Nitzavim – Torah with Joseph

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

Shalom, my name is Joseph Shulam and we’re in partnership with Brad TV. We are doing the whole year following the reading portions that are read in every synagogue in the world on the Sabbath day.

Today, we are beginning to approach the end of the year of reading and we are in Deuteronomy 29:10, and it reads like that:

Interesting beginning of this portion of the Torah. And it has several revelations in it that are missed in the translation. First of all, the word for stand, “All of you stand today,” is not the normal word for standing. It is a word that is very loaded and it appears several times in the five books of the Law of Moses. Most of the time it appears in the book of Genesis.

Nitzav, if you want to have the true context of it, comes from Genesis 19:26, when Lot and his two daughters and his wife run from Sodom because the angels of the Lord warned them that God is going to overturn Sodom. They run, but the angels tell Lot and his family, “Don’t look back.” His wife, we don’t know her name, but she looked back and she became a pillar of salt.

The word for pillar there is “nitzav”, the same root as the Hebrew word for “stand”. It doesn’t normal standing. It means standing like in Kung Fu, or in Taekwondo; stand firm, don’t budge, don’t move. Get ready to be fixated like a pillar of salt, like Lot’s wife was fixated in place, standing there like a statue in the place.

So God, through the Holy Spirit, tells Moses and the leadership of Israel, “Today, you are going to stand before the Lord, your leaders, your tribes, your elders, your officers, all the men of Israel, your children and your wives, and the strangers in the camp.” In other words, the appeal of God’s word in the book of Deuteronomy, like in all the Bible, is not strictly only for Jews, only for Israelites.

It’s for everybody that joined the camp of Israel; all the strangers and the mixed multitude that joined Israel in the Exodus. It is for anybody from any nation, from any tribe, from any language, from any culture that leaves idolatry behind, accepts the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and joins together with the people of Israel.

Dear brothers, this is also true in the New Testament. Paul, in the letter to the Ephesians 2:11 says, “You,” talking to the Gentiles, “You were without God and without hope,” that means hope of eternal life. “And without covenants,” means all the covenants in the plural, “and outside of the commonwealth of Israel, but now through the blood of Jesus Christ, all these things that you didn’t have, you have.” In other words, even you Gentiles are in covenantal relationship with the people of God, with the people of Israel.

And so we see here in this occasion, before the children of Israel cross the Jordan River, that there are strangers, Gentiles. Gentiles who joined Israel. And they’re standing there hearing the words of Moses; and not only hearing the word of Moses. In verse 12, this is what it said,

In other words, those strangers, those strangers, Gentiles, who were with the camp of Israel, are standing there now and they’re entering into a covenantal relationship with the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. How do they do that? Through the blood of Jesus Christ, according to Ephesians 2.

You’re no longer strangers. “You were strangers,” in Ephesians 2, Paul says, “but you’re no longer strangers.” Now you are citizens in the same city as all the people of God, meaning Jerusalem; not this physical Jerusalem. There’s not room for all of you. But with the heavenly Jerusalem, there is room. There’s going to be room.

And why is that? So that God can keep his covenant with his people, with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. That’s in verse 12 of chapter 29 of the book of Deuteronomy. But it becomes even more interesting in chapter 29, verse 13.

Why is this new affirmation of the covenant of God and His oath with His people, including with the Gentile people who have joined with Israel? That He may establish you today as a people for Himself. That includes the Gentiles that are standing there with the rest of Israel. That He may establish you today as a people for Himself, and that He may be God to you, just as He has spoken to you, and just as He has sworn to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Wow! I have goosebumps all over my body because this text is such an affirmation of the gospel that is sent to all the nations before Yeshua ascends to Heaven and before Paul receives his commission from the elders of the church in Antioch of Syria. Whoa, dear brothers, this is very important; very, very important. I’m repeating this text from verse 14 of chapter 29:

You know, all the generations of Israel and all the generations of the Gentiles who have joined themselves through the blood of Jesus Christ, through the covenant of our Messiah, through the body of the Messiah; those who were strangers and now are no longer strangers, according to Ephesians chapter two, they come under this category of those who are not there with Israel at the edge of the Jordan River but who will, in the future, join in, standing before the Lord, receiving the covenant, and receiving the oath that God swears.

And of course, comes immediately, the warning against idolatry because idolatry is something that is insidious. It’s sneaky. It creeps under our faith in areas of our life that are not anointed by the Holy Spirit and not anointed and dedicated to the Lord God, and to Yeshua Mashiach, our Lord.

So, anything that our lives that is chaff, flies in the wind. But if we keep it, it becomes a source of idolatrous thinking first of all, and second of all, idolatrous practices, and idolatrous morals that are very different from the ones that God gave us in his word from Genesis to Revelation. What does it mean, idolatrous practices?

Well, idolatrous practices are anything that is connected with witchcraft. Witchcraft is forbidden in the book of Deuteronomy. Any form of witchcraft; necromancy, communicating with the dead, séances, amulets, different symbols that belong to idolatry and to superstition, all these things are idolatry.

And so, God is warning the children of Israel and all those from among the Gentles that have joined them, “Hey, stay away from all that you have seen in Egypt, all the glorious statues, and pyramids, and tombs, and sphinxes, and worship of the sun, and worship of nature. Stay away from these things. This is what you saw in Egypt. You don’t want to be there.”

These are called abominations in verse 17:

Escape, and I’ll tell you why. Because you may think that some things are innocuous, that they are not harmful. Yoga is only exercise, but it may not be only exercise. It may be a type of exercise that inspires you to forget trusting God and trust in yourself, in your body, in your ability, in your agility, anything like that. I am very much for sports and for exercise.

When I was young, I did a lot. Because I didn’t see with two eyes, I couldn’t play ball game, games like ping pong, tennis, soccer, basketball. I couldn’t play them because I saw only with one eye. So I got involved in gymnastics, and in diving, and in different kinds of sports. And I did a lot and I enjoyed it. But there are some things that have connections with idols, and especially from Far Eastern martial arts.

So you need to be able to do them, learn the martial art, or you could get the Israeli martial art which is Krav Maga, which is very popular and it has no connection with idols, only with ability to defend yourself and take care of yourself physically. But whatever it is that even smells like idolatry, escape it, escape it. Yes, escape it.

Another thing that is very interesting in our portion of the Torah comes from chapter 30. It’s still a part of our reading, and it’s got parallels to things in the New Testament, and that is the circumcision of our heart. But let me start the reading from Deuteronomy chapter 30, and from verse 10:

Now, dear brothers, this text is quoted in the New Testament, not quoted as a historical note. It’s quoted as authority in the New Testament. And it’s very, very important for us to see the context in which this text is taken. I am going to tell you where it’s coming from.

I started reading from verse 10, but I’m going to go to verse 13 and tell you that Paul is quoting this text in Romans 10:6-7. And then the next text that we read, verse 12, 13, 14, is from Romans 10:14-15. And then, verse 14 of Deuteronomy chapter 30 is quoted in Romans chapter 10 from verse 8 to 10, and also in Hebrews 2:1 and 3, and also in Colossians 3:16.

In other words, this teaching from the book of Deuteronomy is not just in the Law of Moses, which some Christians, not all Christians, look at the Law of Moses with kind of a, ahh, look. No, this is the word of God. And what is being taught here by Moses, on the plains of Moab, in front of the Jordan River, across from Jericho, is as important for our Christian brothers and sisters as it is for any Israelite in all times.

Why is it important? Because of the next verse, verse 15 of chapter 30, and this is one of the great important verses. “Look, today I am giving you a choice.” I’m translating from the Hebrew because I think it’s a little bit more understandable for our modern ear. “Look, today I’m giving you a choice. You can choose life, which is good, or you can choose death, which is bad. I command you today, love the Lord your God, walk in His path, keep His commandments, and His laws, and His precepts, and you will live, and you will multiply, and you will grow, and God is going to bless you in the land, this land which God has given you as an inheritance.”

Wow. Wow. It’s very, very important, dear brothers and sisters, and there is one more command in our portion of the reading this week.

And that is that God promises that He is going to circumcise our hearts. In chapter 10 of Deuteronomy, the command is, “You circumcise your own hearts,” but in chapter 30, the command is, the Lord, out of his mercy, out of his patience for us, His children, says, “Don’t worry. If you do what I’m asking you to do, if you walk in my path, you will be delivered from the rule of death and curse. You will be blessed.”

Love the Lord your God. You will inherit the land that he promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And this land is not only physical land. It’s got a spiritual property that we inherit, everybody that is a disciple of Yeshua, a faithful disciple of Yeshua, inherits the spiritual value and promises of this land that apply all over the world of God.

So yes, our portion is very rich. Our time is up, but please read it. Please read from Deuteronomy 29:10 to 30:20. Please read Isaiah 60, the whole chapter. Please read Luke 4, the whole chapter, because God’s word is medicine for the sin-sick soul, and it is power, and wisdom, and love, and hope for all of us who are living on this earth and waiting for our eternal inheritance in the presence of the almighty God and in the presence of our Lord, Yeshua; the God who put on flesh and came to dwell among us.

In His name, God bless you. Shalom from Jerusalem.