Beit Din Structure
Welcome to Nazarene Israel. My name is Norman Willis. In this study, we want to talk about the duck test with regard to Scripture.
Many people know that the duck test is referring to when you have a bird and you are wondering if it is a duck, so when you take a look you ask yourself the following questions. Does it look like a duck? Does it swim like a duck? Does it quack like a duck? And if the answer to these questions is yes, then it is probably a duck.
But what do you do if you have a bird and it kind of looks like a duck, but not really? And it kind of swims like a duck, but not so much? And it kind of quacks, but not really like a duck? And so, maybe it is not a duck. But what do you do when you have this kind of a thing?
Well, in the case of the apostle Yehuda (Jude), you write him a letter.
Yehudah (Jude) 3
3 Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.
[Christian-Jewish, Christian-Israelite, Nazarene-Israel]
Jude is saying:
‘You are saved, I am saved, we are all saved here and have a common salvation. I am not saying you are not saved, I am just saying, even though we are both saved, yet still, I found it necessary to write to you, exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. Because you are not keeping it. You are not doing and abiding by the original faith. You are practicing some other faith. Your ducks are not in a row!‘
Well, in this study we want to talk about what is called the Beit Din Structure, to illustrate what it means to practice the original first-century faith that was once for all delivered to the saints, and not some other faith like many Messianic do today. Now, do not get your feathers ruffled, but if you do not understand how the Beit Din structure applies to worship in today’s times, you might be laying an egg. Stick around we are going to discuss it all.
There are a lot of renewed covenant (New Testament) believers out there whose ideas do not really fly. One of the reasons why their ideas do not really fly is that they forget that the renewed covenant was not written in a vacuum. The renewed covenant was written primarily by devout first-century Jews, and they wrote it primarily to other devout first-century Jews. There were certain things that were understood in the context of being devout first-century Jews. The renewed covenant is certainly open to those of us of gentile backgrounds, but we need to remember to view the Scriptures of the renewed covenant with what we might call first-century Jewish (Israelite) eyes. Because when we do that it is going to provide a different context, a different flavor, and a different feel, much more than things being lost in the translation. We are going to understand the culture of what is being written about. And that is what we need, elsewise, we are going to miss what the renewed covenant says. So in order to understand the renewed covenant from devout first-century Jewish eyes, we need to begin with the book that all devout first-century Jews would have read, which is of course The Torah of Moshe (The Law of Moses).
Now, in the Law of Moses, in Exodus chapter 18, Moshe’s father-in-law Yitro (Jethro) has come to visit. And he takes a look, and he sees that Moshe is trying to lead the nation but there is really not any order. There is not really any structure or leadership. He says to Moshe that the thing that he is doing is not good! That Moshe is going to wear himself out and the people, that he is not going to make it through to the end. So Jethro instructs Moses on what to do.
Shemote (Exodus) 18:21-22
21 “Moreover you shall select from all the people able men, such as fear Elohim, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them to be rulers of thousands, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens.
22 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.”
Jethro instructs Moshe to select from all the people, able men, competent people, such as fear Elohim. They are not going to just read what Scripture says to do, but they are actually going to do it. Men of truth. They want to know the truth and they hate covetousness. Prosperity doctrine is out. And they will bear the burden with Moshe and then everyone can all make it to the goal together. So we see that they had to order and organize themselves, to put things in order so that everything would work right.
We look up the word judge, because that is what we love to do! We love to wake up in the middle of night with a burning desire to read Strong’s Concordance!
Strong’s Hebrew Concordance
H: 8199 (שָׁפַט) shâphaṭ, shaw-fat’
A primitive root; to judge, that is, pronounce sentence (for or against); by implication to vindicate or punish; by extension to govern; passively to litigate (literally or figuratively): –
+ avenge, X that condemn, contend, defend, execute (judgement), (be a) judge (-ment), X needs, plead, reason, rule.
What Jethro is saying is that these leaders over thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens are there to help govern the people, so the people can achieve their objectives together.
We continue in Exodus chapter 24 to see how this breaks down.
Shemote (Exodus) 24:1-2
1 Now [Yahweh] said to Moshe, “Come up to Yahweh, you and Aharon, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and worship from afar.
2 And Moshe alone shall come near Yahweh, but they [the seventy elders] shall not come near; nor shall the people go up with him.”
So there is a distinction being made between Moshe, and the seventy elders, and the rest of the people. We are going to see other distinctions.
Bemidbar (Numbers) 1:44
44 These are the ones who were numbered, whom Moshe and Aharon numbered, with the leaders of Israel, twelve men, each one representing his father’s house.
Meaning, we had 12 leaders, one man leading each of the 12 tribes. So we see Moshe, 70 elders, 12 tribal leaders, and the leaders over thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens, basically all of the people. We are starting to get some order and some organization in the founding document, in the Torah.
Bemidbar (Number) 11:24
24 So Moshe went out and told the people the words of Yahweh, and he gathered the seventy men of the elders of the people and placed them around the tabernacle.
25 Then Yahweh came down in the cloud, and spoke to him, and took of the Spirit that was upon him, and placed the same upon the seventy elders; and it happened, when the Spirit rested upon them, that they prophesied, although they never did so again.
We do not know for certain, but this probably included the 12 tribal leaders because you are not likely to leave them out of this. But what we see here is that basically there were certain qualifications for the 70 leaders. They were capable men, they were lovers of truth and justice, they did not like unrighteous gain (they were not prosperity gospel preachers, this kind of a thing). If we diagram that, basically what we see and will see again later is, it is not the pyramid or the top-down Babylonian-Egyptian elitist pyramid that we see on the back of the United States dollar bill. But rather, it is what we might call an inverted pyramid, or could you even picture a tree structure here?
Can you see the trunk, and the branches leading upward, and the leaves spreading forth, being the people?
So we had Moshe serving the 70 elders, they served as did the 12 tribal leaders, and then we will also later see leaders of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens leading the people. And this is the concept written in the Torah, that of a well-ordered nation. This is the concept that the first-century Jewish apostles would have understood. They would have understood that the Torah speaks of a well-ordered and organized nation led by the right kinds of people.
Okay, what does that look like? So after Moshe led the children of Israel through the wilderness and then Joshua led them into the Promised Land, how did this work out in real life? Again, let us consider Jethro’s advice in Exodus chapter 18.
Shemote (Exodus) 18:22
22 “… And let them judge the people at all times…”
Now, how does that work out? Well, what we see is what they ultimately settled on were three levels of courts, or what is called the Bet Din Structure. And again, the bigger levels are at the bottom because the trunk of the tree supports the weight upward.
So, in every city, you would have a city court, a court formed with the elders of the city. There are more details to this that we will talk about in other places, but basically, they would form what you might call a Beit Din (a house of judgment or court) for the