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Matthew 10:28
And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. In his exhortation to the Children of Israel towards obedience to God, Moses reminds them of the sin of the Golden Calf; he warns them against idolatry with the words, For Adonai your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God (Deuteronomy 4:24). The writer of the Book of Hebrews admonishes his readers to obedience using this same passage (Hebrew 12:29). For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest (Mt Horeb) … But you have come to Mount Zion (in Jerusalem where Messiah was crucified). This whole chapter is usually read as an antithesis between Mt Horeb and Mt Zion. It is usually interpreted in the assumption of a spiritual opposition between the two mountains: "you haven't come to Moses, but to Yeshua; not to the Torah, but to 'grace'; not to the Old Testament, but to the New. God was mean before, but now He is nicer!". This is a flawed understanding and even a minimal understanding of not only the context of the chapter, but also of the style of Jewish writers reveals it. In this passage the writer makes a point for people to obey and fear God's discipline (Hebrews 12: 1-17) using the traditional 'kol v'homer' argument so often used by Paul, Yeshua, all the prophets and apostolic writers. In the same manner that Yeshua said (my narration) "if God clothes the lilies of the field which are here today and burned tomorrow better than even King Solomon in all his glory, won't he also clothe you?", the writer of Hebrews declares, "you think Mount Horeb, the mountain of Moses and of the congregation in the desert was so awesomely terrible that people who disobeyed died a terrifying death? Mt Zion, the mountain of the firstborn (Yeshua) in Jerusalem is even more deserving of your respect." He says; See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth (Moses), much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven (Yeshua) (Hebrews 12:25). Now we get the intended message: "You saw what happen to those who disobeyed at Mt Horeb? Mt Zion is even more terrifying!" In this day and age people tend to have a very familiar relationship with Yeshua; they remember the baby born in Bethlehem, He who cried at the death of His friend Lazarus, the gentle Lamb who opened not His mouth as He was reviled by both His brothers and the pagans. We tend to forget though that the baby grew up to be the returning King clothed in a garment dipped in blood, and vested in all the authority and power of God to execute judgment and vengeance on His enemies and on all those who defy His rule (Revelations 19). He is able not only to kill the body, but He can destroy both soul and body in hell (Matthew 10:28). May we stand and be warned: Serve Adonai with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him (Psalms 2:11-12).
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Hebrews 1:3
He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature When Moses was on the Mount, either in reality or in a vision he saw God’s eternal dwelling place. Moses was able to observe every detail of it and then was asked to replicate it on earth for God to be able to dwell among His people: Israel. God asked Moses, Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst. Exactly as I ‘show’ you concerning the pattern of the tabernacle, and of all its furniture, so you shall make it (Exodus 25:8-9). This can be a daunting task. How indeed can the corruptible recreate the incorruptible? How can the grander and majesty of the heavenly throne be replicated with mere earthly elements? How could the purity and majesty of God’s dwelling place be represented for mankind to see? A play on the words of the Hebrew text of Exodus 25:9 gives us a clue. The word ‘show’ in Hebrew of the verse is ‘mareh’, but it can also be interpreted as ‘mirror’. Moses was not asked to replicate the very thing, but a mere model for people to see. It is like using a mirror when trying to see something in a concealed location. Also, from a distance a mirror can capture the fullness of a large area. Yes, even though God fills everything (Jeremiah 23:24), through a ‘mirror’ we can catch a glimpse of His greatness. In these ancient days of the Exodus from Egypt God asked His servant Moses to have the people build a replica of His throne room as it appeared to Moses on the Mount. This would be the place from where His light would shine to speak with Moses. Moses who enjoyed direct contact with the Almighty, speaking face to face with God (Exodus 33:11; Deuteronomy 34:10) became for the people of Israel the very representation of the Heavenly Presence in the camp. Today we do not have Moses, a Tabernacle or an Ark, but we have the earthly image of the Father in the Son Yeshua, for He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power (Hebrews 1:3); in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation (Colossians 1:14-15). Yeshua commissioned us with the words, Jesus said to them again, " As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you" (John 20:21). This means that in the daily walk (halacha) of our life, we are to exemplify the mission of our Master. His mission was to show us the father, our mission is to show the Son to the world. It represents indeed a tall order and it is doubtful that we are up to the task, but we can and should still try to do our best trusting that He will do the rest. It is important; the world needs it! We cannot live for ourselves; we have been sent on a mission. Act 2:3
And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. The English narrative that concludes God’s uttering of His Ten Statements at Mt. Horeb says, Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking … (Exodus 20:18). The Hebrew on the other hand literally reads, “And all the people saw the voices and the torches”. One may see a ‘torch’, but how does one see a “voice”? The question may have pushed English translators to stray from a literal rendition of the verse, but it did not puzzle Hebrew sages. Also, the congregation at Horeb was composed of people from many nations, so for everyone to ‘understand’ (a Hebrew synonym for ‘seeing’) the Ten Statements would have had to be uttered in several languages. How do you see a voice, and how does a single voice speak in many languages? When Moses recounts these events to the second generation of the Children of Israel in the desert he says, Then the LORD spoke to you out of the midst of the fire (Deuteronomy 4:12). One of the sages saw this verse through the following passage, Is not my word like fire, declares the LORD, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces (Jeremiah 23:29)? The sages of Israel have always described these events as the Voice of God splitting into seventy voices speaking seventy different tongues and that these voices were actually like hot sparks flying forth from a hammer’s blow on a stone and becoming tongues of fire. This may sound farfetched, but is it really? Fourteen hundred years after these events Yeshua, the Prophet like unto Moses, (Deuteronomy 18:15) came to give His elucidation of the Heavenly Voices. When He was on earth, like Moses He climbed a mountain and His disciples came to Him (Exodus 24:9; Matthew 5:1-2). Later, on the same Jewish calendar date as the Horeb events (Pentecost, or fifty days after the resurrection) as the disciples were celebrating the festival of Pentecost they saw these voices in the form of tongues of fire that gave them ability to speak in the languages of all the foreign pilgrims then present for the festival in Jerusalem (Acts 2:1-5). These ‘voices’ were later to be sent to all the world to reach out to the lost sheep of the House of Israel and to the nations with their message. Today we, as followers of the Jewish Messiah Yeshua HaMashiach, are these ‘Voices’ of fire from Sinai. Today, from where ever we are in the world we are God’s emissaries and apostles of the great message spoken at Sinai. I usually teach my students that the Words of the Ten Statements uttered at Horeb elucidated by God’s Agent Yeshua, constitute the solution to all of the world’s social problems. But the people must not only hear the message, they must also see it. They must see it in the exemplary walk of our lives. A tall order maybe, but a lot is at stake and His Spirit is ever present to help us. Truly, Yeshua ever lives to make intercession off us (John 14:26; Hebrews 7:25). May we not fail in our mission! |
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