Exodus 23:7: “Distance yourself from words of falsehood, do not kill and innocent or righteous man.”

In our Torah Study this week on Saturday we will be addressing the story of Rachab of Jericho and her big lie to protect the spies of Israel. The big question is, was it wrong for Rachab to lie to protect the spies. When is a lie permissible. This matter is addressed in Jewish literature such as the Talmud and the Midrash and presents some interesting insights into this matter of lies, white lies and out right lies and we will examine these insights in our Torah study tomorrow

 

But for now this verse in Exodus 23:7 seems to clearly be instructing us to stay away from anything false. Actually the word in Hebrew is seqar which means to lie, tell a falsehood or to engage in deception. Praytell, what did the spies do but engage in deception, even God Himself instructed some of the Biblical heros to engage in deception (We will talk about that on Saturday). So what gives?

Well for one thing it is curious that scripture is not saying to refrain from seqar falsehood, decent or lies but to rachaq false hood, that is distance yourself from seqar. This is the only sin which tells us to distance ourselves from it but does not come out and say refrain. The Jewish sages have struggled with this matter of whether there are times it is permissible to lie. The Jewish sages teach that the biblical commandment against lying only includes a lie that will be harmful to someone else, as the verse says: “Distance yourself from words of falsehood; do not kill an innocent or righteous man.” That is, it is forbidden to lie in a way that might cause death or harm to any person.

 

The schools of Hillel and Shammai which existed during the time of Jesus had a famous argument as to what to say about the bride at a wedding. The custom was to say that “The bride is beautiful and graceful.” Members of the school of Shammai, however, insisted that if the bride was not beautiful or graceful don’t say she is. The school of Hillel strongly disagreed. Who was to judge whether the bride was beautiful and graceful? That is up to the bridegroom himself. So to praise the bride was not making an objective statement that could be tested empirically. It was simply endorsing the bridegroom’s choice. It was a way of celebrating the couple’s happiness.

 

Well, we will discuss this as well as Scripture passages on this topic Saturday. If you are unable to attend our online Zoom class it will be recorded and posted on our All Access. You can access this through www.hebrewwordstudy.com