Torah Portions: Leviticus 25:1-27:34

Behar / Bechukotai ('On the mountain' / 'In My statutes')

Who is the owner of the place where you live? Did you buy the property? Or is it leased for a period? Maybe it is rented, where someone else owns the property, but you can use its facilities. Or perhaps the land is owned by another, but the house was a gift for you to live in.

Strangers and Sojourners

There are two linked Torah portions this week, which describe God’s covenant provision for His people Israel in the special gift of a promised land in which to dwell. This provision has two foundational truths:

1. God owns the land (Lev 25:23). In fact, all the earth is His (Ex 19:5).
2. God entered into an unconditional covenant with Abraham and all his descendants about the gift of the land. It was not leased or rented, but was for an “everlasting possession” (Gen 15:18; 17:8).

However, in their “possession” of the land, the Lord said that the people were to consider themselves “strangers and sojourners with Me” (Lev 25:23, KJV), because He would dwell with them there. Thus, each family would possess a piece of the land to live on (but not to own) while keeping their focus upon Him.

We too, in our transient journey through this life, are also strangers and sojourners, pilgrims here for a short time. We should, like Abraham, be looking for a permanent place – a better country; a heavenly one such as our Lord Jesus has prepared for us in His Father’s house (Heb 11:9-10, 16; John 14:2).

Loving Discipline

Secondly, God’s desire was that His people would fulfil their promise to obey all His commandments (Ex 19:8; 24:3) as a witness to the nations around them that He is God and there is no other (Isa 45:22). He would bless them if they listened and obeyed His statutes (Sh’ma Yisrael), bringing safety and peace, but there would be a seven-fold increase in correction if they refused and disobeyed (Lev 26:18, 21, 23, 27). This punishment included pestilence (Lev 26:25; 2 Chr 7:13) – a warning for our own nation also, today.

But those who choose to know the God of Israel find that He disciplines in love for our good, accepting us as sons. His correction of our faults is for our blessing so that a harvest of righteousness and peace may be produced (Heb 12:11).

The Call to Repentance

In mercy, God says to us in Britain today, as He did to Israel through Jeremiah: “if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned” (Jer 18:8). Will we continue to close our ears and go our own way, or will we turn from our sin? The Lord is not wanting anyone to perish but everyone to come to repentance (2 Pet 3:9).

In Jeremiah’s day, when Israel defiled the land by idolatry and abominable practices, people were also dying of deadly diseases (Jer 16:4), as in our nation today. God’s word at the potter’s house was clear: “turn from your evil ways, each one of you, and reform your ways and your actions”. Let us learn from this word and pray that we are not as those who replied: “We will continue with our own plans; we will all follow the stubbornness of our evil hearts” (Jer 18:11-12).

Pray for repentance in our nation, for He desires to bless and save.

Author: Greg Stevenson

Torah Portion: Leviticus 21:1-24:23

Emor (‘Speak’)

‘Social distancing’. A term that was unfamiliar to us at the beginning of 2020 has, in just a few short weeks, become an overriding factor in our actions and attitudes. History shows us that ‘social distancing’ was not always an unknown. The even more devastating ‘Spanish Flu’ of 1918, claiming possibly 100 million lives worldwide, eventually saw this measure being implemented.

‘Social distancing’ of other kinds has also been practised, notably the social elite not wishing to ‘rub shoulders’ with the lower classes. Perhaps the distinct ‘business’ and ‘economy’, ‘first’ and ‘standard’ classes on airliners and trains (respectively) are a contemporary illustration of this.

Levitical ‘Social Distancing’

The chapters in Leviticus covered in this week’s Torah portion include instructions that concern a kind of ‘social distancing’. The priests were to avoid touching a corpse or entering the home of a person who had died (Lev 21:1-3, 11). They were also to avoid marriage to any woman apart from a virgin from their own people (Lev 21:7-8, 13-15).

Temporary ‘social distancing’ (termed as being ‘unclean’) with regard to eating “sacred offerings” was imposed on priests having an infectious disease or bodily discharge (or other prescribed situations; Lev 22:4-8), while priests with worse physical defects were permanently excluded from the altar and the Holy of Holies (Lev 21:16-23).

These instructions affected the attitudes of the religious leaders at the time of Jesus. Sadly, they misunderstood the spiritual significance of what God was saying through the priestly ordinances and adopted a gross sense of misplaced superiority. They “passed by on the other side” when seeing the sick and diseased (Luke 10:31, 32). Those whom they judged as ‘sinners’ were subject to clear ‘social distancing’ protocols (Luke 18:10-13; 19:7).

The Non-Social-Distancing Father!

The action of Jesus totally contrasted that of those leaders, as highlighted by Luke: “Now the tax collectors and ‘sinners’ were all gathering round to hear him [Jesus]. But the Pharisees and teachers of the law muttered, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them’” (Luke 15:1-2). Jesus then told a series of parables clearly showing that ‘social distancing’ was not on God’s agenda!

In that context, the Parable of the Lost Son might be re-labelled: ‘The Parable of the Non-Social-Distancing Father’! The son had deliberately turned his back on his father and family, “squandered his wealth on wild living” and ended up socially excluded by everyone as he fed pigs. Repentance brought him back on the road home. His father saw him from a distance and “ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him” (Luke 15:20). Such action in our days of ‘lockdown’ would result in a fine or imprisonment!

Jesus’ ministry showed that ‘social distancing’ was no part of his plan to “seek and save the lost”. He touched a coffin, ordered a grave to be opened, entered the room of a dead girl. He walked into the environment of the sick and diseased, touched lepers, held the hand of a fevered woman.

Holding Your Hand

He has not changed. In the ‘environment’ which we are now having to navigate, we need to remember that God is with us, never leaving nor forsaking us. God spoke through the Prophet Isaiah in a graphic way: “For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, ‘Do not fear; I will help you’” (Isa 41:13). Is He ‘holding’ your hand?

Author: Stephen Bishop