On the road to Emmaus, Yeshua met with two of His disciples and, beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. (Luke 24:27). For our Torah studies this year, therefore, week by week we will seek to discover how all of Torah prepared the way for the coming Messiah.
7th February 2026 (20 Shevat)
Yitro (Jethro): Exodus 18:1-20:23
Before God gave His Ten Commandments to Israel, a structure was implemented to enable them to be understood and obeyed: interpretation of God’s teaching was delegated to elders of Israel. This was because of the advice given by Jethro (Yitro) to his son-in-law, Moses, and it has had implications for the many generations that were to come.
The pattern of delegated responsibility for interpreting Torah goes on even into our day. The 70 elders with Moses (Deuteronomy 24:1) is the same numerically as the 70 leaders with the High Priest of the Sanhedrin during the Second Temple period. The number also suggests why Yeshua chose 70 disciples to go out and bring the Gospel to the towns of Israel (Luke 10). Later there were to be Bible teachers in every community of disciples of Yeshua.
Torah must not be simply an intellectual pursuit. That is what Jethro knew when he advised Moses:
Listen now to my voice; I will give you counsel, and God will be with you: Stand before God for the people, so that you may bring the difficulties to God. And you shall teach them the statutes and the laws, and show them the way in which they must walk and the work they must do. Moreover you shall select from all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them to be rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. And let them judge the people at all times. Then it will be that every great matter they shall bring to you, but every small matter they themselves shall judge. So it will be easier for you, for they will bear the burden with you. (Exodus 18:19-22)
To show them the way in which they must walk and the work they must do is the responsibility of every Bible teacher – it is a high calling.
Torah must result in Halakhah – how to walk out the teaching of God in every aspect of life. This has been the pursuit of the people of God from the time of Moses right up to our present day. Indeed, one might consider Torah (God’s teaching) as being Halakhah in the sense that we are to embody Torah into our very lives in every way.
There are, however, many different points of view concerning the application of Torah. The written code of commandments, statutes and laws are the same for everyone – but their interpretation into a way of life has differed according to whichever rabbinic school or Bible teacher is followed.
Israel could not have been more clearly shown the importance of God’s requirements and right interpretation, as they witnessed the majestic and awesome scene at Mount Horeb, when they heard the voice of God midst the thundering and lightning and the sound of the trumpet from the smoking mountain. Deuteronomy 5 confirms that all the people heard the voice of God directly at that time:
The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. The Lord did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, those who are here today, all of us who are alive. The Lord talked with you face to face on the mountain from the midst of the fire. (Deuteronomy 5:2-4)
Though they each heard the voice of God for themselves, they nevertheless asked that Moses become their intermediary, so they could be taught by man and not directly by God:
Now all the people witnessed the thunderings, the lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they trembled and stood afar off. Then they said to Moses, “You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.” (Exodus 20:18-19)
From that time forward, for many generations, the advice given by Jethro was implemented. Teaching how God expected His people to live was in the hands of appointed leaders, first under Moses and then through parents, Elders, the Levitical Priesthood, Judges, Prophets and Kings, through revival at the time of Ezra and on to the Rabbinic system which continues to today – and also into the ministry of Bible teachers in Christian Churches.
As well as there being a variety of interpretations of God’s teaching, there is also a danger that Torah can become a dry intellectual exercise for some, even a means of control. Nevertheless, throughout all the years of Israel’s journey there have been many people who seek to have pure hearts towards God, emulating King David who wrote such wonderful Psalms, being a man after God’s own heart (1 Samuel 14).
This is why Yeshua constantly confronted some of the Rabbis of His day on their interpretation of Torah. He did this out of love for God’s people Israel, so that they could realise that a new and better way was beginning, even to that which began at Mount Sinai under Jethro’s advice and up to that time.
Yeshua was appointed by God the Father to bring in the New Covenant that was announced by Jeremiah:
Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more. (Jeremiah 31:31-34)
Yeshua is the full embodiment of Torah. He opened the way for the life of the Holy Spirit to bring more meaningful interpretation of God’s teaching to the covenant people of God. This would restore balance to what happened at Sinai when Israel preferred to be taught by man rather than directly by God. That new life began through Yeshua’s own teaching.
Sometimes Yeshua’s teaching seems so different from what many Rabbis taught that it is thought to be a beginning of a new religion. Indeed, both Jews and Christians have fallen into this trap. Not so! In what is called The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), Yeshua was speaking to those of a soft heart towards God and giving a balanced and deep understanding of God’s Torah.
In our study this week, we read of the beginning of God’s Commandments, statutes and laws – ten things that are like a spectrum of light, from the highest respectful worship of the God of Creation to the simplest daily respect and duty to one’s neighbour. These Commandments are the beginning of all God’s teaching. Yeshua was clear that His own teaching conformed to this and indeed, was in accord with the two foundational teachings into which the Ten Commandments fit, to love God with all one’s heart and one’s neighbour as oneself (Deuteronomy 6:5/Mark 12:30, Leviticus 9:18/Mark 12:31).
Within the Sermon on the Mount He clearly stated:
Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. (Matthew 5:17-18)
Yeshua came in fulfilment of God’s promise of the New Covenant given through Jeremiah. This is the pivotal point of history that must not be misunderstood. What began at Mount Horeb came to fulfilment through Him.
A mistake is made when people think that Yeshua would turn away from those who rejected Him of the nation Israel, forming a new body which later came to be known as the Christian Church. This mistake comes from a wrong understanding of something He said:
Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it. (Matthew 21:43)
This is how this verse is read from a number of popular translations, but by linking the words back through the Greek to the Hebrew, a better translation of this particular verse is:
Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a people bearing the fruits of it.
Yes, Yeshua confronted those people whose interpretation of Torah was not good, but he was not cancelling the ongoing promises of God for Israel. Through wrong interpretations of this verse, a breach has become too wide between the Christian Church and its foundations in the New Covenant first given to Israel and Judah – indeed a breach between Christians and Jews, is so wide that it is wrongly taught that God began again with Gentile believers and that Yeshua turned away from His people Israel.
Yeshua cursed a fruitless fig tree (Mark 11), which did not symbolise the cursing of the nation of Israel, but was a warning to those who interpreted Torah in a lifeless way. The fruit of the fig tree is better understood as symbolic of the true life-giving interpretation of Torah. It is therefore linked to those with authority given to a Bible teacher to interpret Torah. For example, when Nathanael was called to be a disciple of Yeshua, He had seen in his heart one who truly sought God as he studied under a fig tree, symbolic of seeking to study under the right interpretation of Scripture (John 1).
Today, Messianic Judaism is growing apace as never before since the first century CE. This is surely in fulfilment of what Luke wrote concerning Yeshua’s teaching about the end times:
Then He spoke to them a parable: “Look at the fig tree, and all the trees. When they are already budding, you see and know for yourselves that summer is now near. So you also, when you see these things happening, know that the kingdom of God is near. Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away. (Luke 21:29-33)
The budding of the fig tree has often been thought to refer to Israel returning to their Land in the Last Days, but a better interpretation is the strengthening of authority to those who rightly interpret Torah, arising again from among Jewish leaders. This is coincident with Israel returning to their land. Of course, it can be one and the same thing if Israel as a nation could embody the true meaning of Torah, as Yeshua alone has done. Nevertheless, through the grace of God and within His New Covenant purposes, Israel is wonderfully gathering again in their own land.
This moment in history signals the time for all believers in Yeshua to rightly search out and proclaim the life-giving truths of Scripture, both Jew and grafted in Gentile believer together. There are teachers across the entire world and in every believing community, appointed to interpret the Scriptures, in balance with the New Covenant promise that, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, everyone can now know God personally with God’s teaching growing to maturity in their heart – leading to the free and full Halakhah with God.
This fulfils Jethro’s advice to Moses, which is still relevant, but in the life-giving way that is in accord with Yeshua and His sending the Holy Spirit to all His disciples and also to inspire appointed teachers and interpreters of Torah.
If the giving of the Ten Commandments was profound in the history of Israel, the bringing in of the New Covenant is even more so. The writer to the Hebrews understood this, as we must today. We are exhorted to grow into maturity within the glorious new thing that the Lord has done in fulfilment of what went before. The contrast is both awesome and life-giving:
For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. (For they could not endure what was commanded: “And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow.” And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.”) But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. (Hebrews 12:18-24)
We are in the days of renewal and for deepening our walk with God, a day for coming to unity in faith and truth: all who are disciples of our teacher Yeshua.
