Your right hand shall teach You awesome things. (Psalm 45:4)
There is an interesting consideration among our Jewish friends about this verse in regard to the Messiah. Rabbinical scholars interpret the statement “Your right hand shall teach You awesome things” to mean that the Messiah would have an unerring ability to sniff out the truth in a manner of speaking. In fact, it is written of the Messiah that “His delight is in the fear of the Lord” (Isaiah 11:3). The word translated as “delight” actually means “to smell” meaning the verse could be read as “He shall smell with the fear of the Lord.” So what would that mean? Jewish commentators believe it means that the Messiah would be able to quickly and accurately detect what is in a person’s heart, sometimes by just looking at their face, and challenge them with truth in a righteous manner.
Pondering this, I couldn’t help but think of those occasions when Yeshua discerned the thoughts and hearts of those who were looking to find fault with Him. For instance, when He said to the paralytic who had been let down through the roof that his sins were forgiven, the religious people in attendance thought to themselves that He had blasphemed; in their mind they concluded He had made Himself to be God — something they could not abide. The Bible says that He knew their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts?” (Matthew 9:4). Then He healed the man as evidence that the Son of Man has the authority to forgive sins.
There are other instances when Yeshua sniffed out the truth, especially when it came to discerning the hearts and minds of those who presented themselves as righteous but who were, in fact, only self righteous. On more than one occasion, He revealed the person’s true nature and challenged them to repent — some did and some didn’t. And so the point for us is to remember that we can’t fool God. He knows what is in our heart and He knows what we are thinking. His Word has a way of penetrating our defenses and getting right to the heart of the matter, bringing to the surface what has been hiding in our heart. When He does this, let us not resist Him; let us be quick to repent that our sins may be forgiven and, like the paralytic, walk away from the encounter entirely whole.
Blessings and Shalom,
Bill
Recent Comments