All cultures are not equal (Numbers 30–36)

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Are we thankful that Heaven’s faithfulness isn’t like our faithlessness, making promises we can’t keep (out of hopefulness) and won’t keep (out of deception)? In the double-header Torah reading of מטות Matot (“tribes,” Numbers 30–32) and מסעי Massei (or Mase’y, “journeys of,” Numbers 33–36), we learn why Yeshua (Jesus) taught that vows and oaths were no flippant matter, why Heaven’s “new covenant” promise is dependable to remember our iniquities no more (Jeremiah 31:31–34) and how being “grafted in” to the people of God has been the plan (Romans 11).

Mattot: Vows

Both vows and oaths are made with God as one’s witness that you will do an action or refrain from an action.

A vow is a prohibition for oneself or own’s family regarding something that is otherwise permitted. For example, temporary abstinence from eating beef for a month is a form of a vow.  One can also obligate something that is optional. For example, one can make a vow to walk to work (rather than driving a car) to work for a month. 

An oath is an action that requires or prohibits an action. 

There is no requirement to make an oath of vow, ever. Yeshua said, “Let your yes be yes and your no be no” (Matt. 5:33–37). But if you do make a vow or an oath, there are rules about how they work. 

Joshua 9 is an example of a rash vow that Israel had to keep even though there was deceit involved:

“When the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and to Ai, they also acted craftily and set out as envoys, and took worn-out sacks on their donkeys, and wineskins worn-out and torn and mended, and worn-out and patched sandals on their feet, and worn-out clothes on themselves; and all the bread of their provision was dry and had become crumbled. They went to Joshua to the camp at Gilgal and said to him and to the men of Israel, ‘We have come from a far country; now therefore, make a covenant with us.’”

Joshua 9:3–6 NASB

Just because you are being deceived, doesn’t get you out of a vow. Joshua did not look more closely, and failed any sense of due diligence to ascertain the truth, so Joshua was at fault for making that hasty vow. 

In the book of Judges there are also a couple of examples of rash vows to God that were followed through so completely that the children of Israel even committed heinous crimes of kidnapping and murder so they would not break them. The vow must be followed because God’s eternal name was invoked in it. 

Massei: How to join the nation of Israel

When Israel were entering the Promise Land, God promised to help them clean every Canaanite out of the land but He also gave them a stern warning. 

“‘But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it shall come about that those whom you let remain of them will become as pricks in your eyes and as thorns in your sides, and they will trouble you in the land in which you live. ‘And as I plan to do to them, so I will do to you.’””

Numbers 33:55–56 NASB

God knew that if Israel neglected to remove the Canaanites from the land, the Israelites were become Canaan and God will have to remove Israel just as He is removing the Canaanites at this time.
Evil corrupts good, good does not improve evil, what they are trying to avoid, they will become. 

If Israel refuses to cleanse the land from the evil of the Canaanites, the Land will eventually vomit the people of Israel out because the more they behold the Canaanite culture and emulate it, the more Canaanite they will become. 

I think it’s important to note that Israelite tribal identity was not set in stone or solely set by one’s DNA. We have a couple of examples of people who defected from one tribe and grafted into another. The most prominent example is Caleb the son of Jephunneh, the Kenazite, a non-Isralite tribe, who was attached to the tribe of Judah so completely that he was appointed as a leader of the tribe of Judah. 

Another example is one of the elders of Judah who chose to attach himself to the tribe of Manasseh and completely threw his lot in with the people of Manasseh. 

This shows us that gentiles can and will be grafted into Israel. 

“Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the LORD say, “The LORD will surely separate me from His people.” Nor let the eunuch say, “Behold, I am a dry tree.”

For thus says the LORD, “To the eunuchs who keep My sabbaths, And choose what pleases Me, And hold fast My covenant,

To them I will give in My house and within My walls a memorial, And a name better than that of sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name which will not be cut off.

“Also the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, To minister to Him, and to love the name of the LORD, To be His servants, every one who keeps from profaning the sabbath And holds fast My covenant;

Even those I will bring to My holy mountain And make them joyful in My house of prayer.

Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable on My altar; For My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.”

The Lord GOD, who gathers the dispersed of Israel, declares, “Yet others I will gather to them, to those already gathered.””

Isaiah 56:3–8 NASB

Have you ever been to a synagogue and they knew you were gentile? How were you treated as a gentile when you visited the synagogue? Did you receive a warm hearted welcome? Most of us experienced more ostracism than hospitality. 

I can understand why the Jews do that. Two thousand years of history taught them that was the way to survive but God says that that is not the right way to deal with gentiles.  It’s human nature but God calls us to rise above our human nature and welcome anyone who has a sincere desire to attach themselves to God. 

In Orthodox Judaism, one is Jewish if one’s mother is Jewish. This is not Biblical law; this rule was invented a few centuries ago. Prior to that, either parent could be Jewish and one would be considered Jewish. In Reform Judaism, they will still consider one Jewish if either parent is Jewish. In Israeli law, one can be eligible for aliyah (moving to Israel) if one’s grandparent is Jewish. 

Inter-tribal marriages were common when this text was written. When Torah was written, you were considered a member of whatever tribe your father was born. One could join a tribe either biologically, by oath, or by marriage (for women) as Caleb and Rahab did. 

Multiculturalism vs. genocide

What did we read today in the Torah section that made you cringe? I would think it was the part where the Israelites fought against a Midianite tribe and killed all the men, even the youngest infant boys and all the women who had relations with men. In our culture, such a decree turns our stomach. 

““When the LORD your God brings you into the land where you are entering to possess it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you, and when the LORD your God delivers them before you and you defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them and show no favor to them. “Furthermore, you shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor shall you take their daughters for your sons. “For they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other gods; then the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you and He will quickly destroy you. “But thus you shall do to them: you shall tear down their altars, and smash their sacred pillars, and hew down their Asherim, and burn their graven images with fire. “For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.

“The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but because the LORD loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your forefathers, the LORD brought you out by a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. “Know therefore that the LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and His lovingkindness to a thousandth generation with those who love Him and keep His commandments; but repays those who hate Him to their faces, to destroy them; He will not delay with him who hates Him, He will repay him to his face. “Therefore, you shall keep the commandment and the statutes and the judgments which I am commanding you today, to do them.”

Deuteronomy 7:1–11 NASB

Midianites were not much different from Canaanites as far as their cultural and religious practices are concerned yet we see that in the book of Numbers that these Israelite men were allowed to marry the Midianite female survivors after allowing the young girls a 30 day period of mourning. 

For an Israelite to marry a Midianite girl in these circumstances is a spiritually dangerous option, as these marriages might be what Paul would call an “unequally yoked” marriage. 

These girls had been raised in paganism. Although all of them are probably under 20 years old and they no longer have a support system to continue their lives as pagans, there is the danger that they could still raise their children as more Midianite than Israelite. 

However, the reason the young girls weren’t killed along with all the other Midianites is that they are still young enough to absorb and become a part of Israelite culture, because they are now cut off from the Midianite culture.

All cultures are not created equal. Those who teach that all cultures are equally valid are not walking in the truth of God’s word but in man’s word.

During their sojourn in the wilderness, God was developing a culture among the 12 tribes that would change the world for better. God’s word teaches us how to create a culture that will change the world for the better as well.

God also tells us what kinds of cultural practices He hates and will wipe out when Yeshua returns. There will be no multiculturalism, at least in the religious sense, when Yeshua reigns on earth. There will be one culture: Messiah’s culture and the quicker we learn it here, the easier we will adapt to it when He establishes His throne.

Summary: Tammy