By Joseph Shulam.
This week, on Wednesday, the Jews around the world will celebrate Yom Kippur – The Day of Atonement. On the day of Atonement, the reading is from Leviticus 16. The first significant story is the story of the two goats. These two goats were the same size and the same age, and the Israelites chose goats that were of the same brand and the same color. One goat was offered on the altar in the Temple, and the other was sent into the wilderness, never to return but to die in the wilderness of Judea, east of Jerusalem. I discovered that similar practices were also practiced among our neighbors in the lands that lived side by side with the Israelites.
The Torah portion for the Shabbat is Deuteronomy 32:1-52; the name of this Torah portion is Ha’Azinu, meaning “hear this“.
From the prophets, the reading will be from 2 Samuel 22:1-51.
From the New Testament, the reading will be from John 6:26-35.
Chapter 32 of Deuteronomy is almost at the very end of the Torah reading for the year, and at the end of the feast of Sukkoth, we start reading the whole Torah and much of the prophets from the beginning.
I feel Deuteronomy 32 is one of the most significant chapters in the Torah, and this chapter has also influenced all of Paul’s Epistles. Paul’s mission to the nations (Gentiles) is based on Deuteronomy 32 and the later prophets in the Old Testament. Deuteronomy 32 serves as the foundation for the Apostle Paul’s theology regarding both the Gentiles and Israel.
This chapter is also called the Song of Moses, which makes some people confused because in the book of Revelation, the saints sing the song of Moses in the opening of the morning prayers. There are two songs named the Song of Moses. The first song of Moses from Exodus 15 is a song of victory for Israel and Moses over the Egyptian Army that drowned in the Red Sea. What is spoken of in the book of Revelation is the Song of Moses that is recorded after the children of Israel crossed the Red Sea on dry land. This victory and the crossing of the Red Sea were a true miracle of redemption and a final deliverance of the enslaved Hebrew people from Egypt. It was all the Lord’s doing, and the Song of Moses in the book of Exodus gives honor and victory to the Lord and those faithful to the Lord.
I want to concentrate on the Apostle Paul’s text in Romans 11 and show how Paul understands the salvation and redemption of the nation of Israel, sometime before the return of the Lord to reign in Zion.
In using the Song of Moses from Deuteronomy 32, Paul is depicting the love of God for Israel, a love that is proven over centuries by God’s care and protection for the seed of Abraham. Here is the text from Deuteronomy 32:
“For the LORD’S portion is His people; Jacob is the place of His inheritance. “He found him in a desert land and in the wasteland, a howling wilderness; He encircled him, He instructed him, He kept him as the apple of His eye. As an eagle stirs up its nest, Hovers over its young, spreading out its wings, taking them up, carrying them on its wings, so the LORD alone led him, and there was no foreign god with him. “He made him ride in the heights of the earth, that he might eat the produce of the fields; He made him draw honey from the rock, and oil from the flinty rock. Curds from the cattle, and milk of the flock, with fat of lambs; And rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, With the choicest wheat; And you drank wine, the blood of the grapes. “But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked; You grew fat, you grew thick, you are obese! Then he forsook God who made him and scornfully esteemed the Rock of his salvation. They provoked Him to jealousy with foreign gods; With abominations they provoked Him to anger. They sacrificed to demons, not to God, to gods they did not know, to new gods, new arrivals that your fathers did not fear. Of the Rock who begot you, you are unmindful and have forgotten the God who fathered you. “And when the LORD saw it, He spurned them, because of the provocation of His sons and His daughters. And He said: “I will hide My face from them, I will see what their end will be, for they are a perverse generation, Children in whom there is no faith. They have provoked Me to jealousy by what is not God; They have moved Me to anger by their foolish idols. But I will provoke them to jealousy by those who are not a nation; I will move them to anger by a foolish nation. For a fire is kindled in My anger and shall burn to the lowest hell; It shall consume the earth with her increase and set on fire the foundations of the mountains. “I will heap disasters on them; I will spend My arrows on them. They shall be wasted with hunger, devoured by pestilence and bitter destruction; I will also send against them the teeth of beasts, with the poison of serpents of the dust“.
(Deuteronomy 32:9-24 NKJV).
You should go to Deuteronomy 32 and read the whole chapter. When you read chapter 32 of Deuteronomy, you see that God is taking Israel to court for judgment. The Lord has several accusations: Israel is ungrateful. Israel is not trustworthy to keep the relationship with God, who is so gracious and generous in taking care of them for 40 years of wandering in the Sinai desert and feeding them Manna from heaven. On top of everything that God has done for Israel, they have betrayed God and aroused him to anger and jealousy. For this reason, God has withdrawn his kindness from these unfaithful people and has delivered them to their perverse behavior. They have caused God to be jealous, and for this reason, God is going to provoke Israel to jealousy by the Gentiles, one of the worst punishments that God will inflict on Israel. God says,
“I will provoke them to jealousy by those who are not of my nation.”
Now, to Romans 11, to show you how Paul’s theology of Israel’s redemption is based entirely on this text from Deuteronomy 32. You will see the elements of Israel’s unfaithfulness (God’s punishment – branches of the olive tree that signify Israel). Here is the text from the NKJV New Testament:
11 So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather, through their trespass, salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. 12 Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!
13 Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. In as much then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry 14 in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous and thus save some of them. 15 For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead? 16 If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches.
17 But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, 18 do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you. 19 Then you will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” 20 That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. 21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. 22 Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you too will be cut off. 23 And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. 24 For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.
THE MYSTERY OF ISRAEL’S SALVATION
25 Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
26 And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, “The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob”; 27 “and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins.“
28 As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. 29 For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. 30 For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, 31 so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy. 32 For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.
As you can see, in Paul’s writings, there is an explicit promise, also supported by the prophecies from the Old Testament, that all of Israel will be saved. The point that you must not miss from Paul’s words is that you, our dear non-Jewish brothers and sisters, have the task of provoking the Jewish communities to jealousy. The practical question is how you can provoke your Jewish neighbors and the Jews in Israel and around the world to jealousy? This ought to become your own personal quest and desire, provoke your Jewish neighbors to jealousy, and, of course, the Jews in Israel and your Jewish brothers in Israel also must be included.
Your desire to see the Lord returning to Zion and salvation to wash the earth with the joy of the Lord singing the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb of God. Paul makes it clear that it is now the turn for the Gentiles in the Lord, saved by God’s grace in Yeshua, to bring salvation and show love and support to the Jewish people and to the state of Israel that is the last shelter for the Jewish nation and protection from the hate that so many who don’t know and don’t want to know God’s plan for the redemption of all of humanity.
Remember, please, that the only way to provoke the Jewish people to jealousy is to show support and love for Jews and help fight antisemitism, which is the oldest form of racism on the face of God’s world. Stand with Israel, the only safe place for Jews to live, protected from antisemitism, hate, and discrimination on the face of our world.