DEUTERONOMY
Lesson 48 - Chapter 33
We are quickly approaching the end of our in-depth study of the first 5 books of the Bible. I am
sure that many of you have now fully grasped just how important to our faith in Christ that it is
to set its foundation upon the Torah, and to set the New Testament that presents us with our
Messiah on top of that.
Yet I also know from talking with some of you that this has been anything but an easy path of
discovery; that it has at times been painful to realize that we have in the past often relied on
agenda driven doctrines as the checkpoints of our faith rather than the Word of God as it
stands. I also know that others of you may remain at least somewhat unconvinced of the
continuing validity of the Law of Moses that forms a goodly part of the Torah; and others of you
are terribly uncomfortable with the smirks and words directed your way from those who think
you have turned against the long-cherished beliefs of the mainstream church or even that you
may have watered down your trust in Jesus Christ and instead are adopting some outdated
form of self-justification that has proved ruinous to many Jews for over 2500 years.
I ran across something recently that might ease the discomfort for some, and do something
else for the remainder of you: validate what you’ve learned and give you enthusiasm, joy and
the commitment to learn even more of the original testament of the Bible despite the efforts of
many to derail you.
One of the scores of sources I use to create these Torah Class lessons is the World Biblical
Commentary. I think I can say without much risk of disagreement that within the realm of
Christian academics this commentary series ranks as the best and most complete work of
Bible research and exegesis accomplished in the 20
th
century and no single work has
surpassed it. This commentary series consists of 52 separate volumes totaling well over
30,000 pages. It has been written and edited by the best minds of Christianity’s elite
theologians and scholars. What makes it unique is not only the depth of each volume, but the
mixture of specialized fields of each of the contributors. This is neither a liberal oriented nor a
conservative oriented series. It simply attempts to reveal to the layman and clergy the most up
to date understandings gleaned from the Bible in a straightforward manner without glossing
over difficulties or applying allegory to solve them.
The writer of the 2-volume Deuteronomy study that approaches 2000 pages in length is Duane
L. Christensen. Dr. Christensen has a well-rounded background; he received his first training
from the American Baptist Seminary, then advanced training at M.I.T, then it was on to Harvard
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for his Dr. of Divinity, and next he added to those accomplishments a long stint at the
Pontificate University in Rome and later Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
I tell you all this to demonstrate that what I am about to quote to you comes from a very studied
gentile Christian scholar who was trained from a variety of theological viewpoints, and who is
considered one of the greatest living authorities on the Old Testament. So bear with me as I
quote to you a paragraph or two from his 2
nd
volume on the World Bible Commentary study on
Deuteronomy.
Duane Christensen says this: “Deut 33-34 are the traditional readings in the synagogue
liturgy for Simchat Torah (the celebration that occurs among the Jews when the annual
cycle of reading the Torah from beginning to end has come to a close). Christians would
do well to recover some of this “joy of the Torah” in public worship. Many have misread
the teaching of Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount. When Jesus said, “You have heard
that it was said to those of ancient times……but I say to you.” in the book of Matthew, He
was NOT replacing the Torah. He was merely challenging the manner in which the Torah
was being interpreted in rabbinic circles of His day. Jesus was interpreting the text as it
was written, for when properly interpreted, there is nothing there that is contrary to His
own gospel message.

Professor Christensen continues:

The Torah is a way of life and a source of meaning and joy to Jew and Christian alike.
The Torah was not intended to be something external to us, which only the highly
trained specialists could understand. The Torah was to be learned by every member of
the community; and the message is exceedingly practical. Jesus summed up the matter
well when He was asked, “Which commandment in the Torah is the greatest? He said to
him, ‘you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and
with all your mind’. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it;
‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the
law and the prophets.”

The Law (the Torah) and the Prophets, to which Jesus referred on this occasion, make
up fully one-half of the Christian Bible, as we know it today. And all of it is built on these
two primary teachings of Deuteronomy. We would do well to become more familiar with
the words of the Torah, as a guide to proper living in the very manner in which Jesus
lived and taught His disciples. What better way to do this than to include once again the
systematic public reading of the Torah within the context of Christian worship?”
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In this slogan-ized world we live in, Christians enjoy wearing wrist bands that asks the
question: WWJD…..What would Jesus do? Dr. Christensen answers that question in the most
fundamental way by saying that Jesus would encourage us to live the Torah life and to teach
the Torah principles. Rest assured, Torah Class, that we are doing exactly that (imperfectly as
it may be) and you are part of nothing less than a latter day revival within the Church to bring
back the Word of God, all of it, and make it the center of our lives and worship. But it is also
meant for us to learn to discern, and then discard, all which is not of God but is only of men.
What it will take is a willingness to be molded and shaped by the Lord. That divine shaping
includes pruning; it means having things removed that are dead and dying from our lives (but
oh so warm, familiar and comforting) so that they can be replaced with new and vibrant growth.
As Dr. Christensen says so eloquently, what better way could there possibly be than for a
Believer to get into the Torah and see it for what it is; the way of goodness and life as defined
by the Creator. Make no mistake: the Torah is NOT there to save us. Yeshua does that. But
once we are saved and redeemed by His atoning blood, what else could be our proper
response than to serve Him through obedience? And where else can we find what obedience
amounts other than in His written Word? If we look to our own hearts as the source of His will
for our lives, or search out men’s philosophies (no matter how outstanding they may sound)
for the borders and boundaries we should live within so that we can dwell in harmony with
Yehoveh, then we will be drinking from a thoroughly muddied water supply.
Open your Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter 33.
READ DEUTERONOMY CHAPTER 33 all
The Song of Moses of Deuteronomy 32 and the Blessing of Moses that we just read in chapter
33 together form what amounts to Moses’ last words to the people of Israel. It cannot help but
be noticed, though, that there is a rather sharp contrast between the messages of those two
poems.
The Song of Moses is essentially the history of Israel’s redemption, and redemption revolves
around God’s justice system. It is full of warnings and presents a dark future for Israel if they
follow the nearly inevitable path of idolatry and rebellion against Yehoveh. The Blessing of
Moses, however, presents the possibility and hope of a happy future with abundance and
godly prosperity; and it does so within the framework of a series of prophetic pronouncements
concerning each tribe of Israel separately.
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This encouraging and upbeat message presents a side of Moses that Israel likely never saw
before this moment. He spent the last 40 years of his life trying to guide a people who resisted
that leadership at every step. He presided over the giving of the Torah and the carrying out of
the Law during that entire time, using the stick far more than the carrot because the disposition
of those stubborn people he governed required it. The people saw Moses as the one who
rebuked and instructed them. Just as with our modern criminal law system, those in charge of
dispensing justice deal almost exclusively with the prosecution and punishment side of the
equation; blessings that come from the system of American jurisprudence manifests itself
mainly as only the absence of punishment and does not include reward for doing right.
Most times God handed out the blessings, and Moses handed out the consequences for
misbehavior; God made the laws and Moses enforced them. Is it any wonder that after years in
the desert leading this reticent nation of 3 million souls that Moses angrily struck a boulder to
bring forth water instead of speaking to it when Israel was thirsty and far from any known water
source. Moses longed for a little credit and gratitude for making these Hebrews’ lives easier;
but instead he was usually the recipient of the daily griping and complaining for making Israel
toe the mark that was set up by the Lord, not Moses.
It seems as if Moses was always the bearer of dire divine warnings and the agent of God’s
curses. He was always sober and serious as his assignment and purpose was such a great
burden upon his all-too-human shoulders. So for him to be able to give a farewell address that
finally spoke ONLY of hope and joy and blessing and a wonderful future was undoubtedly a
great relief to him, and the people likely wondered who that man was that was speaking to
them in such a way, now, after all this time. Moses had been the parent of Israel for the past 40
years and thus he had to act the part. But as Joshua was about to pick up the baton of
leadership and assume the role of Israel’s stern father figure, Moses could transform into
Israel’s kindly grandfather and enjoy Israel for the last few hours of his life.
Those who are grandparents know exactly what I’m speaking of; and those who have not yet
attained such a blessing from God might not. Parents are the heavies in a family; it is the
parents’ responsibility to order structure and lay out boundaries for their children. Fathers and
mothers must establish rules and then follow through by being sure they are obeyed; but they
must also be the ones who execute the punishments for violations. And these rules are being
laid down to little people who inherently just can’t wait to test them and typically they don’t
much like the rules no matter what they might be. Unfortunately it is the norm that (because of
this dynamic) parents must demand more respect than love from their offspring; and usually in
order to attain that respect the child must acquire a healthy measure of the fear of
consequences for crossing paths with the all powerful lawgiver: dad.
Grandparents on the other hand are more relaxed about the whole process of dealing with
bringing up children. We finally have a better handle on what matters and what doesn’t; we’ve
seen it all and our motto has become, “this too will pass”. Grandparents don’t have to deal
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with either establishing discipline or carrying it out beyond perhaps withholding that second
chocolate bar. We tend to take a rebellious grandchild who still thinks he can flush an entire
unfurled roll of toilet paper down the commode (despite the same results for the 9
th
consecutive time) and tell them of the time that we washed a dozen our father’s best white
dress shirts along with the two fountain pens we forgot to remove from the pockets.
Or we will stand just around the corner where they can’t hear us and adore the creativity as
they are hatching a plan to make a clubhouse, complete with campfire, out of the interior of
grandma’s minivan. Grandparents have a different perspective on life than a parent can afford
to have.
Moses was now the grandfather of Israel and for a very brief time he could look at Israel
through eyes filled with adoration and hope and mercy and leave the worry and discipline to
someone else.
The first verse makes it clear that it was not Moses who wrote down the words of this 33
rd
because it speaks of Moses in the 3
rd
person, and it speaks of him in the past tense. This is
written like a person recalling the Gettysburg address after Lincoln had succumbed to his
wounds.
We find in this first verse an important (but not heretofore used) title for Moses; he is called “a
man of God”. Some scholars say that this never-before-used title for Moses is proof that a
Hebrew editor added the 33
rd
chapter of Deuteronomy a long time after Moses lived, but
another explanation is much simpler. A “man of God” is but another way of saying “prophet”,
and we’ll see several prophets in the Bible specifically called “a man of God”. Moses held the
unique office of Mediator of Israel, but now that his time was over it was appropriate to reveal
another attribute of Moses and his pronouncements; it is that the words he spoke were often
prophetic. Moses indeed was a prophet, a man of God.
The farewell address Moses was about to speak looks very much like the great Patriarch
Jacob’s deathbed blessing upon his sons, the tribes of Israel, as recorded in Genesis. Like
Jacob’s blessing Moses’ blessing takes on a number of forms. Some of the blessings
resemble an ordination of the firstborn as the new national authority; other blessings are hope
for a pleasant future. Most often these blessings are descriptions of the nature and character of
the various tribes, as they would be in their assigned territories of Canaan, and some were
petitions to Yehoveh for their tribal destinies to be supernaturally ensured and protected.
Appropriately, before Moses begins to pronounce his deathbed blessing upon his people, he
gives credit where credit is due: to the glorious unmatchable God who formed Israel and who
has agreed to be their God and their redeemer. To best understand the purpose and context of
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the first several verses we need to see that what is being described is the approach of
Yehoveh from the wilderness regions that are primarily south of the Promised Land. The
picture painted for us is of Yehoveh coming from the mountains of these southerly deserts in
order to deliver Israel from the cruel hands of Egypt, and then to redeem them unto Himself as
His people. Therefore these passages speak of Sinai (the Sinai Peninsula and Mt. Sinai), Seir
(the region and the mountain) in the land of Edom, and despite the usual translation of “Mount.
Paran” it is the mountains of Paran that are being referenced (no specific mountain peak
called Mt. Paran has ever been identified).
Next there is a reference to a place called Ribeboth-kodesh that appears in both the Dead
Sea Scrolls and in the Septuagint (the first Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible), but is not
presented as a place in the Masoretic Texts so we won’t find it characterized that way in the
CJB. Ribeboth means “myriads” and so the title of the place is “myriads of Kodesh”. Thus
the Masoretic Text takes the phrase ribeboth-kodesh and instead of making it a place, makes
it into a literal phrase: “myriads of holy ones” (thus giving us a mental picture of angelic
beings). But this idea of God approaching the Promised Land from myriads of angels when the
entire passage is about the desert regions Israel traveled through to get to Canaan simply
doesn’t fit. Almost for sure this is speaking of an area near Kadesh (not of angels), since
Kadesh is located in the Wilderness of Paran, right at the border of Seir.
For the next several verses in Deuteronomy 33 the various Bible translations can look
substantially different from one another. This Blessing of Moses is filled with odd phrases that
have baffled the language scholars and that are even a couple of Hebrew words that appear
nowhere else in the Bible, leaving their meaning very much in doubt. Further some of the
phrases seem out of place and at times out of context, so Bible translators and interpreters
have had a most difficult time here. We won’t get into all the possibilities of their interpretation
because even the ones that are the most accepted are just a consensus of speculation. This is
one of those times when it seems that even the earliest Bible documents at our disposal have
had the text of these particular verses corrupted (albeit in some kind of minor way) such as a
misspelling that went unnoticed for copy after copy; or more likely it was a basic Hebrew
translation problem and this is because the earliest Hebrew alphabet (what is sometimes
called Proto-Hebrew) didn’t even include some letters such as the aleph, heh, vav, and yod .
To help you understand what that means for us, imagine if the King James Bible had been
written using a 22-letter alphabet instead of the modern 26 letters (this is NOT the case its just
an illustration to help us visualize the problem). And then someone attempted to convert the
English words formed using only 22 letters and sounds into English words that employed 26
letters and sounds. While much of the time it would be reasonably doable and produce good
results, at other times it would leave us with strange words and phrases that would make little
sense to us. Thus while the conversion from the most ancient Hebrew alphabet to the more
modern took place perhaps 3000 years ago, the transliterated (but odd sounding) phrases we
find here in Deuteronomy 33 would have had an understandable meaning passed down by
tradition to the Hebrews of that age; but when taking it more literally (because the tradition of
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its intended meaning has been lost) we have a hard time making sense of it. So we’ll not
linger here.
I will make one brief comment however. In verse 5 we again run into this strange epithet of
Yeshurun, as it is referring to Israel; it literally means “the upright one”. And the idea being
expressed in these verses (despite the many variations of the precise wording) is that among
Yeshurun (Israel) a king arose and it happened during a gathering of the leadership of Israel.
This cryptic comment is remembering the day that God was made king of Israel by the tribal
leaders of Israel at the covenant acceptance ceremony at Mt. Sinai. Recall that the people of
the Exodus said that instead of Israel having a human king as all their neighbors had, they
wanted God to be their king.
The reason for this collective decision was a noble one in the hearts of some Israelites and not
so noble in the hearts of others. Many Israelites truly trusted Yehoveh, had at least some
inkling of His power and sovereignty, and so sincerely wanted the Lord to govern them through
their Mediator, thinking it best. Others just didn’t want ANY leader over them that the power of
a king. They had just escaped from the king of Egypt and so the thought of setting another king
over them (more or less at their own doing) was more than they could bear. Further while the
Israelite may have accepted the concept of a need for a human king it is hard to imagine that
the leaders could have ever settled on which of the 12 tribes would have the honor of providing
that king. Tribalism then as now looks to the welfare of its own members above that of any
other tribe. Therefore the tribe that the king comes from always gets special care, additional
protection, extra favors, and a greater share of power. Thus there is never-ending tribal
maneuvering that often leads to outright war among tribes to be the dominant one that
produces the king or ruler of the region. The wars we hear of today in the Middle East and in
Africa are essentially tribal and/or sectarian. That is they are Muslim versus Muslim, or Muslim
versus Christian, or extended family versus extended family.
Beginning with King Saul, and right up until the Romans conquered Israel, we read in the Bible
of the litany of conspiracies and murders among the tribal leaders of Israel as they vied for
power once they decided that they would rather have a human king than a divine one. The
world is in turmoil today because it rejects the God of Israel and instead wants to continue on
our rather unsuccessful path of governing ourselves by means of flawed human leadership.
Let’s move to verse 6 that begins the list of individual blessings Moses pronounces upon the
tribes of Israel; the first tribe mentioned is Reuben.
Interestingly the very place Moses was standing at the time of this blessing was in Reuben’s
territory. Rueben and Gad and approximately ½ of the clans who together formed tribe of
Manasseh settled on the east side of the Jordan River (the so-called Trans-Jordan). On the
one hand it is logical that Reuben would be the first tribe mentioned because he was Jacob’s
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firstborn son. Yet nearly 3 centuries earlier Jacob removed the firstborn rights of inheritance
traditionally due to Reuben because he had sexual relations with Jacob’s concubine Bilah. So
instead that firstborn inheritance was split into two part, and one part of it went to Judah and
the other part to Joseph (technically it went to Joseph’s son Ephraim). Judah was given the
right to rule over Israel while Ephraim was given the double-portion part of the firstborn
blessing, meaning wealth and abounding fruitfulness ABOVE all of his other brothers.
The blessing is in the form of a plea to the Lord that the tribe of Reuben would “live and not
die”, meaning that Reuben would not become extinct through absorption of it by another tribe
of Israel OR by Reuben being conquered and assimilated by a foreign culture. As we follow the
fortunes of the tribe of Reuben into the future we’ll find that indeed it would survive as a
separate tribe well into the time of the Judges and it is also mentioned in the earliest era of the
Kings. But Reuben becomes almost an afterthought thereafter. Reuben became insignificant
as a tribal entity, meaning that its population diminished greatly and thus lost any meaningful
political power.
Because we Westerner’s have such a meager conception of how tribalism operates let me
interject that what I have just described as having happened to Reuben was a normal and
usual ebb and flow among tribal societies. Tribes didn’t just “disappear”; typically their
numbers drained off into a rival tribe (more often than due to intermarriage). There was nothing
supernatural about a large tribe becoming small or a small tribe becoming large through some
kind of political or economic circumstance. Perhaps a trade route that ran through their territory
would become popular and they would collect taxes and tolls. Or a tribe might control a
seashore that (as shipping evolved) became an ideal port as a major trade highway, so that
tribe would become wealthy merchants. On the other hand a tribe (like Dan) could find itself
living on the border of an aggressive people such as the Philistines, and be no match for them.
Therefore a tribe’s fortunes would rise and fall and with it rode power and prestige or
extinction. Not extinction in the sense that the genes of that tribe were eradicated; but rather
extinct as a separately identified tribal entity with its own government.
A tribe is, after all, merely people that form a large extended family. When a tribe began to lose
its grip and the people of that tribe recognized that there was no foreseeable hope that their
own tribe would remain viable, many of its members would consider ways to solve the problem
as it pertained to them personally. And one way was for their daughters to marry into larger
and more powerful tribes. Another was for a family to simply migrate into another tribal territory
and live there. Living there didn’t automatically make them a member of another tribe but it did
add to the economic and military strength of the tribe whose territory they now lived in simply
by the addition of more people, just as it lessened the economic and military strength of the
migrating family’s own tribe and tribal region. Therefore a tribe was usually quite amenable to
accepting peaceful newcomers.
We find this exact thing happening to the tribes of Israel. But as opposed to other of the
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world’s tribes, Israel’s l tribes had their futures more or less predestined by the Lord at the
bedside of Jacob, and those destinies were reaffirmed here in Deuteronomy by Moses.
The next tribe addressed is Judah. Before we discuss Judah a logical question to ask is what
the rationale is (or if there is one) for the ORDER of the tribal listing in the Blessing of Moses.
For this there is not a consensus but it is rather clear that neither military battle order (as
illustrated by how the tribes were set in groups of 3 around the Wilderness Tabernacle) nor
birth order was involved. Even though Reuben is mentioned first, Judah is certainly not the 2
nd
child born to Jacob. And even though Leah’s first four children are mentioned first the order
gets confused thereafter.
Jeffrey Tigay says that one needs a map opened before us to understand the order of the
tribes as presented here and that the order has to do with geography and with the boundary
lines assigned to each tribal region. Beginning with Reuben (the territory where Moses is
currently standing) the next tribe mentioned is Judah, where the Israelites would first cross into
the Promised Land. Then after Levi, the order of tribal blessings follow a path that heads
northward through Benjamin, and then into the contiguous regions of Ephraim and Manasseh
(the Joseph tribes), next Zebulun and its neighbor to the east, Issachar. Continuing east we
watch the blessing order in Deuteronomy 33 cross back over the Jordan (into the Transjordan
region) and into the territory of Gad, then north to Dan, south from Dan to Naphtali, and finally
westward to Asher. Levi, which was given no territory, is dealt with in between the blessings
given to Judah and Benjamin, undoubtedly because this was the area where Jerusalem would
one day exist and where the priests of Levi would serve at the great Temple.
Judah, the ruling tribe out of which the Messiah would come, is given a blessing that seems to
foresee a time of war and the need for the Lord God to hear the prayers of Judah, aid it in its
battles, and then bring the soldiers back home to their families. The word used to describe the
way in which Judah beseeches the Lord and in which the Lord hears Judah, is a familiar one to
us: shema. Shema means to listen and obey, or listen and take action. It does not indicate the
passive act of listening and only intellectually understanding the plea but going no further. Up
to this point in the Torah the plea has been for Israel to “shema”, to hear and obey, God. Now
the plea is that God would “shema”, to hear and act, on Judah’s behalf when they call on Him
for help
Next the Levites are addressed. Since the Levites are God’s own set-apart Priests the
blessing is focused around their role in society as teachers of God’s Law and officiators of the
all-important rituals. For only the 4
th
time in the Bible the Urim and Thummim are mentioned.
These were two stones stored in a special pouch that was attached to the Breastplate of
Israel’s High Priest, and they were used to determine God’s will in certain matters. How,
exactly, they were used and how it is that they indicated the divine decision has been lost over
the centuries. Even the precise meaning of the words Urim and Thummim are in doubt. Some
think that that the names are indicative of the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet.
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What is self-evident is that the type of answer that the Urim and Thummim gave was limited to
either a “yes” or a “no”.
Nevertheless, the plea from Moses is that the honor of using the Urim and the Thummim would
remain in the hands of the Levites (that’s the “faithful ones” of verse 8), and that God would
continue to reflect his will through the use of those two stones as appropriate.
After the subject of the Urim and Thummim, Moses refers to the Levites as those who were
tested at Massah and Meribah. In other words it makes the Levites as those who were the real
objects of the Lord’s testing at the Wilderness stops at Meribah and Massah. If we look at
Exodus 15:24, 25 we see this:

CJB
Exodus 15:24 The people grumbled against Moshe and asked, "What are we to
drink?"
25
Moshe cried to ADONAI; and ADONAI showed him a certain piece of wood,
which, when he threw it into the water, made the water taste good. There ADONAI made
laws and rules of life for them, and there he tested them.
So the idea is that while all Israel went through this ordeal, it was actually the Levites who were
being measured by the Lord to see if they were the right choice to be His personal Priests.
As is more common than you might suspect in the Bible, there are two word plays in verse 8.
Massah means “testing place” and Meribah means “challenge place”. So the words of this
part of the passage are: whom you tested at the testing-place, and challenged at the challenge-
place”. I only point this out so that you can begin to see that the names of places and
locations in the Bible are almost always established by something of significance that
happened there or is due to an outstanding feature of the place (Be’er Sheva, 7 wells).
Therefore over the centuries a place name might be changed as one culture who has named
the place for a significant happening within their history, gives way to another and newer
culture that has something of a different significance happen at that same place, so they
rename it appropriately.
Verse 10 is essentially the result of what happened with Levi as recounted in verse 9. And it
harkens back to the Golden Calf incident of Exodus 32. Even though it was Aaron who actually
led the rebels in molding the graven image of the Calf, it was also Aaron and his family who
(when confronted by Moses for this horrible sin) saw their error and stood with Moses against
those who went right on worshipping the Calf. Moses and Aaron being Levites, it was natural
that members of their tribe (Levi) would also come and stand with them; but not all Levites did
that. The result was that the Lord ordered Moses, Aaron, and the Levites who joined them to
go about killing all Israelites who continued to bow down to the Golden Calf. And this included
putting to the sword many family members including their own mothers, fathers, sons, and
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daughters. It was this act of repentance and their willingness to forsake that which meant most
to them on the face of this earth (their immediate families), that merited them the honor of
being chosen from among all the tribes of Israel as the Lord’s set-apart servant tribe.
Never one to miss showing you a good example of patterns being established in the Torah and
reoccurring in the rest of the Bible, I ask you to listen to Jesus in Luke 14.

CJB
Luke 14:25 Large crowds were traveling along with Yeshua. Turning, he said to
them,
26
"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father, his mother, his wife, his
children, his brothers and his sisters, yes, and his own life besides, he cannot be my
talmid.
Exodus 32 and Deuteronomy 33:8 form the context for this verse. This is NOT about the
commandment to “honor your mother and father”; it is not about establishing an exception to
that foundational principle. So “hating you father and mother” is not that we are to go out and
kill our families if they commit idolatry, or to leave them if they don’t agree with our newfound
faith; rather it is that we have to be willing to let go of anyone and anything (at the Lord’s
direction) if we are going to follow Messiah. It is that we might have to make some tough and
heartbreaking choices. And Yeshua says to essentially make the same choice (in principle)
that Aaron, Moses, and those who allied themselves to them made back in the days of the
Exodus.
We’ll continue with this next week.
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