Parashat Nitzavim

Are established: "stationed", "planted", or "stand as monuments".

Wood-cutters and those who draw water: even those who seem lowest in society. The Giv'onites were given this task when it became known that they had deceived Israel, and Y'hoshua had already promised to spare their lives. (Y'hoshua 9:21-23) Even they had to keep the Torah if they wanted to continue living in the Land. But wood (the same as tree in Hebrew) often represents men, so "cutters of wood" would represent evangelists, who sever them from their connection to the earth. "Gatherers of water" would represent prophets who bring YHWH's word (often likened in Scripture to water) to us.

Cross over: Hirsch, "unitedly pass over". Oath: or curse, which those entering the covenant agree to accept if they do not fulfill their part of the covenant. Cutting: the ritual involved in sealing the covenant.

A nation: or people, from a root word meaning "to grow dim, darker, or be eclipsed" like the moon, which wanes in order to wax. Individuals within Israel must decrease so that the whole nation may be "born again". You: masculine singular in this verse, as YHWH is speaking to an Israel united "as one man". Today: Hundreds of years after Avraham ,they still were not counted a people until they entered into this stage of the covenant. Remove the covenant from Israel, and we are no longer a nation, as Hoshea chapter 1 shows. Our ancestors did just that, choosing the oath (curse) instead of the covenant (v. 12), when they stopped keeping Torah or teaching us to keep it.

15. "but with [both] the one who is here with us, standing today in the presence of YHWH our Elohim, as well as the one we do not have standing here with us today--

Not standing here today: Here He closes the loophole by which we could claim we were not present when our ancestors agreed to the covenant. It thus includes us, who would hear these words much later in time and indirectly. Yirmiyahu/Jer. 50:4ff speaks of both houses of Israel coming back to join themselves to YHWH in a perpetual covenant which "will not be forgotten", as it was the first time. Acts 2:38ff calls "those who are afar off" to repent and return. This sets the stage for chapter 30 below. But we still have to stand and take our place, not just sit and wait for it all to be given to us magically.

17. "and you have seen their filthy abominations--their idols of wood and stone, silver and gold, which were with them,

Idols: or "balls of excrement". The scarab beetle was worshipped in Egypt because to those who could not see its tiny eggs laid therein, it appeared to spontaneously generate from balls of dung which the parent beetles have a habit of rolling in front of them. It was related to sun-worship, and this says much about YHWH's opinion about substituting the sun's day for His Sabbath.

Tribe: The tribe of Dan is also missing from the list in Rev. 7. See also note on v. 29. Poisonous fruit: "head" in Hebrew. This is the time of year when we especially seek to root out any such things in our lives, as the Day of Atonement approaches. A Renewed Covenant writer warns us to "look diligently lest anyone fail to participate in the favor of Elohim, lest any root of bitterness spring up to trouble you, and by it many be defiled [stained, contaminated, sullied]." (Hebrews 12:15) So what is that root? The Torah tells us specifically that it is connected to looking at the idols of the nations around us. (v. 17) It is asking why those who worship Fortune, Security, or the Future (all names of pagan deities) are prospering, and wanting what they have. It is choosing what YHWH has not given us. All too often we then get upset or blame it on YHWH when it turns around and bites us (as it inevitably will), when it was our own fault all along.

Blesses himself: LXX, "flatters himself". Saturating my thirst: or "overindulging my sexual desire" (a common feature of most pagan religions) or "drunkenness", which reminds us right away of the fall of Babylon, who made the whole world drunken with her fornications. (Yirm. 51; Rev. 17, 18) Psalm 75:8 tells us the wicked will drink the dregs of YHWH's wrath. The events of our day harbinger the fact that the kingdom of Mammon will soon come to an end, but Yeshayahu/Isa. 55 and Rev. 22:17 remind us that the water of life may be received freely. Hirsch translates, "so that the watering provides also for what should remain thirsty". I.e., one is presuming upon YHWH "making His rain to fall on the just and the unjust" merely due to his proximity to true believers within Israel. We must not fool ourselves as the Laodikeans did (Rev. 3:15ff), thinking they were all right just because YHWH appeared to be blessing them. He said their true condition was quite the opposite. Yeshayahu 65:11ff specify that those who remain faithful to YHWH instead of setting a table to Gad and Meni (fortune and destiny, celebrated Dec. 24 and 25), will have something to drink even when there is a drought. Stubbornness of heart: or "certainty of a made-up mind", being convinced that one knows he is right, although the Torah says something altogether different. Those who teach that the Torah is not binding on us feel like they have peace, but the heart is deceitful (Yirm. 17:9). The more knowledge we have, the more susceptible we are to this temptation. "Therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall." (1 Cor. 10:12)

Not forgive: this shatters modern stereotypes about His blanket forgiveness, and focuses us on the season of repentance that precedes Yom Kippur, when the gates and the books are closed for another year. This is a season to identify and pursue the right kind of thirst (in contrast with v. 19), for Y'shua says if we do we will be filled. But others will indeed be blotted out of the Book of Life if they are not diligent to "bless ourselves" in YHWH's name instead. (Yesh. 65:16) Settle: or crouch, reminding us immediately of YHWH's warning to Qayin (Cain) about the sin which finally led him to kill his brother; LXX, "attach themselves to him".

Trouble: adversity or misery. Curses: a part of any covenant. This, not the whole Torah, is what Sha'ul (Paul) said Y'shua removed from hanging over us. Instruction: Heb., Torah.

23. "(the whole land will be burnt with brimstone and salt, nor will it be sown with seed or sprouting up on its own, nor will any herbage come up on it, like the transformation of S'dom and ‘Amorah, Admah and Tzevoyim, which YHWH overthrew in his anger and his rage),

A salient example is Mark Twain's comment that "not even a chicken could scratch out a living" in the Land as it was in his day. Yirmiyahu 33 specifies that this is the Land's condition when Israel returns just before Messiah takes his throne.

25. "Then they will say, ‘What it's about is that they forsook the covenant of YHWH, Elohim of their ancestors, which He cut with them when He brought them out from the land of Egypt,

26. "‘and they went and served other elohim and bowed down to them--elohim with which they were not acquainted, and which He had not assigned to them.

Not acquainted with: Hirsch, "of whom they had experienced nothing". Had not assigned them: Or, which had not given them any plunder (as He had). This suggests that YHWH does indeed assign various elohim (mighty spiritual beings--or even mighty men) to rule over certain parts of the earth, keeping men's wickedness in check, but sometimes opposing YHWH Himself, as exemplified by the Princes of the Kingdom of Persia and of Greece, about which the archangel told Daniel. But in any case, He assigned no such intermediary to Israel. But serving self, our bank account, or our security is also bowing to other elohim.

28. "‘So YHWH uprooted them from their land in anger, in heat, and in great splintering indignation, and hurled them into another land, as [it is] today.'

29. "The concealed things belong to YHWH our Elohim, but those which are open are for us and our sons unto the age, so that we may carry out all the words of this instruction.

Hirsch translates, "but what is revealed to us...is: to fulfill all the words of this Torah."--the things which belong to the light, the straightforward instructions He gave us. This is not some mystery religion which only some initiates can experience while others are excluded; we choose for ourselves how close we want to get to YHWH's presence, for being in the “secret place of the Most High” (Psalm 91) means being in His presence, as in His sanctuary. The feast of Sukkoth represents this (for the two concepts are tied together in Psalm 18:11). We seek His presence not through some rituals that no one can understand, but by doing what He gives us to do. How can we say we love YHWH without loving His people who we can see? (1 Yochanan 4) We are all fascinated by the mysteries of prophecy, but is it so that we can feel more prepared when Y'shua returns? He calls us to be prepared regardless! The context (v. 18) says a whole tribe may be the party that turns away because of a "bitter root". Indeed, the tribe of Ephraim led the way into the idolatry that culminated in this scattering to other lands. Concealed things: or, "the hiding away of oneself". Focusing on self is the very reason these things come about. But, on a deeper level, YHWH has the right to conceal a matter, but He has given kings authority to search it out. (Prov. 25:2) Those ransomed by Messiah are called "kings and priests", so our job is to seek out the deeper meaning here--to see beyond the literal SO THAT we can carry out His intent. 2 Peter 1:5ff says that if we do certain things we will be guaranteed a generous place in the Kingdom. But the writer of the Zohar said, "Woe to the man who sees the Torah as more than an outer garment." Even if we keep every word of it, we have not necessarily carried out His instructions. The words merely represent His instruction; we have to listen to what they teach us when we obey. By the doing, we are enabled to see into the secret things. We find that, for example, ritual uncleanness represents selfishness, and the applications multiply exponentially into every aspect of life. The Torah is the clothing shaped like the Man inside--the Man we are to become (Eph. 3:3-12) and of whom Y'shua is the Head. Another tense of the word used here for "open" means "taken into exile", which indeed happened to them. The intent was that they would listen and avoid these judgments, but the fact that they did not sets the stage for the riches of the next chapter. Paul speaks of the mystery of the Gentiles turning (back) to YHWH (Romans 11:25; 16:25) and being cut off from an evil root and grafted (back) into the root of Israel, the cultivated tree. What he "opened up" then about the mystery is that this scattering had to happen so that as the apostles of Y'shua searched among all nations for "the lost sheep of the House of Israel" (those scattered from the northern Kingdom, Mat. 10:6; 15:24), people from every one of those nations would, in the process, have the opportunity to attach themselves to the Elohim of Israel. But when that was completed, the dragnet stretched to all nations would be pulled back in and those who chose to come back into this covenant with YHWH would be brought back to the Land. This promise runs through all the prophets, but a veil remained over them (2 Cor. 3:11ff) until it was lifted again in recent years, and when it did it exploded into a people liberated again to love the instruction He had provided for us! Having covenant with YHWH means doing things His way, and this is no secret. With this information, we are able to be certain that we are carrying out what He wants rather than being left to wonder.

CHAPTER 30

When: literally, because. Things: literally, words, i.e., the blessings and the curses. He is saying a time would come when we had been through both and could in retrospect see the results of each. Caused you to be banished: or, misled you. Would YHWH mislead His people? If we continued to insist on doing things our way, yes. This was one of the terms of the covenant that our ancestors agreed to. YHWH had the foresight to know that allowing us to continue picking and choosing which of His words to obey would only lead us into more and more decay and eventually death. We still suffer the effects of ancient compromises: calling Him by the names of pagan deities, calling the wrong day the Sabbath, substituting other holy days for His. But idolatry also has a modern face: exalting our own independence over what He wants. Even innocent pursuits, if at the expense of what He has commanded, are idolatry. We have wanted Him to find our rebellion acceptable, and yet still have access to His promises. But it does not work that way. So He took our heritage away so we would recognize our need for Him and learn to trust that everything He wants to give us will benefit us. He allowed us to be under corrupt shepherds who led us astray (Yirmeyahu 50:6), though He will one day call them to account. (Y’hezq’el 34:2-10) Yehudah remained a close, identifiable community throughout the exile, but the Northern Kingdom dissolved away in assimilation with the Gentiles we were among. Nonetheless, that day is upon us, and we are remembering His Torah while still ine exile among the nations.

Return: or repent. We need to admit that we have deserved every curse that has befallen us. As long as we are still outside our Land, and are not hearing Y’shua teach us in person, we are still under the effects of the curses, and as long as we follow our own selfish hearts, we will remain there. Obey: or "hear intelligibly". Note the order: after we repent, we will hear His voice. Heart: or mind, understanding--i.e., your whole "inner man". Note that His voice is equated with all of Moshe’s words. The Torah is the “how to” of loving YHWH and loving the fellow members of our flocks as ourselves.

Recover those who were taken away: or, turn back your captivity. We remain beaten as long as we do not realize we are captives. Compassion: a direct reversal of the curse in Hos. 1:6. His compassion includes His even allowing us the freedom to make choices that lead to repentance. As we take a step back toward the father, He runs toward His prodigal people, for He still wants us back. We can “come as we are”, but must not expect to stay that way. But we need to “take a shower” to remove the filth so it will not still surround us when He allows us a hot bath. Assemble: the word is the same root from which we get the modern word "kibbutz" (collective), so it implies that before He returns us to the Land, we will first be formed into a tight-knit community much like the one the apostles had in Yerushalayim in the first years after Y'shua's first coming. But although each of us may realize he is a piece of a once-holy vessel, after we are cleaned up as an archaeologist does, we are still not useful for His purposes until we are all collected into one place and reassembled in the right context. Disengaging us from the nations, though unpleasant at first, is thus also part of His compassion. We no longer have to wait for the sentence to run out; the time is already up. It is our move now; He is waiting for us to do what is right. That is why the Son does not know the time the Father has set. Do not be the one that is holding up the fulfillment of the promise! Y’shua commands us to watch. It means to stay alert, but in Hebrew it also means to be on guard. How can we guard a city we are not even near? When there are enough of us to guard it (and only He knows how many that will take), He will send Y’shua to lead us Home. For now we need to guard one another by loving and serving one another.

Banished: or "thrust outward". Farthest reaches of the sky: or the borders of heaven. Who knows but that there may be an Israelite who is living in the space shuttle or space station at the YHWH calls all Israel back to the Land! But we were also “lost in the heavens” when we made “Heaven”, rather than the Promised Land, our goal. Fetch you away: The term is also used of taking a bride, and once we are gathered that is what we can be for Him. As individuals, none of us can fulfill that role.

He does not say He will bring us to Heaven; the Promised Land is still actually a land! The Kingdom is still hidden away in the other realm until the time is right for it to be manifested, but it is not somewhere in the clouds. Possessed: literally, "took possession of" or "seized". Thus the frame of reference is the end times, not the time of the people to whom Moshe is speaking, because while their ancestors inhabited the Land, they had not yet taken it over, dispossessing others in the process. That was still to come. Enlarge you: Ovadyah 19 and Zech. 10:10 tell what some of these new borders will include, yet it may go even further, because YHWH promised Avraham all the way to the Ferath (Euphrates) River! But it can also mean "make you more numerous" and "grow you up". Compare 1 Chron. 4:9-10.

Heart: understanding, inclination, appetites. After we are back in our Land, He will take away everything in us that keeps us from understanding and responding as we should. But even then this will not be done by magic. He will provide us with the knife, but we must cut away the selfish desires through deciding to love our fellow flock-members as ourselves instead. As we look back at what we were only a few years ago--thinking we were faithful to Him, yet adamantly insisting that we did not need His Torah--we can rejoice that He has taken away this obstacle and our every excuse has vanished into thin air! Thrive: not being anxious or fruitless, even in a drought, since we trust in YHWH, not Mammon or anything else. (Yirm. 17:7ff)

This recalls to mind how YHWH punished Assyria for taking Israel captive once their job was done, even though they were YHWH's own agent of discipline for Israel, since they did it out of selfish motives. (Yeshayahu/Isaiah 10:12) Like Pharaoh, they were just "extras" needed to play out a drama so there could be an antagonist, but they thought it was for their own sakes, and because of their own greatness. Yeshayahu 62:8 says that from this time onward, He will never again give what is ours to others as He did when we rebelled (ch. 28). How does this square with Y’shua’s command to love our enemies? He was speaking to Israelites or other Israelites. We still injure and cause grief to one another, but we need to remember that we are brothers and treat one another that way. Those on the outside are YHWH’s problem. (1 Cor. 5:12-13) Having an attitude like David’s (e.g., Psalm 69) toward YHWH’s enemies—those who persecute His people—is not wrong. His enemies will fall, and those from within Israel who abandon love for one another will be left behind when it comes time to go home, having written themselves out of Israel.

9. "Then YHWH your Elohim will give you more than enough in every undertaking of your hand, in the fruit of your womb, in the fruit of your livestock, and the fruit of your tilled ground, resulting in prosperity, because YHWH will return afresh to rejoicing over you to better [you], just as He rejoiced over your ancestors,

Sha'ul (Paul) ties "walking worthy of the Master" with this "being fruitful in every good work" as we increase in our knowledge of YHWH. (Colossians 1:10) Children, livestock, a land, and food are the true, solid wealth, unlike the "money" which always changes in value and today is often just a figment of a computer's imagination.

If: All of these promises for the latter day still contain a conditional clause, something our Christian shepherds told us was no longer part of the agreement.

Contrary to what the corrupt shepherds taught us in order to keep us from the treasure YHWH had for us, the Torah is not impossible to keep, and it is not deadly. 1 Yochanan 5:3—in the Renewed Covenant--agrees that "His commandments are not burdensome." Y'shua compared the "easy yoke" that he "lays upon us" with the heavy burdens the P'rushim (Pharisees) were laying on people (Matt. 11:29-30; 23:4ff). The commandments of men we cannot keep, for they do not line up with reality. Their overextension of the Torah is where the problem lies, not in the Torah itself. What is written in it (v. 10) is all we are responsible to obey. A yoke gives us control over a burden and distributes the weight both over the whole body so it will not be so difficult, and allows more than one beast to share the same burden, making it much lighter on both. His yoke is meant to be shared by all Israel. A community can keep His commandments where individuals cannot. The more we practice it, the more it becomes what we want to do, not what we “have to do”. Paul calls this verse the “word of faith” (Rom. 10:5ff)—confidence that we can actually fulfill the Torah. We should not say we do not need to keep it since Y’shua already did; He made it even more possible for us to carry out. Even though His yoke led Him to an execution stake, and He calls us to ollow Him even there, when it is for the sake of all Israel and not just for self, it becomes much less threatening.

Sky: or heaven. Paul says that the righteousness that is of faith does not ask this question. (Rom. 10:4-8) "No one has ascended into heaven, except the one who came down from heaven--the Son of Adam who is [now] in heaven." (Yochanan 3:13) He is the goal--the target, the point--of the Torah. (10:4)

14. "Rather, the Word is very near to you--[right] in your mouth and in your heart, so that you may carry it out.

Y'shua the Messiah is called the Word of YHWH (Yoch. 1:1), and it is his glorified spirit indwelling us that makes it possible for us to obey even the parts of this instruction (Torah) that seem difficult. When our true neighbors—those of the same flock—are in close proximity, we can practice Torah; how can we obey the commands to restore a borrowed item we have broken or what has gone astray from its owner, if he is nowhere near us to lose it or lend it to us? Mouth...heart: Sha'ul explains this: "If you confess with your mouth that Y'shua is Master, and believe in your heart that YHWH has raised him from the dead, you will be delivered." (Rom. 10:9) This time, deliverance will be to our Land, corporately.

16. "even as I order you today to love YHWH your Elohim and guard His orders, His prescribed customs, and His legal procedures, so that you may thrive and increase greatly. Then YHWH your Elohim will cause you to be blessed in the Land to which you are going, in order to inherit it.

He tells us to guard every aspect of the Torah, so there is no room to wiggle out of any of them. It is the choosing (see v. 19) that allows us to have it written on our hearts. It is not our own personal lives we must choose (doing that is what got us into trouble), but the life of Israel.

Turns away: LXX, "changes". Note the progression in how our various members respond: If our heart turns off our hearing, our feet will be pulled away by an outside source. "Drawn away" could also read "compelled". In contrast, if we "guard" His ways, we preserve our ability to hear and live as our true selves, fulfilling the calling for which we were carefully and specifically designed. But the guarding takes an interesting twist, because trying to keep the Torah for its own sake, rather than for YHWH’s and Israel’s (not one or the other), can make it our elohim. We do not serve the words or the doing, but the purpose. Even if we kept every detail to the letter, if it is for selfish reasons—like personal salvation—our righteousness will not surpass that of the P’rushim Y’shua criticized. It must be kept in the context Y’shua put it back into—the very context verse 20 below tells us it was meant to be a means to: love. Make no mistake; the torah is the key to our return. But it is a tool, a means to the end, not the end in itself.

This time, if we turn away from habitual obedience, we will perish altogether.

This calling of the most potent witnesses available is a common aspect of a covenant-cutting ceremony.

This defines what life is and what love is and is not. Hold tightly: the term used of a man "cleaving" to his wife (Gen. 2:24), for Israel is His bride. Paul prays that by Messiah dwelling in our hearts, we may grasp what is indeed incomprehensible, and be filled with all the fulness of YHWH. (Eph. 3:18) Those who do return and have all the curses that were on our ancestors removed will rebuild the ancient places that were ruined, and be dressed as a bride! (Yeshayahu 61:1-10) He is your life: It is not His provisions per se, but YHWH Himself that sustains us (8:3), and we live only because He chooses to remember us. Life is not a qualitative thing that one can measure; we can only see evidence that it is present or departed. The Messiah is also called our life (Col. 3:4), because he participated with YHWH as the agent of creation (Yochanan 1:3,4), and His redemption means we have another occasion to not only rejoin the commonwealth of Israel from which we cut ourselves off, but also have the life that Adam lost restored to us, since he, as the Second Adam, in a sense started a new human race in which we have the hope of participating, having been given the “down-payment” (2 Cor. 1:22). Length of your days: Jewish scholars say that this means that your life will continue in the age to come (the Messianic Kingdom). How can those to whom Y'shua says, "I never knew you", continue to exist? If YHWH expels someone from His memory, where can he be? It would be as if he had never existed.