BEMA Episode Link: 122: A Naked Thing
Episode Length: 32:24
Published Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2019 01:00:00 -0700
Session 3
About this episode:

Marty Solomon and Brent Billings find our understanding of divorce challenged by Jesus, and an ancient discussion taking place between the rabbis about the importance and value of people.

Discussion Video for BEMA 122

The Ten Commandments — Aleph Beta Academy

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Transcript for BEMA 122

Notes

*Note: The following notes are handwritten by me, Adam, and I reserve the right to be wrong.

BEMA Episode 122: A Naked Thing - Study Notes

Title & Source Summary

Episode: 122 - A Naked Thing
Hosts: Marty Solomon and Brent Billings Focus: Matthew 19 - Jesus’s teaching on divorce, children, and wealth

This episode explores Jesus’s challenging teachings in Matthew 19, focusing on divorce, the value of marginalized people, and the relationship between wealth and the Kingdom of God. The hosts unpack the rabbinical context of the divorce debate between the schools of Shammai and Hillel, revealing how Jesus’s teaching was designed to protect women in a patriarchal society rather than to condemn divorced individuals. The episode demonstrates how Jesus consistently elevated those pushed to the margins of society, including women, children, and addressed the obstacles that wealth creates for entering God’s Kingdom.

Key Takeaways

  • Jesus’s teaching on divorce was primarily about protecting women in a patriarchal culture, not establishing a moral standard to condemn divorced people
  • The divorce debate centered on two Hebrew phrases: “ervat davar” (a naked thing - any reason) versus “davar ervat” (a thing of nakedness - sexual immorality only)
  • Jesus sided with Shammai’s strict interpretation but for Hillel’s reason: love and protection of vulnerable people
  • The issue wasn’t about the man’s right to divorce but about protecting women who would be left without provision, belonging, or care
  • Jesus consistently elevated those devalued by society: women, children, and challenged the wealthy to radical hospitality and generosity
  • Entering the Kingdom requires trusting the story enough to release self-preservation and embrace radical generosity
  • The call to “judge the twelve tribes” is about participating in putting the world back together (mishpat), not sitting in judgment over people

Main Concepts & Theories

The Schools of Shammai and Hillel

In Jesus’s time, rabbinical interpretation was largely shaped by two dominant schools of thought, represented by rabbis Shammai and Hillel who lived approximately 40 years before Jesus.

Shammai’s Yoke (Yoke of Obedience):

  • Second greatest commandment: Keep the commandments
  • Primary lens: Obedience to God’s commands, especially the Sabbath
  • Interpretation approach: What makes God’s heart happy is obedience
  • On divorce: Only permitted for adultery (sexual immorality)
  • Reading: “davar ervat” - a thing of nakedness (sexual immorality)

Hillel’s Yoke (Yoke of Love):

  • Second greatest commandment: Love your neighbor as yourself
  • Primary lens: Love for others
  • Interpretation approach: Relationship and care for people
  • On divorce: Permitted for “any and every reason”
  • Reading: “ervat davar” - a naked thing (anything out of place)
  • Famous statement: “If she happens to burn your biscuits in anger, you may hand her a get [divorce certificate]”
  • Required divorcing parties to use the court on the opposite side of town, forcing them to walk through the entire community who would try to talk them out of it
The Manuscript Discrepancy

The debate arose from a textual variation in Deuteronomy 24:1:

  • Ervat = nakedness
  • Davar = thing

The order of these words created two different meanings:

  1. Davar ervat (Shammai’s reading): “a thing of nakedness” - implying only sexual immorality
  2. Ervat davar (Hillel’s reading): “a naked thing” - implying any reason at all

Different manuscript traditions (Dead Sea Scrolls vs. the tradition represented in the Masoretic Text) had these words in different orders, creating a legitimate rabbinical debate.

Jesus’s Unique Position

Jesus typically sided with Hillel on most issues, often taking Hillel’s progressive stance even further. However, on divorce, Jesus took Shammai’s strict position (divorce only for sexual immorality) but for a Hillel reason (love and protection of people).

Jesus’s Teaching:

  • God’s original design: No divorce at all (Genesis - male and female, one flesh)
  • Moses permitted divorce because of hard hearts (not God’s ideal)
  • Divorce only for sexual immorality
  • The man committing the sin in divorce, not the woman
  • Divorcing a woman “makes her the victim of adultery”

The Revolutionary Element: The Pharisees’ question revealed their perspective: “Can we divorce our wives for any and every reason?” The woman was merely a prop in their question. Jesus reframed the entire discussion to center on protecting the woman, who in a patriarchal culture would be left without provision, belonging, or care - pushed to the boundaries and forced to fend for herself as an outsider.

The Parallelism of the Ten Commandments

When the rich young man asks what he must do for eternal life, Jesus lists specific commandments in a revealing order:

  • 6th: You shall not murder
  • 7th: You shall not commit adultery
  • 8th: You shall not steal
  • 9th: You shall not give false testimony
  • 5th: Honor your father and mother
  • Plus: Love your neighbor as yourself

Notably absent: The 10th commandment (do not covet)

Rabbi David Fohrman’s teaching reveals that the two tablets contain five commandments each that parallel one another:

  • Commandment 1 parallels Commandment 6
  • Commandment 2 parallels Commandment 7
  • Commandment 3 parallels Commandment 8
  • Commandment 4 parallels Commandment 9
  • Commandment 5 parallels Commandment 10

The fifth commandment (“Honor your father and mother so that you may live long in the land”) is essentially about being satisfied with the life you have been given. Its parallel, the tenth commandment (“Do not covet”), is about not wanting someone else’s life.

For the rich young man, coveting wasn’t his issue - he had everything others coveted. His challenge was whether he could be satisfied with the life he had or needed to pursue “eternal life” through a different path.

Wealth and the Kingdom

The Camel and the Eye of the Needle:

  • Not a reference to a small gate in Jerusalem (popular but historically unfounded teaching)
  • Means exactly what it says: virtually impossible for a rich person to enter God’s Kingdom
  • “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible”

The Call to Radical Generosity: Jesus’s instruction to sell possessions and give to the poor echoes the pattern of Abraham and Isaac - families of great wealth who practiced radical hospitality and generosity. The Kingdom requires:

  • Radical hospitality
  • Radical generosity
  • Radical love for others
  • Willingness to release wealth for the sake of following Jesus
Judgment as Restoration (Mishpat)

When Jesus promises the disciples they will “sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel,” this isn’t about condemning people but about restoration:

  • Shaphat (to judge) = to put things right, restore, bring justice
  • Shofetim = Judges (Book of Judges) - leaders who delivered and restored Israel
  • Mishpat = justice, restoration, putting the world back together

The disciples’ role in the age to come is participating with Jesus in putting the world back together, bringing shalom where there is chaos.

Trust the Story

The foundational principle underlying all of Jesus’s teachings:

  • How can you forgive without trusting the story?
  • How can you protect the vulnerable in divorce without trusting the story?
  • How can you sell everything without trusting the story?
  • How can you practice radical hospitality without trusting the story?

Trusting the story releases us from self-preservation and the behaviors that cause us to hurt others. It enables us to walk in Jesus’s footsteps. This trust is cultivated through practices like Shabbat, which repeatedly tells us the truth and prepares us to follow Jesus.

Examples & Applications

Misuse of Divorce Teaching

The church has often weaponized Jesus’s teaching on divorce to:

  • Heap shame and guilt on divorced individuals, especially women
  • Condemn those who have experienced divorce
  • Create a moral standard of holiness rather than protection for the vulnerable
  • Commit the very sin Jesus fought against: mistreating women in vulnerable situations

Redemptive Application:

  • Use this teaching to protect those in vulnerable positions
  • Help divorced individuals find healing and restoration
  • Recognize that reconciliation requires two willing parties
  • Acknowledge divorce as a painful reality in a broken world without adding condemnation
  • Remember that Jesus placed responsibility on the man in patriarchal culture
Valuing the Marginalized

Women: In the divorce teaching, Jesus elevated women from property to full human beings worthy of protection and care.

Children: The disciples rebuked those bringing children to Jesus, seeing them as interruptions to important “rabbi business.” Jesus corrected this: “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

Possible connection to Matthew 18: The disciples may have seen the child in chapter 18 as merely a teaching prop. Jesus’s interaction with actual children immediately following shows that the Kingdom is made up of real people like these children, not just the learned and elite.

The Rich Young Man: Despite his wealth and righteousness, he lacked something essential. Jesus’s prescription: radical generosity, selling possessions and giving to the poor. This challenges the assumption that wealth equals blessing or spiritual success.

Modern Application of Radical Hospitality

Following the pattern of Abraham and Isaac:

  • Radical generosity with resources
  • Radical hospitality toward others
  • Using wealth not for self-preservation but for God’s mission
  • Participating in “putting the world back together” through acts of justice and restoration

The Kingdom of God is not built on bank accounts but on radical love and care for others, especially those pushed to the margins.

The Hundredfold Return

Jesus’s reference to leaving “houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields” and receiving “a hundred times as much” may be a remez (hint/reference) to the story of Isaac, where these family relationships are all mentioned and Isaac received a hundredfold harvest.

This suggests that radical generosity in following Jesus leads not to poverty but to participation in God’s abundant blessing and mission - though not necessarily material wealth.

Potential Areas for Further Exploration

  1. The Eight Great Debates: What were the other seven major rabbinical debates in Jesus’s time, and how did Jesus engage with them?

  2. Women in Patriarchal Culture: What was the actual legal and social status of divorced women in first-century Jewish culture? What provisions existed (or didn’t exist) for their care?

  3. The Get (Divorce Certificate): What was the function and process of the Jewish divorce certificate? How did it both enable and protect women?

  4. Manuscript Traditions: How do the Dead Sea Scrolls and Masoretic Text represent different manuscript traditions? What other significant variations exist?

  5. Rabbi David Fohrman’s Ten Commandments Teaching: How do all five parallels between the two tablets work? What is the meta-principle that joins them together?

  6. The Story of Isaac and the Hundredfold: How does the Isaac narrative inform Jesus’s teaching on wealth, generosity, and the Kingdom?

  7. Eunuchs for the Kingdom: What did Jesus mean by those who “choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven”? How does this relate to singleness and celibacy?

  8. Mishpat and Social Justice: How does the biblical concept of mishpat (restorative justice) inform Christian engagement with social justice issues today?

  9. The Mamzer: The hosts briefly mention “the mamzer” - what is this concept and how does it relate to Jesus’s elevation of marginalized people?

  10. Shabbat as Foundation: How does keeping Shabbat specifically enable and cultivate the ability to trust the story?

Comprehension Questions

  1. What were the two main schools of rabbinical thought in Jesus’s time, and how did their “yokes” (interpretive lenses) differ? Which side did Jesus typically take, and why is His stance on divorce surprising?

  2. Explain the textual issue behind the divorce debate. What are the two Hebrew phrases in question, what do they mean, and how did Shammai and Hillel interpret them differently?

  3. According to the episode, what was Jesus’s primary concern in His teaching on divorce? How does this differ from how the church has often used this teaching?

  4. When Jesus listed the commandments for the rich young man, He included the 5th commandment (“Honor your father and mother”) but not the 10th (“Do not covet”). How do these commandments parallel each other, and why might Jesus have chosen this specific list?

  5. What does it mean that the disciples will “sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel”? How does the Hebrew concept of shaphat/mishpat inform our understanding of this promise?

Personalized Summary

Episode 122 powerfully reframes Jesus’s teaching on divorce as an act of protection rather than condemnation. In first-century patriarchal culture, divorced women faced devastating consequences - loss of provision, belonging, and social standing. Jesus’s strict stance on divorce wasn’t about establishing a legalistic moral standard but about preventing men from casually discarding women like property. This teaching reveals Jesus’s consistent pattern throughout Matthew 19: elevating those whom society devalues.

The rabbinical context is crucial for understanding this passage. Shammai and Hillel represented two interpretive approaches - obedience versus love - based on a manuscript variation in Deuteronomy 24:1. The order of two Hebrew words (“ervat davar” vs. “davar ervat”) created vastly different meanings: “any reason” versus “sexual immorality only.” Jesus uniquely took Shammai’s strict position but for Hillel’s loving reason: protecting vulnerable women.

The episode challenges how we’ve weaponized Scripture against divorced individuals, particularly women, using Jesus’s words to commit the very sin He opposed. Instead, we’re called to help divorced people find healing and restoration, recognizing that reconciliation requires two willing parties and that divorce is a painful reality in our broken world.

Jesus’s interaction with children and the rich young man continues the theme of Kingdom values inverting worldly values. Children aren’t interruptions but examples of Kingdom citizens. Wealth isn’t necessarily blessing but can be an obstacle requiring radical generosity to overcome. The call to sell possessions echoes Abraham and Isaac’s radical hospitality - using resources for God’s mission rather than self-preservation.

Ultimately, all of Jesus’s teachings rest on one foundation: trusting the story. Without this trust, we cannot forgive, cannot protect the vulnerable, cannot practice radical generosity, cannot follow Jesus. Practices like Shabbat cultivate this trust, repeatedly telling us the truth and preparing us to walk in Jesus’s footsteps, participating in the great work of putting the world back together - bringing mishpat where there is brokenness and shalom where there is chaos.

Note: For deeper study on the parallelism of the Ten Commandments, see Rabbi David Fohrman’s teachings at Aleph Beta (linked in the original episode show notes).

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