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1 Corinthians 10:2 All were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. The Children of Israel could have left Egypt, traveled directly northeastward and be in Canaan in less than a few weeks. Instead, Hashem had them make a small detour crossing the Red Sea by the Gulf of Aqaba. Were the reasons given for this detour (Exodus 13:17-18) the only real purposes? The Israelites had just spent several generations in Egypt. They needed to be cleansed from idolatry and Egyptian culture. They needed to be reborn into Hashem’s people, and into the culture of the Kingdom of Hashem. This is where the idea of ‘born-again’ came from: from two tractates written by Jewish sages that say that total immersion into water (baptism) is like being born again. We go into a water and stop breathing which is like being in a grave where we do not have breath anymore, and we come out resurrected a new person. The sages mention the ‘born-again’ idea mostly in regards to converts to Judaism (Yevamot 47b and 48b). They immerse in order to emerge a born-again new creature in God. This is what God had in mind in this nation-wide immersion through the Red-Sea (1 Corinthians 10:2). When Yeshua told Nicodemus that he needed to be reborn, the modern-day ‘born-again’ Christian movement did not exist, so Yeshua was using the term according to its Talmudic value, and this is why Nicodemus answered the Master accordingly. What Nicodemus said in essence was “Why do I need to convert when I am already Jewish?” To which Yeshua basically answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:5-6). In other words, the Master reiterated John the Immerser’s message that biological descent into God’s family was not enough, but repentance into a new creature for Hashem was also needed (Matthew 3:9). The Israelites crossing the Red Sea were already Israelites, but they needed to also be baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea (1 Corinthians 10:2). Yeshua continued answering Nicodemus with, “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." (John 3:8). Just like the wind cannot be seen and is only perceived though its effects, so we are. The virtues of the new life that we now live, its positive influences on others, and its reflection of Hashem, are the only testimony given to others of our rebirth. As we claim to have been reborn, as we claim to have been immersed unto Yeshua, let the effects of our rebirth be felt by others. May we live and walk in the newness of life that He has given us to be God’s children, and as the healing reflection of His spirit on our poor world.
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Matthew 25:13
"Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour!" The Biblical calendar is a lunar calendar adjusted with the sun and the seasons. Because of a Scripture in Colossians, some deduct that we are not to attach importance to certain calendar dates (Colossians 2:16), but we need to remember that the people that Paul chided for calendar observances where pagans. Paul himself observed Sabbaths, Passovers, Jewish festival, and the Yom Kippur fast which all were calendar base dates. God has asked that we ‘sanctify’ the New Moon (Exodus 12:2), meaning to set it apart. Setting apart the New Moon gets us all in sync celebrating festivals all at the same time. The Hebrew word used for Levitical Festival in Leviticus is ‘Mo’ed’: ‘appointed times’, appointment’. At these times we have a ‘date’ with the Creator; would we want to miss it? Because of our undue independent nature, even something as simple as coordinating ourselves together with God has been a major issue over the centuries. A cloudy night could mess up the whole thing up. Also, with Jews living more and more outside of Israel, it became more and more difficult to synchronize everybody. To top it all, in the fourth century C.E., the Roman government desiring to stop the believers from observing Passover officially forbade the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem from convening and determining the New Moon. This had the desired effect of leaving everyone to their own devices creating division and chaos until today. As a result, the method of determining the moon by sighting fell in disuse and Jewish leadership started to do it through astronomical calculation. This is how the Hillel ll calendar was born. Until Yeshua returns and re-organizes the whole thing, it needs to suffice. Days are important. There was a particular day when the door of the ark was shut, a determined day for the Children of Israel to put blood on their doorpost and for them to leave Egypt. In these cases, a calendar fluke would have had disastrous consequences. The Master followed the calendar dates of Passover scrupulously in His death and resurrection. The Sabbath also is a set day with particulars if not, how do intend to fulfill Yeshua’s injunction, “Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath” (Matthew 24:20)? Even now a day is coming, a day which is the culmination of all of our calendar dates, a day which has been foreseen and predicted by all patriarchs and prophet. We are told that the only people who do not know that day are the ones living in the night of ignorance, but that those who live in the light of knowledge should know (1 Thessalonians 5:1-6). That day is a very special day. As the arrival of the day for the children of Israel to leave Egypt was punctuated by signs and plagues, so will the Day be of Yeshua’s return to avenge His people and judge the whole world. These signs will not be esoteric or mystical, they will be real and tangible, so that everyone will be able to recognize them. May we be ever faithful to study and obey the Word which gives us the light to know that Day! Revelation 12:5
She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, Believing the time of his departure was nigh, Jacob blesses his children. The pronounced words are not just blessings; they are insights into the future of Israel, and thereby, of the world. When comes Judah’s turn, Jacob says, The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples (Genesis 49:10). Judah’s ‘scepter’ takes a prominent place in the Torah from Genesis to Revelation. The Hebrew word for it is ‘Shevet’, a word also related to ‘tribe’, each tribe being represented by the staff of the tribe leader. In Genesis thirty-eight, Judah uses his staff as collateral; as a token of identity. It was most probably a shepherd’s staff, a tool that represents the ruling, shepherding, and even disciplining of the flock. Judah’s staff is a foreshadow of the Messiah’s scepter as it is said in the Psalms, Adonai sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies (Psalms 110:2)! This staff/scepter represents Messiah’s ruling and disciplining of the disobedient as the psalmist says: You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. (Psalms 2:9)". King David must have believed in this rod of discipline as his son Solomon often talks about it in his proverbs (Proverbs 13:24). The ‘shevet’ of Messiah is not only a tool of correction; it is also used for protection against those wolves that would eat us alive if they could. It is also Messiah’s instrument of comfort as is said, Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod (Shevet) and your staff, they comfort me (Psalms 23:4), and the sign of our passage into covenant with Him: I will make you pass under the rod (shevet), and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant (Ezekiel 20:37). The staff/scepter/rod/shevet of Messiah is powerful to chastise, to lead, to comfort, and represents a rite of passage of some sort. Isaiah speaks of the ‘rod of His mouth’, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the rod (shevet) of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked (Isaiah 11:4), indicating that this rod/staff/scepter/shevet is also the spoken Word of the Master. May we pay attention to His Word. May we obey them carefully and emulate Abba by emulating the Master. The word Judah or ‘Yehudah’ means to praise God. It is not enough to praise the Father in Words only; we praise Him best through our actions of obedience to His ways. Just as we as fathers feel praise and honor when our children emulate and obey us, the Father which is in Heaven is also praised and honored when we obey and emulate Him who He has chosen to give us as a guide. It is our choice whether the ‘shevet’ of Messiah is the gentle leading staff of the Great Shepherd, or becomes the heavy a rod of iron and correction. Acts 1:6
Adon, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? Through an undesired twist of fate, the patriarch Jacob found himself married to two sisters, Leah and Rachel, thus creating two main factions within Israel. Jacob favored Rachel and gave her firstborn Joseph the mantle of leadership over his whole household. The other brothers, the children of Leah, rejected Joseph’s authority and position. Reuben was in fact the firstborn of Jacob through Leah, but his actions cause him to lose the right of first-born. The same happened to the next ones in line: Simeon and Levy. Leadership of Israel then fell on Judah, Jacob’s fourth born. Israel’s History is punctuated by the rivalry between the House of Joseph and the House of Judah. Prophets have expressed the World to Come as the time when the two Houses born from Israel are finally united in peace. Joseph had two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. When Moses died, leadership of the newborn nation of Israel was given to the House of Joseph through Joshua the Ephraimite. Until the reign of Saul the Benjamite, leadership in Israel fell on Judges who were mostly from either the tribes of Ephraim or Manasseh, the House of Joseph. It is King David from Judah who united the tribes under one rule and started the Davidic dynasty that was to fulfill Jacob’s prophecy and usher in the Messiah (Genesis 49:8-12). At the end of the Solomonic reign, the country was again divided into two camps: the Ephraim and the Judah camps. Most of the tribes from the House of Leah joined with Ephraim and Judah was left alone with Benjamin. Ephraim became the Northern Kingdom, and Judah the Southern Kingdom, with Benjamin stuck in between the two. Eventually the Assyrian conquered and deported the Northern Kingdom and Nebuchadnezzar deported the Judeans to Babylon. At the end of the Babylonian exile, King Cyrus issued the order for all the captives of Israel from either North or South to be allowed to return to the Land. In his prophecies of the ‘two sticks’, the prophet Ezekiel speaks to us of the Messianic Age, the time when the two houses of Israel are again united under the Judean Davidic leadership (Ezekiel 34-37). This comes in fulfillment of the Psalms which tell us: He (Hashem) rejected the tent of Joseph; he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim, but he chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which he loves (Psalms 78:67-68). Ezekiel’s prophecy of the two sticks united (Ezekiel 37) is actually an echo of the reunification of the two houses foreshadowed by Joseph when he embraces his brothers lead by Judah as he reveals himself to them (Genesis 45). The reunification of the two houses is and has always been one of the main signs of the Messianic Age and of the coming of Messiah. Before Yeshua ascended to the Father, His disciples asked Him, "Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel (Acts 1:6)?" Which meant, “Will You at this time restore the twelve tribes as a sovereign nation? To which He answered, "It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority (Acts 1:7-8)." May it happen soon Abba, even in our days! 1Timothy 3:6
Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil (KJV). It is easy to see Joseph the son of Jacob as a foreshadow of Messiah. Even classic Judaism presents Joseph as prefiguring the Messiah. Because of the messianic allusions to both Joseph and Judah, Judaism even believes in two Messiahs; first a suffering one: Joseph, and second a ruling one: Judah. We know now that the two ideas are resolved in Yeshua’s first and second coming. Joseph and Judah were the recognized heads over the families conceived by their respective mothers: Leah and Rachel. Tensions were high between the two brothers, which resulted in the dividing of the country. From the onstart, Joseph seemed rather unwise. He flaunted his father Jacob’s preferential love strutting around in his princely coat. He also probably didn’t have to pull in as much of a work load as his brothers. He was treated like a first-born. To add insult to injury, Joseph volunteered his seemingly narcistic dreams at which even Jacob was astounded. His brothers even surnamed him, ‘The Master of Dreams’, which proved in fact true, as the story confirms later (Genesis 37). Joseph was truly the ‘Master’ of dreams’, and he was to be established over his family and the known world of his day for that matter. But in order to fulfill his destiny he still needed the humiliations that only slavery and unjust incarceration could offer. It doesn’t seem to be good enough for Hashem that we fulfill our destiny for Him. This is true of all of us. If we are to represent Him through our life or even verbal messages, we are to represent Him properly by exerting a life of humility and virtue He can be proud of. Before being finally given his God-given destiny, like Joseph, every man needs to go through rejection, slavery and the cruel injustice of man. Only the distress and humiliation of wrong and unjust treatment provides the qualities needed for Godly leadership. Without it, any would-be leader of God’s people is prone to the pitfalls of novices. Come to think of it, the same was told of Messiah (Hebrews 5:8). Yeshua was not to be given the crown without the cross. As a nation, it is also true of God’s people. For centuries, like Joseph and Messiah, the nation of Israel as a whole was afflicted by the world without as cause, just for being Jews. We are told though that it is God who put ‘blindness’ on Israel for awhile so that the nations could have their time (Romans 11:25). This time of humiliation of Israel serves therefore to prepare him for its priestly destiny in the World to Come (Exodus 19:6). As we approach the time of the fulfillment of the Messianic era, the true followers of Messiah will all be unjustly treated, just because they are God’s people (Revelations 12:17). May this coming tribulation, as it did with Joseph, heal us from our arrogance, pride, and immaturity that we may be worthy to rule and reign with Him in the World to Come (Revelations 20:4). 1 Corinthians 13:12
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. Measure for measure is so real. So much of what happens to us is the returning of our own actions. The dish life serves us often proceeds from the kitchen of our own cooking. The harvest we reap is surely the result our own sowing. By this standard a man’s life is easily assessed and his character revealed. If someone has many friends, he must have been friendly. If others are generous with him, he must have been sharing. By the same token, if someone finds the heart of others like desert sand or a sky of brass, closed to his needs and pleas, maybe he lived his life as selfishly as a closed book. We are all too often to blame for the hell we create with our own two hands. Jacob deceived his father Isaac by concealing his identity, several years later Jacob becomes victim of the same as Laban conceals Leah’s identity in the nuptial chamber. This would result in a family’s sibling rivalry that would cause Leah’s children to later try to kill Joseph. Joseph would later trick them by concealing his identity, appearing to them as an Egyptian viceroy (Genesis 40-45). When Leah’s children headed by Judah returned from pasture with the news about Joseph, Judah showed Jacob the ‘hard evidence’ of Joseph’s bloody coat to prove their case. Judah used the Hebrew words, ‘haker-nah’, meaning ‘Please, recognize these’. Many years later, Judah would be tricked and exposed by his own daughter-in-law using the very same words, ‘Haker-nah’. These must have pieced his heart as he remembered the treachery of lying to his own father (Genesis 37:32; 38:25)! The concealing identity theme is a common one throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. Kings, queens and prophets used it, sometimes even under God’s own purpose. It could even be said that today Messiah hides His Jewish identity from both Israel/Jacob, and the Gentiles. To the Western world He conceals His Jewish identity appears and appears to them as a Westerner, thinking and dressing, eating and living as they do. This in turn makes Him unrecognizable to His people. But as with Joseph with His brethren, the day will come when Yeshua will throw off His ‘Egyptian garb’ and say to them, “I am Yeshua, your brother” (Genesis 45:3). At that time Yeshua will show the whole world who He really is: the King of the Jews. He will also reap the harvest of His own labor and doing. At that time He will reunite Rachel and Leah’s family (the whole twelve tribes) under one banner (Ezekiel 37), and rule over the whole world from His throne in Jerusalem (Revelations 19 and 20). In this day and in the World to Come we will each reap the harvest of the actions of our lives. What will it be for you? 1 Corinthians 15:52
… At the last trumpet. Paul, Yeshua’s emissary speaks to us about the ‘last blow of the shofar’ (1 Corinthians 15:52). If there is a last blow there must also be a first, and in our case the last blow of the shofar is an echo of the first at Horeb through the passage of time. The first shofar is blown at Horeb to herald the grand entrance of the King in the lives of men. God entered the created dimension and His feet touched the mountain (Exodus 19:11). The Almighty Creator of the universe also enjoyed a meal with Israel sitting at His feet (Exodus 24:9-11). In the same manner, the last shofar will herald the arrival of the King whose feet will touch the mountain and who will also recline with His disciples for a meal (Zechariah 14:4; Revelations 19:7-9). In Exodus, while Egypt drowned and licked its wounds from the results of a series of plagues, our fathers were placed under the legislation of God’s eternal Instruction. By these, they were to be a light to the nations. At the last shofar, while the worlds also licks its wounds from the plagues of God’s judgments, those of the nations who remain will also be placed under the legislation of the Light of Torah which is the constitution of the Word to Come. When a man blows the shofar, he starts out strong then grows weaker as he runs out breath. It is not so with the God whose breath (in Hebrew: ruach meaning: spirit or /breath) is infinite. The mighty El-Shaddai doesn’t run out of breath as the text in Exodus tells us, As the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder …(Exodus 19:19). Looking at our sad world today, it can easily be concluded that all of its problems are the result of breaking the fundamental instruction taught at Mt Horeb. One of the sages of Israel defined that just by keeping the last of Horeb’s Ten Statements we keep all the rest of them. Indeed if we (10) do not covet the things that we do not have or even need, (1) we worship our One God and (2) are not tempted the dainties offered us by idol-worshipping; (3) we do not need to lie so we do not need to take His Name in vain by swearing falsely (Matthew 5:33-37); (4) we do not find it binding to take a day off from lucrative activities to spend it with God and those created in His image such as family and friends, and (5) we have no qualms about morally and financially supporting our aged parents. The absence of covetousness also negates the need for (6) murder, (7) adultery), (8) stealing, and (9) lying. Thus is the legislation of the Messianic Era now and in the World to Come. May it come soon Adon Yeshua, even in our days! |
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