BeChukotai Slides (pdf)
BeChukotai Notes (pdf)
Overview of Bechukotai (“In My Statutes”) Leviticus 26:3 – 27:34
This Portion is the final two chapters and the final Portion of the Book of Leviticus. The Book began with the “rules” of the Sacrificial System, and it ends with warnings and admonitions for disobedience to Yehovah’s instructions. There is a relatively short list of blessings for obedience and a VERY long list of curses resulting from disobedience. Remember back to the Covenant conditions in Exodus 20-23…there were no curses in those Covenant “laws” – just blessings for obedience. But in this week’s Portion, Yehovah is dealing with covenant-breaking Israel, and the curses abound for covenant breakers.
Chapter 26 Blessing for Obedience / Curses for Disobedience
Blessing for Obedience
The first 13 verses of this chapter list six categories of blessings from Yehovah when we are obedient to Him:
He will give rain
Your crops will be so bountiful that you will still be harvesting when it is time to sow for the next season
You will dwell safely in The Land
He will give you peace
He will respect you
He will walk among you
The same God Who returned Judah and Benjamin from Babylon will return “all Israel” from exile among the nations. Halleluyah!!!
Curses for Disobedience
The rest of this long chapter lists the various categories of curses; they are specific curses and they increase in severity…just like childbirth. They are not necessarily for punishment, but are to provoke repentance. There are six groups of curses: Sickness
Defeat
Wild Beasts
Famine
Siege & Exile
The Fate of the Remnants
Each group manifests in seven ways (see my Bechukotai notes for a complete listing.)
Chapter 27 Vows Made to God
The Book of Leviticus ends with a rather mundane listing of calculations that the Priests were to use when a person dedicated himself to God: the “fee” owed to the Temple is a function of the person’s age.
Likewise, when a person wanted to dedicate a thing to God, the Temple “fee” is based upon the appraised value of the house or field or animal that was to be dedicated.
So, we have completed the reading of the Book of Leviticus and we follow the Rabbinic tradition by saying:
“Chazak, chazak, ve-nit-chazek!” Be strong, be strong, and we shall be strengthened!”
The Haftarah Reading (Jeremiah 16:19-17:14)
The Haftarah discusses the punishments for those who disregard Yehovah’s law, and the blessings that are in store for those who follow His law. This follows the theme of this week’s Torah reading which details at length the blessings and curses. Jeremiah rebukes the people of Israel for their idolatrous ways and for their lack faith in God. He conveys God’s words of wrath towards those who do not put their trust in Him – namely, exile from The Land – and His blessings for those who do trust and obey Him. The Haftarah ends with the following poignant verses: “O Lord, the hope of Israel, all who forsake You shall be ashamed. “Those who depart from Me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters.” Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved, for You are my praise.”
We read from Jeremiah 17:5-8:
“Thus says the Lord: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the Lord. For he shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when good comes, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land which is not inhabited. Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes; but its leaf will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit.”
This week’s Torah Portion is about blessings for obedience to Yehovah’s “law”, but mostly about curses for disobedience. So in the Brit Chadashah teaching, we will look at a commonly misinterpreted pair of verses found in Colossians 2:13-14:
“And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.”
Main stream Christianity (mis-)interprets these two verses by saying that Messiah nailed the laws of Torah to the cross. We are told that the phrase “handwriting of requirements against us” actually means “Torah”; it does not! If Paul intended to tell us that Torah was nailed to the cross…he would have said exactly that…but he did not. To understand the true meaning of “handwriting of requirements against us” we must look in two different directions.
The phrase “handwriting of requirements” takes us to Numbers 5, which describes the very strange procedure to determine the guilt or innocence of a woman suspected of adultery. The suspect woman is brought before the Priest where a number of strange things occur…among them is that she is “put under the oath of the curse” or, in other words, she is asked if she is guilty of the adultery for which she is accused. Her words are then written down by the Priest (the “handwriting of requirements”); he then scrapes those words written in ink from the parchment scroll into a cup of water; and makes her drink it. Her body’s reaction to drinking this “bitter water” will determine her guilt or innocence.
So…what does this have to do with Messiah’s sacrificial death on the cross, you might ask? Well…it has EVERYTING to do with it! While Moses was atop Mt Sinai confirming the Covenant with Yehovah, Israel was down at the foot of the mountain committing adultery against Yehovah by worshipping the Golden Calf. They broke The Covenant with that adulterous act and consequently had “The Law” (contained in Leviticus through Deuteronomy) imposed upon them (they never agreed to it) in order to postpone their punishment (death!) for breaking The Covenant. It was Messiah Yeshua’s sacrificial death on the cross that “nailed that handwriting of requirements” of the adulterous woman to the cross.
The other part of the phrase, “requirements against us” just reinforces the point just made. This phrase takes us to the end of Torah, Deuteronomy 31:26. Here Moses has concluded writing The Book of the Law and he tells Israel, “Take this Book of the Law, and put it beside the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there as a witness against you.” Here he plainly refers to The Book of the Law (Leviticus through Deuteronomy) as “a witness against you.”
So… what was “nailed to the cross” was not the entire Torah; it was just the imposed “Law” (again, Leviticus through Deuteronomy) that was imposed upon covenant-breaking Israel. As Believers, we have accepted the gift of Yeshua’s sacrifice on the cross and are therefore no longer “under The (imposed) Law” contained in Leviticus through Deuteronomy. We are in a New Covenant relationship with Messiah Yeshua which is now written upon our minds and hearts (Jeremiah 31:33)…and those New Covenant “Laws” look a lot like those originally presented to mankind all the way back in The Garden and continuing up to the Sinai Covenant (Exodus 20-23)
This was a longer that normal Brit Chadashah teaching, but I hope it pierces the veil of false teaching that is so prevalent in the Modern American Church.