Most everyone has heard of the ancient prophetic text named the Torah. Do you know there is a wonderful picture of the Messiah hidden just under the surface of the text itself? Come with me and let’s search together for this hidden mystery Elohim has given us in the word Torah.
We have been following Joshua who is leading the nation of Israel as they conquer and possess the land of Canaan which had been promised to them through their father Abraham. In Chapter 8 verse 32 we read:
And he wrote there upon the stones a copy of the Law of Moses, which he wrote in the presence of the children of Israel.
The copy of the law we read there is in Hebrew the Mishna Torah. Further, in verse 34 we read:
And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessings and cursing, according to all that is written in the book of the law.
Why did he do this? Why at this particular time? What makes reading the Torah so important?
The Torah is the complete body of law for the Hebrew nation and is the name given to the first five books in the Hebrew ancient scriptures. It is sometimes called the Five Books of Moses because it was to him that Elohim revealed its contents on Mount Sinai.
Joshua was copying the Torah so the whole nation of Israel would be able to read it. Each person could see for himself what Elohim had said and remember not only what to do to obey but to remember to give thanks for their victories over Jericho and Ai.
The first place we see the word Torah is in the very first book of these ancient scriptures in Chapter 26 verse 5 where YHWH appears to Abraham and tells him he will be blessed:
Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes and my laws.
That word laws used here is Torah, giving us not only the idea that blessing comes through obedience to it, but that its essence existed even before Moses would be born and before the Torah would be given to Moses on the mountain of Elohim.
The Hebrew letters for Torah are Tav Vav Reysh Hey.
400
Tav means to seal or to covenant and is a picture of crossed wooden sticks or a cross.
6
Vav means to join together or to bind together and is a picture of a wooden hook or peg or an iron nail.
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200
Reysh is a picture of the head and stands for the leader or the master or the prince.
5
Hey means to behold or to pay attention to what follows and is a picture of a man looking up.
This is the amazing mystery in the Hebrew word Torah that Elohim has given us. The letters tell us to behold the prince who is fastened to a wooden cross. The word Torah contains a picture of the Messiah who is to come, Yeshua Ha-Mashiach, and shows us that He will die on a cross.
In these same prophetic scriptures, as the time for the cross was drawing near, one of the followers of Yeshua named Matthew recorded some of Yeshua’s teachings.
In the Gospel of Matthew Chapter 5 verse 17, Yeshua said:
Think not that I come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy but to fulfill.
Furthermore, in the Gospel of John, the beloved disciple of Yeshua, we read in Chapter 5 verse 39 these words of Yeshua:
Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
The word scriptures can mean a book of the Torah, a passage, or a very specific portion. So here we see the one who will prove Himself to be the Messiah declare He can be literally found in the script. Messiah not only came to fulfill the law but the Torah testifies to Him in ways only Elohim could have planned.
As you might guess, the numbers each of these four letters represent complete the mystery of Messiah in the Torah.
Tav is the number 400 and stands for a divinely ordained period of time that will bring about deliverance and renewal.
Vav is the number 6 and displays the enmity man has with God.
Reysh is the number 200 and indicates the insufficiency of man versus the sufficiency of God.
Hey is the number 5 and always is associated with the unmerited favor or the grace of God.
When we combine the meaning of the numbers with what we already learned in the letters of the word Torah we learn the following:
Elohim has divinely appointed a certain time in which He would provide the prince for us to behold, Yeshua Ha-Mashiach, who would be nailed to a cross because of the insufficiency of fallen man to save himself. The death of Yeshua would, by the grace of Elohim, provide the sufficiency for the deliverance man so desperately needed.
The Rabbi Paul wrote a letter to encourage those who had chosen to put their faith in Yeshua Ha-Mashiach that lived in Rome. In it he stated in Chapter 7 verse 6:
But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.
That deliverance from the law could have only ever come from one place. Rabbi Paul wrote to the Romans in Chapter 8 verse 2:
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
The next time you hear the word Torah, remember the mystery hidden there by Elohim for you to discover.
Behold the prince, Yeshua Ha-Mashiach fastened to a cross so that you could forever be free from the curse of sin and death. Messiah is found in Torah by grace.
