Clean & Unclean Animals (pdf)
Re’eh Slides (pdf)
Re’eh Notes (pdf)
Overview of Re’eh (“See” or “Behold”) Deuteronomy 11:26 – 16:17
Moses continues his second message to Israel’s Second Generation by retelling the instructions that Yehovah had given to the First Generation… and by adding some new ones. This Book is more than just a rehash of the instructions that we have already seen before; there are many “new” instructions given here also.
Chapter 11 – Blessings & Curses at Shechem
Last week’s Portion covered most of this chapter and we finish it here. This Portion starts with, “Behold [re’eh] I set before you today a blessing and a curse…”, and Yehovah completes this statement at the end of Torah: “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19). We see here Yehovah’s true heart…one of mercy and compassion for His children. A prominent teaching in the Church today is that there is an “Old Testament God” Who is harsh in His judgments; and there is a different “New Testament God” Who is loving, merciful, kind, and full of grace. Nothing could be further from reality! Yehovah’s mercy started in the Garden and continues all through Torah; He constantly shows His lovingkindness with Israel throughout the 40 years in the Wilderness. He is Holy and as such, He cannot allow sin into His Presence; but He gives us a way (through Yeshua’s shed blood) to enter into that Presence. What an awesome God we serve!
The chapter ends with Yehovah speaking through Moses to Joshua: “Now it shall be, when the Lord your God has brought you into the land which you go to possess, that you shall put the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal.” We are given more details of this commandment in Deuteronomy 27; and we see the fulfillment of it in Joshua 8. The ancient city of Shechem (known today as Nablus) is situated between these two mountains; it was the place where Abram built the first altar (Gen 12:6-7) when Yehovah had appeared to him and promised to give The Land to him. Follow the trail of verses in the Power Point slides to see that this is also the place where the Abrahamic Covenant (Gen 12) was ratified with the animal sacrifice (Gen 15). The significance of this event cannot be overstated: once Israel had entered The Land and defeated Jericho and Ai, they moved on to Shechem to confirm this new Deuteronomy land covenant at the very same place that Yehovah had promised to give The Land to Abram over 400 years earlier!
Chapter 12 Sacrifice at One Altar
As Israel defeats the inhabitants of The Land, they are to destroy all of their places of pagan worship and idolatry. “You shall not worship the LORD your God with such things.” In other words: “Don’t do the things you used to do to your idols and say that you are doing them onto Me.” The traditions of men that have found their way into our worship of Yehovah must be torn down and cast away; we must return to the true Biblical worship of Yehovah.
“But you shall seek the place where the Lord your God chooses, out of all your tribes, to put His name for His dwelling place; and there you shall go. There you shall take your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the heave offerings of your hand, your vowed offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks. And there you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice in all to which you have put your hand, you and your households, in which the Lord your God has blessed you.”
Leviticus requires that all of the above underlined activities must be performed in the Tabernacle (and later in the Temple); to “eat before the Lord” is describing the Fellowship Offering (Lev 7:11-38).
During the 40 years in the Wilderness everyone had access to the Tabernacle; but when they do occupy the Land, most will be too far from the Tabernacle (and later, the Temple) to participate in daily sacrifices. Here Yehovah gives instructions concerning the place (that only He will choose) to offer sacrifices. He gives them permission to slaughter animals for their own consumption without bringing them first to the Tabernacle (or Temple), with one condition: they must not eat (or drink) the blood. But all other sacrifices and offerings to Yehovah must be done at the place that He chooses.
Chapter 13 – False Prophets
Yehovah warns against false prophets – those who give signs and do wonders — that are not from Yehovah. Whether they are strangers, or tribal leaders, or even your own family members there is only one punishment for this activity: death! And how do we distinguish between false prophets and true prophets from Yehovah? Who gets the glory! If a prophet exalts himself or another person, run away! Only true prophets give Yehovah all the glory. There will be a person coming soon who will present himself as the Messiah…but we know him as the anti-messiah. We will all be tested concerning our discernment of false prophets.
Chapter 14 Clean & Unclean
“You are the children of the Lord your God; you shall not cut yourselves nor shave the front of your head for the dead. For you are a holy people to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.”
These are specific pagan practices (we see these same types of antics performed by the priests of Ba’al in I Kings 18:17-40). We are not to do them because Israel is a “special treasure”; and this is repeated in Exodus 19:5. So when we read: “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” (Matt 13:44), we should recognize in this parable that Israel is the treasure that Yeshua gave everything to purchase.
Before we leave this subject, I want to go back to the Kingdom Parables in Matthew 13 and look at the one that follows the Treasure in the Field that we just read:
“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.” (Matt 13:45-46)
Pearls come from oysters which are definitely unclean animals; so pearls are symbolic of Gentiles. If Yeshua gave His life that Israel may be saved in the Treasure in the Field Parable, then He also gave His life that Gentiles would be saved in this Parable; He is the “Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the entire world!”
The chapter continues with a summary of clean and unclean animals that were elaborated in Leviticus 11. You can find a more detailed (but not complete) list of clean and unclean here: https://torahnotes.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Clean-Unclean-Animals.pdf I grew up in the Church under the teaching that Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross did away with the Old Testament…and especially the dietary laws contained in Leviticus 11. After all, Peter’s vision in Acts 10 clearly concluded that we, as Christians, were no longer under these O.T. dietary laws. Well… that is just poor scholarship. Nowhere in this account does Peter say, “Yippee, I can eat anything I want now!”; instead he summarized his understanding of his vision by saying this, “But God has shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean.” (Acts 10:28); Peter’s vision was about people, not about food! If you haven’t adopted a Biblically Kosher diet (based upon Leviticus 11), then I suggest that you seek the Holy Spirit’s guidance concerning following the dietary rules.
The chapter ends with a new commandment – the distribution of the tithe: in the first, second, fourth and fifth years, the tithe is to go to the Temple for the Priests and Levites there. But in the third and sixth years the tithe is to stay local (“within your gates”) to be used to feed the “stranger, the fatherless and the widow who are within your gates.”
Chapter 15 – The Shmitah
We have already learned (Exodus 23:10-11 & Leviticus 25:1-7) that every seventh year all Hebrew slaves were to be released; this commandment is repeated here. We also see that this Year of Release (Shmitah) was to include the forgiveness of all debts. This applied only to debts among Hebrews; any debt to a Gentile remained in full force. It is true that “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” But every seven years everyone started over economically; this is Yehovah’s way of leveling the economy
When Hebrew slaves were released in the Shmitah they were not to go out empty-handed: “you shall supply him liberally from your flock, from your threshing floor, and from your winepress. From what the Lord your God has blessed you with, you shall give to him.” As we have explained in earlier Portions, Hebrew slaves were nothing like our modern concept of slavery. The wealthy in Hebrew society were expected to “mentor” those who were poor; they would take them into their homes and train them to conduct their lives in such a manner that they would prosper. At the end of the seventh year their master would release them, having given them knowledge, training, and resources to survive and prosper in the Hebrew economy. Both the slave is blessed (with knowledge and assets) and the master is blessed (for his obedience to Yehovah). If a slave desired to stay with his master after the seventh year, then he (or she) would show his allegiance to the master by having his ear pierced on the door post of the master’s house (at the threshold…but that’s another teaching for later!). Paul refers to himself as a bondservant (Romans 1:1) in accordance with this Shmitah event. So when people pierce their ear, what does that say about them?… who are they the bondservant of??
The chapter ends with the Offering for the Firstborn: “All the firstborn males that come from your herd and your flock you shall sanctify to the Lord your God.” After the first Passover, all firstborn belonged to Yehovah because His instruction to apply the blood of the lamb to the doorpost spared them from the Tenth Plague. Then, when the Levitical Order of the Priesthood was established (after the Golden Calf), the Levites became Yehovah’s Firstborn; they were dedicated to Him and they took the place of the natural firstborn. In this Portion we see the same thing applying to the firstborn of the animals: they are to be dedicated to Yehovah and sacrificed for the Priests and the Levites to eat.
Chapter 16 – The Shloshim Reg’lim
This is the retelling of Exodus 23:14-17. The Shloshim Reg’lim – literally, “three legs” – refer to the Feast of Unleavened Bread (including Firstfruits), Shavuot (Pentecost), and the Feast of Tabernacles. These are the three Feasts of the LORD when all able-bodied Hebrew men were to travel (“by their legs”) to Jerusalem to present their Firstfruits offering to Yehovah.
However, the chapter starts with the instruction to “keep the Passover to the Lord your God, for in the month of Abib the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt by night. Therefore you shall sacrifice the Passover to the Lord your God, from the flock and the herd, in the place where the Lord chooses to put His name.” This is the first month of the “religious” calendar (now called Nisan). We have learned all about Passover in Exodus 12; and there we saw that the lamb was killed at the doorpost of the family home. But in this Portion, we see that the Passover lamb is to be killed “in the place where the LORD chooses to put His name”, i.e. the Temple in Jerusalem. Wow…is this a change in Torah????? Absolutely, it is!!! (We see another “change in Torah” in Genesis 49:10 with the use of the word “until”.) So…why would Yehovah change the place where the annual Passover lamb was to be slaughtered? So He could continue to control the Passover to prevent it from taking place anywhere that men wanted to do it…just like He did with all the other Tabernacle (and Temple) Offerings.
As we end this Portion, notice that there are five Feasts that Yehovah requires: Passover, Unleavened Bread (including Firstfruits), Shavuot, and the Feast of Tabernacles. However, the list in Leviticus grew from five to seven Feasts…why is that?? (Another change in Torah!) We see the two added Feasts are the ones that are coming up next on the calendar: the Feast of Trumpets and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Why do you suppose Yehovah added these two to His original (in Exodus 23) list of five? They were added (because of the Sin of the Golden Calf – Galatians 3:19) to those Feasts that were part of the conditions that Israel and Yehovah agreed to in the Sinai Covenant (Exodus 23:14-17). Those of us who are already in a covenant (the New Covenant) relationship with Yehovah do not need a special time period to prepare ourselves to have our sins “covered” on Yom Kippur. Yeshua has already forgiven our sins with His blood and, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (I John 1:9) If we confess and repent, our sins are not just covered they are removed from us as far as the east is from the west! (Psalm 103:12).
Haftarah Reading (Isaiah 54:11 – 55:5)
This week’s Haftorah (the third of seven “haftorot of Consolation”) is from the Book of Isaiah, as were the previous two weeks’ Haftarah readings. Here God is addressing “afflicted and storm-tossed” Israel “who has not been comforted,” assuring her that He will fully restore her: the foundations of Jerusalem will be laid with precious stones; her children will be “disciples of the LORD,” and will enjoy abundant peace. God assures her, “No weapon formed against you shall prosper.” The Haftarah Portion ends with God promising Israel an everlasting covenant similar to the covenant He made with King David. We read the concluding verses of the Haftarah from Isaiah 55:1-5:
“Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat. Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in abundance. Incline your ear, and come to Me. Hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you—the sure mercies of David. Indeed I have given him as a witness to the people, a leader and commander for the people. Surely you shall call a nation you do not know, and nations who do not know you shall run to you, because of the Lord your God, and the Holy One of Israel; for He has glorified you.”
Brit Chadashah
This week’s Torah Portion began with the blessings that come from obedience to these commandments, judgments and ordinances from God. The Brit Chadashah contrasts these earthly blessings with the heavenly inheritance we have with our covenant relationship with God, through Yeshua. These New Covenant inheritances are best summarized in Yeshua’s Upper Room Discourse found in John chapters 13–17. As much as I would like to read all these chapters now, we don’t have time…but that can be your homework assignment!! What we will do is read selected verses from chapters 14 & 16 where Yeshua tells His Disciples (and us) what we have inherited through our covenant relationship with Him. We read:
From John 14:12 we read that we are given all power,
“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do…”
From John 14:26, we are taught all things:
“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.”
From John 16:13, we are given all truth,
“However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.”
And finally, from John 16:33, we are given all courage,
“These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but be courageous; I have overcome the world.”
So…no matter what happens in the world around us – no matter how dark it gets, (just like Israel during the Egyptian Plagues), God has already given us all power, all understanding, all truth and all courage through the Power of His Ruach HaKodesh. As we labor to accomplish the Kingdom tasks He has placed before each one of us, we have confidence that He has already equipped us and will protect us and provide for us so that we can accomplish them!