Kiss the Son
The Deception of Tovia Singer
By
James Scott Trimm
In Psalm 2 we read:
The kings of the earth stand up,
And the rulers take counsel together,
Against YHWH, and against His Messiah:…
I will tell of the decree:
YHWH said to me: “You are My Son,”
This day have I begotten you….
Kiss the Son, lest he be angry…
(Ps. 2:2, 7, 12)
Now in his deceptive anti-Missionary tape set titled (wrongly) “Lets Get Biblical” Tovia Singer refers to Psalm 2:12 saying “The word BAR in Hebrew does not quite mean ‘son’.”
Tovia goes on to say:
“What we do is we look at all the other places where the word BAR exists and what I did for you is I did you a favor. I showed you every single place where the word BAR appears in the Book of Psalms and you will notice that isn’t it odd that the King James Bible everywhere that the word appears in all its forms is always translated cleanliness or purity? Why if that word truly means son or sonship why isn’t it translated that way in other places?”
Notice here that Singer plays a shell game. He starts out suggesting “we look at all the other places where the word BAR exists” then he leads you to believe that he has done this for you, but he has played a switch on you for what he actually has done instead is “showed you every single place where the word BAR appears in the Book of Psalms”. Then he switches back claiming to have shown that “everywhere that the word appears in all its forms is always translated cleanliness or purity”. And then poses the question “Why if that word truly means son or sonship why isn’t it translated that way in other places?”.
So he begins by telling you that we need to look at EVERY passage where the word appears, he then shows you ONLY the passages where the word appears in Psalms, then he CLAIMS to have proven that BAR is always translated “cleanliness or purity” and never as “son”.
The reason for this deception is that Singer knows full well that if we were to enlarge the search by even looking at the neighboring book of Proverbs we would find Proverbs 31:2 where we read:
“What, my son? And what, O son of my womb? And what, O son of my vows?”
(Proverbs 31:2 Jewish Publication Society version)
Every translation I have ever seen, be it Jewish, Christian or Secular renders BAR as “son” in this verse. So now you see why Singer plays the shell game. He has to tell you that he is showing you “all the other places where the word BAR exists” while he really only looks at the book of Psalms, and then he pretends to have shown you “everywhere where the word appears” for the sole purpose of deceiving you, because he cannot honestly look at all of the passages, or even to the neighboring book of Proverbs or you could plainly see that the word BAR can be and is translated from Hebrew as “son”, even in Jewish sources.
In fact Jewish sources attest to “son” as a meaning of BAR in Hebrew even though Singer claims “The word BAR in Hebrew does not quite mean ‘son’.” In the Student’s Hebrew and Chaldee Dictionary to the Old Testament by Alexander Harkavy published by the Hebrew Publishing Company in 1914 we read “In Heb. BAR [as Aramaic for “son”] occurs only in poetry Pr. 31,2.”
(p. 68 column 8). The reader may notice that Psalms is also poetry, so Singer is plain wrong when he declares “The word BAR in Hebrew does not quite mean ‘son’.”.
In fact the tenth century Jewish scholar Abraham Ibn ‘Ezra writes in his commentary on this very passage:
“Serve YHWH” (Ps. 2:7) refers to YHWH’ and “kiss the son (BAR)” (Ps. 2:12) refers to His Messiah; and behold the presence of BAR, is like that of “What, my son (BAR)…”
(Prov. 31:2)”
Notice Ibn ‘Ezra not only understands BAR here to mean “son” but identifies this “son:” as the Messiah!
BAR in Psalm 2:12 is also understood to mean “son” in the Zohar:
All the keys of faith dangle from this Israel, and He glorifies Himself, saying YHWH said to me, ‘You are My son’ (Psalm 2:7). Certainly so, for Father and Mother have crowned Him and blessed Him with many blessings, and commanded aa: Kis the son (ibid., 12) kiss the hand of this Son.
(Zohar 3:191b)
Tovia Singer’s argument is deceptive and dishonest. When the Psalm says “Kiss the Son (BAR), lest he be angry…” (Ps. 2:12) the word BAR definitely means “son”.
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