We are going to take the subject to arrive at what is truth and what is deception. Shortly it will become readily apparent how the “Whole Armour of G-d”” confirms that Torah is Truth and anything taught contrary to or against Torah is of the adversary.
TEXT: Ephesians 6:10-17
10 Finally” my brethren” be strong in the Lord” and in the power of his might.
11 Put on the whole (b) armour of G-d” that ye may be able to stand against the (a) wiles of the devil.
12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood” but against principalities” against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
13 Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of G-d that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
14 Stand therefore” having your (1) “loins girt about with truth” and having on the (2) “Breast Plate of righteousness;”
15 And your feet (3)” Shod with the prepraration of the Gospel of peace;”
16 Above all, taking the ( 4) “Shield of faith” wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.
17 And take the ( 5) Helmet of Salvation, and the ( 6) Sword of the Spirit, which is the word of G-d (KJV)
In the Aramaic the word translated (a) wiles or strategies here is zingtah. The Semitic root of this Aramaic word is hook or something barbed used for a fishhook or any kind of trap. The implication is that haSatan is out there with these fishhooks trying to snag you in his trap.
In the Aramaic the word translated (b) armour is zangah. This word not only refers to armour but to any kind of military equipment. The sword and the shield are included within this word.
Notice the word play, which is prevalent in Hebrew writings even in the Aramaic. This is a word play contrasting zangah (armour) with zingtah (strategies, wiles, fishhooks or traps).
Now there are (6) items of armour, of zangah, the list of military equipment listed.
I want you to know that this idea of the “Full Armour of G-d” does not come from Sha’ul, but comes from Isaiah. It is also mentioned in the Apocryphal book the “Wisdom of Solomon” written in the 1st or 2nd century before the Messiah.
This is important, because of what you have been taught that the armour in Ephesians is allegorical with Roman armour. This is wrong because the truth is that this armour comes from Isaiah who never saw a Roman soldier and because of this we need to draw a whole different set of conclusions than that drawn by the Roman allegory.
Let me say this: First, whatever you have been taught about the “Full Armour of G-d” correlated to Roman armour throw it into he garbage because it has no relation to Romana.
And second, there is an exact correspondence with ancient Hebrew armour. Four (4) that are fixed, that come from the Book of Isaiah and two that are mobile, (shield and the sword) that come from the Book of “Wisdom of Solomon. ” If you want to look it up it is located in chapter 5: 17-20.
So” the armour we have in mind here is ancient Hebrew armour found in Isaiah. We will refer to the book of Isaiah as we develop this study.
If you have seen any drawings of ancient Hebrew warriors they wore a garment that resembled a long skirt, which came down near the ankles. Naturally tzitzit hung from the border. They also wore a helmet that looked like the kippa Sha’ul wore, but was made of metal.
In the Tanakh there are (4) four strategies of haSatan that are illustrated more clearly in the Hebrew and Aramaic than in English that exactly oppose the four (4) fixed items of Isaiah’s armour.
I. The Belt of Righteousness, lions girt about with truth” the first item in Ephesians (Isa. 11:5)
5 And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins.
Isaiah is speaking of the Messiah here” specifically and contextually. In verse one it speaks of a “rod out of the stem of Jesse” and a Branch shall grow out of his roots.
This Belt of righteousness derives from The Hebrew word translated faithfulness here (emunah). The root of emunah is truth and could be translated that way. So in that sense truth and faithfulness are synonymous as used here.
The Belt of Truth opposes haSatan’s first strategy or zingtah, deception. In Genesis 3 Satan or the serpent deceives Hava and in Revelation 12:9 it says He deceives the whole world. Turn with me to:
John 8:44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
Now go to verse 31,32.
31 Then said Yahshua to those Jews, which believed, on him, if ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;
32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
What I want you to take notice of is that Yahshua said there is freedom that results from truth.
Now I want to take you back to the ancient Hebrew Warrior and “lions girt about with truth.” Remember he wore a long skirt not a short skirt like the Romans and when going into battle a long skirt would have hindered his movements and been a definite liability on his freedom of movement. Such a hindrance could have cost him his life. So, the first thing they did when going into batt1e is to girt that skirt up into their belt which allowed them the freedom of movement needed in combat. That’s the allegory. Freedom results from girding up your lions with the be1t of truth. The adversary has strategies of lies, but the Messiah gives us a belt of truth to oppose and combat these lies.
Now turn with me to John 18: 37-38
Here we see that Yahshua went before Pilate and said to him, Art thou a king then? Yahshua answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.
Then in verse 38 Pilate asked a question we should all ask, and Pilate saith unto him, What is truth?
Today, we’re constantly bombarded with subjective morality. If it feels good and doesn’t hurt anyone it’s okay. Truth is relative depending on the situation. Situational ethics and morality even in the Believer’s community. The idea that all opinions are equal. I’m sorry but it just isn’t true. There can only be one right opinion and a right opinion is obviously superior to a wrong opinion. So Pilate, and… you say, “What is Truth?”
Let’s go to scripture and find out what truth is. Turn with me to Psalm 119:142
142 Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and thy law is the truth.
151 Thou art near, O LORD; and all thy commandments are truth.
We’ve been sold a bill of goods haven’t we? Torah according to the bible is Truth and all of HaShem’s commandments are truth. We can’t pick and choose which commandments to obey. We can’t lay aside whole passages from the bible and announce that these HaShem’s commandments or instructions are not for us today.
Yahshua said, “truth shall make you free.” So what is truth? Torah is! All the mitzvot! But haven’t we been taught that Torah, the commandments are bondage? But the scriptures teach us something different. Torah shall make you free.
We all know that G-d led the Hebrews out of Egyptian bondage into the wilderness and to Mt. Sinai where he gave them His torah. Did HaShem take them out of one kind of bondage just to put them into another kind while He promised them all kinds of freedom? How ludicrous!
If the Torah is Truth and all the commandments are truth then it follows that anything taught contrary to that is a lie and haSatan, the adversary teaches a lie for he is the father of lies. If so, then what will he be out there teaching? I bet you, he’s been out there teaching against the Torah and the commandments. He’d be saying something like this, “Ah, there isn’t any Torah, or it’s not for today, anyway… Don’t worry about the torah”.
Turn to Matthew 24:12. Yahshua is making future predictions. Yahshua is saying, “and because lawlessness will abound the love of many will grow cold. ” That word lawlessness in Greek is anomous. Torah is nomous. Nomous = law which really should have been translated, instructions, guidance to be more accurate. Now think about it! It’d really be stupid to say, G-d’s instructions, guidance is not for us today or worse DEAD!
The Greek prefix “a” means there is not, without-so, anomous means “without torah.” Yahshua predicts here that in the future there is a teaching that is “without torah. ” Sound familiar?
In 2 Thessalonians 2, we have a description of the antichrist or the anti-messiah. In Jewish literature he is called Armelius. Notice that throughout this entire chapter Sha’ul refers to this individual with the title, “The Lawless One.”
v. 7 the mystery of lawlessness is already at work v. 8 and then the Lawless One will be revealed
The Greek word for lawless here is anomous. The anti messiah (antichrist) is teaching a doctrine and that doctrine is anomous, “without Torah.” Forget the Torah, don’t worry about it, it’s for the Jews or it’s for a different time, not today.
Now, if the Torah is truth, then teaching anomous would be a lie and haSatan is doing exactly that. Doing what we’d expect him to do…teaching that there is no Torah. So, when you here someone preaching from a pulpit that the Torah is irrelevant, dead or not for today you have to conclude that he is teaching a lie and therefore is a servant, even if only an ignorant one, of the great haSatan, for he is not preaching G-d’s truth.
The significance of this as we go back to the “‘Full Armour of G-d” is as you are putting on the full armour the belt you gird yourself with which provides you “‘freedom of movement” is Torah. And it exactly opposes strategy-the Zangtah of lies and specifical1y the anomous lie. The lie that there is no Torah today. So if you’re going to engage in what is popularly called spiritual warfare today you’d better be Torah observant.
The next item of the armour is “‘the breastplate of righteousness. ” That comes from Isaiah, turn to Isa. 59: 17. Here Isaiah is speaking of G-d’s righteousness as a breastplate. {We’re not talking about Roman armour)
Note this carefully. Paul calls all these items NOT your full armour, but your full armour of G-d.
Here again is an example of where the Jewish roots of Christianity must be understood by Christians for them too fully comprehend their own belief system. The Hebrew custom when taking a blood covenant such as David and Jonathan was to exchange garments and swords. If we engage in a covenant with G-d, what do we do…We put on His garments, His breastplate. The High Priest is a picture of this. He is wearing the breastplate, the garment of G-d, and he is wearing a hat, a kippa, and a helmet if you wil1, on which is inscribed the Name of G-d.
The tactic that this combats, the strategy of haSatan, is Temptation.
Turn to 1 Chronicles 21: 1. David is tempted by haSatan to take a census of Israel. David is lifted up in pride and he takes a census in contradiction of HaShem’s instructions. David succumbs to haSatan’s temptation.
In Matthew 4:3 haSatan js called the tempter; in 1Thes. 3:5 we read the Tempter might have tempted you and we learn that one of his methods is to lift up your pride. In other words temptation, and pride go together. Look up the word pride in Strong’s concordance or any other and you’ll find the Bible never has anything good to say about pride. Not once.
Now we need to examine what righteous is here in reference to the Breastplate of Righteousness. There are two kinds of righteousness. The word “”righteousness’ in Hebrew is Tszdekah. It’s also the same word in Aramaic. It can mean a lot of things, like righteous giving. It is also a synonym for “”salvation” in some passages. When scholars allude to a big alleged, major conflict between Paul and James it centers largely on a passage where Paul says Abraham was counted righteous by faith alone, and James says Abraham was counted righteous by works, and not by faith alone. So the story goes that Paul and James were adversaries and there was high conflict. Not so, why (?) because Tszedkah is ambiguous and it can mean salvation or it can mean a display of righteousness. Two totally different meanings. Let me give you an example. We will know when Paul uses the word he is using it in the context of salvation. He says that in Romans 4:1-4. Read it; Salvation is a free gift not something we earn. In that context it is salvation. In Genesis 15:6 Abraham is counted righteous by emunah, which is trust/faith. In James 2, James talks about Abraham being justified or righteous. Justified or righteous are two different translations of Tszdekah, but it is the same word in Hebrew. James points to an event in Genesis 22, the Akeva. Isaac’s potential sacrifice, and says that works justifies Abraham. Note also that this event takes place long after what Paul is talking about. They’re not even talking about the same thing. What have I said to you regarding the covenants? The covenant of Faith/trust as represented by the Abrahamic covenant, and that of obedience as represented by Moshe. This is the picture of how we are to come unto HaShem by faith/torah. We first experience the faith and then become obedient. Further confirmation is the seven-fold testimony of Yahshua Himself in the book of revelation. What does He say is a true believer? One who carries the testimony of Yahshua and guards the commandments of HaShem. Nothing can be simpler to understand.
Shalom and brachas
Rab Davis