Hebrew Word Study – Mild Wickedness – Lerosha’- לרשע  Lamed Resh Shin Ayin

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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 which is the Hebrew word shuv 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. Esoterically, the Resh shows pride, the Shin shows jealousy and the Ayin shows greed.  This is wickedness that has at it’s roots, pride, jealousy, and greed. The numerical value of lerosha is 600.  A snare and a trap also have a numerical value of 600.  The study of God’s Word can be a snare and a trap.  How?

We are not talking about murder, violence, hatred, etc.  It is easy to see the difference between that wickedness and the righteous.   This is wickedness,  lerosha, that 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 of a colloquial expression as 100 being the ultimate. People in ancient times could only count to 100.  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 in other words you can reach the ultimate in the knowledge of God’s Word. Know all the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek and earn many advanced degrees in Biblical Literature and even teach Bible at a University but without God, you can only obtain 100.  The word for knowing or intimacy is considered 100.  You can be intimate with the  Word of God and still be lerosha.  But those who read it 101 times are righteous.   101 represents intimacy (100) and God (1) as an authority. 

In other words, you can read and study the Word of God 100 times but if you do it without the One (101), then what use is there to learning it 100 times.  This is what the sages found when they looked deeply into  Malachi 3:18.   You can study the Word of God, buy all the CDs, books, attend all the conferences and seminars, 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 who 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.   

But this is more than discerning in others, it is also discerning in yourself.  If you spend hours studying the Word of God out of selfish motives, one day you will look at all your hours of study of the Word of God and you find yourself shuv – returning to God and you begin to see ra’ah that all your study was for show and not serving God.  Take it from a guy who has studied the Word of God a minimum of 3-4 a day in Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic for the last 40 years. Eventually, you begin to discern that your study was not righteous but lerosha – wicked.   You are studying not because it is the will of God but for your own purposes.  You can devote your life to the study of God’s Word, have many degrees after your name in Bible and Theology but if it is not to serve God but your own purposes, it is an abomination to God, it is lerosha.  My years of study were not a waste, God used His Word to call me to task, to show me my lerosha.

There is a story in the Talmud of a student who complained to his rabbi, “Master, Ruben is only studying Torah so he can acquire great knowledge just to impress people with his wisdom.”  The rabbi replied, “The Torah will purify his motives.”  

 The Word of God is a supernatural book, it is unlike any other book that exists for it is God’s Word and if you immerse yourself in God’s Word it will have an effect on you.  Yet, Malachi 3:18 is warning you that you still have free will and your pride can destroy the great blessing of the peace and comfort that can flow from the Word of God if you have intimacy with just the 100 and not the one – God. 

I only pray that the years I have remaining in this earthly life are spent studying the Word of God 101 times and not just to 100.

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