Joy in the Messiah

B’chukotai / In My Decrees
Leviticus 26:3-27:34
Jeremiah 16:19-17:14
2 Corinthians 6:14-18

     This is the last chapter of Vayikra/ Leviticus. And it begins with a stark warning: ‘If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments, and perform them…’ Leviticus 26:3.  God continues in Leviticus 26:4-13 with the abundance of blessings that He will then grant to Israel, His people. Then it stops as God continues with the dire consequences if Israel does not obey. ‘But if you do not obey Me, and do not observe all these commandments, ¹⁵ and if you despise My statutes, or if your soul abhors My judgments, so that you do not perform all My commandments, but break My covenant, ¹⁶ I also will do this to you:’ Leviticus 26:14-16.  These consequences continue until verse forty: ‘But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, with their unfaithfulness in which they were unfaithful to Me, and that they also have walked contrary to Me, ⁴¹ and that I also have walked contrary to them and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if their uncircumcised hearts are humbled, and they accept their guilt….’ Leviticus 26:40-41
     Then hope for the people and one of the great consolations in Scripture appears: ‘… then I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and My covenant with Isaac and My covenant with Abraham I will remember; I will remember the land. ⁴³ The land also shall be left empty by them, and will enjoy its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them; they will accept their guilt, because they despised My judgments and because their soul abhorred My statutes. ⁴⁴ Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, nor shall I abhor them, to utterly destroy them and break My covenant with them; for I am the Lord their God.’ Leviticus 26:42-44.
     This type of hope is seen again in Ezekiel 37:11-14: ‘Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They indeed say, ‘Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!’ ¹² Therefore prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Behold, O My people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. ¹³ Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O My people, and brought you up from your graves. ¹⁴ I will put My Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it,” says the Lord.’  
      It is true that Israel, God’s people would suffer and deny His word. We would be brought out of bondage only to return by our own choices. We would serve the idols of our hearts and would become the tail. But we confessed and will continue to confess our grave sins; we will go forward, become the children of God, and once again to live in His covenant.  We have the hope that we will be the overcomers that we are meant to be. Revelation 2:7 ‘He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God.’
      Hope is what keeps humans striving forward. We have hope for the future, and hope in Adonai. ‘The title of the Israeli national anthem is Hatikvah, which means “The Hope” in Hebrew. It was written in Palestine in the early 1880's by Naftali Herz Imber, a Galician Jew, and then set to music. Hatikva is about the undying hope of the Jewish people, through the long years of exile, that they would someday return to independence in their homeland. The second stanza of the Hatikva recalls the undying hope of Jews through the generation, Jews who lived in other countries and Jews who had remained in Palestine. When Hatikva is sung together, we are making a promise that we will never forget the undying Jewish hope for independence and that we will do all within our power to help the State of Israel prosper.’ (Jewish Virtual Library.)

In the Jewish Heart                                          Kol ode balevav P’nimah
A Jewish spirit still sings                                  Nefesh Yehudi Homiyah

And the eyes look east toward Zion             Ulfa’atey mizrach kadimah ayin l’Tzion tzofiyah

Our hope is not lost,                                       Ode lo avdah tikvatenu
Our hope of two thousand years                   Hatikvah bat shnot alpayim

To be a free nation in our land,                     L’hiyot am chofshi b’artzenu
In the land of Zion and Jerusalem                 Eretz Tzion v’Yerushalayim.
 

     It would seem that Israel is a nation of ‘hope’ and God is the author. Hope is defined as a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen. Synonyms for hope include aspiration, desire, wish, expectation, ambition, aim, goal, plan, and design. The word for hope in Hebrew is tikvah. The verb “to hope” is yachal which literally means “to wait or to have expectation.” We have hope in a merciful God.  We worship the God of hope. We put our hope in His word. We hold onto hope. We have hope for our descendants. We have hope in our praises and our hope is Messiah.

Jeremiah 29:11 ‘For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Psalm 42:11 ‘Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God.’
Romans 15:13 ‘Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.’
Lamentations 3:24 ‘“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I hope in Him!”
Psalm 71:4-6 ‘Deliver me, O my God, out of the hand of the wicked, out of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man. ⁵ For You are my hope, O Lord God; You are my trust from my youth. ⁶ By You I have been upheld from birth; You are He who took me out of my mother’s womb. My praise shall be continually of You.’
1 Timothy 1:1 ‘Paul, an apostle of Yeshua HaMashiach, by the commandment of God our Savior and the Lord Yeshua Messiah, our hope…’

The Hebrew mindset is to look forward, to hope for the future, never to languish over the past.

Philippians 3:13 ‘Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead…
Luke 17:32‘Remember Lot's wife.’
Luke 9:62 ‘Yeshua said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Genesis 19:26‘But Lot's wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.’

The Hope
Chazak! Chazak! V’nitchazek! Be Strong! Be Strong! And May We Be Strengthened!

Behar/On the Mount
Leviticus 25:1-26:2
HafTorah Portion Jeremiah 32:6-27
Brit Chadasha Luke 4:16-21

   This week’s Torah portion Behar begins with instructions for the counting of the Ha Yovel. ‘And you shall count seven sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years; and the time of the seven sabbaths of years shall be to you forty-nine years. ⁹ Then you shall cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement, you shall make the trumpet to sound throughout all your land. ¹⁰ And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you; and each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you shall return to his family.’ Leviticus 25:8-10.
     In last week’s parsha we read Leviticus 23:15-16 ‘And you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering: seven Sabbaths shall be completed. ¹⁶ Count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath; then you shall offer a new grain offering to the Lord.’
     These two acts of counting are similar, yet there is a difference that tends to be missed in translation. The counting of the Omer is in the plural: u-sefartem lakhem. The counting of the Sabbatical Years is in the singular: vesafarta lekha.  It was the sages’ teaching that the difference between the two was ‘who’ was to do the counting.  They taught that in the case of the Omer the counting is each individual’s duty, therefore, the plural use. In the case of Ha Yovel, it is the singular, therefore, the counting was the Bet Din’s responsibility, specifically the supreme court, the Sanhedrin.  
    However, that doesn’t coincide with the singular, since Bet Din would represent a plural, a minyan, ten men. If it is the case of singular, who would actually be responsible for the counting?
     There is only One that who qualified to do the counting or to cease the counting for a season-Elohim. He alone is the author of HaYovel. He started it.  He will continue it, and He will end it. But why did HaYovel cease? The sages teach: “According to biblical law, the Jubilee is only observed when all twelve tribes are living in Israel, as is derived from the verse, “And you shall sanctify the fiftieth year, and proclaim freedom throughout the land for all who live on it,” which implies that the Jubilee is only sanctified when “all who live on it”—meaning, all who are meant to be living there—are in the Land of Israel.’  
       Last year for this Torah portion, I taught on Yeshua, HaYovel and the importance of the phrase: the release of the captives.  This is also why it is so important to study the Torah. Otherwise, one cannot properly interpret the New Testament, the Brit Chadasha meaning the Renewed Covenant.
     We see HaYovel woven throughout Scripture. The year of Yeshua's ministry was a sabbatical year according to ancient historical sources. His ministry started during a sabbatical year when He cited Isaiah 61:1-2: ‘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; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord
(שינת רצון shne ratson -year of favor) and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn.’
     This is also referenced in Luke 4:16-19: ‘So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. ¹⁷ And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written: ¹⁸ “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; ¹⁹ To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”
     This leaves the possibility that the recounting of HaYovel began during Yeshua’s ministry. Would the 50^th of the 50^th be at His return?
    If the nations are not counting, is it be possible that Elohim is counting? Until His return, we are not yet all gathered together under One Messiah in the promised land, but we will be.
     Deuteronomy 30:3-5 ‘…that the Lord your God will bring you back from captivity, and have compassion on you, and gather you again from all the nations where the Lord your God has scattered you. ⁴ If any of you are driven out to the farthest parts under heaven, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you. ⁵ Then the Lord your God will bring you to the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it.’
     Ezekiel 37:24-28 “David My servant shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd; they shall also walk in My judgments and observe My statutes, and do them. ²⁵ Then they shall dwell in the land that I have given to Jacob My servant, where your fathers dwelt; and they shall dwell there, they, their children, and their children’s children, forever; and My servant David shall be their prince forever. ²⁶ Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them, and it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; I will establish them and multiply them, and I will set My sanctuary in their midst forevermore. ²⁷ My tabernacle also shall be with them; indeed I will be their God, and they shall be My people. ²⁸ The nations also will know that I, the Lord, sanctify Israel, when My sanctuary is in their midst forevermore.”
     Isaiah 43:5-7 ‘Fear not, for I am with you; I will bring your descendants from the east, and gather you from the west; ⁶ I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’ And to the south, ‘Do not keep them back!’
Bring My sons from afar, and My daughters from the ends of the earth— ⁷ Everyone who is called by My name, whom I have created for My glory; I have formed him, yes, I have made him.”
      Too many ‘scholars’ try to date HaYovel and the return of Yeshua. But these presumptuous teachings declare that HaYovel might have been restored in 2014, or maybe 2015 or possible 2016. Why the confusion? Because these dates are guesses and not the plan of Adonai for He is not the author of confusion; 1 Corinthians 14:33.  
      Therefore let us remember we are not to know, and let us not forget the details of Yom Kippur:
     Acts 1:7 ‘ And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority.’
     Matthew 24:36 ‘But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.’
     Matthew 25:11-13 “Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open to us!’ ¹² But he answered and said, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, I do not know you.’ ¹³ “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.
     Leviticus 25:8-10 ‘And you shall count seven sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years; and the time of the seven sabbaths of years shall be to you forty-nine years. ⁹ Then you shall cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement you shall make the trumpet to sound throughout all your land. ¹⁰ And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you; and each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you shall return to his family.