09/05/2026
�CURSED IS THE ONE HANGING FROM A TREE! That's Why Black People are being Hung!
Saturday Sabbath Day Teaching — September 5, 2026
Instructor: Kohen Ranford Flemings
BASE SCRIPTURE — GALATIANS 3:13
“Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.”
Today we examine one of the most powerful and often overlooked statements in Scripture: Yahusha HaMessiah was described repeatedly as being hanged upon a TREE.
This teaching will follow that language through the Torah and the Renewed Covenant and then examine the haunting historical imagery of Black Americans being hanged from trees in America.
We must distinguish what Scripture explicitly says from the parallels we draw from history. We should also never pronounce a modern hanging a lynching before the facts are established. But we cannot ignore why the image of a Black person hanging from a tree carries such enormous historical weight in America.
� THE FOUNDATION — THE CURSE OF THE TREE
Deuteronomy 21:22–23 — The Torah establishes the foundation: a person put to death and hanged upon a tree was not to remain there overnight, because “he that is hanged is accursed.”
Galatians 3:13 — Paul directly applies Deuteronomy to Yahusha: “Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.”
The message is not that Yahusha was sinful. Rather, He bore the curse on behalf of others.
� SCRIPTURE REPEATEDLY USES “TREE”
Acts 5:30 — The apostles declare that Yahusha was killed, “hanging on a tree.”
Acts 10:39 — Peter again says that He was slain and “hanged on a tree.”
Acts 13:28–30 — After everything written concerning Him had been fulfilled, “they took him down from the tree” and placed Him in a tomb.
1 Peter 2:24 — Yahusha “bare our sins in his own body on the tree” so that we might die to sin and live unto righteousness.
Galatians 3:13 — Once again: “Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.”
IMPORTANT TEACHING POINT
Several English translations render the underlying ex*****on language as “cross,” while others—including the KJV and NKJV in several of these passages—use “tree.” The Greek term xylon can mean wood, timber, or tree. Therefore, these verses unquestionably preserve the biblical tree/wood imagery, although the wording by itself does not prove that the ex*****on structure could not have been a constructed wooden stake or crossbeam.
The central scriptural point is bigger than the shape of the instrument:
YAHUSHA BORE THE CURSE UPON THE WOOD/TREE.
� ISAIAH FORETOLD THE SUFFERING SERVANT
Isaiah 53:3–5 — He would be despised, rejected, wounded and bruised, yet His suffering would bring healing.
Isaiah 53:7 — He would be oppressed and afflicted and yet brought “as a lamb to the slaughter.”
Isaiah 53:8 — He would be “cut off out of the land of the living.”
Isaiah 53:10–12 — He would pour out His soul unto death and bear the sins of many.
� THE TREE AND BLACK AMERICAN HISTORY
The image of someone hanging from a tree cannot be separated from the history of racial terror in America.
For generations, Black men, women and children were victims of lynching and other forms of racial violence. Consequently, when a Black person is discovered hanging from a tree today, the image immediately awakens historical memories and legitimate demands for transparent investigation.
But our teaching must remain disciplined:
A hanging is not automatically proof of a lynching.
A lynching is not automatically proof of a biblical prophecy.
And Scripture does not establish a person's Israelite ancestry simply from the manner of that person's death.
What we can examine is the powerful parallel between suffering, curses, captivity, persecution and deliverance described throughout Scripture and the historical experiences we see around us.
� JACOB'S TROUBLE
Jeremiah 30:7 — “Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.”
Notice the ending!
Jacob experiences trouble — BUT HE SHALL BE SAVED OUT OF IT.
Yahusha HaMessiah bore the curse.
Jacob experiences trouble.
But Scripture declares:
“HE SHALL BE SAVED OUT OF IT!” — JEREMIAH 30:7
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