HEBREW WORD STUDY –  THE WICKED – LAROSHA – לרשׁע 

Malachi 3:18:  Then shall you return and discern between the righteous and the wicked between him that serves God and him that serves not.”

The Talmud looks at this verse and asks:   “Is not the righteous the one who serves God and the wicked the one who does not serve God?”  Behind this question lies the assumption that one knows the difference between serving God and not serving God because the Torah spells it out.   Either you follow the teachings of the Torah or you do not. 

There were many who appeared righteous, Jesus met them.   They followed the law to the letter, yet Jesus declared that even though they were righteous they were not serving God. 

Here we get to the crux of the matter that the Talmud is addressing.   When we  return or are restored we will be able to ra’ah  see or discern between the righteous who serve God and the wicked who do not serve God.   The word wicked is lerosha. There are a number of words in the Hebrew for wicked.  This word is sort of a mild wicked.  It is used when something does not balance out.   This lack of  balance shows if something is false.  The root word is rosha which is spelled Resh, Shin and Ayin. The Resh  shows pride, the Shin shows jealousy and the Ayin shows greed.  This is a wickedness that has at it’s roots, pride, jealousy and greed. The numerical value of lerosha is 600.  The word for a snare and a trap kaphath also has a numerical value of 600.  The study of God’s Word can be a snare and a trap.  How?  Lerosha, takes discernment.  It is a wickedness that is very subtle and ends up being a snare and a trap.

The Talmud then mentions the student who learns a passage of Torah 100 times and the one who learns a passage 101 times.  The one who learns it 100 times is considered lerosha’ or wicked  but the one who learns it 101 times is righteous. Now surely someone who learns a passage of Scripture 100 times must be righteous, how can one less learning make a difference?  However, the Talmud is speaking in metaphors.  It is saying that you can study the word of God day after day, make it a lifetime of study, but you could only be studying it 100 times. The word for knowing or intimacy is 100.  You can be intimate with the  Word of God and still be lerosha.  But those who read it 101 times are righteous. 1100  is the Talmudic number for intimacy and the number for God as an authority is 1.

In other words, you can read and study the Word of God 100 times but if you do it without the One – God which then equals 101, then what use is there to learning it 100 times.  At least that is how the sages view Malachi 3:18.   You can study the Word of God, buy all the CD’s, books, attend all the conferences and seminars and be able to out Bible anyone around you.   You can impress people with your knowledge of the Scripture and you can probably quote more Scripture than anyone around you and you may have everyone fooled into believing that you are a righteous person, but there are those have ra’ah – see through it all.  The word see is ra’ah which is seeing through spiritual eyes.  There are those who will see that you are only studying the Word of God 100 times and not 101. The word of God has become a trap to snare you into pride and selfishness.