Bar’chu et YHVH ha-m’vorach, Baruch YHVH ha-m’vorach l’O’lam va-ed!
Baruch ata
YHVHEloheinu melech ha-olam asher bachar banu m’kol ha-amim, v’na-tan lanu eht
Torah-to. Baruch atah YHVH, noteyn ha-Torah. Ameyn.”
(Bless YHVH the blessed One; Blessed is YHVH, the blessed One for all eternity. Blessed are you, YHVH, our Elohim, King of the Universe, you have selected us from among all the peoples, and have given us your Torah.
This portion is also known as the “tochacha” or solemn warning. “Tochacha” comes from the word “hochacha” which can mean “proof.” The inhabitants of this world may soon witness the proof of ignoring YHVH’s Torah. Ignoring YHVH’s Torah is equal to ignoring YHVH’s Messiah. The most severe judgment imaginable are about to come upon mankind because the Torah of YHVH and His Messiah - Yahshua have been
misrepresented or ignored.
Torah Readings:
1.
26:3-5
2.
26:6-9
3.
26:10-46
4.
27:1-15
5.
27:16-21
6.
27:22-28
7.
27:29-31
8.
Maftir: 27:32-34
Haftarah: Jeremiah 16:19-17:14
Our haftarah portion reminds
us that we have inherited folly from our fathers.
Jer
16:19 O יהוה, my strength
and my stronghold and my refuge, in the
day of distress the gentiles shall come to You from the ends of the earth
and say, “Our fathers have inherited only falsehood, futility, and there is no
value (benefit) in them.”1 Footnote: 1See Ps. 147:19,
Isa. 2:3, Isa. 60:2-3, John 4:22, Rom. 2:20, Rom. 3:2, Rom. 9:4. Zech 8:23
Lev 26:3
‘If you walk in My laws and guard My commands, and shall do them,
Vs 3 in the
Hebrew reads: “if in my statutes (bechukatai) you will walk and my commandments
(mitzvoth) you will guard (shamar) and will do them (asah)
Remember a “chuk” or
statute is something which is to be engraved in our hearts and minds. We obey
these statutes but do not always understand exactly what they mean, for example
the appointments found in Vayikra/Leviticus 23 where we find the words “chukat
olam” is used four times – this is a statute forever – In fact some 12 times
this phrase is repeated in the Torah. (these
“chukot” are forever, they are merely ceremonial)
Lev 26:4
then I shall give you rain in its season, and the land shall yield its
crops, and the trees of the field yield their fruit.
Lev 26:5
‘And your threshing shall last till the time of the grape harvest, and
the grape harvest shall last till the time of sowing. And you shall eat your
bread until you have enough and shall dwell in your land safely.
Lev 26:6
‘And I shall give peace in the land, and you shall lie down and no one
make you afraid. And I shall clear the land of evil beasts,(chayah rahah) and
not let the sword go through your land.
Lev 26:7
‘And you shall pursue your enemies, and they shall fall by the sword
before you.
Lev 26:8
‘And five of you shall pursue a hundred, and a hundred of you pursue ten
thousand. And your enemies shall fall by the sword before you.
Lev 26:9
‘And I shall turn to you and make you bear fruit, and shall increase
you, and shall establish My covenant with you.
Lev 26:10
‘And you shall eat the old supply, and clear out the old because of the
new.
Lev 26:11
‘And I shall set My Dwelling Place in your midst, and My being shall not
reject you.
Lev 26:12
‘And I shall walk in your midst, and shall be your Elohim, and you shall
be My people.
Lev 26:13
‘I am יהוה your Elohim, who brought you out of the
land of Mitsrayim, from being their slaves. And I have broken the bars of your
yoke and made you walk upright.
Lev 26:14 ‘But if
you do not obey Me, and do not do all these commands,
Lev 26:15 and if
you reject My laws,(be chukatai) or if your being loathes My right-rulings, so
that you do not do all My commands, but break My covenant, (note YHVH is
addressing His people and history is the “tochacha” the proof)
Lev 26:16 I also do this to you: And I shall appoint
sudden alarm (anxiety) over you, wasting disease (of the lungs) and
inflammation,(auto immune diseases from exhaustion) destroying the eyes, and
consuming the life.(our ‘’nefesh’’ or being will pine away – overwhelmed with
grief and stress) And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall
eat it. (all your life’s work will be in vain)
Lev 26:17 ‘And I shall set My face against you, and you
shall be smitten before your enemies. And those who hate you shall rule over
you, and you shall flee when no one pursues you.
Lev 26:18 ‘And after all this, if you do not obey Me,
then I shall punish you seven times more for your sins.
Lev 26:19 ‘And I shall break the pride of your power,
and shall make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze.
Lev 26:20 ‘And your strength shall be spent in vain and
your land not yield its crops, nor the trees of the land yield their fruit.
Lev 26:21 ‘And if you walk contrary to Me, and refuse
to obey Me, I shall bring on you seven times more plagues, according to your
sins,
Lev 26:22 and send wild beasts among you, which shall
bereave you of your children. And I shall cut off your livestock, and make you
few in number, and your highways shall be deserted.
Lev 26:23 ‘And if you are not instructed by Me by
these, but walk contrary to Me,
Lev 26:24 then I also shall walk contrary to you, and I
Myself shall smite you seven times for your sins.
Lev 26:25 ‘And I shall bring against you a sword
executing the vengeance of My covenant, and you shall gather together in your
cities, and I shall send pestilence among you, and you shall be given into the
hand of the enemy.
Lev 26:26 ‘When I have cut off your supply of bread,
ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall bring back to you
your bread by weight, and you shall eat and not be satisfied.
Lev 26:27 ‘And if in spite of this, you do not obey Me,
but walk contrary to Me,
Lev 26:28 then I shall walk contrary to you in wrath.
And I Myself shall punish you seven times for your sins.
Lev 26:29 ‘And you shall eat the flesh of your sons,
and eat the flesh of your daughters.
Lev 26:30 ‘And I shall destroy your high places, and
cut down your sun-pillars, and put your carcasses on the carcasses of your
idols. And My being shall loathe you.
Lev 26:31 ‘And I shall turn your cities into ruins and
lay your set-apart places waste, and not smell your sweet fragrances.
Lev 26:32 ‘And I shall lay the land waste, and your
enemies who dwell in it shall be astonished at it.
Lev 26:33 ‘And I shall scatter you among the gentiles
and draw out a sword after you. And your land shall be desert and your cities
ruins,
Lev 26:34 and the land enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it
lies waste and you are in your enemies’ land. Then the land would rest and
enjoy its Sabbaths.
Lev 26:35 ‘As long as it lies waste it rests, for the
time it did not rest on your Sabbaths when you dwelt in it.
Lev 26:36 ‘And as for those of you who are left, I
shall send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies, and the
sound of a shaken leaf shall cause them to flee. And they shall flee as though
retreating from a sword, and they shall fall when no one pursues.
Lev 26:37 ‘And they shall stumble over one another, as
from before a sword, when no one pursues. And you shall be unable to stand
before your enemies.
Lev 26:38 ‘And you shall perish among the gentiles, and
the land of your enemies shall eat you up,
Lev 26:39 and those of you who are left rot away in
their crookedness in your enemies’ lands, and also in their fathers’
crookednesses rot away with them.
Lev 26:40 ‘But if they confess their crookedness and
the crookedness of their fathers, with their trespass in which they trespassed
against Me, and that they also have walked contrary to Me,
Lev 26:41 and that I also have walked contrary to them
and have brought them into the land of their enemies – if their uncircumcised
heart is then humbled, and they accept the punishment of their crookedness,
Lev 26:42 then I shall remember My covenant with Yaʽaqoḇ, and
also My covenant with Yitsḥaq, and also remember My covenant with Aḇraham,
and remember the land.
Lev 26:43 ‘For the land was abandoned by them, and
enjoying its Sabbaths while lying waste without them, and they were paying for
their crookedness, because they rejected My right-rulings and because their
being loathed My laws.
Lev 26:44 ‘And yet for all this, when they are in the
land of their enemies, I shall not reject them, nor shall I loathe them so as
to destroy them and break My covenant with them. For I am יהוה their Elohim.
Lev 26:45 ‘Then I shall remember for their sake the
covenant of the ancestors whom I brought out of the land of Mitsrayim before
the eyes of the nations to be their Elohim. I am יהוה.’ ”
Lev
26:46 These are the laws and the
right-rulings and the Torot1 which יהוה made between Himself and the
children of Yisra’ĕl on Mount Sinai by the hand of Mosheh. Footnote: 1Torot
- plural of Torah, teaching.
Deu 4:30
“In your distress, when all these words shall come upon you in the
latter days, then you shall return to יהוה your Elohim
and shall obey His voice.
Deu
4:31 “For יהוה your Elohim is a compassionate
Ěl, He does not forsake you, nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your
fathers which He swore to them.
Jer 23:19
See, a storm of יהוה shall go forth
in a rage, a whirling storm! It whirls on the head of the wrong.
Jer
23:20 The displeasure of יהוה shall not turn back until He has
done and established the purposes of His heart. In the latter days you shall understand it perfectly.1 Footnote: 1See
30:24.
Jer 25:31 “Tumult shall come to the
ends of the earth, for יהוה has a
controversy with the nations. He shall enter into judgment with all flesh. The
wrong He shall give to the sword,’ declares יהוה.”
Jer 25:32 Thus said יהוה
of hosts, “See, evil is going forth from nation to nation, and a great
whirlwind is raised up from the farthest parts of the earth.
Jer 25:33 “And in that day the slain
of יהוה shall be
from one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth.a They shall not
be lamented, or gathered, or buried, for they are dung on the face of the
ground. Footnote: aSee footnote Isa_66:24.
1Pe 4:17
Because it is time for judgment to begin from the House of Elohim. And if
firstly from us, what is the end of those who do not obey the Good News of
Elohim?
1Pe 4:18 And
if the righteous one is scarcely saved, where shall the wicked and the sinner
appear? Pro_11:31.
2Pe 3:11
Seeing all these are to be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you
to be in set-apart behaviour and reverence,
2Pe 3:12
looking for and hastening the coming of the day of Elohim, through which the
heavens shall be destroyed, being set on fire, and the elements melt with
intense heat!
We have little sense of our own personal
liability for the mess the world is in. I think this is more tragic than the
mess itself.
How is this remedied? Only by His severe
chastisement. Maybe for this reason we suffer an underlying and suppressed fear
and anxiety of impending judgment that is about to come on the whole world. For
many the best way to deal with this dilemma is to blame everybody else but
ourselves for the mess we find ourselves in.
We have grieved the Ruach for so long – How
can we find our way back. How do find ‘’teshuvah’’
What is the answer?
Php 2:5
For, let this mind be in you which was also in Messiah יהושע,
Php 2:6 who,
being in the form of Elohim, did not regard equality with Elohim a matter to be
grasped,
Php 2:7
but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, and came to be in the
likeness of men.
Php 2:8
And having been found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself and became
obedient unto death, death even of a stake.
Mat 10:38
“And he who does not take up his stake and follow after Me is not worthy of
Me.
Mat 10:39
“He who has found his life shall lose it, and he that has lost his life for My
sake shall find it.
Mat 22:14 “For many are called, but few are
chosen.”a Footnote: aSee Mat_20:16.
There remains a suffering and purging of this present world that no one can escape
Now the Torah speaks of a specific kind of
vow called an “erech” or valuation. This vow involves the inherent “set
apartness” of an object or person. So, the book of Vayikra ends as it opened,
with a chapter of regulations regarding offerings brought to YHVH’s House and
the functioning of the ministry of the Levites. Perhaps this was intended to
assure that no one party or individual could exercise influence due to larger contributions.
This would ensure an effective ministry of YHVH’s House and its priesthood to
all nations and peoples.
Lev 27:1 And יהוה spoke to
Mosheh, saying,
Lev 27:2 “Speak to the children of Yisra’ĕl, and say
to them, ‘When a man separates a vow, by your evaluation of lives unto יהוה,
|
ב דַּבֵּר אֶל-בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, וְאָמַרְתָּ אֲלֵהֶם, אִישׁ, כִּי יַפְלִא נֶדֶר--בְּעֶרְכְּךָ נְפָשֹׁת, לַיהוָה. |
Literal Hebrew – ‘speak to the
children of Israel and say to them – a man who makes an extraordinary (or
amazing) promise in valuing souls to YHVH’’ (valuation supposes either
redemption or purchase)
Was this a redemptive act? Was
this ‘’ish’’ or man a kind of ‘’kinsman redeemer’’ not only redeeming fellow
human beings in need of redemption but also property and animals that belonged
to them because they had come into some
form of poverty. This ‘’ish’’ was willing to lay down his life and pay for the
mistakes of his fellow brothers and sisters and save them and their property
from the harsh treatment of slave owners.
The book of ‘’Vayikra’’ begins
with the various animal offerings and ends when the ‘’ish’’ the man himself is
willing to be the offering unto YHVH.
Lev 27:3 when your evaluation is of a male from twenty
years old up to sixty years old, then your evaluation shall be fifty sheqels of
silver, according to the sheqel of the set-apart place.
Lev 27:4 ‘And if it is a female, then your evaluation
shall be thirty sheqels;
Lev 27:5 and if from five years old up to twenty years
old, then your evaluation for a male shall be twenty sheqels, and for a female
ten
sheqels;
Lev 27:6 and if from a month old up to five years old,
then your evaluation for a male shall be five sheqels of silver, and for a
female your evaluation shall be three sheqels of silver;
Lev 27:7 and if from sixty years old and above, if it
is a male, then your evaluation shall be fifteen sheqels, and for a female ten
sheqels.
Lev 27:8 ‘But if he is too poor to pay your
evaluation, then he shall present himself before the priest, and the priest
shall set a value for him. According to the ability of him who vowed, the
priest shall value him.
Lev 27:9 ‘And if it is a beast of which they bring an
offering to יהוה, all such
given to יהוה is set-apart.
Lev 27:10 ‘He is not to replace it or exchange it, good
for spoilt or spoilt for good. And if he at all exchanges beast for beast, then
both it and the one exchanged for it is set-apart.
Lev 27:11 ‘And if it is any unclean beast of which they
do not bring an offering to יהוה, then he shall
present the beast before the priest;
Lev 27:12 and the priest shall value it, whether it is
good or spoilt. According to your evaluation, O priest, so it shall be.
Lev 27:13 ‘But if he indeed redeems it, then he shall
add one-fifth to your evaluation.
Lev 27:14 ‘And when a man sets his house apart, to be
set-apart to יהוה, then the
priest shall value it, whether it is good or spoilt. As the priest values it,
so it stands.
Lev 27:15 ‘And if he who sets it apart does redeem his
house, then he shall add one-fifth of the silver of your evaluation to it, and
it shall be his.
Lev 27:16 ‘And if a man sets apart to יהוה a field he owns, then your evaluation
shall be according to the seed for it – a ḥomer
of barley seed at fifty sheqels of silver.
Lev 27:17 ‘If he sets his field apart from the Year of
Jubilee, according to your evaluation it stands.
Lev 27:18 ‘But if he sets his field apart after the
Jubilee, then the priest shall reckon to him the silver due according to the
years that remain till the Year of Jubilee, and it shall be deducted from your
evaluation.
Lev 27:19 ‘And if he who sets the field apart ever wishes
to redeem it, then he shall add one-fifth of the silver of your evaluation to
it, and it shall be his.
Lev 27:20 ‘And if he does not redeem the field, or if
he has sold the field to another man, it is no longer redeemed,
Lev 27:21 but the field, when it is released in the
Jubilee, is set-apart to יהוה as a dedicated
field, to be the possession of the priest.
Lev 27:22 ‘And if a man sets apart to יהוה a field which he has bought, which is not
the field of his possession,
Lev 27:23 then the priest shall reckon to him the
amount of your evaluation, up to the Year of Jubilee, and he shall give your
evaluation on that day, set-apart to יהוה.
Lev 27:24 ‘In the Year of Jubilee the field returns to
him from whom he bought it, to him whose is the possession of the land.
Lev 27:25 ‘And all your evaluations is to be according
to the sheqel of the set-apart place: twenty gĕrahs to the sheqel.
Lev 27:26 ‘However, a first-born of the beasts, which
is first-born to יהוה, no man sets it
apart – whether bull or sheep, it belongs to יהוה.
Lev 27:27 ‘And if among the unclean beasts, then he
shall ransom it according to your evaluation, and shall add one-fifth to it.
And if it is not redeemed, then it shall be sold according to your evaluation.
Lev 27:28 ‘However, whatever a man lays under ban for יהוה of all that he has, man and beast, or the
field of his possession, is not sold or redeemed. Whatever is laid under ban is
most set-apart to יהוה.
Lev 27:29 ‘No one under the ban, under the ban among
men, is ransomed, but shall certainly be put to death.
Lev 27:30 ‘And all the tithe of the land – of the seed
of the land or of the fruit of the tree – belongs to יהוה. It is set-apart to יהוה.
Lev 27:31 ‘If a man indeed redeems any of his tithes,
he adds one-fifth to it.
Lev 27:32 ‘And the entire tithe of the herd and of the
flock, all that passes under the rod, the tenth one is set-apart to יהוה.
Lev 27:33 ‘He does not inquire whether it is good or
spoilt, nor does he exchange it. And if he exchanges it at all, then both it
and the one exchanged for it are set-apart, it is not redeemed.’ ”
Lev
27:34 These are the commands which יהוה commanded Mosheh for the
children of Yisra’ĕl on Mount Sinai.
Baruch atah
YHVH, Eloheynu, Melech ha-‘Olam, asher natan lanu Toraht-emet, v’chay-yeh o’lam
nata-b’tochenu. Baruch atah YHVH, noteyn ha-Torah. Ameyn.”
(Blessed are
you Yahweh, our Elohim, King of the Universe, you have given us your Torah of
truth, and have planted everlasting life within our midst. Blessed are you, YHVH
giver of the Torah – Ameyn