B’MIDBAR – In the Desert
Today, we see before our eyes the End Days unfolding with startling precision – the wars and hostilities between countries, citizens and families escalating to unprecedented proportions, and governmental mechanisms all over the world weakening and collapsing. And most significantly we are witnessing the betrayal of nations against the tiny nation of Israel as violent expressions of anti-Semitism unprecedented in history is surging throughout all 4 corners of the earth.
These are indeed perilous times but for us also is a signal of our coming redemption! Yeshua said, “When you see these things happening lift up your eyes for your redemption draws nigh!” (Lk.21:28) And it’s interesting that Yeshua follows up these words with the Parable of the Fig Tree” which speaks of the last generation before His return following Israel’s return as a sovereign state to the Homeland following 2000 years of exile.
Not least in face of so called “journalistic facts” that is basically “fake news”, blood libels and distorted truth against Israel and Jerusalem, that’s saturating social media, we should examine carefully how we as remnant believers should respond, particularly in view of the fact that the majority of the Church is apathetic or actively supports pro-Palestinian sentiments.
Historically, Jerusalem, the “city of the great King,” is the same place where God spoke to Abram and instructed him to, “… take your son, your only one, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah and bring him up there for a burnt offering on one of the mountains, of which I will tell you.” (Gen 22:2).
A few thousand years later following David’s conquest, he purchased a corner of the city owned by Ornan the Jebusite as commanded by the Lord (1Chron 21:15-21). This is the very place where his son, Solomon, built the Temple. “And Solomon commenced to build the House of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where He had appeared to his father David, which he had prepared in David’s place, in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.” (2 Chron 3:1).
Every year when we celebrate Yom Yerushalyim, God’s holy city, the heart of every true believer proclaims with the psalmist “…If I forget you, O Jerusalem, Let my right hand forget its skill! If I do not remember you, Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth— If I do not exalt Jerusalem Above my chief joy.” (Ps.137:6).
And yet throughout so many generations the Jewish people remained in exile, the land was destroyed and became desolate. And Yerushalyim as well, as prophesied “…was a desert, (and) a desolation…” (Isa.46:9). Many tried to stake a claim on this Land, and even tried to erase it from the map, but the heart of Yerushalyim continued to beat and the hope of the people remained strong.
Many of the prayers of the Jewish people conclude with the words “…Next year in Jerusalem…” even from among those who reside there because as the prophet Isaiah stated, “…until all those lost in the land… and those exiled come…” (ch.27:13) – i.e., until all the Jews who dwell in exile have returned as promised in Scripture. And God brings comfort with the words that, “The Lord is the builder of Jerusalem; He will gather the outcasts of Israel” (Ps.147:2).
There is no other city in the world that has an upper Jerusalem and a lower Jerusalem – Jerusalem in Heaven and Jerusalem on earth as in Ezekiel’s vision in ch’s 40-48 and with the New Jerusalem described in John’s vision in Rev.21.
Because of the duality of Jerusalem (the earthly and the heavenly) the name of Jerusalem in Hebrew is plural, representing two cities, a city that joins the one above and the one below (Ps.122:3).
Jerusalem is the only city that connects to the world of eternity. The word eternity in Hebrew can also mean victory beyond time. Therefore, faith in God and His promises, and Jerusalem – both are eternal – through whom the victory gained for us through Yeshua becomes substantial. It is the victory experienced for true believers in the here and-now and the future.
On Yom Yerushalyim we respond to the words of rejoicing: “Awaken, awaken, dress yourself with strength, O arm of the Lord, awaken, awaken like days of old, generations of yore; are you not the one that hewed Rahab and slew the sea monster? Are you not the one who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep? Who made the depths of the sea a road for the redeemed ones to pass?” (Is 51:9-10). However grim things may look for Israel past, present or future, we no less retain our full confidence in the Lord of Hosts who ever remains faithful to His word!
We are starting the Torah reading this Shabbat with the Book of Numbers. Our Torah portion commences in the opening chapters from “B’midbar” (“In the desert.”) It always comes one shabbat preceding Shavuot when the Law was given at Sinai and Israel became established as a nation. Every Synagogue in the world will be reading this exact text of the Book of Numbers on this Shabbat,
Why would God gave the Israelites the Torah in the desert rather than in a fertile place? It is a question that has fascinated the Jewish sages who have provided various explanations of which one illustrates how God’s Word is the only thing which can make our empty lives full and provides life to the barrenness within us. It’s in the desert place of desperate need where we find our full dependance on Him. The exile of the Jewish people has also been compared to a wilderness, a place of dryness and harshness, but it was always for a reason and a season; it was never intended to be permanent as we are reminded throughout the period of the Omer counting.
As believers we know that through Yeshua our lives can be transformed from a spiritual desert to a rich abundance. But, we must not ignore that without the desert there can be no life and for us as believers this is an ongoing principle in our walk with God.
And so, the psalmist, cried out to God from the depths of his being: “O God, You are my God, the One in whom I trust. I seek You with every fibre of my being. In this dry and weary land with no water in sight, my soul is dry and longs for You.” (Ps.63)
There is much one could say regarding Counting the Omer and I have shared with you some things over the past few weeks, but primarily it connects Passover with Shavuot in a variety of ways. For example:
1. At Passover we are reminded how God released the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. At Shavuot the Israelites received the Torah at Mount Sinai demonstrating how God has set us free to serve Him rather than remain as slaves, but it comes with conditions attached. This is what we learnt from last week’s parsha, Parashat Behukotai (by my regulations) the last portion of Leviticus. Physical freedom is empty if we are still bound by sin.
2. At Pesach, Jewish people read the Book of Solomon which is a story of betrothal.
At Shavuot, the Book of Ruth is read which speaks of a love story that ends with a
wedding! There were two stages for entering marriage: betrothal and the wedding ceremony. Both were legally binding through a formal contract. (Ketubah)
In the Book of Exodus, Moses brought the Israelites to Mount Sinai at Shavuot where God betrothed Himself to Israel and gave them the Torah (Law) as a marriage contract. He wrote down everything that God dictated and read it to the
Israelites. As with a traditional Jewish marriage, the bridegroom gave his bride a special name. Here, God called Israel His ‘treasured possession.’
Jewish people marry under a canopy called the ‘chupah’ in the same way that the Israelites stood at the foot of the mountain and were enveloped in a dense cloud of His glory. In the same way, the Bride of Messiah has likewise been betrothed to the Bridegroom (God) and He has promised to return in the near future to take us to Himself for the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.
3. At Pesach we eat only unleavened bread, which reminds us of Yeshua’s sinless offering. At Shavuot, two leavened loaves of bread are offered at the altar representing the two houses of Judah and ISRAEL who are united, symbolically representing Jew and Gentile, ‘one new man’ in Yeshua!
This was the only occasion where leavened bread was ever offered by the priests, during Shavuot, demonstrating that even though we are sinners, He is faithful to forgive us all our sins when we turn to Him and truly repent.
4. At Pesach we are brought out of slavery through His redemption, but at Shavuot
we are brought into His fullness.
We might wonder why Shavuot is only for one day compared to the seven days of Pesach, and the sages tell us that this is because God’s presence was so powerful that it couldn’t be contained for a longer period!
The text from our Torah reading tells us what for and why God needed to count the male Children of Israel in the Sinai wilderness. Numbers 3:44:
“And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 45 “Take the Levites instead of all the firstborn among the people of Israel, and the cattle of the Levites instead of their cattle. The Levites shall be mine: I am the LORD. 46 And as the redemption price for the 273 of the firstborn of the people of Israel, over and above the number of the male Levites, 47 you shall take five shekels3 per head; you shall take them according to the shekel of the sanctuary (the shekel of twenty gerahs ), [1] 48 and give the money to Aaron and his sons as the redemption price for those who are over.” 49 So Moses took the redemption money from those who were over and above those redeemed by the Levites. 50 From the firstborn of the people of Israel he took the money, 1,365 shekels, by the shekel of the sanctuary. 51 And Moses gave the redemption money to Aaron and his sons, according to the word of the LORD, as the LORD commanded Moses.”
The redemption of the first born in Israel was because all the Egyptian first born died just before the Passover and God wanted the first born of Israel and the Levites to offer the 5 shekel silver coins as a redemption offering of gratitude for the salvation that they received before they left Egypt with Moses and Aaron.
Even as Shavuot is preceded by a time of counting, we are reminded that although God does not count time as we know it, He knows every detail about each one of us because we are His treasured possession.
But we are infinitely more than just a number to Him and hold unique significance which is the reason why God instructed Moses to conduct a census of the people in this Torah portion. Those who were sent to the concentration camps were tattooed with a number on their arms in order to degrade them and make them appear no more than just that: a number rather than an identity but this is not so with God.
Our Jewish sages explain that it was because of God’s love for His people that He counts them constantly. When they left Egypt He counted them. He counted them when they sinned with the Golden Calf to show how many people had remained faithful to Him. Right now, God is counting His chosen elect and when the full number has been reached He will return again for us. Who knows how close we are to that moment?
It is interesting that God gave the Israelites the Torah in the desert rather than in a fruitful place. This illustrates how God’s Word is the only thing which can make our empty lives full and refreshed. (Ps.42-43) But Scripture never tells us that things would be easy. The Rabbi DovBer of Mezheritch once encountered a weeping child. “Why are you crying?” he asked.
The child replied that he and a friend had been playing “hide and seek,” but his friend had run off to some amusement, leaving him curled up in his hiding place, waiting in vain to be searched out. Rabbi Dov Ber lifted his eyes to heaven and cried: “You, too, have hidden Your face from us only because You want us to seek You. But Your children have tired of the game and have run off…”
In these perilous times amid the increasing polarisation between righteousness and ungodliness, who has never been tempted to run away from God instead of running into His arms; to seek Him above all things and discover that He alone can provide us with shelter from the fierce storm?
When everything seems to be spiralling out of control, know that God is always in control. When everything in your life seems to be disintegrating into a million fragments, know that God is already busy forming the pieces together again into a beautiful mosaic. When we face extremity, God sees it as an opportunity to create something extraordinary in our lives that leads to abundance. But let us never tire of the ‘game’ and run away into the shadows… “Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call on him while he is near.” (Isa. 55:6)
His Word gives life to the barrenness within us. Yeshua is the Word and He alone can transform our lives from a spiritual desert to one of rich abundance. In Jewish history exile has often been compared to being in a wilderness, a place of dryness and harshness and wanderings but we recently celebrated the momentous miracle where God, after almost 2000 years returned His people to their Homeland. Israel was reestablished as a sovereign state as prophesied in Scripture against all odds! (Jer. 23:7-8)
Never again will Israel be without a Homeland and God Himself shall dwell in its midst; and the fullness and reality of this is described in Zech.12 when the Jewish people turn to their Messiah at the end of this age.
Let me wrap things up with a story from Scripture about a woman who taught the world what it means to pray – that one prays not with one’s lips but from one’s heart. This is an essential ingredient that embraces and places context in everything we have shared so far.
It is the story of Hannah the mother of Samuel at a time in our history when intercessors would pray on their knees for Godly intervention on behalf of their nation. We see within the Church a diversity of responses to the perilous times we live in. Some people’s hands hang limply, others shake their fists angrily, many are blissfully unaware that anything is amiss, but a few are praying on their knees just like Hannah did.
The prayers of a true intercessor is accompanied by deep anguish released as in the pain of childbirth yet with a strength that defies all evil with the sure hope of redemption and restoration; a hope which tramples underfoot all fear, doubt and anxiety.
“When God sees my pain, perhaps I, too will be given a child,” thought Hannah and we too believe God will grant us the desires of our heart as we travail in prayer in obedience to His command in 2Chron.7:14. Yet, as with Hannah things sometimes seem to get worse before they get better. There was not a day that Hannah was not confronted with her barrenness but there would come a time, God’s perfect moment, that would change the course of history.
Each year, Elkana and his family travelled to Shiloh to offer sacrifices in the House of God. It was autumn, they were in Shiloh again. Elkana called his family together to share with them the sacrifice but Hannah took no part in the joyous celebration. Elkana gently enquired, “Hannah, why do you cry? Why is your heart saddened today? Does not my love mean more to you than the love of ten children?” Oh that we might hear those same words enfold us amid our travails from the heart of the Father.
When everyone had finished the meal, Hannah returned to the House of God, and standing before the Ark, she prayed undaunted. For what seemed like an eternity, she stood before the wall, her body shaking and racked with tears, her lips moving but her voice hardly more than a whisper. In those days, prayers and supplications were spoken aloud, and Eli, the high priest, misinterpreted her behaviour. “Woman, are you drunk?” he said in a voice of reprimand. “Go away from here, for it is improper to stand before God in a state of intoxication.”
“No,” she answered, “I have poured myself no wine today. It is my heart that I have poured out before God in my anguish.”
“Then go in peace,” Eli replied, “and may God grant you your prayer.”
So they returned home. That year, Hannah bore a son, and she named him Samuel, meaning “God hears.” When Samuel was two, she took him with her to Shiloh and presented him to Eli saying, “I am the woman who prayed to God in my sorrow. Beside me is my son, the answer to that prayer. And now may he be given into the service of God for the rest of his life.”
And she sang a song of thanks to God, returned home, and Samuel remained with Eli in the House of God. Though she visited him again each year, from that day on he was no longer only hers. She sacrificed her son to God, as Abraham had done before her. She sacrificed him not on an altar of stone, but on the altar of her heart, and her sacrifice was forever. And we know her only as the mother of Samuel the prophet, the son she gave away.
