Devarim – Torah with Joseph

Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.

Shalom. My name is Joseph Shulam. And in partnership with Brad TV in Korea we are doing the weekly portions that are read in every synagogue in the world on the Sabbath days. This next Sabbath we will be doing the Book of Deuteronomy beginning portion of the Torah portion of the Book of Deuteronomy, starting in chapter one verse one and continuing on to chapter three verse 22.

And the portion from the prophets is the first chapter of Isaiah, the whole first chapter of Isaiah, which is a very, very important chapter, programmatic chapter that influences strongly influences both Judaism and I think for those Christians who study the Torah, influences also those Christians.

And from the New Testament we’ll be reading from Matthew chapter 23 from verse 37 to chapter 24 verse 28. So all these texts that are read in our congregation this next Shabbat are very, very important. Very crucial.

Let’s start with the word Deuteronomy. It comes from the Greek, the second law or the second giving of the law. And that is a good description of what we have in the Book of Deuteronomy. In the Hebrew it’s called words because the book starts, these are the words which Moses spoke to the children of Israel, on this side of the Jordan, in the wilderness of the Plains of Suph, between Paran, Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab.

Oh wow. We are giving here a very, very detailed location. Children of Israel have been wandering for 40 years in the wilderness. Moses begged God, and he will see it in the next week. Begs God, let me cross the Jordan river. God, please. I’m your servant. I deserve it.

God says, no, you’re not crossing the Jordan River. But before the children of Israel crossed the Jordan River, he gathers them in the Plains of Moab and he gives them this long speech, 34 chapters of a speech.

That is what the Book of Deuteronomy is. It is a farewell message of Moses to the children of Israel that has history. It has complaints. It has blessings. It has curses.

It’s a covenantal document. In other words, it’s a new covenant that God gives through Moses with the children of Israel. Almost everything is changed from what is written in the Book of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. And Moses gave it on the Plains of Moab on the east side of the Jordan River across from Jericho.

But, the period of the Judges, they know nothing about the book of Deuteronomy. The period of the Kings until Josiah, which is at the 7th century BC, they know nothing of the laws, the customs, the commands of the Book of Deuteronomy. They don’t have the Book of Deuteronomy.

We find out in the Book of 2 Kings chapter 22 verse 13 that when Josiah couldn’t sleep, the priest comes and they have found the book in the Temple. Let me go there. Verse 13 of chapter 22 of the Book of Kings:

Okay. Before Josiah, it seems like nobody except Huldah the prophetess and the priest know about a book that was found and brought to the king. And the wrath is justified.

Why? Because everything in that book, in the second giving of the Torah and the is very, very different than what we read in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. That’s a fact. Even the 10 Commandments are slightly different. What happened?

Moses got 40 years older and forgot what God spoke from Mount Sinai after he spent 40 days and 40 nights up there with God himself on the top of Mount Sinai. Ah, unlikely, but the book is there and we have it. And truly it’s very different.

First of all, as I said earlier, it is a farewell speech. Moses is not going to cross the Jordan after he talks to them, probably for at least three hours, not in an air conditioned auditorium on the shores of the Jordan River on the east side.

He then goes up the mountain not far, Mount Nebo, and there he dies and God buries him. Nobody knows his burial place, which is a good thing because human nature is that if somebody important dies they want to go build a shrine on his tomb and go there and pilgrimage and worship there and cry there, and whatever, that we have such tombs in Israel of great rabbis and of Joseph supposedly. And so that’s what people do. They, it edged on the worship of the dead and it’s in many cultures like that.

The Book of Deuteronomy is probably the book that influenced of the Torah, that influenced the Apostle Paul more than any other book in the Torah, more than Genesis, more than Exodus, more than Leviticus, more than Numbers, because its theology, especially theology toward the Gentiles, is based on chapter 32 of the Book of Deuteronomy. We’ll get to it in the future.

Now, Moses didn’t get what he wants, which is that within itself is something that a lesson that we all need to learn from, that great men of God, whether it’s Moses, whether it’s Aaron, whether it’s King David, whether are probably some of the apostles didn’t get what they wanted. We live in a kind of a Protestant postmodern church today and the prosperity doctrine, which is not found in the Scriptures, misconstrued and misapplied for the pastors and the leaders.

Prosperity is not a part of the biblical concept. Yes. Doing right, keeping the commandments of God, following God faithfully does bring a blessing on your life. Not following God faithfully and keeping his commandments brings damage to your life. God is a God of justice and he’s a just judge of all. And He wants His children to be faithful and obedient.

And this concept is in the New Testament, from the Sermon on the Mountain, all the way to the first letter of the apostle John. Keeping commandments is a part of our DNA as children of God. Not only talking, not only praying, and not only giving money to the church. Those things are not the paradigms on which our relationship with God is based. Yes.

So Moses is there on the shores of the Jordan River and he is reviewing a little bit of history and he is bringing commands and changing the laws. And in the first chapters of the Book of Deuteronomy he is reviewing their trip and their challenges as they are about to enter the land that is inhabited with Canaanites, Perizzites Hivites, Jebusites, Philistines.

Seven different nations are inhabiting this small piece of land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. From Be’er Sheva to then. Big mess. I often say that if God was a loving father, which He is, I confess that He is, but He should have taken us to Switzerland and given us the land of Switzerland and not this edge, southern western edge of the Fertile Crescent that starts in the Persian Gulf along the River Euphrates and Tigris and the other rivers of Syria and Lebanon and comes down between the Jordan River, the Sea of Galilee, and the Mediterranean Sea.

This place was an Egyptian province at that time. And it was a mess. And it still is in fact, a mess. We still have problems with the people that did not receive this land from God like Israel did, like the Jewish people did, but they claim to have ownership on this land which they never had because this land has never been independent political sociological states other than the time of the Israelites.

And now the return of the Israelites back home after 2000 years of exile. So Moses reviews these things and talks about the place of the Amorites and the Canaanites and the fact that, you know, God has given the land. And he also has some complaints against the people and against God.

Chapter one, verse nine. This is what Moses says:

When they left Egypt, they were already a big bunch of people. In the wilderness they multiplied. They multiplied and increased. And we find out of 600,000 soldiers between the age of 20 and 50, which means that they had wives and children and families. And we’re talking about at least a million and a half to two millions and a half of people wandering the desert, a long, long line of encampment in the Sinai Desert.

And the challenge that Moses gives to the children of Israel is there, folks. You’ve got choices to make, which is the essence of all of God’s relationship with His people. Always you’ve got choices to make. And if you make the wrong choice, you will pay for it.

So therefore, make sure you make the right choice. Choose to follow God. Choose to do right. Choose to obey His commandments. Choose to honor the institutions like the Tabernacle and like the priesthood and like your leadership.

Choose because prophetically in the Book of Deuteronomy, He is already giving them the idea that they are going to have a king. He gives them the rules of the king, the covenant that the king was going to make with the people and the people with the king.

That is a far-reaching, far-reaching prophetic promise. Yeah, because we know from the Book of Judges, the story of Gideon and his family, and then with the story of Samuel and King Saul, what kind of birth pangs, birth pains the children of Israel had to have a king, and how difficult it was for Samuel to give a king to the children of Israel.

But the Book of Deuteronomy has already foreseen and prepared and given the laws of kingship in relationship to the king himself and his court and in relationship to the people. So the Book of Deuteronomy is a very, very important book.

It’s very prophetic and we are going to touch the prophetic, is the only book that has these clear curses for disobedience and blessings for obedience. Even the 10 Commandments I said earlier are a little bit different, but the biggest differences in the Book of Deuteronomy is with the priesthood.

In the Book of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, only the children of Aaron could be priests. The Levites had jobs, had functions around the Tabernacles, but they were Levites. They were not kohanim. They were not priests.

In the Book of Deuteronomy, every Levite becomes a priest for a season. They have turns that each Levite priest family takes a turn. And we see that in the New Testament with Zechariah the father of John the Baptist. He takes a turn and he comes to Jerusalem and he serves in the temple for his turn. And then when he finishes his turn, he goes back home and he is a regular Levite.

Another big thing is the cities of the Levites, the cities that the criminals could escape to, six cities, three on the east side of the Jordan River, three on the west side of the Jordan River, that if somebody by mistake killed somebody, damaged somebody, and there would be a blood feud between the victim’s family and the assailant’s family.

They could run into the cities of refuge and live there and work there and survive there until the high priest dies. And when the high priest dies, they go free. They’re redeemed of their sin, of their mistake, which is the first time that we see that there is such a thing as atoning death of one person for a lot of people that are in the cities of refuge. A lot of centers that are in the city of the refuge.

In the next portion that starts in Deuteronomy chapter, the end of chapter four, chapter five, that portion Moses begs, it’s called Va’etchanan. I’m begging, God, let me in. And God says, no.

We have a lot to learn from this, dear brothers and sisters. It’s an important portion. Please read it. Read the first chapter of Isaiah, read from the New Testament, Matthew 23 verse 37 to 24, verse 28. These are important chapters and see how the law, the prophets, and the New Testament actually come together and address the same issues and the challenges that we all face even in the 21st century now.

And may God bless us all and give us the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit when we read His words. Pray that the Holy Spirit will quicken the word for you and that you will be able to receive it in your heart, in your mind, and in your life to guide you and instruct you how to live now as disciples of the Messiah, of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, the divine Son of God.

God bless you all. We’ll continue next week. Shalom.