Moses 7 Trips (pdf)
Ekev Slides (pdf)
Ekev Notes (pdf)
Overview of Ekev (“On the Heels of”) Deuteronomy 7:12 – 11:25
The Hebrew name of this Portion is ekev, which means “because”. It is literally translated as “on the heels of” because it comes from the word for ‘heel’… which is also the root of Jacob’s name. We are told that his name means ‘deceiver’, but it was Esau who gave him that name; his parents named him ‘heel-grabber’ because at birth he was holding onto Esau’s heel…perhaps to keep him from crushing his head (Genesis 3:15).
In last week’s Portion, Moses completed his first message of Israel’s history, and he started the second message: Yehovah’s blessings come from obedience to Him. (We’ll get to the curses for disobedience later in the Book). He restated the requirements of the Sinai Covenant originally given in Exodus 20-23; and he summarized them in the Shema. When asked what was the greatest commandment, Yeshua responded with the Shema:
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
Moses continues by using history to show Yehovah’s faithfulness towards Israel and telling of His promises for victory over the Canaanites if they are obedient to His commandments.
Chapter 7 – Yehovah’s Promises
If Israel will hear (shema) Him, keep (shamar) His covenant conditions, and do (asah) them; then He will:
Love them Bless the Fruit of their Womb
Bless them Bless the Fruit of the Land
Multiply them Keep Egypt’s Diseases from them
He will drive out the Canaanite inhabitants of The Land little by little, “lest the beasts of the field become too numerous for you.” He will allow them to conquer only the amount of land that they can control before giving them additional territory to conquer. Once conquered, they must destroy all the idols of the Canaanites, not even keeping the gold and silver from which they were made. Have nothing to do with those idols! This is still His desire for us today.
Chapter 8 – Yehovah’s Mercy in the Wilderness
Moses said: “The Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.” The Hebrew word that is translated ‘test’ is nasa, which is better translated as ‘prove.’ The purpose of the 40 years in the Wilderness was not to test Israel so that Yehovah could see who would pass that test – He already knew that! The true purpose was to prove to each person that he could pass the test! Unfortunately, the entire First Generation had too much Egypt in them, and it was the Second Generation who proved their obedience.
Moses reminds Israel that Yehovah provided for their every need for 40 years in the Wilderness: manna from Heaven and water from the Rock…and their shoes lasted the entire 40 years. Yeshua said the same thing in His Sermon on the Mount:
“Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” (Matthew 6:25-34)
This is a message that all of us (and I include myself in that statement) should take to heart; we should all ask ourselves this question: “Do I put material things before Yehovah?” We should “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these [material] things shall be added to you.”
The chapter ends with a warning: “Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, His judgments, and His statutes which I command you today…” And the sentence goes on for another six verses listing all the ways that they (we) would forget Him as they (we) live in their (our) abundance.
Yehovah made us and He knows our nature; when life is good for us, we will turn our back on Him. Jewish tradition has prayers before every meal to bless Yehovah and to thank Him for His provision of food and drink. But they also say the Birkat HaMazon, the blessing after the meal:
Sovereign God of the universe, we praise You: Your goodness sustains the world. You are the God of grace, love, and compassion, the Source of bread for all who live; for Your love is everlasting. In Your great goodness we need never lack for food; You provide food enough for all. We praise You, O God, Source of food for all who live. As it is written: When you have eaten and are satisfied, give praise to your God who has given you this good earth. We praise You, O God, for the earth and for its sustenance. Let Jerusalem, the holy city, be renewed in our time. We praise You, Adonai, in compassion You rebuild Jerusalem. Amen.
This is done as a reminder to bless Yehovah in the good times, too (when we are full and satisfied after a meal) so that we will not fall into complacency.
The notes and the Power Point slides show Alexander Tyler’s Cycle of a Nation, which goes from faith all the way to bondage. I know many of you receiving this study live outside of the USA, so I can’t speak for your countries; but I see America teetering on the brink of bondage…at the very end of the cycle. We are citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven (ever since Adam was created as the first ambassador from Heaven to Earth) and we need to start operating in the authority that Yehovah gave to Adam at Creation – that same dominion and authority that Yeshua’s shed blood purchased for us!.
Chapters 9 & 10 – A Reminder of the Golden Calf
Moses reminds Israel of the failings of the First Generation: their worship of the Golden Calf, the rebellion of Korach, the sin of the spies and their seemingly constant murmuring. “You have been rebellious against God since the day I knew you.”
Then he also speaks of God’s forgiveness of their sins and the Second Tablets of Torah, etched by the finger of God following their repentance from the Sin of the Golden Calf. See the notes for the timeline of Moses’ two trips up and down Mt Sinai to receive the two sets of tablets…with the second trip ending on Tishri 10 – Yom Kippur, Judgment Day. Also study the handout: Moses’ 7 Trips for the details of his seven (that’s right…seven round-trips up and down the mountain for 80-year-old Moses!). He reminds them that he interceded with Yehovah and spared them from the death penalty they were under when they committed adultery with Yehovah at the Golden Calf.
It was at the Golden Calf that Yehovah separated Levi from the other Tribes to worship and serve Him. Remember…at Sinai Yehovah wanted Israel to be a Kingdom of Priests; but the Golden Calf destroyed that. So, instead of being a nation of priests, Israel was given a Tribe of Priests.
Chapter 11– Love and Obey Yehovah
The Portion concludes with the second chapter of the Shema; the first chapter (in last week’s Portion) established the “oneness” of God; this second chapter establishes God’s justice: our reward for obedience and our punishment for disobedience.
If Israel keeps Yehovah’s commandments, they:
May be strong
May go in and possess the land
Yehovah will prolong their days in the land
He will bless them with rain at the right time
And He will drive out all the Nations
Haftarah Reading (Isaiah 49:14 – 51:3)
This week’s Haftorah (which is the second of seven “haftorot of Consolation”) is from the Book of Isaiah, as was last week’s Haftarah reading. The Prophet shows exiled Israel expressing their concern that God had abandoned them, but God reassures them that is not the case, comparing His love & mercy to that of a mother’s love for her children. Isaiah describes the ingathering of the exiles before Messiah returns; he addresses their complaint of being abandoned by God by reminding them of their rebellious behavior that brought about their exile. He concludes with encouraging words, reminding them of what had happened to Abraham & Sarah. Just as they were blessed with a child when they had all but given up hope, so too, will God send His promised Messiah – again! We read the beginning of this Portion from Isaiah 49:14-18:
“But Zion said, ‘The LORD has forsaken me, and my LORD has forgotten me. Can a woman forget her nursing child, and not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; your walls are continually before Me. Your sons shall make haste; your destroyers and those who laid you waste shall go away from you. Lift up your eyes, look around and see; all these gather together and come to you. As I live,’ says the LORD, ‘You shall surely clothe yourselves with them all as an ornament, and bind them on you as a bride does.’”
And we read the concluding words of this Portion from chapter 51:1-3:
“Listen to Me, you who follow after righteousness, you who seek the LORD: Look to the Rock from which you were hewn, and to the hole of the pit from which you were dug. Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who bore you; for I called him alone, and blessed him and increased him.” For the LORD will comfort Zion, He will comfort all her waste places; He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness will be found in it, thanksgiving and the voice of melody.”
Brit Chadashah (Romans 8:31-39)
The Brit Chadashah reiterates God’s promise from the very beginning of this Torah Portion; a promise He made to Israel … and also to us:
“…because you listen to these judgments, and keep and do them, the LORD your God will keep with you the covenant and the mercy which He swore to your fathers. And He will love you and bless you and multiply you…”
The Apostle Paul also states this concept of obedience bringing blessing in his Epistle to the Congregation in Rome; we read from Romans 8:31-39:
“If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Messiah who died, and furthermore is also risen, Who is even at the right hand of God, Who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Messiah? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword. As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Messiah Yeshua our LORD.”