This past Shabbat, I delivered my commentary on Va Yelekh and I will now be posting it here, to MessianicMusings.com, as I did my last commentary. It will be posted in three parts.
While some people may visit this site in the vain hope of finding Atlanta jobs, we’re about messianic Torah perspectives here, so that’s what I’ll deliver. And now, part one of my three-part posting of my Va Yelekh commentary. Or listen to it!
Shabbat Shalom.
Our parashah today is Va Yelekh, or “He went,” and covers the thirty-first chapter of Deuteronomy. It is primarily concerned with the final days of the life of Moshe.
First, Moshe addresses the people of Isra’el and tells them that, at the age of 120, he cannot get around anymore and while Adonai will be crossing over into the Promised Land ahead of them, they will be crossing over without Moshe.
After some final encouragements, Moshe summons Y’hoshua and commissions him in front of all Isra’el to take his place. He assures both Y’hoshua and the people that it is Adonai who is their true leader.
Then Moshe does something significant; he writes out a Torah scroll and gives it to the priests with instructions to read it every seven years, on the festival of Sukkot. As it is written in:
Deuteronomy 31:10-13 (CJB)
“Moshe gave them these orders: “At the end of every seven years, during the festival of Sukkot in the year of sh’mittah, when all Isra’el have come to appear in the presence of ADONAI at the place he will choose, you are to read this Torah before all Isra’el, so that they can hear it. Assemble the people––the men, the women, the little ones and the foreigners you have in your towns––so that they can hear, learn, fear ADONAI your God and take care to obey all the words of this Torah; and so that their children, who have not known, can hear and learn to fear ADONAI your God, for as long as you live in the land you are crossing the Yarden to possess.””
Moshe knew the time of his death was near. Adonai had told him this was so. For over 80 of his 120 years, Moshe had stood in the gap between Adoani, the holy God, and the people of Isra’el. He negotiated with God for their lives at a time when Adonai said he would just as soon let the people perish.
In many ways, Moshe was like a parent to these people, but now, facing the end of his life, he was making his final arrangements to see that the children of Isra’el, the people he’d been like a parent to for so many years, might have the best chance to stay faithful to Adonai in his absence.
However, whatever hopes Moshe may have held that the people of Isra’el would stay faithful to Adonai were soon dashed. Away from the people, Adonai gives Moshe the truth. As it is written in:
Deuteronomy 31:16-18 (CJB)
“ADONAI said to Moshe, “You are about to sleep with your ancestors. But this people will get up and offer themselves as prostitutes to the foreign gods of the land where they are going. When they are with those gods, they will abandon me and break my covenant which I have made with them. Then my anger will flare up, and I will abandon them and hide my face from them. They will be devoured, and many calamities and troubles will come upon them. Then they will ask, ‘Haven’t these calamities come upon us because our God isn’t here with us?’ But I will be hiding my face from them because of all the evil they will have done in turning to other gods.”
The first few times I read this particular passage, I thought about how sad and demoralizing this must have been for Moshe. Here he was, one of the greatest prophets of all time, and he was being told, in effect, that it was all for nothing. It felt almost cruel of Adonai to share this truth with Moshe.
It felt like Adonai was almost saying, “Your life hasn’t mattered. All your struggles and prayers have been for nothing, because those you prayed for are still going to go astray.”
But recently, my perspective has changed.
Tags: Atlanta jobs, Moshe, Va Yelekh