ARAMAIC WORD STUDY – ALLOW – YAHAV יהב Yod Hei Beth

Matthew 22:21-22: “They say unto him, Caesar’s. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s. (22) When they had heard [these words], they marveled, and left him, and went their way.”

This is a very popular Bible Story, but I never heard anyone explain it to my satisfaction. The Pharisees tried to trap Jesus by asking if He should pay taxes. If He said yes, the Pharisees would haul Him off to be tried by the Sanhedrin for heresy. It was taught by oral law, not the Torah Law, but the law as man wrote it, that to pay a tax was to pay a tithe and you could only tithe to God, not man. You see, Jesus was constantly condemning much of oral law as not authoritative. For instance, Torah Law taught you could not work on the Sabbath. Oral law or man’s interpretation of that law was that to heal on the Sabbath was work so therefore if one healed someone on the Sabbath he was breaking Torah Law by working. Jesus healed on the Sabbath in direct violation of oral law, which is why they called Him a sinner. Torah Law taught you were to give 10% of your earnings in a tithe. Tithe means ten. By sheer coincidence, the Roman government demanded that you pay 10% of your income in taxes. What did I say the word tithe means? It means 10, therefore to pay the government 10% you were paying a tithe. So oral law forbids paying taxes that equaled 10%.

So, the Pharisees laid a clever little plot to trip up Jesus. With the Roman guards standing nearby and the Pharisees also within hearing distance, a Pharisee asked Jesus if it was right to pay a tithe or 10% to the Roman government in taxes. If Jesus said no, the Romans would arrest Him for being disloyal to the Roman government and inciting others to also rebel. If He said Yes, then the Pharisees would haul him off to the Sanhedrin to be tried.

What did Jesus say? He asked the Pharisee if he had a coin. Then asked whose picture was on the coin. The Pharisee walked right into it. He said Caesars. Then Jesus said: “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesars and to God that which is God’s.”

Matthew 22:22 tells us that everyone marveled and then left Him alone. What was so marvelous about that statement. Jesus basically said it was ok to pay your taxes, did He not fall into the Pharisee’s trap? The word marvel in Greek is ethaumasan where we get our English word enthusiasm. It means to be astonished, amazed, surprised or stunned. In the Aramaic, the word is damar which means to admire. It is in an intensive form so they were filled with admiration. Actually, it was the Pharisee who fell into Jesus’s trap and ended up with egg on his face. Frankly, I would not be too admiring of someone who just blew my best excuse to avoid taxes. But is that what Jesus really said? The word render is yahav which means to allow. “Allow Caesar to have that which is his and God to have that which is his.” That is still saying to pay your taxes, right? Well, not exactly. Note what the first commandment teaches:

Exodus 20:3-4: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me. (4) Thou shalt not make (for your possession) unto thee any graven image, or any likeness [of any thing] that [is] in heaven above, or that [is] in the earth beneath, or that [is] in the water under the earth:”

This commandment is instructing the Jews to have no other gods before God Jehovah. They are not even to make that is the Hebrew word pasal which is an engraving or carving and it is not to be made for your own personal possession. The Jews interpret this to mean that you cannot even possess an image of anything that declares himself or herself to be a god.

Likely this Pharisee did not read Latin because it says right on the coin (I possess such a first-century coin) Caesar Augustus Tiberius, son of the Divine Augustus. Not all Roman coins bore such a subscription declaring the person pictured to be divine or a god. How Jesus knew the Pharisee would pull out such a coin and not a temple coin is amazing enough. But the fact that Jesus caught the Pharisee breaking the first commandment really astounded the people.

In the Aramaic Jesus was telling the Pharisee, “Allow Caesar to be Caesar thinking he is a god. But allow God to be God and bear all the glory as the God of the Universe. Watcha doin’ carrying Caesar’s image thereby giving him the glory of considering himself a god? Then you turn around and accuse me of breaking man’s law when you are in direct violation of the very first commandment?” Jesus never answered the question, He didn’t have to for he took away the right of the person to even ask such a question. To even ask such a question when he was violating Torah Law, the first commandment to boot would make out to be a real honest to goodness, hypocrite.

We are presently in an intense political year in this country. Emotions are running high. Christians are siding with their candidate and basically asking fellow Christian a similar question asked of Jesus. Which candidate do you support. In this political climate, you can’t win no matter how you answer. Answer correctly for the Christian they will accept you but the people at work will persecute you. Or answer the other way the people at work will praise you and Christians will condemn you and even question your salvation.

When I was about ten years old I remember the election year when Nixon and Kennedy were running for President. Kennedy was a Catholic and according to our church could not be a Christian. Nixon was a Quaker and we could accept him as a Christian. So, everybody around the church was wearing their Nixon buttons. Well, one new Christian and new member of the church happened to support Kennedy. I remember overhearing him speaking to my father: “I just believed in the guy, you know. So, I went and got me a Kennedy button and boy, no one talked to me, everyone ignored me and it was like I was some sort of traitor.” My father told our Christian Education director at that time what was happening. The Christian Education director went to some key people and spoke with them. I don’t know what he said but I’ll bet it was something like: “Allow politics to be politics and allow God to be God.” All I remember is this new believer telling my father later that everything was ok.

So for this election year let me just say before you ask: “Let politics be politics and let God be God.”