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In the Torah reading בְּהַעֲלֹתְךָ Beha’alotcha (“when you raise up” [the lamps], Numbers 8–12), we see here how our spiritual ancestors in Israel were starting to move out from Mt. Sinai towards the land that God had promised to their ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
There are two themes in this reading: gathering and spirit. We can gather for either good or evil and we can also either heed the call of the Holy Spirit or the spirit of the evil one.
We hear about the complaints of ha-am (“the people”) and אֲסַפְסֻף asafsuf = “rabble” (Num. 11:4)
“To gather” (אָסַף ʾasaf, H622) and “wind”/“Spirit” (רוּחַ ruach, H7307) are key word lessons in Numbers 11–12 and the Exodus 16–17 account (hat tip: AlephBeta):
- Gather the elders (Num. 11:16)
- Spirit on Moshe put on the 70 elders for leadership (Num. 11:25, 29).
- Wind from the LORD gathers the flesh/quail (שְׂלָו s’lav).
- Manna is gathered six days a week.
- When Miriam was stricken with leprosy, she was seen as “being gathered to her people” before she died. She was, in a sense, walking dead.
- Yet, Israel doesn’t move until rebellious Miriam is “gathered” back to the community of Israel (Num. 12:15).
Second chance at Passover (Numbers 9)
We also read about what is called the Second Passover in this reading. It can be something to discuss with our brothers and sisters in the Body of Messiah that grace and a Spirit-led life were as much as a part of Tabernacle and Temple times as they were for post-Resurrection times, as noted in Expositor’s Bible Commentary, put out by NIV Bible publisher Zondervan and designed for pastors:
The best way to think of the notion of “uncleanness” is as a teaching device to remind the people of Israel of the holiness of God. The idea that any person at all might have the effrontery to dare to approach the presence of the Lord is audacious in itself. Only by his grace may anyone come before him to worship. By developing a concept of ritual purity, an external symbol, the notion of internal purity might be presented. Ever in the Bible the notions of external symbols are representative of internal realities. Only the obdurate [stubborn in refusing to change one’s opinion] miss the point here.
In our Lord’s confrontation with the Pharisees, the principal battle was not over the essential demands of God but on the tendencies the Pharisees had in focusing on external compliance without due attention to internal meaning. In our passage the recognition of ceremonial uncleanness on the part of some people and their consequent inability to participate in the activities of celebrative worship in the Passover speaks of their high level of compliance to the dictates of Torah and the keen desire they had to worship the Lord “in spirit and truth” (see John 4:24).
Ronald B. Allen, “Numbers,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 2 (emphasis added)
When you go through the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7), particularly the “Six Antitheses” (“You have heard it said, but I say to you…”), Yeshua (Jesus) was not contrasting the Torah of Moses and His own teaching. The principle battles were not regarding the rules of the Torah, but what people said the Torah said, the common interpretations of the Torah and directly contradicted it, and caused confusion among the people.
It’s crucial that we are gathered in one accord with the family of God who are leaving bondage and going towards freedom. We move when God says move, and stay where God tells us to stay.
What ever happens in ‘vegas’ doesn’t stay in Vegas
Ezekiel speaks vehemently against this. God’s eyes are not blinded to what people do “in darkness.”
Then He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what the elders of the house of Israel are committing in the dark, each man in the room of his carved images? For they say, ‘The LORD does not see us; the LORD has forsaken the land.’”
Ezekiel 8:12 NASB
We are to let our light shine so they will praise and give glory to God, not us. We are supposed to keep our priorities straight and walk in the light at all times, not just some of the time, but all the time.
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.
John 3:16-21 NASB
Being a humble person means to push ourselves down, to lower ourselves before God. We are to push our egos down in solidarity with the widow, orphan, the stranger and the poor among us. We also do this on the Day of Atonement, to expose our practices to the light and to clean out those dark corners of our hearts.
We are stronger when we are braided together than when we are scattered about. But the enemy, the spirit of Amalek, attacks those in the rear, the most vulnerable, such as the elderly and the children. We see the same spirit in the world today, where the evil one and those in cahoots with him, attack our children with lies that lead to death.
What happened at Sinai didn’t stay at Sinai (Numbers 10–11)
Just as what happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas, what happened at Sinai doesn’t stay at Sinai. The One who was on the Mountain, is now hovering over the Tabernacle and traveling with them.
If being in the presence of radiological contamination be silent but deadly, being in God’s presence is also silent but deadly, unless we live by strict guidelines when approaching Him.
What we see in the world with the cycle of life, procreation and death is not how it was in the beginning. Death is not natural, suffering is not natural. It’s actually very unnatural, just because death and suffering are commonplace doesn’t mean these things are natural or normal.
Thus they set out from the mount of the LORD three days’ journey, with the ark of the covenant of the LORD journeying in front of them for the three days, to seek out a resting place for them. The cloud of the LORD was over them by day when they set out from the camp.
Then it came about when the ark set out that Moses said, “Rise up, O LORD! And let Your enemies be scattered, And let those who hate You flee before You.” When it came to rest, he said, “Return, O LORD, To the myriad thousands of Israel.”
Numbers 10:33-36 NASB
This is the future of Israel, as it’s reborn. The Hebrew text uses final nun letters (ן) to mark off Num. 10:35–36. Rabbinical explanations for this is that these two verses were set off from Bemidbar (Numbers) as a “sixth book” of the Torah — an account of what could have been if not for the what follows from Numbers 11. Unfortunately, the descendants of Israelite did not have faith in God that He would scatter their enemies from before them, instead, the 10 spies later told the people that they could no fight their enemies and the people believed them.
Rahab actually had more faith and trust in the God of Israel than the first generation of Israel out of Egypt held. She knew that the deities of her people, the Ba’als and the Astoreths had no power. She knew who she should trust and her faith was an incredible witness to the two spies she sheltered.
The spirit blew through the trumpets and took down the walls of Jericho. The spirit blew through the sea, opening it up to lead the people to safety and then blew through again and drowned all of His enemies.
Moses, the most humble man who ever lived, was able to talk face to face with God and not die. Moses was not a docile mouse of a man, he faced the court of Pharaoh, the Midianites, and prevailed. Yeshua exercised similar humility when He got up from the table and washed the feet of His students. He was able to do this because He knew who He was. He knew where He came from and where He was going.
Noach was righteous in his generation, willing to build an ark because God told him to do so, even though in his environment, building an ark seemed like a ludicrous endeavor. Noach wasn’t perfect, we read later of some of his foibles, but he obeyed God and his faith is an example for us.
Lot was also righteous in his generation, standing up to the evil around him. He refused to change his morals to fit in with the reprehensible people of Sodom.
Trusting in other people can be scary. People who have “trust issues” have been failed over and again by untrustworthy people. They build their walls higher and higher, yet they are more and more unhappy.
We should pray for discernment to understand what is clean and what is unclean, to fine tune or filters so we can filter out what is bad and retain what is good. We all have to detox both our inner thoughts and our outside environment from the world.
We should not condemn anyone around us to hell. We don’t know whose eyes God is preparing to open up, like what happened with Apostle Paul (Acts 9:17–18). Even the people we think are most dedicated to the evil one, as long as they are alive, have the opportunity for repentance.
Summary: Tammy