Shalom,

We now begin book 4 of Torah, known in English as Numbers. Unless one had a particular interest in arithmetic, to the uninformed this book may seem like something of little interest. The original Hebrew title is B’Midbar, which means “In the Wilderness;” the Hebraic title of the books of Tanakh generally comes from the first few words of the writing. The majority of the book details the events of Israel’s 40 years of wandering in the desert. But to many, a title like Numbers could appear to be a writing that is impersonal, boring and uninteresting. The title Numbers is the English translation of the Greek title given to the book, Arithmoi, from which the word “arithmetic” comes. The Greek title came from the fact that the first few chapters record the census taken of Israel as commanded by HaShem. Following this census, the tribes were allocated their positions surrounding the Tabernacle.

For those who tend to be bored with Scriptures such as these first chapters of B’Midbar, I should point out that the numbers themselves reveal a miracle from the Creator. B’Midbar 1.40 relates that the total number of men 20 years old and up eligible for military service was 603,550. (Note there was no upper age limit, so we can assume that men of all ages were expected to be available for military service, or if still able, to contribute to any war effort as needed.) Since the count did not include women and children, Biblical historians place the Israeli total population at the time would have been around at least 2 million, perhaps even closing in on 3 million. Skeptics of course argue with the Biblical numbers, overlooking the miracle. We must realize that these 2 million or so people would be spending 40 years in a desert. The Sinai was a desert region at the time of Moshe just as it is now. Could not a miracle providing Creator provide for His children here in the desert? Of course, He did just that, and there is a miracle. (Also, the tribe of Levi was not to be part of the military and thus was not included in the census, but we find later in B’Midbar (3.39) their count to be 22,000 males from a month old and up.) Plus there were a large number of “foreigners” had joined themselves with Israel. So upwards of 3 million people were sustained for 40 years in a dry, arid land – a land with minimal water and edible vegetation. Thus, with personal as well as historical reference, King David could write, centuries later, in Psalm 63.1, “O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly; my soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”

How do the events from the book of Numbers, as well as actually the rest of the Tanakh (Old Testament) relate to us as believers today? Is it necessary to study these books? Sha’ul (Saul, also known as Paul) gives us a concise answer to that in 1 Corinthians 10.1-11, stating that those historical events were written down as a warning to us to concern ourselves with how we live:

1 For, brothers, I don’t want you to miss the significance of what happened to our fathers. All of them were guided by the pillar of cloud, and they all passed through the sea, 2 and in connection with the cloud and with the sea they all immersed themselves into Moshe, 3 also they all ate the same food from the Spirit, 4 and they all drank the same drink from the Spirit — for they drank from a Spirit-sent Rock which followed them, and that Rock was the Messiah. 5 Yet with the majority of them God was not pleased, so their bodies were strewn across the desert. 6 Now these things took place as prefigurative historical events, warning us not to set our hearts on evil things as they did. 7 Don’t be idolaters, as some of them were — as the Tanakh puts it, “The people sat down to eat and drink, then got up to indulge in revelry” [Ex 32.6]. 8 And let us not engage in sexual immorality, as some of them did, with the consequence that 23,000 died in a single day. [Here Sha’ul includes a “census”.] 9 And let us not put the Messiah to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by snakes. 10 And don’t grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the Destroying Angel. 11 These things happened to them as prefigurative historical events, and they were written down as a warning to us who are living in the acharit-hayamim [the end of days].

Lest we fall into the trap of thinking that our lives – what we do, think and say – are insignificant, remember that our Father, the uncreated Creator God cares about a sparrow falling, and just as the little things a child does is important to a loving parent, the same it is between a loving God and His children. In fact, our lives are so important to Him that He gave up His only begotten Son to redeem us and return us to his heart. What more could we want? We humans tend to make a relationship with Him so complicated, with all of our religious ways.

Israel began a wilderness journey with a “count”. We all tend to wander through a wilderness from time to time in our walk with Yeshua. We must make what we do “count”. Messianic Jewish Rabbi Russ Resnik points out in his Torah study guide Creation to Completion, “Our greatest challenges in life can lead us into either revelation or rebellion. We can emerge from the wilderness experience as better and stronger people, or embittered and defeated. What makes the difference? Our response. As we trust in the God who reveals himself as trustworthy throughout the Torah, our wilderness becomes a place of encounter with him. Difficulties and disappointments in life can draw us into greater understanding of God and his ways – or they can drive us away from God altogether. Again, it all depends on our response. How am I responding to the tough, frustrating situations that are in my life right now, and how will I respond to difficulties in the next few days or months?”

The wilderness was a test for Israel; your wilderness is a test for you. It’s not always a comfortable journey. As you face your difficulties, remember Israel and all the difficulties she has faced in the past centuries and millennia. Most of all, remember the difficulties our Messiah Yeshua faced. Hebrews 12.1-3 gives us a great reminder:

“1 So then, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us, too, put aside every impediment — that is, the sin which easily hampers our forward movement — and keep running with endurance in the contest set before us, 2 looking away to the Initiator and Completer of that trusting, Yeshua — who, in exchange for obtaining the joy set before him, endured execution on a stake as a criminal, scorning the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Yes, think about him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you won’t grow tired or become despondent.”

שַׁאֲלוּ שְׁלוֹם יְרוּשָׁלִָם – Sha’alu shalom Yerushalayim – Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!

Shalom,

The original “Temple” Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) service is described in Vayikra 16. The English word “atonement” can be found at least 15 times in Vayikra 16 alone. The Hebrew root is כּפר ka-phar, and the basic meaning is, “to cover, to hide.” Atonement, according to Zhodiates, simply means, “to be ‘at one’”. Atonement is “the condition which results when one makes amends.”

So the question is: what is it that needs to be covered, or hidden; what condition is it that needs to amended? Very obviously, the answer is “sin!” Well, what exactly is “sin?” The Hebrew word for “sin” is חטּאת kha-taht. The definition is, “to miss the mark, to make a false step, to err from the path of duty and right; an offense”. Yeshua is called a “rock of offense” (Romans 9:33 and 1 Kefa 2:8, both quoting Isaiah 28:16), because those who do not develop a rock solid faith foundation in Him are easily offended, having a faith[less] foundation made of shifting sand. The first appearance of the word kha-taht (sin) is in B’resheet (Genesis) 4:7. Hevel (Abel) had just given from the first of his flock to HaShem, while his brother Kayin (Cain) simply “brought an offering.” HaShem did not accept Kayin’s offering, and we’re not given the full story here, but Kayin became angry, and “his countenance fell”. HaShem came to Kayin and asked, “Why are you angry? Why so downcast? If you are doing what is good, shouldn’t you hold your head high? And if you don’t do what is good, sin is crouching at the door – it wants you, but you can rule over it.” Sadly, we know that sometime after that, Kayin killed his brother Hevel. Kayin did not rule over sin, so sin ruled over Kayin. Sha’ul expands on this concept to a great degree in Romans 6: “You are slaves to the one whom you obey (vs 16)… Do not let sin rule in your mortal bodies, so that it makes you obey its desires (vs 12).”

Point being that Kayin understood the word kha-taht, for he did not question the meaning of HaShem’s statement. As we see, from the beginning man has understood the meaning of the word “sin.” In our own day and age, unsaved mankind also understands the meaning of the word “sin,” on one hand mocking the term, proclaiming that sin is enjoyable and okay, declaring wrong to be right; on the other hand, many people feel that they are morally good and therefore are not sinners in need of a Redeemer.

Because of our fallen state, in the presence of the Holiness of the Creator G-d the holiest man on earth is “sin.” Whenever a man in Scripture came in contact with the radiant glory of G-d, he instantly fell to his face, knowing how unworthy He was. When the new nation of Israel was founded, HaShem instituted for them an annual day in which sin could be atoned for. As followers of Yeshua, we know that He who is the sinless One – fully G-d, yet fully a Jewish man – became sin on our behalf, or as the CJB words it, Yeshua “became a sin-offering on our behalf” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Sha’ul did not write with chapter breaks, and he went on (6:1) to say, “We urge you not to receive his grace and do nothing with it.”

Messianic believers are sometimes questioned by non-Messianic believers for observing Yom Kippur –since Yeshua died once for all time for sin and through that we have forgiveness, why do we need an annual set-apart day to seek atonement and forgiveness? For a couple of reasons, at least; one, to simply say “Thank You;” to Yeshua for being the kap-pa-rah (covering) for our sin (1 Yochanan / 1 John 2:2) and for reconciling us to our Creator; and two, it seems that our flesh-man constantly struggles with our sin nature, so we do need to seek forgiveness often, and Yom Kippur is a good time to consider our standing with our Creator. I believe it is in error to declare that once a person has received yeshu-ah (salvation), that is all one ever has to do. If that were the case, there would not be a need for any commandments regarding righteous and holy living and working out our salvation with fear and trembling – and many of those commandments came directly from Yeshua Himself through the Gospels, as well as from Sha’ul and the rest of the Messianic Writings writers, not to mention the commandments of Torah and the rest of the Tanakh. Once again we are reminded of the theme of the book of Vayikra, “Be holy, for I Am Holy.”

Here is a mystery: Only the Kohen HaGadol (the High Priest) could ever enter the Holy of Holies, and that was once a year on Yom Kippur. Following the sacrificial death and resurrection of Yeshua, and the giving of the Ruakh HaKodesh (the Holy Spirit), we are told in 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 that we believers are now the temple of the living G-d. The Greek word for temple is ναός, naos, which literally means “the central sanctuary of the Temple itself – the Holy of Holies.” In other words, as believers, our bodies are now a “Holy of Holies, an abode of G-d!” We are to be holy, as He is holy. To know the Messiah is the key to worship, as opposed to knowing about the Messiah. As Sha’ul wrote in Philippians 3:8, “I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Messiah Yeshua my L-rd, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Messiah.”

In Vayikra 17, HaShem commands that all animal sacrifices are to be made at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting only, i.e., no sacrifice was to be done anywhere else in the Land of Israel. This was such a great penalty that such a person would be cut off – כּרת kah-raht, which could mean “to be killed,” or at the very least, “to be excommunicated” – from the people of Israel. Most certainly sacrifices to animals, or animal images, was disobedience. For example, in 17:7, sacrifices to “goat-demons” were to be discontinued. The Hebrew of “goat-demon” is שׂעיר sah-eer, meaning “a hairy goat demon,” and the term satyr (“sā’tər, a woodland creature depicted as having the pointed ears, legs, and short horns of a goat and a fondness for unrestrained revelry”) comes from this word. This is probably where the image of the devil as a pitch-fork carrying horned being comes from. A sah-eer was one of the gods of Egypt, and apparently some of the Israelites brought this worship with them. The demonic realm has great power, and is not to be trifled with, worshipped, or trivialized.

The bulk of the rest of the first Parashah, and the second Parashah, concern proper sexual conduct as well as proper conduct for living life in general. I believe that a commandment against the modern day murderous crime of abortion can be found in 18:21 and 20:1-5, which declares that no children are to be sacrificed to the false god Molekh. Then follow commandments regarding such things as: honesty in business dealings; treating the handicapped and poor with kindness; proper speech; not being involved in witchcraft or fortune-telling; and the rules regarding fruit trees. Twice in the chapter we are told to keep Shabbat; revere our parents; show respect for the aged; treat the foreigner properly; and distinguish between the clean and the unclean, so that the Land itself will not vomit you out.

The Haftorah reading from Amos predicts the restoration of the fallen סכּה sukkah of David, which is when Israel will be restored to her former glory, and will rule what is left of the nations, and this is more than likely during the millennial kingdom under the authority of Messiah Yeshua.

Kefa (Peter) echoes the theme of Vayikra in his first letter (1:13-16), written first to Messianic Jews in the diaspora, “…do not let yourselves be shaped by the evil desires you used to have when you were ignorant [without knowledge of the Holy]… become holy yourselves in your entire way of life… ‘You are to be holy because I Am Holy.’”

יְרוּשָׁלִָם – Sha’alu shalom Yerushalayim – Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!

Shalom,

These are Torah portions that can present difficulty in a surface reading only. Vayikra (Leviticus) 12 is a short chapter on the laws of childbirth and purification; the next 3 chapters deal with skin diseases and infections. The preceding parashah dealt with clean and unclean animals; now we turn to clean and unclean things affecting people. One thing that can be misread and misunderstood from chapter 12 is that it is not childbirth that makes a woman ritually unclean, but rather it is the loss of blood from the childbirth, which is related to the menstrual cycle here. Throughout Torah, we are told that the life is in the blood; for example, blood is to be drained from meat before it is eaten. The loss of blood pictures death; touching death made one impure.

Becoming unclean and impure does not necessarily mean one is sinful. That is, a woman has not committed a sin by losing blood during childbirth, or by having a monthly flow of blood. Translation can cause confusion sometimes, for we read in this chapter that a woman is to bring a חטּאת khaht-taht, normally translated a sin offering, in order to become pure again. One writer has suggested that a better understanding would be to call this a purification offering, which is indeed one of the meanings of חטּאת khaht-taht. Another thought is this: As David declared in Tehillim (Psalms) 51 that he was born into sin, that is, from the moment we are born, the results of the fall from the Garden are a part of our nature. Our sin nature very easily produces uncleanness. Perhaps a mother had to bring a “sin offering” because she brought this new life into the fallen world. The basic premise is that what is called “unclean” could also be termed “common”. In other words, what is considered to be “common” is different and separate from what is “holy, set apart”. ADONI made a distinction between the two, and only what was “clean” and “holy” could come near His presence in the Tabernacle. It is of interest to note that the prescribed measures found in Vayikra 12 were followed by Miriam v’Yosef (Miriam/Mary and Joseph) when they presented the newborn Yeshua at the Temple (Luke 2.21-39).

We should probably point out here also that the distinction between clean and unclean still exists in our present-day world. Sha’ul (Saul/Paul) made this clear in his treatise in 2 Corinthians 6 regarding believers not being yoked together with unbelievers; righteousness and lawlessness cannot be partners.

In Mark 7, quoting from Yesha’yahu (Isaiah), Yeshua said that worship was not real if it only consisted of lip-service and was not from the heart. Impure thoughts come at us all the time, and if we let our mind come into contact with them, that is, to invite them into the door of our heart, then we become unclean. In order to become clean, to become pure in ADONI’s eyes, a sacrificial death was required; this is a mystery we will never fully understand in this life. Indeed, this is a paradox of ADONI, that one has to come into contact with “death” through blood in order to become “pure.” Thus we see the need for all the animal sacrifices for sin before He came, sacrifices which were only good for a season and which were pointing to The Sacrifice Lamb; thus the shed blood of our Messiah Yeshua, which is good for eternity. We need the blood of Yeshua “over the doorposts of our heart” to help us prevent the unclean from entering in.

Vayikra 13 deals with the issue of צרעת tza-ra’at, which is not leprosy as we know it today, nor should it have been translated that way, except that the translators could not describe it any other way. Tza-ra’at is basically a generic term for a variety of skin diseases that would have made a person ritually impure and unclean. The general belief among scholars now is that these diseases included Psoriasis, Favus, and Leucoderma. Psoriasis is a non-contagious flakiness of the skin; Favus is more serious, as it is a fungus that attacks hairy areas of the body, usually only the scalp, but is quite contagious. Leucoderma is a skin disease that causes the skin to lose its natural color and turn white. Many historians now believe, from a study of ancient Egyptian history and the examination of thousands of skeletons and mummies, that true leprosy was very rare, and possibly did not even exist on a vast scale in that region until around the 5th century CE (AD).

The general belief as taught by the Jewish Sages is that tza-ra’at was a punishment for such sins as bloodshed, false oaths, sexual immorality, pride, robbery, selfishness and forbidden speech. These behaviors are anti-social, and therefore the punishment was banishment from society, with the idea that one could become healed through repentance. That is why, when someone was healed, they had to present themselves to a Kohen (Priest). The primary sin, the Sages taught, was that of לשון הרע lashon hara, forbidden speech. Lashon hara occurs when someone is talking evil about another, or using words to destroy a person’s reputation. Many of the Sages regarded lashon hara as equal to, or even greater than, the sin of murder, in that it can kill a person’s soul.

It is a medical fact that anger, unforgiveness and bitterness can put the body into a stressful situation, which can then reveal itself physically through one malady or another. ADONI gave the remedy: love people, love God. This is not to say that all disease is brought on in this manner, nor that all who have a disease are undergoing judgment. But even if they are, it is intended solely as a conversation between them and ADONI, and should not come under the scrutinizing accusations of anyone else! There is a fine line between discernment and judgment, and all too often the line is crossed unnecessarily and too quickly.

In the Messianic Writings this week, from Matthew, Yeshua strongly chastises certain hypocritical religious leaders of the day. Because the term “Pharisee” has become a term indicating a dishonest person, it is not generally understood that not all Pharisees were that way. David Stern explains this in great detail in his Jewish New Testament Commentary; I would recommend that all who are interested in the Hebraic roots of our faith purchase this book, along with Stern’s Complete Jewish Bible. (One bit of evidence of a righteous Pharisee is found in Acts 23.6, where Sha’ul (Saul, also known as Paul) said “I am a Pharisee,” long after he was a believer and follower of Yeshua. In the same vein of thought, there are certainly dishonest “preachers” or “evangelists” today, but that does not mean that all preachers and evangelists are dishonest.) The point here is how very wrong it is to serve HaShem deceitfully and outwardly only, when the inside is “full of robbery and self-indulgence” (Matt 23.25); “full of dead people’s bones and all kinds of rottenness” (vs 27); “full of hypocrisy and far from Torah” (28).

Sha’ul has a commentary of sorts concerning the subject of righteous living and lashon hara, in 2 Timothy 2, which we won’t go into here; you might want to take a couple of minutes sometime and read the chapter. I will close with a good piece of advice from the chapter (2.22): “along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart, pursue righteousness, faithfulness, love and peace.”

שַׁאֲלוּ שְׁלוֹם יְרוּשָׁלִָם – Sha’alu shalom Yerushalayim – Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!

Shalom,

As our parashah opens, Moshe is still up on the mount with ADONI, receiving the rulings for living a righteous life, which he will deliver back to the nation of Israel. The opening thought is generally translated something like, “when you take a census…,” but the literal translation is, “when you elevate the heads….” It therefore seems that the taking of the census of the people of Israel was to do more than simply get a count, but rather the idea of “lifting up the head” was to impress an importance upon each individual – you are in the count, therefore you matter. To lift up the head is to bring hope. Yeshua said, in Luke 21.28 regarding the troubles in the end times, for us to “lift up our heads, for our redemption is drawing near.” When one is without hope, the head tends to turn down. “My soul, why are you so downcast? Why are you groaning inside me?” (Tehillim/Psalms 42.6(5), 12(11); 43.5). For this particular census, everyone over twenty years of age was required to give a half shekel offering to the service of the tent of meeting. Each one’s offering was an atonement (כּפר, kaphar) for their soul, for their life; Torah commanded that an offering was to be taken during a census to avoid an outbreak of a plague. King David did not follow this edict during one instance and learned his lesson the hard way (see Shmuel Bet/2 Samuel 24).

More instructions are given pertaining to the building of the Tabernacle, through chapter 31, including the express command that Shabbat was to be continually observed, even during the building of the Tabernacle. That should cause us to stop and ponder about our current activities – do we stop what we are doing for our one day to be separated with ADONI? Two items are of particular note here. One is that ADONI considers Shabbat to be of greater importance than even building the Tabernacle. “You shall observe… you are to keep… verily you shall keep…” etc are some of the various English translations. The Hebrew in 31.13 is “אך ahk” which literally means “above all, surely, certainly.” Nothing regarding the construction of the Tabernacle was of more importance to ADONI than the observance of Shabbat. Secondly, Shabbat was not a new creation given just to Israel at this time. From the beginning, ADONI had set aside, sanctified, separated, and blessed the seventh day. ADONI created a seven-day week, and He blessed the seventh day. Verse 17 infers that from creation the seventh day was to be set apart forever for all mankind. However, somewhere along the line mankind drifted from observing Shabbat. So ADONI chose a certain people – Israel – to be His “first-born” set apart people, and instructed them concerning the seventh day.

ADONI said, “You are to observe My Shabbats… through all your generations; so that you will know that I am ADONI, who sets you apart for Me. You are to keep My Shabbat, because it is set apart for you.” The duty of Israel than was to bring the Word of ADONI to the world. This Israel did, albeit in a rather stumbling manner, by preserving the Tanakh through the ages.

Sh’mot 19 tells us that Israel came to the Sinai region in the third month from leaving Egypt. Moshe then went up on the mountain to be with ADONI for forty days. The Sages teach that the people miscalculated the time of his return by a day, and became discouraged. People tend to panic and do distorted things if left on their own without solid leadership. Thus hasatan, the adversary, came in and easily deceived some of the people. Have you ever had a time when ADONI did not do something you wanted Him to do within your time frame, or at all, and so you became discouraged, or angry, or gave in to a temptation that came?

The golden calf incident is a blot in the history of Israel – while Moshe was receiving the Ten Commandments on the mountain, the people were down below breaking them. HaShem sent Moshe down because of this event, calling them “your people” because He knew the brand-new covenant was being broken. Not fully understood is the fact that Moshe did not smash the tablets simply in a moment of rage, rather, in the ancient middle-east, a covenant would be written in stone, and whenever violated, the stones would be ceremonially shattered to signify that the covenant was broken. The people would have realized this fact immediately when they saw what Moshe did.

Then Moshe asked for whoever was for ADONI to come join him. Sadly, no tribe but Levi came. Moshe was not only their close relative since he was a Levite; he was actually the head of the tribe just because of who he was. Because of doing so, the tribe of Levi would soon replace the first-born of Israel as the Kohanim, the Priests, for the nation. The gist of the story has remained the same throughout history – those who are involved in the most grotesque of sins are generally the loudest, hoping to force their way upon the rest of society. The true followers of the Creator will stand firm against the odds, but the large percentage of the fence-straddling population remains quiet, possibly even unsure of their stand. The prophets encountered this problem often. Eliyahu (Elijah) did upon telling the people of Israel to decide who their stand was with – ADONI or Ba’al. “The people answered him not a word” (1 Kgs 18.21).

Moshe did some strong intercession on behalf of Israel, and persuaded ADONI to re-establish the covenant by appealing for ADONI to remember His promises to the Patriarchs. ADONI relented, and declared that He would go with Israel to drive out their enemies, but Israel was not to go astray after the gods of other nations, which ADONI views as adultery. Then Moshe descended the mountain with the new copy of the Ten Commandments, ADONI’s renewed covenant with the nation of Israel.

Moshe had by this time spent so much time “sitting at the feet” of ADONI that his face shone with the glory. Sha’ul (Saul/Paul) wrote concerning this event in 2 Corinthians 3. Kefa (Peter) wrote in 2 Kefa 3 that in Sha’ul’s words were things difficult to understand and easy to distort. That has happened to the chapter in 2 Corinthians; some people believe that there is no life or truth in the Old Testament, or the Older Covenant, because Messiah Yeshua has come to remove the veil caused by the reading of such. He has “freed us from the Law!” Far from it; rather, the idea is that the Ruakh HaKodesh (the Holy Spirit) has not yet been allowed to write the truth upon the tablets of the hearts of those who have not yet accepted Yeshua as Messiah. This passage of course is speaking in particular of the Jewish people who follow the teachings of the Tanakh (Old Testament), but still have a veil over their eyes regarding the truth of Yeshua. We must pray for that veil to be lifted, and at the same time pray for the veil to be lifted from the eyes of “New Testament only” believers to the truths of Torah, which is also from Yeshua (“obey all that I have commanded you”). The goal is for Jew and Gentile to be one in Messiah.

שַׁאֲלוּ שְׁלוֹם יְרוּשָׁלִָם – Sha’alu shalom Yerushalayim – Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!

Shalom,

Sh’mot 27.20: “You are to order the people of Isra’el to bring you pure oil of pounded olives for the light, and to keep a lamp burning continually.” Pure oil – oil prepared from olives that had been cleaned of leaves and dust, and then beaten in a mortar. This oil, which flows out by itself from the beaten olive, is of the finest quality and a white color, according to Keil & Delitzsch. The pure oil was to be put into the menorah in the Tabernacle, which was to be lit and kept burning from evening to morning, every day.

As a young child in Sunday School, we sang the little song, “Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burnin’ for the Lord….” The Jesus movement (affectionately known by Messianics as “the Yeshua movement” – after all, the Messianic Jewish revival began at that time) came up with more illuminating verses as, “Give me oil in my Ford, keep me chuggin’ for the Lord…” and so on. Some of you may remember other such enlightening lines.

Oil. The substance that has come to represent the Ruakh HaKodesh (the Holy Spirit). The substance that Yeshua warns us in parable form in Mattityahu (Matthew) 25 to be wise and have our lamps full of. Without the oil in the menorah in the Tabernacle, it would have been dark and the priests would not have been able to fulfill their duties. Having the menorah, the lamp, by itself was not enough. It needed oil to be able to provide light. The five foolish virgins of Mattityahu 25 had their lamps, but no oil. The lamps represent the work without the power.

The Ruakh HaKodesh is no doubt the most misunderstood member of the triune G-dhead. The Hebraic terminology concerning the Ruakh is in the feminine form, although the “Ekhad G-d” is not expressly either male or female. Yeshua became a man and is thus a male, but the spirit forms of Elohim are neither man nor woman. The Ruakh is the power available to believers today to aid us in our walk, but the Ruakh is also a personality. We should to never refer to the Ruakh as “it”. The Ruakh is not a mysterious floating mist, “the force,” or any other such nomenclature. The Ruakh is G-d, just as much as the Father and the Son are G-d. None of us can ever expect to fully understand or explain the tri-unity of the one G-d.

As believers today, globally, we understand so little of what the Ruakh is trying to tell us. We are more in tune to what our own wills want. Yeshua said that the Ruakh “will guide you into all the truth” (Yokhanan/John 16.13). With around some 38,000 different church denominations in the world, that makes for a lot of differences in hearing the “truth”. Possibly the missing key overall may be found in Yokhanan 16.14: “He will glorify Me”. All too often our programs, our ways, our prejudices overrule glorifying Yeshua. And yet, on the other hand, we are the bride that is being prepared; perhaps we are all pieces of the puzzle. But only the pieces that fit properly are used to form the puzzle. “Lord, Lord! Didn’t we prophesy in your name? Didn’t we expel demons in your name? Didn’t we perform many miracles in your name?” Our only goal should be to glorify Yeshua and let the Ruakh show us what else to do. That is holiness.

Oswald Chambers noted that, “The New Testament example of the believer’s experience is that of a personal, passionate devotion to the person of [Yeshua the Messiah]. Every other kind of so-called Christian experience is detached from the person of [Yeshua].” We should note that in this parashah, the oil is called for first, before the Priests were set apart. 1 Kefa (Peter) 2.9 tells us that we as believers are a royal priesthood (or as Stern reads, “the King’s cohanim”). The Priests of the Tabernacle and Temple were to be set apart as ministers unto G-d. Set apart – that is holiness. As priests of Yeshua today, our lives are to be set apart. Why? Continuing with 1 Kefa 2.9, so that “you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light”. How do we do that? The first step (after that of accepting Yeshua as Messiah, Savior, and Lord) is to be filled with oil, or the Ruakh HaKodesh. Then we can be placed into His service as a Priest. Dare not go forward in His service without oil, or you will be as one of the foolish virgins.

Holiness. Glorifying Yeshua, that is obedience, and that is holiness. First published in 1853, Stephen Charnock wrote this regarding holiness, in his magnificent book The Existence and Attributes of God: “The holiness of His Spirit doth sparkle in His ordinances; the holiness of our spirits ought also to sparkle in our observance of them… All worship is an acknowledgment of the excellency of God as He is holy… How can any person sanctify G0d’s name that hath not a holy resemblance to His nature? If he be not holy as He is holy, he cannot worship Him according to His excellency in spirit and in truth; no worship is spiritual wherein we have not a communion with God.”

In a Biblical paradox, we can only receive the oil through the shed blood of the Messiah. The Messianic Writings portion this week deals with that thought, stating that “Yeshua suffered death… in order to make the people holy through his own blood. Therefore, let us go out to Him… and share His disgrace… Through him, therefore, let us offer God a sacrifice of praise continually. For this is the natural product of lips that acknowledge his name. But don’t forget doing good and sharing with others, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased” (Hebrews 13.12-16).

Purim is upon us, and the words of Mordekhi to Queen Ester (Ester 4.14) are applicable in our day to all who serve the Master Yeshua, who are covered by His blood, filled with the Holy Oil of the Ruakh HaKodesh, and are operating as a Royal Priest: “For if you fail to speak up now, relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from a different direction; but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows whether you didn’t come into your royal position precisely for such a time as this.”

שַׁאֲלוּ שְׁלוֹם יְרוּשָׁלִָם – Sha’alu shalom Yerushalayim – Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!

Shalom,

We come to a special section of Torah now. Well, they’re all special, but there is just a lot in this one. Israel had just been given the Ten Commandments (as we read in the last parashah), the guidelines on how to live in obedience to HaShem, and now begins the explanation of those rules – the commentary, the expansion, as it were. As the ArtScroll Commentary points out, in Torah, HaShem does not make a separation between “Church and State.” In HaShem’s economy, there is no difference; i.e., all that we do – whether in worship or in work – should be done to honor Him, and everything we do should include Him. The reason for all of Torah is summed up in a statement that Moshe’s father-in-law told him in Sh’mot 18.20, and which we looked at last parashah: “You should teach them the laws and the teachings, and show them how to live their lives and what work they should do” (emphasis added). This people of Israel had just been delivered from a pagan culture, and they now needed clear instruction about how to live HaShem’s way. None of us are any different today, needing instruction on how to truly live, and that is why we must constantly study Torah, including all of the Word of HaShem. That is the purpose of Scripture. If we trudge out on our own without the guidance and wisdom of the Creator, we really don’t know how to live properly or behave in a righteousness manner. We see this just by observing the general state of the world. Torah is our foundation of living; Yeshua is our foundation of faith.

The portion begins by giving some rulings regarding slavery. In a nutshell, “you remember how the Egyptians mistreated you; that was wrong, so here is how I want you to treat others, whether they are a peer or whether they serve you.” A Biblical paradox is found in our serving Yeshua, in that every one of us is free to be a slave. When Sha’ul (Saul/Paul) points out in Romans 6.14 that we are not under law, in context he is saying that we are not under the condemnation of law; or as David Stern translates in the CJB, “not under legalism but under grace.” It is not obedience to the Law (better translated as Torah, or Teachings) that saves us; we are saved by grace. However, the Hebraic understanding of grace is not “freedom to do what I want in the name of Yeshua;” rather, it is, “the power to do the right thing”.

Thus, Sha’ul states that we are to sin not, because we are under grace. He continues by pointing out that we are slaves to the one whom we obey. A dictionary definition of slave is, “A person completely controlled by a dominating influence.” In most of the world’s economy, that dominating influence, or person, has evil tendencies; but that is not the intention of Heaven. The paradox of our walk is that we are free to obey sin, or we are free to obey HaShem – “Free to be a slave.” Sha’ul explains in 1 Corinthians 7.22-23 that Mashiakh (Messiah) has paid a price for us and has set us free from whatever we were enslaved to; so now we are His slave, and we are not to return to being a slave of our former nature. The purpose of Torah is to set us free from our former slavery to evil and bondages; that is what grace is all about. There really need not be a law vs grace debate; rather, they are intended to go hand in hand. An FFOZ drash for this parashah began with the thought, “Things get backward if we start to believe that we must keep God’s Law in order to be saved. Instead, we should keep God’s Law because we are saved.”

If we desire to be a slave to THE Master, Yeshua, here is what we are to do, per Sh’mot 21.5-6. If we love our Master and want to stay with Him, we need to let Him “pierce our ear on the doorpost,” so that we will be His slave for life. What does that mean? This is a spiritual picture. Yesha’yahu (Isaiah) 50.4-5 gives us a clue: “Each morning He awakens my ear to hear like those who are taught. Adonai Elohim has opened my ear, and I neither rebelled nor turned away” [emphasis added]. In a very real spiritual sense He pierces our ear to symbolize our permanent “slavery” to Him. This passage in Yesha’yahu 50 is a Messianic portion, as well as these verses in Tehillim (Psalms) 40.7(6)-9(8): “Sacrifice and grain offerings you don’t want; burnt offerings and sin offerings you don’t demand. Instead, you have given me open ears; so then I said, ‘Here I am! I’m coming! In the scroll of a book it is written about me. Doing your will, my God, is my joy; your Torah is in my inmost being.” Yeshua’s joy was obeying His Father. Our joy should be the same, if we are His “slave for life.”

As we get near the end of this parashah, we see that the people of Israel made a curious statement to HaShem, in Sh’mot 24.7. Moshe had given the commandments to the people, and they declared, “Everything that ADONAI has spoken, we will do and obey” (emphasis added). The last word, obey, in Hebrew is נִשְׁמָע, neesh’mah, the root of which is שׁמע, sh’ma, which means,” to hear intelligently, with implication of obedience.” In other words, their response essentially was, “We will do and [then] we will hear.” Although well-known as an anti-missionary (one who tries to convert Messianic Jews from believing in Yeshua as Messiah), the late Aryeh Kaplan made a good observation about the above verse in his book, Waters of Eden: “Our sages stress the fact that their first statement was, ‘we will do,’ and only then did they say, ‘we will hear.’ This indicates that when the Torah was given, we were ready to keep the commandments and ‘do’ them, before we ‘heard’ any reason or logic for them.”

Thus, actual slavery to HaShem means serving Him even before He tells us what He wants us to do. In Yeshua we are indeed “free to be a slave”.

שַׁאֲלוּ שְׁלוֹם יְרוּשָׁלִָם – Sha’alu shalom Yerushalayim – Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!

Shalom,

It is known that the Hebraic style of writing in the Tanakh is not necessarily chronological, as opposed to the typical Greek style writing that we in the western world are used to. Sh’mot 18 is one such possible example. The Sages and scholars have debated back and forth about the timing of the events in this chapter, and why it was placed here in Torah. Most believe that Yitro (Jethro), Moshe’s father-in-law, came to visit after the events at Mt Sinai – giving of the Ten Words (Commandments) and the teachings of Torah to Moshe. This reasoning is given in a couple of verses: verse 5 states the Moshe was encamped at “the mountain of God;” and in verse 16 Moshe explains to Yitro that he is explaining God’s laws and teachings to the people, which per the events in the other surrounding chapters had not yet been given.

So if Yitro came to visit after the Torah was given to Moshe, why would this chapter be inserted here? Again, the Sages debate, but one possible explanation is that the passage is here to contrast the difference between Amalek, an outsider, or foreigner, who in the previous chapter had come out to launch an unprovoked attack against Israel, and Yitro, the high priest of Midyan, an outsider who came and gave wise counsel to Israel. Centuries later, the descendants of Yitro were blessed by King Sha’ul (Saul). This people group was known as the Kenites, who at the time were living in the land controlled by the Amalekites. King Sha’ul came to battle Amalek, and he allowed the Kenites to leave, because they had shown kindness to Israel through their ancestor Yitro (Shmuel Alef/1 Samuel 15.6).

Sh’mot 18.2 says that Yitro had brought Moshe’s wife Tzipporah and their two sons out to Moshe; for Yitro had taken them in after Moshe had sent them back. There is nothing previously that had stated anything about Moshe sending his family back, so here is another mystery. Some commentators feel that after the events of Sh’mot 4, where ADONI had threatened to kill Moshe, and Tzipporah circumcised their son in an angry confrontation, that Moshe sent her back home, perhaps perceiving that this was about to become a dangerous journey he was undertaking. Other commentators feel that he sent her home because of her belligerence and disrespect of her husband’s authority in the family. At any rate, our current chapter is the last we hear of Tzipporah in the Tanakh. The sons of Moshe are only mentioned again in the genealogy listing in 1 Chronicles 23. There is even debate over whether the Ethiopian (or Cushite) woman that Moshe had married, in B’Midbar (Numbers) 12, is Tzipporah or not, since Tzipporah and her family were not Ethiopian; the term was sometimes used as a generic term for the general region of Arabia that they came from.

So Yitro had come out for two reasons: to bring Moshe’s wife and sons back to him, and because he had heard of all the great things that ADONI had done for Israel when bringing them out of Egypt. Amalek had undoubtedly heard the same report, and here we have a contrast in what the mind and heart of a man will lead him to do. Those whose hearts are angry and spiteful will remain the same, if that is their base desire, and as we saw in the case of Pharaoh, their heart will be strengthened in that area. A heart that is dark will only become darker, short of receiving Light from the Creator. Amalek came to fight, to defeat a hated enemy. “Midyan” came to help out, to impart wisdom. Both had heard of the miraculous rescue of Israel out of Egypt. The ArtScroll commentary notes that, “Miracles alone do not transform the beliefs of the Amaleks of the world; those who refuse to recognize the hand of God will always interpret events to suit their own purposes.” How true that is. Unfortunately, the ArtScroll commentators – non-Messianic Jews – do the same when it comes to the events surrounding Yeshua.

Yeshua gives us a picture of this contrast between hinder or help in this week’s Messianic Writings reading, from Mattityahu (Matthew) 5, looking at verses 13-14: “You are the salt of the earth,” or as Stern words it in the CJB, “salt for the Land”. Salt is a preservative, and had Amalek used their strength to righteously defend, protect and preserve Israel, they would have had a worthy history, but since they chose the opposite, “Adoni will fight Amalek generation after generation” (Sh’mot 17.16). On the other hand, Yitro from Midyan encouraged Israel to be a Light for the world. His advice to Moshe has lasted for millennia: “You should teach them the laws and the teachings, and show them how to live their lives and what work they should do” (Sh’mot 18.20). That is the whole point of Torah, and Yeshua and Sha’ul (Saul/Paul) and Kefa (Peter) and the others in the Messianic Writings built upon this foundation, as did the prophets and poets and writers of the Tanakh – Isaiah and David and Hosea and Solomon, and so on – “This is how HaShem wants us to live and work, not as the pagans do, but as He does.”

This world is still given the choice of fighting against ADONI and His people, as did Amalek, or supporting the work of ADONI. We can either be worthy salt and preserve the ways of ADONI, or else become tasteless and worthless to His kingdom. We as believers are to be a light and an example of how to walk in His Light, for we are a city on a hill that cannot be hidden. This is what Torah observance is all about, serving – through love and obedience – the One who created us, whose name is Yeshua. He too lived a Torah observant life. His is the Name above all names (Eph 1.21; Phil 2.9). He is the One who holds the world in His hands; He is the One in control of all, who has all authority. The Father has released all authority into the Son’s hands regarding this planet, and when the Son will return to earth, He will reign for 1000 years and put everything back into the proper order, and “then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to God the Father, when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet” (1 Cor 15.24-25).

Just as Yitro taught Moshe wise counsel, no doubt Moshe taught Yitro of the true destiny of mankind, and the purpose of ADONI’s Torah, teaching the heavenly way of life, which will culminate in the Messiah, Yeshua, reigning over all people.

שַׁאֲלוּ שְׁלוֹם יְרוּשָׁלִָם – Sha’alu shalom Yerushalayim – Pray for the peace of Jerusalem! Pray for those “Yitro’s” to come alongside the leadership of modern Israel and stand with her, giving wise counsel that the leaders will understand and accept. Pray for [spiritual] eyes to be opened to see Yeshua for who He is – Messiah and King of Israel. And pray for the modern day “Amalek’s” who oppose Israel to be defeated.

Shalom,

As we begin this week’s parashah, Israel has finally been given “permission” from Pharaoh to leave Egypt, and so they headed out into the wilderness, following the column of cloud by day and the column of fire by night. One commentator I read had done a crunch on the numbers of people that left Egypt. Back in Sh’mot 12.37, we are told that 600,000 men left Egypt, not counting children. What we have to read in between the lines is that no women were counted either, nor were the elderly. The Hebrew rule of census taking was to count the men of military age, which would have been from around 20 to 50 years of age. If each of those men had a wife (some didn’t, and some had more than one), that moves the total to 1.2 million. If we give a low estimate of 2 children per family (most families would have more), the number is doubled to 2.4 million. And this number does not include the mixed crowd that left Egypt with them. Plus they had the livestock to take with them – sheep, goats, cattle. They also carried their personal possessions, now including what they had been given by the Egyptians, and some short-term food and water provisions. All told, this particular writer figured the crowd that left Egypt may have been roughly the size of the population of the state of Oregon, which was estimated to be nearly 3.8 million people in 2008. That’s a pretty good sized crowd to hit the road all at one time, not to mention they were traveling by foot and herding livestock.

The route that HaShem sent Egypt on was not the most direct route – known at the time as The Way of the Philistines – a north-south route which ran along the Mediterranean Sea, because HaShem knew the people were not yet ready for any military fighting, which was sure to happen if they passed through the land of the Philistines. Instead, he took them on a longer, “roundabout route,” through the desert by the Sea of Suf (יַם סוּף, yahm soof; yahm means “sea,” soof means “reeds, papyrus;” the “Sea of Reeds”). When the King James Bible was translated, the translators erroneously changed the term Reed to Red. This created some controversy as to the route of the Israelites. Most Bibles translate this verse (13.18) as HaShem taking them by “the way of the wilderness”. What many Bible scholars have apparently missed, overlooked, or ignored is that there was an east-west trade route from Egypt actually known as “The Way of the Wilderness”. This phrase referred to a distinct route, and was not just a general direction. The original plan was for Israel to move directly to inherit the Promised Land, the wandering about part did not happen until they failed to do that. Part of this route confusion came about some 1700 years ago, following the Council of Nicaea where Constantine and company opted to de-Judaize the church of her Jewish roots. Some time after this, Constantine and his mother visited the Holy Land, decided where important locations were in the life of the Messiah, and built churches over them. They also decided where Mt Sinai was, a location that is pretty improbable for the actual route of the Exodus. There certainly was no biblical or historical teaching that prompted Constantine to pick the area in the wilderness of the Sinai. But this was Constantine, the Emperor, so the Church followed suit. The Jews themselves had no firm tradition regarding the location of Mt. Sinai. The Jewish Encyclopedia notes that there is no Jewish tradition of the geographical location of Mt. Sinai; it seems that its exact location was obscure already in the time of the monarchy of Constantine, but the KJV translators went along with Constantine’s opinions, and a whole new route has been erroneously taught in much of the Church through the centuries. The Red Sea was not what Israel crossed. You’ll have to study this on a map to get a clearer understanding.

If you look at maps of ancient Egypt that have the routes marked, you will see the two major routes out of Egypt – one turns to the north, the other runs east. HaShem had taken Israel into a difficult location to begin this journey, so that they could cross the parted Sea and so that Pharaoh could see the Hand of G-d in action one more time. Then they would have hit a major route. The Constantine location of Mt Sinai is way down south on the Sinai Peninsula, and is thus an unlikely site.

Moshe also took the bones of Yosef (Joseph) along, for Yosef had commanded this a few centuries earlier. Yosef had been buried according to Egyptian custom, which means that he had been mummified. Yosef’s mummy traveled with Israel for a long time, for we do not read of the actual burial until sometime after Y’hoshua (Joshua) had had his many military victories entering the Promised Land. This is in Y’hoshua 24.32. Hebraic writing is not always necessary chronological, so this burial may or may not have been after the death of Y’hoshua, which is recorded in Y’hoshua 24.29.

I wrote a few parashiot back that at the time of Yosef, the Pharaoh in control was not actually Egyptian, but was of some sort of Arabic descendancy. There was a period of time when the actual Egyptian monarchs had been dethroned for a season by raiding bands of Arabs. At the time, there was not yet a “Jewish-Arabic” problem, and so Yosef would have been a “cousin” to the Pharaoh he stood before, and thus would have been received a little more kindly into the throne room, and later easily placed into power as the second highest leader over the land. It was Yosef who took the livestock and crops and land, and eventually the independence, of the actual Egyptian population in payment for the grain that had been stockpiled to sell back to them. During this time of the famine, the family of Yosef – Ya’akov (Jacob) and sons – had been prospering, while the native Egyptian was suffering and impoverished. The strife that exists between Egypt and Israel to this day is rooted in this shift of wealth, along with the events of the Exodus itself. This is a different struggle than exists between Jew and Arab, which is the Isaac and Ishmael struggle, but both struggles continue to this day. But it is all based upon the ancient battle between the forces of darkness versus the Light of the Living Uncreated G-d.

Sh’mot 15 is the song of Moshe. It begins with most translations saying something like “Moshe and the people of Israel sang this song….” The ArtScroll Commentary notes that the Hebrew for sang here is actually in the future tense, and literally means, “Moshe and the people of Israel will sing this song….” The Jewish Sages derived from this verse that “God will bring the dead back to life in Messianic times – and then they will sing God’s praises once again” (Rashi, quoted in ArtScroll Commentary). As Messianic believers, we know this occurs in Yokhanan’s (John’s) vision in Revelation 15.3, “And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb….” The combined song of Moshe, the great prophet of the Tanakh, with the song of the “Greater Moshe,” Yeshua, the Lamb of G-d.

Sh’mot 15.2 is the only verse in the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh, found in each of the three separate sections – here (Torah); Yesha’yahu (Isaiah) 12.2 (Nevi’im/Prophets); and Tehillim (Psalms) 118.14 (Ketuvim/Writings): “Yah is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.”

And so the great song will ring through the ages (Revelation 15.3-4): “Great and wonderful are the things you have done, ADONAI, God of heaven’s armies! Just and true are your ways, king of the nations! ADONAI, who will not fear and glorify your name because you alone are holy? All nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous deeds have been revealed.” Sh’mot 15.18 is certainly a line to be included in that eternal praise: “ADONAI will reign forever and ever.”

שַׁאֲלוּ שְׁלוֹם יְרוּשָׁלִָם – Sha’alu shalom Yerushalayim – Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!

Shalom,

Difficult situations have arisen coming into this parashah. Pharaoh has repeatedly refused to let Israel go on a “worship journey,” and the worst of calamities are yet to come. Some may find it difficult to understand why ADONI has done such a thing as to make Pharaoh’s heart hard, so that His (ADONI’s) will can be accomplished. Scripture tells us in many locations that rulers rule only because ADONI places them into power. Free will is very much an aspect in an individual’s life, and ADONI will deal with that in His time, but when it comes to corporate and national leadership, free will that is against the will of the Creator will only last for X amount of time. Leaders and nations may get by with evil for decades, even centuries, but there comes a point when the Creator says, “Enough!” And that is what has happened in Egypt at this time.

It is not so much that ADONI turned Pharaoh’s heart into a heart of stone, but rather that ADONI empowered, or gave freedom to, Pharaoh to continue along the route his heart was leading him – that of slavery, cruelty and harsh treatment of the children of Abraham, resulting in destruction both to the nation he was leading and to himself. But the children of Israel had been crying out for a long time; ADONI had heard, and now ADONI began to act.

The plagues continued; even the servants of Pharaoh were pleading with him to relent. The next to last plague was the plague of darkness (10.21-23). This was a darkness that was so thick it could be felt. The Egyptians worshiped the sun, and this was a slam on their sun-god. I believe that there may be another aspect here. You may have experienced, or heard of the experience of others, of going to a particular land or city and feeling the heaviness of spiritual warfare. That is, there is a spiritual darkness that is brought on by evil, and only the light of the Creator can penetrate that darkness. This is precisely what Yeshua was referring to when He would say, “To him who has ears, let him hear.” Yeshua can only be truly understood with “spiritual” ears. Sha’ul’s thought was the same when he wrote that the preaching of the message of Yeshua was foolishness to those who do not understand. I would be more inclined therefore to think that this darkness brought upon Egypt was the removal of the omnipresence of ADONI for three days, so that the evil spirit realm was free to do what they do. The Hebrew word for darkness in 10.21 is חשׁך, kho-shek, one definition of which is “wickedness”. We can be certain that there was fire and lamps in Egypt, so there was something distinct about this darkness, where people could not see each other, and no one left home. This was a foreboding darkness. In a sense, this darkness is prevalent upon the earth today. There are those who walk in the Light of the knowledge of the Creator and can see (spiritual) truth, and there are those who, though seeing, are blind, without that Holy Light, and are essentially walking about in a (spiritual) fog.

Then came the death of all firstborn in the land of Egypt. From creation, the firstborn has had some sort of special rank in the kingdom of ADONI. The first usage of the word is found in B’resheet (Genesis) 4.4, where Hevel (Abel) brought an offering of the firstborn of his flock before ADONI. Earlier in our current book of Sh’mot (4.22), Moshe was instructed to inform Pharaoh that Israel was His (ADONI’s) firstborn. Because Pharaoh had mistreated the firstborn of the Creator, the firstborn of Egypt would have to be dealt with. And with this punishment was instituted the festival known as Pesakh, or Passover. In Sh’mot 13, Moshe is instructed to set aside for ADONI all of the firstborn of Israel, for they belong to ADONI; this was the original plan for the priesthood of Israel.

The lamb (or a goat was acceptable) slain at Pesakh was not slain to forgive the sins of the people; the blood was simply placed on the doorposts (מְּזוּזֹת, m’zuzot) or each home so that whoever was “covered” by this blood would escape death. To narrow it down, it was only the firstborn in each home who was to be either destroyed or spared; no one else would be touched. And by the way, this was not Mary’s little curled up cuddly lamb that was slain; the Passover lamb was to be a year old; by then probably the majority of his growth had been attained, he would be a little aggressive, and was to be the best yearling owned by the family.

We can get somewhat of a fuller picture of Yeshua, THE Passover Lamb, when we consider His blood covering that is available for us. By looking at Yesha’yahu (Isaiah) 53, we see what the Messiah underwent. “He was wounded for our transgressions (spiritual revolt); He was crushed for our iniquities (moral perversities).” You see, it is therefore not so much that Yeshua took on all of our individual sins, but rather that He carried the corporate burden upon Himself. Oswald Chambers points this out in My Utmost for His Highest (10/7): “The revealed truth of the Bible is not that [Yeshua the Messiah] took on Himself our fleshly sins, but that He took on Himself the heredity of sin that no man can even touch… It is revealed throughout the Bible that our Lord took on Himself the sin of the world through identification with us, not through sympathy for us. He deliberately took on His own shoulders, and endured in His own body, the complete, cumulative sin of the human race. ‘He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us…’ and by so doing He placed salvation for the entire human race solely on the basis of redemption. [Yeshua the Messiah] reconciled the human race, putting it back to where God designed it to be. And now anyone can experience that reconciliation, being brought into oneness with God, on the basis of what our Lord has done on the [execution tree].”

So Pesakh is observed every year, and through the celebration we are to understand the release from the captivity of slavery. That is what Yeshua did for us. Passover is not a celebration of salvation from sin; the sin offerings in Israel came at a later time. Yeshua, as we noted, did carry the burden of the sin nature of humanity but that is not what Pesakh is about. We can know Yeshua as THE Passover Lamb, because His blood covering on our “doorposts, מְּזוּזֹת, m’zuzot” is what brought us out of the abode of slavery, out of Egypt. And as the paradoxes of ADONI typically go, when we are released from being in slavery to evil bondages, we are set free to be a slave to His righteousness (Romans 6.18).

שַׁאֲלוּ שְׁלוֹם יְרוּשָׁלִָם – Sha’alu shalom Yerushalayim – Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!

Shalom,

“I appeared to Avraham, Yitz’chak and Ya`akov as El Shaddai, although I did not make myself known to them by my name, Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh (YHVH) [Adonai].” These words open this parashah, but a reading without an understanding of the Hebrew might be confusing here. Other versions read something similar to, “I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them.” Yet the Sacred Name was used by the Patriarchs (ADONAI or HaShem is seen in most Jewish-published Scripture as a substitution for the Sacred Name; other Bibles often use terms such as the LORD). Some examples: (Gen 12.7) “So he [Avraham] built an altar there to ADONAI, who had appeared to him.” When Avraham was stopped from sacrificing Yitz’khak, he then built an altar and sacrificed the lamb that had been caught in the bush, and “Avraham called the place ADONAI Yir’eh [ADONAI will see (to it), ADONAI provides].” (Gen 26.25) “There he [Yitz’khak] built an altar and called on the name of ADONAI.” The Sacred Name is used as early as Gen 2, at the creation of man. So why did ADONAI make the above statement to Moshe?

The key is found in the word known; “I did not make myself known to them….” Know in the Hebrew is ידע, yah-dah, “to know by experience; a personal, intimate knowledge.” This is the same term used after creation, when Adam yah-dah Eve, and they had children. In other words, the Patriarchs had an intimate acquaintance with the Creator as El Shaddai, the G-d who was their provider. Now He was about to reveal Himself to Israel, the Keil & Delitzsch Commentary notes, “as the absolute Being working with unbounded freedom in the performance of His promises.” The Ramban (a Jewish Sage) understood the name El Shaddai as describing G-d when He performs miracles that do not openly disrupt the normal course of nature. Never before had the Creator overruled His creation to aid mankind. Israel would soon see this happen. The Ancient Hebrew Lexicon of the Bible has this description of know,  ידע, yah-dah:  “The pictograph for dalet [now written as ד] [here I must apologize, the pictographs would not copy through to the website] is a picture of a door. The ayin [now written as ע] is a picture of the eye. Through the eyes one experiences his world and learns from it. Combined these pictures mean ‘the door of the eye’. The eye is the window into man’s very being. Experience is gained through observation. Knowledge is achieved through these experiences.” Even if one does not have physical eyes, he has “spiritual eyes”. The Patriarchs had experienced the Creator as El Shaddai, who cared for them without “openly disrupting the normal course of nature;” now the nation of Israel would experience the Creator as ADONAI, who will show His power to care for them in a whole new dimension, He will indeed “disrupt the normal course of nature”.

Further, Rabbi Hertz, Chief Rabbi of Britain pre-WWII, wrote this in his Torah Commentary: “The emphasis is on the words I am ADONAY. They are not intended to inform Moses what God is called, but to impress upon him that the guarantee of the fulfillment of the Divine promises lay in the nature of the Being who had given the promises. Even as the phrase ‘I am Pharaoh’ (Gen 41.44) is merely an assertion of royal authority and power, in the same manner, ‘I am ADONAY’ means ‘I am He who has the power and the faithfulness to fulfil any promise vouchsafed by Me. I have promised Redemption, and I shall fulfil that promise; I will and can do it.’”

Next, the Creator told Moshe, “I have heard the groaning of the people of Isra’el, whom the Egyptians are keeping in slavery; and I have remembered My covenant.”  And then He promises four things, which are the primary themes of the Pesakh (Passover) Seder: 1) I will free you; 2) I will rescue you; 3) I will redeem you; and 4) I will take you as My people. Moshe went to the people of Israel and related these promises, but they wouldn’t listen to him because they were so discouraged. I think we can all relate to the Israelites, for when you are discouraged, a promise of “pie in the sky” means nothing until you have fork in hand and a slice in front of you. But the mercies and miracles of G-d did eventually come.

There is one little phrase in this parashah that reveals the sum of the Creator. In Sh’mot 9.14, ADONI relates to Pharaoh, through Moshe, these significant words: “I am without equal in all the earth”. In other words, “all that you hold dear or important, all that you worship, is nothing compared to My Glory, My Holiness, My Worthiness. It is Me whom you should worship and obey.” And those words are not just for Pharaoh, or just for world leaders – although if a few more world leaders would heed these words, the world would be in better shape. But for every human, the ultimate goal should be just as Sha’ul wrote in Philippians 3.7-8, “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Messiah. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing the Messiah Yeshua as my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain the Messiah.”

The days are getting darker, and many spiritual forces in this world are fighting against the Creator and His people. Anti-Semitism grows stronger in the world as the prince of darkness fights to keep the Messiah from returning to His people. But his days are numbered, and Yeshua will one day appear to all. The prophet Isaiah wrote these words of the Creator (45.22-23), “Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. By myself I have sworn; from my mouth has gone out in righteousness a word that shall not return: ‘To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance.’” Sha’ul reiterates this point in Philippians 2.9-10, “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Yeshua every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Yeshua the Messiah is ADONAI, to the glory of God the Father.” Many will bow and make this confession in fear, for their time is up; others will be singing and rejoicing. We have only this lifetime to make that choice. A wise Jewish Sage once gave this bit of advice: “Repent one day before your death” (Perkei Avot 2.15). Since we don’t know when that will be, perhaps we should live today as if tomorrow we die; better yet, live today as if today we die.

Today we are given the opportunity to know, ידע, yah-dah, Him through the Son, the Messiah, Yeshua: “For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day” (2 Timothy 1.12).

“For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a rousing cry, with a call from one of the ruling angels, and with God’s shofar; those who died united with the Messiah will be the first to rise; then we who are left still alive will be caught up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and thus we will always be with the Lord. So encourage each other with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4.16-18).

שַׁאֲלוּ שְׁלוֹם יְרוּשָׁלִָם – Sha’alu shalom Yerushalayim – Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!