It is one of the most poorly taught passages of scripture, words of our Lord Jesus Christ that even come with a warning label but sadly we teach the opposite of what the Lord commanded.
Jesus taught His disciples that not even the smallest jot or tittle will “pass from the Law (Torah) until all is accomplished” in Matthew 5:18, He further warned that anyone teaching others to break even the least command would be least in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Solomon is a good picture of the modern believer in this. The wisest king of Israel believed that he knew better than the unchanging word of God. The king was required to write out his own copy of the Torah for his personal reading time.
But when Solomon came to the commands for the king, he made just a small change, he left out the small yod, which is similar to an apostrophe. What effect could changing such a small letter have?
As it turns out that small mark on the page changed the command of God to the king that said, “the king shall not add wives to himself”, to “the king shall add wives to himself.” It was the acquisition of 400 wives and 600 concubines that caused Solomon to build alters on every hill in Israel and the split and destruction of the kingdom.
It is the height of arrogance that led Solomon to believe that his wisdom exceeded that of the Lord Himself and it is that same arrogance that leads us to believe that we do not need the Lord’s wisdom today.
Christians are fond of saying that they are royalty, children of the King, and this is true we are priests and kings because of our adoption in salvation. But did you know that God’s word has commands for this royalty?
We are to copy for ourselves the word of God and read it daily. How many of us do that? How often do you quote scripture in error because you do not read it? Have you ever thought you quoted the bible when you were really quoting Ben Franklin?
Misquoting the Lord changes a jot or a tittle just as Solomon did and it can destroy nations if we are not careful.
