Hebrew Nuggets

God’s Voice in the Desert

Hearing God’s Voice in the Desert

This Torah portion is a favorite of mine, maybe because of what F.B. Meyer wrote about God’s appearance to Moses at the burning bush. F.B. Meyer is one of my favorite authors from days past. I want to reprint Meyer’s words about Moses’ encounter and may it have the same profound impact upon you as it has had in my life:

“There are days in all lives which come unannounced, unheralded; no angel faces look out of heaven; no angel voices put us on our guard: but as we look back on them in after years, we realize that they were the turning points of existence. Quite ordinary was the morning as it broke. The sun rose as usual in a dull haze over the expanse of sand, or above the gaunt forms of the mountains, seamed and scarred. As the young day opened, it began to shine in a cloudless sky, casting long shadows over the plains; and presently, climbing to the zenith, threw a searching, scorching light into every aperture of the landscape beneath. The sheep browsed as usual on the scant herbage, or lay panting beneath the shadow of a great rock; but there was nothing in their behaviour to excite the thought that God was nigh. The giant forms of the mountains, the spreading heavens, the awful silence unbroken by song of bird or hum of insect life, the acacia bushes drooping in the shadeless glare – these things were as they had been for forty years, and as they threatened to be, after Moses had sunk into an obscure and forgotten grave. Then, suddenly, a common bush began to shine with the emblem of Deity; and from its heart of fire the voice of God broke the silence of the ages in words that fell on the shepherd’s ear like a double-knock: “Moses, Moses.” And from that moment all his life was altered.”

[From Moses by F.B. Meyer, 1984, p. 33: ISBN 0-87508-354-4]

Just reading Meyer’s words creates an awesome scene in my mind! God’s appearance to Moses in the ‘burning bush’ is a timeless story. I have written Nuggets on this in the past about God’s name that He revealed to Moses on this day, but in this Nugget I am going to focus on where the story occurred. The geographical aspect. I just finished a class with Dr. Jonathan Lipnick of eTeacher on Bible Geography. He taught us, “The physical setting of the Bible plays a major role the theology of the Bible. To understand the God of the Hebrew Bible, you must understand the place where He has that relationship with His people. The Bible would not be the book we know if it were situated anywhere else.” The geography of the Bible accounts is very important! Also, I am most blessed and excited to be traveling to the land of Israel in a few weeks! As I study about the land in preparing to go, I thought I would write some Nuggets dedicated to the famous places in Israel.

This scene of Moses and the ‘burning bush’ occurred in the desert of Midian according to Exodus 2:15. This is where he had lived as a shepherd for forty years since fleeing Egypt. Even then God was preparing Him for this day as his intimate knolwedge of the land would be extremely important when he led the children of Israel back to this very spot! The Hebrew word for ‘desert’ is מִּדְבָּ֖ר (mid-bar). [Note: it is often translated as ‘wilderness’ in the KJV, but keep in mind it is the desert.] Scripture indicates that the midbar/desert is the setting for many of the Bible narratives and often God’s choice place to speak to His servants and to give them a greater vision – either of Himself or of the work He has for them to do. The desert is in general a still and quiet place. Many prophets received revelations from God while in the desert. Moses writings are the foundation of the T’nakh (Old Testament), David’s Psalms are the hymn book and Paul’s writings are integral to the New Testament.

The Hebrew word for ‘speak’ in the present tense is

מְדַבֵּ֛ר (pronounced m’dah-bear) and has the same consonants as the Hebrew word midbar (desert), but the vowel marks are different and hence, it sounds different. However I think that it is most amazing that the same Hebrew letters are used for two words that at first seem so different – the desert being a place where we normally do not hear people speaking. But from the Bible narratives, it seems that God speaks the MOST in the desert! It is not that God is more real in the desert than in other places. God is everywhere present. It is just that we are so easily distracted from knowing God due to the many distractions of life. In the desert, we detach from the noisiness of everyday life that demands our attention and can focus on God. It is then that God can speak to our heart.

Moses is one of the greatest servants of God. God’s calling to Him was very special. I think it is amazing that God spent 40 years quieting Moses’ heart in the desert before He spoke to Him. Bruce Feiler in his amazing book and DVD, “Walking the Bible“, speaks of the children of Israel as being for the most part, ‘desert people’. [Note: I highly recommend Feiler’s book and DVD.] It makes sense that the land of Israel is almost 1/2 a desert area. Perhaps God has caused the Jewish people to be ‘desert people’ as Feiler states, because they were also the people who heard God’s voice and wrote it down as the T’nakh (Old Testament).

We have been speaking of literal deserts in the land of Israel, but maybe we today feel like we are in a desert of sorts in the circumstances of our personal life. If we find ourselves in a desert of God’s making, let us not fret, but rather rejoice that God is wanting to speak to us! Perhaps He has a new path for our life to take. Our perhaps He wants to confirm our current path. Regardless, if we maintain a quiet heart like Moses did, I am sure we will hear God’s Word to us.

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A Star Out of Jacob

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A Star out of Jacob

Christmas is the celebration of the incarnation of Jesus Christ and is one of the keystone events of the New Testament. Although we do not know the exact date and there is no historical proof for December 25th, the gospel of John tells us there was a certain day when ‘the Word was made flesh’. (John 1:14) Note that the New Testament presents Jesus (His Hebrew name being יֵשׁוּעַ – Yeshua), not as a man claiming to be God, but as God becoming a man so that He may redeem mankind from sin and give inner peace to those He redeemed.

When this wonderful event occurred, God informed two groups of people. The gospel of Luke tells us that angels appeared to the shepherds the very night of Jesus birth – Luke 2:8-14. Matthew tells us that God gave wise men from the east (probably Persia) a sign of a star to know the new king had been born. The Hebrew word for star is כּוֹכָבִֽ – ko-chav. Since God made the stars, ( כּוֹכָבִֽים – ko-chavim is the plural), see Genesis 1:16, He can use them as He wills. Matthew 2:1-2 says, “Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.“

Why did God use a star? Well, Moses prophesied that when the King of the Jews would come, He would be designated by a star. Numbers 24:17, “...there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel.” The appearance of the ‘Sceptre of Israel’, meaning the King, would occur at the same time as the ‘Star out of Jacob’. Also Daniel, who was a prophet in the same far away Persia during the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar, wrote in Daniel chapter 9 the complete timeline of the coming Messiah and states specifically it is before the destruction of the second Temple. Since Daniel also served as a high government official in the palace in Shushan, Babylon, his writings would have been preserved in the royal Persian library and available for the Persian wise men to read hundreds of years later. [Note: Daniel wrote his prophecy approx. 500 years before Jesus was born.] God also used a star for the wise men because they were astronomers and they studied the stars! God can speak to us in a general way through nature, but note that once the wise men reached Jerusalem, they received detailed instructions concerning the birth of the King from the Word of God. At Herod’s request, the scribes and pharisees told them that the Messiah would be born, “in Bethlehem of Judaea: for thus it is written by the prophet.” (Matthew 2:4-6) They were referring to the prophecy in Micah 5:2 that had been written approx. 400 years earlier. “But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.”

The Scripture does not say exactly where in the ‘east’ the wise men were from, but Babylon was the largest city east of Jerusalem and it was 800 miles away. Also, the wise men did not make such a journey alone. They no doubt had a large caravan of servants, food and supplies, etc. They would have to camp each night in tents, prepare food, care for the camels, etc. I am sure men of such importance traveled with a large entourage! No wonder Matthew 2:3 informs us that Herod was, “troubled, and all Jerusalem with him” when this entourage came into Jerusalem and started asking about the new king! The wise men would have ridden on camels, but many in the caravan would have had to walk no doubt. The pace would have been slow. At 10 miles per day, the trip would have taken a minimum of 80 days with no days of rest. I am sure they took days of rest however. They would have stopped in villages to purchase food and supplies, etc. So the journey would have taken a bare minimum of three months, but probably much longer. Some commentators even suggest a year. Also, factor in preparation time for the journey, ie, the time from when they first sighted the star in Persia to the time of departure from Persia. So the wise men did not arrive in Bethlehem on the night of Jesus’ birth like the shepherds did. Notice Matthew says they came to see the ‘young child’ (not infant) in a “house”, not to the stable. In the KJV, the phrase ‘young child’ occurs eight times in Matthew ch. 2.

Why did God send a star to wise men in far away Persia to let them know the King of the Jews had been born? I think because the wise men were looking for that king. The prophet Jeremiah ( יִרְמְיָ֖הוּ ) writes (in 29:13), “And ye shall seek me, [God] and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.” If we are seeking God, He will work miracles to ensure we find Him. But if our heart is closed to Him, we will be like Herod and the many residents of Bethlehem who had a King in their midst, but did not know it. Truly Wise Men Still Seek Him!

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A Big Miracle Happened There

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A Dark Time in History

The year was 167 BC and it was a very dark time in the land of Israel. Since Israel was the linchpin of three continents, Europe, Asia and Africa, the main trade corridor to all destinations had always passed through Israel making it prime real estate for surrounding kings. (It is still Prime Real Estate!) During the Second Temple Period, the governorship of Israel changed hands many times. Mithradates was a Greek king of the Seleucid Empire. When he took the throne in 175 BC, he changed his name to Antiochus IV Epiphanes. In Israel, many Jews were taking on Greek ways (this was called Hellenization). Antiochus had replaced the High Priest, Jason (note the Greek name) with Menelaus. Jason and 1,000 soldiers attacked Jerusalem and when Antiochus found out, he thought it was a full revolt. The book of the Maccabees gives the awful details: “Raging like a wild animal, he [Antiochus] set out from Egypt and took Jerusalem by storm. He ordered his soldiers to cut down without mercy those whom they met and to slay those who took refuge in their houses. There was a massacre of young and old, a killing of women and children. In the space of three days, eighty thousand were lost, forty thousand meeting a violent death, and the same number being sold into slavery. …Not long after this the king sent an Athenian senator to force the Jews to abandon the customs of their ancestors and live no longer by the laws of God; also to profane the temple in Jerusalem and dedicate it to Olympian Zeus…They also brought into the temple things that were forbidden, so that the altar was covered with abominable offerings prohibited by the laws.”

The golden Menorah (Hebrew: מְנֹרַ֖ת זָהָ֣ב) that was in the Holy Place in the Temple is first mentioned in Exodus 25:31-40. The Hebrew word ‘menorah’ is translated as ‘candlestick’ in the KJV, but it is important to remember the golden menorah was not a candlestick in that it did not burn candles. From the artists rendition above, the golden Menorah had six branches, three off of each side of the main stem. Each branch along with the main stem held a ‘lamp’ for a total of seven lamps that burned olive oil. Leviticus 24:1-2 says, “Command the children of Israel, that they bring unto thee pure oil olive beaten for the light, to cause the lamps to burn continually.” This olive oil had to be pure, today we would say ‘kosher’, and it had to be from the first pressing or ‘extra virgin olive oil’ as we say today.

The Eternal Light

The phrase in Lev. 24:2, “to cause the lamps to burn continually” is from the Hebrew, לְהַעֲלֹ֥ת נֵ֖ר תָּמִֽיד (l’ha-ah-lot nir tamid) which literally means ‘to go up an eternal light’. The Hebrew phrase ‘nir tamid‘ (eternal light) is often a synonym for the Menorah. The golden Menorah was the only light inside of the Holy Place and was never to go out. It was the priest’s duty to daily replenish the olive oil and to trim the lamps so they would always burn brightly. The Menorah was a constant physical reminder of the spiritual truth that Israel was God’s light of truth to the world concerning the one true God.

Dark Days – Religious Freedom Lost

During the reign of Antiochus, Israel was stripped of her freedom of religion and was not able to worship the one true God. However, just one person can truly make a difference. A aged priest from the rural area of Modiin named Mattathias the Hasmonean, sparked the revolt against the Seleucid Empire by refusing to worship the Greek gods. In 166 BC, his son Judas Maccabee led an army of Jewish soldiers to victory over the Seleucid dynasty by using guerrilla warfare tactics. After the victory, the Maccabees entered Jerusalem in triumph and ritually cleansed the Temple, reestablishing traditional Jewish worship there and installing Jonathan Maccabee as high priest.

Miracle of the Oil

Antiochus had desecrated the holy Temple so the priests had to first cleanse it and then re-dedicate it to God. The word Hanukkah ( חנוכה) is from the root meaning ‘to dedicate’ and Hanukkah is also called the ‘feast of dedication’. The Temple Menorah had to be rekindled. Jewish tradition tells us that only a single container, basically a one day supply, of the kosher oil with the seal of the High Priest, was found. However the Menorah was re-kindled anyway. It took eight days for the priests to make more of the kosher olive oil and during those eight days, the Temple Menorah miraculously burned using the oil that was supposed to only last one day. I liken this miracle to that performed by Elisha for the widow in 2 Kings 4.

A Big Miracle Happened Here! Hanukkah commemorates this great miracle of the oil lasting for eight days – hence the eight days of Hanukkah. A special Menorah with nine branches (instead of the normal seven), called a Hanukiah, is used during Hanukah. One of the nine candles is called the shamesh – שמש – from the root of the Hebrew word meaning “to use”. It is set off from the other eight by either being taller or shorter or to the side. For each of the eight nights of Hanukkah, the shamesh candle is lit, and then used to light one candle the first night, two candles the 2nd night and so on until on the 8th night of Hanukkah, all the candles on the Hanukiah are lit.

Children spin tops called

a dreidel (Yiddish: דרײדל ). The Hebrew word is סביבון – sevivon from the root meaning ‘to spin’. Each side of the dreidel bears a letter of the Hebrew alphabet:

נ (Nun), ג (Gimel), ה (Hei), ש (Shin), which are the first letters of the Hebrew phrase “נס גדול היה שם” (Nes Gadol Hayah Sham – meaning “a big miracle happened there”). Dreidel’s from Israel are inscribed with the letter פ (Pei) instead of (Shin) making the phrase: נס גדול היה פה, Nes Gadol Hayah Poh -“A big miracle happened here” referring to the miracle occurring in the land of Israel.

Hanukkah points to God’s faithfulness to preserve His ancient people Israel by raising up a hero, in this case the Maccabes, to save them. Without God’s preserving hand, the Jewish nation would have ceased to exist. In the spirit of the Maccabees, let us re-dedicate our lives to serve God in these darkening days of vanishing religious freedom.

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Lesson from Three Stones

In Parasha

The first word is the name of this Torah portion – וַיֵּצֵ֥א -vayetze. The root is (יצא) and means ‘to go out’ or ‘to come out’. The same root is in the ha-Motzi prayer (המוציא) – the blessing over the bread. In this prayer, God is He who “takes out bread from the earth”.

It is very interesting that this Torah portion is bounded by two major events concerning stones and has a third event in the middle – for a total of three events involving stones! In verse 11, Jacob “took of the stones of that place” where he had stopped for the night. The Hebrew word for stone is אבן – (eh-ven). He made pillows of these stones. In verse 12 he dreamed the famous dream about the ladder extending from earth to heaven with angels going up and down it. God Himself stood at the top of the ladder and again made a covenant with Jacob concerning the land and Jacob’s offspring. In Gen. 28:17, we see that Jacob gives this spot two names: the house of God – בֵּ֣ית אֱלֹהִ֔ים – Beit Elohim. In verse 19, it is shortened to בֵּֽית־אֵ֑ל – Beit El or Bethel. The word El is a shortened form of Elohim.

Jacob also calls the spot, “the gate of heaven” – שַׁ֥עַר הַשָּׁמָֽיִם – Sha-ar HaShamaim. The phrase means a door, portal or access point between the physical world of the earth and the spiritual realm of God in Heaven. God stands at the top of the ladder – ie, He is in control of all access between the two worlds! No one goes from earth to heaven, or from heaven to earth, without His permission!

God goes on to affirm that the earth itself belongs to Him and He gives it to whom He will. Psalm 24:1 states, “The earth is the LORD’S, and the fulness thereof.” God re-affirms the covenant concerning the Land of Israel that He originally made with Abram (Gen. 13) and confirmed with Isaac (Gen. 26:24) – and now to Jacob. Note also that God is ultimately the one taking Jacob out of the land for a time, and God promises to take Jacob back to the land in the future. As often happens, this event foreshadowed what would later happen to the children of Jacob (ie, Israel) and the times God would allow them to be removed from their land. And yet, He always caused them to return because of this covenant! Indeed, some scholar’s think that is the meaning in Psalm 121:8, “The LORD shall preserve thy going out [of the land] and thy coming in [returning to the land] from this time forth, and even for evermore.” In other words, God is in charge of the land of Israel and governs who lives there! Not the UN or the USA or any other nation, but God Himself. And God has made it pretty clear in His Word who He has given this land to! The descendents of Abraham through Isaac and through Jacob – the Jewish people! What God gives, no one on earth can take away.

At the end of this Torah portion (the end of Gen. 31), we see Jacob again takes a stone (eh-ven) and again sets it up for a pillar. This time, it is a boundary stone if you will. A reminder, both to Laban and to Jacob. Laban is not to cross the boundary to harm Jacob. And Jacob is never to return to Haran. The Hebrew word used, מִּצְפָּה֙, Mizpah, literally means a watchtower or a lookout point (according to the Theological Workbook of the OT). The third time the stone occurs in this Torah portion is in Gen. 29:3 referring to the stone covering the well where Rachel watered her father’s flock. Large stones were kept over open wells’ to keep the water supply pure. This kept anything from falling into the well and poisoning the water supply. The stone ensured the water was pure.

The stones are very evident in this Torah portion and taken together, they teach a great lesson. The first stone and last mention of a stone, eh-ven, act as bookends to the portion and deal with securing the boundaries of the land. The first, at Bethel, reminds the reader of the covenant that God is reaffirming with Jacob and his descendents, the Jewish people, concerning the land of Israel. God has the authority to give the land to the people of Israel. Then at Mizpah, God guards the border from those who would take it away. Sandwiched in between is the stone protecting the well of water – a most precious resource in a desert land. It reminds the reader that God provided the necessary resources for those in the land, and protects those resources. The lessons of these stones teaches us important lessons about God’s relationship with Israel and the land. He is in charge and He gives the land, watches over it and protects its resources for the children of Israel. I will close with Moses’ words: “A land which the LORD thy God careth for: the eyes of the LORD thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year. ” – Deut. 11:12

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Hebrew Nuggets

God’s Voice in the Desert

A Star Out of Jacob

A Big Miracle Happened There

Lesson from Three Stones

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