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“Treat people the same way you want them to treat you” (Matt. 7:12 NASB) is the Golden Rule of Messiah Yeshua (Christ Jesus). But in the Torah reading כִּי־תֵצֵא Ki Tetze (“when you go forth,” Deut. 21:10–25:19) we’re reminded that Heaven sent this instruction much earlier. In this study, we explore the big role the Golden Rule plays in helping today’s society answer today’s vexing questions about gender and parent roles.
The Torah reading כִּי־תֵצֵא Ki Tetze (“when you go forth,” Deut. 21:10-25:19) expounds on the Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth and Tenth commandments (Ex. 20:13–17), exploring the sometimes overlooked aspects of murder, adultery, theft, honesty and lust for other people’s relationships and possessions.
To adulterate something is to take something pure and add something to it so it’s no longer the good thing it was originally. For example, when you have a piece of pure gold, and you add other metals to it, in a sense, you are adulterating. The gold is no longer pure.
The opposite of adulteration is refinement. It’s no accident that Heaven’s call to repentance uses the metaphor of refining gold via extreme heat (Zech. 13:9; Rev. 3:18).
We are called to help those who need help, but we are to stay clear of what is not helpful (Gal. 6:1). When you are fighting in spiritual battle, you are still to remember who you really are. As we are breaking down the strongholds of the enemy, we are not act like animals. We have to maintain our purity and remember Who is fighting along side us.
Golden Rule in the Torah (Deut. 22:1–4)
“You shall not see your countryman’s ox or his sheep straying away, and pay no attention to them; you shall certainly bring them back to your countryman. … You shall not see your countryman’s donkey or his ox fallen down on the way, and pay no attention to them; you shall certainly help him to raise them up.”
Deut. 22:1, 4 NASB, emphasis added
Loving your enemies is not something that Yeshua invented in the Sermon on the Mount.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor [Lev. 19:18] and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Matthew 5:43–48 NASB; cp. Luke 6:22–36. Emphasis added.
Referencing the Torah, Yeshua taught we are to be “perfect” (τέλειος; teleios, G5046). Teleios is used in the Septuagint to translate תָּמִים tamim (H8549, “blameless, perfect”) and שָׁלֵם shalem (H8003, “whole”).1 Tamim in the Hebrew Bible is often translated “unblemished,” referring to Tabernacle offerings. Only the tamim offering was clean טָהוֹר tahor (H2889, “clean”), fit to approach toward God’s presence in the Most Holy Place of the Tabernacle.
A lesson is that nothing should be found in us that would make us unfit for service to the Kingdom of Heaven. The Tabernacle service teaches that we need to be transformed by a tamim offering to approach God, and the ultimate such offering is the Messiah (Heb. 7:26-28; 9:6-7).
Yeshua quoted from Torah commands found in Ki Tetze and earlier:
“If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey wandering away, you shall surely return it to him. If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying helpless under its load, you shall refrain from leaving it to him, you shall surely release it with him.”
Exodus 23:4–5 NASB
Taking this instruction into modern times, when you see your friend or your enemy in a hard situation, such as fixing their tire on the side of the road, you should not gloat, not drive by taking photos of the distress to post on social media for humiliation. You are to live out the Golden Rule (based on Lev. 19:18) and help the person in the way you would want to be helped if you were in a similar predicament.
Rather than working to maintain hostility, be a bridge-builder:
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”
Matthew 5:9 NASB
Apostle Paul had similar counsel for the congregation of early Jewish and gentile believers in Rome:
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation. Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men. If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay” [Dt. 32:35], says the Lord. “But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head” [Prov. 25:21–22]. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Romans 12:14–21 NASB
This is not the zeitgeist of our age. In our age, we are told that wherever there is systemic oppression, we must break down that society and rebuild it.
When one studies history, we see how dangerous this attitude is. The French Revolution broke out with this premise. They broke down the monarchy and the aristocracy. But that wasn’t good enough. They eventually went after anyone they didn’t like. They eventually ate their own, to the point that the founder of the revolution himself was executed.
Then the people called out for anyone who would put a stop to the terror. And the one who stopped the terror was Napoleon.
But the bloodshed didn’t stop with Napoleon. He went on the warpath throughout all of Europe, until Europe fought back and decimated France.
What happens when you take out the load bearing walls of your house? The house will fall down on you.
The rules of the Torah weren’t written to oppress people, but to protect them.
What’s the big deal about cross dressing? (Deut. 22:5)
“A woman shall not wear man’s clothing, nor shall a man put on a woman’s clothing; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD your God.”
Deut. 22:5 NASB, emphasis added
- woman = אִשָּׁה ishah (H802)
- man’s clothing = כְלִי־גֶבֶר kh’li geber
- man = גֶּבֶר gever (H1397): “strong man,” i.e., warrior
- from גָּבַר gabar (H1396): “be strong, mighty” (BDB lexicon)2
- clothing = כְּלִי keli (H3627): “vessel, utensil, weapon”
- from כָּלָה kalah (H3615): “be complete, at an end, finished, accomplished, spent” (BDB), i.e., get it done
- woman’s clothing = שִׂמְלַת אִשָּׁה simlat ishah
- שִׂמְלָה simlah (H8071): “garments, clothes, raiment, a cloth” (TWOT lexicon)3
Drawing on the translation of “man’s clothing” from כְלִי־גֶבֶר kh’li geber (literally, “strong man’s utensil,” i.e., “warrior’s weapon”), a plain reading of this text is that a woman should not don battle garb, and the warrior should not be a coward and put on a woman’s clothes.
Just so this discussion isn’t misunderstood, the Torah isn’t advocating for subjugation of women as unintelligent and incapable. Some later commentators, both Jewish and Christian (and derivative to Islam) have gone that far. But they’ve made the Torah “fall down” by taking those stances.
Shlomo Yitzchaki, the popular 11th century Jewish commentator better known by the Hebrew acronym Rashi, wrote that this verse is warning against the kind of men who would wear woman’s garments for surreptitious (inappropriately secret) purposes be around women, and women around men.
Interestingly he also wrote, “The Torah does not forbid all cross-dressing, only that which leads to something abhorrent.”4
Isaac ben Judah Abarbanel, a 15th century Jewish philospher and commentator known as just Arabanel, seconds this interpretation: “Obviously it is not the apparel that is the problem, but the sexual misbehavior it would lead to.”5
Abraham ben Meir Ibn Ezra, an 11th century Jewish philosopher and commentator who lived in Spain during Islamic rule there, wrote, “Women were created for the purpose of producing children, but if a woman puts on a uniform and goes out with the men to war, she will end up acting promiscuously.” He also warned that cross-dressing men would also seek to use the ruse to their advantage.
Deut. 22:5 warns us not to blow up the boundaries between men and women before understanding the origin of the Heaven-created differences and how they factor into the boundaries. This verse could have been written today, because we see how men are wearing women’s clothes and using them to barge into women’s sports. Women’s sports were created to highlight the skill and prowess of women. But when competing with men, an Olympic-level female athlete can be beaten by moderately trained men or teen boys because of profound biological advantages, depending on the sport, such as lung capacity, muscle strength and height.
Christian commentators also have struggled with this verse:
The immediate design of this prohibition was not to prevent licentiousness, or to oppose idolatrous practices …; but to maintain the sanctity of that distinction of the sexes which was established by the creation of man and woman, and in relation to which Israel was not to sin. Every violation or wiping out of this distinction—such even, for example, as the emancipation of a woman—was unnatural, and therefore an abomination in the sight of God.
C. F. Keil and Delitzsch F., Commentary on the Old Testament; (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 1996), paragraph 2839.
In the time period Deuteronomy was written (conservatively, about 1500 B.C.), emancipated women without significant means were doomed to either begging or to prostitution. This is why God says He “hates divorce” (Mal. 2:16) and Yeshua called out those who divorced their wives for trivial matters (Matt. 19:3-9), relegating them to abject poverty.
Another Christian commentary sees connections between the adjacent commands about gender-specific clothing and treatment of a bird’s nest.
The prohibitions against cross-dressing are not pointed at masquerade parties but at a larger issue—the loss of male and female roles in a healthy society. Israelites were to respect God’s design and not call their assigned sexuality into question by wearing inappropriate clothing. Moses knew that behavior provokes values just as values promote behavior. The Lord detests such behavior because it places a fog around distinctions that he constructed. God is against anything that blurs the lines between the sexes.
In the same way, Israel must recognize that even in the animal world the continuation of life depends on respect for motherhood [Deut. 22:6–7]. Even in such a mundane matter as a bird’s nest beside the road, the life of the mother must be preserved to continue life into the next generation. Israel’s future prosperity and even their longevity depended on their respect for life.
Doug McIntosh, Deuteronomy, Holman Bible Commentary 3; eds. Max Anders; (Nashville: B & H Publishing Group, 2002), 261. Emphasis added.
Don’t mess with mamma (Deut. 22:6–7)
“If you happen to come upon a bird’s nest along the way, in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs, and the mother sitting on the young or on the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young. you shall certainly let the mother go, but the young you may take for yourself, in order that it may be well with you and that you may prolong your days.”
Deuteronomy 22:6-7, NASB
“In order that it may be well with you and that you may prolong your days” in this passage should rings some bells for you from the Fifth Commandment (Ex. 20:12; Deut. 5:16). The issues related to gender grow out of a founding belief of modern feminism, best expressed in this 1970s slogan: “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.”
Our culture’s reaction to the coronavirus pandemic, telling people to avoid each other and bunker down in their homes to avoid a respiratory virus have stunted people’s emotional growth to the point that they don’t even know how to form and maintain relationships anymore. People are more isolated now than they have ever been before.
Deut. 22:6-7 is not just talking about how to treat animals (see Deut. 25:4 and apostle Paul’s midrash (commentary) on it in 1Cor. 9:9; 1Tim. 5:18). It’s standing in for another important lesson about motherhood: Mothers will give up their lives to protect their children.
Recall that when Jacob, after 20 years away from home, prepared to meet Esau, who was coming with 400 soldiers to go after Jacob’s family (Genesis 33). The only thing in between Esau’s soldiers and Jacob’s children were the mothers.
When Jacob stole the blessing from Isaac that Isaac had meant for Esau, Jacob preyed upon a father’s love for his son when he did so.
Jacob tried to protect the mothers and children by sending messengers with expensive gifts to Esau and then he approached Esau himself and bowed to him and then introduced the mothers and children.
Do we take advantage of our parents by taking advantage of their love for their children? The LORD does the same thing for us. He does not let Israel go, no matter how much Israel rebels, runs away and even tries to cut Him off from them. Yeshua said something similar when He lamented over the rebellious leadership of Israel who wouldn’t allow Him to gather the people for protection, like a hen does for her chicks (Matt. 23:37-39).
This is God’s Fatherly love for His people in action.
Summary: Tammy