delight to do thy will, O my God: yes, thy Torah is within my heart."

78:1: "Give ear, O my people, to my Torah: incline your ears to the words of my mouth."

78:5: "For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a Torah in Israel,
which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children:
6: That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born;
who should arise and declare them to their children:
7: That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments:
8: And might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation;
a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not stedfast with God.
9: The children of Ephraim, being armed, and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle.
10: They kept not the covenant of God, and refused to walk in his Torah;
11: And forgot his works, and his wonders that he had showed them."

89:30: "If his children forsake my Torah, and walk not in my judgments;
31: If they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments;
32: Then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes.
33: Nevertheless my lovingkindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail.
34: My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.
35: Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David.
36: His seed shall endure forever, and his throne as the sun before me.
37: It shall be established for ever as the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven. Selah."

94:12: "Blessed is the man whom thou chasten, O LORD, and teach him out of thy Torah;
13: That thou mayest give him rest from the days of adversity, until the pit be dug for the wicked."

105:42: "For he remembered his holy promise, and Abraham his servant.
43: And he brought forth his people with joy, and his chosen with gladness:
44: And gave them the lands of the heathen: and they inherited the labour of the people;
45: That they might observe his statutes, and keep his Torahs. Praise ye the LORD."

("Torahs" in the plural? See my previous post on "Oral Torah")