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DELVING INTO DEUTERONOMY

BOOK 1

By Dr. Lawrence Duff-Forbes

Content

1. A 'NEBO' VIEW OF DEUTERONOMY 2. REVIEW RETARDS RASHNESS

3. THE NEW REVELATION 4. GRAMMAR AND GENEALOGY 5. THE CAPTIVE'S EAGLE 6. THE MAJESTIC MYSTERY

7. THE PERIL OF THE PARTIAL PERSPECTIVE 8. THE LOGIC OF THE LAND 9. FIVE FORCEFUL FEATURES 10. THE SATISFYING SEQUENCE

11. MISPLACED WORSHIP

4

A 'NEBO' VIEW OF DEUTERONOMY

MY FRIENDS, in World War II some of the aeroplanes of the German Air Force possessed an ingenious device. Out on each wing tip a special photographic camera was fitted. I have seen one such and was informed that each instrument was capable of taking fifty photographs in rapid succession. Thus, as the aeroplane flew over its objective, it could return to its base with all the essentials for compiling a reliable aerial photograph of the particular area important to its intelligence. May I suggest that this illustrates, in some measure, what we have sought to accomplish in this series of messages entitled "TREASURES FROM TENACH."

We have, as it were, skimmed in succession over the first four books of Torah, known in Hebrew as Bereshit, Shmot, Vayikra, and Bemidbar and in English as Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers. In the process, from the wing tips of our minds, we have made mental photographs of the total content-areas of each book, and from these mental pictures we have been able also to produce a series of charts, thus providing us with an excellent bird's-eye view of each book which proved invaluable to us when we later entered into more detailed study of salient factors in each volume. On the present occasion, we propose to pursue the same interesting and fruitful course of action and, if you are ready, we will presently "take off" on our photographic flight over Deuteronomy, the fifth and final book of the Torah of Moses. But, first, please suffer some introductory observations either necessary or advisable because of the critical attacks which have been made upon this particular book by those addicted to the historico-critical school and its various hypotheses. Without burdening my gracious listeners with the depressing details of scholastic incredulity, let me say that I am not among those who accept the critical theories; moreover, I believe that sincere investigation will surely liberate many who have become ensnared by and imprisoned in the seductive but specious documentary hypotheses of the Wellhausen school, the basic skepticism of which often makes big calls on one's faith. Of course, there will be those who will doubtless declare, "My mind is made up. Don't confuse me with the facts!" Anyway, the book begins with this clear statement:

5

… 1

"These are the words which Moses spake unto all Israel …" (Deuteronomy 1:1) This opening announcement, by the way, gives to the Book of Deuteronomy its Hebrew title Devarim, a title obtained by the shortening of the opening Hebrew phrase of the book itself, "Alleh HaDevarim …" In earlier Talmudic times the book was known by the name Mishneh Torah meaning "Repetition of the Law." This title received the Greek translation Deuteronomion, derived from deuteros (second) and nomos (law). The 956 (Ginsburg 955) verses of Devarim were divided into eleven Sabbath readings and in the 13th Century of the Common Era these were again divided into the thirty-four chapters as we now have them in our Hebrew Bible. Thank you so much for walking with me over that somewhat dry little patch of the ground; however, it was dry and hard enough to form a splendid runway for our take off as we soon ascend and snap a series of quick aerial photographs of the entire book in one swift flight over its contents. I wish we could first take an actual flight over that area east of the Jordan River where the discourses of Moses were uttered, discourses which constitute most of the entire Book of Deuteronomy. Here, in the plains of Moab, near the wilderness in which Israel had spent forty years since the deliverance from Egypt, our great leader Moses expounded and completed the Torah in the presence of all Israel. Before Moses lay the Promised Land, the land he was not permitted to enter until, much later, he stood beside the One of Whom he spoke in this very Book of Deuteronomy. Above him, the imposing mountains of Moab matched and blended their blueness with the deep hues of the Dead Sea. It was journey's end for Moses; journey's beginning for Israel. Moses was soon to cushion his faithful head upon the blue bosom of Mount Nebo and enter into a promised land of even greater beauty and glory than Eretz Yisrael, into which the children of Israel were so soon to be led by General Joshua, Moses' successor. As to the time when these great orations of Moses were begun, we are informed that it was:

6 "In the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, that Moses spoke unto the children of Israel, according unto all that the Eternal had given him in commandment unto them …" (Deuteronomy 1:3) Deuteronomy is one of the most beautiful books in the Bible and will yield us some of the richest of treasures; moreover, we must add to interest, importance, since these discourses of Moses had their actual origin in the Mind of Deity. Now, for a rapid flight over the entire contents of the book during which we shall capture sixteen speedy photographs and then afterwards integrate them into a fascinating and informative picture. As we fly low over Deuteronomy's thirty-four chapters this is the succession of pictures we obtain:

DEUTERONOMY

REVIEWING THE WANDERINGS 1. Introduction ................................................................................. 1:1-5 2. Review of Israel's History from Horeb

to the Appointment of Joshua ............................................... 1:6 – 3:29 3. Exhortations and Warning .......................................................... 4:1-40 4. Designation of Three Cities of Refuge ..................................... 4:41-43

REPETITION, EXPOSITION AND AMPLIFICATION OF THE LAW

5. Preface to Second Oration ........................................................ 4:44-49 6. Discourse on the Decalogue ............................................... 5:1 – 11:32 7. Laws Regulative of Life in the Promised Land and

Announcement of the Promised Prophet .......................... 12:1 – 26:15 8. 'Am Segullah' – God's Treasure .............................................. 26:16-19

REVELATION OF DIVINE PURPOSES FOR ISRAEL

9. Gerazim and Ebal .................................................................... 27:1-26 10. Blessings and Curses................................................................ 28:1-69 11. A New Covenant.............................................................. 29:1 – 30:20 12. Four Solemn Charges ............................................................... 31:1-29 13. Prophetic Song Haazinu ..................................................31:30 – 32:47 14. Moses Commanded to View and Vanish ................................ 32:48-52 15. Prophetic Blessings upon the Tribes ......................................... 33:1-29 16. Death and Burial of Moses ....................................................... 34:1-12

7 Now, armed with our sixteen snapshots, let us return to ground level and, without disturbing their sequence, integrate them into a total picture of the whole area traversed. A peep into the detail of these individual shots discloses that they fall quite naturally and progressively into three major groups. Moreover, whilst each group possesses characteristics in common with the other groups, yet each has a dominant note of its own that enables us to classify it as follows:

Group One: HISTORICAL ................................... 1:1 – 11:32 Group Two: LEGISLATIVE ............................... 12:1 – 26:19 Group Three: PROPHETICAL ........................... 27:1 – 34:12

By the way, have you noticed something rather interesting about the resultant picture provided by our sixteen shots and their consequent grouping? If this fascinating feature has escaped your attention, let me point it out to you. Just as Moses climbed to the top of Mount Nebo and from that point of vantage commanded a magnificent panorama, beholding not only the wilderness area now belonging to Israel's past but also viewing from afar the Promised Land then belonging to Israel's future, let us climb right up to the very summit of the very central verse of Deuteronomy's 955 verses and capture the revealed view from this spiritual Nebo. Now, planting our feet firmly on verse ten of the seventeenth chapter, the very centre of the book, the Nebo of Deuteronomy, what is the view available to us? Well, from where we stand we can make a survey yielding at least the following three interesting discoveries:

1. From the centre of the book we can look both ways; back into the PAST and forward into the prophetic FUTURE.

2. Also approximately central in the book (chapter 16) we have three symbolic feasts of great significance to Israel as a nation – Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot (Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles) and these three feasts will be found to relate respectively to the PAST, PRESENT, and FUTURE of the Nation of Israel.

3. Again, in our central position we have planted our feet where the PROMISED PROPHET is announced (chapter 18). The prophet, "like unto" Moses, Who is alone the key to the enigma of Israel's PAST, PRESENT, and FUTURE.

8 A final point of importance. Look at the words of that tenth verse of the seventeenth chapter, the very centre of the book and upon which verse we have planted our feet for our survey. The words read: "And thou shalt do …" (Deuteronomy 18:10) These are words that burn into the very soles of our feet and the heat from which should penetrate our conscience before the Eternal, for none of us are worthy to enter the spiritual Promised Land by virtue of our obedience to God. However, there is hope, because – and let us note this narrowly and carefully – if we are to enter, possess, and enjoy the Promised Land, we must look not to Moses the representative of Law, of doing, but to Joshua, Yeshua, the representative of Promise of Divine Grace.

9

REVIEW RETARDS RASHNESS

MY FRIENDS, the great Hillel (fl. 30 BCE – 10 CE) uttered words of the deepest content when he said:

"He who does not learn forfeits his life." (Abot. 1:13) If that amiable giant Gargantua were to inscribe those words upon a gargantuan parchment scroll forty years long and bid Pharaoh hold it at one end in Egypt and Joshua hold it at the other end in Canaan, it would be an apt epitaph to stretch across that theatre of scene and circumstance which marked Israel's exodus from Egypt and subsequent forty years futility in the Wilderness, as recorded in the Book of Numbers and reviewed in the first eleven chapters of Deuteronomy. In my last message I gave you a bird's-eye view of the whole Book of Deuteronomy and we were able to classify its contents into three major groups which we named successively the Historical Group, the Legislative Group, and the Prophetical Group. It is from the first of these groupings that I hope to provide spiritual treasure on this occasion. Let us be assured that there is a definite and required nexus between all five books of Torah:

Bereshit (Genesis) speaks of ELECTION Shmot (Exodus) speaks of REDEMPTION Vayikra (Leviticus) speaks of COMMUNION Bemidbar (Numbers) speaks of DIRECTION Devarim (Deuteronomy) speaks of DESTINATION

Devarim (Deuteronomy) is thus the anticipated and required COMPLETION OF Chumash – the "Five Books", the Pentateuch. True, "he who does not learn forfeits his life." The generation that came out of Egypt didn't learn, so – they died; now, this new generation with Moses must learn or they, too, will die. Only Caleb, Joshua, and Moses were of the old generation which came up out of Egypt. These three had learnt – and lived. It is an act of benevolence as well as the discharge of a responsibility that Moses performs when he makes a REVIEW of Israel's history for the benefit of the new generation upon whose shoulders lies the task of the conquest of Canaan. Franz Werfel has packed into one powerful phrase the dire drama of fallen man's experience from Eden until today when he declares:

10 "Death is frozen time. Time is molten death." (Between Heaven and Earth, 1944, p. 223) Whilst this vivid phrase loses most of its magnitude when measured against a man whose life is directed by God, it is nevertheless adequate commentary upon Israel's wilderness experience. Forty years of time frozen by death. Now, lest the time then future to the new generation should be but molten death, Moses, the Mouthpiece of God, recounts Israel's CALL and reviews Israel's CONDUCT. Grasp equally the staggering facts and their stupendous lesson. About 40 years earlier a vast concourse of people had been Divinely granted LAW and LIGHT and had set out, under Divine escort, on an eleven days' journey to "Destination Eretz." Now about 40 years later, only three of that old generation remain and "Destination Eretz" is still unaccomplished in spite of LAW and LIGHT. Why the failure? Was the Light inadequate? Nay! It was brilliant! Was the Law imperfect? Emphatically not! Hear the Psalmist on this point:

… 7

"The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul …" (Psalm 19:8a; English tr. 19:7a) Well, since there was no fault with the LAW or with the LIGHT was it with the LORD with Whom the fault lay? Was the LORD impotent? What? After Egypt and the Red Sea? Why, then – I repeat – the failure? The deficiency, my friends, was neither in the Light, the Law, nor the Lord; the deficiency was obviously in Israel himself and, equally obviously but less admitted, in fallen human nature as a whole. Psalm 78 is an enlightening and moving commentary on the failure of Israel and the faithfulness of God during a period which includes the section of Israel's history reviewed by Moses. The Psalmist, speaking of the strength and wonderful works of God, continues: "For He established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children …" (verse 5)

11 "That they might put their confidence in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments …" (verse 7) Then, with unreserved frankness, that old generation is described by the Psalmist as follows: "A stubborn and rebellious generation: a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not steadfast with God." (verse 8) Like a skillful physician, the Psalmist makes an accurate diagnosis when he discloses the character of Israel's spiritual malady in these words:

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"Because they believed not in God(s) and trusted not in His salvation." (verse 22) My friends, the discerning among us will have already grasped the fact that this is a basic diagnosis. It uncovers the spiritual cancer, not only of that particular generation of Israel, but of all humanity. Believing not in the God revealed in the Holy Scriptures and trusting not in the Salvation unveiled in those same Holy Oracles is the malignant malady menacing mankind. We would be most unwise if we failed to profit from this Divine diagnosis of a deadly spiritual disease from which none of us is immune unless and until we allow ourselves to be inoculated against the malady with the precious serum of truth provided in and through the Holy Scriptures. Hillel is right in this regard at least for "he who does not learn forfeits his life." I am struck with the amazing harmony between the Psalmist's diagnosis of disease and Moses' discourse on the Decalogue. Reviewing the drama of Israel's failure from the negative standpoint, the Psalmist pinpoints the problem in a twin indictment:

(a) They believed not God (Elohim) and

(b) They trusted not in the Salvation (Yeshua) provided by Him.

12 Reviewing the drama of Israel's failure from the positive standpoint, Moses pinpoints the prospects in a twin inducement:

(a) 4

5 (b)

Let me translate, literally, Moses' positive twin inducements and then throw them over against the Psalmist's negative twin indictments for a profitable comparison. (See Deuteronomy 6:4, 5) The first factor is objective and involves the Being of God; the second factor is subjective and involves the belief in God. As touching the Being of God the Psalmist uses a plural noun (Elohim, literally "Gods"). "They believed not Gods." Yet, to safeguard against the perils of polytheism – the idea of many gods – the plural noun is qualified by the pronoun in the first person, singular, masculine. ("His" salvation, not "their" salvation.) Similarly Moses uses the noun in the plural (Elohenu, literally "our Gods"). "Hear, O Israel, Yehovah our Gods …" Yet, to safeguard against the perils of polytheism, the plural noun is qualified by the declaration of God's unity. This is an illustration of some of the means whereby the Holy Oracles consistently retard the rashness of unitarianism on the one hand and polytheism on the other hand. I enter into this fascinating subject in much greater detail in my book OUT OF THE CLOUDS. Turning now from the objective factor of the Being of God to the subjective factor of belief, the Psalmist says, negatively, they "trusted not" whilst Moses enjoins, positively, that we shall "love" God. Now, love is the very womb in which trust is born. If we truly love we truly trust; if we are truly loved, the love we receive is truly trustworthy. In whom and in what did that generation neither believe nor trust? Why, neither in the God of Revelation nor in the Salvation He offered.

13 It is interesting that the Hebrew word used by the Psalmist relative to the Salvation provided by God is . This word is also the Name of One declared by those same Holy Oracles to be Israel's Salvation provided by God. To which shall we give heed? To Holy Oracles or to human opinions? Surely, "he who does not learn forfeits his life."

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THE NEW REVELATION

MY DEAR FRIENDS, in the Talmud it is recorded that in the ancient days of Israel, on the Sabbath, the outgoing Temple watch in Jerusalem would greet the incoming watch with these words:

"May He Who put His Name on this house, put among you love, brotherhood, peace and friendship"! (Berakot, 12a)

Now it will not have escaped your attention that in this affable greeting love is the leader. The English Jewish novelist, Grace Aguilar (1816 – 1847) writes:

"Love is the voice of God. Love is the rule of heaven!" (Vale of Cedars, 1850, Ch. 34, p. 219)

Now frankly! Is this mere novelist's nonsense or is it a magnificent fact? Would you grant me the favour and privilege of your partnership as I bring to you joyous proof that Grace Aguilar was expressing fact, blessed fact? Since I accept the Bible as the supreme revelation of and from God, it is to the Holy Scriptures I must ask you to turn for this demonstration. In the Hebrew of the Tenach, the so-called Old Testament, are three principal Hebrew word-roots from which is derived the concept, the idea, of love. The root (ahov) is the most common, appearing at least 237 times throughout the Tenach, whilst (hashoq) is found approximately 15 times and (havov) but once. The root ahov is best translated into English by the simple word "love". The root hashoq is a little more intricate and means, basically, "to join together," "to cling" and, of course, hence, "to live." The third Hebrew root havov conveys the idea of covering or hiding, as for instance, hiding or shielding in one's bosom in order to protect, and hence it is an action actuated by love. Now, having armed you with these three principal Hebrew word-roots, let us try an interesting experiment. Suppose I were to place in your hands right now a copy of the Hebrew Bible. To which section or book in our Holy Scriptures would you turn to discover the major expression of love, particularly God's love as encased in the very words of the novelist I quoted earlier?

15 Would you turn to the Torah, the Law? To the Neviim, the Prophets? To the Psalms, perhaps? Well, at first thought, certainly not to the Law for what has Law to do with Love. Surely the word Law leads our thoughts rather more into the halls of justice than into the green pastures of love, doesn't it? One who has been described as the "prince of Bible expositors" (Dr G Campbell Morgan) has declared that "the word love is a lonely stranger in the first four books" of the Bible. My friends, he is right. Moreover, he is statistically right! In the whole 4,890 verses of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, there are only nineteen tender touches actually expressed by the actual word "love", and where it is used I discover it to be almost entirely restricted or limited to the state or condition of mere human affection for family, friends, female, or food! On the admittedly higher plane of reciprocal love between God and man I find only two references and these appear like two lonely index arrows. One is in Exodus (Exodus 20:6) pointing from God to man where God declares, as a principle, His love-attitude to those who love Him; the other is in Leviticus (Leviticus 19:18, 34), where love to one's neighbour is Divinely commanded. In Genesis what I may call the love-flow between God and man is implied but once (Genesis 29:32); in Exodus it is once stated as a principle; in Leviticus it is not stated at all as interflowing between God and man, but merely as a dutiful attitude between man and man. When we reach the fourth book Numbers, the book of the wilderness, the book of futility and failure, it is poetic that love is not mentioned once – neither of God to man, of man to God, or of man to man. Not that God's love cannot be detected. Don't be deceived on this point. God's love can be detected. (e.g. Genesis 29:32) However, love is indeed a lonely verbal stranger in the first four books. Now, since this is so, is it not therefore surely reasonable to expect this phenomenon to persist through the pages of the fifth and final book of Torah, the Law? Why, its very name Deuteronomy – meaning repetition of the Law – scarcely invites hope to the contrary. Is it not true that the very words "LAW" and "LOVE" invoke in our minds ideas quite divorced from each other? But, my friends, I have a real surprise for you. Indeed, you may find this message full of surprises, and here is the first one, for our rapturous revelation of Divine Love is, contrary to expectations, securely embedded in Divine Law; yes, indeed, Divine Law is – as it were – the costly setting from which blazes this gem of Divine Love. Let me illustrate.

16 I remember, many years ago, travelling by automobile in the northern areas of Victoria, in Australia. I had left a town called Ouyen and was on my way to Mildura, on the great river Murray, and in those days I had to pass through a very sandy area. Mile after mile I travelled over undulating yellow sand dunes when, suddenly and utterly without warning, as I came to the crest of another dune, a green and glowing glory literally burst into sight. I had entered those vast areas irrigated by the river and the town that I was approaching had flung out far before me a green carpet of welcome. It was an unforgettable sight. And, so it proves to be as we leave the wilderness of Numbers and enter the domains of Deuteronomy. Yes indeed, we approach our theme of love, not on the feathery cushion of feeling necessarily, but on the flinty causeway of figures. Statistics! In my Hebrew Bible I have traced no less than twenty-seven references to "love" in Deuteronomy. Twenty-three are from the Hebrew root ahov, three from hashoq, and one from havov. Of the twenty-seven references to love in Deuteronomy, only six relate to love on the purely human plane, whereas God's love to man absorbs nine references, and man's enjoined love to God twelve references. To put this another way, the love-relationship between God and man absorbs three-quarters of the love references in Devarim (Deuteronomy). Moreover, whereas the common word ahov is used of both man and God, the more intensely tender words – only four times employed – are thrice used to describe the quality of God's love. Now those statistics were worth finding. Don't you think so? Here, for instance, are some typical quotations: "The Eternal did not set His love (hashoq) upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people – for ye were the fewest of all peoples – but because the Eternal loved (ahov) you …" (Deuteronomy 7:7,8a) "Only the Eternal had a delight (hashoq) in thy fathers to love (ahov) them …" (Deuteronomy 10:15a) "… but the Eternal thy God(s) turned the curse into a blessing unto thee, because the Eternal thy God(s) loved (ahov) thee." (Deuteronomy 23:6b; English tr. 23:5b)

17 "Yea, He loveth (havov) the peoples …" (Deuteronomy 33:3a) "And because He loved (ahov) thy fathers, and chose his seed after him …" (Deuteronomy 4:37) I have made a literal translation of Deuteronomy 4:37, last quoted, to show the remarkable use in the Hebrew text of the expression "his seed after him." This points to the limitation of the Divine choice to Jacob's seed. Abraham Ibn Ezra (b. 1092) wisely observes that had the original Hebrew text employed the plural form another eight peoples, as well as the Hebrews, might have been Scripturally regarded as being chosen people – Divinely chosen to fulfil a Divine commission. Now, let us learn again from another princely expositor – Moses. Lifting the Sacred Record from the unhonored grave of Israel's immediate past generation, the generation that came out of Egypt, Moses sweeps aside the curtain of current ignorance from his contemporaries, and into the illumined ark of their understanding he reverently deposits the perfect Law of the Lord. The new generation, about to enter the Promised Land under Joshua, is also about to undergo the new experience of the acquisition by Divine grant of a new possession, the Land of Canaan. Both their faith and their reason will be tested; therefore they are given a new revelation of God Who alone must be the Object of their faith and the Answer to their reason. The great lesson of Devarim, Deuteronomy, and hence the last lesson of Chumash, the Five Books, is therefore poetically enough, God's LOVE related to but not opposed to – but rather embedded in – God's LAW. One final revelation. Israel is about to pass over into the Land of Promise – now listen – UNCIRCUMCISED! Yes, indeed! Without the ot brit kodesh, the "Sign of the Holy Covenant"! In this remarkable manner God reveals that Canaan was a gift of Divine grace, not a reward for human merit through Law – observance. Deuteronomy, this precious book, thus reveals a Divine attitude to man that has remained unchanged down the ages and is explicitly declared in our Jewish New Covenant, the New Testament, in this clear statement: "The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Adonainu Yeshua HaMashiach." (Romans 6:23)

18 May we find anew God's love as expressed so poetically and beautifully not only in the Book of Deuteronomy but also in the Person of our great and glorious Messiah-Redeemer.

19

GRAMMAR AND GENEALOGY

MY DEAR FRIENDS, I have titled this message Grammar and Genealogy. Now don't let the title frighten you! The American author Isaac Goldberg (1887 - 1928) in his book, The Wonder of Words, has written the following little ode to grammar:

My grammar, 'tis of thee, Sweet incongruity, Of thee I sing. I love each mood and tense, Each freak of accidence, Protect me from common sense, Grammar, my king! (p. 446f., 1938)

Where the Divine revelation of our Holy Scriptures is concerned I, too, love each mood and tense. Moreover, I feel myself greatly impressed by each freak of accidence, and am always very grateful for Divine protection against any common sense so common as to ignore grammatical freaks which may be apparent in the context of Holy Scripture. For instance, there are some grammatical freaks of accidence and incidence in the book we are currently exploring, the final book of Chumash, known in Hebrew as Devarim, and in English as Deuteronomy. Moreover, we shall need protection against "common" sense. Grammatical freaks, produced deliberately by Divine revelation, yield their treasures only by partnership between the willing human spirit and the worshipped Holy Spirit. May we seek such a partnership now as we view a "freak of accidence" in the Hebrew text of the thirty-seventh verse of the fourth chapter of Deuteronomy.

… 37 Now, "common sense" usually translates these words in our English version of the Bible as follows: "And because He loved thy fathers, and chose their seed after them … " (Deuteronomy 4:37a) But, in my humble judgement, common sense would have done better justice to revelation if "each freak of accidence" had been allowed to speak its full message and in its fuller content. Here, then, is a literal translation of the very same passage:

20 "And because He loved thy fathers, and chose his seed after him …" Did you detect the difference? The English translation informs us that God loved the fathers of Israel – Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – and that, accordingly, God chose their seed after them. Let us enthrone as grammatical king of our enlightenment the inspired Hebrew text and seek to discover if there be any rich spiritual treasure in this imp of "sweet incongruity." Beyond reasonable dispute Israel's national fathers are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Again, beyond reasonable dispute the Bible affirms that Israel, as a national entity, is a people chosen by God for the fulfilment of a Divine purpose. In my last message I referred to the fact that the great Jewish poet and exegete Abraham Ibn Ezra (Spain, 1092 – 1167) had not failed to discover this grammatical phenomenon to which I have called your attention. In the first place, Abraham Ibn Ezra connects the Deuteronomy Scripture with the Divine promises made to the patriarch Abraham as recorded in Genesis, chapter 12, and I personally think he is quite right in doing so. In my book OUT OF THE CLOUDS, I have recorded this seventh strand of the Abrahamic Covenant as follows: "… and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed." (OUT OF THE CLOUDS, 2nd edition, p. 7) Concentrating our attention on this seventh strand of Divine promise made to our father Abraham, let us note that it is repeated to Abraham yet twice more in Genesis – in the eighteenth chapter and the eighteenth verse and in the twenty-second chapter and the eighteenth verse (cp. also Genesis 17:6 and 27:29). This three-fold repetition of Divine pledge to Abraham contains a fine and delicate development. When first uttered, those so blessed in Abraham are "all the families of the earth". Upon the second occasion there is a beautiful amplification, , "all nations of the earth". But on the third occasion there is yet another amplification of immense signification, appropriately bestowed because it coincided with the incidence of Abraham's crowning demonstration of his trust in the Eternal God by his obedience to the Divine command to present his only son Isaac as an offering upon Mount Moriah.

21 After this tremendous test of Abraham's faith not only in Abraham are all the nations of the earth to be blessed but the same promise is extended to Abraham's seed.

18

"… and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed …"

or, to give a more literal translation,

"… and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves …" (Genesis 22:18) In commenting upon the Deuteronomy passage Ibn Ezra observes that had the plural form been employed with regard to the seed of the fathers there would be an implication that another eight peoples, in addition to the Hebrews, could have claimed to have been specially singled out by God: namely, Ishmael, Esau, and the six sons of Abraham by his other wife Keturah! The intervention of the "freak of accidence" – "his seed after him" and not "their seed after them" – slams the door against any such interpretation and pinpoints the last of the trio of the patriarchs, the fathers – Jacob – as the human channel through whom the Divine blessing is to continue its flowing. In thus spotlighting Jacob, Ibn Ezra has the backing of Scripture, for the Holy Oracles disclose, in the twenty-sixth chapter of Genesis, that the Eternal, blessed be He, faithful to His pledges, directs one Abrahamic stream of promise through the patriarch Isaac, saying: "I am the God of Abraham, thy father. Fear not, for I am with thee, and I will bless thee, and multiply thy seed for My servant Abraham's sake." (Genesis 26:24b) When we turn to the twenty-eighth chapter of Genesis, a glorious flow of Divine Abrahamic promise is Divinely transferred to the last of the trio, Jacob. Here are the words: "I am the Eternal, the God(s) of Abraham thy father, and the God(s) of Isaac. The land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed. And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south. And in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed." (Genesis 28:13b, 14) On the human plane, the seed of Jacob is restricted to the twelve tribes of Israel. And who could honestly deny that world-blessing has flowed down the ages continually from the Jewish people?

22 It was the non-Jew, Antonia Riberio Santos, a famous Portuguese jurist (1745 – 1818) who wrote:

We are largely indebted to the Jews for our first knowledge of philosophy, botany, medicine, astronomy, cosmography, not less than for the elements of grammar, the sacred languages, and almost all branches of biblical study. (Memorias de Litterature Portuguesa)

On the spiritual plane, however, we well may echo Francis Thompson's cry:

Oh, but the heavenly grammar did I hold Of that high speech which angels' tongues turn gold! (Her Portrait)

In the Hebrew alphabet we do not have capital letters and small letters as in the English alphabet. What, do you think, could be the interpretation of the Deuteronomy Scripture, the subject of this message, if – with equal justification, mark you! – we wrote all the third-person pronouns with a capital letter "h". To bring out this point let me use some emphasis. And because He loved thy fathers and chose His seed after Him … There is already a connection between the unconditional Abrahamic covenant and the Divine promise bestowed in Edens' garden, and long recognised by our Jewish sages (e.g. Aramaic Targums) as being Messianic in character. I am sure you recall that Edenic promise which declares that the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent. You will find it in Genesis 3:15. And mark you, it points to the seed of the woman, not of the man! Are we being granted heavenly grammar to form a celestial language of redemption from sin when we speak of the seed of the woman, who is also the seed of Abraham, the seed of Isaac, the seed of Jacob, the seed of David, and – the seed of God? (Proverbs 30:4; Psalm 2:12, see Hebrew text) To Whom does our sacred Jewish Scripture, the Tenach, the Old Testament, point us when it prophetically indicates a Being Who is at once the "SEED OF THE WOMAN" and also the SEED OF GOD? That He is the "seed of the woman" and not of the male is obvious from the Hebrew text of Genesis, chapter three, verse sixteen and elsewhere in Tenach. That He is the seed of Jacob is also clear from the Hebrew text of the Deuteronomy passage which has been the subject of our examination in this message, as well as from related Scriptures in Tenach. That He is uniquely and distinctively the seed of the Godhead is likewise clear from many Tenach passages. Let me read you, for example, Proverbs, chapter 30, and verse 4. Ponder these words carefully; here they are:

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Who hath ascended up into heaven, and descended? Who hath gathered the wind in His fists? Who hath bound the waters in His garment? Who hath established all the ends of the earth? What is His Name, AND WHAT IS HIS SON'S NAME, if thou knowest? My dear friends, we do know the Name of the Godhead Who wields such power over creation. But did we know He had a Son? If so, do we not know His Name? Redeemer of Israel and all mankind? May angels' tongues turn such grammar as we have been considering into gold; nay, into faith which, in the eyes of God, is far more precious than of gold which perisheth!

24

THE CAPTIVE EAGLE

MY DEAR FRIENDS, a mighty eagle, monarch of the heights, was once observed in its unchallenged and majestic flight. The horizonless heavens were its domains; freedom was its atmosphere; liberty its heritage. Poised upon its stretching pinions, its keen eye detected its prey darkly silhouetted upon the gleaming whiteness of the ice beneath it. Speedily, it swooped to the kill and in a matter of seconds the powerful bird and the lifeless victim were framed together in a drama of icy proximity. But this was to be the scene of a double drama. The feeding giant of the skies had paused too long over the meal. It had allowed the minutes to multiply and when, satisfied with its legitimate provision, it attempted to respond to the call of the heights and once again to soar upward to its accustomed enjoyment of life and liberty, it found itself utterly unable to rise. One of its talons had become frozen fast into the ice upon which still lay the remains of its Divinely-provided feast. In vain those regal pinions frantically pounded the air for deliverance. The erstwhile monarch of the skies now awaited in impotence the inevitable doom. What a sight to behold is this! What a potent pictorial parable it presents! Here is power, life, and liberty imprisoned at the very side of that food which God had supplied in nature as the Divine enablement to sustain and enjoy those very riches of power, life, and liberty! My friends, when I contemplate the terrible irony of such a scene, its allegorical significance leaps up and strikes my awakened and alarmed consciousness with tremendous impact. Thoroughly alerted, I lift my feet beside my food to make sure I can still fly! When I have shared fully this parable with you I imagine you, too, will feel like testing the condition of the surface upon which you stand. I certainly hope so, for such a testing can surely do no harm. Shall we make the test together? First, then, let us look at our food Divinely supplied to enable us to sustain and enjoy power, life, and liberty of spirit. To begin, I must affirm that I find myself quite unable to accept, with honest intelligence, the modern historico-critical evolutionary approach to our Holy Scriptures. I also believe it is a mistake to regard the Tenach (Old Testament) as a series of unconnected writings held together only by the adhesive properties of the bookbinder's art. I am convinced that each book of our so-called Old Testament is an integral part of one whole Divine revelation. Moreover, the sincere seeker is conducted through its pages in a clearly discernible progress of spiritual enlightenment. How truly we could exclaim:

25 "Hear, O Israel! The book, our books, is the book, a unity." This, my friends, is our food, God-given, to sustain spiritual life and to keep us powerful to enjoy the amazing liberty the Eternal God has granted us. Well then, it may be asked, where is our peril? Why, in the subtle, icy, encroachment of mere human opinion and uninspired human tradition added, as the moments multiply, down the ages! Please do not misunderstand me at this point. Where tradition acts as a trustworthy frame to set forth Revealed Truth it is probably acceptable and even attractive. But where human tradition is set forth alongside Divine Revelation and in terms contradictory to the Revealed Truth of our Jewish Holy Scriptures it can freeze us fast beside our very food and rob us of our life and liberty. Since we are currently exploring the fifth book of Moses, known in English as Deuteronomy and in Hebrew as Devarim, let me give you one illustration. In the fifth chapter of Deuteronomy (verses 4,5,19-30; English tr. verses 4,5, 22-33) Moses is clearly revealed in the role of mediator between God and Israel, and this function he assumed both by the choice of the will of the people and the selection of the will of the God of Israel. The Revealed Truth of Scripture thus clearly sets forth, not only in Deuteronomy, but throughout the pages of Tenach, both the fact and the function of a mediator and intercessor between God and man. What, then, has human tradition laid alongside this important Divine revelation as the moments have multiplied down the ages? I cannot do better than to quote verbatim the words of one so ably qualified that he could be trusted to set forth faithfully the outlook of uninspired human tradition on the subject of mediation and intercession. Here are his words:

Between God and man stands no one – not God-man, not angel, not advocate. Nor is intercession or intervention required. As nothing comes between soul and body, father and child, potter and vessel, so nothing separates man from God, Soul of his soul, his Father and Fashioner. (Milton Steinberg, Basic Judaism, 1947 ed., p.57,58)

My friends, these words just quoted are brave words, they are even cheering words but – and here's the peril of the icy imprisonment – are they true words?

26 Let us take the phrase "nothing separates man from God." The Hebrew root meaning "to separate" is . This root first becomes active in Divine revelation in the very first chapter of Bereshit – that is, Genesis – where it appears five times. (Genesis 1:4, 6, 7, 14, 18) By its employment we are informed that God separated the light from the darkness, the waters above from the waters beneath, and the day from the night. Throughout its twenty-two usages in , the first five books of the Bible, the same idea of separation is conveyed, one of the most graphic being that of the Veil in the , the Tabernacle, which separated the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place, and the violation of which separation meant instant death, Divinely administered. Only the High Priest, as mediator between God and Israel, could venture beyond this separation and then only with the blood of the Divinely-appointed sacrifice. Undoubtedly, something does separate man from God and rather than lay my mere human opinion alongside the Divine food, I would rather refer you now to that Divine food itself. Selecting but one of the many Scriptures available I would refer you to Isaiah's fifty-ninth chapter which begins: "Behold, the Eternal's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, neither His ear heavy, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear." (verses 1,2) So declares God's mouthpiece, the prophet Isaiah, and in doing so he uses that very same Hebrew root employed in the Genesis Scriptures to which I have already referred. Yes, indeed, let us make no mistake; there is something that separates man from God and that something is sin. It is true that the voice of human tradition is not silent on the subject of the sins of the people, for it admits (I quote here tradition again):

Through their sins they may make themselves unworthy of His presence and come to feel alienated from Him. (Ibid., p. 58)

But this is not the teaching of Moses and the Prophets. Sin not only makes us unworthy of the Divine Presence but, irrespective of how we feel, actually alienates us from Him, unless –

27 Well, let Isaiah speak on the "unless," and from the same fifty-ninth chapter. Here are the words of Isaiah: "And He (the Eternal God) saw there was no man, and was astonished that there was no intercessor; therefore His own arm brought salvation unto Him …" (verse 16) Clearly, my friends, an intercessor is needed where sin is concerned, and salvation is a Divine provision through the "Arm of the Eternal" – a title admittedly Messianic and, as employed both in the Isaiah text and in ancient and modern rabbinical commentary thereupon, as implying Deity. Let me quote, for instance, one modern rabbinical observation of Isaiah 59:17:

God is represented as a warrior whose coat of mail, helmet and other equipment consist of righteousness, salvation, vengeance and zeal, attributes for the chastisement of the wicked and the deliverance of the godly. (Rev. Dr Israel W Slotki, M.A., Litt.D., Isaiah, p. 291)

Now, let Isaiah conclude the matter of sin, separation, mediation, intercession, and salvation:

. . . which the English translates:

"And a redeemer will come to Zion …" but which is more correctly translated by the esteemed Rabbi Slotki in these words:

And He shall come as a redeemer. (Slotki, ibid.) In the latter and more accurate translation of Dr. Slotki the personal pronoun "He" is spelled with a capital letter "H", thus signifying the Deity of the One referred to as "He." This, I am persuaded, is also correct, for it is the same One represented as a warrior, and Who brings salvation, and is known as the Arm of the Eternal Who comes as a Redeemer to Zion. Now turn once again back to mere human tradition and opinion for our concluding comparision. Human tradition concludes with the words which I now quote:

28

In sum, there is and can be no vicarious salvation, Each man must redeem his own soul. (Steinberg, op. cit., p.58)

When I compare this icy statement with the express teaching throughout the whole of Holy Scriptures I am alarmed, but fortunately I am also alerted to the peril of being frozen fast beside my food. My friends, in view of the obvious discrepancy between this human tradition and the teaching of our Holy Scriptures, let us be very careful where we plant our feet when we feed!

29

THE MAJESTIC MYSTERY

MY DEAR FRIENDS, that ideas and implications are conjured to the mind by figures is a phenomenon in human experience admitted and explored from the most ancient times. "Think of a number!" If you do, it is quite probable that your mind will become a spacious palace of perception and your number the crowned monarch enthroned in its midst. As a king it will be surrounded by inspiring attendants. Some black-robed – for who can pluck sorrow from the soul? Some gay – for memory has its sparkling moments. There will be perfumes, too – for the mind has nostrils as well as the body. Ears, no doubt! For whole symphonies can sound in the silence. What! All this in numbers? Why not? Think of a number! It could be, perhaps, the telephone number of the one you love or have loved. Ah! See what we've done? We have peopled the palace of our perception with a veritable pageant of preciousness! Who would have thought it? Fragrance in phone numbers! There is one number, however, which upon admittance to the Jewish mind, will find no palace big enough to contain its attendants. It will need the entire world to hold its entourage, for it is accompanied by drama-packed history. That number, my friends, is twelve. Like a giant magnet it marks and masters the movements of a multitude throughout millenia. It is a married monarch and its queen is Israel. Twelve sons of Jacob; twelve tribes of Israel; twelve stones in Aaron's breastplate; twelve possible mutations of the sacred tetragrammation, YHVH; that Sacred mysterious, memorial Name of Deity, chosen by the Godhead to denote essential and absolute Being uniting into one eternal existence that which to man is viewed as future, present, and past. It is sweet to observe how the great God of the Universe meets this triune human viewpoint of time with a progressive revelation of His glorious Being. In the early revelations of the Bible we are introduced to the Creating Godhead by the designation (Elohim), a noun occurring sometimes poetically in the singular, but usually and generally in the plural. This phenomenon has not failed to excite comment and to arrest attention. It has arrested mine. I, myself, believe it to be an important and an intentional part of the Divine Revelation.

30 Of these beginnings of Biblical enlightenment Rabbi Dr Kaufmann Kohler writes:

They take the lofty standpoint that the heathen world, while worshipping its many divinities, had merely lost sight of the true God after whom the heart ever longs and searches …. The Godhead, divided into gods – as is hinted even in the Biblical name, Elohim – must again become the one God of humanity. (Jewish Theology, 1923, p. 57)

It is also to be noted that, from the earliest chapters, Scripture unites these two Supreme appellatives, (Elohim) and (Yehovah) and I feel confident there is design in this, for neither of these names are derivatives from heathenism but are the products of Divine revelation. Elohim appears to be an abstract and generic title and is also used to describe false gods. Yehovah, on the other hand, is a proper Name carrying with it the Scriptural associations of personality and redeeming relationship to Israel and to all individuals. The two appellations are Scripturally brought into conjunction in what is, in itself, a superlative – and yet elusive – revelation and, poetically enough, the number twelve is ideologically associated with this majestic mystery of the Revealed Godhead. There are twenty-two characters in the Hebrew alphabet and exactly twelve of these are employed to epitomize and proclaim what is at once a most profound and a most glorious revelation of the mystery of the Godhead. In our advance through the pages of Devarim, that is Deuteronomy, we shall come across this wonderful declaration in the sixth chapter and the fourth verse of that final book of Moses. Let me recite it to you though I think it will be abundantly familiar to you all. 4

From even before the Common Era this declaration has been the rallying cry of Israel and the very foundation of our Synagogue liturgy and worship. Although the Talmud declares that it may be proclaimed in any language (Sotah 7:1), I am firmly convinced myself that Lashon Hakodesh, the Hebrew language, is the safest tongue to which to entrust its majestic mystery. Indeed, frankly, some languages actually conceal what the Hebrew reveals. English is one vernacular that does not do the text justice.

31 The English declares: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One." Pared right down to a literal translation, the English would read rather strangely: "Hear Israel! Yehovah our Gods Yehovah one." Yes, that's correct. Yehovah is "our Gods," for the noun is plural. Yet Yehovah is one. It is unfortunate indeed that the English language is restricted to a solitary adjective "one," a word which compels and propels the English-thinking mind into ideas associated with arithmetic. One is one and not two; one is one and not three; one is one and not four, etc. I am convinced that we are doomed to failure if we use an English key to unlock a Hebrew mystery. Moreover, we are surely searching in the wrong field if we explore areas mathematical for the answer to the enigma. The Hebrew language, unlike the English, has two adjectives which could be translated by the English word "one." The first Hebrew word is (yachid) and it implies absolute singularity, and "only"-ness – if I may coin the expression – the state or condition of being absolutely solitary. Here is one use of YACHID where the Psalmist cries to God: "Turn Thee unto me, and be gracious unto me; For I am solitary and afflicted." (Psalm 25:16) Here is another: "Make thee mourning, as for an only son …" (Jeremiah 6:26; cf. Amos 8:10; Proverbs 4:3; Zechariah 12:10; Psalm 35:17; Psalm 22:21, English tr. 22:20) In the 68th Psalm the word is used of the grace of God of Whom it is said: "God maketh the solitary to dwell in a house …" (verse 7, English tr. verse 6) Among the most poignant uses of the word YACHID, "solitary," is that found in the 22nd chapter of Genesis where the Eternal commands our father Abraham:

32 Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, even Isaac … and offer him there for a burnt-offering … (verses 2,12,16 and cf. Judges 11:34) Now this Hebrew adjective YACHID implying solitariness is not the word used of the Godhead. When applied to Deity the adjective is always (echad), a term which is not confined within arithmetical limitations, but conveys the idea of unity rather than singularity, a oneness that implies complete "identicalness" within that oneness. Its employment in this sense is prolific in Scripture. For instance, evening and morning become ECHAD to constitute a day (Genesis 1:5) man and woman become ECHAD in true marriage (Genesis 2:24). However, I have gone into this whole subject far more fully in my book OUT OF THE

CLOUDS and in earlier series of my radio messages (GEMS FROM GENESIS AND EXCURSIONS INTO EXODUS) to which I must refer you. In OUT OF THE CLOUDS I have made specific reference to

4

our Shema as it is called. And it is indeed a – and I quote here – "confession of faith in the unity and uniqueness of God" as Rabbi Dr I Epstein has affirmed. Although, in justice to him and to myself, I should add that we may not find ourselves in complete agreement upon the interpretation of his words. It was said of the famous Rabbi Akiba ben Joseph, the founder of rabbinic Judaism – as distinct from Biblical and Messianic Judaism – that, at the moment of his death by martyrdom, he was breathing our Shema, and as he was sounding forth the ECHAD, his soul departed from him. Then came a voice from heaven which said: "Blessed art thou, Rabbi Akiba, for thy soul and the word ECHAD left thy body together" (Berachoth, fol. 61, Col.2). The Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-9) is said to equal "the acceptance of the yoke of the kingdom of heaven." Jacob Kranz (Lithuanian preacher, 1740-1804) quotes Mendel as saying:

If you weary in the service of God, it means you are carrying other burdens, not that of the yoke of heaven. (Emeth VeEmuna 1940, p. 27)

Rabbi Judah said: "He that has never seen the light may not recite the Shema with its Benedictions … (Megillah 4:6)

33 I would like to press those words from their original negative physical connotation into a positive spiritual perspective and affirm joyfully that he that has seen the Light-of-the-World has accepted the invitation He made when He cried: "Come to me, all you who are weary and overburdened, and I will relieve you. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and of a quiet disposition, and you will get relief, for my yoke does not chafe and my load is light." (Hugh J Schonfield, trans., The Authentic New Testament, Central Press, Great Britain, p. 73; cf. KJV, Matthew 11:28-30) The Messiah Who issued to all Israel and to all the world that encouraging invitation is not a destroyer of the sacred revelation of Divine unity enunciated in our Shema. On the contrary, he Himself is within and identical with that unity. May all Israel speedily find Him and recognize Him for what our Tenach reveals Him to be – our own personal Messiah-Redeemer and Eternal High Priest.

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THE PERIL OF THE PARTIAL PERSPECTIVE

MY DEAR FRIENDS, I have entitled this message "The Peril of the Partial Perspective," and I think you will soon see why. I do not recall who it was that observed that the only thing man learns from history is that he doesn't learn from history. As I said, I do not know who made that observation but he has certainly hit the bull's eye with the deadly accuracy of a grapefruit at breakfast time. In my attempt to familiarize you with the structure, content, and objective of Moses' fifth book Devarim, Deuteronomy, I have prepared a chart. (see page 2) To illustrate the first division of Deuteronomy, that section which I have entitled "Review," I have shown a human eye looking backward into the history of Israel as recounted by Moses in the plains of Moab and as recorded in the first eleven chapters of the book. Moses brings vividly the lessons and the losses of the past before the new generation of Israel about to enter the Promised Land. Moses' review is just as timely for us today as it was in that remote age. I am alarmed at the incidence and consequence of a human failing which I have designated the "Peril of the Partial Perspective" and which can best be illustrated by propounding the very subtle question – now listen carefully – "What is worse than biting an apple and finding a worm in it?" Since the answer may not be as immediately obvious as would be requisite to a speedy return of your gracious attention to the prime theme of this message, may I add the answer – that biting an apple and finding half a worm in it is the more unpalatable prospect of the twain. So with a truth viewed in partial perspective. Join me now as we put this to the test. As, with imagination's eye, we view the fiery mount that Moses climbed, the Mount of Awe, Mount Sinai, the Mount of the Revelation, what is the consequent perspective that bursts into and fills your consciousness, doubtless leaving little or no room for aught else? Why, obviously, the Decalogue, the Tables of Stone, the Ten Commandments. My friends, don't you agree that this would be the instant answer of the many? Let us test the accuracy of this popular but, I am persuaded, partial and hence perverted, perspective. Remember the apple! The Eternal God of the Universe committed into the hands of Moses in the mount two celestial revelations – not one.

35 The record of the first Revelation, the Ten Commandments, is allotted a chapter space in the Book of Exodus extending through five chapters (20 through 24)). But the second Revelation, without which I am convinced the first is tragically incomplete and distorted, is allotted a chapter space in the same book extending through thirteen chapters (25 through 31 and 35 through 40). Thus the first great revelation of LAW is – if I may use the term – "outchaptered" 13 to 5 by this second Divine revelation, of such importance to God and to Israel and to all humanity that God admonishes Moses about it in these words: "And see that thou make them after their pattern, which is being shown thee in the mount." (Exodus 25:40) From the fiery mount, red with the glow of God's glory, there blazed forth twin revelations of equal importance and complementary the one to the other, but – amazing phenomenon! – the many miss the most and succumb to the peril of the partial perspective. Come, my friends, it is time to hasten back to the mount again, and in capturing the complete view, observe the overlooked oracle – the . The Tabernacle. As the Decalogue is the channel of the proclamation of God's LAW, so the Tabernacle is the channel for the pattern of God's LOVE. The LAW lifts our eyes to the lofty heights of God's holiness. Our conscience tell us all – if we are honest – that we fall short of the standard of God's LAW. To those awakened to any degree of God-consciousness, the realization of this shortcoming becomes well-nigh unbearable. God knew this; that is precisely why He gave Israel and all humanity the second revelation, to lift our downcast eyes, hope-filled, to the equally lofty heights of God's LOVE. The twin revelations of God's love and God's law appear at the very same locality and on the very same occasion in order that Israel and all mankind may learn that God's LAW and God's LOVE are not to be divorced. God's laws are the expression of His love and His love the inspiration of His laws.

36 Is it asked – "In what way is the , the Tabernacle, the pattern of God's love? The answer to such an inquiry discloses the Tabernacle as an elaborate and beautiful symbolic picturization of redemption by the blood of sacrifice. Our most ancient Jewish tradition has long recognized this Divine principle of substitutionary atonement. It is clearly enunciated, for instance, in the very ancient Jewish legend culled from very old Jewish sources. Here is one which reads – and here I quote:

And Abraham sprinkled the blood of the ram upon the altar, and he exclaimed, and said, 'This is instead of my son, and may this be considered as the blood of my son before the Lord.' And whatsoever Abraham did by the altar, he exclaimed, and said, 'This is instead of my son, and may it be considered before the Lord in place of my son.' And God accepted the sacrifice of the ram, and it was accounted as though it had been Isaac. (Yashar Ve-Yera, 46b)

The doctrine of substitutionary atonement may be declared distasteful, unpopular, obsolete, or what you will; but it cannot be expunged from our Jewish Holy Scriptures – it is a doctrine Divinely enshrined throughout the pages of the Bible, and is the real and valid answer not only to the honest reason of the mind, but also to the hunger and need of the soul. God's law is vindicated by it; God's love is manifested by it; man's salvation is secured through its operation; God's grace is demonstrated by it. But more. Man's love is wooed and won by it. That which moves God to government is God's love to man. That which moves man to obedience is man's awakened love to God. And "love is the fulfilling of the law." (Romans 13:10) Divine grace gives occasion for human love. As Rabbi Dr Kohler observes in part, "the blotting out of mans' sins with their punishment remains ever an act of grace by God." God's love manifested by His grace as demonstrated in the Divine provision of substitutionary sacrifice as a righteous method of winning man's love and upholding God's law is a superb Revelation of Tenach, the Old Testament. Divine Love bestowed this boon upon Israel for his own salvation and also as a sacred trust to be disseminated by him for the benefit of humanity at large. Israel has discharged that sacred trust and, in consequence, innumerable multitudes of Gentiles today are basking in the warmth of the love of God secure in that salvation provided by His grace

37 through the Revelation of the Divine act of substitutionary, vicarious, penal, atonement for sin and for sins. Israel has not failed to benefit himself also, inasmuch as hundreds of thousands of Jewish people throughout the world right down the ages even to this day are rejoicing in the Divinely provided Messianic salvation through substitutionary sacrifice. If there be any failure on the part of Gentile person or Jewish person to apprehend this precious principle of Divine grace, then the peril of the partial perspective, I am convinced, is contributory to the loss. If the obscured vision prompts an inquiry – "Where is this Divinely-provided substitutionary sacrifice for Jew and Gentile today?" I confess, as one of Israel who has escaped from the peril of the partial perspective, that I find this sacrifice in the person of the prophesied Son of Man Who declared of Himself: "… the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many." (Matthew 20:38) And again, "The Son of Man indeed goes just as it is written of Him …" (Matthew 26:24) Written of Him! Where is this written of Him? And of Whom is this written? Why, in no other place than the Law and the Prophets and the Writings, the Tenach, the Old Testament, could such a thing be written with any degree of authority to command our Jewish acceptance. Then of Whom is it so written in the Tenach? Who? Of none other than the Messiah of Israel and Saviour of the world. Then Who made the claim to be this Prophesied Person, the Messiah of Israel and Saviour of the World? The claim issued from the lips of Yeshua ben David ben Avraham, and was recorded by inspiration of Ruach HaShem, the Holy Spirit, through His Jewish servant , Matthew, and others in the equally authoritative and inspired pages of that essentially Jewish book known popularly as the New Testament and referred to as the New Covenant , by our great Jewish prophet Jeremiah in the 30th chapter of the book bearing his name.

38 My friends, I am convinced that the New Covenant, the New Testament, came from the same Divine Source as the Old Testament, the Tenach, and that the one is complementary to the other. If we fail to apprehend this latter volume and its great revelation I believe we shall once again succumb to the peril of the partial perspective.

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THE LOGIC OF THE LAND

MY DEAR FRIENDS, I want to talk to you about the Promised Land. I have entitled the message "The Logic of the Land." One of our rabbinical commentators has written the following captivating observation:

"We find that thirteen things are in the sole ownership of the Holy One, blessed be His Name! and these are they: the silver, the gold, the priesthood, Israel, the firstborn, the altar, the firstfruits, the anointing oil, the tabernacle of meeting, the kingship of the house of David, the sacrifices, the land of Israel, and the eldership." (Rabbi Bechai)

Any one of these thirteen items would reward abundantly our careful consideration but since the land of Israel has "sputniked" so brightly into the international ambit in this twentieth century, and because I believe it is destined to claim increased world attention in the years immediately ahead, I would like to bring a Biblical focus upon it for our increased enlightenment. Let me preface this aspect by expressing a conviction that the spiritual viewpoint, as presented in the Divinely-inspired Holy Scriptures, is the valid outlook and is also the clue to the unravelling of what might be otherwise an enigma. For an orderly procession of our thought I am compelled to begin with what is probably common knowledge, but which might have become so common as to have lost its unimpeachable significance. Let us realize, then, that the Land is Divinely locked into the gradually unfolding drama of world redemption. It really is utter folly to ignore this. In remote ages past, God surveyed a world that had left its pristine knowledge of Him and had, in consequence, turned from Him. But God, instead of forsaking the world, chose an individual man through whose humanity He would ultimately reach the world of humanity. That man was Abraham and, with his response to the specific call of God, God inaugurates a new and permanently important epoch of history. May I add here parenthetically that it is becoming quite monotonous to discern the slavish conformity to the unsubstantiated hypotheses of evolution which have even intruded into the realm we are currently exploring. In order that the grotesque idol of evolution shall have unhindered worship, God has to be banished from His cosmos and incarcerated in the nebulous and narrow confines of a mere monotheistic metaphysical abstraction.

40 God is an idea, they say, born in the mind of man, a projection of man's own ego; and Abraham was an originator of this monotheistic conception of the Deity. Jehovah, the One God of the universe, was born in the mind of Abraham. In pursuit of his mental Divine will-o'-the'wisp – so they continue – he left Ur of the Chaldees for the land of Canaan. Such is an epitome of the evolutionary extravagance propounded by the scholastic priests of progress. Personally, I find it extremely tedious; however, if it is true, it may provide a reason why Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees; maybe the inhabitants of Chaldea may have found it equally tedious and asked Abraham to take it elsewhere. Oh, no, my friends, let us face the facts. The Scriptures clearly reveal God – not Abraham – as the Initiator in Abraham's attitude and actions. Not only the record itself emphasizes it, but God's own mouthpiece, the Prophet Isaiah, states it categorically, speaking for God when he declares: "Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bore you; for when he was but one I called him, and I blessed him, and made him many." (Isaiah 51:2) God not only called Abraham, but also redeemed him (Isaiah 29:22) and it is arresting to observe that Abraham enjoys the paramount privilege bestowed upon no other ordinary human being, of being called the "friend of God." Actually, the Hebrew text conveys a much deeper meaning than "friend." He is described as God's "lover." (Isaiah 41:8; 2 Chronicles 20:7) This Lover of God – Abraham – received certain Divine promises relative to the land of Israel. In the Book of Genesis it is extremely interesting – to me, anyway – to note that there are no less than twelve references to this Divine bestowal of the land upon the Jewish people, the twelve tribes of Israel. Upon eight occasions God Himself is the Speaker in pledging the land to Abraham, to Isaac, and to the twelve tribes of Israel. (Genesis 12:7; 13:15; 15:7, 18; 17:8; 28:13, 15; 35:12) Upon the other four occasions, poetically enough, Abraham refers to it (Genesis 24:7); Isaac refers to it (Genesis 28:4); Jacob refers to it (Genesis 48:4); and, finally, Joseph adorns the last chapter of Genesis with its reference (Genesis 50:24).

41 Having captured this imperishable background, let us fill the foreground with three perspectives which we may designate the limits, the logic, and the light of the land. Genesis 15:18 is explicit regarding the limits of the land Divinely bestowed upon the Jewish people, the twelve tribes of Israel; here are the words of Scripture: "In the same day the Eternal made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates …" Whilst Abraham Ibn Ezra thinks the "river of Egypt" refers to the Shihor, the more general opinion favors the river Nile. Whatever these boundaries, they enclose a considerably greater area than that yet humanly promised or conceded to Israel today. I used the terms "humanly promised or conceded" advisedly. In his book The Fall and Rise of Israel, Dr William L Hull has this to say:

"In speaking on his motion Mr Baker stated that when the Jews were first promised the National Home the area included Trans-Jordan, a total of 45,000 square miles." (p. 208)

Dr Hull continues:

"Whittling had been the year by year process by which the British cut off a little here, restricted a little further there, until finally they reached a point that out of the original area of 45,000 square miles Jews were now able to purchase land freely in only 260 square miles!"

Whittling was planned to eliminate eventually all further obligations to Jews under the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate – and this at the most crucial time in all the history of Israel …. (pp. 208, 209)

Beyond doubt the regional discrepancy between man's promises and God's pledges will be Divinely removed in the times ahead. Now, as to the logic of the land, here is a revealing and salutary Scripture to which I hear but little reference, but which will be enlightening to friends and to foe of Israel, as well as to Israel himself. I quote, from the ninth chapter of Deuteronomy, words with which the Eternal God addressed the new generation who were about to cross the Jordan and dispossess the Canaanite. Here they are –

42 "Speak not thou in thy heart, after that the Eternal God hath thrust them out from before thee, saying: 'For my righteousness the Eternal hath brought me in to possess this land'; whereas for the wickedness of these nations the Eternal doth drive them out from before thee. Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thy heart, dost thou go in to possess their land; but for the wickedness of these nations the Eternal thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that He may establish the word which the Eternal swore unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob." (Deuteronomy 9:4, 5) Here is a frank admission and a clear revelation. Not the righteousness of Israel, but the wickedness of the nations and God's pledges to the patriarchs are the formative factors where the land is concerned. This brings me to the third and final point of this message – the light of the land. Quoting the third chapter of Amos, the esteemed Rabbi Dr Kohler remarks – and here I quote:

"Here is stated in explicit terms that the God of history selected Israel as an instrument for His plan of salvation, in the expectation that he (Israel) would remain faithful to His (God's) will."

With the first portion of Dr Kohler's observation I am in the most hearty agreement. That Israel is a Divinely-chosen instrument for God's plan of salvation is a glorious truth that sparkles like a star of hope in the dark sky of humanity's troubled horizons. That Israel has remained faithful to the will of God is a statement that would need the revocation of Scripture and history to sustain it. Since we have called upon Isaiah to testify to the Divine call of Abraham (Isaiah 51:2), let us hear this same prophet Isaiah speaking of the Servant-Messiah Person Who sprang from the Servant-Messiah Nation. I quote from Isaiah 49:6: "It is too light a thing that thou shouldest be My Servant To raise up the tribes of Jacob, And to restore the preserved of Israel; I will also give Thee for a light to the Gentiles, That Thou mayest be My salvation unto the end of the earth." And I am sure you will see that it is a mere begging the question to say that the Servant in this passage of Scripture relates to the nation of Israel. Israel certainly does not "raise up the tribes of Jacob." Jacob does not restore Jacob nor does Israel restore Israel. This would make the servant

43 servant to himself! No, no, no, the Servant in this passage is undoubtedly Messiah – the Individual – the true Light of the World. That blessed Individual Light has already come as prophesied. The blessed National Light is on the way "for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Eternal from Jerusalem." (Isaiah 2:3) No wonder it is written of the land, the Promised Land, the Blessed Land, the Land of Israel – … the eyes of the Eternal thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year. (Deuteronomy 11:12) My friends, where God's eyes focus themselves we shall be wise to focus ours also!

44

FIVE FORCEFUL FEATURES

MY DEAR FRIENDS, an allegory is very much like a walnut. It challenges us with an invitation to crack open the outer shell and possess and enjoy the nut inside. In an allegorical action there is first the immediate or historic activity which is understood from the actions themselves. But beyond and above the obvious there underlies the ultimate or allegorical which is concerned with the things signified by the actions. I strongly suspect there is something of the allegorical in the remarkable actions of our great teacher Moses following the lamentable incident of the golden calf. You will recall the occurrence. It is recorded in the 32nd chapter of Exodus. Moses was up in the Mount of Revelation, Mount Sinai, and the people thought he had disappeared forever. In a burst of untamed impulse they cried to Aaron: . . . "Up, make us gods who shall go before us …" (Exodus 32:1) In face of the pressure of this untamed demand, Aaron capitulated, gathered golden objects from the people, cast them into the fire and, as he naively remarks, "there came out this calf." Amazing emergence! I have had similar unaccountable experiences in my childhood. I recall one such an occasion. I was passing an apple tree when, suddenly and without any warning, apples sprang upon me from their lurking foliage and, to my unutterable amazement, every full fold in my garments was soon bulging with apples. Naturally, this startled me so much I ran off as fast as I could – apples and all. Anyway, to return to the calf. Moses, addressing the new generation about to enter the Promised Land recounts his reaction in the following words recorded in the ninth chapter of Deuteronomy: "And I took your sin, the calf which ye had made, and burnt it with fire, and beat it in pieces, grinding it very small, until it was as fine as dust; and I cast the dust thereof into the brook that descended out of the mount." (verse 21) Notice if you will, please, the fine forceful features found in Moses' brief summary. Here they are: the calf, the fire, the dust, the brook, the Mount.

45 Let us forge a separate link from each of the five, and then fashion a resultant chain of thought to gird and gladden us. The Hebrew word translated "calf" is an interesting one. It comes from the root , "to roll," and from it we get such words as , "to be round, circular," , "a ring," especially an earring. The Scriptures elsewhere grant us glimpses into certain characteristics of the calf as an animal skipping and bounding (Psalm 29:6) in an untamed manner (Jeremiah 31:18) and "calves" is therefore used in Scripture as a figure of speech to indicate wild and mercenary peoples, swift to leap from restraint. (Psalm 68:31; English tr. 68:30) The golden calf, then represents sin, particularly in the form of rebellion from the true God, to worship and serve "gods" of one's own self-construction and self-interest. So much for the calf link. Now for the fire link. Fire has some very significant connotations in Holy Writ. The word is and it first appears at Genesis 15:17 as a symbolic representation of the Personal Presence of the Eternal God of the Universe. It is also used in association with God's judgment upon sin and iniquity as, for instance, in the judgment and destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Fire was also the symbol of the Divine acceptance of the sacrifices offered in substitution for the sinner, also to destroy sinners who presumptuously set aside God's own appointed way of approach into His Holy Presence (Leviticus 10:2; Numbers 16:35). Dust is the next of our five forceful features to claim our attention. This time the Hebrew word is and has a basic meaning of being rubbed into fine particles. It is that of which the body of the first man is said to have been formed (Genesis 2:7; 3:19). For this reason man himself is called "dust" (Genesis 18:27; Psalm 103:14). As a symbol of man's composition it signifies his impotence, weakness, and transitoriness. It also introduces the idea of death, where the body returns to dust (Job 10:9; 34:15; Psalm 146:4) and is, consequently, associated with lamentation and mourning (Job 2:12; Lamentations 2:10). There is yet another thought introduced by the use of this word dust. It rings before us the scene of the fall of man as recorded in the third chapter of Bereshit, that is, Genesis, in which chapter the serpent is seen condemned to feed upon or to lick dust (cf. Isaiah 65:25; Micah 7:17). It is also a symbol of lowness and humiliation. An eloquent symbol, isn't it?

46 Quite refreshing, therefore, to turn now to the brook. The Hebrew word is and it is a most expressive and fascinating term. Embodied in the Hebrew root from which the word flows is the idea of "taking into possession," even to take for one's own possession a people (Exodus 34:9), to inherit an inheritance. From this idea of reaching out to acquire and to possess flows the secondary concept of flowing along and, in stronger employment, pouring forth; hence, metaphorically, to give lavishly, copiously. As a natural transition from these conceits springs the idea of a brook, a river, a torrent, rushing forward to acquire and possess the parched earth, copiously and joyously giving, even in the taking. Indeed, taking but to give. Causing even the dust to bring forth green life and luscious fruit and, even in its thirst-quenching course, pointing onwards to its great ultimate goal, the wide and wonderful sea. Thank God for the brook! But note the source of the waters! The mount upon which God descended in fire; the mount which quaked greatly and which smoked like a mighty furnace at the Presence of the Eternal God of the Universe; the mount from which were thundered the Ten Words; the very mount around which bounds were set beyond which an unauthorized venture meant instant death! Yes! The mount was the source of the brook. What! Can Law which holds out no justifiable hope for a lawbreaker send forth such streams? Ah! my dear listening friends. Those of you who accord me the honor of your regular attention to these messages will already have had the answer to this question. Therefore, it is to those whose welcome ears are new to "TREASURES FROM TENACH" that I gladly repeat that it is a grave mistake to associate with Mount Sinai just the one revelation of the Decalogue, the Law, the Ten Words, the Ten Commandments. There was another revelation given to Moses on that Mount. The revelation of the , the Tabernacle, with all its glorious symbolism of atonement for sin by substitutionary, sinless sacrifice – for animals are sinless, remember? A magnificent and lavish gushing forth of Divine Love from the very spot, scene, and circumstance where thundered the dread-producing Decalogue. Well, we have made our five separate links and I guess you have already anticipated me in forging them together into a chain of spiritual evidence well worth having found and surely not to be forgotten in the future.

47 Let us hold up this chain that we have fashioned and behold its quality and durability. Listen again to the words of Scripture – "And I took your sin, the calf which ye had made, and burnt it with fire, and beat it in pieces, grinding it very small, until it was as fine as dust; and I cast the dust thereof into the brook that descended out of the mount." My friends, every one of us has made our Golden Calf, and let us not be naïve about it. Whatever we have set up in the place of God just fixes us with calves' eyes and silent eloquence. None of us are without sin. Of sin, Rabbi Dr Kohler correctly indicates its intrinsic gravity when he declares,

Sin … does not signify a breach of law or morality, or of popular custom and sacred usage, but an offense against God, provoking His punishment.

As another has well said: "Sin smites God in the face, and wounds Him in the heart." King David knew this when he cried: "Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned …" And so the fire falls on sin in inevitable judgment. I am of the opinion that all sin must be judged and punished if God is to remain true to Himself and true to His own holy and righteous character. This is rather alarming, isn't it, since we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God! But hold! The Psalmist has a comforting word for us, when he assures us of God: "For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust." (Psalm 103:14) Yes! He remembers. That is why there gushed forth from the Mount of Law and Love the life-giving, possessing waters, making green and fruitful the desert dust of human failure and even though we may have to drink the dust-strewn waters (Exodus 32:20), we know that through the sinless sacrifice of Messiah two thousand years ago the goal of the great sea of God's glorious haven looms up in precious promise for the redeemed of Israel and of all the world. Thank God for the brook!

48

THE SATISFYING SEQUENCE

MY DEAR FRIENDS, a passing patrolman was horrified to observe a man about to terminate his tenancy in this world by leaping from a high bridge into the river far below. Gesticulating frantically, the patrolman arrested the man's attention and likewise his intention sufficiently to enable him to climb up to his side on the bridge and remonstrate with him. There then ensued between the patrolman and the intended departee a discussion, brief but forceful, in which the would-be suicide measured the magnitude of life's frantic futility in terms so completely convincing that, after a hearty handshake, they both jumped off the bridge together! Now, scrape the thin veneer of comedy from the surface of that story and you uncover a valid tragedy beneath it; the tragedy of a spiritually unenlightened outlook, the forlorn despair of which is echoed very sadly in the oft-heard expression – "Oh! What's the good!" What a sorrowful sentiment is this! I think of words attributed to Eleazar ben Yair, a Sicarii leader in Judea, c.70 CE, and here I quote his words –

"Life, not death, is man's misfortune." My dear friends, if that gaunt and songless ghost, futility, is presently gliding through your hours and colouring the immediate foreground of your life with its drab and dismal pigments, I believe I can place in your possession a comforting clue which will drain from that disturbing spectre its power to paralyze your prospects. I am eager to give you this clue at once, and then expound and illustrate its comfort. Here it is; listen carefully: "… it is not the spiritual that comes first, it is the natural, and then the spiritual." Grasp this satisfying sequence and the terms in which it is expressed, and one obtains deliverance from a perjured or perverted posture towards life's enervating enigma. One no longer stands with one's head in a bubble and one's feet in a bog. On the contrary, one is enabled to view with enlightened eyes the pains and problems which undoubtedly populate our years and yet, notwithstanding all, to brand each pang and each perplexity with the stamp of its own sure impermanence.

49 Whilst the words I have quoted expressing this satisfying sequence appear in our Jewish New Covenant, popularly known as the New Testament, in the fifteenth chapter of the First Letter to the Corinthians (verse 46), they are, nevertheless, only an echo of the enactments and axioms of our Jewish Tenach, the Old Testament. Isaiah Horowitz (1555 – 1630), in his encyclopedic work entitled Shne Luhot HaBerit, had the comforting clue of this sequence almost within his grasp when he wrote these words – and here I quote them to you:

The revealed aspect of Torah is holy, and its mystery aspect is the Holy of Holies. Horowitz in suggesting both a revealed and a mystery aspect of the Law of God is, I believe, pointing us in the correct general direction. In human existence and experience there is both a revealed and a mystery phase, and it is our God-breathed Scripture that discloses this sequence – first that which is natural, then that which is spiritual. Let us see this comforting truth as it is clothed in the ideas suggested by Horowitz and enacted symbolically by none other than our great teacher Moses. The title Shne Luhot HaBerit means Two Tables of the Covenant and is an obvious allusion to the ninth chapter of Devarim – that is, Deuteronomy – in which chapter of the Law Moses graphically reviews his unparalleled experiences with the Eternal God upon the Mountain of the Revelation, Mount Sinai. Let me quote the relevant sections of Moses' words: "And the Eternal delivered unto me the two tables of stone written with the finger of God(s) …" (verse 10) (By the way, the word translated "God" here is in the plural.) "So I turned and came down from the Mount … and the two tables of the covenant were in my two hands." (verse 15) "And I looked, and, behold, ye had sinned against the Eternal your God(s) …" (verse 16) (Again the word is in the plural.) "And I took hold of the two tables, and cast them out of my two hands, and broke them before your eyes." (verse 17)

50 But here is a second act to this amazing drama. The tenth chapter of Devarim – Deuteronomy – records God initiating another command to Moses in these words: "Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first, and come up unto Me into the mount; and make thee an ark of wood. And I will write on the tables the words that were on the first tables which thou didst break, and thou shalt put them in the ark." (verses 1,2) Moses did as he was directed and the record continues in these words: "And He (God) wrote on the tables, according to the first writing, the ten words . . . And I turned and came down from the mount, and put the tables in the ark which I had made. . . " (verses 4,5) Never was drama written with such a cast of characters or so potent a plot. Let us summarize it.

ACT ONE God prepares two tables of the covenant. He writes upon them the Divine Law. At Moses' initiative, because of sin, Moses breaks them.

ACT TWO At God's initiative, Moses prepares a second set. God inscribes the Divine Law a second time. God commands Moses to place the second set in the sacred Ark of the Covenant.

Here, then, my friends, is what we may term the "revealed aspect of Torah." That which lies upon the surface, that which is first, the natural. And that it is holy is beyond any reasonable doubt, of course. Now, what is "its mystery aspect," its "Holy of Holies"? I believe this to be discovered in attaching to the historic record an intended symbolic significance. Both our great Jewish commentators Rashi and Nachmanides seem to sense this symbolical aspect, inasmuch as both commentators, in explaining the absence of an ark for the first tables, declare they were destined to be broken. The "mystery aspect" of Act One is forceful. The first two tables, both in preparation and in writing, were the work of God, but sin smashed them in Moses' hands.

From this we are reminded that the natural unregenerate descendents of fallen Adam are not trustworthy, either as custodians or as conformists, when entrusted with spiritual wealth. Whilst I will not share with Rashi and Nachmanides their alleged use of the word "destined." Yet I am convinced that violation and fracture constitute an inevitable curtain-drop to the first act of the

51 symbolic drama. If this were the end of the play we might well join in the handshake on the bridge and participate in the pessimistic plunge.

How thankful we are, therefore, that God Himself is the Initiator of a second act! And this time it is not the untrustworthy hands of a humanity that stretches out from fallen experience in Eden's garden into which God's Law is lowered from the heights. This time it is an ark of acacia wood destined for glory in the Holy of Holies, guarded by the cherubim and enshrined in the Shechinah!

Of what or of Whom is the ark symbolical? Let the chief human actor in the drama himself supply the clue; and please be prepared for the unexpected, yet the undoubtedly Scriptural and hence true. In the twenty-third chapter of Exodus (verse 21) it is none other than our great Moses himself who mentions a Being of Whom God declares, "My Name is in Him." Remember that in Hebrew thought "NAME" signifies "CHARACTER" "ESSENCE," "BEING." I believe Moses again mentions this significant Being with the Name of God in Him in the eighteenth chapter of Devarim – Deuteronomy – and alludes to him as a Prophet like unto himself. A prophet like unto Moses.

Truly human, because like unto Moses. Truly Deity, because bearing the Name – and hence the Nature – of God. Such a Being can be none other than the promised and prophesied Messiah-Redeemer, the Chief Actor behind all our Holy Scriptures.

In our symbolic drama, whilst the Finger of Deity wrote both sets of the tables of the covenant, yet observe that God prepared the first set, but the man the second set.

And it was as a Man that Deity became incarnate in the Messiah of Israel, Who Himself became the trustworthy Custodian and Conformer with respect to the Divine revelation from above, and Who, according to the Divine promises through Moses and the prophets, laid down that law-fulfilling, sinless life as an atonement for the fallen sons of Adam.

He, indeed, is the Ark of acacia wood overlaid with gold, and in Whom we find not only the Shne Luhot HaBerit, but also the pot of manna and Aaron's rod that budded; themselves hopeful symbols of spiritual sustenance through the Bread from Heaven and of spiritual life through union with Him Whose bodily resurrection from the Tomb is the Sign Supreme of the Divine forgivenesss and acceptance of all, particularly those of us of Israel, who place their personal trust for their Eternal salvation in the Messiah of Israel and Saviour of the World.

My friends, although we may not avoid immediately the pains and problems of the natural, the promises and prospects of the spiritual bid us come down from the bridge and carry on until He comes!

52

MISPLACED WORSHIP

MY DEAR FRIENDS, in that Biblical rhapsody of love known as Shir HaShirim, the Song of Songs, the maiden expresses her admiration for her absent lover in a very sweet sentiment when she exclaims: "Thy name is as ointment poured forth…." (Song of Songs 1:3) The ointments of the ancients were exquisitely fragrant and on festive occasions not only the head but also the garments were anointed with these perfumed aromatics. To portray noble and admirable personal qualities in terms of perfumed fragrance is a most delightful and satisfying simile; moreover, the identification of the person so adumbrated with the name borne by that person is a very ancient and picturesque concept. The ancients attached much importance to names; to them the name of a thing indicated its nature or character. This identification of name and nature throws light upon the overwhelming awe and reverence which Israel still attaches to the Name of Deity, for the Name of Deity is a reflection, an indication, of the nature, the character, of God. Among the number of names for God which appear in the Holy Scriptures, the Tetragrammaton or Four-Lettered Name () possesses by far the most frequency, appearing no less than 6,823 times. This Four-Lettered Name is popularly pronounced in English as "Jehovah"; a pronunciation which is almost certain to be incorrect due to a misreading appearing from about the sixteenth century of the Common Era and little capable of correction inasmuch as somewhere during the time of the Second Temple the Tetragrammaton was declared too sacred for normal human utterance. Hence, for over two thousand years the title "Adonai" – "Lord" – has been substituted by the Jewish people for the Four-Lettered Name. This practice of substitution was followed by substitutions for the substitute, and led to the introduction of some rather strange appellations for the Deity, among which was the designation , which means literally "the place," and can be applied either to a specific locality or to space in general. The initial use of the word Makom in Holy Scripture is found in the first chapter of Genesis where we read in the ninth verse:

. . . 9

53 And God(s) said: 'Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place . . .' Since the Eternal God is conceived as being present in both place and space the rabbis of the Talmudic period employed for Deity the appellation Hamakom, "the Place," a title used in the sense of "the Omnipresent." Jose ben Halafta (Tanna, Second Century CE) is quoted as saying:

God is called Makom (Place), because He contains and is not contained, He is a place for all to flee to, and He is Himself the space which holds Him. (Gen.R., 68.9)

Of the use of this strange title for the Deity, Maimonides says that it expresses the degree of God's existence to which nothing is equal or comparable (Moreh Nevuchim). Since both Name and Place have been associated with the Nature and Person of God, it is quite fascinating to observe both these ideas of Name and Place united in one single verse in the twelfth chapter of Devarim (Deuteronomy). God, in commanding Israel to uproot and destroy all forms and appertenances of misplaced worship, continues His instructions in the following words: 5

"But unto the place which the Eternal your God(s) shall choose out of all your tribes to put His Name there . . . " (Deuteronomy 12:5) If we care really to think over this verse of Scripture, both the words "Place" and "Name" will surely entice us onwards into further exploration. The word "place" occurs 34 times in Deuteronomy and it is equally fascinating to discover that in the twelfth chapter, to which I have already directed your attention, we find that word more frequently than in any of the 34 chapters of the particular book itself. It is, then, to the place where God chooses to put His Name that Israel is enjoined to bring his worship. Obviously, worship directed elsewhere is misplaced worship. But there is even more to it, because sincere human adoration, properly placed, has Divine promise of great reward. In support of this principle, let me quote another verse of Scripture in which is

54 embedded both the words "place" and "name." I refer to Exodus 20:21 (English tr. 20:24). Here it is: ". . . in every place where I cause My name to be mentioned I will come unto thee and bless thee." How well the wise King Solomon appreciated the potential of these words is surely indicated by a perusal of the eighth chapter of First Kings. Referring to the magnificent Temple he had erected, Solomon declares he had "built the house for the Name of the Eternal, the God(s) of Israel" (verse 20). Then, in the wonderful prayer he offered on that great day of the Dedication of the Temple, Solomon makes supplication: "That Thine eyes may be open toward this house night and day, even toward the place whereof thou hast said: My name shall be there; to hearken unto the prayer which Thy servant shall pray toward this place. And hearken Thou to the supplication of Thy servant, and of Thy people Israel, when they shall pray toward this place; yea, hear Thou in heaven Thy dwelling-place; and when Thou hearest, forgive." (verses 29,30) But, my friends, the Temple was finally destroyed in the year 70 of the Common Era! Is there, therefore, now no place into which God has put His Name, and to which Israel can turn in supplication and forgiveness? Happily, I am fully persuaded there is a comforting affirmative answer to this important question, but I must ask you to prepare for a surprise. Moreover, some of us will need both wisdom and courage to embrace this further revelation I am now about to bring you from our Jewish Scriptures. My friends, God not only placed His Name in a particular place, but also in a particular Person! This is admittedly startling, but it is none other than our great teacher Moses who makes special reference to this particular Person when, in the twenty-third chapter of Exodus, Moses quotes the God of Israel as declaring: "Behold, I send a Messenger before thee, to keep thee by the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. Take heed of him, and hearken unto his voice; be not rebellious against him; for he will not pardon your transgression; for My Name is in him." (Exodus 23:20, 21) Maimonides himself admits that the expression "the Name of God" oftimes means – and here I quote Maimonides – "the essence and reality of God himself." (Moreh Nevuchim)

55 Here, then, is a Being in Whom, as I understand it, resides the very essence and reality of God Himself. Moreover, the Name of God, the nature, the essence, the reality, the glory, of God can only dwell in One Who is originally identical in nature with God. Indeed, it is God Himself Who declares this very principle through the lips of His prophet Isaiah: "I am the Eternal, that is My Name; And My glory will I not give to another . . ." (Isaiah 42:8a) To Whom, then, do our Jewish Scriptures point us? Surely, to the Messiah-Redeemer of Israel of Whom a Divinely-enlightened Jew dared to declare that: " . . . in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." (Colossians 2:9 cf. John 5:19, 23; 10:38; 14:10; 17:21) May Israel not fear to turn towards Him for both forgiveness and blessing, for He is our Anointed One, the Messiah, the Chosen Place where dwells eternally the Name of that God in fragrance as an ointment poured forth.