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All for the One; the One for all (Numbers 4:21–49)
In the opening section of Torah reading נָשֹׂא Nasso (“take up” or “carry,” Num. 4:21–7:89), a continuation from Bemidbar, Levites were counted from one month old, even though they were not old enough to perform significant service in the Temple. This teaches us that infant is not to be dehumanized or disregarded. The community is important but the individuals in the community are important too.
Some prophesies and judgments are collective, some are individual. The Messiah is the quintessential Israelite. The One represents the whole and the whole represents the One. Without this insight, Romans 11 doesn’t make sense. Americans are very individualistic, and presume that if a particular Bible verse “doesn’t speak to me” then we can discard it, but we are called to understand even those parts that “don’t apply to me” so that we can be a light to others, for those who those texts do apply to so as to bring them into the Kingdom.
In the Torah, each congregation had a Nasi, or a president, who was the leader of the congregation. His role was not necessarily to be the preacher or teacher of Torah in the community. His role was to make sure that the community was going in the right direction. In this reading, we meet the Nasi of the clan of Levi.
A Nasi is someone who has a character that would inspire others to be better than themselves, but now a leader is merely a popularity contest. It’s frustrating when one has to choose a leader when you don’t know who they really are.
Kohat (Numbers 3:27–32; 4:1–20)
Aaron was a grandson of Kohat, so the Levites of this clan were his cousins.
- Nasi (president, leader): Elizaphan, son of Uzziel
- High priests who served in the Mishkan came from Aharon, grandson of Kohat.
- Duties: Ark of the Testimony, table of bread of the Presence, menorah, altars, utensils of the sanctuary, the veil.
- Their responsibility was the “touch points” between Heaven and mankind.
Gershon (Numbers 3:21–26; 4:21–28)
- Nasi: Eliasaph, son of Lael
- Duties: Tabernacle tent, its covering, screen for the doorway to the tent, curtains of the court around the tent, screen for doorway to the court and all the cords that go with it.
- Their responsibility to cover the powerful otherness of God in the Mishkan, protecting the people outside from their own curiosity, arrogance or ignorance.
Merari (Numbers 3:33–37; 4:29–33)
- Nasi: Zuriel, son of Abihail
- Duties: Frames of the Mishkan (bars, pillars, sockets, all its equipment) and the court (pillars, sockets, pegs and cords). Their responsibility was to provide the framework for the coverings.
- Lesson: It could have been easy to have Gershon put up the frames and the coverings.
- Just as textiles require different skills and attention than framing and mechanics, so too those who serve as the “backbone” of the Body of Messiah, keeping its duties functioning are as important as those teaching people about the merciful holiness of God and His Messiah.
- The Apostle Paul seems to riff on the diverse unity of Israel in his gifts, Body parts and selfless-love message to the congregation in the “melting pot” Greek port city of Corinth (1Corinthians 12–13).
The dimensions of the original Tabernacle was about the size of a large circus tent. But by the time of Solomon, the temple footprint was much larger, and the second temple was even larger than that. And the Day of the LORD temple described in Ezekiel and Revelation is gigantic. One reason for this expansion is that more people are being called nearer to God. However, no matter how large the Temple grows, it would define what God has set apart from the ways of the world (holy) and what was consistent with the ways of the world.
Curse of infertility and the restoration (Numbers 5:11–31)
Both the story of the jealous husband and the calling and sanctification of the nazir are a microcosm of God’s relationship with the people of Israel. We have very few examples of the ceremony of the jealous husband carried out. The closest version of this ceremony, even thought it was done all wrong, was the story of the woman caught in adultery who was brought to Yeshua. But we do see the frequent refrain in the Tanank of God calling out Israel for “playing the harlot” in adultery and idolatry against God.
Think of the elements of this ceremony:
- holy ground, the dirt form the sanctuary
- holy water from the sanctuary,
- holy ink, the curse written leading off into the exiles
The woman had to drink all of it. If she was innocent, this was a supernatural proof of her moral purity. It was a way, in a society that denigrated the role of women, for God to defend women against slander by their husbands.
However, if she had committed adultery, her sentence was infertility. God later declared Israel infertile because of her adultery, but when she was brought back out of exile, she had children again. The land of Israel was barren during the exile but now that the Jews have returned, the land is fertile again.
God’s “jealousy” is not irrational, His jealousy doesn’t come from a place of envy or offense. He was not envious of the idols who had turned Israel away from Him but jealous for His people because He loved and cared about His people. The idols they were turning to did not have the people’s best interests at heart. When you see someone you love on a destructive path, you are willing to do anything to prevent them from going to their death. God does not envy anyone or anything but He does jealousy protect what is His.
Apostle Paul and the nazarite vow (Numbers 6:1–21; Acts 21:15–22:24)
Many people in apostle Paul’s day completely misunderstood the nazarite vow. A nazir is a vow similar to a Cohen but it did not make one a Cohen. You don’t just stumble into the nazarite vow. The nazir is primarily a vow of service, not a vow of leadership.
Because of widespread confusion about Paul’s teachings regarding the Law (see his letters to the Galatians, Colossians and Ephesians), apostle Ya’akov (James) directs Paul to sponsor four nazirs and personally go through the ceremony for the ending of the vow. Paul’s Nazarite vow and his visit to the temple to finish his nazarite vow and his willingness to help others finish their nazarite vows was not a political act but a pious act.
There are, however, rabbinical discussions in the Mishnah about Nazir vows outside the Land.
“He who [while overseas] took a vow to be a Nazir for a long spell and completed his spell as a Nazir, and afterward came to the Land [of Israel] — the House of Shammai say, ‘He is a Nazir for thirty days.’ And the House of Hillel say, ‘He is a Nazir as from the very beginning.’ ”
m.Nazir 3:6
Considering that Yeshua’s corrections tended to get at the intent of the Torah that the School of Hillel largely subscribed to, this consideration of a Nazir vow undertaken abroad not being completed until done so at the Temple may explain the Yerushalayim leadership’s directive to Paul to participate in the “closing ceremonies” with four Nazirs (Acts 21:17–24).
Other Jews thought that the apostle Paul’s libertinism about the nations and Israel prompted him to bring a Gentile into the Temple, which got him into hot water.
The parameters of the Nazirite vow, which most of the people who were harassing him in the Temple that day did not understand, is essentially wrapped up in what Paul was saying that he was doing, by taking the message of the Gospel to the nations, because that is what the Nazarite does. The Nazarite vow is a vow of purity, similar to the vow of purity a priest takes on except the Nazarite does not officiate in the Temple with the animal sacrifices. The Nazarite takes the priesthood to the people outside the Temple.
Nazirite was forbidden during the period of the vow from these:
- Eating and drinking certain things.
- חֹמֶץ יַיִן וְחֹמֶץ שֵׁכָר khometz yayin v’khometz shekhar — The decay/sourness/corruption of wine and hard beverages (Numbers 6:3).
- Grape matter of any kind — skins, seeds, dried or fresh grapes, juice, wine (Numbers 6:3–4).
- Cutting the hair (Numbers 6:5).
- Touching a corpse, even that of family (Numbers 6:6–7) and even if it was by accident (Numbers 6:9).
This particular experience shows us how God is expanding His tent even further, as Yeshua told the Samaritan woman at the well.
“Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. “But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”” (John 4:21–24 NASB)
At the passover seder, when Yeshua said that He would not drink wine until He drank it in the Kingdom, harkens to the nazarite vow, but there’s more into the nazarite vow than just abstaining from wine/grape juice. Some of the discussion you see in the mishnah about the nazarite vow were written far after the first century AD. Just as you don’t stumble into the Temple of God, and you don’t just stumble into the Nazarite vow.
Leviticus 10 shows us how God punished a couple of priests who decided to blunder into God’s holy place. A nazarite vow is a vow with a goal in mind that has God in the middle of it, not the self. A vow of service is not something taken lightly and can’t be taken without intent.
Summary: Tammy