עֵקֶב
Ekev/ IF /As a Result Of
Deuteornomy 7:12-11:25
HafTorah Portion Isaiah 49:14-51:3
Brit Chadasha Romans 8:31-39

    Va'etchanan ended with: 'Therefore you shall keep the commandment, the statutes, and the judgments which I command you today, to observe them.'  Eikev begins with advise, encouragement and condition: ‘Then it shall come to pass, because you listen to these judgments, and keep and do them, that the Lord your God will keep with you the covenant and the mercy which He swore to your fathers.  And He will  love you and bless you and multiply you... ’
     The words 'because you listen… Shema!  Shema is such a key theme of the Torah. Listening is lacking in our culture today.  Shema, occurs over 90 times in Devarim.  Shema means to hear, to listen, to pay attention, to understand, to internalize and to respond. It is the closest biblical Hebrew word to mean "obey." It is central to the two parts that form the first two paragraphs of the Shema, which was in last week's parsha, and repeats in Eikev in Deuteronomy 11:13-21. The next parsha, Re'eh also continues the importance of listening: 'See /re'eh/ I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse - the blessing if you listen /tishme'u/ to the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today; the curse if you do not listen /lo tishme'u/ to the commands of the Lord your God.'                               
     In Ekev, Moshe rebukes the Israelites, as he reminds them of their rebellion, the Golden Calf, the ordeal of Korach and the sin of the spies.  Yeshua refers to Deuteronomy 8:3 when He is tempted by Satan.                              ‘So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and  fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall  not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.’
     Matthew 4:2-4 (Yeshua) 'And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. 3 Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, "If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread."4 But He answered and said, "It is written,  'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.' These verses involve hunger, not just the act of being hungry, but true hunger, for the word. We need to Shema to hear - to obey God's Word as we hunger for His Word. 
     This parsha also gives the detailed account of the land flowing with milk and honey and the seven species. God begins the promise with His condition: ‘Therefore you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, that flow out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey; a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing;’
     He ends the promise with His condition: ‘Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, His judgments, and His statutes which I command you today...’
     As Yeshua quotes Devarim, He is bringing us back to Deuteronomy, back to the Torah.  He was/is God in the flesh, He was/is sovereign. He could have said anything to the tempter, or just annihilated him. But He chose to bring us to Devarim - a book filled with hear, listen, do, remember, don't forget, walk in His Ways, keep the covenant.
     To Shema, we understand the promise, we listen to the Word and we obey because we Shema.  The promise is there, we just have to realize it. 

עֵקֶב
Ekev/ IF /As a Result Of
Deuteornomy 7:12-11:25
HafTorah Portion Isaiah 49:14-51:3
Brit Chadasha Romans 8:31-39

    This Torah portion begins with the blessings of obedience.
     Deuteronomy 7:16 commands the people not to serve the other gods of the people, but to also have no pity upon them, which might seem like a strange command. This stems from the fact that God chose Israel to be a holy nation set apart to worship and serve Him alone. Involvement with the pagan surrounding nations posed a serious threat to God’s standard of His people, as their practices could lead Israel astray into idolatry and immorality.  Also, Deuteronomy 7:1-6 outlines commands against making treaties with these nations, intermarrying with them, or showing them mercy, as it states: "For they will turn your sons away from following Me, to serve other gods; so the anger of the Lord will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly". 
     And a most horrific practice included child sacrifice, temple prostitution, and various forms of sexual immorality, which was and is the total opposite to God's covenant with Israel. Deuteronomy 7:16 ‘Also you shall destroy all the peoples whom the Lord your God delivers over to you; your eye shall have no pity on them; nor shall you serve their gods, for that will be a snare to you.’
     Deuteronomy 7:17-18 has the word IF and may allude back to the ten spies: ‘If you should say in your heart, ‘These nations are greater than I; how can I dispossess them?’— 18 you shall not be afraid of them, but you shall remember…’ And Deuteronomy 7:21 ‘You shall not be terrified of them; for the Lord your God, the great and awesome God, is among you.’
     In Deuteronomy 8:3 gives the, reason for the sparseness in food, which was to humble the people and continues with the verse that Yeshua quotes to HaSatan in Matthew 4:1-4.
     Deuteronomy 8:3 ‘So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.’
     Matthew 4:4 ‘But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ 
      In Deuteronomy 8:4 Moshe reminds the people that their garments did not wear out and the feet did not swell, referring to the 40 years of wilderness. ‘Your garments did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years.’
      Garments/clothing can allude to signs of royalty, peace, praise, wedding attire and holiness.
      Isaiah 61:10 ‘I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness,
As a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.’
     Revelation 3:5 ‘The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot His name out of the book of life. I will confess His name before my Father and before His angels.’
     Zechariah 3:3 ‘Now Joshua was standing before the angel, clothed with filthy garments. And the angel said to those who were standing before him, “Remove the filthy garments from him.” 
And to him he said, “Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments.”
     Matthew 22:11-12 “But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless.
     Revelation 3:18 ‘I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see.’
    Job 29:14 ‘I put on righteousness, and it clothed me; my justice was like a robe and a turban.’
    Revelation 19:13-14 ‘He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses.’
    Deuteronomy 8:7-9 speaks of the good land of fountains of water and the seven species.   Deuteronomy 8:10 is the command for the blessings of food after we eat and are full. 
     Deuteronomy 8:11 begins with a stark warning to not forget. It’s so easy, as life gets fleshly better; as our houses, our income, details of our lives enrich, that we ‘forget’ the God we serve and His commands. Chapter 8 closes with a stark warning: to remember and ‘if’ we forget, the consequences that follow. 
     Deuteronomy 8:18-20 ‘And you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day. 19 Then it shall be, if you by any means forget the Lord your God, and follow other gods, and serve them and worship them, I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish. 20 As the nations which the Lord destroys before you, so you shall perish, because you would not be obedient to the voice of the Lord your God.’
     Chapter 9 retells Israel’s rebellion and chapter 10 retells the incident regarding the second pair of tablets. Ekev closes with a beautiful promise. 
     Deuteronomy 11:24 ‘Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours: from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the River Euphrates, even to the Western Sea, shall be your territory. 25 No man shall be able to stand against you; the Lord your God will put the dread of you and the fear of you upon all the land where you tread, just as He has said to you.’