Shemot (Exodus)
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Meaning
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Day Five
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Haftara
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B'rit Hadashah
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1 Our Father, we receive Your Words and hide Your commandments with us; 2 we incline our ear unto wisdom, and apply our hearts to understanding; 3 We cry after knowledge and lift up our voices for understanding; 4 we seek it as silver; and search for it as for hidden treasures; 5 We declare that we shall understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God. Declaration of Proverbs 2:1-5
Exodus 40:17-27 (NASB)1
17 Now in the first month of the second year, on the first day of the month, the tabernacle was erected.
18 Moses erected the tabernacle and laid its sockets, and set up its boards, and inserted its bars and erected its pillars. 19 He spread the tent over the tabernacle and put the covering of the tent on top of it, just as the LORD had commanded Moses. 20 Then he took the testimony and put it into the ark, and attached the poles to the ark, and put the mercy seat on top of the ark. 21 He brought the ark into the tabernacle, and set up a veil for the screen, and screened off the ark of the testimony, just as the LORD had commanded Moses.
22 Then he put the table in the tent of meeting on the north side of the tabernacle, outside the veil. 23 He set the arrangement of bread in order on it before the LORD, just as the LORD had commanded Moses. 24 Then he placed the lampstand in the tent of meeting, opposite the table, on the south side of the tabernacle. 25 He lighted the lamps before the LORD, just as the LORD had commanded Moses. 26 Then he placed the gold altar in the tent of meeting in front of the veil; 27 and he burned fragrant incense on it, just as the LORD had commanded Moses.
18 Moses erected the tabernacle and laid its sockets, and set up its boards, and inserted its bars and erected its pillars. 19 He spread the tent over the tabernacle and put the covering of the tent on top of it, just as the LORD had commanded Moses. 20 Then he took the testimony and put it into the ark, and attached the poles to the ark, and put the mercy seat on top of the ark. 21 He brought the ark into the tabernacle, and set up a veil for the screen, and screened off the ark of the testimony, just as the LORD had commanded Moses.
22 Then he put the table in the tent of meeting on the north side of the tabernacle, outside the veil. 23 He set the arrangement of bread in order on it before the LORD, just as the LORD had commanded Moses. 24 Then he placed the lampstand in the tent of meeting, opposite the table, on the south side of the tabernacle. 25 He lighted the lamps before the LORD, just as the LORD had commanded Moses. 26 Then he placed the gold altar in the tent of meeting in front of the veil; 27 and he burned fragrant incense on it, just as the LORD had commanded Moses.
17 And it came to pass in the first month in the second year, on the first day of the month, that the tabernacle was reared up. Exodus 40:17.
At one point in time, I wondered if they might have had a trial run to set up that little house that would house The Creator of the Universe. “Let’s get this building up just to make sure that we haven’t made any errors anywhere, especially in the base structure—just to ensure that all the sockets go into the right fittings and all”. It would not be good if they got the foundation up and discovered that the drapery was too short or they were missing one whole side panel. But then I remembered that this entire operation was inspired by the Living Creator of the Universe and went up under His auspices. Therefore, it wasn't likely that they needed a “dry run”.
The phrase of distinction today is “as the Lord had commanded”. The character of Moses is sealed for eternity through these words. In them, we see the mark of a great leader, for those who take orders well themselves are fitted to give orders. Moses is memorialized here and in other areas for his obedience. I might say the same thing for teachers. I guess what it boils down to is that great leaders are willing to be led and great teachers are willing to be taught. It’s that “willing” part that sets the greatest apart from those who have romanticized the position of leader or teacher, or apostle or prophet. Do you know what I mean by “romanticizing” a calling? That is where a person has responded to what they feel is the “glamour” and “door-opening” possibilities of a position or 'office' that contains a degree of favor, notoriety, and attention. They've completely failed to realize that the office also carries with it a larger degree of isolation and public criticism. These people are usually the ones who have self-proclaimed their special anointing and have not waited for God to confirm their status. You will know them “by their fruit” as it were. They will not respond to authority, and refuse to recognize it even when it comes from the one whom God had appointed over them. This can lead to disastrous results within any assembly.
In many Bible studies I can remember, we were awed by those great Bible heroes. They were just so far up there, that none of us could even think of being like them in the least. Was it because they performed such great deeds and accomplished so much that we “romanticized” their lives? Did we only see them in the light of their accomplishments? Perhaps we needed to see them in the light of their obedience! The God of the Old Testament is the same as the New Testament and He did not suddenly take a schizophrenic turn as many believers would like to think. He did not turn from being a God of Law into a God of grace in those four hundred years between the Testaments. He demanded obedience in the Old Testament and still demands it in the New Testament.
21 He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. John 14:21.
Where do we find those commandments? They're found in the Torah portion of the Old Testament. Messiah summed them up into two, but they're all still in there!
36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. Matthew 22:36-40.
Let’s face it. We’ve been taught all our lives to ignore the Old Testament and that it wasn’t as important as the New. If we started thinking in terms of covenants perhaps our thinking might be more clear. “Testament” seems to embody a different meaning when we hear it—but “covenant”? That puts it forward as it is in reality. God’s first covenant of promise occurred with Abraham.
1 Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: 2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: 3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. Genesis 12:1-3.
The covenant became a reality through Moses.
10 And he said, Behold, I make a covenant: before all thy people I will do marvels, such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation: and all the people among which thou art shall see the work of the LORD: for it is a terrible thing that I will do with thee... 27 And the LORD said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel. ” Exodus 34:10; 27.
We might apply this same rule of thinking when we consider the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. We’ve been taught to believe that we can have one without the other, and that just isn’t so! The fact that many of us are still reading Torah Bites indicates that we are open to new possibilities that God is just “itching” to show us and have us integrate into our lives as believers. He is hankering to “draw near” to us in such eagerness and I just pray that you will be able to see this holy eagerness. Let us put the Testaments in order of which they are most important and see our spirituality change dramatically.
29 And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Galatians 3:29.
When we take Jesus (Hebrew is Yeshua), we inevitably take Moses too, for therein lies the heritage of the Messiah. Have you had a sense of not belonging or fitting anywhere your whole life? Have you always felt in your Godly experience that something is missing but couldn’t tell what? Have you been irresistibly drawn to things that appear Jewish? Have you been able to admit this to yourself? Just keep in mind that the more Biblical we become, the more Jewish we will look to the world. Our founder of Torah Bites, Gaylen Jones, taught us that. The most vehement critics will be those believers who are not aware of the connection we have through the Old Covenant to the nation and people of Israel—and those who will not accept that connection. Whatever you do, don’t let them take the truth away from you by quoting church tradition—for it contains the seeds of self-destruction where they insist on presenting Messiah as a Jew who started a new religion. If anything, we're the ‘extension’ of the roots of Israel and Yahweh!
But life isn't “a bowl of cherries”, as they say, being one of those 'extensions'. We aren't accepted by denomination believers because we sound “too Jewish”. We certainly aren't accepted by Judaism in any sense because loving The God of the Old Testament (Tanakh) and 'Jesus' are two very different things that in their eyes, do not go together. I've felt the scorn and criticism from both sides. I was dropped from the personal association of believers in the denominational world when I attempted to explain my position in Messiah which includes Israel. I was told in a conversation with an Orthodox Jewish man who lived in Israel and boasted that he could see the roof of the Knesset building from the upstairs level of his home, that I was 'just a pretender'. I got the sense that he did it as nicely as he could frame the rejection. I think I was in a Jews for Jesus chatroom at the time. That was the beginning of my journey which I always frame in terms of: I was on the road to all things Jewish and at the end of that journey I discovered that the same road had led me to “all things BIBLICAL”. BIG Difference! Once I landed in the space where I was basing life on all things Biblical, I realized that I was, in a sense, 'home'. And that is a sense that I had searched for my entire life.
I wonder if Moses felt that same sense of being 'home', never having to decide ever again if he was Egyptian or Israeli as he did in his youth. He might have enjoyed his time as a shepherd who was a nobody in the back of the desert. He had only to answer to the sheep and his boss, Jethro. But when he saw the Tabernacle in reality on the earth, after what he'd seen up on the top of that mountain in God's realm, I'm guessing, he may have felt at peace. He knew where he belonged. Life wasn't always fun for him because of the direct confrontations he had with the men of Israel who were not on the same page with God as himself. I'm hoping that he had a sense of knowing that his journey had led him to the point where he was only responsible to God and Israel. It's like now, I have only responsibility to God and any livestock that I may keep. (I don't work for Nursing Management anymore) Right now, it's chickens. There was never a darker time on the homestead when I had to learn to cull injured animals or bury them after they died. One thing that I learned that I didn't even think of when I was looking towards retirement and buying “the farm” was this one thing: There's life on the farm! But there's also death on the farm. The sooner one accepts that the better one is to deal.
I've always been so irritated by reporters who will run up to a person who may have just experienced the darkest moments in their life, and stick a microphone in their face and ask, “How do you feel about that?” Yet, here I am thinking that on the other side of eternity, I'd like to ask many about their part in Biblical history. “How did it feel to come back, Lazarus?” “Moses! With all due respect, what was it like to grow up as you did? How torn were you between Israel and Egypt?” “Ya'akov, Sir. Could you tell me what you meant when you said in your last days on earth, “I have waited for thy salvation, O LORD”? Then, I have to wonder if all that is going to be relevant by that time. Every event, as we're living it now will be, history. All that might be important is that it played out exactly as God ordered it. And we will all be saying, AMEN!
Now this is day four in my recovery from laryngitis and the sunshine and temperature are acting more like the spring we experienced two weeks ago. But hang about a bit! The forecast is rather dismal for the weekend break! This wonky weather is nothing out of the ordinary for March. We're almost done with March and we're almost done with Exodus! Passover will be observed in just over two weeks. As a matter of fact, coming up next Tuesday is the first day of the first month on the Hebrew calendar. That was the very day the Tabernacle was set up for the first time by Israel. It was in the second year out of Egypt. I wonder if Moses thought they'd be on the road for that long. But for every delay they had to arrive in Canaan, was beneficial for learning. And that certainly is the rule of life for us, isn't it? The delays can cause us to stand still, question our place, and learn our lessons.
At one point in time, I wondered if they might have had a trial run to set up that little house that would house The Creator of the Universe. “Let’s get this building up just to make sure that we haven’t made any errors anywhere, especially in the base structure—just to ensure that all the sockets go into the right fittings and all”. It would not be good if they got the foundation up and discovered that the drapery was too short or they were missing one whole side panel. But then I remembered that this entire operation was inspired by the Living Creator of the Universe and went up under His auspices. Therefore, it wasn't likely that they needed a “dry run”.
The phrase of distinction today is “as the Lord had commanded”. The character of Moses is sealed for eternity through these words. In them, we see the mark of a great leader, for those who take orders well themselves are fitted to give orders. Moses is memorialized here and in other areas for his obedience. I might say the same thing for teachers. I guess what it boils down to is that great leaders are willing to be led and great teachers are willing to be taught. It’s that “willing” part that sets the greatest apart from those who have romanticized the position of leader or teacher, or apostle or prophet. Do you know what I mean by “romanticizing” a calling? That is where a person has responded to what they feel is the “glamour” and “door-opening” possibilities of a position or 'office' that contains a degree of favor, notoriety, and attention. They've completely failed to realize that the office also carries with it a larger degree of isolation and public criticism. These people are usually the ones who have self-proclaimed their special anointing and have not waited for God to confirm their status. You will know them “by their fruit” as it were. They will not respond to authority, and refuse to recognize it even when it comes from the one whom God had appointed over them. This can lead to disastrous results within any assembly.
In many Bible studies I can remember, we were awed by those great Bible heroes. They were just so far up there, that none of us could even think of being like them in the least. Was it because they performed such great deeds and accomplished so much that we “romanticized” their lives? Did we only see them in the light of their accomplishments? Perhaps we needed to see them in the light of their obedience! The God of the Old Testament is the same as the New Testament and He did not suddenly take a schizophrenic turn as many believers would like to think. He did not turn from being a God of Law into a God of grace in those four hundred years between the Testaments. He demanded obedience in the Old Testament and still demands it in the New Testament.
21 He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. John 14:21.
Where do we find those commandments? They're found in the Torah portion of the Old Testament. Messiah summed them up into two, but they're all still in there!
36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. Matthew 22:36-40.
Let’s face it. We’ve been taught all our lives to ignore the Old Testament and that it wasn’t as important as the New. If we started thinking in terms of covenants perhaps our thinking might be more clear. “Testament” seems to embody a different meaning when we hear it—but “covenant”? That puts it forward as it is in reality. God’s first covenant of promise occurred with Abraham.
1 Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: 2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: 3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. Genesis 12:1-3.
The covenant became a reality through Moses.
10 And he said, Behold, I make a covenant: before all thy people I will do marvels, such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation: and all the people among which thou art shall see the work of the LORD: for it is a terrible thing that I will do with thee... 27 And the LORD said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel. ” Exodus 34:10; 27.
We might apply this same rule of thinking when we consider the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. We’ve been taught to believe that we can have one without the other, and that just isn’t so! The fact that many of us are still reading Torah Bites indicates that we are open to new possibilities that God is just “itching” to show us and have us integrate into our lives as believers. He is hankering to “draw near” to us in such eagerness and I just pray that you will be able to see this holy eagerness. Let us put the Testaments in order of which they are most important and see our spirituality change dramatically.
29 And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Galatians 3:29.
When we take Jesus (Hebrew is Yeshua), we inevitably take Moses too, for therein lies the heritage of the Messiah. Have you had a sense of not belonging or fitting anywhere your whole life? Have you always felt in your Godly experience that something is missing but couldn’t tell what? Have you been irresistibly drawn to things that appear Jewish? Have you been able to admit this to yourself? Just keep in mind that the more Biblical we become, the more Jewish we will look to the world. Our founder of Torah Bites, Gaylen Jones, taught us that. The most vehement critics will be those believers who are not aware of the connection we have through the Old Covenant to the nation and people of Israel—and those who will not accept that connection. Whatever you do, don’t let them take the truth away from you by quoting church tradition—for it contains the seeds of self-destruction where they insist on presenting Messiah as a Jew who started a new religion. If anything, we're the ‘extension’ of the roots of Israel and Yahweh!
But life isn't “a bowl of cherries”, as they say, being one of those 'extensions'. We aren't accepted by denomination believers because we sound “too Jewish”. We certainly aren't accepted by Judaism in any sense because loving The God of the Old Testament (Tanakh) and 'Jesus' are two very different things that in their eyes, do not go together. I've felt the scorn and criticism from both sides. I was dropped from the personal association of believers in the denominational world when I attempted to explain my position in Messiah which includes Israel. I was told in a conversation with an Orthodox Jewish man who lived in Israel and boasted that he could see the roof of the Knesset building from the upstairs level of his home, that I was 'just a pretender'. I got the sense that he did it as nicely as he could frame the rejection. I think I was in a Jews for Jesus chatroom at the time. That was the beginning of my journey which I always frame in terms of: I was on the road to all things Jewish and at the end of that journey I discovered that the same road had led me to “all things BIBLICAL”. BIG Difference! Once I landed in the space where I was basing life on all things Biblical, I realized that I was, in a sense, 'home'. And that is a sense that I had searched for my entire life.
I wonder if Moses felt that same sense of being 'home', never having to decide ever again if he was Egyptian or Israeli as he did in his youth. He might have enjoyed his time as a shepherd who was a nobody in the back of the desert. He had only to answer to the sheep and his boss, Jethro. But when he saw the Tabernacle in reality on the earth, after what he'd seen up on the top of that mountain in God's realm, I'm guessing, he may have felt at peace. He knew where he belonged. Life wasn't always fun for him because of the direct confrontations he had with the men of Israel who were not on the same page with God as himself. I'm hoping that he had a sense of knowing that his journey had led him to the point where he was only responsible to God and Israel. It's like now, I have only responsibility to God and any livestock that I may keep. (I don't work for Nursing Management anymore) Right now, it's chickens. There was never a darker time on the homestead when I had to learn to cull injured animals or bury them after they died. One thing that I learned that I didn't even think of when I was looking towards retirement and buying “the farm” was this one thing: There's life on the farm! But there's also death on the farm. The sooner one accepts that the better one is to deal.
I've always been so irritated by reporters who will run up to a person who may have just experienced the darkest moments in their life, and stick a microphone in their face and ask, “How do you feel about that?” Yet, here I am thinking that on the other side of eternity, I'd like to ask many about their part in Biblical history. “How did it feel to come back, Lazarus?” “Moses! With all due respect, what was it like to grow up as you did? How torn were you between Israel and Egypt?” “Ya'akov, Sir. Could you tell me what you meant when you said in your last days on earth, “I have waited for thy salvation, O LORD”? Then, I have to wonder if all that is going to be relevant by that time. Every event, as we're living it now will be, history. All that might be important is that it played out exactly as God ordered it. And we will all be saying, AMEN!
Now this is day four in my recovery from laryngitis and the sunshine and temperature are acting more like the spring we experienced two weeks ago. But hang about a bit! The forecast is rather dismal for the weekend break! This wonky weather is nothing out of the ordinary for March. We're almost done with March and we're almost done with Exodus! Passover will be observed in just over two weeks. As a matter of fact, coming up next Tuesday is the first day of the first month on the Hebrew calendar. That was the very day the Tabernacle was set up for the first time by Israel. It was in the second year out of Egypt. I wonder if Moses thought they'd be on the road for that long. But for every delay they had to arrive in Canaan, was beneficial for learning. And that certainly is the rule of life for us, isn't it? The delays can cause us to stand still, question our place, and learn our lessons.
26 And he put the golden altar in the tent of the congregation before the vail: 27 And he burnt sweet incense thereon; as the LORD commanded Moses. Exodus 40:26.
1 NASB www.lockman.org for daily reading and KJV in commentary unless otherwise specified
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