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.
15th August 2026 (2 Elul)
Shoftim (judges): Deuteronomy 16:18-21:9
This week’s portion gives us a clear picture of how the Children of Israel were to settle in the Promised Land.
The individual inheritances of land must be carefully preserved, marked by boundary stones:
You shall not remove your neighbour’s landmark, which the men of old have set, in your inheritance which you will inherit in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess. (Deuteronomy 19:14)
This conveys a picture of the simplicity of an agricultural community: fields carefully marked out with clear definition of where the boundaries are, marked by stones. It also conveys a picture of the required respect for ownership and justice. This can also stand as a metaphor for other aspects of ownership. If someone moves a boundary stone, the exact amount of land that has been taken is the exact amount that has been lost, visible to everyone. The fact that Almighty God gave this rule through Moses shows how He has His eyes on honest dealing in matters large and small – the wonder of living under the protective Hand of God.
We can also visualise the cities where the different communities dwelt. The word gates occurs frequently in these chapters, giving the picture of what indeed happened, that cities were built within protective walls with gates to exit and enter.
Whilst justice was to be administered according to God’s statutes and laws, care in administering justice was necessary. This was exemplified by the command to build Cities of Refuge where a suspected person could be safe until a properly conducted trial could take place, free of initial headstrong reaction even in the case of the loss of life:
You shall separate three cities for yourself in the midst of your land which the Lord your God is giving you to possess. You shall prepare roads for yourself, and divide into three parts the territory of your land which the Lord your God is giving you to inherit, that any manslayer may flee there. And this is the case of the manslayer who flees there, that he may live……. lest the avenger of blood, while his anger is hot, pursue the manslayer and overtake him, because the way is long, and kill him, though he was not deserving of death. (Deuteronomy 19:2-6)
The picture is of the community of Israel settled in locally administered walled cities, carefully keeping the teaching of God through Moses at community level, whilst living the family lives of an agricultural community.
Just as in the wilderness years, there would be those appointed to interpret Torah within these communities. This was done by the appointment of Judges who would sit in the city gates to administer justice:
You shall appoint judges and officers in all your gates, which the Lord your God gives you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with just judgment. (Deuteronomy 16:18)
We know from archaeological excavations and the history of Israel that this was the general picture of Israel in the Promised Land. Perhaps this general picture was at its best at the time of Naomi, Ruth and Boaz. The Book of Ruth is worth reading alongside our Torah study this week. It took place in Bethlehem during the time of the Judges. It is the picture of the agricultural community that lived there, and the circumstances that brought together Ruth and Boaz. There is a prophetic picture of the coming Redeemer of Israel within the account, with the Hand of God over the family of Naomi who became the great-great-grandmother of King David, the type of Messiah, fulfilled in Yeshua. The story, however, simply takes place in a city of Israel, with judges at the gate. It was at the city gate that Boaz went to determine who would be the kinsman redeemer of Ruth. All this according to the instructions of Moses in our Torah portion for how Israel was to be established and live as a nation.
If it were not for further insights into the way Israel settled, especially in the Book of Judges, by reading the Book of Ruth we might think that all went very well for Israel throughout their history. However, we know that the time of the Judges became one of trouble, when:
In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes. (Judges 21:25)
There is immense sadness in this statement. The powerful simplicity of God’s order for a nation was not realised. Instead, they wanted a king like the other nations:
So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not follow your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.” (1 Samuel 8:4-5)
The fact that the desire to have a king like the other nations was the key to Samuel’s great warning of what would happen when power came to such a man (1 Samuel 8). Paradoxically, our portion this week contains a permission from Moses for the appointment of a king, but within the restraints prescribed, that he would not be a foreigner, would not multiply personal possessions, nor lead the people back to Egypt, nor multiply wives. He must write out the Torah, abide by it and not set himself above his brethren (Deuteronomy 17:14-20). Samuel warned that it would turn out to be otherwise and history shows that Samuel prophesied correctly.
Our world today demonstrates the profound wisdom in God’s principles of governance in small local communities. Whenever control has been centralised, it has become insensitive to individuals and power has corrupted multitudes of leaders. Ultimately, as is prophesied in the Book of Revelation, the desire for a people to have a leader over them will result in the rise of the antichrist with a Babylonian type of world government also likened to ancient Rome. The lesson of history is that, in the majority of cases, centralised power corrupts leadership. The world has not learned from the history of Israel, who desired a king to lead them, establishing a central place of government.
Yet, just as there is a prophetic message in the Book of Ruth, so it is there in the teaching of Moses. The history of the world shows that God has a covenant plan of redemption. It began in the Fall from Eden, continued through the Great Flood and on through the era of Israel the Chosen Nation, despite all the times of falling away and difficulty, including the Babylonian captivity of Judah and approximately 2000 years of diaspora up to the present day .
There are many times that we could ask the question, “What if?” over all these eras of history, but we can never know the alternative path, only what happened. What we do know is that God’s structure for a blessed community did not prevail, yet the prophetic undercurrent shows that God’s provision was always in place. Not only would kingship be redeemed, but there is a clear prophetic expectation announced by Moses in our passage this week:
The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear. (Deuteronomy 18:15)
This promise has never been forgotten by the people of Israel. Who is this person? Is it this one or is it that one? There have been many contenders but no-one has fulfilled all of God’s prophetic expectations like Yeshua HaMashiach.
It was God Himself who identified His Son as the one prophesied by Moses. This was on the Mountain of Transfiguration, when Yeshua shone in blazing light before His disciples and Moses and Elijah appeared with Him:
….. a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were fearful as they entered the cloud. And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is My beloved Son. Hear Him!” (Luke 9:34-35)
All the prophetic purposes of Scripture point simultaneously to Yeshua. He is the great Redeemer of God’s plans for mankind, both corporately and personally. He will one day establish the Kingdom of God fully:
For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. (Habakkuk 2:14)
The Kingdom of Heaven cannot be perfected through any other ordinary human being, any more now than it has been through all history. This is why we must wait for the appointed time of Yeshua’s return:
Let no one deceive you by any means; for that day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4)
When Yeshua was asked by Pontius Pilate if He was the King of the Jews, He replied affirmatively, whilst also saying that the Kingdom of Heaven would now be ruled from the heavenly place:
Then Pilate entered the Praetorium again, called Jesus, and said to Him, “Are You the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered him, “Are you speaking for yourself about this, or did others tell you this concerning Me?” Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered You to me. What have You done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here.”
Pilate therefore said to Him, “Are You a king then?”
Jesus answered, “You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” (John 18:33-37)
From the passage we study this week, we see that Moses not only described how Israel should best live in the Promised Land, but also opened the way for the prophetic understanding that would be confirmed through the coming centuries. His words link directly to our understanding of how God would redeem all His purposes through His Son, Yeshua the Messiah.
