NITZAVIM (You are Standing) + Vayelech (And He Went) Deut.29:9:31:30,
Haftarah: Isa.61:10–63:9, NT: Rom.10:14–21
By Raphael ben Levi
‘Nitzavim’ is one of the titles in this week’s double parasha, meaning to stand upright like a pillar, reminding us of Paul’s words in Eph.6 related to the spiritual armour. Paul tells the Ephesians “therefore, stand, and having done all, to stand!” How wonderful when we can come to the end of life’s cycle and be standing upright declaring in the words of Paul: “7 I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have served the Lord faithfully. 8 Now, a prize is waiting for me—the crown that will show I am right with God. The Lord, the judge who judges rightly, will give it to me on that Day. Yes, he will give it to me and to everyone else who is eagerly looking forward to his coming.” (2Tim 4:7-8)
Clearly we are in a battle that we dare not take lightly and we should be careful neither to overestimate nor underestimate Satan who takes great pleasure in destroying God’s people if he can or crippling them along the way to deprive us of the eternal reward that awaits us. The battle is the Lord’s and we have the victory in Him but only when we remain under His Divine covering.
Sadly, many believers today are bowed down, having succumbed to Satan’s allurements and find themselves condemned by the weight of the sin they are entrapped in. But it’s the heart of the Lord to remove every impediment and entanglement in our lives that we may stand upright in His presence, redeemed and set free. And this is indeed an important theme as we approach the Fall feasts knowing that through our precious Messiah, all things are possible!
There are moments when the Lord allows every believer Ito be shaken by situations, circumstances or events so deep we simply cannot fathom or articulate them adequately, but something within us breaks out in a silent scream that pierces the darkness. It’s not about any sin issue but there are times when we are simply exhausted and broken in body mind or spirit, or a combination of them all. Yet behind this stands the Master Potter who lovingly puts all the broken pieces together again and refashions us into an upright pillar shining with His likeness.
Today is ‘Shabbat Shuva,’ the Shabbat of return. Our Haftarah is from Hos.14: “Return O Israel to Adonai your God” (Hazor Israel l’Adonai Eloyheycha) an appeal for us to offer up our lives afresh to God who has mapped out the best route for our lives minus the short-cuts because all other paths end in disappointment.
When we hear the shofar it is an appeal to return to Him, and we don’t need to attempt this on our own for God desires to carry us in His arms of love and restore us to all that He has created us to be.
And so, Moses told the Israelites: “You are standing [nitzavim] today in the presence of the Lord your God….” (Deut. 29:10) Likewise, we are standing today as we prepare for the next step of our journey. It has been a long journey and sometimes arduous. We have borne the heat of the day and laboured through the night watches and persevered through the storms of life and shed many tears sometimes with sleepless nights ,but all along God who is faithful keeps us as the apple of His eye.
The Israelites chose to follow God and walk in His ways as we do also. And even though we may not do so perfectly we earnestly seek to walk in faithfulness and integrity. And our boast is not in ourselves but in God because we understand that we too are the prodigals who have returned home. Teshuva is a level playing field because we are all equally in need of His unmerited grace and forgiveness.
Yom Teruah is an obscure holiday because the Torah doesn’t reveal how exactly how we are to observe it nor does it explain its meaning. It’s the only feast that doesn’t celebrate an event in Jewish history with a directive linked to the blowing of the shofar, hence the name “Yom Teruah.” “On the first day of the seventh month you are to have a sacred assembly. You are to do no laborious work. It is for you a day for sounding the shofar..” Num.29:1:
Neh.8 provides us with a description of the first Yom Teruah when the Jewish exiles returned from Babylon to Jerusalem around 343BC. They were instructed to, “…Go (their) way, eat the fat, drink the sweet, and send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared; for this day is holy to our Lord. Do not sorrow, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” Neh 8:10
It’s the only feast that doesn’t have an exact starting time but began in Temple times when two witnesses saw the edge of the moon and reported their sighting to the Sanhedrin. It is a time accompanied by great rejoicing which is why we greet one another with a “good and sweet “year.” Yet as we have seen it’s also a solemn occasion as we draw closer to Yom Kippur. Few people reflect upon this paradox as we enter into the 10 Days of Awe between Yom Teruah and Yom Kippur. This is well illustrated in Gen.22 read at Yom Teruah known as the “Akedah” (“sacrifice”). It illustrates how God intervenes in our lives as throughout human history always at just the right moment. And we see in the “akedah” a type and shadow of Yeshua’s death and resurrection – the lamb of God pure and innocent who offered Himself voluntarily as a sacrifice for our sins – the most solemn moment ever since the creation of the world yet an event warranting our greatest rejoicing.
The first 9 verses of one of our Haftarah portions from Is.61 is not included in Judaism following the destruction of the 2nd Temple in 70AD that was replaced by rabbinic Judaism in the 2nd century. These passages describe in intricate detail the Messiah who only Yeshua alone could fulfil – every prophetic description and requirement contained in this chapter. So it comes as no surprise that He was invited to read from this exact portion in the synagogue at Shabbat Shuva at the outset of His public ministry in His home town of Nazareth:
“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, Because the Lord has anointed Me To preach good tidings to the poor He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;” (Isa.61:1) (Lk.4:16–19)
And so we rejoice greatly as we sound the shofar reminding us both of His first advent and His soon return!
God has His perfect timing for all things, and as believers our sure hope in Messiah Yeshua tempers the bitter-sweet ravages of sin because through His redemption we can experience the dynamic reality of His eternal forgiveness through the power of teshuva. And it reflects our yearning as we prepare to meet our King.
Yom Teruah is also known as ‘Yom HaKeseh,’ “The Day of Hiding” or “the Hidden Day.” This intriguing word occurs only two times in the Tanakh, (Job 26:9; Ps.81:3) making its meaning somewhat difficult to quantify. The term ke’seh {keh’-seh} is derived from the Hebrew root meaning to “conceal, cover, or hide.” Interestingly it connects with a similar word “ke’seh” meaning “a sacrificial lamb.” The Hebrew has a number of different names for sheep and lambs. A ke’seh is a little lamb, but a very special lamb, it is the sacrificial lamb. David felt as though he was like a sacrificial lamb that went astray. In Ps.119:176: “I have gone astray like a lost sheep, seek thy servant for I do not forget thy commandments.” Yet, He knew that he had a Shepherd who would exchange places with him on that altar. As the famous musician, George Gershwin, once wrote: “I’m just a little lamb who is lost in the woods, I know that I could always be good, to someone who will watch over me.“
The longer a sheep is with a shepherd the more intimate that sheep will become with the shepherd and so is unlikely to lose its way. However, sheep who have spent little time with their shepherd will be more prone to follow the call of another shepherd and will wander away and get lost. Some sheep just follow their own way and become so focused on their own feeding that they will also wander away from the flock. No wonder that Yeshua compared all of humanity to sheep! Here is an explanation that further illustrates this typology:
“We focus on our jobs, our finances, and our health so much that we never stop to look up at our Shepherd and before long he is gone. Not that he has left us but we have left him and lost our way. Once a sheep has gone astray, he will not find his way back to the flock, unless the shepherd comes looking for him, he will remain lost. That is why David says in this verse “seek they servant.” All that little lamb can do is stand in his lost condition and bleat, hoping his shepherd will find him.
Sheep were worshipped in Egypt. In fact, the Egyptian god Khnum was a sheep. Khnum was one of the earliest-known Egyptian deities and one of the major deities at that. Khnum was the creator of all life. Khnum was originally the god of the source of the Nile. Since the annual flooding of the Nile brought with it silt and clay, and its water brought life to its surroundings. He was thought to be the creator of the bodies of human children, which he made at a potter’s wheel, from clay, and placed in their mothers’ wombs. He was later described as having molded the other deities, and he had the titles “Divine Potter” and “Lord of created things from himself”
This would explain one reason why the Hebrews were to sacrifice a lamb as protection from the final plague. No Egyptian follower of Khnum would dare harm a little lamb the symbol of one of their supreme gods. For the Hebrews, it would show their total rejection of the pagan beliefs of the Egyptians not to mention an outright insult to one of the Egyptian’s supreme gods.
Then God commanded that a sheep be slaughtered as an atonement for sins. Imagine, a family has a newly born little lamb, loved by the children who were most likely assigned to care for it to make sure it was without blemish or spot. They would hand feed it, groom it, bathe it, and protect it from insects and other harmful elements. It would feed with them as the family ate, almost like another child. Then on the day of atonement, they would bring this little lamb to the temple and watch a priest take a knife and slaughter it before their very eyes. Talk about trauma. Yet, it would be explained to the children and the adults as well that this is the penalty for sin and this innocent little lamb who simply loved and gave little bleats was dying in their place. We have the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ who was totally innocent, and yet because of our sins, He had to die.
What did David see in his own wanderings and going astray? It was a picture of a sacrifice that God could use to show many generations the lovingkindness of the Good Shepherd.” https://www.chaimbentorah.com/2020/11/hebrew-word-study-sacrificial-lamb/
Even though each one of us is prone to wander, there is a Shepherd looking for us who has laid down His life so we would not be sacrificed for our sins. Yeshua explained this clearly in great detail in John 10:1-5; 10;
…“It is certainly true that when a man enters the sheep pen, he should use the gate. If he climbs in some other way, he is a robber. He is trying to steal the sheep. 2 But the man who takes care of the sheep enters through the gate. He is the shepherd. 3 The man who guards the gate opens the gate for the shepherd. And the sheep listen to the voice of the shepherd. He calls his own sheep, using their names, and he leads them out. 4 He brings all of his sheep out. Then he goes ahead of them and leads them. The sheep follow him, because they know his voice. 5 But sheep will never follow someone they don’t know. They will run away from him, because they don’t know his voice.”
11 “I am the good shepherd, and the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep.”
Yeshua never told us explicitly when this feast day was; He simply said, “Of that day and hour no one knows, only the Father.” This saying from Mk.13:32, has garnered various explanations, the most popular relating it directly to a Hebrew idiom. If true, which I believe is very likely, where did it come from and what exactly does it mean? Things become clearer when we see it in context with a Jewish wedding.
The answer given by the bridegroom to someone asking the question: “When’s the wedding date?” was from a well established Hebrew idiom: “I don’t know, the angels don’t know, ask my dad!” By using this expression, “You do not know the day or the hour”, Yeshua may have simply been applying a familiar wedding idiom to answer his disciple’s questions about the sign of his coming and of the end of the age. As such, he would have answered “It will be revealed when it is the appropriate time to do so.” This is similar to a question found in the Book of Daniel. The answer was “keep these words secret, and seal up the book until the time of the end” (Dan.12:1-4). And the Talmud cites Ps.81:3: “Sound the shofar on the New Moon, in concealment of the day of our festival” as a reference to this feast.
So we can now see why this feast is called “Yom Ha’Ke’seh” – The Day of Concealment”. But there are also additional reasons.
First, the feast is celebrated when the moon is just coming out of ‘hiding’, (i.e., a day of a concealed moon). The phrase, “of that day and hour no man knows” could refer to the setting apart of the new moon. Without it the people had no way of determining God’s appointed times.
Second, tradition states that Satan is not provided notice about the arrival of this feast concerning the Day of Judgment which is hidden from him even as was the resurrection of Yeshua on the third day.
Third, by using the phrase, “You do not know the day or the hour”, Yeshua could have been referring to it as a figure of speech to say referring figuratively with a Jewish wedding meaning: “I am coming for my Bride on such and such a day! Be watching!” Yeshua reinforced this in a parable in Mk.13:33-37: “Take heed, watch and pray; for you do not know when the time is. It is like a man going to a far country, who left his house and gave authority to his servants, and to each his work, and commanded the doorkeeper to watch. Watch therefore, for you do not know when the master of the house is coming—in the evening, at midnight, at the crowing of the rooster, or in the morning— lest, coming suddenly, he find you sleeping. And what I say to you, I say to all: Watch!”
The Gk word, “eido” – “to make known” makes it clear that the Bride of Yeshua will not be taken by surprise (e.g.,Amos 3:7, 1Thess.5:1-5, Heb. 10:25, Rev.3:3).
Since Yeshua used the word “eido” in this manner, the verse would correctly read: “Neither I nor the angels will make known or declare that day, only my father in Heaven will reveal or declare it.” This takes the emphasis off the phrase “no one can know the timing” and harmonises with the rest of Scripture which says that believers who are diligently searching will indeed be prepared and ready!
Yeshua clearly knew about details regarding the future. For example, He stated in Mk.13:23: “Behold, I have told you in advance”, just a few verses before saying to His disciples that “no one knows.”
Yom Teruah takes place on the new moon and Paul mentions in Colos.2:16-17 that the new moon will teach us about the Messiah. The sun is a picture of Yeshua (Mal 4:2), and the moon is a picture of believers in Him. The sun has its own light, but the moon’s light is a reflection of the sun.
When we first become believers in Yeshua, we (in common with the moon’s sighting) can hardly be seen as we know very little what it means to walk with God. Paul describes all of us at at this stage as being spiritual ‘babes.’ But as we mature, our lives begin to revolve more and more around the Messiah even as the moon revolves around the sun. More and more we begin to reflect His light because Yeshua is the ‘Light of the World.’ “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” (2Cor.3:8)
Paul informs us in Eph 5: that “ …you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and truth.….” And in Matt.5:15-16, Yeshua said, “Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a basket. Instead, they set it on a stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in Heaven.”
Various places in Scripture describe Israel and every true believer with wedding imagery. For example, “…clothed in garments of triumph, wrapped in a robe of victory, like a bridegroom adorned with a turban, like a bride bedecked in her finery.” Isa.10 Also in 62:3-5 God rejoices over us “…as the bridegroom rejoices over his bride…”
The description of those who walk in fellowship with the Lord as HIs “bride” is beautifully captured in the following poem:
“In the secret place, bathed in the soft, golden glow of candlelight, she stands there, a vision of ethereal grace. The Bride of Christ, a symbol of divine love and devotion, a masterpiece woven by the hands of the Father. Her gown, pure as the morning dew, cascades like a waterfall of moonlight around her, as the morning star whispers secrets to her soul. Her veil, delicate as the finest silk, floats gently in the breeze, held by the breath of angels. The mysteries of her heart, the treasures of her faith, the shed tears captured in vials of silver and gold ready to be poured out upon the Master’s feet. Her eyes, pools of infinite compassion, gaze upon Her beloved with a love that knows no bounds as forgiveness has flowed like a river and the broken have been made whole by His touch of grace.
The Bride of Christ is adorned not with jewels of earth, but with virtues of the spirit. Her tiara is woven from strands of hope, peace, and humility. Each gem, a reflection of her unwavering devotion to the One who has claimed her heart. Her hands, gentle as a dove’s wings, reached out to all, offering this same gift of redemption to those who seek it.
She walks down the aisle of eternity with footsteps guided by the echo of the Divine’s whisper. The celestial choir of angel voices sings with jubilation as the moon and the stars knee in adoration. She is the embodiment of love’s purest form, a beacon of light in a world often cloaked in shadows. The Bride of Christ, a symbol of love’s enduring power, reminds us that we are all invited to be part of this divine union.
And so, in that secret place, bathed in the warm, timeless embrace of faith, the Bride of Christ stands as a testament to this Love that beckons us all to “come” to that altar where our Beloved waits.” ~Maria
Moses told the Israelites: “You are standing [nitzavim] today in the presence of the Lord your God…. in order to enter into a covenant with Him.” (Deut. 29:10, 12) We stand today on the edge of the border of time as we prepare for His return and enter eternity. It has been a long journey. We have borne the heat of the day and laboured through the night watches and persevered through the storms of life. But as with Paul we align ourselves with the proclamation he makes in Scripture: “…I count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Yeshua my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Him.” (Phil. 3:8)
God is encouraging us in these times to engage in the race we are running so that we will finish well and all the more so as His precious bride.
