Dr Clifford Denton.
Ki Tavo: Deuteronomy 26:1-29:9.
21st September 2024/18 Elul.
These shall stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people, when you have crossed over the Jordan: Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin; and these shall stand on Mount Ebal to curse: Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali. (Deuteronomy 27:12-13)
Picture by Helen McNeill.
Our Torah portion this week begins with a command for the Israelites to bring their firstfruits of the land as a celebration before God. It was to be a time of remembrance of the nation’s deliverance from Egypt. All of the Feasts of the Lord are important for God’s people to come before Him. This may seem like the command of an authoritarian God, but it is far from that. God is our Father and desires our close relationship and walk with Him. The remaining chapters of our portion remind us that God can bring abundant blessings and abundant harvests for His people (or withhold them). To bring the firstfruits of the land is a celebration of God’s provision for both God and His people, partners in working the soil of the Promised Land, as well as enjoying its produce as families together. We are also reminded of God’s holiness and His desire for us to be a holy people.
With this in our minds, we move on to the awesome pronouncements of Moses concerning the blessing or cursing which would determine the lives of the Children of Israel in the Promised Land. We can read the history of Israel in the other books of the Tanach, and also study the history of the nation over thousands of years up to today. What the nation agreed to, when the tribes gathered on the two mountains to proclaim the blessing and curse, undoubtedly determined their future. There was no compromise.
These are hard matters to consider, especially when we try to assess the very difficult days that Israel has experienced from a human standpoint alone. We must remember that God requires His people to be holy, as He is holy, but not forget that He desires a wonderful relationship with His people. We can be all too quick to look at Israel’s history and think of God punishing His people for disobedience like naughty children before an authoritarian schoolteacher.
On Mount Ebal and Mound Gerizim Israel pronounced blessings and cursing upon itself and agreed to these two futures being simultaneously before them. It must have seemed all too easy to think that only a blessed life would follow. After all, Moses’ teaching was very clear to understand and theoretically not difficult to follow, especially with the promise of such abundance from God as a result. But, of course, no real account was made of human nature or the spiritual battle that would always be close at hand.
Because of this and what we learn from Israel’s history we learn about ourselves as well. Without God’s help, we are no different in our human nature from the chosen nation of Israel.
How then do we reflect on what we read concerning God’s requirements of His people? We live in an age where not just Israel, but the people of all nations can learn to live in fellowship with the God of Israel. Yet something has changed! When we come to God the Father through faith in the atoning sacrifice of Yeshua, we do not stand on the two mountains like Israel did. We do not pronounce a future of two possibilities, one being full of blessings and the other a curse, choosing by our actions which is the consequence of our life.
Our readings this week are no less significant than the Flood at the time of Noah. God created mankind but destroyed all living beings except the remnant of Noah’s family and the animals that were saved in the ark. That is the level of judgement that sin brought on the world. God promised Noah that such a judgement would not happen again. Instead, He chose a nation, Israel, and gave them a land to live in. Through the history of this people, we are reminded that sin must still be dealt with. Despite all God’s wonderful teaching, the tendency of mankind is to drift away from Him.
Just as the depth of the floodwaters at the time of Noah remind us of the height of Yeshua’s sacrifice for sin, so the curse that Israel so easily walked into, demonstrates the depth of the need of mankind for a way to escape the curse. This is why we learn that Yeshua became a curse for His people, taking all the consequences of our sin upon Himself. Without His perfect sacrifice fulfilling all the requirements of sacrifice for sin in the Old Covenant no human being, including us, would be able to attain a life of blessing on this earth or for all eternity. That is why the Apostle Paul taught:
For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.” But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for “the just shall live by faith.” Yet the law is not of faith, but “the man who does them shall live by them.” Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. (Galatians 3:10-14)
God made a covenant with Abraham which was fulfilled through the sacrifice of Yeshua. Recall the ram in the thicket on Mount Moriah that replaced Isaac as the sacrifice. The Children of Israel’s journey through the wilderness and into the Promised Land, followed by many years of trying, and failing, to attain righteousness through obedience to the teaching of Moses alone, confirmed that it was necessary for the curse to be removed. This is what Yeshua did for all who will accept this by faith.
We, joining all those, Jew or Gentile, who live by faith in Yeshua, are the inheritors of the New Covenant in His Blood, so that we can, with the help of the Holy Spirit, learn to live according to all God’s teaching, rightly interpreted, without fear of living under a curse. In Yeshua, and through the perfect love of God for all His people, fear of failure is removed.
We have emphasised in all our Torah studies this year the importance of the home as the place where a family learns together. God is no less Holy than when He called the Israelites to bring their firstfruits to Him and to celebrate the Feasts. His teaching is given to us through Moses and also through the entire Bible for us to study through faith in Yeshua, so that we might live lives that please Him. Are we as committed as we ought to be on account of these great truths, or have we misunderstood what God has been doing over many centuries, perhaps taking too lightly the great thing that Yeshua has done for us?