2022 Torah Commentary (With Psalms)

Genesis 1, Genesis 2, Genesis 3, Psalm 1

“Remember the former things of old, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things that are not yet done, Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, And I will do all My pleasure’,” (Isaiah 46:9-10)

It’s fascinating to consider the order in which God Created the universe; knowing that in the end He would need to redeem Man whom He created in His own image in the beginning. In 6 days God created everything, and then rested, sanctifying the 7th day, as a memorial to the Creation, as a blessing for Man to spend time in rest with the Creator, and as a prophesy of the Created Day of Rest that would come in the End.

Following the 1st week, God set the man He had created in the Garden, and began to plant it for Man’s benefit in perfection. This Garden is the same set-apart Kingdom that is planned for those who turn toward God with all their hearts, minds, strength and souls, entering through one true Gate.

The Garden of innocence was lost due to man’s disobedience to God’s single command. There is no hidden knowledge for Man to know; only the infinite knowledge and wisdom of God that He had already provided. The serpent hissed his magical spell, a trance of deception, suggesting that God was somehow keeping Man away from some Truth. Why was perfection not enough for us? Why was an intimate relationship with the Father not enough? Is it better that we know good and evil, or would innocence have been a better eternity?

God must have known our path through experience would lead to enlightenment, and those who choose this path through faith in His son would be better eternal company. He must have known free will would lead to a fall, but that He would provide a narrow path for us to get back up again, if we so choose. And thus we face the same option as Adam and Eve today. Do we obey God and live in faith, now that we know about death, or do we believe the lie that leads to death? Choose.

Books could be written to explain today’s reading’s significance, and probably have been. As we study the Word of God day and night, and cherish the law that He provides, even from as early as the first week of Creation, He will reveal more and more of His truth to us. Death was not part of the plan, and this consequence of sin will ultimately be defeated in the End, when we return into the Garden. Death did not exist before this sin, and so any theory that requires death to result in the advent of Man is simply not true. Man did not come from death, but death came from Man. God, who is eternal, created Man in His image from the dust of the Earth on the sixth day of all days. Billions of years have not passed and will never pass, for eternity will be without time, and 6,000 years ago, time did not exist. Time itself was created on the first day, and wasn’t even ordered until the fourth day. The Bible is remarkable in every level of truth it reveals.

Genesis 4, Genesis 5, Genesis 6, Genesis 7, Psalm 2

I did a little math and it appears that Noah would have known Enoch for 31 years before Enoch was raptured into Heaven as one of four known exceptions in all of human history. The other three are Elijah (who was taken up to Heaven in a chariot of fire), Yeshua (in that He did not sleep, but was first born among the resurrection) and maybe Moses (For Yeshua was a prophet like unto Moses. The Torah reports God burying Moses. Peter and Jude say that the Angel Michael buried Moses. No man ever saw his dead body. He also appeared with Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration).

Enoch and Noah prepared the Book of Enoch together, according to the book itself, and Noah certainly would have preserved it along with the stories of Adam and Seth, whom Enoch knew. They had recorded the Creation. Moses later compiled many of these stories of antiquity into the Torah, adding his own part of the story to it.

It’s also interesting, Lamech, Noah’s father, died five years before the flood, while Methuselah, according to my math, died in the flood itself as a man of sin or at least at the same point as the flood. Enoch was the man before Methuselah, and he was raptured. Every other patriarch had died before Noah’s 600th year, when he entered the ark.

Kent Hovind’s Creation seminar goes into some very interesting details about this period of time. If you have an open mind, I would consider watching it for scientific evidence that the Creation and the Flood occurred exactly as the Bible describes: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6-cVj-ZRivqXevIRaH8LK6kLBWN1T7c7

Why did men live 900+ years, “a day” for God according to 2 Peter 3:8. The Earth had a dome around it, perhaps of ice, which blocked many of the sun’s harmful rays and also kept in a higher concentration of oxygen. This combination would allow for longer life and much-larger animals. This layer melted and rained in the flood.

Yeshua says that the End of Days will be like the Days of Noah in Matthew 24:37. Hovind estimates that about a billion people lived at that time, based on estimates of population growth that compare with population growth in our time. My calculations, based on Genesis 5, indicate that the flood occurred in the 1,656th year from Creation. In that time, Man had completely corrupted Himself. Man also lived this exceedingly long time, and so technology must have been quite advanced. These “sons of God,” or defiant angels, were reproducing with the “daughters of men,” or daughters of Adam. They developed all manner of technology, even biotechnology, and created chimeras. They ate human flesh. They committed all manner of sin, and they did this in opposition to God’s command and God’s intent. They were in complete rebellion, and the thoughts and intents of their hearts were evil continually. Are we getting close to that time? Is there but a remnant left that don’t fit that description?

Like Abel’s blood cried up from the Earth toward God, the first martyr for obedience to God’s commandments, the blood of every martyr cries out from “under the altar” in Revelation 6:9-11. Abel is one of those souls crying out. How many others were there in that corrupt time period? How many are there now? Rather than get his own soul right with God, Cain insisted on his own way, even to the point of hatred toward the one who held onto His faith and obedience to God until death. God still did not advocate that Cain be punished by other men, but rather reserved this judgment for Himself, as we should also. Yeshua taught us: pray for those who persecute you, or in the case of Cain, the ones who have persecuted others. It is our role to obey God and keep our faith in the Son; we ought to “kiss the Son,” as Psalm 2 directs, which means to Worship Him. In the End, God will judge between those who have worshipped Him and kept His law, and those who haven’t. This theme first develops here.

Noah brought two of every unclean animal onto the ark, while he brought seven pairs of every clean animal. The Levitical law had not been written down as of yet, but the law does not come from Moses, it comes from God, and so it is evident in the story of Noah that God’s law is eternal. Some folks have devised the idea that there is a Noahide law that we must follow as Gentile Christians, which I find preposterous. Peter himself reports in Acts 10:34, “In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality.“ He shows no partiality toward one man or another, based on their heritage, and He shows no partiality in His law, which is eternal. Yeshua said “not one jot or title” of the law is done away with, and He speaks as the Messiah for both Jews and Greeks. God’s law is eternal. Noah had a much deeper and perhaps personal relationship with God (Yeshua Himself closed the door of the Ark for Noah). He would have known the law in detail and kept it. His faith and obedience led to his salvation.

Genesis 8, Genesis 9, Genesis 10, Genesis 11, Psalm 3

The children of men are evil from their youth, seeking to devise a way to disobey their Heavenly Father, and yet, the Father committed the rainbow as a promise not to destroy the Earth by flood again. He promised that the seasons would continue until the End of the World, until Judgment Day. In this experience, God has given His children the opportunity to Trust Him and obey His will, or to go astray to their own destruction. Nimrod was a man who colluded with other men to rebel against God. He sought to make a name for Himself, which means to set Himself like Lucifer against God.

Nimrod is the one that all pagan religions endear. He is Apollos, Mithras, and every other pagan god that attempts to mimic the Messiah; a veritable Antichrist. He was the founder of Babylon, an archetype for all rebellious attempts of Man to challenge God for dominion in league with Satan. Only those who turn their hearts to God and obey Him as Noah did have any chance of redemption through Yeshua.

Upon entering the ark, Noah brought all of his food with him and for the animals. To preserve the life of the Earth, he purposefully gave up meat for this year he spent on the ark. Immediately after leaving the ark, he sacrificed one of every clean animal in thanksgiving for the Lord, and sacrifice in the Bible means that he and his family ate of the meat, while the blood is poured out and the fat and entrails are burned for the Lord. At about this same time, God told Noah he could eat of every living thing that moves as food. Within the context of the verse, food is defined here as clean meats. The law does not contradict. Noah had brought seven pairs of clean meat onto the ark. They had likely reproduced in the year on the ark. There was enough for him to sacrifice to God and enjoy a feast.

From these eight people, and the animals there, every living thing on the planet alive today was derived. They were commanded, like Adam, to go forth and multiply. Note how their lives slowly but surely were reduced in their generations. No longer did they live 900+ years, but now 400+ years, and by the time of Jacob, 120+ years is the max. This is likely the result of the dome of ice crystals melting to create the flood waters; it had kept harmful sun rays out and kept greater O2 concentrations in, both extending life. Without that layer, life could not live as long. Man as a result has less knowledge than he did in those days, and we are likely quite inferior to our ancestors. No matter. For those of us who endure in our faith and obey the Lord’s will, we will inherit everlasting life back in the garden. What will we build in the presence of the Lord for all eternity according to His will? God knows, but it is going to be great to tend that garden again.

Noah landed in the mountains of Ararat, which is in Turkey near Iran, on the first day of the first month. There is evidence of his ark that has been found there and a town there to this day that’s name means, “village of eight.” From there, Man spread down into the fertile crescent, and Terah, with Abram (and Sarai) and his grandson Lot, had come from Ur, south of Babylon, in modern Iraq, but then moved to Haran in modern Syria. It was from this region of Syria that the Hebrews were called out through Abraham to inherit Canaan, but it would be many generations before they would get the opportunity.

Genesis 12, Genesis 13, Genesis 14, Genesis 15, Psalm 4

The Lord accounted Abraham’s faith in His promise as righteousness. This is what it means for us to have faith in Yeshua. We do not just believe, but we also act in a way that shows that we believe. Because of this faith, God promised Abraham descendants more multiple than the stars of the sky and the dust of the Earth, when at this time his wife Sarai was barren. It would take faith to believe this was still possible for him. God also prophesied through Abraham directly that the fourth generation would inherit the land of promise, the land of Canaan, following a 400 year sojourn in Egypt and many years of slavery; though Abraham would die in peace within the land. After defeating the enemies of his nephew Lot, the high priest and king of Jerusalem, Melchizedek, visited with Abraham, and Abraham gave him a tithe. Melchizedek was a High Priest and King in an eternal order to God Most High. This is the same order Yeshua would be a priest and king under. Was this Yeshua?

Genesis 16, Genesis 17, Genesis 18, Psalm 5

Today we read about Abraham trusting in his own way, and the Lord correcting Him and establishing His way also, with consequences. Sarai did not believe that she would conceive, so she told Abram to take the Lord’s promise in his own hands and make it happen the way she conceived. This act created great strife between her and her servant, and she also took out her grief against Abram. The Lord forgave this fleshly episode and brought the son of promise to Abraham and Sarah anyway, even despite their doubts. This is a prophetic template of the Lord’s promised Messiah, who would come to deliver those who trust in Him, despite them not deserving it through their own actions. The Lord is long-suffering and merciful, but only to those who obey Him and have His heart. Abraham showed this servant’s heart of love when the pre-incarnate Yeshua appeared with two angels before him. He dropped everything, slayed the fatted calf, and served it with milk.

Abraham further showed this heart by inquiring about the righteous men of Sodom and Gomorrah. Would God truly destroy the righteous with the wicked? The Lord, in yet another prophetic template of the End Times, assures Abraham that He will not, but instead He will separate the sheep from the goats and save the sheep from destruction. In some cases, the Lord may even preserve an evil place on account of the righteous within it. Let us pray that He keeps a remnant of righteous souls in America.

Regarding circumcision, Abraham was accounted righteous and thus saved prior to making any physical mark. In the New Covenant, everyone is circumcised without hands by the Holy Spirit (Col 2:11). This controversial topic has its roots in today’s reading, but is heavily discussed by Paul in Galatians and Romans, particularly Chapter 4. Those who obey the law in their hearts do not need the physical mark. Romans 2:29 identifies the “inward Jew,” the saved believer circumcised by the Spirit.

Genesis 19, Genesis 20, Genesis 21, Psalm 6

Today’s reading is a prophetic template of the End Days. Notice Lot, who was a man of God, washed the feet of strangers and protected them when they came into his house. Did Yeshua not tell us to wash each other’s feet? Lot made a point to protect these angels, saying that it would be better for the men of the city to take his daughters according to God’s natural order, but they were more interested in their homosexuality and evil intent. We can see great disobedience to God’s order in Sodom, and for this they were destroyed. Note the parallels to modern America and the LGBTQ agenda that even Republicans have bought into. This is grievous sin. Note later Lot’s wife looked back at her old life, rather than forward toward her salvation. Yeshua tells us not to look back when the angels come to rescue us out of the World on the Last Day; to do so is death. In Lot’s wife case, she was vaporized in the heat of the raining brimstone. In our case, we would be caught up in the wrath of God.

It’s slightly deeper than that, though. The lesson of Lot’s wife is that we cannot look back at our former life of sin once we have been saved. We should not in anyway glorify that life or consider it with fondness. It ought to be history, and if we recall it at all, it would be to testify how Yeshua has called us out of it. We are to “go and sin no more,” as Yeshua said. For those Christians who have not done this, Lot’s wife is the warning. Yeshua sent His Holy Spirit to help us accomplish this.

Lot’s daughters seemed to pick up depravity from Sodom, and they deceived their father through drunkenness to create the nations of Moab and Ammon. These nations would plague Israel for hundreds of years, because they were conceived out of presumptuous sin. Why couldn’t they wait on God who had just saved them from destruction? That’s a question for us to ponder and consider as we face our own temptation to take matters into our own hands when we ought to wait on God.

Genesis 22, Genesis 23, Genesis 24, Psalm 7

The story of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac has several roles, one immediate, one a prophesy of the Messiah’s 1st coming, another a prophesy of the Age to come. Scripture says, “God tested Abraham.” To this point, Abraham didn’t do anything but believe upon the Lord’s promises, something we do when we believe Jesus died for our salvation. Faith is sufficient for salvation. To keep the promise given to him, Abraham would need to prove his faith, and so God tested him. Abraham passed this test of his faith, as we see here: “Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.” We have to allow Scripture to interpret Scripture, and Hebrews 11:17-19 gives context for this: “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, “In Isaac your seed shall be called,” concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense.”

God never intended for Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, but for Abraham to prove his faith in God’s promises and to foreshadow the coming age of the Messiah. The Angel of God, a Christophany, said, “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.” Isaac was not Abraham’s only son, but he was Abraham’s “only son of promise.” Abraham believed in the promise, which was accounted to him as righteousness. He then acted on that belief by offering to sacrifice Isaac, believing that God was big enough to fulfill His promises no matter what. This is the lesson for us in this story. There will be times when we need to step out in faith, and trust that God will do as he’s promised, and take actions that seem impossible to Man, but “nothing is impossible with God.”

God, indeed, provided a lamb for Abraham to sacrifice at that time, just as Abraham had said. “Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son.” Thus Abraham called the place, “The Lord will Provide.” The place was Golgotha, and there the Lord indeed provided His Lamb to be sacrificed for our sin. He provided His own Son, His only Son, to die on our behalf so that we could be made righteous in God’s eyes. Our faith in Jesus is for our salvation, but then we must believe in the promise of a Kingdom to come. God will test us throughout our lives to make sure that our belief is real, just as He tested Abraham, and we have to be ready to step out in faith and trust the Lord’s promises, no matter what comes our way.

Isaac also represents the age to come, while Ishmael represents the age of the World that now is. When Abraham trusted Sarah, and not God, and took Bilhah as his concubine to bring about Ishmael, Abraham brought forth the Nations, which represents the Gentiles who would come to trust in Yeshua. God uses everything for good, and thus promised to bless Ishmael, despite the action that brought forth Ishmael being an act of mistrust in the Lord. He did bless Ishmael (the Gentiles) through the Lamb of God. Isaac was the promised son, and he represents the promises of God. God still fulfilled his promises to Abraham despite his sin, but first he had to test Abraham’s faith to see if his heart was right with the Lord. In the age of Ishmael that we are now living in, God will do the same to us. Do we really believe in Yeshua’s promises to return and bring us into the Kingdom of God, the place He has prepared for us? He will test us to find out. Be ready to pass those tests by trusting in God.

The story of Isaac being introduced to Rebekah is another story of trusting in God, and we can see God acting throughout this story to fully fulfill His promises to Abraham, to make Isaac the Father of multitudes greater than the stars in the Heavens. Rebekah is a huge part of that story, and we can see in today’s story that she was a woman of great faith, who didn’t believe in coincidences, but believed in the testimony of God’s servants about God’s promises and accepted them as truth. She boldly and willingly went into a relationship of promise because she believed another’s testimony. This right here shows how very important it is for us to testify about how Jesus has impacted our own lives, and how much He has done for us. We could change the course of human history forever by leading just one person to Christ.

Genesis 25, Genesis 26, Psalms 8

Two pieces of Scripture from today’s reading make it clear that Jacob did not steal anything from his brother Esau, and nor did he take anything that was not rightfully his. We see Rebecca go to inquire of the Lord about the turmoil in her womb. The Lord tells her that two nations would come from her, and the older would serve the younger. This prophesy directly from Yahweh proves that Jacob and Rebecca acted righteously in obtaining the blessing from Isaac. Similarly, Esau later in the text sold his birthright for a bowl of red lentil stew, and “thus he despised his birthright.” Due to this, Esau would come to represent the present age of this World, and Jacob, who held onto Esau’s heel, represents the age to come. Esau gave up the Kingdom of Heaven for a bowl of stew. What is more important to us than the Kingdom of Heaven that we are willing to disobey God for it? Travel? A job? Going to a concert? Unlike Esau, we must be willing to give up everything to make it to Heaven.

Genesis 27, Genesis 28, Genesis 29, Psalm 9

When Jacob brought the savory dish to his father, Isaac asked, “how is it that you have it so quickly, my son?” Jacob answers with significant honesty: “Because the Lord your God caused it to happen to me.” This is the truth. Yahweh had told Rebecca that Jacob would receive the inheritance, and Esau would not. The blessing goes along with this.

In the blessing of Jacob, we see the same blessing that was given to Abraham from Genesis 12:3: “I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” In Genesis 27, Isaac says, “…may God give you … an abundance of grain and new wine; may peoples serve you, and nations bow down to you … Cursed be those who curse you, and blessed be those who bless you.” Jacob would give rise to the Nation of Israel, and from this nation would come Yeshua, who would bring blessings to all of the nations, but indeed, all the nations of the Earth will serve Yeshua, the son of David, the son of Judah, the son of Jacob. He would indeed bring an abundance of grain and new wine, the body and blood sacrificed for all to redeem us from our sin.

In a second blessing Isaac gives to Jacob, he says that Jacob will receive “the blessing of Abraham … that you may possess the land of your sojournings.” It’s not just the promised land that he inherits from Abraham, but the blessing of the inheritance that was given to Abraham, whose faith was accounted to him as righteousness. This faith would be fully realized in Jacob’s seed Yeshua, who would bless the whole world on account of His sacrifice, and offer the promised land to all who believe in Him.

In Jacob’s dream, he sees Yeshua, the ladder set on the Earth with its top reaching to heaven. Yeshua said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, hereafter you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” (John 1:51) The Lord promises Bethel and the surrounding lands to Jacob and grants him the same blessing that he gave to both Abraham and Isaac; namely, “your descendants will also be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go.” This is a blessing offered to everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord Yeshua.

When Jacob awakes, he confirms his faith in God’s promise to him: “If God will be with me and will keep me on this journey that I take, and will give me food to eat and garments to wear, and I return to my father’s house in safety, then the Lord will be my God.” He’s not putting the Lord to the test; rather, he is confirming the Lord’s promise to him. He promises to tithe to the Lord from this day forward.

The Lord has mercy on Leah, who was “unloved” and opened her womb, while keeping Rachel, the woman Jacob loved, barren. Why?

Genesis 30, Genesis 31, Psalm 10

Psalm 10 pleads with God, “Break the arm of the wicked and the evildoer,” which means, stop the wicked from acting according to his wickedness. The arm always denotes the action that a person is doing. Note the verse that follows: “seek out his wickedness until You find none.” This verse pleads for the repentance of the wicked soul, for him to leave behind his wickedness and return to faith and obedience. It continues, “You have heard the desire of the humble; You will strengthen their heart, You will incline Your ear.” The Lord hears the prayers of those who humble themselves before Him and strengthens their hearts to endure hardship. He gives the faithful the strength to endure persecution, perhaps in the hope that in this the wicked will come to repentance? I don’t think Psalm 10 was intentionally placed along with today’s Torah reading, but it absolutely applies to today’s story.

Laban was a wicked man, and he deceived Jacob 10 times, a point Laban did not refute when Jacob brought it up. Laban is responsible for the strife between his two daughters: the unloved Leah and the barren Rachel. His actions led to Rachel following after the sin of Sarai, giving a servant to her husband to bear children on her behalf. Just like in Sarai’s case, the act did not bring her fulfillment. Only patience in waiting on the Lord brought forth the desires of her heart. The Lord’s blessings must come according to the Lord’s appointed times, and it is our duty to wait patiently on the Lord in prayer and fasting, and He will unveil His will. In none of this, did Jacob sin. He even rebuked his wife, saying, “Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?” In his dealings with Laban, Jacob did not sin. Rather, he accepted the many years of hard labor and deceit, a type of persecution, and did so without complaint. Importantly, it was not until God Himself told Jacob to leave that He in fact left. He waited on the Lord.

Regarding the household gods, I think Leah’s statement brings some light to the situation: “Are we not reckoned to him as foreigners? For he has sold us, and has also entirely consumed our purchase price. Surely all the wealth which God has taken away from our father belongs to us and our children; now then, do whatever God has said to you.” Leah was a Godly woman, which is why God so rewarded her with children. Leah, most undoubtedly, was referring to the livestock that God had separated out for Jacob as his own. Laban had not given Jacob a dowry, and Leah was noting that God had provided the dowry instead. Rachel took another meaning from this, and took the “household gods.” These could have been idols like the Romans and so many other pagan cultures used. While Laban’s household was God-fearing, as we see today many God-fearing Christians hold on to pagan practices also, it may very well be that Rachel, the rebellious one who even dabbled in witchcraft with mandrakes, wanted these family heirlooms for herself.

As a side note, it doesn’t appear that Leah wanted the mandrakes for any specific purpose, and she even traded them for what she really wanted; namely, time with her husband. For this authentic and Godly desire, God rewarded Leah with three more children. But Rachel wanted the mandrakes to help her bear children. It is that very intent that makes the mandrakes a tool for witchcraft. God did not reward Rachel with a child until Leah had had three more. With a testimony of two or three, a thing is established. Clearly, the mandrakes weren’t of any use. That means, particularly with the time needed for recovery after childbirth, that Rachel waited at least three years after the mandrake incident before she conceived Joseph.

God “remembered” Rachel, which implies that she developed a humble and contrite heart. Biblically, there is no other way for God to remember anyone: Isaiah 66:2: “But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.” Leah had seven children before Rachel had one. It is safe to say Rachel was humbled. Why then, did she take the household gods? Did she fall back into a sinful pattern? Scripture does not answer the question, or God hasn’t shown me the answer yet, but it most definitely stems from Leah’s statement. Clearly, Rachel envied her older sister and acted impiously on account of her jealousy. And now we know why God clarified in His law that a man ought not multiply his wives. They grow in jealousy toward one another and that leads to sin. Again, Laban is more to blame for this than Jacob, and as we know, we all fall short of the glory of God. Jacob should not be held to account for any of this.

NOTE: On the mandrakes: I wanted to point out that I think that interpretation of Rachel using it for witchcraft requires more study and it may not be correct. The Scripture does not entirely support it, in that it doesn’t say Rachel wanted the mandrakes as a talisman of fertility, and so I wanted to point out that while I think there is more to the mandrakes than is on the surface, this is a point that requires more study and I should personally hold off on such conjecture until I can prove it scripturally. I’m posting this as a point of interpretive clarity. Regarding Rachel’s backsliding regarding the household gods, I believe that interpretation is sound and is supported Scripturally.

From Daniel:
Major interpretation. That is a form of conjecture that we should be careful throwing that around. Nothing supports this at all. The fact that Rachel took the household idols is significant and telling. Rachel was taking something from her house that she was comfortable with that she loved. Some people would, because of the whole situation of being a mother in Israel, she wanted to steal his gods so he would stop worshipping them and focus on the true God of Israel. But if that was the case, why not destroy them or bury them where they couldn’t be found. If that was the intent. I have my concerns about who she was and what she trusted in at that time. Mandrakes: an aspect of her character coming out. She manipulated the situation. The Torah says not to take a sister as a wife, because it creates great disharmony.
When Rachel asks for mandrakes, it was simply we want some of your mandrakes. You have plenty, and we want some. It’s a reflection of Leah’s blessings in both child and mandrakes and some of your son’s mandrakes. Rachel wanted some of the blessings. Leah felt that her husband was wrongfully taken from her by given Rachel as an additional bride. It’s amazing that God could make such a great nation from such craziness. Looking at Rachel, and God remembering her, that mean grace has come upon her. That adds befuddlement to her taking to the idols. It’s almost prophetic in terms of Israel receiving grace and then turning back to Idols. It’s a hidden prophesy about future Israel sliding back and giving themselves back to idolatry. A further extension of being in need and desiring mandrakes. You can’t get there from the text. Was Rueben using those for witchcraft? Rachel had the husband, and there was no debate, she possessed his love, he favored her. If God sees that, it’s because Jacob has shown little concern for Leah, and has focused his gaze on Rachel. Rachel was in the ability to say you can lie with my husband for the mandrakes. It was Leah’s husband, too. Because Jacob was not spending time with her, Rachel had power to send him over. Leah took that opportunity and said yeah, I will trade mandrakes to get my husband. Leah was willing to give them because she wanted her husband, but I don’t see any evidence of witchcraft being utilized here. When she hid the idols underneath her, the text was clear.
Historically, mandrakes were extremely valuable. Food was worth its weight in gold. She is going to offer fertility. A bartering deal to the glory of a false god? Rachel would end up giving up to this favored child eventually. Consistent: When God remembers, he does it all over the place. Sarah, Hannah, he remembers as an answer to prayer. If you could find a hint in the Targum or Septuagint as an idolatrous barter, then I’d dig further, but as it stands, and being blessed with Joseph after this. We know Leah was blessed. Her heart was for her husband. Some statement is made. All she desired was her husband, very prophetic of Judah desiring Yeshua. Leah is Judah, Rachel is Israel.
One of the most controversial items is Rachel taking the idols. Read the Apostle Paul, he talks 1 Timothy 2, the woman will be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and holiness. A reference to Rachel? It is a reference to the woman, as in Eve as in giving birth to the male child, the seed for the Kingdom of God. The Mother of Israel is so important, not having her right with the Lord in the end troubles me. Saul lost his salvation, and it is a real thing. We have clear text saying this. We don’t have that in the text from Rachel. Genesis 35:2-4 “And Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, ‘Put away the foreign gods that are among you, purify yourselves, and change your garments.’ So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods which were in their hands, and the earrings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the terebinth tree which was by Shechem. Then let us arise and go up to Bethel; and I will make an altar there to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and has been with me in the way which I have gone.”
His house is Leah and Rachel. Nothing in the text says they didn’t.

Genesis 35, Genesis 36, Genesis 37, Psalm 11

Jacob again shows his humble and contrite heart in the way he speaks with God and how he approaches his brother Esau. He notes, “I am unworthy of all the lovingkindness and all of the faithfulness which You have shown to Your servant.” While admitting he fears his brother Esau will bring harm to him, he also reminds God of his promise: “For You said, ‘I will surely prosper you and make your descendants as the sand of the sea, which is too great to be numbered.” This is an example of how we ought to pray: First with humility, next with our supplication, and third by remembering the promises that God has made to us.

Father, I too am not worthy of the life which You have given me, and your lovingkindness is ever present with blessings I could not have imagined. Guide me to do your will in all things and serve you all the days of my life, and help me to lead others closer to you and your will. You told me to be the pastor of a Church in New Hampshire like Daniel Joseph’s Corner Fringe Ministries and I intend to obey you. Help me to obey you until the day you call me home.

When Jacob, Yakov, a name that means “striver with men,” wrestled with Yeshua all night long, he refused to let go of the Messiah until Yeshua blessed him. This also ought to be our attitude and our way of thinking and acting. We ought to pursue God with everything we have so that His promises do not get away from us. There ought to be no moment where we have let God slip away out of our thoughts, our intents or our actions. For this righteous attitude, Yeshua gives Jacob a new name, Yisrael, which means, “striver with God.” And so, particularly in light of Romans 11, Isaiah 11, 43:19, 49:16 & 56, Jeremiah 12 & 16, and Acts 10:1-11:18, as followers of Yeshua we are grafted in to Israel so that we can “work out our salvation with fear and trembling,” as Paul said, which is what it means to be “striving after God.” As followers of Yeshua, we become a part of the Native Olive Tree, grafted in to Jacob’s heritage, welcomed as part of Israel’s family as adopted sons and daughters, so we too can spend our lives striving after God with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength, the greatest commandment, according to Yeshua.

In regard to Dinah’s defilement by Shechem, we do not know what Jacob would have done in this situation. Simeon and Levi did not give Jacob the opportunity to make a judgement, but acted outside his authority on their own. Jacob was not pleased by their actions, which were certainly not of God. Shechem’s sin was evil, but we don’t know how Jacob would have handled it; we only know how two trigger happy boys handled it, taking judgment into their own hands. They also took into their family stock the daughters of the land of Shechem and perhaps some of their pagan customs. What reverberating consequences did this single act have on Israel? God knows. For this very act, they would later be cursed by their father to wander among their brothers tribes and history bears out that this is what occurred. All is not lost, though, for Moses, the great prophet, came from Levi and would lead Israel through the wilderness back to the edge of the promised land. Only Yeshua could take them into the promised land, though, and conquer the enemies of the World. The Messiah is needed by all men and women, whether they are Jew or Greek.

Genesis 35, Genesis 36, Genesis 37, Psalm 12

We see in Genesis 35 that Jacob tells his wives and sons to put away the “foreign gods” from among them, so it is certainly likely that they were practicing some form of polytheism at this point and worshipping other pagan gods. Rachel took her father’s household gods. Did Jacob come to discern this was going on at this time. God called Jacob and His family away from this, and called them up to Bethel to worship God alone. Not long after this, Rachel died in childbirth. I can’t be sure, but I think it’s related. I think Rachel was given deliverance by God with the birth of Joseph, when she was finally humbled before God and resigned to God’s will, and then she was rewarded in her pregnancy with Benjamin. We don’t see Rachel acknowledge God in any of this, and granted, we don’t see her oppose him either, but she did take her father’s idols. Was she holding on to the foreign gods and worshipping them? If so, God may have taken her out so she could no longer influence the family.

If you would like to be blown away with understanding about the story of Joseph, as we begin today, please take the time to watch this sermon series by Pastor Daniel Joseph, called, “Messiah, Son of Joseph.” It’s one of the best teachings I’ve ever heard: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmI6y1h4ekf7GwDZaZLYEdXyW3GnRzVLs

The Bible prophesies Jesus on every page, but there are two characters who the Jews view as being symbolic for the coming of the Messiah. They see two Messiahs; namely, the Messiah Son of Joseph, who would come if Israel was sinning, for he was a man of sorrows, and then the Messiah Son of David, who would come if Israel was being righteous as the conquering king. As we now know, there are not two Messiahs, but two comings of one Messiah. It’s amazing to study the story of Joseph knowing that he represents the first coming of the Lord Yeshua. David, the second. We see right from the start that Joseph is a prophet, and he was chosen from among his Israeli brothers to lead the whole nation.

Many Bible commentators will talk here about Joseph’s supposed “arrogance,” in telling his brother’s his dream, but that is a viciously wrong interpretation. A prophet MUST share his vision from God with others, or the prophet will not be fulfilling his obligation to God. Joseph’s dreams depicted a sure future that came to pass, and the whole family would be redeemed by that vision. First things first: Joseph was a prophet and he did the right thing by sharing his dreams with his brothers and his father and mother.

Secondly, as the brothers mistreat Joseph over their jealousy, which is a sin, we can’t help think about how Jesus’s own people mistreated Him when He came in the flesh. They conspired against Joseph as they did Jesus, they tore of Joseph’s tunic as they tore off Jesus’s, and they went and had a meal while Joseph was suffering in the pit, just as they went and ate the Passover Feast as Jesus was dying on the cross. They sold him for silver, as Judas did Jesus.

Genesis 38, Genesis 39, Genesis 40, Psalm 13

Tamar, Judah’s daughter-in-law, was more righteous than Judah. By the eternal law of God, Judah owed his third son to her to redeem her from the death of his eldest sons, but he did not do this. Judah assumed Tamar was to blame for his sons’ death, but his sons died on account of their own wickedness. Tamar was innocent in all of this. So when Tamar conceived with Judah, she was taking what belonged to her. Not only this, but the child Perez would become an ancestor of King David and King Yeshua. From Tamar would come a line of kings who would reign Judah, and the King of Kings who would reign forever. There’s much more to this story than appears on the surface. Tamar was certainly righteous.

Joseph, like Yeshua, prospered in whatever he did. He prospered as Potiphar’s servant and he prospered in the prison. His obedience to the Lord was absolute, and this is why he prospered. Yet, he still faced trials, temptations and persecutions. Potiphar’s wife attempted to seduce him. This was a beautiful woman who was likely naked when she approached Joseph. This would not have been an easy temptation to flee from, but flee Joseph did it, and so must we flee similar temptation. Still, because of this he ended up back in prison, back in the pit. Now he had a criminal on his left and on his right, just like Yeshua. One was repentant and was spared, the other was not repentant and was put to death. This is just like the repentant thief on the cross to Yeshua’s right, who would be saved, and the unrepentant thief, who was not saved. In all of these lessons, we learn that repentance and faith leads to salvation. An unrepentant heart cannot be saved. Joseph, the prophet, sets the stage for a greater miracle to come, and he continues to trust in the Lord no matter what happens to him.

Genesis 41, Genesis 42, Psalm 14

Pharoah’s dreams were given by God both to rescue Joseph out of prison to deliver the entire region from the famine. Ultimately, the episode fulfilled God’s prophesy to Abraham that his progeny would sojourn in Egypt for 400 years and would then return to inherit the land that God had given to him and his descendants. The famine would drive Israel down into Egypt to become a nation and to grow up outside the pagan influences of the Canaanites. They would prosper in Goshen for many years as a direct result of God’s prophetic gifts to Joseph and the way God positioned Joseph perfectly to be exactly where he needed to be to facilitate the redemption of his family. From a long prophesy standpoint, Joseph in today’s story represents Yeshua’s resurrection and his position at the right hand of the Father. Nothing in the whole kingdom is above Joseph except for Pharaoh himself. Joseph brings redemption to both the nation of Israel and the Gentile nations.

Genesis 43, Genesis 44, Genesis 45, Psalm 15

Notice the repentance in Judah’s heart? He went from devising a plan to profit off of selling his brother Joseph into slavery to being willing to offer up himself as a slave forever on account of his brother Benjamin. How could Joseph not forgive him with such a heart as this? The whole lot of them expressed repentance over what they had done to Joseph. Throughout this episode, they said perhaps God was punishing them on account of what they did to Joseph. Joseph overheard this and knew their hearts. They weren’t just remorseful for what they did, but they were wiling to sacrifice of themselves to make sure it didn’t happen again. In fact, all 10 of them offered themselves up as slaves in order to keep Benjamin free. This was what brought Joseph to tears and forgiveness. He could see the change in them. This is the heart our Lord Yeshua is looking for in His people. When with the Nation of Israel repent for the death of Yeshua and call out to Him, “Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord”? When will they call out to Jesus as the Messiah? That day will come, and that day is the day the Lord will return and reveal Himself to His brothers, and to all of us. The brothers will get the best spot in all the land, the pearl of Israel.  

On a practical level, the Lord set all of this up so that Joseph would be there when he was needed to provide for Israel. “Now do not be grieved or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. … God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant in the earth, and to keep you alive by a great deliverance. Now, therefore, it was not you who sent me here, but God; and He has made me a father to Pharaoh and Lord of all his household and ruler over all the land of Egypt.” Joseph was “a father” to Pharaoh. What a statement! Recall the Isaiah prophesy about Yeshua: He shall be called “wonderful, counselor, almighty God, everlasting FATHER, prince of peace.” Yeshua is one in the same with the Father, and in the story of Joseph, he is one in the same with Pharaoh. God delivered the people of Israel in their infancy from destruction by the famine by sending Joseph ahead of them. He set all of this up to preserve the nation and set it apart and to develop it into what He wanted it to be. Prophesy was fulfilled and so was God’s plan. The lesson: We ought to do nothing but trust in the promises of the Lord, for they will come to pass. They are plans to prosper us and to give us a future and a hope.

Genesis 46, Genesis 47, Psalm 16

Through the burial of Joseph in the pit, his symbolic crucifixion, and his sale into slavery, his symbolic betrayal, and his resurrection from death to sit in the seat of Pharaoh as King of Egypt, Joseph has delivered Israel and the Nations (represented by the Egyptians) from death and brought them into their rest. Israel dwells in the best of the land as a people set apart and all the people of the Nations come and give everything they have to the king so that He will sustain their life with his bread. Those who don’t see the story of Yeshua on every page of the Bible have not opened up their eyes.

On the practical, historical level, there is evidence that a Semitic people lived in the land south of Ramses, several hundred years before Ramses was Pharaoh. Joseph’s Pharaoh accumulated great wealth from the leaders of all the surrounding regions because he was prepared for the seven-year famine and they were not. Israel lived many years as a people set apart in the best of the land.

Genesis 48, Genesis 49, Genesis 50, Psalm 17

We see in Genesis 48:15-16 evidence for one God with three powers, which is the Messianic understanding of God that many Christians call the Trinity. Jacob blesses Joseph with “the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked;” namely, God the Father, “The God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day;” namely, God the Holy Spirit, and “The angel who has redeemed me from all evil;” namely, God the Son, the Messiah, “Bless the lads,” he says. This tells us that whenever we see “The Angel of God” appear in the Tanakh, it is referring to none other than the pre-incarnate Messiah, but also that there is Scriptural evidence for the “trinity,” or the “triune powers of God,” within the Torah, as there ought to be.

Also in this section, Jacob gives Joseph his inheritance in the same way Isaac had given his inheritance to Jacob. The inheritance in a Semitic home comes with a double portion, and so Ephraim and Manasseh become two of the 12 tribes of Israel, while Levi and Simeon are punished for their sin of murdering the Canaanites over the matter with Dinah by being dispersed among the tribes, a prophesy that is definitively fulfilled.

Of the 12 children who receive a blessing, Judah and Joseph receive prophetic blessings that foretell the Messiah’s two comings. Joseph’s blessing foretells the Messiah’s first coming, when Yeshua would appear as a fruitful bough (the fruit borne by the saints in His name) by a spring (living water of the Holy Spirit), and its branches would run over a wall (by including the Gentiles). Despite archers attacking and harassing Him (the crucifixion), his bow remained firm, and his arms were agile (He was resurrected) “from the hands of the Mighty of of Jacob (from there is the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel).” Yeshua is the Shepherd, the Corner Stone of stumbling, the rock of offense to His brethren, which established the Temple of God. On his head would be the crown of one distinguished among his brothers, just like the Messiah would rise up out of Israel and become the King of kings and the Lord of lords. He has the blessings of all of Jacob’s ancestors up to the utmost bounds of the everlasting hills. The Messiah would come from the top of the everlasting mountain of God, for He would be God in the flesh.

Judah represents the second coming of the Messiah, and Yeshua would become “the lion of the tribe of Judah.” His hands shall be on the neck of His enemies and His father’s sons will bow down to Him, for all of Israel will bow before their King Messiah Yeshua when He returns. Note that “the scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes, and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.” And so from Judah would come all of the kings of Israel and Judah, King David, the man after God’s own heart, and King Yeshua, who would reign forever and ever. Yeshua is Shiloh, the Messiah, who will be the king of all the peoples. His garments are washed in wine, and his robes in the blood of grapes, meaning the blood of the cross. This foretells the New Covenant, the new wine, that would come as a result of Yeshua’s sacrifice on the cross. Yet, his teeth are white from milk, meaning that He is righteous and without sin. This prophesy has yet to be fulfilled, but it will be fulfilled very soon, when the brothers all call out, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord:” Yah-saves! Yeshua!

Joseph, in the historical setting, forgave his brothers for their sin against him. “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.” Just as the Israelites put their Messiah on the cross, meaning to destroy Him, God used the crucifixion for good and brought about the present result, Yeshua resurrected and many, both Israelites and Gentile, preserved eternally alive. Joseph provides for Israel and their little ones, just as Yeshua will provide for Israel when He returns.

When Joseph died, he prophesies that God would deliver Israel from out of Egypt, to bring them into the land He promised to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. And to guarantee this prophesy, he commands his brothers to carry his bones up to the promised land, and if you look at the Exodus story, Moses does this very thing. This is why we won’t find the sarcophagus of Joseph in Egypt. There is a monument there in Goshen, but no body inside. This too is prophetic. Jesus was resurrected, there is no body in the tomb, and He ascended into the promised land at the right hand of the Father. Everything in the Bible points us to the Kingdom of Heaven, the true promised land, and Yeshua is our only ticket to ride.

Exodus 1, Exodus 2, Exodus 3, Psalm 18

It is quite possible that the Pharaoh’s dynasty ended after Joseph and his brothers died, and that a new family took over rulership of Egypt. This change in regime is the only thing that explains how a Pharaoh would not hold the Israelites forever in high esteem on account of Joseph. The Scripture says literally, that Pharaoh did not know of Joseph. That’s a tall order. There are several good theories on how this might have happened. Nevertheless, there is archeological evidence in the area south of Rameses that a Semite people went from living a good, prosperous life earlier on to then living a harder, and shorter life. There is even archeological evidence that the women survived in much greater proportion than the males, which coincides with the idea that Pharaoh murdered the infant Israeli boys. The Israeli midwives saved many of them alive, however, and for this wonderful service to God’s will, they were greatly rewarded. It is incumbent on us to obey God and not man, like these midwives, when the government passes laws that violate God’s laws.

Moses was born a premie, which is why his mother was able to keep him hidden for three months. Premies do not make a lot of noise at first. God must have purposed for Moses to lead Israel out of Egypt from before he was born, for God positioned him perfectly to fill that role. Many stories have been sensationalized about how Moses would have grown up among the Egyptians, but he certainly knew he was a Hebrew as he ran for his life into Midian. We can’t be confused by the two names for Moses’s father-in-law, for “reuel” is not a proper name and means “friend of God,” while Jethro is a proper name. His name was Jethro, and he was a friend of God, meaning that he was actually a priest for God Most High. His daughters were shepherdesses, and Moses married one of them and started his own family among the Midianites in modern-day Saudi Arabia. When Pharaoh died, and his son took over, God heard the cry of Israel and came down to deliver them from the bondage of Egypt, just as He had promised.

In Exodus 3:14, we see God refer to Himself from the burning bush in the first person in Hebrew: Eh-yeh Asher Eh-yeh (אֶֽהְיֶ֖ה אֲשֶׁ֣ר אֶֽהְיֶ֑ה): “I am who I am” or “I will be who I will be.” Eh-yeh is “I AM.” That is how God is rendering His name in the present/future tense. In Exodus 3:15, God changes the point-of-view of His name and calls Himself YHWH (יהוה), conventionally vocalized as Yahweh, a Name (הָשֵׁם) Hashem that appears more than 6,800 times in the Bible. In Hebrew, God’s name is in the third person here, and means “He who causes to be.” We see God also use the generic Hebrew words for God; namely, Elohim (אֱלהִים) or Elohe (אֱלֹהֵ֣י). This is not a proper name. It means generally “God,” “god,” or “divine being,” but more specifically refers to the spiritual dwelling place of an entity. Torah scholar Michael Heiser notes, “Yahweh is Elohim, but no other elohim is Yahweh.” From Exodus 3:15: Yahweh (יהוה), the God (אֱלֹהֵ֣י) Elohe of your fathers, the God (אֱלֹהֵ֣י) of Abraham, the God (אֱלֹהֵ֣י) of Isaac, and the God (אֱלֹהֵ֣י) of Jacob. Yahweh (יהוה): “This is to you my name forever and this is to you a remembrance to all generations.” We see God prefer Yahweh (יהוה) as the name to refer to Him.

Yeshua (יֵשׁוּעַ), which means “I AM saves,” uses this term for Himself one time: “Jesus said to them, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM’” (John 8:58). egó (ἐγώ): I, the first-person pronoun. eimi (εἰμί): I exist, I AM. Jesus’s statement literally means, before Abraham existed, I existed, because I AM who I AM. He is making a direct statement that He is God and was not created, but rather He is the creator. To be “begotten” means to be born as the “Son of Man,” but He preexisted His incarnation as the “Second Power” of God. It is clear that this is the meaning intended, because as soon as Jesus said this, “they took up stones to throw at Him,” accusing Him of blasphemy (John 8:59). In Psalm 18, we see that Yahweh in the horn of David’s salvation, or Yeshi (יִ֝שְׁעִ֗י) in that instance. This means He is the power or strength of salvation for those who have faith in Him and keep His commandments.

Addendum:
This seems like a good place to point out the differences between Yahweh (יַהְוֶה) and Yehovah (יְהוָֹה), or Jehovah, in English. You’ll notice the Yod (י)-Hei (ה)-Vav (ו)-Hei (ה) are the same in both versions, reading right to left, because the Name was written without vowels in the original Hebrew, like this: (יהוה). There is deep controversy about this, because one sectarian belief is that we ought not pronounce God’s name, because it is too holy for us. This account states that when pressed, these put the vowels of Adonay (אֲדֹנָי) on the Tetragrammaton, which nets the pronounced Yahovah. However, linguistically, even without vowels, the word ought to be pronounced Yahweh or Yahveh. Many who seek the Truth have determined that Yahweh, with these vowels (יַהְוֶה), is the correct pronunciation.

Consider these verses to meditate on whether God wants us to know His name, which describes His nature:
“That they may know that You, Yahweh alone, are the Most High over all the Earth.” (Psalm 83:18)
“And Pharaoh said, “Who is Yahweh, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know Yahweh, nor will I let Israel go.” (Exodus 5:2)
“But indeed for this purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.” (Exodus 9:16)
“Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and Yahweh caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea into dry land, and the waters were divided.” (Exodus 14:21)
Rahab says: “… “I know that Yahweh has given you the land, that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land are fainthearted because of you. For we have heard how Yahweh dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were on the other side of the Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. And as soon as we heard these things, our hearts melted; neither did there remain any more courage in anyone because of you, for the Lord your God (Yahweh Elo-heh-khem-יַהְוֶה אֱלֹֽהֵיכֶ֔ם), He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath. (Joshua 2:9-11)

In Exodus 3:14, we see God refer to Himself from the burning bush in the first person in Hebrew: Eh-yeh Asher Eh-yeh (אֶֽהְיֶ֖ה אֲשֶׁ֣ר אֶֽהְיֶ֑ה): “I am who I am” or “I will be who I will be.” Eh-yeh is “I AM.” That is how God is rendering His name in the present/future tense. In Exodus 3:15, God changes the point-of-view of His name and calls Himself Yahweh (יהוה), a Name (הָשֵׁם) Hashem that appears more than 6,800 times in the Bible. In Hebrew, God’s name is in the third person here, and means “He who causes to be.” You know from Revelation 1:8: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,” says the Lord, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” In a Hebrew prayer, found here (https://www.sefaria.org/Siddur_Ashkenaz,_Weekday,_Shacharit,_Preparatory_Prayers,_Adon_Olam.2?ven=Translation_based_on_the_Metsudah_linear_siddur,_by_Avrohom_Davis,_1981&vhe=The_Metsudah_siddur,_1981&lang=bi), you see this line: (וְהוּא הָיָה וְהוּא הֹוֶה, וְהוּא יִהְיֶה בְּתִפְאָרָה). This says “He was, He is, He shall be in glory.” As indicated here, the transliteration is “Vihu ha-vah, Vihu ho-veh, Vihu Yeeh-yeh, bi-tee-pa-rah.” There is no direct use of His name (יהוה) in this verse, but the words used are all very similar verbs that identify His nature as indicated in Revelation 1:8. The point is that God’s name, which is His nature, is various forms of the verb “to be” in Hebrew, because He is.

Finally, Yeshua says, “I have made your name known to them and will make it known.” (John 17:26). Yeshua used the name of Yahweh, but here is a twist. Consider Zechariah 14:9: “And Yahweh shall be King over all the earth. In that day it shall be— “Yahweh is one,” And His name one.” Will Yeshua return and reveal His name as Yahweh, or will the name Yeshua be revealed as the Name of God, our King? In Philippians 2:9-11, the Apostle Paul writes, “Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Yeshua every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Yeshua Hamashiach is Adonay, to the glory of Yahweh the Father.” I believe that Yeshua is the one name of God that will last eternal, for His name means “Yahweh saves” and this is what He has done. It is His nature. Yahweh is, Yahweh was, and Yahweh is to come, Yahweh saves: Every knee will bow to the name Yeshua.

One more thing: Yeshua (יֵשׁוּעַ) is the Hebrew name of our Lord, the name He was given. It is also the short form of Yehoshua (יְהוֹשׁוּעַ), which means, Yahweh is salvation. Don’t think that you can’t use the name Jesus because of this. Jesus is a transliteration of the Hebrew into English, which was carried through from the Greek. Iésous (Ἰησοῦς) is that original transliteration. When the Bible was recorded originally in the Greek, this was the closest transliteration that could be achieved. The “H” sound was not linguistically possible within the middle of a Greek word in the First Century, and this is why it is missing. Otherwise, you will find that the name’s sound is as close as possible to Yeshua. It is ee-ay-sooce. This transliteration is the origin of the English name “Jesus.” Much later, when transliterated into English, Iesus, or Jesus—as the “J” later replaced “Y” and “I” at the beginning of many English words—was that transliteration. Jesus is the same name as Yeshua, and God loves it when we call Him by name, regardless of our language. I prefer “Yeshua” only because it was His given name. I also use “Jesus” because the most important thing of all is that we testify that there is no other name by which a man or woman can be saved. Who is the audience? If solid Christians, I use Yeshua, because there is so much to learn from studying the linguistics of our Lord’s name. If baby Christians or non-Christians, I use Jesus, because they have at least heard of His name, but they don’t know Him. I want them to know Him, so I use the familiar. When I pray, I usually use Yeshua, because I believe that is what His disciples called Him, and that is what His mother and step-father named Him. Jesus or Yeshua, either name, is my Lord and my God who saves.

Exodus 4, Exodus 5, Exodus 6, Psalm 19

It is frightening business to be called to serve the Lord. The Lord’s servants are held to a higher standard of judgment, but we are also judged if we refuse to answer the call. Ultimately, refusing to serve God is not an option—if I want to live—and faith and trust in the Lord ought to support confidence when I step out to do the Lord’s will. As Moses hesitated to answer the call, the Lord says everything I personally need to hear: “The Lord said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes him mute or deaf, or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now then go, and I, even I, will be with your mouth, and teach you what you are to say.” (Exodus 4:11-12) Is it not the Lord who puts words in our mouths, understanding in our heads and hearts, and the ability to communicate to those He wants to hear the message? It is our duty to obey and to trust in the Lord. I understand Moses’s hesitation, particularly considering he was standing up to the most powerful man in the world at the time, but I also know that Moses was untouchable as long as God was with him and victory was the only option. Thankfully, Moses comes along to this faith.

In Exodus 5 we see Pharaoh acknowledge the truth of his heart, and identify the very reason why God was able to harden his heart. Pharaoh said: “Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord.” It is from a lack of faith or interest in opening his heart up to the Lord to begin with that leads Pharaoh down the road to destruction. The Lord does not harden the hearts of believers who repent of their sins and trust in Him; He only hardens the hearts of the sinner who digs in and continues to walk in sin. Pharaoh shows in the early days that he desired to have his heart hardened in sinning against the Lord, and this is why the Lord hardens his heart. There are too many examples in Scripture of this. The Lord doesn’t hear and doesn’t deliver the man or woman who is living in sin without repentance. “If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.” (Psalm 66:18)

Pharaoh’s sin is worth digging into, because it is the same sin that so many unbelievers and deceived have committed over the years, especially many Christian leaders who have taught against the Sabbath of Almighty God. The subject of Exodus 5 is simple: Moses asks Pharaoh to let the people go to celebrate a feast in the wilderness to God. This is the feast of Passover/Unleavened Bread, a High Holy Sabbath Day, one which requires the believer to rest and do no ordinary work. And so Pharaoh’s reaction is worth noting: “Why do you draw the people away from their work? Get back to your labors!” Pharaoh punishes Israel with even more work because they have asked to have a day set aside during which the Lord has asked them to do no work. This is what Satan does today as he attempts to confuse Christians about God’s Holy Sabbath Day. He has so confounded people so that they literally look at disgust on a day on which God has commanded us to rest. A day of rest in the Lord is beautiful, wholesome, and desirable. Yeshua Himself said, “My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” If we love Yeshua, we ought to obey His commandments, and the first ever given to Man being to rest on the Seventh Day.

We ought to trust in the Lord for His salvation, for He is the Lord who has promised us deliverance into the Kingdom of Heaven if we will simply have faith in the Messiah Yeshua and obey His commandments. While the Exodus story in Egypt is 100 percent historical, it is also 100 percent allegorical and represents the promise to those of us who love Him and keep His commandments. And so we can read today’s reading as follows: God has established His covenant with us, to give us the Kingdom of Heaven. He has heard our groaning, because Satan is trying to hold us in bondage, and He has remembered His covenant that He made with His blood. Know therefore, “I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the [World], and I will deliver you from [its] bondage. I will also redeem you with [Jesus, who is My] outstretched arm and with great judgments. Then I will take you for My people, and I will be your God; and you shall know that I am the Lord your God who brought you out from under the burdens of the [World.] I will bring you to the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you for a possession; I am the Lord.”

Exodus 7, Exodus 8, Exodus 9, Psalm 20

Pharoah hardened his own heart several times because he rejected the Word of God, despite seeing many signs and wonders. The Egyptian people themselves were divided. They were all told about the fiery hail that would fall from the heavens, and the ones who heeded the call and listened to God, bringing their servants and livestock into the barns, were saved. Those who did not obey the Lord were destroyed.

“The one among the servants of Pharaoh who feared the word of the Lord made his servants and his livestock flee into the houses; but he who paid no regard to the word of the Lord left his servants and his livestock in the field.” The obedient later join Israel as part of the “mixed multitude,” which represents the Gentiles.

This is how the Lord works: Those who obey Him BECAUSE they have faith in Him will live, while those who disobey Him because they do not have faith in Him will die. A testimony of two—both faith and obedience, here—is always needed to establish a matter.

Exodus 10, Exodus 11, Exodus 12, Psalm 21

In Exodus 10:1, we see that the Lord finally hardens Pharoah’s heart so that He could bring Israel out of Egypt with His outstretched arm. This is bad news for Pharoah. There is no redemption for the one whom the Lord moves to harden, but first, Pharoah had to be unrepentant to the point that there was no coming back from it. He had to be stuck in his unrepentant heart and unwilling to consider the Lord’s Word. Moses told Pharoah repeatedly: You have to let us all go, our young and our old, our women and our old, our flocks and our herds. In other words, you have to give up everything you have to the Lord God. Pharoah was not willing to give his whole heart to the Lord, and so he was condemned. God then hardened his heart and gave him over to his own will. The Lord God gave him one more warning: “How long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me?” Clearly, Pharoah had a free will in this. Let us not become like Pharoah, but instead become the humble servant willing and able to give everything we have to the Lord upon His request.

The Lord establishes the beginning of the year as Nisan 1, which is sometime in March/April time frame, and then He establishes the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread for the appointed time that He had preordained. The day would foreshadow His own crucifixion some 1480 years later. The passover lamb would be spotless, blameless, and it would be slain with its blood spread on the doorposts so the angel of death would not destroy the Israelites. God made a distinction between the Israelites, those who obeyed Him, and the Egyptians, those who did not obey Him. Likewise, Jesus would have his blood spread on the cross, the doorpost between Heaven and Earth, so that all who put their faith in Him and His blood sacrifice would be safe from the angel of the second death. Jesus died on Passover as the Passover Lamb. He was taken down before sundown per the law in Deuteronomy 21:22-23. He was also the unleavened bread offered by fire to the Lord. He had no leaven (sin) in Him, and He offered His prayer for all the World who would trust in Him from the cross, but this trust would be essential to make a distinction to those who would be saved and those who would not. Jesus asked us to keep Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread in “memory of Him,” extending the feast as a memorial for both Jew and Gentile for all eternity. In Colossians 2:11, Gentiles are circumcised with the “circumcision made without hands,” and thus they are grafted into the Tree of Israel and become one in Christ Jesus for the promise of inheritance that He has made to all of us who keep our faith in Him and obey His commandments. Thus, both Jews and Gentiles ought to keep the feast in the spirit of sincerity and truth.

Exodus 13, Exodus 14, Exodus 15, Psalm 22

What a day! There’s so much to cherish in this section of the Word.

First the Lord tells us to remember the Feast of Unleavened Bread and Passover forever, and to teach our children when they ask why we are keeping the feast: “It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.” Think about this as it applies to US. The Exodus happened. It’s historical. We were not in Egypt physically. However, WE were in bondage—the bondage of sin—and allegorically, Egypt represents the bondage of sin and Pharaoh represents the Devil who kept US in it. It was indeed with a powerful hand, God’s right hand, Jesus Christ, that the Lord has brought us out of this bondage, by His body and blood on the cross. Therefore, we shall keep this feast in memory of Jesus when we keep this ordinance at its appointed time (By God, not by Man) from year to year. This feast shall serve as a sign on our hand and as a reminder on our forehead, that the law of the Lord may be in our mouth. The memory of this feast ought to be in everything we do and everything we think, and everything we say. It is a Mark of God that seals us for protection with the Holy Spirit when we do it.

Note the Scripture here in Exodus 13: “Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for he had made the sons of Israel solemnly swear, saying, “God will surely take care of you, and you shall carry my bones from here with you’.” Anyone who says they’ve found the sarcophagus of Joseph in Egypt is lying. His bones are not there. They were carried with Moses and the Israelites into Israel and buried in a tomb in the promised land. He was the only one of the brothers who had this honor bestowed upon Him, for He was the prophetic representation of Yeshua, who rose from the dead into the promised land to see the Father before He appeared before His disciples alive.

As the Israelites walk in Martial array out of Egypt, know that we are in Spiritual warfare against Satan and his demons every single day. We MUST be prepared for war. It’s not an option. That means constant prayer, fasting, and trust in the Lord God and His Messiah Yeshua no matter what comes our way. Satan is coming for us in the same way that Pharaoh came for the Israelites. We cannot be like the people who complained and feared and wanted to turn back into Egypt—the bondage of sin. We can’t turn back to our sin. Repentance means going forth and sinning no more. The Christian life of freedom in Yeshua is not too hard for us, the yoke is easy and the burden is light. Just as God led Israel with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, the Lord is with us with His Holy Spirit dwelling within us. When the enemy comes to fight against us, in whatever form he comes, we must heed the command of the Lord through Moses: “Do not fear! Stand by and see the salvation of the Lord which He will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you will never see them again forever. The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent.” We must trust in the Lord always, and remember the prophetic meaning of the word that Jesus will be “a prophet like unto Moses.” He is leading us to the promised land.

Before we can get to the promised land, we must be baptized just as the Israelites were baptized in the Sea of Reeds (this is how the Hebrew actually translates). The Lord parted the waters for them so they could walk across. They left their life of sin behind them, their life of bondage in Egypt, and they walked forward in total victory with the Lord God Yeshua. They had been freed by His blood and then they accepted His blood and were baptized according to His will. Remember from the Song of Moses, “Your right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy.” Yahweh’s right arm is Yeshua, our Messiah. It is Yeshua who defeats the enemy for us and He too stood with the Israelites in the desert. What a remarkable occurrence to watch those who trust in the Lord saved through the baptism, brought to the other side in victory, while the enemy that pursued them, the sin and bondage of Egypt is washed away and destroyed. This is the purpose and meaning of baptism, and it is the message of the crossing of the Sea of Reeds.  

In Revelation 15:3, the Lord Yeshua tells John through the angel that the Saints who make it into the Kingdom of Heaven on the Last Day will sing “The Song of Moses,” and then the Scripture cites some of it there. This Song of Moses is a victory song over the World, the World that Yeshua will destroy when He comes again. Those who remain will live eternally with Yeshua in the Promised Land, the New Heaven and the New Earth, which will be one place like the Garden of Eden. Examine these snippets from the Song of Moses and meditate on how it applies to us on the Last Day, when Yeshua rescues us from the World and brings us into the Promised Land:

“The Lord is my strength and song, And He has become my salvation; This is my God, and I will praise Him; My father’s God, and I will extol Him. The Lord is a warrior; The Lord is His name. Your right hand, O Lord, is majestic in power, Your right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy. And in the greatness of Your excellence You overthrow those who rise up against You; You send forth Your burning anger, and it consumes them as chaff. ... In Your lovingkindness You have led the people whom You have redeemed; In Your strength You have guided them to Your holy habitation. … Until Your people pass over, O Lord, Until the people pass over whom You have purchased. You will bring them and plant them in the mountain of Your inheritance, The place, O Lord, which You have made for Your dwelling, The sanctuary, O Lord, which Your hands have established. The Lord shall reign forever and ever.”

Once baptized, we enter the wilderness of Sin. We are tested, tempted and must endure for many years before the Lord comes to bring us Home. As we move into readings of the wilderness experience, remember that here in this place, we are not yet in the Lord’s Kingdom. He has gone away to prepare a place for us, so that where He is, so we may also be. When He returns, He will bring us to His Father’s House, the Kingdom of Heaven. And so, as we walk into the wilderness, let us not grumble after three days in salvation about where our water is going to come from. The Lord will provide. Let us not grumble about where our bread will come from. The Lord will provide. Let us not grumble about the fiery serpents or the enemies who come to fight against us. Be still, and know that the Lord will fight for us. We must endure until the day when Joshua, our Yeshua, leads us across the Jordan River into the Promised Land, and on that Day, the Lord will be One, and we will serve Him in His Kingdom forever and ever.

Here is our calling: “If you will give earnest heed to the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in His sight, and give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have put on the Egyptians; for I, the Lord, am your healer.” We do not want destruction as the Egyptians faced, but we want to be among the very small group that left Egypt who entered the Promised Land. There were two: Joshua and Caleb. Since Joshua represents Yeshua, let us be Caleb, and stand steadfast as the Lord’s servants from this day until he calls us Home.

Psalm 22 is a prophesy of the Lord’s sacrifice on the cross for us. He is the Lamb of God, who took away the sin of the World. His blood has freed us from the bondage of sin, and His body, our unleavened bread, was offered up to Heaven as a sweet smelling aroma to God. It is though Yeshua alone that we (or anyone at all) can be saved. Once we are saved, it is important that we do not grumble, or falter, or look back, or fall back, or go back. We must endure until the day He returns to bring us Home. We must give earnest heed to the voice of the Lord, which is in His Holy Scriptures and in His Holy Spirit, and do what is right in His sight. If we love Him, we will keep His commandments and statutes, and we will be healed when He comes from whatever condemns us. Nothing will stand between us and the Lord, and in Him we shall be free.

Exodus 16, Exodus 17, Exodus 18, Psalm 23

David was a man after God’s own heart, and so he knew, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” The Lord provides everything we need, so out heart, as Jesus instructed, ought to be to put the Kingdom of God first, and everything we need will be added to us. The Israelites were not unlike us, though; they actually represent us quite well. How often do we grumble over little things and long for the past, which we romanticize in our memory but was in reality no different than today, or perhaps even worse than today in many ways. We do not have legitimate cause to grumble against the Lord, when He has created us and provided us with everything in the whole world, if we can manage it with a grateful heart and a righteous soul. “For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.” Let us not grumble about the little things, but be grateful that we have anything at all. Let us rejoice in the Lord always! Again, I say, rejoice!

The Lord’s miracle of providing manna from Heaven is prophetic and also instructive for how we ought to live our lives. Here’s how it is prophetic: John 6:32-35: “Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” Then they said to Him, “Lord, give us this bread always.” And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.” Yeshua, the manna of God, is a free gift given to us. He is the Word of God who was made flesh, and so when we read Scripture like today’s reading, we know that it is nourishment for our soul, which lives forever when it lives in Jesus and is nourished by Him. He offered up Himself on the cross as unleavened bread, true manna from Heaven, and His prayers from the cross asked for our forgiveness, even though we don’t deserve it. The Israelites didn’t deserve their manna from Heaven either, but God provided them with what they needed. Gratitude for the manna ought have been the Israelites only response. Gratitude for this free gift of Jesus ought to be our only response.

The Sabbath is Saturday, the seventh day, and it has been a day of rest since God created the world and rested on the seventh day. The Lord God Yahweh asked us to remember to keep the day Holy, which means set apart, and Yeshua Himself said He is the Lord of the Sabbath, and so we ought to honor the day for Him, who made it for us to spend the time with Him. He said it is His yoke, which is easy; a light burden indeed to rest and give the day fully to the Lord, from sunset Friday to sunset on Saturday. On Friday the Lord said, “Tomorrow is a sabbath observance, a holy sabbath to the Lord.” The Lord spends more time discussing the Sabbath in Scripture than most other commandments. It is of critical importance to Him, and so it ought to be important to us. The story of manna shows us that God expects us to work for six days, gathering the manna, grinding it into a flour, mixing it with water and kneading it into bread, gathering firewood and kindling, starting a fire, cooking the bread on the fire, and then finally eating the bread. This was a lot of work! On the sixth day, the day we were created, the Lord provided a double portion of manna so that on this preparation day the Israelites could prepare enough for both Friday and Saturday. They were not to do any work on the Sabbath, not to do any cooking on the Sabbath, and instead give the day fully to the Lord. Of critical importance: ONLY on Friday did the Lord provide this double portion. On any other day, the bread left over would breed worms and stink. On Friday, the bread would be preserved for the day of rest on Saturday. The Lord ALWAYS provides us with everything we need, and while we are working during the week, we ought not take more than we need. Any abundance ought to be shared with others who need it, voluntarily. We ought not work to provide more than we need for ourselves and to take care of our families. Like Joseph, we can set aside some of our fruit for the famine, or that rainy day, but not more than we need. Recall Jesus’s story in Luke 12. The man who built bigger barns to store his abundance died before he could enjoy the abundance. He should have given the abundance for God’s purposes instead. The story of the Israelites collecting manna in the wilderness is for us, for we dwell in the wilderness right now. This is our story. “How long do you refuse to keep My commandments and My instructions?,” says the Lord!

When Jethro came to visit Moses and the Israelites, this priest of God Most High did what all of the Israelites should have been doing from day one: “Jethro rejoiced over all the goodness which the Lord had done to Israel, in delivering them from the hand of the Egyptians.“ It was, in fact, a confirmation to him that Yahweh is God Most High. He worshipped in gratitude, as we also should do, always, no matter what! Jethro also brought wisdom to Moses that we too should heed, particularly those of us who are leaders of organizations, but especially those appointed by God to be leaders of congregations. “Moses chose able men out of all Israel and made them heads over the people, leaders of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties and of tens. They judged the people at all times; the difficult dispute they would bring to Moses, but every minor dispute they themselves would judge.” Delegation, in this manner, ought to be our example, to bring proper leadership structures to any congregation of people, but especially the church. Regardless of church size, this model is the right one. Does your church have 10 members, you need one pastor and one elder. Does the church have 20, two elders is the answer. If you get up to 100 members, then you need 12 elders, with two leaders of 50, plus the 10 leaders of 10, but don’t forget the pastor. I wonder if this was the initial Church when Jesus walked the Earth? It sure does seem to explain the 12 apostles plus Jesus. Here’s evidence in Luke 15:4: “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?” Ought any shepherd do such a thing?

Exodus 19, Exodus 20, Exodus 21, Psalm 24

David writes, “Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? And who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, Who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood And has not sworn deceitfully. He shall receive a blessing from the Lord And righteousness from the God of his salvation.” The God of his salvation is Yeshua, and the Hebrew here is literally Yesho (יִשְׁעֽוֹ) or at its root, Yesha (יֶשַׁע), root of the name Yeshua (יֵשׁוּעַ). Who is this king of Glory? It’s El Shaddai (אֵל שַׁדַּי), the Lord of Hosts, who is one in being with Yeshua, and Yeshua is one in being with Him (John 17:21). He is the King of Glory. The man who has faith in Yeshua and keeps the commandments of God, that’s who can go up on His Holy Mountain and approach Him (Revelation 14:12). Moses was a man called by God as a priest and ruler, and through grace alone He was permitted to approach God and live. He had faith in this grace, and acted on it, and so He was able to go up and speak with God face-to-face. Notice how all of Israel had to purify themselves for three days to even be in the presence of the Lord. Our temples also must be clean if we intend to approach the Lord. Acts 15 makes that clear.

Once again, the Lord makes it clear: “if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” This kingdom of priests and holy nation led the entire world to the Messiah Yeshua through the law and the prophets, the Tanakh. As our second president, John Adams, said, "I will insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize man than any other nation.” And through the Messiah Yeshua, Israel will be an eternal Kingdom. We have the opportunity through Messiah to be grafted in to this glorious nation, but we must do so through an active faith in Yeshua that obeys God and keeps His commandments. The commandments, given through Israel, has civilized the world, and Yeshua, who embodies these commandments, asks us to keep them if we love Him: 1) Yahweh is God and we shall have no other god before Him, 2) We shall not make an image of anything in Heaven or on Earth and worship it, 3) We shall not take the Lord’s name in vain, 4) We shall honor the Sabbath Day and keep it Holy, 5) We shall honor our father and our mother, 6) We shall not murder, 7) We shall not commit adultery, 8) We shall not steal, 9) We shall not bear false witness, and 10) We shall not covet anything that belongs to our neighbor.

All of the people heard these commandments directly out of the mouth of God, and they were afraid. They asked for Moses to intercede between them and God, saying, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen; but let not God speak to us, or we will die,” and Moses told them, “Do not be afraid; for God has come in order to test you, and in order that the fear of Him may remain with you, so that you may not sin.” Many people would like to discount the word “fear” and say that it means “revere,” as some way to soften God. DO NOT DO THIS. Yes, it means revere, and of course we ought to revere God, but please note: “the man who sins shall die.” We ought to be afraid. Very afraid. Jesus, the prophet like unto Moses who now intercedes for us, Himself said the same thing in Matthew 10:28: “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the one who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” If we do not have faith in Yeshua and act on that faith, in love, by obeying His commandments, we can expect nothing but judgment. As Jesus said Himself about those Christians crying out “Lord, Lord,” in Matthew 7: “Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.” We must not only practice the law of God, but love the law of God, and do it because we both love and fear Him. Yeshua is our intercessor and forgives us if we repent and “go and sin no more.”

As God articulates the commandments, notice that four of them are longer than the others, and this in Biblical writing emphasizes them. The Sabbath is the longest commandment, because it was also the first commandment God ever gave to man and one that he emphasizes throughout Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. It is of utmost importance that we “remember” to “keep” this day Holy. The commandment not to worship false gods or images of false gods is the second longest, and God emphasizes the sin of “harlotry” with other gods quite a bit throughout Scripture. It in fact is the first thing He says after giving the 10 commandments: “You yourselves have seen that I have spoken to you from Heaven. You shall not make other gods besides me, gods of silver of gods of gold, you shall not make for yourself.” If only they would have obeyed. Do we obey? The third emphasis is on honoring Mom and Dad, because these are the ones who train us up in the way we should go—according to the Word of God. As they have honored us in our helpless childhood, so must we honor them as they age and forever. The commandment to not covet is fourth longest, and man do we have a problem with this one in America. Materialism is among the greatest sins Man has ever known. Please forgive us of this sin. The sin of blasphemy, taking the Lord’s name in vain, could be as simple as calling yourself a Christian and then acting like the rest of the world acts and ignoring these very commandments that the Lord has given to us, or saying they don’t matter. This indeed is treating the Name of the Lord God as if it is nothing, which is how the Hebrew translates directly. The Name of the Lord is the Word of God, which is the commandments, which were made flesh in the body of our Messiah. Let us not blaspheme the Holy Spirit and call “evil good and good evil,” for woe unto the one who does this, says Isaiah. Worshipping God alone, this is something we must do. We cannot worship things, or people, or anything that is in the world, but worship God Most High and His Messiah with the Holy Spirit, alone. Adultery, theft, deception, these are sins that lead to death, but there are more: all sexual sin, which the Scripture reveals, will equally defile. As John Adams said, the laws of God given to Moses will civilize a man more than anything else. These commandments ought to be between the frontlets of our eyes, meaning in our thoughts constantly, and bound on our right hand, meaning reflected in all of our speech and actions. They ought to be the fruit of our heart, in love of God and love of our fellow man.

Exodus 21 gets into laws of restitution and how we ought to treat those whom we have authority over. God is fairly specific, giving a few examples that may seem archaic concerning slaves, but recognize that these laws apply when you own a company and are employing people who depend on the work they do for you to feed their families. We must always put the love of our fellow man, even our subordinate, above our own personal needs; this is the law of God. God notes that the sins of murder, especially premeditated, and even kidnapping or cursing Mom and Dad are sins worthy of the second death—thank God Yeshua has come to forgive us our sins when we repent of them. Note that abortion also warrants the death penalty, and the act of striking a pregnant woman even if there is no injury to the child still requires punishment. The Lord’s golden rule: “you shall reap what you sow,” or “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” or “life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot…” is the very same law, no matter how it’s worded. Ultimately, the Lord God is the judge of our eternal disposition. We must repent, with a humble and contrite heart, look to Yeshua as our salvation, and go and sin no more, following after God’s law with love in our hearts with the help of the Holy Spirit.

Exodus 22, Exodus 23, Exodus 24, Psalm 25

Most of Exodus 22 can be summed up in one sentence, “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” The laws on restitution recognizes when you do not do unto others as you would have them do unto you, that you are responsible for making that up to them as a form of love or repentance before God and before Man. The whole chapter is a chapter full of love, with love being the underlying message that God is trying to get across to Man. More simply: Love your neighbor as yourself. We conservative Christians must be exceptionally mindful of this commandment: “You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” We’ve all been immigrants. We need to love our neighbor, whether or not he or she is here legally.

The chapter includes a few death sentences. Remember: God is the judge and will inflict these death sentences, but these laws underline the severity of these sins. Without repentance, they will lead to the second death in Hell:
“You shall not allow a sorceress to live.” — Witchcraft, or pharmakeia (pharmaceuticals) in the New Testament, are a great deception against God’s plan, and anyone who puts their life in their hands is forgetting God.
“Whoever lies with an animal shall surely be put to death.” — Any sexual perversion will lead to death, but this one is particularly pernicious.
“He who sacrifices to any god, other than to the Lord alone, shall be utterly destroyed.” — The COVID 19 vaccine has become a god to many people. So has the incessant desire for wealth. Regardless of the perception of what purpose this wealth may serve, it is covetousness and will lead to death. Repent! God will provide everything we need.

In Chapter 23, God expands upon the 10 Commandments that He gave to Humanity through Israel. The ninth commandment is “do not bear false witness,” but here in Exodus 23 we read, “You shall not bear a false report; do not join your hand with a wicked man to be a malicious witness.” Clearly, we see here the Lord giving an example to help us understand how to apply his commandments to our lives. This all applies to us, and Jesus taught us in the same way. We see Jesus teach, “You have heard that it was said of old, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I say love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (Matthew 5:43-44). Jesus was referring to Leviticus 19:18 here, where the Scripture certainly does say “love your neighbor,” but importantly, the “hate your enemy” part does not come from Scripture. That comes from false interpretation by the Pharisees that Jesus was correcting. Scripture says this: “If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey wandering away, you shall surely return it to him. If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying helpless under its load, you shall refrain from leaving it to him, you shall surely release it with him.” Clearly, God is consistent throughout ALL of Scripture, and Jesus is one with God the Father.

In another section of the chapter, the Lord gives mercy laws for leaving your crops in the seventh year for the poor while the ground recovers from six years of plowing. Clearly, we must trust that God will provide food for us before the seventh year so that when we allow the ground to rest, we are not hungry. The Lord says He will provide, and so He will. Coincidentally, we are currently in such a Shemitah year, and so my garden will remain unplanted this year. The Lord takes the opportunity of introducing the Shemitah year to remind us to keep the weekly Sabbath. He knows that we would forget it. He also highlights three feasts that all men must keep: The Feast of Unleavened Bread/Passover, the Feast of the Harvest of the First Fruits (Pentecost) and the Feast of the Ingathering at the end of the Year (Tabernacles). These three feasts will continue to play a massive role in our Faith as we await the second coming of our Savior during the Fall Feasts.

When we see God say, “You are not to boil a young goat in the milk of its mother,” we can see the source of the Rabbinical law that says you cannot eat meat and milk or cheese together, but this is not what God is commanding. This was a misinterpretation by the Pharisees. Look to Genesis 18:8 when Abraham set milk and meat before God Himself and His two angels as a clear rebuke of this Rabbinical law: “So he took butter and milk and the calf which he had prepared, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree as they ate.” And so, what does the commandment mean? Well, pagans in that day were literally boiling goat kids in their mother’s milk as a fertility sacrifice to their Pagan gods. This was an evil practice that God Most High did not want His peopel to keep. In fact, it violates the very First Commandment: “You shall have no other gods before me” and it violates the Second Commandment: “You shall not worship an image (representation) of anything on the Earth below or in Heaven above.” In a way, it also violates the Third Commandment, for the one who professes faith in God Most High through Yeshua the Messiah cannot worship another god and not treat their faith in God as “nothingness,” which is the true translation of this commandment, “do not take the Lord’s name in vain.”

Next, God says He will send an angel to go before Israel to lead the nation to the place that He has prepared. This “angel,” or “the Angel of God,” is the same Angel who appeared to Abraham, Issac and Jacob; this is the pre-incarnate Messiah Yeshua, the Second Power of God, or the Second Manifestation of God. It is the Son, making His appearance well known in the Tanakh. We know that Moses also interacted with Yeshua, and it due to His faith in the Messiah and His prophesy of the Messiah that He was able to go and face God and not die. While our Fathers from the Tanakh looked forward to the death and resurrection of Yeshua for their salvation, we look back at Yeshua’s sacrifice for our salvation. In either case, salvation requires both faith in the Messiah Yeshua and obedience to God’s commandments. What has changed with the advent of Christ is the old covenant has become a new covenant. The Mediator changed from Moses to Jesus; the High Preist changed from Aaron to Jesus, the Sacrifice changed from bulls and goats to Jesus, the Temple, which housed the Holy Spirit, changed from the Tabernacle in the Wilderness and the Temple in Jerusalem to our very bodies; and finally, the law changed from written on tablets of stone to being written on the tablets of our heart. The structure of the faith did not change. We still must obey the commandments of God and keep our faith in the Messiah Yeshua.

Exodus 25, Exodus 26, Exodus 27, Psalms 26

Recall that God commanded Moses and the Israelites to plunder the Egyptians; it was for this purpose. All of the materials the Israelites took from the Egyptians, who offered the materials voluntarily upon Israel’s request, were used to make the tabernacle, the ark of the covenant, the menorah, the altar, the table for shewbread and all of the curtains. The message here for us is that when God asks us to do something, we ought to do it, even if we don’t understand its purpose. God has a magnificent purpose in mind. Only when we obey God’s commands, however much we don’t understand them, can we find out what His purpose is. In my case, God asked me to help my friend Pierre build a church in Londonderry. I obeyed, but that effort didn’t work out. That was part of God’s plan, it turned out. He was preparing me for an effort to build a new church, First Fruits Ministries, and as that effort is ongoing, only God knows what wonders await my continued obedience. It’s an amazing and wonderful walk no matter what comes next.

Hebrews 9 goes into great detail of how the Wilderness Tabernacle was a model of the Tabernacle in Heaven. It was an Earthly representation of the real Tabernacle of God, where He truly sits on the Mercy seat, the Throne of the Universe. The Earthly Tabernacle and all its implements serve as both a prophetic template as well as a symbolic truth representing the Messiah to come. Here’s a couple examples: In Hebrews 9:11, we read, “Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation.” Yeshua is literally the eternal High Priest who sits on the right hand of the throne of God, eternally interceding for those who trust in Him with all faith and obey His commandments. We can see in Revelation 1:12-13, that Yeshua stands amid the seven golden lampstands, the great Menorah of Heaven, because He is the “light of the world”: “Then I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the seven lampstands One like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the feet and girded about the chest with a golden band.” Praise God that He has called out to us from Creation, calling us back to Himself through the Messiah Yeshua!

The purpose of the Tabernacle may be to give the People a focal point to commune with God, but we must know that the focal point is Messiah Yeshua in Moses’s day also. Those with a contrite and obedient heart are looking forward to him through prophetic symbology, rather than back at what He literally accomplished for us, as we do. Both parties are saved by grace alone through faith in the Messiah Yeshua, which empowers them to obey God’s commandments. In the Old Covenant, many missed the Truth, but it was there for them to grasp. King David certainly fully grasped it. Psalm 51 proves this. Moses did also. Jesus acknowledges this in John 5:46: “If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me.”

Exodus 28, Exodus 29, Psalm 27

Do not allow the deep symbology of the First Covenant to be disregarded, for without it we would be missing the significance of Messiah and understanding of what He accomplished. God demands blood to atone for sin—always. We must recognize that the New Covenant made by the blood of Christ has replaced the Old Covenant made with the blood of bulls and goats. This is a legal contract with God, no more and no less. It has been upgraded. “But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.” Please read Hebrews Chapters 8-10 in the New King James Version for details.

… The law is still fully in force, but its High Priest Aaron has been replaced by Yeshua. It’s Mediator Moses has been replaced by Yeshua. The sacrifices of bulls and goats have been replaced with the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. The Tabernacle/Temple made by human hands was replaced by the Body of Messiah; “don’t you know that you are the Temple of God.” “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” The law is no longer written on tablets of stone, but on the tablets of your heart. “clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart.” “After those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their minds, And I will write them on their hearts. And I will be their God, And they shall be My people.” We must interpret God’s law through the love of Messiah, but if we love Him, we will keep it.

Notice the blue in all of the garments of the priests. This blue represents the commandments of the law, which still apply to us. Originally they were written by the Holy Spirit, the finger of God, on tablets of blue sapphire stone, and so the blue in priestly garments is critical as a reminder of these commandments. Now written on our hearts, pray that our High Priest Yeshua directs us toward obedience by the power of His Holy Spirit that dwells within us. The gold represents God’s wealth (he owns everything) and purity (God is Holy), the red/scarlet foreshadows Christ’s blood sacrificed on our behalf, and the purple represents His royalty. He is the King of Glory, and the government shall be upon His shoulders.

Notice the cleanliness and holiness needed for Aaron and the Levites to approach the Earthly representation of God’s throne, lest they die. In Christ we have the cleanliness and righteousness needed to approach God’s throne in Heaven, but we must still approach with total humility and purity of heart, with all repentance. God will still destroy the one who walks before Him in lawlessness. Notice how Aaron carries the judgement of the people by his heart: “Aaron shall carry the judgment of the sons of Israel over his heart before the Lord continually.” Yeshua, our eternal High Priest does the same thing. He makes intercession for the faithful before God’s judgment seat, which is also the Mercy seat, but He will destroy the lawless and unrepentant.

As David writes in Psalm 27, His words written by the Holy Spirit look forward to the Heavenly Kingdom that Yeshua will institute here on Earth on the Last Day as we stand strong in the Lord’s Way while trusting in Him to help us persevere and withstand the enemy. The following verses speak directly into my heart, which is seeking the Lord in every possible way, so help me God.

“The Lord is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the defense of my life; Whom shall I dread?”

“One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the Lord And to meditate in His temple.”

This is the Kingdom of Heaven he’s referring to. We dwell within His Temple as a default all of our days. The Temple is our Body.

“For in the day of trouble He will conceal me in His tabernacle; In the secret place of His tent He will hide me; He will lift me up on a rock.”

The rock is His Holy Mountain in Heaven. He will conceal us during the time He is bringing His wrath on the World that is perishing.

“Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice, And be gracious to me and answer me. When You said, “Seek My face,” my heart said to You, “Your face, O Lord, I shall seek.” Do not hide Your face from me, Do not turn Your servant away in anger; You have been my help; Do not abandon me nor forsake me, O God of my salvation!”

He is calling for Yeshua’s grace, mercy and forgiveness.

“Teach me Your way, O Lord, And lead me in a level path Because of my foes. Do not deliver me over to the desire of my adversaries, For false witnesses have risen against me, And such as breathe out violence.”

Let us be obedient to the Lord and His commandments, no matter what. Let us stand in truth, no matter what persecution comes upon us.

“I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord In the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; Be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the Lord.”

Our hope in God’s Kingdom, which Yeshua has promised to all who have faith in Him and keep His commands. We must endure in our faith until the Last Day.

Exodus 30, Exodus 31, Exodus 32, Psalm 28

Note the altar of incense, on which Aaron shall burn sweet incense every morning when he tends the lamps, and when he lights the lamps at twilight he will do so again, “a perpetual incense before the Lord throughout your generations.” This is a symbolic prophesy for the prayers of the Saints. Consider Revelation 8:4: “And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God from the angel’s hand.” The Lord is asking us to pray when rise in the morning and when we go to bed at night, and He is saying to do this perpetually throughout our generations. Lighting the lamps may refer actually to the seven-branch Menorah in Aaron’s time, but it also refers to the lighting of our soul—your eyes are the lamps of your soul—by the Power of the Holy Spirit. We ought to pray to ignite the power of the Holy Spirit within us, both morning and night. In Yeshua, we are all kings and priests unto the Lord, and we serve under our High Priest Yeshua for all eternity.

* I found it fascinating to discover this law in Exodus 30:12 here: “When you take the census of the children of Israel for their number, then every man shall give a ransom for himself to the Lord, when you number them, that there may be no plague among them when you number them.” When David takes a census of Israel, the Lord accounts it as sin. 1 Chronicles 21 says “Satan rose up against Israel and caused David to take a census of the people of Israel.” And 2 Samuel 24 says, ”Again the anger of the Lord was aroused against Israel, and He moved David against them to say, ‘Go, number Israel and Judah’.” Later in both accounts, the punishment: In 1 Chronicles 21: “So the Lord sent a plague upon Israel, and seventy thousand men of Israel fell.” And in 2 Samuel 24: “So the Lord sent a plague upon Israel from the morning till the appointed time. From Dan to Beersheba seventy thousand men of the people died.” Note in Exodus 30: the law was instituted as an atonement offering, and everyone 20 years and older, whether rich or poor, would give a half shekel. The money would be used “for the service of the tabernacle of meeting, that it may be a memorial for the children of Israel before the Lord, to make atonement for yourselves.” Was David’s census for another purpose? Was it for his own glory, rather than for atonement and service of the tabernacle? In any case, David ultimately atones for the nation and averts the plague, calling for the punishment to fall on himself. Is this yet another foreshadowing of the Messiah, who would atone for our sins after separating the sheep from the goats, literally having taken our punishment upon Himself?

The Exodus 30 washings laws for the priests entering the holy place to minister before the Lord were later misinterpreted by the Pharisees so that they taught that everyone must wash their hands before and after eating. In Mark 7, Yeshua corrects this misinterpretation of this section, which says, “When they go into the tabernacle of meeting, or when they come near the altar to minister, to burn an offering made by fire to the Lord, they shall wash with water, lest they die.” Yeshua said that this law did not apply to the faithful eating bread for dinner, but rather was a special law for the priests. Eating bread with unwashed hands cannot defile a man; only the evil intents of the heart which manifest in a man’s words or actions can defile him. This is why we ought to be very careful to guard our heart, to fill it up with God’s love, and to ensure that it does not “grow cold” when we observe the sin of the world or the legalism of the misguided. And yet, when we do go before God in worship, we ought to ensure that we have washed hands and feet; in other words, our actions ought to reflect the righteousness of Christ and our obedience to His law.  

The anointing oil poured on the implements of the sanctuary and ultimately on the High Priest and his sons is later poured out on Yeshua first, physically by the woman prior to His crucifixion in John 12:1-8, but spiritually after He was baptized by John the Baptist in Luke 3:22 and the Holy Spirit fell upon Him like a dove. The anointing oil is then offered to all of us from the Day of Pentecost forward, as the Holy Spirit falls on and anoints with His seal all who believe in Yeshua for salvation. His Chosen People are a holy priesthood and a royal people, a Holy Israel made up of both Jews and Greeks whose primary role is the Great Commission; to go throughout all the world and make disciples.

As Moses will say toward the end of Deuteronomy, Yeshua would be a prophet like unto him, and we see this played out in Exodus 32 today. Compare these two verses:

“Now when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people assembled about Aaron and said to him, “Come, make us a god who will go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”
“scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.” 2 Peter 3:3-4

It’s fascinating that both the children of Israel and the followers of Yeshua fall away because of their master’s delay in coming. They both turn to idolatry and other sin, and their sin is willful. Both are destroyed by the Lord upon His return. However, for those who are repentant, there is hope. Compare again:

“On the next day Moses said to the people, “You yourselves have committed a great sin; and now I am going up to the Lord, perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.”
“The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” 2 Peter 3:9

Note also how Moses stood at the gate of the camp, and said, “Whoever is for the Lord, come to me!” Those who came to Him were saved, and those who didn’t were utterly destroyed; 3,000 of them that day. When Yeshua comes again He will stand at the gate of Heaven and separate the sheep from the goats, destroying those who do not come to Him with all humility in faith.

As Moses goes up to the Lord to make atonement for the people, he offers himself up on account of their sin; saying, “Alas, this people has committed a great sin, and they have made a god of gold for themselves. But now, if You will, forgive their sin—and if not, please blot me out from Your book which You have written!” He’s referring to the Book of Life. He’s willing to sacrifice Himself on account of the people. Yeshua actually did sacrifice Himself for all people, literally dying on the cross on account of our sin. His life was blotted out so that our sins would be forgiven, but then He rose from the dead so that we too could follow Him into eternal life.

Exodus 32 finishes up with a strong warning: “The Lord said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out of My book.” Let this be a warning to us, for without total repentance and faith, trust and obedience to Yeshua, we have no hope but eternal death. We must follow Yeshua so that our names can be written into the Book of Life, and like the woman caught in adultery, our sins are forgiven, but we must “go and sin no more.”

“The Lord is their strength, and He is a saving defense to His anointed. Save Your people and bless Your Inheritance; Be their shepherd also, and carry them forever,” the psalmist writes in Psalm 28. He is calling on the Messiah to save us from our sin, but He also notes, “Requite them according to the work and according to the evil of their practices; requite them according to the deeds of their hands; repay them their recompense.” The Lord Yeshua saves the righteous, those who seek repentance, those who go and sin no more and follow Him. He will utterly destroy the lawless. The sheep and the goats will be separated; our names must be written in the Book of Life.

Exodus 33, Exodus 34, Psalm 29

The Israelites could have entered the promised land 40 years earlier than they did—“Then the Lord spoke to Moses, “Depart, go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought up from the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,”—had they only trusted in the Lord. I’m almost 43. All but three years of my life would be spent wandering in the desert due to this disobedience, and symbolically, that is the case. The Lord promises to send His Angel, who is Yeshua, to drive out the peoples of Canaan. Now the Lord says He will not be in their midst, because of their obstinance and because He may destroy them on the way, but Moses insists that the Lord come with them: “I pray You, if I have found favor in Your sight, let me know Your ways that I may know You, so that I may find favor in Your sight. Consider too, that this nation is Your people.” And He said, “My presence shall go with you, and I will give you rest.” Like Moses, we must press on and pray to the Lord constantly for His mercy and forgiveness. We must not accept a fate of sin, but always pray in repentance for the Lord’s presence. For us, we ought to pray like David in Psalm 51: “Take not your Holy Spirit from me and restore in me the joy of your salvation.” We want the Lord to say, “I have known you by name.” We must be found in the Lord’s Book of Life. Only through faith in Yeshua and obedience to His commands do we have any hope.

Moses reestablishes the Covenant with Yahweh with the commandments written on new tablets of stone, and he comes down from the mountain with his face shining from God’s glory. Pray too that the Lord’s Holy Spirit shines through us so that we may reflect the Glory of Yeshua to all who observe us in our lives. By observing our lives, those who don’t know God and those who do ought to see us living out the commandments of God and bearing fruit by them, and they ought to desire the relationship that we have with God. Let us not be like the fearful who want a veil to cover the Glory of God, but rather let us seek first the Kingdom of God so that everything we need will be provided for us now into eternity.  This is the God we worship: “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.” Let us not leave the consequences of sin to our posterity, but rather the consequences of righteousness, and let all forgiveness be in Messiah.

As we live in the World, we must NOT be of the world. We cannot take on the pagan customs of the people around us who don’t know God, even if we twist them into a Christian theme. “Watch yourself that you make no covenant with the inhabitants of the land into which you are going, or it will become a snare in your midst. But rather, you are to tear down their altars and smash their sacred pillars and cut down their Asherim otherwise you might make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land and they would play the harlot with their gods and sacrifice to their gods, and someone might invite you to eat of his sacrifice, and you might take some of his daughters for your sons, and his daughters might play the harlot with their gods and cause your sons also to play the harlot with their gods. You shall make for yourself no molten gods.” We cannot mix the profane with the Holy, and nor can we expect to follow after the ways of the World and remain in fellowship with God. It cannot be. Rather, we must keep the Feasts of Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, and Tabernacles, and the weekly Sabbath ever Saturday to set ourselves apart as God’s people and to keep the customs that He has asked us to keep. We do this not for salvation, but out of love for our Creator and our Savior Yeshua, because we want to please Him and do what He wants of us. Every relationship is built upon doing things for the other person that he or she would prefer out of service and love, and our relationship with Yeshua is no different. He wants us to do things His way, not the way of the World, but He won’t force us. Be mindful of this.

When Moses fasted for 40 days and 40 nights, “he did not eat bread or drink water.” This is what it means to fast. Nothing goes into the body at all. The purpose of this type of fast is to deny the flesh and to bring sin up to the surface to eliminate it so that the Holy Spirit can fully fall on us and fill us up with everything we need from a spiritual perspective. A 40-day fast is not possible in the flesh, but it is indeed possible with God. I know of people who have fasted longer. It’s not a contest or anything to brag about, as Yeshua said, we must wash and bathe when we fast so that no one knows we are doing it but God, and perhaps the members of your household who wonder why you’re not joining them for dinner. Prayer ought to accompany fasting so that God can do His work in us. Moses came down from the mountain with his face shining after this fast, and thus the Lord indeed filled Him up with His Holy Spirit. We ought to fast to reconnect with God, along with prayer, as regularly as possible, so long as our health allows for it. We need men and women of faith who will devote themselves to the Lord, particularly now in this time of darkness.

Exodus 35, Exodus 36, Exodus 37, Psalm 30

Note in Exodus 35: “Everyone whose heart stirred him and everyone whose spirit moved him came and brought the Lord’s contribution for the work of the tent of meeting and for all its services and for the holy garments.” The Lord had provided the goods for Israel to use by commanding them to plunder Egypt. They obeyed and asked the Egyptians for these materials, and the Egyptians obliged them to the point where they had abundance. In Exodus 36: “For the material they had was sufficient and more than enough for all the work, to perform it.” This means, they not only had enough materials to obey God again, but they also had materials left over for themselves. When God commands us to do something, it is up to us to obey Him. We have to take that action. He may put it in our heart to contribute, but we still have to actively choose to do so. If we do not obey, the Lord will find another. If we do obey, the Lord blesses us with abundance and the relationship between Him and us grows.

Note in Exodus 35: “See, the Lord has called by name Bezalel … And He has filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding and in knowledge and in all craftsmanship; to make designs for working in gold and in silver and in bronze, and in cutting of stones for settings and in the carving of wood, so as to perform in every inventive work. He also has put in his heart to teach, both he and Oholiab.” The Lord God gives us the skills that we develop through our own work and experience. Yes, we are active participants in learning these skills, but without the Lord’s gift to bring us the desire to learn and the ability to learn, we would not be able to learn these skills. Then, we actually need to go and learn these skills and do the work to make it happen. Again, the Lord commands, and when we obey His commands, He brings us abundance. In this case, God gave Bezalel the skills of craftsmanship and not only was he able to use these skills to honor and serve the Lord, but he was able to teach many others these skills also and create a group of men who were ready to construct all that the Lord commanded. They most definitely used these skills for their own benefit at another time. Abundance is the result of obedience.

Note in Exodus 36: “Now Bezalel and Oholiab, and every skillful person in whom the Lord has put skill and understanding to know how to perform all the work in the construction of the sanctuary, shall perform in accordance with all that the Lord has commanded.” Do you see that they have chosen out of their free will to obey? The Lord put all of this in place, He put it all in motion, and He prepared them for this moment ahead of time. He gave them everything they needed because they obeyed, and then He gave them abundance. Now, Bezalel and Oholiab will obey again and actually do the work to construct the Tabernacle and all its implements. Of course they will receive blessing for their obedience. Psalm 30 applies here: “Sing praise to the Lord, you His godly ones, And give thanks to His holy name. For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for a lifetime; Weeping may last for the night, But a shout of joy comes in the morning.” We must give thanks to the Lord for He has equipped us for every good work, and our obedience to His commands always brings abundance.

Exodus 38, Exodus 39, Exodus 40, Psalm 31

“The sons of Israel did according to all that the Lord had commanded Moses; so they did… Moses examined all the work, and behold, they had done it; just as the Lord had commanded, this they had done.” (Exodus 39:32, 43) This is what obedience looks like. And because of this obedience, the Lord literally descended from Heaven and appeared within the Tabernacle as a cloud by day and fire by night “in the sight of all the house of Israel.” Moses set up the Tabernacle on “the first day of the first month”—Abib 1 or Nisan 1, both names refer to this day. This was a new thing that the Lord had done. He commanded Moses to create a replica of the Tabernacle in Heaven where He sat, and because of that, a part of His presence, His Shekinah, His Holy Spirit, dwelt among them. How could they ask for a better blessing than this? Isn’t this what we all desire as well? In Christ, God has given us a greater blessing: God’s Holy Spirit now dwells inside the bodies of those who believe in Him and keep His commandments. Let us not think this is an ordinary thing, for to do so is to dishonor God Most High who dwells within us. Let us walk reverently with all humility in love, using this gift for God’s purposes alone. How can we think of doing anything else?

Leviticus 1, Leviticus 2, Leviticus 3, Leviticus 4, Psalm 32

As we read through Leviticus, it is critical to remember that Yeshua has replaced the bulls, goats, and lambs of these offerings, “For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.” (Hebrews 10:14). Note verse 15 starts with “But,” which is followed by a reminder of Isaiah’s Chapter 43 prophesy and its interpretation in verses 16-18. In the New Covenant, “I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them … and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more,” the Lord said. “Now when there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin,” the Hebrews writers concludes. Our repentance has to be real and permanent. We truly need to “Go and sin no more.” The Holy Spirit helps us do this. Yeshua is our salvation, and His sacrifice is a one-time redemption for all of our sins, but our heart must change to seek Him, to learn His ways, articulated in the commandments, and to do them.

So when we read about the sacrifices, we read them in the context that Yeshua has become our one-time sacrifice, and His blood atoned for our sin, but the underlying principles of the law here cannot be missed and still apply; they are essential to fully understand what Yeshua did for us and what He is STILL DOING for us. We need to understand them in “spirit and truth.”

Note first then in Leviticus 1 that the offering to the Lord must be “a male without defect.” Yeshua was a male lamb without sin. “No grain offering … shall be made with leaven.” Again, the offering of Yeshua on the cross was as unleavened Bread, without sin. We must also note—and not miss—this law that is “perpetual” and absolutely still applies to us: “you shall not eat any fat or any blood.” This is both for our good (health), but also so that we can show our obedience to the Lord who asked us not to do this. We should also skip ahead and realize that in all of these animal sacrifices, the animals are not simply destroyed for the purpose of sacrifice to God. Far from it! Leviticus 6:26 notes, “the priest who offers it for sin shall eat it.” With this knowledge, we can come to appreciate the sanctity of eating meat. We are taking the life of an animal, which God allows, but we sacrifice the meat in thanksgiving to the Lord, not to the animal as many pagans do, and we give God the parts that He said for us not to eat. When we eat meat today, we ought to remember the holiness of these sacrifices and how dedicated the Israelites were to honoring God for His gift of meat and the life that we have sacrificed for our nutrition. Everything we eat comes with both physical and spiritual nutrition, and so we also ought to be quite mindful of what we put into our Temple.

Leviticus 4 is incredible in pointing out the importance of repenting for unintentional sin, which is something many Christians do not do today. In Hosea 4:6, the Lord says, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being priest for Me; Because you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.” Are we not His people in Yeshua? Are we not “a holy priesthood” when we are grafted into Israel by accepting Yeshua as our Messiah and Lord? We cannot remain ignorant of the Lord’s commandments and the Lord’s law, but we must study it day and night (Psalm 1). We must come to a knowledge of God that then allows us to keep His commandments, because we love Him (John 14:15). And so we also ought to repent for those “unintentional” sins, which Jesus died to forgive us for.

Note in the text, there are several ways we can sin unintentionally:
“If a person sins unintentionally in any of the things which the Lord has commanded not to be done, and commits any of them.”
“if the anointed priest sins so as to bring guilt on the people.”
“if the whole congregation of Israel commits error and the matter escapes the notice of the assembly, and they commit any of the things which the Lord has commanded not to be done, and they become guilty; when the sin which they have committed becomes known.”
“When a leader sins and unintentionally does any one of all the things which the Lord his God has commanded not to be done, and he becomes guilty, if his sin which he has committed is made known to him.”
“Now if anyone of the common people sins unintentionally in doing any of the things which the Lord has commanded not to be done, and becomes guilty, if his sin which he has committed is made known to him.”

Jesus died so that all of these sins would be forgiven, but we have to ask for His forgiveness and repent for having committed any of these sins. Unrepentant sin leads to judgment—always. We cannot continue in lawlessness and expect to be saved. And the sin of a leader brings judgment on the whole community, whether a religious leader or a political leader. A sinning nation can also bring judgment on the land. We must learn the Law of God and do it, and repent for any parts of it we unknowingly violate. We also ought to ask the Lord to reveal to us any sin in us so that we can repent of it. We ought to ask the Holy Spirit to keep us from sin, even sin we don’t know about. Our heart ought to be to please the Lord, always, because as He said, “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.” (John 14:21)

Psalm 32 was written for today’s Torah portion, for “How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered! How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.” Thank God almighty for His forgiveness through the blood of Yeshua on the cross. How gruesome and awful a death He endured for our salvation. Our sin is what nailed Him to that cross and caused His suffering. How blessed are we that He voluntarily agreed to do this for us? Consider how the Psalm continues: “When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long.” This is unintentional or unknowing sin! If we are suffering in any way, it may be the result of this type of sin. We need to repent for it! “I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I did not hide; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,’ and you forgave the guilt of my sin.” This is all the Lord asks of us. This is not a difficult yoke to confess our sin and go and sin no more, so help us God!

Here’s the warning to antinomian Christians: “Do not be as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding, Whose trappings include bit and bridle to hold them in check, Otherwise they will not come near to you.” There are two warnings here: The first: Do not think that Yeshua came to do away with the law; for not one jot or title will be removed until heaven and earth pass away. (Matthew 5:17-18). We must have understanding! The second is this: Do not dwell on the letter of the law and become legalistic and misinterpret the law according to our own desires; do not create false obligations that aren’t Scriptural. The law is not a bit and bridle holding us in check, because the law cannot save. The law is God’s love letter to us, and He wants us to know Him and follow it in “spirit and truth” so that we can get close to Him. Finally, we see that “many are the sorrows of the wicked, but he who trusts in the Lord, lovingkindness will surround him. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you righteous ones!” We ought to rejoice in the Lord always—especially thanking Him for the blood sacrifice that He gave for us—and obey Him in love because of this great gift.

Leviticus 5, Leviticus 6, Leviticus 7, Psalms 33

In Leviticus 5, the beginning of the chapter can be summed up with Yeshua’s words, “let your yes be yes, and your no be no.” Making an oath and not keeping it is sin; giving your word and breaking it is also sin. Importantly, in verse 17, we also learn, “if a person sins and does any of the things which the Lord has commanded not to be done, though he was unaware, still he is guilty and shall bear his punishment.” This is why we must learn the Word of God so that we can do it and not sin. After all, we cannot live in lawlessness and expect salvation. The Lord was sacrificed for the repentant and the contrite of heart, not for the proud who seek their own way. The Lord’s law is everlasting, and we ought to pray that the Holy Spirit indeed writes it on our hearts, which will lead us to love the law, which was made for our good, because we love God who gave it to us and also died so that we could be forgiven our shortcomings.

How easy and light a burden it is indeed to simply obey the Lord’s commandments. If we do not obey them, Leviticus 6 explains how violations of the commandments not to steal or not to bear false witness ought to be handled. It’s a lot more complicated, but it’s just and it’s good. Yeshua died for these sins, also, but He exhorted us, “Go and sin no more.”

How many times does the Lord say, the fire on the altar ought not to go out? “Fire shall be kept burning continually on the altar; it is not to go out.” By two or three witnesses a matter is established. The fire of the Holy Spirit, which descends on those who confess Yeshua as the Messiah and keep His commandments, ought to burn forever in our hearts and we ought never allow it to go out through obstinance, pride, ignorance, or rebellion. Sin is what causes the fire to go out. Let us depend on the fire of the Holy Spirit to burn bright within us and keep us away from sin.

The Lord commands burnt offerings, grain offerings, sin offerings, guilt offerings, sacrifices and peace offerings. Each of these has symbolic representation. Yeshua has forgiven our sin and guilt and has become our one-time sacrifice for all time, but our prayers are now burnt offerings, and we celebrate Yeshua with grain offerings and peace offerings. Recall that the priests eat of most of the offerings, but not of the fat or the blood. As followers of Yeshua, we ought to eat meat with much reverence toward our Lord who provided it and be sure to not eat the fat or the blood with the meat. Our thanksgiving for any meat ought to be given to the Lord Yeshua. Any bread we eat ought to be done with thanksgiving in peace and remembrance of the Lord, who is our bread of life.

Psalm 33 has a key verse that we ought to be mindful of as we learn more about God’s law, which He breathed out through His Word, Yeshua. “The Lord looks from heaven; He sees all the sons of men; From His dwelling place He looks out On all the inhabitants of the earth, He who fashions the hearts of them all, He who understands all their works.” “We are His workmanship,” Paul writes in Ephesians 2:10, “created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” We’re reading about these “good works” in Genesis, through story telling, Exodus, through the commandments, and Leviticus, through examples of how to apply the commandments, and Numbers and Deuteronomy will reiterate many of these wonderful works that we ought to know and love. “Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him,” continues Psalm 33, and Yeshua Himself said to “fear Him who can throw your body and soul in Hell.” And yet, His eye is also on those who “hope for His lovingkindness, to deliver their soul from death.” That hope is Yeshua, our savior, “our heart rejoices in Him.”

Leviticus 8, Leviticus 9, Leviticus 10, Psalm 34

I’m humbled by today’s reading, for it truly exemplifies what Jesus means when He says in Matthew 10:28, “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” Many Christians like to explain this one away by saying the word “fear” should be “revere,” and reverence is certainly a part of the meaning, don’t get me wrong, but “fear” means fear, and yes, we ought to be very afraid of angering our Father in Heaven. The Lord is angered by intentional sin, also known as rebellion, and that is precisely what Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, did when they brought and “offered strange fire before the Lord.” The word is zuwr זוּר, meaning loathsome, profane, or strange to the land (foreign). In other words, they mixed the holy with the profane. Instead of worship Yahweh the way Yahweh had commanded them, these men took pagan traditions into the Tabernacle of God and worshipped God the way they thought was best according to the dictates of their own heart. Like David, the Lord expects us to be men after God’s own heart.

You would think when fire came out from before the glory of the Lord and consumed their burnt offerings that Nadab and Abihu would be more respectful, but this preceding passage just emphasizes their error all the more. When the people of Israel saw it, “they shouted and fell on their faces.” What did Peter, James and John do when they saw Jesus transfigured on the Mountain and God speak to them, “This is my beloved Son…?  “when the disciples heard it, they fell on their faces and were greatly afraid.” Without Yeshua, we are as good as dead in the presence of the Lord, and without full repentance and subsequent obedience, we can expect nothing but condemnation. It should not be lost on us then when the Lord says, “By those who come near Me I will be treated as holy, and before all the people I will be honored.” We must be very careful not to think God will accept our prayers, our intentions or our religious gestures that do not align with His Holy Word. We may not be burned with fire on the spot, but an eternal fire awaits the perpetually rebellious and lawless. As we come near to God, we must “make a distinction between the holy and the profane, and between the unclean and the clean.” Without Christ, we couldn’t even approach, but when we do approach, it better be with a clean heart and a pure mind, fully dependent on our Savior.

Psalm 34 is a great song by Shane and Shane, and it’s a great summary of the Gospel. Here’s the heart it teaches: “I sought the Lord, and He answered me, And delivered me from all my fears. They looked to Him and were radiant, And their faces will never be ashamed. … O fear the Lord, you His saints; For to those who fear Him there is no want.” The Lord will not hear those who are lawless; He will only hear the righteous. Here is the man the Lord hears: “Who is the man who desires life And loves length of days that he may see good? Keep your tongue from evil And your lips from speaking deceit. Depart from evil and do good; Seek peace and pursue it. The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and His ears are open to their cry.” And yet, “The face of the Lord is against evildoers, To cut off the memory of them from the earth.” Yeshua says, “I never knew you,” to those “who practice lawlessness.” We have hope in Yeshua: “The righteous cry, and the Lord hears And delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted And saves those who are crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, But the Lord delivers him out of them all.”

Leviticus 11, Leviticus 12, Leviticus 13, Psalm 25

The Lord commands us to make a distinction between what is clean and unclean, between the edible creature and the creature that ought not be eaten, “for I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy.” 1 Peter 1 gets into this deep, but these lines should suffice from vs. 13-16: “Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance; but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, “Be holy, for I am holy.” Therefore do not be ignorant and caught up to the former lusts of the unbelieving lifestyle, but throw off what is unclean and be holy in the Lord, a people set apart. An unclean animal is not even considered meat or food in the lexicon of any New Testament writer; it is a detestable thing, not even to be touched.

Paul writes about circumcision more than anything else, and it is quite clear that the circumcision is of the heart and performed by the Holy Spirit for the converting adult. The Old Testament prophesy announces this new thing that will be done. And yet, the law states that “on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.” If we fail to meet this commandment for our sons, the Scripture is clear that we can repent and be forgiven for this oversight, but we ought not then take our boys under the knife, either. If you are a Torah-observant believer, your boys ought to be circumcised on the eighth day. If you came to understand the commandments subsequent to this day, the Holy Spirit will fulfill this commandment with “the circumcision made without hands.”

It’s amazing how Mary the Mother of God fulfilled this commandment and took Yeshua to the Temple for His circumcision on the eighth day. We know that Mary and Joseph were poor because they brought two turtledoves according to Luke 2 and offered them as required by the law for Mary’s purification. The one-year-old lamb for a burnt offering was too expensive for them. The burnt offering and sin offering were completed by Christ on the Cross, as He is now the one-time sacrifice for all time, but the purification laws apply in Spirit and in Truth.

God’s law is so perfect that we see very clearly that when we are ill, we ought to isolate ourselves, and when we are well, we ought not to isolate. Likewise, if we have clothing infected with mold or mildew, it is better to destroy it by fire than risk infecting all your other clothing.

Leviticus 14, Leviticus 15, Psalm 36

The priests used to be judges as to the cleanliness of a person, a piece of clothing or a home, but now that Yeshua is the High Priest after the order of Melchizedek, we are all priests under Him and He has given to some of us with the Holy Spirit the gift of healing. This is a better way, and with faith, healing happens, sometimes miraculously, for God’s purposes.

We see that the person with disease should isolate away from those who are well, but not the other way around. We see that the priest (now every single Christian) ought not be afraid of those who are ill, but rather go and comfort them and perhaps even help bring them back to wellness, outside the camp (not at church). We see that mold in a home is an issue the Lord takes seriously, and that if it can’t be removed in part, then the entire house should be rebuilt to eliminate it. It is a serious issue. We see that any bodily fluid is unclean and we ought to take care to clean ourselves if we touch them so as not to bring illness or sin into our lives. These laws are just as applicable today, and marital relations should not be had on the Sabbath so as to not make ourselves unclean for church.

Psalm 36 starts off through verse 4 with an excellent explanation of sin; it not only comes from the heart, but it “speaks to the ungodly within his heart.” The reason for this follows: “There is no fear of God before his eyes.” This sin becomes a type of bondage for the sinner; although he may temporarily delight in it—“it flatters him in his own eyes”—he also hates himself for it and lives in misery—“the hatred of it.” The ungodly man is full of “wickedness and deceit” and he is not wise and fails to do good, which means that he rejects and does not keep God’s commandments. In this deceit, the godless man deceives himself, thinking he is saved, perhaps, when he is not. Even before he arises from the day he “plans wickedness upon his bed,” which “sets himself on a path that is not good.” This is because “he does not despise evil.” Clearly, from this description, we read of someone in rebellion, and he may not even know his is in rebellion. If any of this describes you, even on occasion, pray on your knees in repentance for the Lord is righteous and good and wants to forgive you by the blood of Yeshua. The Lord’s lovingkindness and righteousness are gifts awaiting those who repent and turn from their sins to keep the commandments of God, by faith in the Messiah Yeshua.

Leviticus 16, Leviticus 17, Leviticus 18, Psalm 37

According to Revelation 14:12, the “saints” are “those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Yeshua.” To fully understand Leviticus 16, Read Hebrews 9; it explains what’s going on here: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews+9&version=NKJV

Particularly consider Verses 11-12: “But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.”

In Leviticus 16, when Moses records this: “Then he shall slaughter the goat of the sin offering which is for the people, and bring its blood inside the veil and do with its blood as he did with the blood of the bull, and sprinkle it on the mercy seat and in front of the mercy seat.”

Can you picture Jesus crucified, rising from the dead and going to sit on the right hand of Our Father in Heaven. There is figuratively, if not literally, a trail of blood leading from the entryway to the Heavenly Throne Room to the Mercy seat itself, where Yeshua is literally now sitting. Do you see that Leviticus is painting a prophetic picture of Messiah that could not be more clear?

If that’s not enough, look at what Moses records in the next verse: “He shall make atonement for the holy place, because of the impurities of the sons of Israel and because of their transgressions in regard to all their sins; and thus he shall do for the tent of meeting which abides with them in the midst of their impurities.”

Did not Jesus die for the atonement of our sins and enter the Holy Place to make permanent intercession for us? Is He not our new Mediator, our new High Priest, an eternal upgrade to the covenant relationship that we have with God? He is literally in the Holy of Holies all the time making intercession for us, and not just once a year. Leviticus 16 is a beautiful shadow of the true image of God and His Son sitting on the throne, ready to forgive us our sins. All we need to do is repent and walk away from them and put our trust in Him. Let us “kiss the son, lest He be angry.”

While Yeshua took on Himself the fulfillment of the sacrificial system once for all time, this law of God applies to us today as Christians grafted into Israel: “This shall be a permanent statute for you: in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall humble your souls and not do any work, whether the native, or the alien who sojourns among you; for it is on this day that atonement shall be made for you to cleanse you; you will be clean from all your sins before the Lord. It is to be a sabbath of solemn rest for you, that you may humble your souls; it is a permanent statute.“ We ought to set the Day of Atonement aside as a day of rest, prayer and fasting; we ought not to do any work. This “permanent” law of God applies to us and it is incumbent on us to keep it, if we truly love our Savior.

The Apostle Paul gets into Leviticus 17 in great detail in 1 Corinthians 8 and 10. Of particular consideration, consider this writing in 1 Cor. 10:20-22: “the things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I do not want you to have fellowship with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the Lord’s table and of the table of demons. Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He?” Paul is discussing sacrificing the hunt or the farmed animal in the field and sacrificing their blood to idols; this is something a Christian ought not partake in. Do you know that an American tradition for boys on their first hunt is to drink the blood of their first kill? This is a pagan tradition, and it is a direct violation of God’s law and commandments, and it is confirmed as a paramount first principle in Acts 15. Leviticus 17 says this: “They shall no longer sacrifice their sacrifices to the goat demons with which they play the harlot. This shall be a permanent statue to them throughout their generations.” All animals sacrificed (slain) for food ought to be offered up to the Lord God Most High alone, and their blood poured out in sacrifice to Him. He has given us this meat to eat, and we ought to be grateful for His gift to us. This is the First Commandment: “You shall have no other God besides me.”

For prophetic purposes, recall also that Yeshua was slaughtered on the cross “outside the camp.” You could spend years studying Leviticus and find that it applies directly to your life and your faith in ways you would never imagine approaching God’s Word with the wrong attitude. God’s Holy Word is neither “anachronistic” nor “repugnant,” and we must be very careful not to violate the Third Commandment: “You shall not take the Lord’s name in vain.” God’s Name extends to His Word, which was embodied in Messiah Yeshua when He came in the flesh. The Apostle Paul and the Apostle Peter both talk about men who “speak evil of dignitaries.” Jude makes a strong case agains this practice in verses 8-11: “Likewise also these dreamers defile the flesh, reject authority, and speak evil of dignitaries. Yet Michael the archangel, in contending with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” But these speak evil of whatever they do not know; and whatever they know naturally, like brute beasts, in these things they corrupt themselves. Woe to them! For they have gone in the way of Cain, have run greedily in the error of Balaam for profit, and perished in the rebellion of Korah.” While it can be certainly said that God’s Holy Scripture is a “dignitary” unto itself, what greater dignitary is there in existence than GOD MOST HIGH! We must repent from any criticism whatsoever of God’s Holy Word and ask God to show us what He wants us to learn from it. As He peels back layers, we get to know our Father in Heaven better and better and the relationship becomes everlasting. And after all, this is our end goal: our inheritance.

As a lead-in to Leviticus 18, don’t for a moment believe that the law doesn’t apply to you because you are not Israel. Romans 11 makes it clear that you ARE grafted in to Israel, if you are a true follower of the Messiah Yeshua in faith, and if you are blessed enough to humble yourself with faith to follow the Lord’s commandments that He gave to Moses and then interpreted with love during His Earthly ministry. Ezekiel 47:21-23 speaks prophetically about this “inheritance” that Israel will receive, which is the Kingdom of God, which will be brought in when Yeshua returns on the clouds of Heaven, just as Aaron created a cloud of incense in the Holy of Holies so God could come before Him on that cloud. Gentiles Christians are to be counted among the tribes of natural-born Israel, not as some separate people: “Thus you shall divide this land among yourselves according to the tribes of Israel. It shall be that you will divide it by lot as an inheritance for yourselves, and for the strangers who dwell among you and who bear children among you. They shall be to you as native-born among the children of Israel; they shall have an inheritance with you among the tribes of Israel. And it shall be that in whatever tribe the stranger dwells, there you shall give him his inheritance,” says the Lord God.” We are One people in Christ, One with the Father and subject to all of His law, ESPECIALLY Leviticus, which is full of deep Messianic prophesy and meaning for us in our lives.
 
On that note, in Leviticus 18, God says the following: “I am the Lord your God. You shall not do what is done in the land of Egypt where you lived, nor are you to do what is done in the land of Canaan where I am bringing you; you shall not walk in their statutes. You are to perform My judgments and keep My statutes, to live in accord with them; I am the Lord your God. So you shall keep My statutes and My judgments, by which a man may live if he does them; I am the Lord.” As Adopted Children of God through the Messiah Yeshua, as grafted-in branches on the Olive Tree of Israel, it is incumbent on us to throw off the traditions of our fathers and mothers and the lands in which we live and live instead as a people set apart according to the commandments of God, “by which a man may live if he does them.” These commandments cannot save, but only condemn. However, once we are saved by grace through faith, they are a recipe for life when we do them and seek after them with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength. They are the very Word of God, who became flesh, who said to us, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” We MUST be a people set apart, and obeying God is the very manner in which we do that. When we do this BECAUSE we love Him, willingly and joyfully, our relationship with Him will grow.

In the rest of the chapter, we see several laws whose time has come in world history. From the time of Adam and then Noah, when there were only eight people, until this point in the wilderness, incest was essential or the race would not have spread. When only eight people walked the Earth, marrying a relative was the only option. However, the population has now grown to a point where God is saying to no longer do this, I would surmise, because further reproduction from such marriages could cause genetic problems.

You’ll also notice God tell the children of Jacob: “You shall not marry a woman in addition to her sister as a rival while she is alive.” This is Leah and Rachel. Granted, this wasn’t Jacob’s fault; his father in-law tricked him. However, we can see the contention that this arrangement caused within the family. God doesn’t condemn Jacob in this, but He says here, do this no more.

Other key laws that apply to us today, besides the laws against incest: Don’t lie with a woman who is menstruating. Don’t offer your offspring to Molech (or any false god/demon). Those who have abortions are doing this very thing today. “Don’t lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination.” Don’t you see why the World hates the Bible so much, why Satan hates Jews so much, and Christians, and wants to destroy us or pervert us, or tell us that the law no longer applies in this “age of grace”? It’s the Devil’s greatest lie. That being said, homosexuality/lesbianism is one of many, many sins, and we should not treat it disproportionally, for they are all sins that lead to death. We must repent from any sin, and go and sin no more. We also see, “don’t lie with an animal.” I wish I could say this doesn’t happen, but in these days of Noah, it is happening with greater frequency. Calls to allow “marriage” between human and animal are on the increase, which means of course, that this commandment has already been broken. Anyone who commits any of these abominations “shall be cut off from among their people.” That means in simple English: Heaven is off the table without repentance.

Psalm 37 may has well been spoken out of Yeshua’s mouth, and as a matter of fact, it was, but in this case, through the prophet David. Notice that those who rebel against God’s commandments, defined here as “evildoers” and “wicked” will “wither quickly like the grass and fade like the green herb.” In fact, “the Lord laughs at him;” namely, the “wicked plots against the righteous.” The Lord warns: “transgressors will be altogether destroyed; the posterity of the wicked will be cut off.” But yet, the Lord offers hope to the wicked: “Depart from evil and do good, so you will abide forever. The righteous will inherit the land and dwell in it forever.” Do you see the same truth here that I quoted from above in Ezekiel 47:21-23? It’s also in Ezekiel 18 and 33, but Jesus says the same thing to the woman caught in adultery: “go and sin no more.” Our sins are completely forgiven when we repent, which means to stop sinning, ask for forgiveness with humility for our sin, and then to go and sin no more.

The Psalm also has blessings for those who love the Lord and keep His commandments: “Do not fret because of evildoers, be not envious toward wrongdoers. … Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He will do it. … Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him.” Doesn’t this sound like Revelation 14:12: “Here is the patience of the saints, here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Yeshua.” “The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom, and his tongue speaks justice. The law of his God is in his heart; his steps do not slip.” This is second covenant truth: The law of God is written on the tablets of our hearts. “Wait on the Lord and keep His way, and He will exalt you to inherit the land; when the wicked are cut off, you will see it.” Remember the parables Yeshua taught. The Master of the vinyard, the Master of the servants. He goes away for a long time. How long do the 10 virgins wait. Look toward the end of Matthew 24 into Matthew 25. We must be found doing the Lord’s will—His commandments—when He returns, which identifies us as sheep who hear His voice and love Him. Those who do this are “righteous” and will “inherit” the kingdom of God forever.

Leviticus 19, Leviticus 20, Psalm 38

The Lord demands: “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” He then goes through an expanded rendition of some of the 10 commandments, highlighting honor to parents, the sabbaths, and avoiding idolatry. These are the same three He emphasized in Exodus 20 by making longer. These three repeat most often throughout Scripture, because they matter more to God.

Notice again that sacrifices are eaten by the one offering them, and leftovers should only be kept for two days without refrigeration. This shows that the sacrifices are both holy and beautiful, providing meat to eat for God’s holy people while also teaching obedience to the Lord’s commandments.

With great mercy to the poor, the Lord commands us not to glean from our fields but to leave fruit for those who don’t have their own land and for the immigrants to eat. Yet, He also notes that we should not give any undue attention to the poor or the rich, but rather to treat each person equally as a creation of Almighty God with dignity and justice. You can see this same principle repeated in James 2:1-4.

We see the Lord’s second summary commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” but this comes right after another important truth: “you shall not take vengeance.” Thus, every place where the judgment is death for sin, this is a marker that God’s punishment refers to the second death, or death of the soul. We ought not to take judgment of others into our own hands, for judgment is for Christ alone on the Last Day. Now we can read the Torah law in spirit and truth.

When we hear the Lord say, “You shall not breed together two kinds of your cattle; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor wear a garment upon you of two kinds of material mixed together” it seems the Lord is commanding not to mix the holy with the profane, the sacred with the secular and the saved with the unsaved. We cannot be unequally yoked, Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 6:14.

We also learn that fruit trees should be harvested for eating five years after planting, to enable their solid growth, but also that the fruit of the fourth year goes to the Lord as an offering. We are doing this with the fruit trees we planted last year, because the Lord commands it.

The laws against tattoos, marks, beard shavings and the like are all prohibitions against pagan practices; these laws are only meant to be taken literally in that Israel ought to be set apart amidst its neighbors. The Hassidic Jews have taken the beard commandment literally, when in the time it was written, it was literally a direct prohibition against a pagan practice to shave the corners of your beard for the purpose of sacrifice to the dead or sacrifice to their pagan god, who are actually demons. It’s critically important for us to study the Word of God and its context day and night, and yes, we all ought to do this, for without this, how could we possibly accumulate the knowledge of God which leads to life?

We should honor our elders and revere them for their wisdom, especially our father and mother. We learn offering children to Molech ought to be a death sentence, according to the heart of God. Without repentance, these sins against God will bring the second death.

Important note for us conservatives: we need to treat the aliens sojourning among us with equal treatment to those who are citizens; these are children of God whom God loves and wants to build relationship with: “The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself.” The Scripture here in Leviticus is a prophetic template for the time when Yeshua would come and create his Body, made up of both the “Jews and the Greeks.” Gentiles grafted into Israel through Messiah are equal with the Jews in the eyes of God. However, the strangers/aliens/gentiles must adopt the ways of God and follow His commandments and assimilate to the ways of Israel, because when these aliens follow after false gods or strange customs, God instructs Israel to put them to death. Again, while the nation of Israel may have had the civil authority to carry out this punishment, in spirit and truth this death sentence is eternal and relevant for the unrepentant soul. In today’s world, banishment is absolutely appropriate for an alien who breaks the law of God or even the laws of a nation, without repentance.

Anyone who offers sacrifices to idols (do you eat Halal food?, what about food sacrificed to Buddha at a Chinese restaurant), if you visit with mediums or spirtualists or practice witchcraft of any kind, including putting your trust in pharmaceuticals before your trust in God, this is a death sentence in the eternal kingdom. Consider 2 Chronicles 16:12-13: “And in the thirty-ninth year of his reign, Asa became diseased in his feet, and his malady was severe; yet in his disease he did not seek the LORD, but the physicians. So Asa rested with his fathers; he died in the forty-first year of his reign.” Pharmakeia, Strong’s Greek 5331, is the use of medicine, drugs or spells, and Yeshua condemns those who trust in them: “All nations were deceived by your pharmakeia” (Revelation 18:23), referring to the whore of Babylon. Revelation 9:20-21: “But the people who did not die in these plagues still refused to repent of their evil deeds and turn to God. They continued to worship demons and idols made of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood—idols that can neither see nor hear nor walk! And they did not repent of their murders or their PHARMAKEIA or their sexual immorality or their thefts.” Abortion, dependance on pharmaceutical drugs, sexual immorality or dependence on the government through tax theft are sins that lead to death. It’s no surprise that antinomians like to deemphasize Revelation, for it makes it abundantly clear that the Law of God in Leviticus applies to us as believing Christians who are grafted in to Israel.

Leviticus 21, Leviticus 22, Leviticus 23, Psalm 39

Leviticus 21 makes it clear we ought to not touch a dead body unless it is of an immediate family member or spouse. We also learn that we should not shave our heads or beards as part of a pagan practice of worship like the men of Canaan had been doing. Also, we ought to marry our spouse as virgins.

I wanted to note that the punishment for a daughter of the priest being caught in harlotry is for her to be burned with fire. This is similar to the man who marries a woman and her mother from Leviticus 20; all three are burned with fire. This is not the only place where such a punishment occurs, but it is relevant that it starts in a section concerning the dead. You’ll see that in Amos 2:1-3, God punishes the Moabites for burning the dead bodies of the Edomites. In Isaiah 1:31, the strong man (Satan) and his work shall burn together and there shall be none to quench them. In Joshua 7:15, the man who takes things God has commanded him not to take is burned with fire because he has “transgressed the covenant of the Lord” and “because he has committed a disgraceful thing in Israel.” There are other examples. The point I want to make is that the Bible seems to make clear that cremation is not a righteous manner to memorialize a human body; rather, it brings disgrace. It is passages like these that have caused me to change my mind and desire burial rather than cremation upon death.

In Leviticus 22 we learn that only sons of Aaron who are holy with no defects can go before the Lord to make offerings. Yeshua, a priest after the order of Melchizedek, has become our eternal High Priest, and not only did He go before the Lord without defect—He was without sin—He also offered Himself up as the one-time sacrifice for all time. Yeshua replaced the Aaronic line of priests with Himself and He replaced the Aaronic sacrifices with Himself. He also became our Mediator, forever sitting in the Mercy Seat, which is also called the Judgment Seat. Thank God He has given us a superior system for the atonement of sin and justification in His eyes. As men and women with many defects, we rely on Yeshua as our covering of righteousness so that we too can stand before the Lord and not die. Praise be to God! Because we love Yeshua and what He has done for us, we ought to follow His commandments.

In Leviticus 23, God lays out His appointed times that He expects us to keep forever, even as Gentile Christians grafted into Israel. These are the Lord God’s appointed times that are holy convocations, they are not the appointed times of the Jews. They all have deep spiritual significance to Yeshua’s first and second coming, and we ought to “keep the feast[s],” as Paul said, in the spirit of “sincerity and truth,” to fully appreciate what God has done for us. I produced a whole Bible study on this topic, which I invite you to watch and learn from: https://odysee.com/@FirstFruitsMinistries:b/BiblicalFeasts:0. These appointed times are the weekly Sabbath, the Feast of Passover/Unleavened Bread, First Fruits, Pentecost, the Day of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, the Feast of Tabernacles, and the Eighth Day.

Leviticus 24, Leviticus 25, Psalm 40

Slavery is an act of mercy when the alternative is death. God’s mercy toward Israel here is that no countryman can be made a slave. His mercy to the conquered nations is that some may choose to live as a servant rather than be destroyed on the spot. To a conquered nation, when annihilation of all living beings within it is the norm, the option to become a slave is preferable to death.

Paul interprets these laws by highlighting the love of Christ, and how the slave and slaveowner ought to treat each other as brothers in the Lord. Now that Gentiles are grafted in to Israel, the nations that would be conquered by war for spoils are now conquered for Christ, and not by war but by evangelism. We become slaves to Christ, and go out into all the world to make disciples (new slaves) to Messiah.

And yet, slavery still exists, and so Paul also writes that if you find yourself in the situation where you are in bondage, you ought to love your oppressor so as to potentially lead them to Christ.

We read, “There shall be one standard for you; it shall be for the stranger as well as the native, for I am the Lord your God.’” This is the same thing that Paul writes as referenced above. Whether a stranger and freeman or a stranger and a slave, the Lord expects both to be treated the same way as the Israeli freeman or servant. We ought to love one another, as the Lord loved us, regardless of what station in life we find ourselves in. Slavery is just reality that the Lord allows. That does not mean that He commands slavery. Just like Jesus said divorce was allowed under the law given by God to Moses, particularly in cases of adultery, due to the “hardness of your hearts,” so too was slavery allowed due to the hardness of our hearts. By no means does that mean God desires it or commands it.

Israel is thought to be an olive tree, and even in Romans 11 we see this metaphor used by Paul to represent how Gentiles are grafted in to the olive tree of Israel through faith in the Messiah Yeshua. And so when we beat olives to make oil for the lamp, which burns continually, we are actually taking the fruit of the tree and putting it to even greater use, by burning it for light. How many prophetic metaphors are in this one concept! The lamp is golden, representing Yeshua and His Church, and it burns the fruit of the Tree of Israel forever, meaning the work of the Saints that produces fruit, but not without persecution. The lamp burns outside the veil of testimony in the tent of meeting before the Lord continually. The Lord God knows us by our fruit, and He is certainly watching our works to see whether they testify to Him, His Holy Name, from this side of Heaven, and this is good. Likewise, the 12 cakes similarly have meaning for Israel as well as the Messiah Yeshua.

“If a man injures his neighbor, just as he has done, so it shall be done to him: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; just as he has injured a man, so it shall be inflicted on him.” This is the exact same law as “you will reap what you sow” and it is the exact same law as “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Remember: God is the judge, not man. Messiah sits on the judgment seat on the Last Day. If you are reaping what you sow, you may lose your eye on account of you harming someone else’s vision. You might have your bone fracture because you intentionally harmed a brother in a way that led to his bone being fractured. If you are doing to others as you want to be done to you or as you don’t want things to be done to you, then you are simply living out your own future by your actions.

The seven-day Sabbath, the seven-year Sabbath and the Sabbath of seven-times, seven-year Sabbaths of Leviticus 25 are all prophetic templates for the End of Days and the Millennial Reign of Christ.

Hebrews 10:5 quotes Psalm 40 from the Septuagint, which considers the source material Psalm 39. And so this prophesy of Yeshua literally says in the Septuagint, “sacrifice and offering You have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me.” Clearly, that body was Yeshua, the one-time sacrifice to end all animal sacrifice. Let our words be in Messiah and our guidance as well.

Leviticus 26, Leviticus 27, Psalm 41

Leviticus 26 is the source text for most of the things that happened to Israel and Judah; the Lord promised and the Lord delivered, blessed be the name of the Lord. In fact, Leviticus 26 is fulfilled so many times in the history of Israel that we can KNOW without a fraction of the doubt that Scripture is the Word of God and the Lord is faithful to His promises, without any doubting. This is significant as we consider our redemption in the blood of Yeshua and His promise to return and bring us to the place He has prepared for us. We can count on it without doubting. However, we also must heed His Word when He says the Saints are those who keep the commandments of God and faith in the Messiah Yeshua; these are the ones He will take into His kingdom. And so we see this same theme here in Leviticus and know that if we keep His commands we will receive the blessing, and what better blessing than our inheritance among the Nation of Israel in the Kingdom of God. If we do not keep His commandments, we will be cursed and then punished seven times for our sins.

As the Lord summarizes His commandments, He prominently places two of them above the rest: Do not worship idols, images or objects and keep His Sabbath every Friday at sundown to Saturday at sundown, without fail. These are the obligations we have to God Most High, Yahweh, and this is how we love Yeshua and put Him first in our lives. If we do these things, the Lord will bless us with abundance and peace and He will be with us always. However, for those who do not keep His commandments, He will allow the enemy to come in and destroy and nothing will go our way. The Lord will literally set His face against us when we sin against Him and disregard His commandments, or falsely say they are “done away with.” It doesn’t matter whether the enemy is righteous or not, for only God is righteous, but He will use an evil kingdom, as He did with Assyria against Israel and Babylon against Judah, to destroy the nation and drive its people into death or dispersion. If they still do not repent of their wickedness, He will continue to bring punishment and curses upon them, but if they repent, He will “remember” them and restore them. The Lord has pronounced the blessings and the curses, and this is what He has done and will do. Know Leviticus 26 well, because this applies to everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord and is grafted into Israel through the blood of Yeshua.

In Leviticus 27, we see the principles of first fruits and tithing articulated. We ought to give our first and our best to the Lord, at least 10 percent of all of our increase. We also see the valuation of people according to the “difficult vows” that he makes. Is our faith in Yeshua not a vow? Did Yeshua not redeem us by His blood? Did He not pay the price for our sin? This chapter has more meaning than I understand at the moment, but I will continue to pray for God to reveal it to me, and I urge you all to do the same.

In Psalm 41, we note that God delivers the one who helps the helpless out of trouble when it comes upon him. He will protect him and keep him alive, and sustain him on his sickbed, restoring him to health. He will give him a name of blessing upon the Earth. Note that we must continually keep a humble and contrite heart: “O Lord, be gracious to me; heal my soul, for I have sinned against you.” Our heart must be continually repentant, always seeking righteousness according to the Word of the Lord. We are blessed with Yeshua’s blood atoning for us, and by the Holy Spirit helping us to do this; let this blessing not be lost. The enemies who speak evil against righteous men will perish, but the blessed one will live in the Lord’s presence forever.

Numbers 1, Numbers 2, Numbers 3, Psalm 42

God asked Moses to number Israel so He could prophesy the coming of His son who was to be crucified on the cross, and this is the purpose of Numbers 1-3. The 186,400 on the East who led the procession represent the long section of the cross, while the 108,100 opposite on the West represent the short, head section of the cross. On the north 157,600 and on the south 151,450, roughly equal, would make up the cross beam. The 22,000 in the center around the tabernacle represent the body of Yeshua on the cross; and the priests there who led the tabernacle sacrifices foreshadow the sacrifice of Yeshua Himself. If you draw the encampments out proportionally using the numbers mentioned, you will see a very clear image of a cross, and the formation would move toward the rising of the sun in the east; the symbolism of which should not be lost on us one bit.


Instead of the firstborn of every tribe being dedicated to the Lord, the Levites would be given over to the Lord and the difference in number between first born and Levites is redeemed so there is an even trade. The Lord God must always make things right, and His ways are orderly and precise, just like His Word. He would give His own firstborn son on our behalf, and we are redeemed by His blood.

Psalm 42 was written for my present state of mind, as my soul thirsts for the living waters of Yeshua; for the living God. Why is my soul in despair and why has it become disturbed in me? The World indeed has got me down, and yet I am not of the world, and greater is He who is in me than he who is in the world. The psalmist speaks to me: “Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him for the help of His presence.” Yes, His Holy Spirit indeed gives me help and works to align me with God’s will, which He commands with lovingkindness in the daytime, urging obedience for my good, and in the night I praise Him with song; it is indeed a prayer to the God of my life. He is “the help of my countenance and my God.” Ah yes, I would have lost hope had I not believed I would see His face and be able to praise His mighty name, lying myself down at His feet, giving Him everything I have. What abundance does He have in store for my inheritance? Just to dwell in the house of the Lord forever; this is all I will ever need.

Addendum:

The Lord’s love is real, it is eternal, and it is so great that we cannot actually fathom how great it is. We read this in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” As Christian men or women, it is our inclination to rest in this love and salvation of our Father through Christ, and personally, there is nothing else in life that gives me any hope at all. This IS my hope. But we cannot take these blessings out of context and believe that the whole story has been told. There are curses that apply to us when we disobey, just as from the beginning. Jesus made that abundantly clear. In Matthew 7:21-23, the Lord says that those believing Christians who call out “Lord, Lord,” at His coming, professing His name, will be condemned to Hell on account of their lawlessness. These Christians were so strong in their faith they did miracles, but it’s not enough to rest in our faith for glorification. For salvation, yes, but for glorification, no. While we are here in the flesh, we are sanctified by the power of the Holy Spirit, and He convicts us of sin on a regular basis as part of that process. If we deny Him and continue in rebellion against His Word, the salvation we’ve gained through faith is lost through disobedience. The Lord does not remember those who purposefully or carelessly rebel against Him. These are the hypocrites, even blind guides. And so the Devil’s grace message is Love, Love, Love, without any obligation on our part to enter into relationship with God. We can still sin, and be A-OK. This is a false teaching leading to death. Our salvation and faith is the beginning of a long and difficult walk in this life through the wilderness. We must submit to God as He sanctifies us, and repent from our sin, which means to turn away from it and do it no more. Our glorification depends on both our faith and our obedience. There is no inheritance for the disobedient. Revelation 14:12 and Matthew 7:21-23 make this clear. Rest in His love, but then do the work that He has prepared beforehand in this Torah we’re now reading. He explained it this way when He came in the flesh, but only when you recognize that Scripture does not contradict—Not ever—does this become clear.

Numbers 4, Numbers 5, Numbers 6, Psalm 43

In Numbers 4, we see more significant symbolism. Moses’s copy of the Heavenly Ark of the Covenant is covered with a blue cloth when it must be moved to prevent the people from death by looking upon it. The Commandments of God were written by His Holy Spirit on blue sapphire stones, and so the blue tassel of the tzit-tzit and the blue cloth covering the ark both represent the commandments of God. Notice then, that the blue cloth also covers the table of shewbread of the presence of God and the lampstand as well as the golden altar. These represent the Body of Yeshua, the light of Yeshua’s Holy Spirit, and the sacrificial altar on which He presented His own body to be sacrificed for us instead of bulls and goats. Each of these is covered by a blue cloth representing the commandments, because each element is eternal, just upgraded through the life and purpose of Yeshua who came in the flesh. His body and blood became our sacrifice, His Word is ever present with us to guide us, and His light shines bright within those who trust in Him and obey His commandments. Don’t keep that light under the cloth, but put it on the lamp stand to shine brightly, Yeshua said. We must not keep just the letter, but the spirit of the law, and to put it into action in our lives.

There are many examples of Nazarite vows in the Bible, and even the Apostle Paul had taken one in Acts 18. Look to Numbers 5 for more details about what that is.

The Priestly Blessing, or Birkat Kohanim, is spoken at the end of each service each Shabbat, and I also pray it for my children and my wife and everyone else in my family and friends group. I’m in the process of learning how to sing it. Here it is in Hebrew and then English:

יברכך יהוה וישמרך
יאר יהוה פניו אליך ויחנך
ישא יהוה פניו אליך וישם לך שׁלום
ye·va·re'·khe·kha' · Adonai · ve·yeesh'·me·re'·kha
ya·eir · Adonai · pa·nav · e·ley'·kha · vee·khoon·ne'·kah
yees·sa · Adonai · pa·nav · e·ley'·kha · ve·ya·seim · le·kha · sha·lom
“The Lord bless you, and keep you; The Lord make His face shine on you, And be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance on you, And give you peace.”

There is no greater blessing than to have the Lord God Most High shine His face upon you and be gracious to you through the sacrifice of our Lord and Savior Messiah Yeshua. This is the blessing that we all want, that we are all striving for, when we have faith in Yeshua and keep His commandments. I highly recommend this sermon series that goes into deep background about the significance of this priestly blessing: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmI6y1h4ekf4RJnEkWDzHiZ1nbxJzFcVI

Addendum:
It’s amazing that as I do a Duck Duck Go search for Ephesians 2, the browser auto inserts Ephesians 2:8-9 into my results. What this tells me is that MANY Christians are deceived and they want to cover their eyes and close their ears from the truth. The entire message of Ephesians 2:8-9 is completed in Ephesians 10, and you cannot understand the faith without all three verses:

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”

And so yes, God loves us beyond understanding and provided His Son to atone for our sin, and we are saved solely by this free gift and nothing else. In that salvation, God gives us the Holy Spirit to help us. What does He help us do? He helps keep us from sin, and to convict us when we do sin. It’s that feeling of dread you get in your heart when you say or do something you ought not say or do. Or even when you think about saying or doing something that is sinful.

For while works do not save us—they cannot and never will—, they absolutely are part of our sanctification and they are essential for glorification. Revelation 14:12 says: “Here is the patience of the Saints; here are they who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Yeshua.” The Saints are those who will dwell with the Lord forever in the Kingdom of God. If you aren’t a Saint, you aren’t going to be there. It’s that simple. You may say “Lord, Lord,” but the the Lord will say “depart from me you workers of lawlessness, I never knew you.” We must walk in the commandments, the good works prepared beforehand. Jesus said Himself, “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.” (John 14:21)

Numbers 7, Numbers 8, Psalm 44

In both the Psalm (44) and Numbers 7, we see God making a key point that we must recognize to be aligned with Him. The Lord commands the leaders of Israel to make offerings to the Lord, but then the Lord gives these offerings back to them as a blessing to be used in the service of the tent of meeting. In Psalm 44, the Lord’s right hand, the pre-incarnate Yeshua, defeats the enemies of Canaan, but the Israelites did nothing but obey the commandments of God, and this is why He delivered them. When they failed to obey, the Lord turned His face away. The point is this: God, who created the Heavens and the Earth, owns everything, even you and me. When we recognize this and give Him freely what He commands of us, He will bless us from that very recognition and give us an abundance that we do not deserve. To serve the Lord is to obey His commandments. When we do this, He gives us more than what we need to continue to grow in that relationship. The Lord wants to be first in our lives, and He rewards us greatly when we choose Him.

The Menorah was constructed to provide light in front of the lampstand. How many times did Yeshua use this lampstand in His teaching. As a believer, we put our lamps on a stand so they provide light to those around us, and do not hide the light under a table. Yeshua is the light of the world, and His light shines in us. Yeshua stands in the midst of the lampstand with the seven lights, representing the complete but diverse Church, with many parts of the Body each providing light in their own way. Let us obey with faith and shine our light for all to see.

The priests were allowed to do work on the Sabbath to prepare the Tabernacle and all of the implements needed for the service to the Lord. However, at 50 years old, they were commanded to do no work, like the rest of Israel, yet they could still assist the other priests without doing work.

Numbers 9, Numbers 10, Psalm 45

Passover was so important to God, because of its historical significance and its prophetic significance to the death of Yeshua on the cross, that God commanded Israel to keep the feast a second time if they were unclean or away for the first celebration. Note that the instructions are clear: “If an alien sojourns among you and observes the Passover to the Lord, according to the statute of the Passover and according to its ordinance, so he shall do; you shall have one statute, both for the alien and for the native of the land.’ ” Both Jews and Gentiles are united in one body of Christ through His Passover sacrifice on the cross and His subsequent resurrection to glory.

Compare this verse about both Jews and Gentiles celebrating Passover to the prophesy in Ezekiel 47:21-23, which foretells the second coming and Kingdom of God on the Earth:
“You are to distribute this land among yourselves according to the tribes of Israel. You are to allot it as an inheritance for yourselves and for the foreigners residing among you and who have children. You are to consider them as native-born Israelites; along with you they are to be allotted an inheritance among the tribes of Israel. In whatever tribe a foreigner resides, there you are to give them their inheritance,” declares the Sovereign Lord.” In Christ, we are grafted in to Israel—not a new Israel, but the Israel God called from the beginning.

Note also that God comes into the tabernacle of meeting on a cloud, and He also would hear Israel’s prayers for atonement on a cloud of incense throughout the ages. Here in the wilderness, “So it was continuously; the cloud would cover it by day, and the appearance of fire by night.” The cloud would literally lead Israel through the wilderness, beckoning the nation to move when it departed, and calling for a sojourn when it rested. Note that Yeshua will come upon the clouds of Heaven. Both Daniel prophesy this second coming and Yeshua prophesies this as well, when He says in Matthew 24:30, “Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.” God comes to us on the clouds of Heaven. Look through this theme throughout Scripture and you will note it all points to Yeshua.

Psalm 45 may have described a king on Earth, but it is a clear prophesy of the King Messiah and His queen, Israel, the Body of Yeshua, the Ecclesia. Note that she is told to forget her people and her father’s house. The Lord asks us to put Him first and to forget the World entirely. The Church is remembered in all generations, because she is known by the Lord Yeshua. She brings her virgins with her into this Kingdom; the virgins who had enough oil for their lamps.

Numbers 11, Numbers 12, Numbers 13, Psalm 46

REBELLION! “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.” (1 Samuel 15:23). Do we complain before the Lord about what He has and hasn’t given to us (rebellion)? Do we long for things that we don’t have (covetousness). Do we challenge the spiritual leaders that God has put into our lives (stubbornness and rebellion). Do we complain that God has given us too much to do and we can’t handle it? That’s right, we can’t handle it. But you know who can? “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Is the Lord’s power limited? Now you shall see whether My word will come true for you or not’.” Do we trust in the Lord with all of our heart and lean not on our own understanding? If we don’t, we commit sin worthy to be punished by death, by burning with fire. We must repent from our complaining, our stubbornness, our rebellion, our covetousness, because these are sins against the Most High God that are punishable by death. We cannot continue in rebellion and expect salvation.

Today’s reading is the same as Yeshua’s words: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened…. If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!“ (Matthew 7:7-11) DO NOT think for one moment that there are two different gods or that somehow God’s attitude has changed with the advent of Christ. God is eternal and does not change. God’s attitude is identical! It’s all about our heart. If our heart is contrite, obedient and loving toward our Father, He will give us everything we ask for, but if we have a heart of complaining, disobedience or anger against what He has given us, we can expect nothing but judgment. The Lord loves us and He wants to give us everything we need with abundance, but He will only abide with the obedient who obey His commands and rejoice in the gifts He has given us. “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, And to heed than the fat of rams.” (1 Samuel 15:22)

The Lord hates a rebellious spirit. Isaiah 63:10: “But they rebelled against him and grieved his Holy Spirit. So he became their enemy and fought against them.” Luke 6:46: “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?” Hebrews 3:15: “Remember what it says: “Today when you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts as Israel did when they rebelled.” Malachi 2:17: “You have wearied the Lord with your words; Yet you say, ‘In what way have we wearied Him?’ In that you say, ‘Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and He delights in them,’ or, ‘Where is the God of justice?’” 2 Timothy 4:3-4: “For the time will come when they will not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, will multiply teachers for themselves because they have an itch to hear something new. They will turn away from hearing the truth and will turn aside to myths.”

It therefore should not surprise us when the Lord has this attitude: “Say to the people, ‘Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat meat; for you have wept in the ears of the Lord, saying, “Oh that someone would give us meat to eat! For we were well-off in Egypt.” Therefore the Lord will give you meat and you shall eat. You shall eat, not one day, nor two days, nor five days, nor ten days, nor twenty days, but a whole month, until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you; because you have rejected the Lord who is among you and have wept before Him, saying, “Why did we ever leave Egypt?” The plagues that follow are just rewards for the works of the people, for their heart was selfish, rebellious and loathing of the Lord and the gifts they had given them.

There are a couple other key points worth noting in today’s reading:
When the Holy Spirit fell on the 70 that Moses had picked, but Eldad and Medad were prophesising in the camp, Joshua asked Moses to restrain them, but instead, Moses prophesied about this time when the Holy Spirit has fallen on all who believe and obey the Living God in Messiah: “But Moses said to him, ‘Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them!’” Paul says: “Pursue love, and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy. …he who prophesies speaks edification and exhortation and comfort to men. … I wish you all spoke with tongues, but even more that you prophesied; for he who prophesies is greater than he who speaks with tongues…” (1 Corinthians 14:1-5)
God appointed 70 elders, through the hand of Moses, to help him with the ministry. God is the only one who can call a man into the ministry.
Miriam spoke against Moses on account of his Ethiopian (Cushite) wife, exhibiting some racism as well as jealousy concerning Moses’s spiritual authority. Because of her rebellion against God’s anointed spiritual leader, God punished her with an unholy and unclean “whiteness” to correct her racist and jealous thinking. Woe to any man or woman who challenges legitimate spiritual authority, as Peter and others write, false prophets “are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries.” This usually comes with punishment by eternal death, but Miriam was blessed that the Lord forgave her after a brief one-week punishment. We do not hear of any further rebellion coming from her. Her heart must have been with the Lord to such a degree that the Lord’s mercy and grace covered her sin, after a brief punishment. This punishment made her stronger and better in her faith, just like any trial or tribulation we face will also do.
Joshua the Levite and Caleb of Issachar were the only two men to bring a blessing out of their trip into the Promised Land, based on their undying faith in the Lord. “We should by all means go up and take possession of it, for we will surely overcome it,” Caleb said. Caleb trusted in the Lord and His promises, and for this, He is one of two men who will enter the Promised Land. Let this be a lesson for us. We MUST trust fully in the Lord’s promises, or we will not receive them.
Psalm 46 sums up today’s lesson quite nicely: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear…” No matter what comes our way, no matter what threat, what challenge, what disaster, what torture, what death, “the Lord of Hosts is with us.” There is no other hope that we need, and we must learn to trust Him no matter what. What does Paul say? “Rejoice Always! Again, I say to you Rejoice!”

Numbers 14, Numbers 15, Numbers 16, Psalm 47 (Sermon)

These chapters are monumental for our understanding of the Lord Yahweh, God Most High, and the Messiah Yeshua, and they can be summed up with Psalm 47’s first two verses: “O clap your hands, all peoples; Shout to God with the voice of joy. For the Lord Most High is to be feared, A great King over all the earth.“

“Fear” is NOT better interpreted as “revere,” for reverence is simply one part of the definition of “fear,” and if we are found to be in rebellion against God, fear is the only response we ought to have. The Most High God created the Heavens and the Earth and the Sea and all that is in them. What He created He can destroy in an instant. But His heart is to save, which is why He sent His Son our Lord Yeshua to pay for our sins. If you recall, in Deuteronomy 18:15-19, Yeshua is prophesied to be a prophet “like unto Moses,” and so Moses and His interactions with the People of Israel in the wilderness are a prophetic foreshadow of how Yeshua intercedes for us with His blood.

Moses several times puts himself between the people of Israel and the Lord’s wrath. God even asked Moses to step aside and let Him destroy the whole lot of them, but Moses in absolute humility and grace puts himself before the Lord and intercedes on their behalf as a mediator in prophetic representation of what Yeshua would do for us on the cross. First, look at what God offers to Moses:

“The Lord said to Moses, “How long will this people spurn Me? And how long will they not believe in Me, despite all the signs which I have performed in their midst? I will smite them with pestilence and dispossess them, and I will make you into a nation greater and mightier than they.”

This was the same promise given to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Moses would be the new Patriarch if He accepts this blessing, but look at how Moses prays for this people, even as they challenge him and his authority, and it is for the benefit of the faith of Gentiles in Egypt in the Lord God Most High!!!!:

“But Moses said to the Lord, “Then the Egyptians will hear of it, for by Your strength You brought up this people from their midst, and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. … Now if You slay this people as one man, then the nations who have heard of Your fame will say, ‘Because the Lord could not bring this people into the land which He promised them by oath, therefore He slaughtered them in the wilderness.’ But now, I pray, let the power of the Lord be great, just as You have declared, ‘The Lord is slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, forgiving iniquity and transgression; but He will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generations. Pardon, I pray, the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of Your lovingkindness, just as You also have forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.”

What a great prayer for intercession! Moses asks for the Lord’s mercy and grace toward Israel to protect the faith of Gentiles. What did Yeshua do? He died at the hands of both Israel and the Romans (Gentiles) for the mercy and grace of God toward both. Yeshua sat at the right hand of God to serve as the Mediator in the place of Moses, and it is now an eternal mediation that He provides by His Name. The Lord prophesies of the Messianic time while also showing us the incredible power of Moses’s prayer: “'So the Lord said, ‘I have pardoned them according to your word; but indeed, as I live, all the earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord’.” WOW! This is the power of prayer! The glory described here is coming at the End of the Age, on the Last Day. We ought to pray like Moses to our Lord Yeshua, who is our intercessor to God Most High.

Caleb and Joshua will be the only ones to enter the Promised Land in all of this, and the innocent children under 20 years old because they did not sin against the Lord. Everyone else will die in the wilderness on account of their disbelief. Let this be a lesson to us of what true faith looks like. We must be willing to trust in the Lord against ALL odds. Even when giants and trouble beyond our comprehension faces us, we must trust in the Lord and believe with all of our hearts that He will deliver us, one way or another, because this kind of faith is the only way WE will make it into the Promised Land. We might say we believe in Yeshua, but when the rubber meets the road, we must prove we believe in Yeshua by stepping out in faith in the same way as Joshua and Caleb, or we too will wander in this wilderness until our corpses rot in the Earth. Only if we have the faith of Joshua and Caleb will God allow our glorification in the Promised Land of our inheritance, the Kingdom of Heaven, through the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Listen to the words of Joshua and Caleb. This must be our heart right here and right now: “If the Lord is pleased with us, then He will bring us into this land and give it to us—a land which flows with milk and honey. Only do not rebel against the Lord ; and do not fear the people of the land, for they will be our prey. Their protection has been removed from them, and the Lord is with us; do not fear them.”

We cannot disobey the Lord’s commandments on account of the oppression we face here. We cannot be like the ones who want to follow after a new leader and return to Egypt, which represents the bondage of sin and death. For us, any leader not aligned with Yeshua is aligned with Satan. There is historical evidence that suggests that some of Israel actually did try to return to Egypt by wandering off together away from Moses by following a new leader, and there is evidence that Pharaoh actually recaptured them and put them right back into bondage. That is what happens when we abandon the Lord God and our Messiah Yeshua; we fall back into the bondage of sin and death. Only by obeying and fully trusting Yeshua do we have any hope.

Another lesson is here for pastors and other church leaders who lead people astray; the wolves in sheep’s clothing. The 10 men other than Joshua and Caleb who gave a bad report of the Promised Land to Israel died by a plague before the Lord. These men were judged for their lack of faith in the Lord’s promises. They weren’t even allowed to continue their lives in the wilderness; they were taken out immediately. Beware, as James writes in James 3:1, “My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment.” Joshua and Caleb, who showed undying faith, even in the midst of criticism from the 10 other “teachers,” “remained alive” and entered the promised land. As teachers, we must also know that when we teach the truth, our views are likely to be criticized even by the majority of the other leaders within the Church. The truth is not popular, and as we know from Matthew 7, “many” believers in Jesus will be condemned on the Last Day for abandoning it.

Notice also that God does not give people second chances to repent from blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. When Israel listened to the false teachers and the Lord condemned them for their lack of faith, they tried to repent. This is terrifying. The Lord said “no.” The people said in Numbers 14, “Here we are; we have indeed sinned, but we will go up to the place where the Lord has promised.” This was additional disobedience. The Lord had already commanded them to wander for 40 years, and Moses says, “Why then are you transgressing the commandment of the Lord, when it will not succeed? Do not go up, or you will be struck down before your enemies.” We must listen to the Lord when He says “no,” and pray that in our obedience to His chastening He will have mercy on us. For those who went up when the Lord said “no,” they died at the hands of the Amalekites and Canaanites, and very likely their souls died with them. In Hebrews 10:26-27, the message is consistent: “For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries.” We must repent and go and sin no more when we are convicted by the Holy Spirit.

The principles of unknowingly or unintentional sin are explained in Numbers 15:22-31, and they are very good lessons that absolutely apply to us in our Christian walk. “But when you unwittingly fail and do not observe all these commandments, which the Lord has spoken to Moses, even all that the Lord has commanded you through Moses, from the day when the Lord gave commandment and onward throughout your generations…” The bull offering for the congregation or the goat offering for the individual are replaced in the New Covenant with Yeshua’s sacrifice, but these prayers for repentance from unknowing or unintentional sin are essential to our forgiveness, and they are directly related to the Law of Moses and this Word of the Lord in Numbers here. Consider Acts 15:21: “For Moses has had throughout many generations those who preach him in every city, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath.” Gentiles who become Christians and come into the faith as grafted-in (adopted) children of Israel will learn the law of Moses over time and be convicted little by little to obey the law of God given by Moses. As we do this, we must repent of our unknowing or unintentional sin through the blood of Yeshua. Through Yeshua, the congregation or the individual is forgiven from this sin.

Note this verse from Numbers 15: “You shall have one law for him who does anything unintentionally, for him who is native among the sons of Israel and for the alien who sojourns among them.” This means, whether you are Jew or Greek (Gentile), you are subject to this law and must repent by the blood of Yeshua as the Holy Spirit convicts you of this sin. Now, once you discover that you are in violation of a law through study or instruction, you have two choices: You can repent and go and sin no more, or you can defiantly ignore the law and continue to disregard it, perhaps thinking that it does not apply to you. The Lord has something to say about this, too: “But the person who does anything defiantly, whether he is native or an alien, that one is BLASPHEMING the Lord; and that person shall be cut off from among his people. Because he has despised the word of the Lord and has broken His commandment, that person shall be completely cut off; his guilt will be on him.” Do not be mistaken on this point, for this applies to both the native Israelite and the alien dwelling among them; in other words, the Gentiles who have been brought into the faith through the blood of Yeshua.

It is critically important that we do not defy the Lord God and His commandments, as Yeshua Himself told us: “If you love me, you will obey my commandments.” (John 14:15) If we do, we will be cut off. In Matthew 7, Yeshua tells these Christians in name only: “depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.” Consider His words on this exact point from Mark 3:28-29: “Assuredly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they may utter; but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is subject to eternal condemnation.”  Don’t find yourself in defiance of the Living God—it is a road to destruction, especially in the New Covenant. “For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame.” (Hebrews 6:4-8). Therefore repent, and go and sin no more, and be forgiven.

One such act of lawlessness follows this very part of the text. Despite being told over and over again not to work on the Sabbath and not to cook on the Sabbath, a man gathers wood so that he can cook on the Sabbath Day, and he was caught in this defiant sin. The Lord wastes no time at all: “the man shall surely be put to death.” The punishment seems harsh, but the Sabbath is one of the most important of all laws to the Lord. It is literally the first commandment given to Man on the seventh day of creation: “Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.” (Genesis 2:3). This commandment came before the commandment not to eat from the tree of knowledge. This commandment is repeated several other times before God commanded the Israelites in the desert, outside of the fourth commandment in Exodus 20:8-11 prohibiting work, also in Exodus 16:11-36, particularly prohibiting food preparation on the Sabbath Day. This man was gathering fire wood to prepare food, and thus He was condemned to die. Think carefully about how much God wants us to honor Him and His commandments on the Day that He has sanctified.

God so emphasizes the Sabbath that He instituted the Tzit-Tzit in the very next section to remind the Israelites to keep the commandments of God. “Speak to the sons of Israel, and tell them that they shall make for themselves tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and that they shall put on the tassel of each corner a cord of blue—the commandments were written by the finger of God on blue sapphire stones. It shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the Lord , so as to do them and not follow after your own heart and your own eyes, after which you played the harlot, so that you may remember to do all My commandments and be holy to your God.” (Numbers 15:32-41). Note this verse in particular that follows: “I am the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt to be your God; I am the Lord your God.” It is because of the Lord’s grace that He expects us to obey His commandments. Yeshua is no different. He died for us to forgive us from our sins, but it is because of this grace that He expects us to obey His commandments. Ephesians 2:8-10 makes this abundantly clear: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” The Commandments of God were prepared beforehand that we should walk in them, and if we love Yeshua, we will do just that.

Korah’s rebellion in Numbers 16 drew out Dathan and Abiram and a number of other Israelites—about 250 who they themselves chose in assembly without God’s authoirty—and they rejected the authority that God had given to Moses. These were men of renown, so the people recognized them as leaders, but of critical importance, God did not call them into a leadership position. They were not to be pastors or elders according to the order that God had established. We already know how this went earlier when Miriam and Aaron questioned Moses’s authority, and these two were anointed priests and prophets within God’s order. God forgave them after a harsh rebuke. But now we have a layman doing the same thing.

Note what these rebellious ones say: “You have gone far enough, for all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is in their midst; so why do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?” Is this not something you’ve heard in churches today as members exalt themselves over the spiritual authority of the pastor or priest, or consider themselves as equals? Do we not need to humble ourselves before spiritual leaders that God has called into the ministry, and before the Lord God Yeshua who is our spiritual head? Only God can set up the order of an authentic ministry; only the Holy Spirit can give spiritual gifts and call a man to do God’s will. A man who has this ambition on his own is following after Korah, and is rebuked by Jude, James, Paul and Peter in the New Testament writings. Notice how Moses responds: “When Moses heard this, he fell on his face….” His humility is beyond understanding, and he takes upon himself all of the burden the people bring upon him, even subjecting this very question before God, giving up his authority on the matter.

He directs Korah to turn to the Lord alone to determine who ought to be leading the congregation. To be abundantly clear that such rebellion against spiritual leaders is not ever acceptable, the Lord literally does a new thing and opens the Earth to swallow the rebellious and take them into their graves while alive. Before this happened, Moses separated to himself those who would follow after his authority under the Lord, and those who would not. The Lord makes the distinction quite clear. Later, another 14,700 people die of a plague because they do not like how God handled the rebellion by Korah. So even the sympathizers of the rebellion were taken out. This is no small matter. Moses and Aaron once again interceded with the Lord for the people and prayed for His mercy on the whole congregation. Because of their repentance on behalf of the people, the Lord had mercy on them. Yeshua does this same thing for us today, if we fully trust in Him and obey His commandments. Let us also through Yeshua subject ourselves to the spiritual authority in our life, and if that authority is not correctly leading us to Yeshua alone, then we ought to find new spiritual leadership to submit ourselves under. As for me, I look to Yeshua alone under the spiritual leadership of Pastor Daniel Joseph of Corner Fringe Ministries. He has named me a location pastor for the New Hampshire church under him, per the calling of the Holy Spirit that came upon me.

Numbers 17, Numbers 18, Psalm 48

While God certainly used Aaron’s rod that budded as a sign that the Levites were to be priests over the tribes of Israel until the coming of our new High Priest Yeshua, the event is prophetically symbolic of the death and resurrection of our Lord Yeshua. It was a dead piece of wood that not only grew a new branch, but budded and bore ripe fruit. This is also what happens to us when we come into the faith. Our body of flesh which is perishing grows new life and produces fruit for the Kingdom of God. Yeshua said, “You will know them by their fruit.” What fruit do we produce for the Kingdom of God? Through obedience to His Holy Word and faith in Yeshua, our lives ought to look drastically different than the world. We ought to be a people set apart, holy unto the Lord, doing His will in all things, no matter how much pressure we get from the world to change. Even our spouse or our children or our parents or our brothers and sisters should not influence us and take us away from a life fully dedicated to serving the Lord Yeshua. Obedience is the fruit that we must produce, just as Aaron had become obedient to serving the Lord amid the pressures of the people of Israel around him that challenged him. Even when the Lord says “no” to a blessing we request (entry into the Promised Land for Aaron), we must serve Him with all joy and sincerity and truth.

The sons of Israel say, “Behold, we perish, we are dying, we are all dying! Everyone who comes near, who comes near to the tabernacle of the Lord, must die. Are we to perish completely?” What a question! And isn’t it the question we have, too? Can we approach God and live? The Lord answered Aaron on this question, and told Aaron that he and his sons and his household would bear the guilt of Israel in connection with the sanctuary and the priesthood, and they could approach the Lord, but the tribe of Levi, while they would assist with the obligations of the tabernacle, could not approach the Holy of Holies, lest they die. No outsider could approach the Lord and live. Does this not make the gift of our Lord Yeshua that much sweeter? Through Yeshua’s death and resurrection, He has become the eternal High Priest who literally sits on the Heavenly Mercy Seat, which is also called the Judgment Seat. Through our faith in Him and obedience out of our love for Him, we have full access to the throne of God, and He intercedes on our behalf so that we will not die the second death. This makes the importance of His sacrifice and victory all the more important to understand so that we can literally devote our lives to Him, for He is our life.

In Numbers 18, we see that our tithes and offerings to the Lord are for the benefit of the priests, but the priests themselves must make a tithe of the tithes to the Lord. The priests would eat the meat that was offered in sacrifice, and this was part of their payment for the work that they would do. You’ll notice in Deuteronomy 25:4, the Lord says, “you shall not muzzle an ox as it treads out the grain,” basically meaning that you will allow the animal to eat some of the harvest as it does the work of helping you gather in the harvest. This law is actually a metaphor, to be interpreted in spirit and truth, and Paul makes use of it several times. 1 Timothy 5:18 and 1 Corinthians 9:9 are two examples. The ones who work in service to the Lord deserve to be rewarded with the foods and monies offered as tithes by the congregation, so long as they also tithe from the offerings they receive, also. A worker who serves the Lord deserves His wages—and let them be humble and devoted fully to the service of the Lord.

Numbers 19, Numbers 20, Numbers 21, Psalm 49

The key point of Psalm 49 is this: God hates pride. Consider: “Man in his pomp, yet without understanding, Is like the beasts that perish.” (Psalms 49:20) This isn’t necessarily the pomp of wealth, because there is no issue at all with those grateful for the wealth they have been given by God, and who use it for God’s purposes. It is when the wealth or stature is used to build up the man to be more than he is, the very essence of pride, or when man pursues wealth or stature as his god, rather than pursue God and accept whatever God blesses him with; this is when man forfeits his soul. We must humbly and righteously seek understanding, which can only come from the Lord, and that understanding will build up additional faith and a closer and closer relationship with the Lord. In a complete faith relationship, it doesn’t matter what we have in this life, wealth or not, it matters only that we are serving the Lord and doing His will, all with joy. This is what leads to life.

When Moses got angry he sinned against God by striking the rock and taking credit for the water that flowed from it. Frankly, he attempted to bring glory to himself, rather than to God, and he thus was prohibited from entering the Promised Land along with his brother Aaron. God said “Take the rod; and you and your brother Aaron assemble the congregation and speak to the rock before thier eyes, that it may yield its water.” Had they obeyed this command and said to the rock, “In the name of Yahweh, bring forth water,” all the glory would have gone to God. However, Moses struck the rock twice and said, “shall we bring forth water for you out of this rock?” He brought the glory to himself. In fact, he was a man in his pomp, yet without understanding, and for this he was like the beasts that perish. God said, “Because you have not believed Me, to treat Me as holy in the sight of the sons of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.” Moses’s act of self righteousness was an act of defiance and faithlessness against the Lord.

When the people complained against the Lord again and fiery serpents came out against the people to punish them, the Lord instructed Moses to create a bronze fiery serpent and put it on a cross for the people’s healing. This was a prophetic symbol of Yeshua, who would die on the cross for the sins of all the people, and all we need to do is accept His free gift of grace to be saved from our sin. In John 3:13-14, Yeshua said: “No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” It was a lesson about faith, and those who survived in learned that lesson. Just like the Israelites contended against Moses, so too do they contend with Yeshua, but when they look upon Him, or when anyone does, and says, “blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord,” then they shall be saved. Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

Numbers 22, Numbers 23, Numbers 24, Psalm 50

Recall from the first part of Numbers that Israel’s formation is a cross and the long section of the cross is pointing toward the Jordan at this point, toward the East, toward the Promised Land. Balaam blesses Israel from three different locations on the mountains to the south and west, but only in the third location, where he blesses Israel three times, does he see the whole formation.

The Moabites were the incestuous children of Lot with his eldest daughter, and thus they are not children of Abraham—the children of promise. Balaam has a tenuous relationship with the Most High God, meaning he is not whole heartedly following the Lord, but he appears to have faith and obeys the Lord when the Lord intervenes. Though Balaam is a warlock who has great spiritual powers that are not from God, He gives obeisance to the Most High God and prophesies His Word as the Lord intervenes here. Only obedience to the Most High God will bring about this kind of relationship, and we see Balaam doing just that, here. Sadly, it is not a lasting faith.

When Balak calls Balaam to come and curse Israel, we see that Balaam is devoted to obey the Lord, and he tells Balak no. In this situation, though, we also see how Satan does not give up in his temptations to lead a man astray. Balak’s men come back again and this time God allows Balak to go with the men, but uses his donkey to get the message across that he is to obey God on this journey, lest he die. And so when Balaam arrives and is with Balak, he is quite forthright in his statement that he must obey Yahweh no matter what, and Balak allows him to continue, regardless. As Balaam makes seven altars it is noteworthy that while they are next to the altars of Ba’al, they are different altars that are devoted to Yahweh. Clearly, God is showing that He is Most High through Balaam to the Moabites with this display. The ensuing prophesies from Balaam that bless Israel overpower the wicked desires of Balak and the Moabites, proving God’s promise to Israel.

Balaam’s first prophesy makes clear who has control: “How shall I curse whom God has not cursed? And how can I denounce whom the Lord has not denounced? … Behold, a people who dwells apart, and will not be reckoned among the nations. … Let me die the death of the upright and let my end be like his.” As far as Israel goes, the Lord notes through Balaam’s prophesy that these will be God’s chosen people who will lead the nations to God, one way or another. They will not be totally destroyed so that they are absorbed into the nations; no—even among the nations they shall be set apart. We see in Balaam’s first prophesy a Gentile calling out in the same way Zechariah 8:23 later prophesies about the End of Days: “Thus says the LORD of hosts: ‘In those days ten men from every language of the nations shall grasp the sleeve of a Jewish man, saying, “Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you’.” Yes, “Let my end by like his,” for to Israel is promised the eternal blessings of Yahweh through Yeshua, and there is no other way to life than this.

So as Balak challenges Balaam’s first prophesy and leads him to look over another section of the layout, God speaks again through Balaam to the Gentile nations: “God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent; Has He said, and He will not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good? When He has blessed, then I cannot revoke it.” Yeshua spoke nothing but truth, and thus was not like a man who lies. He was without sin, the unblemished lamb of God whose blood was shed and the unleavened bread offered up by fire (prayer) on account of our sins, and thus He did not repent. He fulfills His promises and will come again in the way He has said to judge the living and the dead. If there is anything we can count on in this life, it is this very thing. As for Israel: “The Lord his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them. … At the proper time it shall be said to Jacob and to Israel, what God has done! Behold, a people rises like a lioness, and as a lion it lifts itself, it will not lie down until it devours the prey, and drinks the blood of the slain.” Israel will be victorious in Messiah, and the nation will call out to Him, just like Yeshua said it would, and Yeshua will not rest until the enemy is made His footstool and all sin and death is destroyed forever.

In His third prophesy, as Balaam looks at the whole formation, the whole cross of Messiah, He says, “I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near; a star shall come forth from Jacob, a scepter shall rise from Israel, and shall crush the forehead of Moab and tear down all the sons of Sheth. … While Israel performs valiantly, one from Jacob shall have dominion and will destroy the remnant from the city.” Yeshua, the King who conquers, will destroy everyone who does not call on His name, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord,” and while He will both preserve and save a remnant of Israel for eternity, some nations he will utterly destroy and not a single soul shall be saved. Two more prophesies from Balaam discuss the nations that will be consumed, they will be utterly destroyed, while he speaks about the Kenites who will be preserved, also. Moses’s father-in-law from Midian was a Kenite. “Alas, who can live except God has ordained it?” Those who accept and obey the Jewish Messiah as their savior, the Son of the Most High God; these will live. Everyone else, without exception, will come to destruction. God has said it and it will be so.

Psalm 50 fits in perfectly with today’s reading: “For the world is Mine, and all it contains,” Yahweh says. Who can stand against Him and who can go against His will and live? We are told, as Yeshua told us also, “Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and pay your vows to the Most High.” He wants nothing physical from us—He owns everything, even our very bodies and souls that He created. He wants our devotion and our praise and our thanksgiving alone: “Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving And pay your vows to the Most High; Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I shall rescue you, and you will honor Me.” How can we give Him anything else when He has come in the flesh and died for our sins? Thanksgiving and obedience are the only responses that make any sense. He tells us how to worship Him: “He who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving honors Me; And to him who orders his way aright I shall show the salvation of God.” This is the structure of the Messianic faith in Yeshua: The saints are “those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Yeshua.” We owe Him our very lives, and that is what He plans to give us when we give them first to Him.

Numbers 25, Numbers 26, Numbers 27, Psalm 51

Balaam could not curse Israel; Israel was untouchable. So long as Israel followed Yahweh and kept His commandments, Israel could not be cursed—they could not be destroyed. As a Christian who follows Yeshua and keeps His commandments, embodied by God’s Holy Spirirt, we are no different than Israel in the desert here. That is why Satan needs to prowl around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. He cannot devour the obedient and faithful. He can’t even touch a hair on our heads. Satan works through deception, temptation, discouragement, despair, unbelief, doubt, fear, and insecurity. If he can get his foot in the door of your heart with any of these and cause you to sin, then he can get in. That’s just what he did with Israel in the desert. He tempted them with the daughters of Moab—“the people began to play the harlot with the daughters of Moab”—and not just with fornication and adultery—no, that wasn’t the end goal. That’s just the doorway in. The real goal was this: “they invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods.” The seventh commandment notwithstanding, Israel began to violate the first and second commandment of God, and when they did this, all protection from the Lord was gone. They were as good as dead. This same threat exists in our lives, and thus our constant vigilance in faith is essential to endure until the end.

The Lord God Yahweh, one in being with Yeshua the Messiah, is a jealous God. He does not tolerate the worship of anything beside Him. It’s no accident that Yeshua is the only way into Heaven. When it comes to the congregation, if there is any idolatry at all within the camp, it must be rooted out or the whole congregation will be destroyed. In modern times, that means these people must be immediately confronted within a congregation. This is no small matter. If they don’t immediately confess and repent, they must be removed—the modern day stoning. In Moses’s day, they had nowhere else to go; these people had to be executed. When Zimri was so bold to walk into his tent with Cozbi right in front of the assembly while they were mourning, the congregation would have been completely annihilated if they had tolerated that act. Phinehas brought immediate righteous indignation against the sinners and destroyed them on the spot, and God rewarded him greatly for this with His covenant of peace. Likewise, if you see such sin going on in your congregation, the sinners must be removed immediately. There are no second chances when one is so bold to sin. Perhaps on account of their banishment, they will repent, and if it is sincere, the congregation can then forgive them. 1 Corinthians 5:1-8 and 2 Corinthians 2:3-11 has a perfect example of this actually happening within the New Covenant Church. Paul acts identically to Phinehas, but in the “modern” manner of his day. The result, praise God, is forgiveness in Christ, but the harshness and immediacy of the punishment was identical.

The Lord commands a new census of the people now that 40 years has passed and all of the men above 20 years old who had come out of Egypt had died in the desert, except Joshua and Caleb. The congregation of men 20 years and older had fallen from 603,550 to 601,730, with the sinners having been removed, but Israel was basically the same size as before. The Levites, at 23,000 males from birth and up, had grown from 22,000, indicating that they were doing their job well in keeping the congregation holy for the Lord. Among the 603,550, and the daughters of Zelophehad who have no brothers (because God is just), the land would be evenly distributed according to their numbers. The Lord is just and has prepared a place for all of His chosen people. Yeshua, when He ascended after His resurrection said He was going away to prepare a place for us, so that where He is, there we might be also. There are “many mansions” in the Father’s House, and we can be assured of the promise, particularly with this prophetic template, that it will be equitable for us in the Kingdom. Consider the prophesy of Ezekiel 47:21-23, and by these Words you will know that we have a place in this prophesy.

Keep Numbers 27 in mind as we move into Deuteronomy and finish off the Torah this year. This event took place toward the end chronologically, when Moses went up on Mount Abarim to gaze on the promised land. He was allowed to look at it, but not allowed to enter it because he took credit for bringing water from the rock at Meribah rather than giving the glory to God. Let us remember this lesson whenever we are tempted to take credit for any achievement in this life. The achievement does not belong to us; it is a blessing from God and God alone. God created the heavens and the earth and everything in them, and that includes you and me and the abilities that He blessed us with. Yes, we have a free will, and we had better use it to serve the Lord, but in it we also ought to acknowledge who provisions us with everything in our lives. Our blessings come from God alone. Nothing we do can be accounted for as anything for it, it is all a gift from God, praise and glory to His name! Joshua, whose name in Hebrew is Yehoshua or Yeshua for short, is the archetype of our savior. Only He can bring us into the Promised Land, with our agreement to His covenant of grace (faith) and our obedience to His law (works). Faith without works is dead. He was the only one who could lead Israel into the promised land, also.

Psalm 51 is one of my favorites, and it is a psalm that grounds me every time my mind wanders into any distraction from my love of the Lord and desire to obey Him. “Wash me throughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.” Here we see the tax collector in the Temple: “Have mercy on me, a sinner,” who Yeshua said walked away justified. This ought to be our heart—always! We are NOT “good people.” Our hearts are “desperately wicked” and there is “no one without sin—no, not one.” Only God is “good.” His grace is sufficient for our salvation, and praise be to God in the name of Yeshua that He gave it to us as a free gift, for we could have it no other way. And yes, we often sin against God—“Against You, You only, I have sinned, and done what is evil in your sight.” Any idol we create in our lives that is above or equal to God is damnable sin that requires our repentance. Even a parallel idol will take us out. Remember what happened to Zimri; that will spiritually happen to us if we do not repent of our idolatry, our synchronism and our nonchalant belief that it is OK to mix the holy with the profane. It is NOT! It is death! “In sin my mother conceived me.” It’s not that our eema is sinful, though not one of us is without sin, but we are born with a sinful nature. It is because of this that we need God’s salvation in Yeshua. He just wants our heart to recognize this, and yet we are so desperately wicked, we fight against this simple truth. We must surrender to Him.

“Behold, You desire truth in the innermost being, and in the hidden part You will make me know wisdom.” Without Yeshua, who cleansed us with hyssop mixed with His own blood, which made us whiter than snow, we could not even begin to realize the knowledge and wisdom God wants for us, but when we repent, He opens up His Word to our understanding, and our relationship with Him begins to grow, and then flourish and then blossom, producing fruit to seed the ground for others. We must study His Word day and night, with a clean heart of repentance, forgiven by His blood. And yet we must constantly pray, “Hide Your face from my sins And blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation And sustain me with a willing spirit.” Thank you Yeshua for this most Holy and blessed gift of salvation by your blood, and thank you for restoring me in You. Thank you for giving me Your blessing to “teach transgressors Your ways” so that “sinners will be converted to You.” My tongue indeed sings joyfully of Your righteousness, and in my broken spirit, my broken and contrite heart, You will bring victory over sin and death! Praise be to the glory of your Name, Messiah Yeshua, my Lord and my God!

Numbers 28, Numbers 29, Numbers 30, Psalm 52

Every Sabbath and every appointed time ought to be a feast to the Lord, and our prayers ought to be offered to the Lord as we set aside these days to Him alone. Our prayers are our burnt offerings: “And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne, and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel. (Revelation 8:3-4). The Lord repeats His Holy Feast Days that He wants us to keep in Numbers 28 and 29, and it should not be lost on us how often He brings up these appointed times. These are times He wants us to celebrate with Him, with feasting and joy and gladness.

Just as Yeshua said, “let your yes be yes and your no be no,” the Lord emphasizes the vow ought to be based on a man’s word: “If a man makes a vow to the Lord, or takes an oath to bind himself with a binding obligation, he shall not violate his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.” (Numbers 30:2) We also learn in this chapter that a woman is bound under the covering of her father until she gets married, and then she is bound under the covering of her husband. Only her father or husband can bind an agreement for her, unless she is without both. This is important and ought to be upheld today as every good home is led by a righteous husband and father. Our world would be a better place to live if we simply followed God’s order of things rather than our own.

Psalm 52 makes it clear that the time for God’s justice will come, and the rebellious ones will be destroyed unequivocally, but in the meantime, we ought to focus on our victory through faith in Yeshua and obedience to His Word as we work to love our enemies, praying that God brings all to repentance.

Numbers 31, Numbers 32, Psalm 53

There are two key verses in Numbers 31 that can’t be missed: 1) “they also killed Balaam the son of Beor with the sword.” and 2) “And Moses said to them, ‘Have you spared all the women? Behold, these caused the sons of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor, so the plague was among the congregation of the Lord….’” Balaam had operated as a prophet of the Most High God, but he fell away. The appeal of riches offered by Balak the king was too much to resist, and so—because he couldn’t curse Israel—he devised a plan that would bring about the fall of some in Israel. It was Balaam’s idea to send in the women of Midian to entice the men of Israel and lead them into fornication, adultery and idolatry. Balaam, a prophet of God, had been tempted away from God. You cannot prophesy in the name of God without salvation. He lost his salvation. The devil occupied him in God’s stead, and he then operated as a tool of Satan. It was Satan, acting through Balaam, that was able to tempt the Israelites away from the protection of God that they enjoyed. For this falling away, Balaam was destroyed; he was killed with the sword. Rest assured that this physical death was the first of two deaths Balaam will experience.

To fully understand the context of this story and how it applies to us, note that prophesy is very clearly marked as a gift of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:10; Romans 12:6). You cannot prophesy in the name of the Lord unless you have been saved, which must happen before the Holy Spirit can fall on you, which must happen before you can speak in prophesy for the Lord. In fact, prophesy also requires obedience to the Lord’s commandments, which is something we see evidence for in the earlier stories of Balaam starting in Numbers 22. Balaam had been saved, and he had been in fact obedient to the Lord God Most High. The New Covenant is a new thing, but faith in Yeshua for salvation existed from the beginning. David’s writings alone make this abundantly clear. For example, “I would have lost heart unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord In the land of the living.” (Psalm 27:13) And so, Balaam’s story ought to terrify us and convict us, and it absolutely does for me.

A New Testament example of Balaam’s example can be found in Matthew 7:21-23: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’” Balaam had prophesied in the name of the Most High God Yahweh, who is one in being with Messiah Yeshua. He had believed in God for salvation, he had obeyed God, bearing fruit for Him, and He had been tested by God along the way, passing those tests, and because of this, he was able to serve God and bless Israel with prophesy. However, on account of the riches promised to him by Balak, who was clearly being used by Satan, Balaam voluntarily gave up his salvation and taught Balak how to tempt Israel. Through those temptations, some of the Israelites who were fully protected by God’s Holy Spirit lost that protection and fell into sin, and then death. Let this be a warning to us to ALWAYS keep a repentant, humble and contrite heart before the Lord, and to seek Him with ALL of our heart, lest we too fall away and die.

As far as vengeance is concerned; it belongs alone to the Lord. “Vengeance is mine, I shall repay,” says the Lord. And so, when Moses is instructed by Yahweh Himself to “take full vengeance for the sons of Israel on the Midianites,” this is not Moses and not Israel taking vengeance; rather, it is the Lord using Israel to bring vengeance. Because this was from the Lord, and from the Lord alone, Israel was totally victorious and took out the whole nation that had come up against them. Because Balaam had turned his heart toward the world and aligned with Midian, he too was destroyed in the Lord’s vengeance. Because the Lord is wise, he knew that even young boys would remember their fathers being conquered by Israel and would therefore seek revenge at some point, and so all but the young women who had not yet been covered by marriage were destroyed. The Lord allows Israel to keep the spoil of this battle, and Israel gave a portion back to the Lord. Why? It was the Lord’s will.

The children of the generation who came out of Egypt have learned the lesson that their fathers died for, as we read in Numbers 32. The sons of Gad and Reuben who wanted to possess the lands they battled in and conquered through the hand of the Lord agreed to continue on with Israel and fight together as a unified body to accomplish the Lord’s will for the whole Promised Land before they would go off on their own to inherit their own portion in the land that the Lord had given them. This is the same type of unity that a Congregation needs to have. Even if all the needs of some of the members of the congregation have been met, that part of the congregation must work with the whole body to strive with the Lord and make sure that the whole body receives its inheritance. In the case of a Church, that means that we need to ensure that every member is fully trusting in the Lord, and fully obeying the Lord, and we cannot stop the work until the Lord returns to bring us home. Our salvation is complete through Yeshua, but once saved, we are reborn and the work begins. What will you do for the Lord’s body with the talents that He has given you? Don’t stop until He comes.

Psalm 53 identifies why Yeshua is needed. “There is no one who does good, not even one.” Thankfully, we can say we are not fools who say in our heart, “There is no God,” but do we worship Him and Him alone, or are their idols in our lives? We ought to have an ongoing heart of repentance, glorying in the finished work of Yeshua to save us from our sin, if we love Him and trust Him and keep His commandments, which is the definition of faith. This too is what we need to work together as a Body to accomplish. We cannot do this alone. We need God’s people to hold us accountable and to exhort us to keep getting better, keep getting stronger, keep learning, and keep growing in the Lord, to become “perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect,” and bear the fruit that He expects from us to plant seeds in the World for His Kingdom. Salvation indeed has come out of Zion! “Let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad!” Let the Gentiles who have been grafted-in to Israel shout for joy! One day soon, God will restore His captive people, those of us who are “in the world, but not of the world.” Wait on the Lord, for He is good, and His mercy endures forever.

Numbers 33, Numbers 34, Psalm 54

The Israelites wandered in the wilderness for 40 years (see: https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZgeCe.gif), just as we live in this world for the appointed and complete time that the Lord has allotted to us, until he calls us, like Joshua and Caleb, into the promised land. In today’s reading, it occurred to me that Joshua is a Levite and Caleb is of Judah, so the representative High Priest and King of Israel who came out of Egypt made it into the Promised Land due to their undying faith. Consider Revelation 5:9-10, where the four living creatures and 24 elders holding all of the prayers of the saints in bowls sing a new song as they welcome Jesus, after He has ascended to the throne of Heaven: “You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals; for You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made us kings and priests to our God; and we shall reign on the earth.”

Joshua and Caleb are representative for all of the saints, who are taken out of the bondage of sin, go through baptism, receive the Holy Spirit and God’s direction, dwell in the wilderness and pass all the trials and tribulations of life with faith and obedience, going where the Holy Spirit leads them to go, who wait longer than they expect on account of God’s longsuffering lovingkindness, not wishing for a single one of the second generation to perish, but then at the end, they are the ones who make it into everlasting life in the Promised Land. Note that they bring a second generation with them, and not the first, and yet they are of the first generation. This represents the New Covenant that welcomes all who call upon the name of Yeshua and keep His commandments, whether Jew or Greek.

This scenario makes me think of John 3:1-21, but particularly vs 8 where Yeshua says, “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” The interpretation is not so much that we are observing the Holy Spirit behave like wind, but that when you have the Holy Spirit, you must allow Him to drive you around like the wind, following Him wherever He leads you, and sometimes you don't know where the Lord is coming from or where He is leading you, but if you are in the Lord, you must go along with where He is leading you. On the Last Day, we will make it into the Promised Land so long as we have endured in our faith and kept the commandments of God, producing fruit for the Kingdom. As Psalm 54 indicates, “God is my helper; the Lord is the sustainer of my soul.” His Holy Spirit is with us as we wander through the wilderness, waiting for Yeshua to come and take us to the Promised Land.

Numbers 35, Numbers 36, Psalm 55

God’s wisdom for keeping the holiness of Israel shines through in Numbers 25, and we see that God has appointed priests as a type of “spiritual representative” into the 12 tribes of Israel. While there are four priestly cities for every tribe, God actually says that larger tribes will take more than four according to the number of people, and smaller tribes will take fewer. Within this construct, God then apportions one city of refuge for every two tribes so that Israel has a place to go seek God’s judgment through God’s anointed ones. Our own House of Representatives within our states and within the nation was set up this way, also. It is God’s order. The priests would have their own cities and place for the sacrificial animals to graze, and the people would have a place to bring their tithes and seek the Lord’s wisdom and judgment.

We see the Lord define murder and manslaughter in no uncertain terms. If there is intent or premeditation, it’s murder, if it was an accident, then it is not murder. This helps us to better understand the sixth commandment, “Thou Shall Not Murder.” Without the additional clarification in Numbers 25, how would we know what this means? The Lord Yeshua further clarified that it is the intent in your heart that makes you guilty of murder, and even with lack of follow-through, we ought to repent of our murderous thoughts. Praise be to God that He has given His eternal wisdom through His law, which is meant for our good. I can now say without any question that the death penalty is just, and it ought to be used according to God’s law here under the authority of the state. Any laws of a state that allow for a death penalty ought to follow this guidance. IMPORTANT: No one ought to be put the death on the testimony of one witness. Two witnesses that both speak to the truth or more are required prior to condemning a man to death for murder. It is quite clear that the Lord has given to the government, which He has ordained, the power and authority to execute murderers who are convicted in a court of law. These executions are necessary so the land itself is not polluted by the bloodguilt of the murderer. Oh how far we have fallen!

Numbers 36 makes it clear that God intends for each tribe to keep their inheritance forever. I know there is more meaning to this, but I will need to study further. It seems like this could be related to Ezekiel 47:21-23, also, and Gentiles are grafted-in to the appropriate tribe of Israel, Judah, through the blood of Yeshua, who was of the tribe of Judah in the flesh.  

We see in Psalm 55 that David was terrified. “I am restless in my complaint and am surely distracted, Because of the voice of the enemy, Because of the pressure of the wicked; For they bring down trouble upon me and in anger they bear a grudge against me. My heart is in anguish within me, And the terrors of death have fallen upon me. Fear and trembling come upon me, And horror has overwhelmed me.” How many of us have felt this way before? We can relate to David. This is of such importance to us in our lives to know that a prophet of God, a man after God’s own heart, felt these same emotions. It is not sin to fear, but it is sin to succumb to fear. Jesus makes this clear in Matthew 10:28: “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” David escapes his fear using this very principle: “As for me, I shall call upon God, And the Lord will save me. … He will redeem my soul in peace from the battle which is against me … Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.”

Deuteronomy 1, Deuteronomy 2, Psalm 56

Deuteronomy is a summary of Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers, that reemphasizes key aspects of the law. The principle, a thing is established by a testimony of two or three, comes into play as Moses emphasizes the law given to Him by God Most High and teaches it to the second generation of Israel that is about to go into the Promised Land: “These are the words which Moses spoke to all Israel across the Jordan in the wilderness.” When Yeshua was tempted in the wilderness by Satan, Yeshua quoted from Deuteronomy all three times to defeat the attacks of the enemy. Prior to going up the mountain to die, Moses teaches the whole law to Israel and blesses them with this: “The Lord your God has multiplied you, and behold, you are this day like the stars of heaven in number. May the Lord, the God of your fathers, increase you a thousand-fold more than you are and bless you, just as He has promised you!” Caleb and Joshua are the only Israelites who were slaves in Egypt who will enter the promised land after this happens.

God commands Moses and all Israel, according to Deuteronomy 2, to avoid the land of Esau in Seir, the land of Moab and Ammon, given to Lot’s illegitimate sons. Israel will go into the Promised Land and dispossess the pagans who live there, but they are not to take the land from their extended family.

When Yeshua says the following in Matthew 10:28, “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.,” He is citing the principles of Psalm 56: “When I am afraid, I will put my trust in You. In God, whose word I praise, In God I have put my trust; I shall not be afraid. What can mere man do to me? In God, whose word I praise, In the Lord, whose word I praise, In God I have put my trust, I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me? Your vows are binding upon me, O God; I will render thank offerings to You. For You have delivered my soul from death, Indeed my feet from stumbling, So that I may walk before God In the light of the living.” (Psalms 56:3-4, 10-13) We must trust in God above all else, and not fear man in any way, regardless of what oppression, terror or torture might come our way. What can man do to me? Nothing of any lasting effect if I am truly trusting in the Lord.

Deuteronomy 3, Deuteronomy 4, Psalm 57 (sermon)

No matter what enemy we encounter, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, or physical, “Do not fear them, for the Lord your God is the one fighting for you.” The Lord has commanded us, you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, mind, soul and strength. Do you see that by “waiting on the Lord” as Moses commands Israel, so too does the Lord command us through Moses’s words? In Yeshua, our King, we are to wait on the Lord and love Him completely, and He will fight these battles for us, and in Him we will be victorious. As we read in Psalm 57, so must be our heart: “My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast; I will sing, yes, I will sing praises! I will give thanks to You, O Lord, among the peoples; I will sing praises to You among the nations. For Your lovingkindness is great to the heavens And Your truth to the clouds. Be exalted above the heavens, O God; Let Your glory be above all the earth.” Yes, we must be steadfast in our faith and trust in the Lord Yeshua.

Moses’s struggle toward the end of his life is prophetic. “Let me, I pray, cross over and see the fair land that is beyond the Jordan, that good hill country and Lebanon.’ But the Lord was angry with me on your account, and would not listen to me; and the Lord said to me, ‘Enough! Speak to Me no more of this matter. Go up to the top of Pisgah and lift up your eyes to the west and north and south and east, and see it with your eyes, for you shall not cross over this Jordan. But charge Joshua and encourage him and strengthen him, for he shall go across at the head of this people, and he will give them as an inheritance the land which you will see.’”

As Moses pleads with the Lord to see the Promised Land, but we know that the law cannot save, and Moses metaphorically represents the law that God gave through Him. Only Yeshua can save through faith as a free gift of God. Joshua, in Hebrew Yehoshua, or Yeshua for short, must bring Israel into the Promised Land. This was for the Lord’s purposes, particularly for prophesy, and not for any other reason. In Romans 8:3-4, we read: “For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” We are saved alone by grace, and not by works, so that we do not get puffed up by pride in our works, to paraphrase Ephesians 2:8-9, and yet we see here that Moses commands the people entering the Promised Land in the same exact way Paul does in Ephesians 2:10, namely, to keep the commandments of God because of the salvation we have received, because we love/trust/have faith in God, who saved us.

Note that Moses says: “Then the Lord spoke to you from the midst of the fire; you heard the sound of words, but you saw no form—only a voice. So He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments; and He wrote them on two tablets of stone. The Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that you might perform them in the land where you are going over to possess it. “So watch yourselves carefully…” These could be Yeshua’s own words, and Yeshua came in the flesh and told us that “not one jot or tittle of the law would be done away with until Heaven and Earth pass away” in Matthew 5. He tells us in Matthew 24: “Watch!” He tells us in the parable of the servants: find yourself doing the works of the Master because you do not know when the Master will return. We also see through prophesy that the Lord would write His commandments on our heart. He has fulfilled that promise to the faithful, and those who possess the Holy Spirit have a heart to obey God’s commandments—all of them. Those in rebellion believe they have been done away with.

And so Moses died outside the promised land, because the law cannot deliver us into the promised land, and Joshua brought the people into the promised land, because only faith in Yeshua can save, and yet, once in the promised land, we only remain there by keeping the commandments of God. Consider the writings of Hebrews 4:1-10: “Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. For indeed the gospel was preached to us AS WELL AS TO THEM; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said: ‘So I swore in My wrath, they shall not enter My rest,’ although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: ‘And God rested on the seventh day from all His works;’ and again in this place: ‘They shall not enter My rest.’ Since therefore it remains that some must enter it, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience, again He designates a certain day, saying in David, ‘Today,’ after such a long time, as it has been said: ‘Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.’  For if Joshua had given them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another day. There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.”

And so we see in this analysis a complicated but very clear explanation of the whole of prophesy. In short, while Joshua brought Israel into the Promised Land, there remained the promise of “another day.” It was a prophetic template to show us the truth of the Whole Bible, coming together. My point in all of this is that Moses, who did not make it into the promised land, was forgiven in Yeshua, and while I am not God, I can show you through the Transfiguration story that Moses stood next to Elijah with Yeshua on the mount of transfiguration. He made it. He wouldn’t have been there if he hadn’t made it. I believe Moses will be in the eternal Promised Land. And yet, as Moses warns Joshua and all of Israel, so too does Yeshua and the prophets who followed Him also warn. Here’s Moses: “Only give heed to yourself and keep your soul diligently, so that you do not forget the things which your eyes have seen and they do not depart from your heart all the days of your life; but make them known to your sons and your grandsons.” “If you love me, keep my commandments.” “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.” (1 John 5:3-4)

Note that Moses says in Deuteronomy 4, “You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.” Consider Revelation 22:18:19, “For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.” The message is quite clear, but is often missed: Man cannot add to the laws of the book, from Genesis to Revelation,” but God can certainly come in the flesh and clarify His Word and apply it to our situation. God added to the Torah throughout His Old Testament Prophets and Writings, and God added to the Tanakh by coming in the flesh and clarifying what He meant to Man who had misinterpreted His Word, and in the flesh, He sent out Apostles to write His Word and its interpretation down for us. And yet, there are men who took away from the word, through misunderstanding, such as the Sadducees who said only the Torah ought to apply and the Christians who say the law no longer applies. There are men who also add to the Word, such as the Pharisees who created their own fence laws that were not from God and the Christians who wrote Catechisms and commentaries that either add or take away from God’s Holy Word. The Word of God is the Word of God; it is in Scripture from Genesis to Revelation and it all applies to us today.

Finally, the warnings at the end of Deuteronomy 4 ought to strike us with intense conviction. Those of Israel (commonly known today as Jews) and those who have been grafted-in to Israel (known today as Christians) must not act corruptly, to worship other gods, to worship God with synchronistic pagan practices, or to walk away from the Word of God in any way, for Moses has called upon “heaven and earth to witness against” those who do, and these will “perish quickly from the land where they are going.” In other words, if you rebel against the Word of God, you will not make it into the land of promise; the Kingdom of God. The Lord will scatter you, as he has scattered apostate Israel. And yet, as the Lord has gathered Israel into the land once more, so too will he gather us into our inheritance with Israel “in the latter days” when we all, Jew and Gentile, “are in distress” and “return to the Lord your God and listen to His voice. For the Lord your God is a compassionate God; He will not fail you nor destroy you.” He will not forget the covenant He made with us either, the new covenant, which He made with our fathers, when we obey His commandments and keep our faith in Yeshua.

Deuteronomy 5, Deuteronomy 6, Deuteronomy 7, Psalms 58

In Deuteronomy 6:25, we read, “It will be righteousness for us if we are careful to observe all this commandment before the Lord our God, just as He commanded us.” Herein, Scripture has defined the word “righteousness.” And so, when Jesus, Peter, Paul, James, John, Jude or any other New Testament writer uses the word “righteousness,” here we have its definition. It means to keep the commandments of God, because we love our Lord God Yeshua. And so the greatest commandment makes perfect sense in the context of both Old and New Testament combined: “You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, mind, soul and strength.” “If you love Me,” Yeshua said, “keep my commandments.” And just to clarify that Yeshua is not talking about some new set of commandments, He says this in verse 24: “the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me.” And Ephesians 2:10 also clarifies: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” These commandments were prepared by God and given to Moses. We hear a second witness of them today.

Yeshua, our God, is a jealous God. He made it clear that “no one gets to the Father except through me.” Paul clarifies, “with no other name can a man be saved.” He is one in being with the Father. Echad, in the Hebrew (Strong’s 259 if you want to study it). It’s the Word used in the Sh’ma, “Here O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one (אֶחָד | echad)….” Moses takes the time to emphasize that God means business when He says to have no other god before Him. That doesn’t mean that we can have other gods, though. The Lord says, “you shall not follow other gods.” That means that any synchretism, where we take a pagan practice and slap Christian labels on it, is also a violation of God’s commandments. Outside of the Sabbath, there is no other commandment that God emphasizes more throughout Scripture, but often the two are linked. Antichrist figures throughout history have always attacked the Sabbath first, to get God’s people away from worshipping Him in the manner that He desires, and then they move in to introduce the other gods for worship, such as getting stuff done around the house or getting another work day in to support the family. These things, and so many others, many put before the one true God.
 
It’s critical to note that the people feared the voice of God. Just as Adam and Eve were shameful after they sinned when they heard the Lord walking around in the Garden, so too were the Israelites shameful when they heard the Lord speak the commandments. Sin makes us feel naked, ashamed, vulnerable, and without a remedy, it leads to death. We need a covering, which the Lord God made for Adam and Eve with an animal skin. This first reported sacrifice in Scripture was either a sheep or a goat, giving prophetic reference to our Lord. The Lord God also made a one-time sacrifice for all of us by coming in the flesh and dying on the cross for our sin, so that we may be covered by a robe soaked with His blood, making us as white as snow. The only covering that is effective to remove the shame of our nakedness so we can hear the voice of the Lord and not be afraid is the blood of Jesus, praise be to God who raised Him from the dead. He will come again to judge the living and the dead, and those saints who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Yeshua will be collected as His bride for the wedding feast, and will live with Him again in the Garden forever.

And here is the promise of eternal life to those who follow Yeshua, whether Jew or Greek: “Therefore you shall be careful to do as the Lord your God has commanded you; you shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. You shall walk in all the ways which the Lord your God has commanded you, that you may live and that it may be well with you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which you shall possess.” To love the Lord God and to trust in His name, this is what we ought to do. The Lord asks us to teach these commandments to our children, to instruct them to walk according to the way of the Lord, and also to talk of them in our house, when we are in the world (particularly in the market or at work), when we lie down to go to sleep, when we rise up in the morning. They are to be bound as a sign on our hand, meaning that all of our actions (words and deeds) ought to reflect the commandments of God; as frontlets between our eyes, meaning that we ought to think/meditate on the commandments day and night. They are to be on our doorposts and gates, meaning that our entire house and all of our property ought to be kept according to God’s commandments. This is the mark of God, which brings the seal of the Holy Spirit. Read John 14 in full and you’ll see it there.

When the Lord removes our enemies from before us, we must not associate with them in any way. Now, Yeshua taught us to love our enemies, so in practice, this doesn’t mean that we ought not associate with sinners—quite the opposite; we ought to introduce them to the Gospel and pray they accept Yeshua. What it does mean is that we ought not bind ourselves in any way to the world or the ways of the flesh (sin). If we mix the Holiness of God and His commandments in any way whatsoever with the World or the flesh, then we are against God and worthy of death. “Friendship with the world is enmity with God.” This is where the “hate the sin, love the sinner” mantra comes from. This is what Deuteronomy 7 is about. We cannot in any way, shape or form worship the gods the world elevates, no matter what. If we can keep the commandments and not align ourselves in any way with the world or the flesh, the Lord will bless us. He is faithful and shows his lovingkindness (forgiveness) to those who love Him and keep His commandments. He repays those who hate them and destroys them. We cannot rebel against God’s commandments and expect salvation. It won’t happen. We must obey, which is the faith of Jesus. Psalm 58 confirms.

Deuteronomy 8, Deuteronomy 9, Deuteronomy 10, Psalm 59

Deuteronomy 8, 9 & 10 is essentially the Gospel. If you love me, keep my commandments: “All the commandments that I am commanding you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply and go in and possess the land which the Lord swore to give to your forefathers.” This is the Promised Kingdom of Heaven. We live today in the wilderness, so that the Lord might humble us, test us and know what is in our heart, whether we will keep His commandments or not. He provides us with everything we need while He tests us, judging whether we will be grateful for it or not. For “man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.” The Lord loves us and disciplines us like a Father disciplines his son. The Lord warns us not to become proud with the blessings He gives us, for pride leads us to forget Him. Never ought we say “my power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth.” “You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth.” If we disobey, we shall die the second death.

The Lord God will also subdue all of our enemies before us. But in this blessing and all the others, it is critical for us to understand that it is not our own righteousness that has brought us to salvation. Now, it is because of the wickedness of our enemies that the Lord saved Israel and it is because of the Lord’s grace that He has saved us. There is no work that we can do that will account us as righteous before our Holy God, for His Holiness is perfect; Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord our God, and we are nothing when held up to His Holiness. “It is not for your righteousness or for the uprightness of your heart that you are going to possess their land,” the Lord says. And it is because of the promises given to us by Yeshua through our fathers. The Lord is faithful and true and keeps His promises to those who love Him and keep His commandments. He wrote these commandments a second time on tablets of stone, and so the Lord asks us: “circumcise your heart and stiffen your neck no longer.” Repent and obey! “For the Lord your God is the God of gods and the Lord of Lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God who does not show partiality nor take a bribe. He executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and shows His love for the alien by giving him food and clothing.” And so we too must love our neighbor, fear the Lord, cling to Him and swear by His Name. This is the structure of the faith.
 
Deuteronomy 11, Deuteronomy 12, Deuteronomy 13, Psalm 60

Moses reiterates God’s Word from Deuteronomy 8-10 in Deuteronomy 11, which is a reiteration of the law given by God in Exodus 20 and surrounding, and such duplication in Jewish writing is meant to instill emphasis, such as our exclamation mark in English!!! The principle is: “By two or three witnesses, a thing is established,” which is repeated in the Old and New Testament at least three times each. God tells the Israelites standing in front of them to recall the miracles they witnessed (as children) and because of the grace the Lord showed to them they ought to obey His commandments. Likewise, Yeshua who showed the Apostles the many miracles, including His death and resurrection as the most important one, told them to become the witnesses of God’s grace, and to therefore follow the commandments out of love for the God who has given them grace.

And just like Yeshua sent the Apostles out to “make disciples of all nations” (ethnic groups or peoples), so too does Moses send out the Israelites to make disciples of their children and the strangers among them. “You shall therefore impress these words of mine on your heart and on your soul; and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall teach them to your sons, talking of them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your sons may be multiplied on the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens remain above the earth.” We’ve discussed the metaphor meant by these words, but the long and the short of it is that these commandments are meant to become a part of who we are, and we ought not just read them and understand them, but love them and do them.

And just as Jesus says in Matthew 7 that the lawless shall not inherit the Kingdom of Heaven, Moses also makes it clear that the commandments come with a blessing and a curse; a blessing for those who keep them and a curse for those who don’t. “See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: the blessing, if you listen to the commandments of the Lord your God, which I am commanding you today; and the curse, if you do not listen to the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way which I am commanding you today, by following other gods which you have not known.” Yeshua died so that we could repent of our sin (violation of the commandments) through His blood sacrifice, and He rose so that we could look to Him as our God, interceding on our behalf, sending His Holy Spirit into us to guide us. And if we love Him, we will not account Christ as “a minister of sin,” as Paul writes, but rather repent, and “go and sin no more.” Thank God, in Christ, He gives us this chance to repent.

God makes it abundantly clear through Moses that we cannot intermix pagan ceremonies, idols or worship with our worship of the Most High God, and certainly not with any worship of our Savior Yeshua. “You shall not act like this toward the Lord your God. But you shall seek the Lord at the place which the Lord your God will choose…” This was the Temple in Jerusalem for many years, but then Yeshua brought in the New Covenant and told the World that His followers would worship, not on Mt. Gerizim and not in Jerusalem, but rather “in Spirit and Truth.” Paul writes, “don’t you know you are the Temple of God.” Yes, the Messiah built the Third Temple and that Temple is every believer who “keeps the commandments of God and the faith of Yeshua;” it is both the individual believer plus the assembly of believers together, the Body of Yeshua, and “where two or three are gathered, there I am also,” Yeshua said. And so, as we worship God “in Spirit and in Truth,” we must be certain that we are not bringing any idols or practices of the world or of man to the Altar. The Altar is in Heaven, and God does not want us to syncretize our worship. He is a jealous God.

And so, whether there is a prophet, a dreamer of dreams, a brother, a sister, a mother, a father, a son or daughter, a wife or husband, a village or a whole church, that syncretizes worship with pagan practices such as Easter or Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Halloween, bows down in prayer to Saints or to Mary, even looks up to a priest to intercede for him or her, or does any other pagan practice that the Lord God hates, we cannot worship God like that. We cannot be a part of that community. When the Lord allows such pagan beliefs to come into a community, a church or through a loved one, we can know without a fraction of a doubt: “the Lord your God is testing you to find out if you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall follow the Lord your God and fear Him; and you shall keep His commandments, listen to His voice, serve Him, and cling to Him.” That’s why we’re here in this wilderness. So that the Lord can test us to know if we will love Him and keep His commandments, which is the true test of our faith, to determine whether it is real. Yeshua, who is God who came in the flesh, died for us and rose again on the third day, who now intercedes for us, and He tests us to see if we will follow Him despite the trials and tribulations of this age.
 
Deuteronomy 14, Deuteronomy 15, Deuteronomy 16, Psalm 61

In Deuteronomy 12:15-16, we read, “However, you may slaughter and eat meat within all your gates, whatever your heart desires, according to the blessing of the Lord your God which He has given you; the unclean and the clean may eat of it, of the gazelle and the deer alike. Only you shall not eat the blood; you shall pour it on the earth like water. It’s clear that in Deuteronomy 14 the Lord God is referring to clean meat, and not any meat, but it should be clear from Deuteronomy 12 also. In the desert, the Israelites were eating manna every day. When they asked for meat, the Lord punished them with so much meat that it came out of their eyeballs, quite literally. The Lord expected them to be satisfied with and grateful for the angel’s food that He had provided for them. In the wilderness, only the priests would eat from the meat that was sacrificed. Now, in the promised land, the Lord is giving all men and women the blessing of clean meat to eat, whether the man himself is clean or unclean. We are not to eat the blood of the clean meat, for that will defile us. However, the meat we may eat, reserving the first fruits to the Lord. We also see that Deut. 14 is a copy of Leviticus 11, establishing which meats are clean and unclean. This law is emphasized and thus established firmly.

Deuteronomy 14:1-2 provides a good example relative to Scripture interpreting Scripture as well as “by two or three witnesses, a thing is established.” You’ll see in Leviticus 19:27-28, the Word says: “You shall not shave around the sides of your head, nor shall you disfigure the edges of your beard. You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo any marks on you: I am the Lord.” The context implies that the shavings are also on account of the pagan practice of honoring the dead, which is a type of idolatry, but this becomes clear in Deuteronomy 14:1-2: “You are the sons of the Lord your God; you shall not cut yourselves nor shave your forehead for the sake of the dead. For you are a holy people to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.” And so, we see that Hassidic and Rabbinical Jews have misinterpreted these verses in not allowing any shaving of the beard or sideburns at all. That’s not what these commands are about. These commandments are about prohibiting idolatry and honoring the Lord God alone in Yeshua’s name.

In John 4:21-24, “Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth’.” And so when we read in several verses of Deuteronomy “at the place where the Lord your God chooses to establish His name” or at “the place where the Lord your God chooses,” note that Yeshua is the Lord our God, and He has instructed us that the place He chooses for us to worship is “in spirit and truth.” This is a second covenant update to the Temple in Jerusalem, which is now the Temple of our bodies, which make up the Body of Messiah. Note, however, that Torah is precise with its language, and that is significant. Note also that Jerusalem has not lost her significance and the Lord will rule from there.

And so the tithe that we bring for celebration during the weekly Shabbat or during the sacred feasts that the Lord highlights in Deuteronomy 16 and 17, ought to be used to worship the Lord in “spirit and truth” wherever we happen to be. At some point in the future, upon Yeshua’s return, we will be expected to go to Jerusalem each year for the Feast of Tabernacles, but that time is not yet. I still love how the Lord provides provision for us to celebrate with Him on His feast days, which include the weekly shabbat. If we don’t have produce to tithe with, then we shall exchange our work for money and tithe with it, celebrating with meat, even strong drink, and “whatever your heart desires,” so that we can enjoy the Sabbath or Feast Day with the Lord and rejoice, both you and all your household. These days are days of celebration to be with the Lord and to celebrate Him and have fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Deuteronomy 17, Deuteronomy 18, Deuteronomy 19, Deuteronomy 20, Psalm 62

The Lord is Holy and that means He is without spot or blemish, from a moral standpoint. His desire is for us to be Holy like Him. Thus, in the First Covenant sacrificial system, the sacrifices must be without “blemish or any defect,” for even a clean animal that has a blemish is “detestable” as a sacrifice to the Lord. Our Lamb of God, Yeshua, was without spot or blemish and His one-time sacrifice was sufficient as an eternal sin offering to those who are repentant and walk in faith according to God’s commandments in the Second Covenant reality. God makes it clear that He demands Holiness among His people as he notes that within the Church a “man or a woman who does what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God” must be removed from the community. By two or three witnesses the unrepentant sinner must be removed. Consider the story in 1 Corinthians 5:1-13 of the man caught in an adulterous relationship with his father’s wife. Paul quotes from this section of Scripture, instructing the church in Corinth to “put away from yourselves the evil person.” Stoning, in spirit and truth, could equate to exile. There are several Scriptural examples of this (one of them is Saul expelling the witches from Israel).

The Lord also makes it clear He expects Israel to set a king over themselves, and He creates statutes for that king—the just government that will be upon His shoulders. The king should be one of your countrymen. He shall not multiply horses for himself for battle. He shall not multiply wives for himself, so that they do not turn his heart away from the Lord. He shall not seek after wealth, lest it become an idol for him. He ought not just read the Torah, but literally copy the Torah word for word so he has his own copy. He has to be a scribe. This was quite an undertaking (just think about even typing a copy of the Bible for yourself today and how much work that would be). The exercise would help him to internalize God’s Word to such a degree that it would be written on HIs heart. He ought to read it all the days of his life—leaving no day out, so “that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, by carefully observing all the words of this law and these statutes, that his heart may not be lifted up above his countrymen and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, to the right or the left.” The blessing comes to the king and his children for this obedience, but consider the blessing that the people would enjoy under such a government as this!

In Deuteronomy 18:15, we see Moses prophesy about Yeshua and warn Israel that they had better listen to Him when He comes. “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your countrymen, you shall listen to him.” In John 5:46, Yeshua says, “For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me.” This is where he wrote about Yeshua, and it is interesting the reason given for Yeshua coming in the flesh; namely, Israel asked for it: “‘Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, let me not see this great fire anymore, or I will die.’ I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you, and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. It shall come about that whoever will not listen to My words which he shall speak in My name, I Myself will require it of him.’” Do you get this? Yeshua came in the flesh because Man was afraid to hear the Voice of God speaking out of Heaven! They needed to hear from God coming from a man like themselves. Besides His sacrifice for us, which is a paramount act of love to win back the faithful and true, this is why God came in the flesh.

And yet, God will reveal Himself once more on the Last Day and will speak from the Throne of Heaven when He peels back the whole of the Heavens. See Isaiah 34:4, Revelation 6:14 or 2 Peter 3:10, among other places. Yeshua will then come on the clouds, not to save the sinners, but to remove those who were faithful to Him so He can then destroy those who were rebellious against His laws and the opportunity for eternal life that He gave to Man. The Kings of the Earth will quake and hide in the caves on that day. What’s worse is the false prophets who were presumptuous, whether taking the Lord’s work and putting it in their own hands, without faith, or those who spoke falsely on account of Yeshua’s Holy Spirit, these shall die among the rebellious. “But the prophet who speaks a word presumptuously in My name which I have not commanded him to speak, or which he speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.’” Beware and be fearful—yes fearful—in your relationship with Almighty God. In Yeshua, we have our only hope.

We see in Deuteronomy 19:15 one of several examples and iterations of this verse: ”A single witness shall not rise up against a man on account of any iniquity or any sin which he has committed; on the evidence of two or three witnesses a matter shall be confirmed.” While this verse relates to sin, we see the Apostles use the same concept to refer to revealing truth in Scripture or in life. A matter is established by two or three witnesses, and so when we see a matter repeated in Scripture, particularly when it is repeated in both Old and New Testament, that matter is as solid as granite and you can count on it being a firm law of the Lord. Note Matthew 5:17-20. The law of God given to Moses is eternal, and Yeshua came to teach us how to obey it more accurately.

The Lord is with those who trust Him and keep His commandments, and so when we go to battle against any enemy, even if that enemy seems insurmountable and unbeatable, we must heed the Lord’s Words in Deuteronomy 20:1: “do not be afraid of them; for the Lord your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt, is with you.” Don’t let this be lost on you as you face persecution, torture or even death. The Lord is with you. Do NOT be afraid! There is victory in Yeshua on the Last Day, and we ought not have any other hope. The Lord then gives instructions for different types of warfare. Unless the Lord has specifically instructed His people to destroy a people—as He commanded Israel to “utterly destroy” the Hittite, Amorite, Canaanite, Perizzite, Hivite, and Jebusite people, so they would not infect Israel with their detestable sins and idolatry—we ought to seek peace and amity with all other peoples. The Lord allows His people to subjugate a people that has come up against them, and this will also be the case on the Last Day. “Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life!“ (1 Corinthians 6:2-3).

Deuteronomy 21, Deuteronomy 22, Deuteronomy 23, Psalm 63

The Lord God values life and righteousness, and He demands blood for blood when life is destroyed. When Man cannot determine the cause of death for a man who has been murdered, the Lord makes a provision to account for his death regardless. Dwell on the concept for a moment; how the Lord so values the life of a righteous man that a whole village must mourn for the loss of his life through sacrifice. The Lord is also just, and revisits some of the sins of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob with laws He gives through Moses. For example, if a man has two wives, as Jacob did, and loves the younger more than the older, as Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah, then the birthright must still go to the oldest son of the unloved woman. Jacob gave the birthright to Joseph and his two sons, while God wanted that birthright to go to Judah (Judah’s two older brothers lost their birthright through sin). These were the “stubborn and rebellious sons” who would be stoned at the gate. In “spirit and truth,” we might send such a child away to a Christian home for troubled children to bring them back to repentance.

You see in Deuteronomy 21:23 the reason why Yeshua had to be buried before sundown on Passover, the day of His crucifixion: “If a man has committed a sin worthy of death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his corpse shall not hang all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him on the same day (for he who is hanged is accursed of God), so that you do not defile your land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance.” And so this is the reason why Jesus was rushed into the cave by Joseph of Arimathea. And yet, Jesus was simply accused of sin, but was without blemish. This is why Paul writes in Galatians 3:13 that Jesus was cursed for us, on account of our sin: “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”),” And so, we are no longer under the law’s penalty of death when we sin, but then repent. By His blood we are healed; we are covered by His righteousness so that we might live. Having been given this free gift of grace, we ought to walk in the commandments that were “prepared beforehand” out of love for our redeemer.

You see God’s love for both righteousness and for men and women both, and even animals, in Deuteronomy 22. The man or woman who sin in adultery are guilty of a sin that brings death. I find it fascinating that the Lord redeems the woman who resists an act of force against her, and yet he does not redeem the woman who does not resist. This implies that the one who resists was without sin, but the one who does not resist is party to the sin. The man who forces or commits sin is also punished. I see complete justice in all of this. Praise be to God that He has redeemed us of this sin through the blood of Yeshua, and yet, it is critical that those who repent of these sins go and sin no more. The Lord is very clear about what is and what is not sin in these verses.

Deuteronomy 22-23—interpreted through the New Covenant where both Jew and Greek are part of the Body of Yeshua—makes it clear that we ought not charge interest when lending to another believer, and yet we can charge interest to a nonbeliever. The Lord also details certain people who are not permitted in the assembly, and He even lists several metaphors toward the end of the chapter 22 to make it clear that the believer and unbeliever should not live together, if possible, but the believer ought to be set apart from the unbeliever in this World: “You shall not sow your vineyard with two kinds of seed, or all the produce of the seed which you have sown and the increase of the vineyard will become defiled. “You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together. “You shall not wear a material mixed of wool and linen together.” Paul clarifies this teaching in 1 Corinthians 7, and even gets into the nuance of unbelievers who then later come into the faith and find themselves in a situation where they are living with unbelievers. This is all about believers and unbelievers. We ought not build our lives with unbelievers, which is not to say that we ought not work to convert them; obviously this is commanded, but not at the expense of our own soul.

The Lord also details property rights, along with other principles, toward the end of Deuteronomy 23, starting with the principle that our “yes should be yes,” and our “no should be no,” as Jesus put it. If you say you are going to do something, do it, or else it is sin. The Lord allows us to eat from a neighbor’s farm or field, so long as we are not taking anything home with us without paying for it. Consider picking apples from an apple orchard. If you pick one to eat while picking, you don’t need to pay for that. But if you want to bring some home to make apple pie, you certainly do. You see also that you may pluck the heads of standing grain as you walk through your neighbor’s field, but you had better not bring a sickle and take some home with you. This is the principle Jesus teaches in Mark 2:23-28, when it is not a sin against the Sabbath to pluck grain for a snack on the Sabbath, but had they brought baskets to harvest, it certainly would have been sin. Torah comes alive in the life of our savior Yeshua, and everything becomes so much more clear when we read the Bible as one book teaching the same message, because that is what it is.

Dad’s rebellious comment deserving additional commentary:

This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.” Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones; so you shall put away the evil from among you, and all Israel shall hear and fear.  Deuteronomy 21

If this was a law in practice today, can you imagine the number of deaths of disobedient and insolent children in the world?

Additional commentary:

This law that you reference is and ought to be fully in force today. You MUST interpret Scripture “In spirit and truth,” as the Lord instructed us, rather than literally by the letter like the Pharisees did. Misunderstanding of the law comes from interpreting it by the letter, and that is what you’ve done here.

Consider 2 Corinthians 3:4-6, “And we have such trust through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”

Do not ignore Jesus’s repeated words, and Paul’s repeated words, that the law is fully in force and will not pass away until Heaven and Earth pass away. You risk eternal life by rebelling against the law of God. This is of critical importance to understand. Matthew 5:17-20 is meant with all sincerity, as is Matthew 7:21-23.

And so, to interpret this Scripture that you reference in Spirit and Truth, which I’ve also done in my commentary that you’ll see below, you must note that the son who is a glutton and a drunkard must be stoned, or his sin will bring sin to the other sons of the land and the evil will spread. Stoning, throughout Scripture, is done both literally and figuratively. Consider the story of the man who had relations with his father’s wife in 1 Corinthians 5. Paul literally says, “put away from yourselves the evil person.” This is a direct quote from both Leviticus and Deuteronomy, which means in the original context: stone the man to death. Does Paul advocate stoning?!? The answer is yes! Stoning does not have to be literal. In the case of this son of yours, who sinned, his mother packed his bags and readied him to be removed from the house. This was the right thing to do. Had he continued in sin, he should have been removed. As a youth, he should be sent to a camp for remedial children.

The fact of the matter is that a son who is living a life of sin cannot be allowed to continue in it. And if he does, he must be removed. There is no option here. If he is not removed, his sin will continue and he will die in it. He may ruin other sons or daughters around him, or even the sons and daughters of his neighbors. Why is our country so full of debauchery today? Why are we being judged? Because so many parents DO NOT follow God’s law. If he is removed; however, there is a chance that he will repent from it and return to the Lord. Consider 2 Corinthians 2:1-11, and you will see what happened to the man that Paul told the Corinthians to “stone” in 1 Corinthians 5. The man came to repentance! He turned away from his sin and stopped sinning. What does Paul advocate? He advocates welcoming the repentant man back into the assembly with forgiveness, lest Satan use the divisiveness of sin to tear apart the whole community.

And so, when we “stone” our children, meaning remove them from the home and send them for remediation (if they are a youth) or kick them out of the house if they are an adult, the hope is that they will come to repentance and turn toward God and His commandments. I know more than one son in modern days that this very thing worked for, and one of them is me.

It is critical that anyone who has a rebellious heart that rejects the law of God to recognize their sin, repent and turn back to the Lord. For there will be nothing but death for the one who rejects the law of God. Jesus, Paul, and Peter have all said this.

Read Heb. 10:26-31: “For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. And again, “The Lord will judge His people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” NOTE: “Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy…” This applies to you and me; it is and always was true. What’s more, if you are a Christian relying on Christ’s grace, the punishment is worse. Do not turn God’s grace into lewdness!

Deuteronomy 24, Deuteronomy 25, Deuteronomy 26, Deuteronomy 27, Psalm 64

In Deuteronomy 24-26, an underlying theme develops where we can see the Lord’s love and care for the poor that is built into His law; this law also applies to the “poor in spirit,” as Jesus said, which means the humble. We are to give our first and our best to the Lord, which in turn is distributed by God’s chosen spiritual leaders to the poor. We are also to leave some of our fields and farms with produce so that the poor can pick from them. Consider that our first and our last acts of provisioning ourselves ought to be mindful of those who do not have the same provisions that we do. I love how God even says that a lender must allow a poor man to sleep with his surety if the surety was his cloak for keeping warm at night. What love! The Lord says, “thou shall not covet,” but the positive realization of this commandment is that when we share what God has given us with those in need, then everyone receives the provision of the Lord; this is done through acts of love and kindness.

So when Jesus tells us the following, He is bringing the Law of God to life, noting that God has already made provision for the poor in His law and He will take care of everyone through His people, “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the pagans seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” To seek righteousness is to obey God’s commandments, and you see today in Deuteronomy that God’s commandments make provision for the poor. If we seek God and all of HIs righteousness, there is no way that the poor will be left out. Even in a society that is not godly, like our own, God’s people will find a way to help provision the poor until they become the poor themselves. Then, we must simply trust in the Lord, and He will provide, whether in this life or the next is not important. The Kingdom must always come first in our minds.

You’ll also notice several other laws relative to justice. A man can’t take back a woman he abandoned; such would be a disgrace to both of them. He has given up His right to be the covering for this woman that he divorces. In Matthew 19:8, Jesus says, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.” You’ll notice in Deuteronomy 24 that God does not say it is OK to divorce, but rather is giving provision for when it occurs. He is making clear that the blessing of a man and His wife coming together as one union ought not be something we toss away like a garment and then look to put it back on later. The union ought to be a permanent relationship that only death can separate.

Note even that in God’s punishments He shows mercy. Those who are stoned to death, as we discussed yesterday, were only stoned in the wilderness, when the punishment of banishment would have been a less merciful death. To wander alone in the wilderness was a much more gruesome and torturous death than stoning. And yet, as we discussed, once Israel entered the land, the punishment of stoning is interpreted with spirit and truth, and banishment is essentially the iteration of the punishment that occurs within civil society. Likewise we see that a man who has been convicted of the punishment of lashing shall not receive more than 40 lashes. Punishment is meant to bring reformation and repentance, not suffering.

New Hampshire’s State Constitution has a provision that lives up to God’s law in Deuteronomy, and it is worth quoting from Part 1, Article 18: “All penalties ought to be proportioned to the nature of the offense. No wise Legislature will affix the same punishment to the crimes of theft, forgery, and the like, which they do to those of murder and treason. Where the same undistinguishing severity is exerted against all offenses, the people are led to forget the real distinction in the crimes themselves, and to commit the most flagrant with as little compunction as they do the lightest offenses. For the same reason a multitude of sanguinary laws is both impolitic and unjust. The true design of all punishments being to reform, not to exterminate mankind.”

Some of God’s punishments may seem severe, but note how in society today when these punishments are not enforced, sin has become rampant and the whole nation has grown corrupt. Would we literally cut off a woman’s hand for grabbing the testicles of a man who was brawling with her husband? I don’t think so. The point is that a woman is not to do this thing; she ought not to get involved with a fight between her husband and another man. There is spirit and truth to this commandment that we should meditate on, and consider. Should two men even be involved in a physical brawl to begin with? Should a wife then jump in and help her husband in the fight? What depravity! The point is not that this punishment be meted out on a regular basis, but that the circumstance ought not happen at all. If it does, what does the right hand represent? It represents a person’s actions. And so, the wife surely ought to be prevented from doing such a thing. This is the meaning here.

If we are to be a people set apart, grafted-in to Israel as Gentiles or native born Israelites who follow their Messiah Yeshua, and if we love our Messiah Yeshua and truly follow Him, as He as asked us to do, then this applies directly to us: “This day the Lord your God commands you to do these statutes and ordinances. You shall therefore be careful to do them with all your heart and with all your soul. You have today declared the Lord to be your God, and that you would walk in His ways and keep His statutes, His commandments and His ordinances, and listen to His voice. The Lord has today declared you to be His people, a treasured possession, as He promised you, and that you should keep all His commandments; and that He will set you high above all nations which He has made, for praise, fame, and honor; and that you shall be a consecrated people to the Lord your God, as He has spoken.” You can see the Gospel message within these words. What else does it mean to follow or to love than to obey?

Deuteronomy 27 begins the first part of a two-part teaching on the blessings and the curses that the Lord uses Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim to illustrate. The blessings are assigned to Mt. Gerizim, while the curses go to Mt. Ebal. There is a valley between the two mountains. The commandments that curse are written on the top of Mt. Ebal and the commandments that bless are written on the top of Mt. Gerizim, and the Israelites would shout the commandments to each other from each mountain over the valley so that they would remember to keep them, and remember to not violate them. The illustration that God instructed Moses to implement here is basically a giant living parable, where it is clear that there is a giant gulf between obedience and disobedience and there is no real gray area. You either obey God or you don’t, you either love Him of you don’t. You cannot be lukewarm (See Revelation 3:16: “So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.”) It shouldn’t be lost on us that the valley between these mountains is very steep. And so we can truly say, “Cursed is he [or she] who does not confirm the words of the law by doing them.” (Deuteronomy 27:26)

Deuteronomy 28, Deuteronomy 29, Psalm 65

The whole of creation sings out in joy to the Lord and shout of His existence and His love for His creation, according to Psalm 65, and to us He wills that we dwell within His courts to be “sastisfied with the goodness of Your House,” in which, Yeshua tells us, there are many mansions. For these blessings, the Lord asks only that we give Him our heart, our mind, our soul and our strength—as Yeshua said, “everything you have.” Deuteronomy 28 explains in no uncertain terms that the sheep will be separated from the goats, the wheat from the chaff. There is no ambiguity. The Lord provides mercy and is not looking for sacrifice, but obedience is what he prefers to anything else we might assumptively offer Him. Mercy He gives to the humble and contrite of heart, who seek to obey Him in everything they say and do. “All these blessings will come upon you and overtake you if you obey the Lord your God.” You will be kings and priests: “The Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you only will be above, and you will not be underneath, if you listen to the commandments of the Lord your God, which I charge you today, to observe them carefully, and do not turn aside from any of the words which I command you today, to the right or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.”

Yet, the Lord will bring you to utter destruction and ruin, even into eternity, if you do not obey Him. “In the morning you shall say, ‘Would that it were evening!’ And at evening you shall say, ‘Would that it were morning!’ because of the dread of your heart which you dread, and for the sight of your eyes which you will see.” Read Ezekiel 18 and 33 and know that the Lord doesn’t want this for us; He wants us to repent from our sin, to follow Him, and to sin no more. He will forgive the one who obeys with a humble and contrite heart, seeking the Lord.

In Deuteronomy 29, we see that the Lord will make an example of Israel, whether for better or worse, relative to whether they obey the Lord’s commandments or not. If they forsook the commandments of God—well, you’ve read the curses—these would come to pass. If they obeyed, they’d be blessed beyond any other nation, and I think we have even seen that in our lifetimes—both things, actually. These same blessings and curses apply to the Christian who seeks God for their eternal life. The blessings are eternal life in the Kingdom of God, while the curses are eternal death in the fires of Hell. We do not live for this world, but for the world to come, and our hearts must be seeking it first, with obedience to our Lord and Savior. We do not obey for salvation, for salvation is a free gift of grace. We obey because of our salvation, and because we love the one who saved us. It is what we do to show that our faith is real, for without obedience, can we truly say we love Him?

Deuteronomy 30, Deuteronomy 31, Psalm 66

The Lord God made it clear that He has foretold both a blessing and a curse to Israel as a sign to all the nations of the Earth, so that the whole world will know about the Lord God Most High. The Lord God also promised to regather Israel from the ends of the earth back into the land, which is something that quite miraculously happened in 1948 after centuries of exile. Today, Jews are turning to the Messiah Yeshua more than ever before, as the Lord circumcises their hearts and the hearts of their descendants, so that they are turning back to love the Lord with all their heart and soul so they may live in the land of promise to come. Those who have persecuted the Jews will suffer the curses that the Jews once suffered at their hands, and the Jews of Israel and the Gentiles grafted into Israel will observe all God’s commandments and be prospered forever in the coming Kingdom of Heaven.

This here is a message to everyone who follows the Messiah Yeshua: “See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and adversity; in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, that you may live and multiply, and that the Lord your God may bless you in the land where you are entering to possess it. But if your heart turns away and you will not obey, but are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall surely perish. … So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days, that you may live in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.” This promised land is the eternal kingdom of Heaven, and the Saints endure by keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Yeshua.

When Moses was 120 years old, he wrote down the Torah in a book and put it next to the ark of the covenant: The Word says, “when Moses finished writing the words of this law in a book until they were complete, ‘Take this book of the law and place it beside the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may remain there as a witness against you.’” And so, we know that the Bible was recorded in written form during the time of Moses in the Jordan valley right before Israel crossed over to possess the land. Our oldest surviving copies may have been recorded later, but the first copies, which were meticulously copied word for word over the ages, were compiled in full in that year. Recent scholarship puts that around year 1406 BC, since the Exodus took place in roughly 1446 BC, and not long after that the 10 Commandments were written on Tablets of Stone. Did Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob record the word prior to Moses? Did others? It’s not completely clear at this time. We know for certain that Moses recorded the Torah at this time, because God’s Word makes that clear.

I find this verse sequence from Deuteronomy 31:1-3 to be very interesting: “It is the Lord your God who will cross ahead of you; … Joshua (יְהוֹשֻׁ֗עַ | Yehoshua) is the one who will cross ahead of you, just as the Lord has spoken.” I don’t believe the verse is meant to equate Joshua with God here, but rather as God’s anointed leader who will bring Israel into the promised land. At the same time, there seems to be prophesy in this verse, speaking of a future time when Yeshua, who is one in being with God, will lead the Saints of Israel into the Kingdom of Heaven, which is the Promised Land, the eternal Garden of Eden. The Lord speaks to us from Isaiah 46:9-10: “Remember the former things of old, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure.’” It is without question that God has appointed the sequence of Israel’s entry of the Promised Land as a prophetic historical allegory, telling the story of things to come.

Over and over again the Lord tells His people, “Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid or tremble at them, for the Lord your God is the one who goes with you. He will not fail you or forsake you … do not fear or be dismayed.” And yet, every seven years, at the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot) the spiritual leaders will call together all believers, all of Israel, the men, the women, the children and the aliens (Jew and Gentile alike), to assemble “before the Lord your God at the place which He will choose … so that they may hear and learn and fear the Lord your God, and be careful to observe all the words of this law.” Yeshua tells us that we ought to not be afraid of those who might kill the body, but cannot kill the soul, but rather to fear the one who can destroy both body and soul in Hell. The Lord God deserves our complete and total honor and praise, glory be to His name, Yeshua! He came and died for us, gave His blood for our salvation, and rose from the dead so we can follow Him into eternal life. Will you hear the call and follow Him? He is knocking on the door, but only as individuals can we open the door and let Him in. We cannot do this for another. We can only point to the Truth, who is Jesus.

“If I regard wickedness in my heart, the Lord will not hear,” the psalmist writes in Psalm 66. The Lord’s enemies may give “feigned obedience” to Him, and “all the earth will worship” Him, but only those who have been refined as silver is refined, who come and hear, “all who fear God,” these the Lord will hear; “certainly God has heard, He has given heed to the voice of my prayer.” Let us approach Him with a humble and contrite heart, full of godly sorrow; willing to give whatever we need to give to the Lord, whatever He asks, for it all belongs to Him. When we give everything the Lord only gives us even more. We cannot approach the Lord in sin or rebellion and expect His blessings; only curses result from this. Blessings come from faith, which is doing and not only hearing the Word of God, in the Lord Yeshua, our savior. Praise be to God for He is good and His lovingkindness endures forever.

Deuteronomy 32, Deuteronomy 33, Deuteronomy 34, Psalm 67

Deut. 31:30 is a great example that shows the imprecision of today’s chapters and verse numbers, thought it is important to note the usefulness of them as a reference tool. As we study, we should note how the Bible was NOT written with chapter divisions and verse numbers, and this ought to aid in our interpretation by knowing that we should look back into previous chapters and forward into the next ones to fully understand context. Never should a verse be taken on its own. And so the verse in question reads, “Then Moses spoke in the hearing of all the assembly of Israel the words of this song, until they were complete:” The song itself begins in Deuteronomy 32.

Moses’s song emphasizes the power of God and His Word, which cannot be constrained by any of man’s devices. “For I proclaim the name of the Lord; Ascribe greatness to our God! The Rock! His work is perfect, For all His ways are just; A God of faithfulness and without injustice, Righteous and upright is He.” Verse 3 reads in Hebrew, “For the name of Yahweh I proclaim. Ascribe greatness to our God.” Why do we take the name of God and conceal it? Does God not want us to know Him? He does! His name, Yeshua, has been revealed to all the nations. Moses also asks God to allow His Word to refresh souls like the rain, “Let my teaching drop as the rain, my speech distill as the dew, as the droplets of the fresh grass and as the showers on the herb.” It’s important to note that God’s anointed teachers—the one God calls with His voice—teach knowledge, wisdom and discernment to those who obey God and pursue Him with all of their hearts, souls, mind and strength. To those who are perishing, the Word is nonsense and the law seems foolish. (1 Corinth 1:18) But to those who are being sanctified by the Holy Spirit, the Word is life: “Take to your heart all the words with which I am warning you today, which you shall command your sons to observe carefully, even all the words of this law. For it is not an idle word for you; indeed it is your life. And by this word you will prolong your days in the land, which you are about to cross the Jordan to possess.” The land, metaphorically, represents the Kingdom of Heaven. By God’s Word, we will make it there.

Moses’s two songs reemphasize the teaching Torah and make it clear that Israel, the descendants of Jacob, are a special people to the Lord, set apart among all the nations. If we have any interest in the blessings of Israel, then we must be grafted in to that nation through Messiah Yeshua. There is no salvation outside of Jesus, and Jesus is the King of Israel. We must be among the children of Israel as strangers grafted in to the faith in order to make it to the Promised Land. “Rejoice, O nations, with His people; For He will avenge the blood of His servants, And will render vengeance on His adversaries, And will atone for His land and His people.” It could not be more clear. Through Jesus (Yeshua) alone, Israel and the peoples from the nations who are grafted in, will be saved. Everyone else will be destroyed—totally and finally. Let us therefore keep His commandments and the faith of Yeshua, “For all His ways are just, a God of faithfulness and without injustice, righteous and upright is He!” He will not abide with those who reject Him and rebel against Him.

When Moses went up to view the land that God had promised to Israel, his eyes were not dim and his vigor was in tact, even at 120 years old. The Word says that he died there in the land of Moab, and the Lord buried him there. No man knows his burial place. By the power of the Holy Spirit, Judah, Jesus’s brother, writes in Jude 1:9: “Yet Michael the archangel, in contending with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” Michael was directly responsible for managing Moses’s burial? We also know that Moses appeared with Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration with Yeshua, Matthew 17:3: “And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him.” This was no ordinary man, and his death was not ordinary. He is one of three exceptions in Scripture to the rule that man will sleep in the grave until the Last Day. Elijah and Enoch are the other two. Yeshua was literally the prophet like unto Moses who rose up after him, who knew the Lord face to face, for He was indeed the Lord Himself. Scripture says, “since that time no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face,…” In Yeshua, we have the promise of this level of intimacy with God.