Good morning. I’ve been studying a course called, “Justice and Righteousness in Israel and in the Ancient Near East.” The course is taught by Rico Cortes, Ryan White, and Daniel McGirr. It consists of 12 lessons on the Ancient Near Eastern Treaty (ANET). This course has opened my eyes to see the scriptures in a whole different light. It’s amazing to me how Yah can give each teacher a different perspective of His word. I found studying more than one person has made the scriptures come alive for me. This course is no exception.
After studying just a few lessons I see how our on justice system was created. I also see how our justice system is failing because we have eliminated God from the equation. Yet, God has not failed in His system of justice and righteousness. Through this course I have learned to walk the way God wants me to walk, to give where it is most needed and to walk in pure truth. These lessons teach will teach you how to truly love your neighbor as yourself by walking in justice and righteousness.
If you want to know more about signing up for this class, go to http://torahyeshiva.com/. I am in no way affiliated with Rico Cortes or his teachings. I will not benefit financially for sharing this class with you. I just believe you will be blessed by it. I figure the more of us walking the way Yah wants us to and the way Yeshua taught us to, the better off the world will be.
You can check out one of our homework assignments. We had to do a word study on justice and righteousness. This is what I wrote. https://www.cswisdom.com/2014/02/what-is-righteousness/. Let me know what you think about it. Now here’s what the lessons entail.
ANET Lessons
There are 12 lessons in this teaching. Below is a summary of what each lesson will teach you. You will learn so much from these teachings, I promise you. You just have to be open to learning more than you’ve ever been taught. These lessons teach you how ancient civilizations lived, what was important to them when it came to contracts and how important it is to understand that. Here are the lessons.
Introduction to Justice and Righteousness
This lesson introduces the proclamation of liberty, the concept of freedom, and the liberated person as the servant of God.
Lesson One: “Justice and Righteousness”—משפט וצדקה
This is lesson one of Justice and Righteousness. The concept of social justice was expressed in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East by means of a hendiadys. The most common word-pair to serve this function in the Bible is משפט וצדקה, “justice and righteousness”, or צדקה ומשפט, “righteousness and justice”. However, alongside this expression, we find צדק ומישור or צדק ומישרים, “righteousness and equity”, word-pairs which are found in poetic passages, and therefore appear primarily in parallelism (see Isa. 11:4, 33:15, 45:19; Ps. 9:9, 58:2, 98:9, and compare Prov. 1:3, 2:9). The word-pair צדק//משר is found in the list of gods.
Lesson Two: Justice and Righteousness as the Task of the King
The establishment of a just society is the responsibility of the king. This can be seen in the following verses: in a passage juxtaposed to the announcement of David’s ascent to the throne, it is said that he “established justice and righteousness for all his people.”
Lesson Three: Justice and Righteousness as the Task of the Eschatological King
This lesson talks about the biblical prophecies regarding the establisher of justice and righteousness, the shoot of royalty and the righteous king in ancient near eastern prophecy.
Lesson Four: Proclamations of “Freedom” in Mesopotamia and their Reflections in Ancient Israel
Determine the understanding of the various idiomatic expressions of proclaiming freedom, justice and righteousness in Israel and ancient Near Eastern literature. Compare these concepts of the ancient Near Eastern nations to that of the Biblical one. Determine how Yeshua must carry out the will of YHWH to be the vassal King establishing justice and righteousness, spiritually and physically. Determine how Paul also writes according to the ancient near eastern nations and Israel’s view of true justice and righteousness.
Lesson Five: Privileges and Freedoms for Temple Cities
From the earliest times, temple cities and temple holdings were granted exemptions from corvée, military service, and the like, because the imposition of taxes and conscription in such holy places were considered a violation of the rights of the citizens and the rights of the temple.
Lesson Six: Rights and Freedoms of Estates and Individuals
Rights and freedoms granted by the government were not limited to temple cities and temple estates; private estates were also granted such privileges. Thus in Elam, from the old-Babylonian period on, the mašûtum, an exemption to a private estate, was granted, e.g.:2 “The prince has granted a mašûtum, [the owner of the estate] shall not be taken on a campaign, he shall not dig [canals], and he shall not be drafted for military service”.
Lesson Seven: Proclamations of “Freedom” in Egypt, Persia and Greece
Just like the kings of Mesopotamia, the kings of Egypt proclaimed the “liberation” of slaves, prisoners, and the like upon ascending the throne. Like the biblical “liberation”, and the amargi (= andurāru) in Mesopotamia, liberation in Egypt meant the return of each man to his house and his ancestral estate.
Lesson Eight: Sabbatical Year and Jubilee in the Torah Laws and Their ANE Background
The manumission of slaves at the command of a king occurs explicitly in the proclamation of liberty in Jeremiah 34. In this incident, the participation of the officials and representatives of the people is instructive.
Lesson Nine: God Who Establishes Equity (מישרים) and Performs Righteous Justice (משפט וצדקה)
Although there have been numerous studies of the concept of צדקה in the Bible, there has not yet been a separate monograph devoted to the subject of divine צדקה, an area deserving of consideration in its own right.
Lesson Ten: Justice and Righteousness as the Task of the Individual
One cannot always determine whether a biblical passage which speaks of justice and righteousness applies to acts performed by the government (= monarchy) and its leaders, or whether the intention is of good deeds carried out by the individual.
Lesson Eleven: The Israelites as Servants of YHWH, and the Land of Israel as the Land of YHWH: On the Nature of the Judicial Pattern
“For it is to Me that the Israelites are servants: they are My servants, whom I freed from the Land of Egypt” (Lev. 25:55) From the examples cited in Chapters Four and Five we learned that the liberation of cities and their inhabitants from the yoke of foreigners and enslavers and their transformation into servants of God was an extremely widespread phenomenon in the Ancient Near East. This phenomenon was manifested both in the public realm (the freeing of entire cities and regions) and in the private realm.
Rico Cortes
Rico Cortes will challenge you to keep the Commandments that Yeshua/Jesus kept. He specializes in uncovering spiritual truths hidden within the Holy Temple and the services that took place there. His knowledge of the Tabernacle, Holy Temple, priests and procedures combine to bring an incredible prophetic message to us today regarding how we are to reverently approach and be true servants of our Creator YHVH!
Rico was born in Puerto Rico and raised in California. He had a successful career as a professional baseball player prior to becoming a baseball scout for the Chicago White Sox. In 1998, Rico’s life took a turn that led him right to the Savior, Yeshua (Jesus). Rico discovered he is a descendant of the Sephardic Jews of Spain and part of what was called the Bnai Anusim.
He returned to the Covenant of the Forefathers the Torah and his hunger to study the Word of God became unquenchable. His studies quickly uncovered the truth that the Law had not been done away with, as he had been taught all his life. In fact, he found that the Torah, the 1st five books of the Bible (from Genesis to Deuteronomy) is actually YHVHs instructions and teachings on how to live, and rather than putting us into bondage, keeping Torah actually frees us from legalism and the dogmas of man.
This discovery was the launching pad of Wisdom in Torah Ministries. Rico’s vision is to see all who believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob return to the Torah and to be a set apart people who serve our Creator as He has instructed. He travels around the globe sharing the hidden truths that he has uncovered, encouraging believers in the Messiah to keep the Commandments that Yeshua (Jesus) kept. His program, Wisdom in Torah, can be seen in both English and Spanish.
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