Behar (On the mount)
Bechukotai (By My regulations)
Leviticus 25:1-26:2; 26:3-27:34
Jeremiah 16:19–17:14
"Double Edged Seven"
POSTED 15 MAY, 2009
by Mark Huey
mhuey@outreachisrael.net
“If also after these things you do not obey Me,
then I will punish you seven times more for your
sins” (Leviticus 26:18).
This week’s Torah study combines the last two portions of
Leviticus. Leviticus 26:18 summarizes the basic
principle of retribution, or “reaping what you sow,” that
the Lord is attempting to communicate to all of us. The
simple if/then proposition that we see can readily be
grasped without having to understand all of the profound
mysteries of God’s universe. If you obey His
instructions, then you will be blessed—but if
you disobey, then you will be cursed. One does not
need a great amount of formal training in the Scriptures to
comprehend the basic formula of choosing life over death!
However, I believe that another level of understanding is
introduced and amplified for Torah students when the
universal axiom of patterns of sevens is explained in this
text. God, who made the world in six days, took the seventh
day and blessed it and rested on it (Genesis 2:3). The
“seven pattern” can be applied in a series of curses upon
those who disobey Him:
“If also after these things you do not obey Me, then I will
punish you seven times more for your sins” (Leviticus
26:18).
“If then, you act with hostility against Me and are
unwilling to obey Me, I will increase the plague on
you seven times according to your sins” (Leviticus 26:21).
“Then I will act with hostility against you; and I, even I,
will strike you seven times for your sins” (Leviticus
26:24).
“Then I will act with wrathful hostility
against you, and I, even I, will punish you seven
times for your sins” (Leviticus 26:28).
The fourfold repetition of the statement “seven times for
you sins,” as the penalties for disobedience intensify, has
profound significance for those of us who eagerly want to
obey the Lord and be recipients of His blessings. If you
have been paying careful attention to the Torah portions
from Genesis to here in Leviticus, the calling upon God’s
people is to be a holy nation and kingdom of priests who are
destined to bring His light to the world. In Leviticus 26 we
discover that the pattern of seven is like a sword with a
double edge, seeking to pierce the heart in order to
separate the holy from the profane, or the clean from the
unclean:
“For the word of God is living and active and sharper than
any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of
soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to
judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews
4:12).
If you take a look at the context of what the author of
Hebrews writes, you will discover that he is describing the
profound privilege that children of God have to enter into
His rest. Interestingly, it is from Psalm 95 that he draws
his inspiration to exhort his audience to obey the Lord and
not give up on Messiah Yeshua:
“Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of
entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come
short of it. For indeed we have had good news preached to
us, just as they also; but the word they heard did not
profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who
heard. For we who have believed enter that rest, just as He
has said, ‘As I
swore in My wrath, they shall not enter My rest,’
although His works were finished from the foundation of the
world. For He has said somewhere concerning the seventh
day: ‘And God
rested on the seventh day from all His works’;
and again in this passage, ‘They
shall not enter My rest.’ Therefore, since it
remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly had
good news preached to them failed to enter because of
disobedience, He again fixes a certain day, ‘Today,’
saying through David after so long a time just as has
been said before, ‘Today
if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.’
For if Joshua had given them rest, He would not have spoken
of another day after that. So there remains a Sabbath rest
for the people of God. For the one who has entered His rest
has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.
Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that
no one will fall, through following the same example
of disobedience. For the word of God is living and
active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as
far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and
marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the
heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but
all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with
whom we have to do. Therefore, since we have a great high
priest who has passed through the heavens, Yeshua the Son of
God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a
high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but
One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet
without sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to
the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find
grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:1-16).
This second witness amplifies the words of David to explain
to Believers that God is serious about what He says. His
righteousness requires Him to follow His dictates for the
created order with precision. Consequently, the warnings of
Leviticus 26 were not only communicated by Moses, but
lamentably administered down through the ages. There is a
rest that the Lord wants us to experience beyond that of
just the Sabbath; God wants us to be a part of His restored
Kingdom.
Even though the Father patiently loves us as His people,
showering us with His lovingkindness and mercy, He is
compelled to execute His judgment in order to drive us back
into His loving arms. He intensifies the punishment phases
in an attempt to turn His people back to Him. As you read
the accelerating chastisements seen in this Torah portion,
you will see that once the disobedient people are scattered
to the nations that the land will finally enjoy its Sabbath
rest:
“You, however, I will scatter among the nations and will
draw out a sword after you, as your land becomes desolate
and your cities become waste. Then the land will enjoy
its sabbaths all the days of the desolation, while you are
in your enemies' land; then the land will rest and enjoy its
sabbaths. All the days of its desolation it will
observe the rest which it did not observe on your sabbaths,
while you were living on it” (Leviticus 26:33-35).
As you can read, God is very concerned about the Promised
Land. Because He created the Earth, He knows that the very
elements He designed require a rest in order to function
efficiently. Here, we see how the Father must fulfill His
promises, but also His intimate concern for the land
promised to the Patriarchs. Now if you can imagine how much
the Holy One cherishes His commitment to that “dirt” located
in the Middle East, can you fathom how much He loves us,
likewise formed from “dirt”?
“Then the Lord
God formed man of dust from the ground,
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man
became a living being” (Genesis 2:7).
The challenge we face is that unlike dirt that forms dry
land, when God took those same elements and fashioned human
beings, He made them in His image and likeness:
“Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to
Our likeness;
and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the
birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth,
and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ God
created man in His own image, in the image of God He created
him; male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:26-27).
Ironically, this is where the problem emanates, because man
has been given a free will to choose what he wants to do.
Unlike the dust of the ground, we have been endowed with a
soul that is composed of a mind, emotions, and a will. The
Creator has gifted humans with the capacity to do and
accomplish much. Just consider the mandate that came forth
as the Lord uttered His first command to Adam:
“God blessed them; and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and
multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over
the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over
every living thing that moves on the earth.’ Then God
said, ‘Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed
that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree
which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and
to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and
to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I
have given every green plant for food’; and it was so”
(Genesis 1:28-30).
From the very beginning of Creation, man was given the
command to bear seed through reproduction in order to fill
the Earth and take dominion over it. Rule was given to him
over all the other creatures, as well as plantlife, for
sustenance. Man’s challenge was dealing with these awesome
responsibilities first in the Garden of Eden, but then
through the sin of Adam, outside paradise in a hostile
environment. As a result of disobedience to later
instructions, the introduction of obstacles now were
designed by God to establish various afflictions to turn the
people back toward Him:
“Then to Adam He said, ‘Because you have listened to the
voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which
I commanded you, saying, “You shall not eat from it”;
cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you
will eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and
thistles it shall grow for you; and you will eat the
plants of the field; by the sweat of your face you
will eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from
it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you
shall return’” (Genesis 3:17-19).
We all know the story too well, and can attest to the
introduction of challenges and problems that ensue from the
various “thorns and thistles” of life. However, the
principles are absolute. By the time Moses receives further
instructions, the Holy One attempts to give His people an
advantage over those who are simply trying to understand the
Creation and their relationship to it through empirical
observation.
The people of Israel as seen in Scripture have a great
advantage, but it comes with an equally great responsibility
because once you read and comprehend what is being stated,
you then become accountable to God’s Word. Whether it was
Moses declaring it in the desert, or Jeremiah reiterating it
many generations later regarding the seventy years of exile
that would allow the land to have its rest, or even Yeshua
amplifying these principles in His teachings—the fact of the
matter is that the pattern of sevens can either be a
blessing or a curse.
Consider, for example, the simple teaching that Yeshua gave
to His Disciples regarding the spiritual warfare that has
enveloped the fallen world:
“Now when the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes
through waterless places seeking rest, and does not find
it. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which
I came'; and when it comes, it finds it unoccupied,
swept, and put in order. Then it goes and takes along
with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and
they go in and live there; and the last state of that man
becomes worse than the first. That is the way it will also
be with this evil generation’” (Matthew 12:43-45).
When you read the context of when this statement is made,
you will discover that Yeshua is explaining the finer points
regarding the Sabbath to some of His critics. In fact, He
makes the provoking statement that He is the Lord of the
Sabbath while describing why it is permissible to do good on
the Sabbath. In Matthew 12, Yeshua makes some poignant
quotations from the Prophet Isaiah, which point to His
redemptive work:
“‘Behold, My Servant, whom I uphold; My chosen one
in whom My soul delights. I have put My Spirit upon
Him; He will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not
cry out or raise His voice, nor make His voice heard
in the street. A bruised reed He will not break and a dimly
burning wick He will not extinguish; He will faithfully
bring forth justice. He will not be disheartened or crushed
until He has established justice in the earth; and the
coastlands will wait expectantly for His law.’ Thus says
God the Lord,
who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread
out the earth and its offspring, who gives breath to the
people on it and spirit to those who walk in it, ‘I am the
Lord, I have
called you in righteousness, I will also hold you by the
hand and watch over you, and I will appoint you as a
covenant to the people, as a light to the nations,
to open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the
dungeon and those who dwell in darkness from the prison.
I am the Lord,
that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, nor My
praise to graven images. Behold, the former things have come
to pass, now I declare new things; before they spring forth
I proclaim them to you’” (Isaiah 42:1-9).
As you can read, Israel has been chosen to be a light to the
nations. Israel has the responsibility of pointing people to
the One True God by demonstrating an earnest obedience to
Him and thus being blessed by Him. But that can only happen
by us being one with He who is the epitome of Israel—the
Messiah Yeshua.
In Matthew 12, a demon-possessed man confronts Yeshua where
some condemning Pharisees (likely of the stricter School of
Shammai) say that He was operating via the power of
Beelzebul or Satan. After Yeshua explains the difference
between casting out demons by Beelzebul versus the Spirit of
the God, He then explains what is often referred to as the
“unpardonable sin.” This is when a person denies or
blasphemes the Ruach HaKodesh or Holy Spirit, which must be
indwelling us if we are to have salvation. Those who claimed
that the Messiah operated via the power of Satan were
blaspheming the work of God, and so Yeshua makes a profound
statement about our accountability for the very words we
utter:
“But I tell you that every careless word that people speak,
they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment.
For by your words you will be justified, and by your words
you will be condemned”
(Matthew 12:36-37).
This is a far cry from the judgments that were to come upon
Israel for the failure to let the land have its Sabbath
rest, and the other commandments that they largely failed to
follow. It is not just a matter of doing something against
the Torah; Yeshua again raises the threshold for
disobedience. One will be held accountable for making
careless statements without understanding the foolishness of
speaking from fleshly inclinations. This is why James, the
half-brother of Yeshua, admonishes us to listen before we
speak:
“This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone
must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to
anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the
righteousness of God. Therefore, putting aside all
filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in
humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save
your souls” (James 1:19-21).
It is within these instructional comments that Yeshua
introduces the fact that those delivered from demons can
have seven demons come back if sinful behavior is not
rectified and corrected:
“Now when the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes
through waterless places seeking rest, and does not find
it. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which
I came'; and when it comes, it finds it unoccupied,
swept, and put in order. Then it goes and takes along with
it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go
in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes
worse than the first. That is the way it will also be with
this evil generation’” (Matthew 12:43-45).
What is it that the Lord is specifically trying to say to
us? If we are set free from demonic influence we must ask
our Heavenly Father to fill up the void left with His
presence. Our nature in Adam is fallen, and as humans our
propensity is to think and speak things that will ultimately
judge us. Perhaps if we decrease, He might increase. Yeshua
the Messiah is looking to spend eternity with us, and He
wants us to receive all of the rewards that we can in His
Kingdom. Notice that He is asked about His mother and
brothers, and He says that those who obey His Father may be
considered part of His family:
“Someone said to Him, ‘Behold, Your mother and Your brothers
are standing outside seeking to speak to You. But Yeshua
answered the one who was telling Him and said, “Who is My
mother and who are My brothers? And stretching out His hand
toward His disciples, He said, ‘Behold My mother and My
brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father who is
in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother”’”
(Matthew 12:47-50).
Do you want to spend eternity with Yeshua? Perform and
accomplish the will of our Father in Heaven. Follow the
instruction manual He has given us. Do the best that you can
do to follow the directions that He has given us in order to
receive His blessings. Pray for the Lord to send you His
Holy Spirit that will empower you to do good works.
We are each created in the image and likeness of God. Think
about how you are as a parent and how you interact with your
children. Have you ever asked a son to do the weekly task of
taking out the garbage, or a daughter to empty out the
dishwasher for her mother? Can you relate to the joy you
receive when your son or daughter actually performs these
tasks on their own initiative? Our Heavenly Father is the
same way. When He looks down from Heaven and sees us obeying
Him, He smiles down upon us and is able to bless us.
I believe that as we search the Scriptures and understand
more about His Word, we will find that everything we know
for a joyful and fulfilled life is embodied in it. We should
be renewed every day to do the good works that He requires
of us, which in turn will testify of who He is to the sinful
world we live in. If we do not obey the Lord, then the
double-edged sword of His Word will have its way—whether we
like it or not!
Mark Huey (B.A., Vanderbilt
University in History and Graduate Studies at
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University) is the
Director of Outreach Israel Ministries (www.outreachisrael.net).
He is the author of several books, including:
TorahScope, Volumes I & II, and Counting
the Omer: A Daily Devotional Toward Shavuot.
He is also co-author of
Hebraic Roots: An Introductory
Study.
|
