The PaRDeS sys­tem was first pub­lished in the Zohar in the sec­ond cen­tury, but it is evi­dently much older than that. The NT authors use all four lev­els, and thus, their under­stand­ing is cru­cial to under­stand­ing the NT.

This arti­cle can be found on var­i­ous sites. Repro­duc­ing it here in no way means my agree­ment with those sites.
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The Hebrew/Aramaic word PARDES is spelled in Hebrew and Ara­maic with­out vow­els as PRDS. PaRDeS refers to a park or gar­den, esp. the Gar­den of Eden. The word appears three times in the Ara­maic New Tes­ta­ment (Lk. 23:43; 2Cor. 12:4 & Rev. 2:7).

The word PRDS is also an acronym (called in Judaism “notarikon”) for:
℗ashat (Heb. “sim­ple”)
®emez (Heb. “hint”)
(D)rash (Heb. “search”)
(S)od (Heb. “hidden”)

These are the four lev­els of under­stand­ing the scrip­tures. Each layer is deeper and more intense than the last, like the lay­ers of an onion.

PASHAT
The first level of under­stand­ing is PASHAT (sim­ple). The Pashat is the lit­eral mean­ing. It is sim­i­lar to what Protes­tant hermeneu­tics calls “Gram­mat­i­cal His­tor­i­cal Exo­ge­sis” and also sim­i­lar to what Protes­tant Hermeneu­tics calls “The Lit­eral Principle.”

The PASHAT is the plain, sim­ple mean­ing of the text; under­stand­ing scrip­ture in its nat­ural, nor­mal sense using the cus­tom­ary mean­ings of the words being used, in accor­dance with the pri­mary exeget­i­cal rule in the Tal­mud that no pas­sage loses its PASHAT (b.Shab. 63a; b.Yeb. 24a). While there is fig­u­ra­tive lan­guage (like Ps. 36:7) sym­bol­ism (like Rom. 5:14); alle­gory (like Gal. 4:19–31) and hid­den mean­ings (like Rev. 13:18; see also 1Cor. 2:7) in the Scrip­tures, the first thing to look for is the lit­eral mean­ing or PASHAT.
The fol­low­ing rules of thumb can be used to deter­mine if a pas­sage is fig­u­ra­tive and there­fore fig­u­ra­tive even in its PASHAT:

When an inan­i­mate object is used to describe a liv­ing being, the state­ment is fig­u­ra­tive. (Exam­ple: Prov. 18:10)

When life and action are attrib­uted to an inan­i­mate object the state­ment is fig­u­ra­tive. (Exam­ple: same exam­ple Prov. 18:10)

When an expres­sion is out of char­ac­ter with the thing described, the state­ment is fig­u­ra­tive. (Exam­ple: Ps. 17:8)

The PASHAT is the key­stone of Scrip­ture under­stand­ing. If we dis­card the PASHAT we lose any real chance of an accu­rate under­stand­ing. We are left with a no-holds-barred game of pure imag­i­na­tion in which we are no longer objec­tively deriv­ing mean­ing from the Scrip­tures (exo­ge­sis), but sub­jec­tively read­ing mean­ing into the scrip­tures (eiso­ge­sis) (see 2Pt. 1:20–21; 1Tim. 4:3–4). Thus the Tal­mud twice warns us: “No pas­sage loses its PASHAT” (b.Shab. 63a; b.Yeb. 24a).

REMEZ
The next level of under­stand­ing is called in Hebrew REMEZ (hint). This is the implied mean­ing of the text. Pecu­liar­i­ties in the text are regarded as hint­ing at a deeper truth than that con­veyed by its PASHAT.

An exam­ple of implied “REMEZ” mean­ing may be found in Ex. 21:26–26-27 where we are told of our lia­bil­ity regard­ing eyes and teeth. By the “REMEZ” under­stand­ing we know that this lia­bil­ity also applies to other body parts.

DRASH
Another level of under­stand­ing the Scrip­tures is called in Hebrew “drash” mean­ing “search”, this is the alle­gor­i­cal, typo­log­i­cal or homilet­i­cal appli­ca­tion of the text. Cre­ativ­ity is used to search the text in rela­tion to the rest of the Scrip­tures, other lit­er­a­ture, or life itself in order to develop an alle­gor­i­cal, typo­log­i­cal or homilet­i­cal appli­ca­tion of the text. This process involves eiso­ge­sis (read­ing of the text) of the text.
Three impor­tant rules of thumb in uti­liz­ing the drash level of under­stand­ing a scrip­ture are:

[1] A drash under­stand­ing can not be used to strip a pas­sage of its PASHAT mean­ing, nor may any such under­stand­ing con­tra­dict any PASHAT mean­ing of any other scrip­ture pas­sage. As the Tal­mud states “No pas­sage loses its PASHAT.” (b. Shab. 63a; b.Yeb. 24a)

[2] Let scrip­ture inter­pret scrip­ture. Look for the scrip­tures them­selves to define the com­po­nents of an alle­gory. For exam­ple use Mt. 12:18–23 to under­stand Mt. 13:3–9; Rev. 1:20 to under­stand Rev. 1:12–16; Rev. 17:7–18 to under­stand Rev. 17:2–8 ect…

[3] The pri­mary com­po­nents of an alle­gory rep­re­sent spe­cific real­i­ties. We should limit our­selves to these pri­mary com­po­nents when under­stand­ing the text.

EXAMPLES OF DRASH UNDERSTANDINGS:
Mt. 2:15 on Hosea 11:1
Mt. 3:11 on Is. 40:3
Rom. 5:14 (14–21) on Gen. 3:1–24
I Cor. 4:6
Gal. 4:24(21–31) on Gen. 17–22
Col 2:17
Heb. 8:5 on priest­hood
Heb. 9:9, 24 on the Taber­na­cle
Heb. 10:1 on the Torah
Heb. 11:19 on Gen. 22:1f
1Pt. 3:21 on Gen. 6–9

SOD
The final level of under­stand­ing the Scrip­tures is called in Hebrew “SOD” mean­ing “hid­den”. This under­stand­ing is the hid­den, secret or mys­tic mean­ing of a text. (See I Cor. 2:7–16 esp. 2:7). This process often involves return­ing the let­ters of a word to their prime-material state and giv­ing them new form in order to reveal a hid­den mean­ing. An exam­ple may be found in Rev. 13:18 where the iden­tity of the Beast is expressed by its numeric value 666.
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Dr. James Trimm
SANJ