The place to talk about trivial, temporal matters like humidifier filters is on a blog that specializes in such things. But here at MessianicMusings.com, we consider matters that are more eternal in nature. Here’s my commentary for Ha’azinu. Or listen to it!
Shabbat Shalom.
Our parashah for today is Ha’azinu, a Hebrew word that means “Give ear!” and covers all fifty-two verses of Deuteronomy chapter 32. This is the chapter that is more often known as The Song of Moses, and the opening four verses certainly have been made into memorable songs by various artists. They are poetic and inspiring and, well, let’s just read them, shall we?
Deuteronomy 32:1-4
Listen, O heavens, and I will speak; hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. Let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants. I will proclaim the name of the L-RD. Oh, praise the greatness of our God! He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he.
They are certainly words befitting a man like Moses, who is said to have known the L-RD better than anyone since Adam and Eve, better than anyone until Messiah Yeshua. Moses knows the L-RD better than most of us probably know people we refer to as “friends.” He had a friendship, a close friendship, with the creator of the universe!
What many people don’t take the time to do, however, is read past those first four verses and discover what other insights this man who knew the L-RD so well has into the mind and character of our Creator. What we find when we do is a sad and tragic portrait of how often Israel – and indeed, all of us –fails to stay faithful to the L-RD, even as He remains faithful to His people.
Deuteronomy 32:5-6
They have acted corruptly toward him; to their shame they are no longer his children, but a warped and crooked generation. Is this the way you repay the L-RD, O foolish and unwise people? Is he not your Father, your Creator, who made you and formed you?
Here, the L-RD is prophesying through Moses about the future of Israel, how when they are settled in the land and have grown comfortable, they will turn away from the L-RD and worship other gods, false idols who are not gods at all. For the L-RD, there can be no greater sin that turning aside from the truth once you have already known it.
Even Peter taught this message, as we read in:
II Peter 2:20-21
If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Yeshua the Messiah and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.
Peter must have had this Torah portion in mind when he wrote these words to the first-century believers. Like the children of Israel, those who follow the Messiah Yeshua enter into a new life, just as the children of Israel are about to enter into a new land. Just like the children of Israel, we who follow Messiah Yeshua are assured of victory over our enemies – the evil one – through the work of our Messiah. Just like the children of Israel, the danger for us is not an impending battle, but the danger is in the aftermath of victory.
You see, when life is difficult, when there is a struggle, when you are under persecution, you find out what is most important to you, what makes you who you are. At times like that, although they are not easy times, clinging to God, clinging to faith, isn’t necessarily a challenge; it’s a survival skill. On the one hand, Yeshua may be all you have, but on the other hand, all you have is Yeshua! All you have is the hope in Your savior, Your Messiah, the one who gives you life.
But when the battles are over, when life gets more comfortable, when the pressure is off and the victory celebrations have died down, what do we do? Well, human nature tells us that we tend to relax. We tend to get comfortable. We tend to begin taking things for granted. And that’s when the most destructive form of temptation can creep in; that’s when sin can overtake us. Not by outright attack, but through a quiet seduction.
That’s how it was for David. David, who had victory over Goliath, who persevered against King Saul without raising his own hand to strike him down, who conquered much of Israel and established a palace for himself in Bethlehem and whose life is a shadow of the Messiah in many respects – how did David fall? Was it through a mightier and more determined enemy? No. Let’s read this in:
II Samuel 11:1-5
In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem. One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, “Isn’t this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (She had purified herself from her uncleanness.) Then she went back home. The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”
Now, notice what is going on in the first verse. We’re told that it is springtime, a time when kings go off to war. That’s where David should be, leading his people into battle. But that’s not where he is, is it? No, instead, he’s wandering about on his rooftop, feeling restless, feeling comfortable, feeling perhaps just a little too safe. And what happens as a result? A sin with another man’s wife that spirals out of control and, it could be argued, poisons the rest of his time on the throne. Although the L-RD forgives David of his sin, the consequences have a ripple effect on David and his family that is felt for generations to come.
This is what worried Peter. This is what worried Moses. These are the sort of things that drive men and women of God to prayer throughout history, from the time of Moses to Yeshua to now; the knowledge that we are weak against the temptations of sin, that one bad choice can be made in an instant and yet leave such destruction in its wake. And we are at our weakest when we are at our most confident, in our most secure moments. That is why Moses goes on to say this in:
Deuteronomy 32:45-47
When Moses finished reciting all these words to all Israel, he said to them, “Take to heart all the words I have solemnly declared to you this day, so that you may command your children to obey carefully all the words of this law. They are not just idle words for you–they are your life. By them you will live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess.”
Now, what words is Moses speaking of here? Is he speaking merely of the Song of Moses that this chapter concerns itself with? Absolutely not. He’s speaking on a grander scale than that. Remember, Moses began this farewell address to the people of Israel at the beginning of Deuteronomy and he’s only finishing up just now. And Deuteronomy is a review of the entire Torah, the complete instructions of the L-RD for how to live at least to his minimum standard. Those are the words Moses is speaking of; not just the Song of Moses, but he is speaking of the entire Torah of God. That is what Moses had in mind when he said, “Take to heart all the words I have solemnly declared to you this day, so that you may command your children to obey carefully all the words of this law. They are not just idle words for you–they are your life.”
You know, the phrasing is made even more clear in the:
Stone Edition Chumash
For it is not an empty thing for you, for it is your life.
That’s the message we ought to take away as we wrap up our journey this year through the Torah cycle, and are nearing the end of our time in Deuteronomy. You see, some people explore the Jewish roots of their faith, and all it will ever be for them is an intellectual exercise. Maybe they see it as a useful way to “witness” to a Jewish friend. Maybe they simply want a history lesson. It could be any number of reasons.
Whatever the case, even though they learn more about God and who He is and what He expects of us, somehow it just doesn’t land on them and they return to whatever their previous experience with God was.
You know, when I was in college, I was part of a Christian Bible study where the subject of salvation came up, and the question we discussed was, which is the truth? Are we “once saved, always saved?” Or can we somehow lose our salvation? And as young believers searching for reassurance, we naturally clung to any verses that seemed to agree with our preferred answer, “Once saved, always saved.”
Even back then, though, I noticed verses that didn’t seem to fit with that conclusion. Verses like the words of Peter that I read earlier, as well as many others. And it was only later, as I saw how some of my friends, overconfident in their salvation, began slipping into sin, only when I formed a Bible study a few years later and saw how grace without obedience can lead people astray, that I began to lose my fear of what those harsher words of the Bible said and began to explore what they really meant. It’s part of what drew me to the Messianic movement.
You see, when I was single, I went to Christian singles retreats and one of the most common themes was “finding God’s will” or “knowing the mind of Christ” and yet I came away from each of those experiences finding the answers that were given in those settings to be either highly personal and subjective, or lacking in specifics and details drawn directly from Scripture.
You see, as a maturing believer, I was no longer satisfied to with making it up as I went along. “You are not to do as we do here today, everyone as he sees fit,” as Moses said in Deuteronomy 12:8. Somehow, I knew that. I was saved. I knew there was a God and a Savior. But I also knew that He had to have a specific will, that it wasn’t a subjective thing, but something specific, something easily accessible, something that would even be possible to keep, or, as we read a couple weeks ago, something, as Moses said, that was “not too difficult for you or beyond your reach.”
That’s where the Torah comes in. It is our clear words from the L-RD on what His will for us is, His instruction book for us to follow. It is the Word of God, which means it is also the Living Torah, an expression of the Messiah Yeshua Himself. And once we know it, we must never turn our backs on it again, for when we do, we are turning our backs also on the Messiah.
“Take to heart all the words I have solemnly declared to you this day, so that you may command your children to obey carefully all the words of this law. They are not just idle words for you–they are your life.”
L-RD, may they never be idle words for any of us here. May they be our life – the life found in Messiah Yeshua, our living Torah.
Shabbat Shalom.
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