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Last Will or Covenant in Hebrews 9

Is Hebrews 9:16-17 talking about a last will or a covenant?

Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. 16 For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. 17 For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive. 18 Therefore not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood.
Hebrews 9:15-18 ESV

Most English translations of this passage in Hebrews translate διαθήκη (diatheke) as “covenant” in vs 15 and 18, but as “will” in vs 16-17. This is a bizarre switch. Hebrews 9:16-17 is referring to the sacrificial victim of the covenant, not to a person who is instigating the covenant, nor to a person who has died and left an inheritance.

Reasons We Can Know Hebrews 9:16-17 Is about Covenants not Wills

There are four reasons we can know this without reasonable doubt:

First, a “last will” isn’t the topic in Hebrews. It spends several chapters talking about covenants and then switches to wills for just 2 verses? Verse 18 clearly shows that 16-17 are talking about covenants, not last wills. This passage has nothing at all to do with last wills.

Second, Hebrews 9:16-17 is the only place in the Bible where διαθήκη is translated as “will” instead of “covenant”. This is bizarre and completely contrary to the context of these verses. It should be translated as covenant here, like everywhere else.

That’s not just my opinion.

The ESV Global Study Bible includes a footnote stating that “covenant” is also a possible translation: “…or an ancient Near Eastern “covenant.” Making such covenants included offering an animal sacrifice. Thus both are carried out only after a death.” However “possible” seems to be a severe understatement.

Here’s what John Wesley wrote about v16:

I say by means of death; for where such a covenant is, there must be the death of him by whom it is confirmed – Seeing it is by his death that the benefits of it are purchased. It seems beneath the dignity of the apostle to play upon the ambiguity of the Greek word, as the common translation supposes him to do.

Adam Clarke cites a “learned and judicious” friend with the initials J.C. for this alternate translation:

For where there is a covenant, it is necessary that the death of the appointed victim should be exhibited, because a covenant is confirmed over dead victims, since it is not at all valid while the appointed victim is alive.

He also cites Gilbert Wakefield for this translation:

For where a covenant is, there must be necessarily introduced the death of that which establisheth the covenant; because a covenant is confirmed over dead things, and is of no force at all whilst that which establisheth the covenant is alive.

And Clarke adds, “This is undoubtedly the meaning of this passage; and we should endeavor to forget that testament and testator were ever introduced, as they totally change the apostle’s meaning.”

Third, God’s other covenants were established with a sacrifice. The texts describing the Noahic, Abrahamic, Sinai, and Aaronic include the sacrificial ceremony explicitly. It’s the same with man-made covenants, such as the one between Jacob and Laban, and the one between Abraham and Abimelech.

For the Noahic Covenant:

Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
Genesis 8:20 ESV

For the Abrahamic Covenant:

He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half.
Genesis 15:9-10 ESV

For the Sinai Covenant:

And Moses wrote down all the words of the LORD. He rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel. And he sent young men of the people of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the LORD. And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar. Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, “All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.”
Exodus 24:4-7 ESV

Not every text concerning a covenant describes the sacrifices involved, but the pattern is clear.

Fourth, the New Covenant was not made between the Son and Israel/Judah. It was made between ALL of God and Israel/Judah, and only the Son died. The Son is the sacrificial victim that sealed the New Covenant, not a rich man who died and left postmortem instructions to his survivors.

Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD.
Jeremiah 31:31-32 ESV

The New Covenant Does Not Replace the Old

We can also know that the establishment of a new covenant does not annul or override a previous covenant. We can know this by two reasons:

First, none of God’s previous covenants annulled or overrode any of his other covenants. God’s covenant with Israel at the end of the wilderness journey (the Deuteronomic Covenant, which was not a renewal of the Sinai, but a new covenant “besides the covenant that he had made with them at Horeb” per Deuteronomy 29:1) didn’t replace his covenant with Phinehas, which didn’t replace his covenant with Aaron, which didn’t replace the Sinai Covenant, which didn’t replace the Abrahamic, which didn’t replace the Noahic.

Second, Paul says in Galatians 3:15 that even with a man-made covenant, a new covenant doesn’t annul or modify an older one. Then in v17 he gives an example of how this applies to God’s covenants: the Sinai Covenant did not annul the Abrahamic Covenant. Each covenant has a different purpose (v18-19) and so they operate simultaneously.

To give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ. This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.
Galatians 3:15-18 ESV

The New Covenant was in full force from the moment Jesus died, yet when Hebrews was written 30-50 years later, it did not replace the Sinai Covenant. Hebrews plainly says they are both in operation at that time, even if one is “becoming obsolete and growing old” and “is ready to vanish away”.

In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
Hebrews 8:13 ESV

If both covenants were in force at one time–just like all of the previous covenants that God has ever made–then modern Christian theology has a completely scrambled idea of how covenants work.

The Letter to the Hebrews is so egregiously and commonly misinterpreted as to make it say the opposite of what it actually says. It doesn’t say that the New Covenant replaces the old nor that the priesthood of Jesus replaces that of Aaron. It says that the New Covenant is *superior* because it has superior promises and a superior priesthood.

Those very few verses that appear to say otherwise are easily interpreted in complete harmony with all the rest of the biblical testimony on covenants without any literary sleight of hand. It only appears to be sleight of hand because the harmonized interpretation is so foreign to what our churches have been teaching us.

We shouldn’t be surprised.

O LORD, my strength and my stronghold, my refuge in the day of trouble, to you shall the nations come from the ends of the earth and say: “Our fathers have inherited nothing but lies, worthless things in which there is no profit.
Jeremiah 16:19 ESV

For a more detailed look at the nature of covenants and how they interact with each other, see this video. Please watch the whole thing to the end.

Covenants of Israel, parts 1-5
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Righteousness Beyond Righteousness

Is there any righteousness to be found in obedience to Torah?

And the LORD commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the LORD our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as we are this day. And it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment before the LORD our God, as he has commanded us.
Deuteronomy 6:24-25 ESV

For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them.
Romans 10:5 ESV

Don’t let anyone tell you there is no righteousness to be had in keeping Torah. The Bible says otherwise. There is righteousness and life in obedience to the Law. There is wickedness and death in disobedience.

People get confused because they forget that there are different kinds and degrees of righteousness described in the Scriptures. The existence of the greater righteousness found in a contrite and submitted heart doesn’t negate the righteousness of obedience that comes from that heart.

The Scriptures tell us repeatedly that those who believe in the Messiah will also be judged according to their works. There is the pure and binary righteousness that is granted to us by God’s grace, and there is the righteousness of obedience which God rewards beyond entrance into the Kingdom and Eternity.

All the ekklesia will know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works.
Revelation 2:23

For a more in depth discussion of the nature of righteousness, check out this conversation with Rob Vanhoff!

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Division and Controversy in the Body of Messiah

I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive.
Romans 16:17-18 ESV

When challenged with disruption and endless debates over obscure points of theology, it can be tempting to convene a committee to create a detailed Statement of Faith addressing every imaginable controversy, but such things tend to create just as many problems as they solve. Man-made creeds and doctrinal statements can be helpful for establishing clarity and local practice, but they will always contain some degree of error. They also tend to promote a culture of holding tradition above Scripture.

The first century Christians exhibited both extremes. In fact, much of the New Testament epistles were written to combat one or the other.

On one side, many traditionally religious Jews had come to faith in Yeshua, embracing him as Messiah and remaining zealous for the Law (Acts 21:20-21). They believed that Gentile converts must convert to Judaism and adopt their traditions in order to be grafted into Israel. (See my comments on Romans 11.) Paul’s ministry seemed to have been plagued by troublemakers from this “party of the circumcision” who wanted to bring this “mixed multitude” under their authority. As shown in the Gospel accounts of the Jewish religious leaders’ confrontations with Yeshua (Matthew 23, for instance) they loved to argue about the minute details of how to obey every commandment in every circumstance.

On the other side, many followers of Greek philosophers sought to meld this seemingly new faith with the mysteries of Isis, Orpheus, and others. They tended to reject formally codified rules in favor of mysteries that were only fully comprehensible to the fully initiated. They believed the physical world was illusory, or at least less real than the spiritual world, and so taught either asceticism in order to discipline and escape the physical or licentiousness because the truly spiritual need no limitations on their physical behavior. This syncretic approach created the later Gnostic cults of Basilidianism, Marcionism, and Manicheanism. John’s letters and portions of Paul’s addressed these false teachings. They loved to argue about esoteric ideas with little practical value and less chance of conception.

We’re still the same today. There are never enough rules for some people. If it looks like you’ve mastered one set of man-made practices, they’ll invent another and another, each new doctrine further obscuring the actual Scriptures. And there are never enough lofty, useless theologies for others, forever lost in metaphors and hidden meanings, always learning something new that never seems to require any specific action from them.

Paul wrote a parallel statement in 1 Timothy 6:3-5, describing such people in more detail:

He is prideful, understanding nothing. Instead he is obsessed with arguments and disputes about words—out of which come envy, strife, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction between people corrupted in mind and deprived of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain.
1 Timothy 6:4-5 TLV

Paul’s advice to the Romans was to avoid both camps. He wasn’t telling them to enforce doctrinal purity nor even to quash every disagreement. Rather, he was advising them to focus on the principles of love and humility that lay behind every commandment, to place the needs of each other–especially those weaker in faith–above their own, and not to dispute over things that can’t be proved and are ambiguous in Scripture. See my comments on Romans 14.

A certain amount of uniformity of doctrine is necessary, especially where Scripture is clear or where God makes a point of emphasizing the importance of a particular commandment. How can we fellowship with people who can’t be trusted not to steal, lie, and commit adultery? How can we fellowship if we can’t even agree on which day is the Sabbath?

However, there are innumerable gray areas in which we need to be humble and kind enough to let people come to their own conclusions in their own time. Does the Sabbath start when the sun first touches the horizon or when it is completely gone? Is meat sacrificed to an idol acceptable as food if you’re not participating in the worship in any way? Is it better to fast on Tuesday or Thursday?

You probably aren’t dealing with these specific controversies in your own congregation, but they probably aren’t too far off from your reality either. I chose these examples, in part, as another illustration. If I had instead mentioned the Rapture, Dispensationalism, and Halloween, would you focus on the point I’m trying to convey or would you start thinking about the controversies.

These are all matters of opinion. Distractions. What I believe about any of them doesn’t harm you in any way–and vice versa–so long as I’m not flaunting my freedom to follow my own conscience to the detriment of yours.

As Paul wrote in Romans 13:9, “For the commandments…are summed up in this word: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

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Were Andronicus and Junia Apostles?

Greet Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners. They are well known to the apostles, and they were in Christ before me.
Romans 16:7 ESV

Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellowprisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me.
Romans 16:7 KJV

This verse is the center of a surprising amount of controversy. Note that the English Standard Version says that Andronicus and Junia were well known to the apostles, while the King James Version says they were well known among the apostles. That one little preposition changes the meaning considerably.

Where Andronicus and Junia well-known apostles? Or were they well-known to the apostles? If they were apostles, “well-known” implies that they were on a par with the Twelve Disciples and possibly as notable as James and John. This would be especially sensational, since Junia was almost certainly a woman.

Andronicus and Junia appear to have been a married couple and were probably of the tribe of Benjamin, the same as Paul (See Romans 11:1.), or even more closely related to him. Several Jews are mentioned in this chapter already, but these are the only ones Paul calls his “kinsmen”, so I think this must refer to something more than being fellow Jews.

Paul also calls them his “fellow prisoners”. He implies in 2 Corinthians 11:23, written several years before this letter, that he had been imprisoned on multiple occasions. The only confinement prior to writing Romans that we have certain knowledge of is at Philippi in Acts 16:24, but there is no mention of Andronicus and Junia nor any other believer in prison with him apart from Silas. It’s likely that many significant events of his missionary journeys were not recorded so that they were imprisoned with him somewhere else, or he meant that they shared the experience of being imprisoned but not necessarily at the same time and location. Since Paul says that they were “in Christ” before him, it’s even possible that they were victims of Paul himself during his persecutions of the Christians in Judea and nearby provinces.

The term apostle (apostolos, αποστολοις) doesn’t necessarily imply a position of general or supreme authority. It literally means “messenger” or “deputy” and can refer to anyone who is sent on any kind of mission as a representative of another. Missionaries, messengers, errand boys, and diplomatic envoys can all be called apostles.

There are two questions to answer in this instance. First, were Andronicus and Junia apostles themselves or merely well known to the apostles. Second, did Paul use “apostle” in the more generic sense or did he use it as a title of office for those disciples of Yeshua who had been given special authority over his Kingdom. These questions are linked because the answer to either one likely dictates the answer to the other. As I will explain, either this couple were known to the apostles and Paul used the word in the sense of an ecclesiastical office or else they were well known apostles and Paul used the word in the more general sense of anyone sent on a mission for another. I lean very strongly to the former.

If they were notable among the Apostles, this would imply that they were at least on a par with the lesser known of the original Twelve Disciples, yet neither Andronicus nor Junia are mentioned anywhere else in Scripture. They left no writings, not even any hints that they had ever written anything. They are not mentioned by any of the first century or second century Christian writers and rate only two mentions in the first four centuries of Christian literature:

  1. In his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (c. 246 AD), Origen of Alexandria speculates that they might have been among the 72 disciples sent out by Yeshua in Luke 10. Most of the original Greek has been lost, and this survives only in a Latin translation. Since Origen had only his own personal speculation and no personal knowledge or documentary evidence, this is essentially meaningless.
  2. John Chrysostom wrote in his Homily 31 on Romans, “How great the devotion of this woman [Junia], that she should be even counted worthy of the appellation of apostle”. However this was written 350 years after Paul died, and Chrysostom also asserts in the same writing that Paul had never been imprisoned before, which is clearly contradicted by Acts 16. Considering Chrysostom’s temporal separation from the facts, his factual errors, and his extreme antisemitism, I don’t consider Chrysostom to be a reliable witness.

If they were so notable, why did no one leave any notes about them?

If this were the only evidence available, I would be inclined to conclude that Andronicus and Junia were notable to the Apostles rather than among them, but there is at least one other significant factor.

Michael Burer published two papers on the use of episemos (notable, επισημος) in ancient and medieval Greek literature. The first paper, with Dan Wallace, titled “Was Junia Really an Apostle?” analyzed “a few dozen passages” that seemed most relevant to the circumstance described in Romans 16.[1] The authors concluded that, “The collocation of επισημος with its adjuncts shows that, as a rule, επισημος with a genitive personal adjunct indicates an inclusive comparison (‘out-standing among’), while επισημος with (εν plus) the personal dative indicates an elative notion without the implication of inclusion (‘well known to’).” In other words, when episemos is in the dative case and includes en (επισημοι εν), as in Romans 16:7, it always means “notable to” and not “notable among”.

The second paper, titled “ἘΠΙΣΗΜΟΙ ἘΝ ΤΟΙΣ ἈΠΟΣΤΟΛΟΙΣ In Rom 16:7 As ‘Well Known To The Apostles’: Further Defense And New Evidence”, examined more than 100 additional passages when it became clear that the primary objection to the first study was the limited number of source texts.[2] This second article concluded that “Seventy-one new texts demonstrate that Paul could have readily used επισημος plus the genitive to show that Andronicus and Junia were “notable among the apostles.” Thirty-six new texts, all but one of which parallel Rom 16:7 exactly in grammatical structure, provide further evidence that Paul intended επισημοι εν τοις αποστολοις to mean that Andronicus and Junia were ‘well known to the apostles.’”

Although I am not a Greek scholar by any conceivable metric and many actual Greek scholars disagree with me, it seems to me that Paul was almost certainly not calling Andronicus and Junia apostles. Rather, they were both well known to the Apostles, probably because of their maturity in the faith and willingness to endure persecution for the name of Yeshua.

This also leads me to conclude that Paul was using the term “apostle” to refer to those men in the most respected and authoritative positions in the first century community of believers: those who had known Yeshua personally and possibly their closest disciples. This would include the Twelve Disciples, Paul, and possibly those who remained of the Seventy-Two Disciples along with well-known men like Timothy and Barnabas.

I don’t believe that Paul always used the term in this sense. The word apostle can refer to any person who is specially commissioned by another to carry out a mission or relay a message. In this broader sense, every prophet and missionary is an apostle of Yeshua, and I would not object to calling Andronicus, Junia, Phoebe, Prisca, and Aquila “apostles”. As when he uses law (nomos), we have to use contextual clues and common sense to tell us when he means it narrowly (the Law and the Apostles) or broadly (law and apostles). If Paul considered this couple to be among the Apostles, in the narrower sense, then this verse could have a major impact on the debate concerning the role of women in positions of ecclesiastic authority, but that interpretation doesn’t appear to be supported by the text.

[1] Michael H. Burer and Daniel B. Wallace, “Was Junia Really an Apostle? A Re-examination of Rom 16.7,” New Testament Studies 47 (2001): 76-91.

[2] Michael H. Burer, “ἘΠΙΣΗΜΟΙ ἘΝ ΤΟΙΣ ἈΠΟΣΤΟΛΟΙΣ In Rom 16:7 As ‘Well Known To The Apostles’: Further Defense And New Evidence,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 58, no. 4 (2015): 731-55.

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God’s Attributes Revealed in Creation

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. Romans 1:19-20 ESV

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
Romans 1:19-20 ESV

Nobody can look at the natural world without thinking that there must be a Creator. As Hebrews 3:4 says, “Every house is built by someone.” Numerous aspects of the palace of the natural world strongly imply the existence of a Creator a purpose:

  • Individual Complexity – The internal complexity of living things and the intricate balance of systems within systems requires a designer of extraordinary intelligence and foresight. Every lifeform is a self-repairing, self-replicating machine that becomes more complex, the closer you examine it, from the outer defenses of skin and bark all the way down to molecular factories beyond anything man has been able to copy with all of our technology. Individual organisms are so complex, even at the molecular level, that removing any one of thousands of different components or sub-systems will destroy the entire organism, yet those systems themselves are self-policing, removing, replacing, or repairing damaged components before they can cause significant harm. See Psalm 139:14.
  • Biome Complexity – The interplay between organisms, even across species, also testifies to the existence of an intelligent, deliberate creator. Trees warn each other of danger. Viruses, bacteria, fungi, grasses, herbivores, and the most complex predators all cooperate, without any apparent conscious intention, to feed each other and keep ecosystems healthy. As local conditions change, local lifeforms adjust populations, habitats, and even genetic expression to compensate. See Job 38:39-41.
  • Universal Fine Tuning – Physics demonstrates that our entire universe seems designed at every level to support life. A slight change in any number of values–some of which I could name, but won’t pretend to understand–would change the universe in such a way that life would become impossible. Stars and planets would cease to exist, let alone the minerals, seas, and atmosphere required by living organisms.  See Psalm 19:1.

In the face of the overwhelming evidence for a Creator, his existence can only be denied by deliberate, continuous rejection and indoctrination. A child, left to himself, would assume that everything was created, and he must be trained to think otherwise.

One implication of this truth is that a person can attain a very basic knowledge of God’s identity without ever hearing the words YHWH, Jesus, Yeshua, Gospel, etc. All of those things are knowable, at least in conception, through the honest observation of Creation. If there is a Creator, then he has a purpose in creating. If he has a purpose for Creation, then he has a purpose for individual creatures. If he has a purpose for individual creatures, then he desires them to behave according to his plan. If his creatures will not behave according to his plan, then they should expect to be corrected, destroyed, or isolated so that they can’t interfere with the correct operation of the rest of Creation. Creatures who choose to act according to the Creator’s purposes can reasonably expect to be rewarded, although the Creator is under no obligation to do so. All of Creation, including every individual creature, belongs to the Creator and is dependent on him for its continued existence, and he is fully within his rights to use it however he wills, including destroying it.

Acceptance of the inevitability of God is in some ways more important than an academic knowledge about God, because a great deal can be learned of God’s character from the nature of what he has already done, apart from any special revelation or divinely inspired writings. As Job 12:7-9 says, “ask the beasts, and they will teach you; the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you; or the bushes of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of YHWH has done this?”

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Covenantal Authority and Inheritance in Torah

Our father died in the wilderness. He was not among the company of those who gathered themselves together against the LORD in the company of Korah, but died for his own sin. And he had no sons. Why should the name of our father be taken away from his clan because he had no son? Give to us a possession among our father's brothers. Numbers 27:3-4 ESV

The first covenant that God made with the people who could be called Hebrews was introduced in Genesis 15 and given more detail in Genesis 17. God made a covenant with Abraham to make him a father of many nations (Genesis 17:5) and to give to one line of his descendants, the land of the Canaanites between the river of Egypt and the River Euphrates (Genesis 15:18, 17:8). These descendants would not come through all of Abraham’s immediate children, but specifically through one son of promise, Isaac. In the next generation, the covenant would once again only pass down to one son, Jacob, because Isaac’s other son, Esau, despised God and the covenant. In the third generation, all of Jacob’s sons inherited the covenant from him, becoming the patriarchs of the Twelve Tribes of Israel.

Abraham had eight sons (one each with Hagar and Sarah and six with Keturah), and it seems likely that he also had daughters. Isaac had two sons that we know of, and Jacob had twelve, plus Dinah and an unknown number of other daughters according to Genesis 37:35 and 46:7. Only the sons of Abraham and Isaac are are listed as as having founded nations, and only the sons of Jacob founded tribes in Israel. To an extent, this could be attributed to the universal practice of mankind to attribute nations to patriarchs, not matriarchs, but primarily because that is God’s practice also.

Except for Dinah, their daughters are unnamed in the text, not because they weren’t important to their families or to God, but because Genesis isn’t a family history. It’s a covenant history, and God’s covenant with Abraham is passed down through the many generations from father alone. Daughters are also born into that covenant, but they don’t pass down the covenant of their fathers to their children; they pass down the covenant of their husbands.

Fast forward a few centuries to the wilderness between Egypt and Canaan…

The accounts of the Twelve Spies, the five daughters of Zelophehad, and the division of the Promised Land among the tribes clearly illustrates this principle. Patriarchal tribal identity is a crucial aspect of the divine order for both spiritual and practical reasons.

Land inheritance in the Torah (the first five books of the Bible) is more just a division of territory. It is a tangible fulfillment of the covenant with Abraham as passed down to all of his descendants through Isaac and Jacob. The boundaries laid out in Numbers 36 speak to a deeper spiritual reality, one in which inheritance in the Promised Land serves as a manifestation of divine grace and the delegated authority and responsibility that accompanies it. Just as rings in Biblical times symbolized authority and submission, so too does the allocation of land reflect the Hebrew people’s relationship with God and their duty to maintain the sanctity of their covenants with him.

Torah mandates that daughters who inherit land must marry within their tribe. This isn’t just patriarchal flexing; God (or Moses) wasn’t trying to keep women in their place by denying them the means to provide for themselves. By God’s design, tribal and national identity–and therefore generational inheritance of the Abrahamic Covenant–is patrilineal (passed down through male descendants). If your father was a member of the tribe of Issachar, then so are you. If a woman marries a member of the tribe of Zebulun, then she becomes a member of that tribe, and all her children will be also.

When Zelophehad’s daughters asked Moses for an inheritance in their father’s name in Numbers 27:1-11, they weren’t trying to change the way God reckoned nationality. To the contrary, they were honoring it by preserving their father’s place in that reckoning. However, if they were to inherit land within the allotment of the tribe of Manasseh and then marry a man of Benjamin or Judah, their children would belong to their husband’s tribe and would eventually inherit Zelophehad’s land within the territory of Manasseh. If other women later inherited in similar circumstances, the boundaries of the tribes would soon be a meaningless patchwork.

From a certain perspective, this confusion might seem like a good thing. Wouldn’t a unified nation without tribalism be a much better state of affairs, discouraging internal squabbles and simplifying international relations?

If God wanted a single people without tribes, he wouldn’t have told Moses to inscribe twelve names on the shoulders of the High Priest, he wouldn’t have put twelve stones on the High Priest’s breastpiece, he wouldn’t have commanded twelve loaves to be kept on the Shewbread Table in the Tabernacle, he wouldn’t have given Yeshua twelve disciples, nor installed twelve foundation layers to the New Jerusalem, nor twelve gates into the city.

Although the twelve tribes are completely mixed and mostly hidden today in exile, for his own reasons, God wants the twelve tribes to remain distinct in the Promised Land. When they return in the Millennial Kingdom, they will once again be assigned land within tribal territories. (Ezekiel 47:13) Part of those reasons, I believe, involves the authority that is inherent in the passing of a covenant from one generation to another. A father must have authority over his son in order to subject his son to a covenant, and therefore must have authority over all of that son’s children, and so on throughout all generations.

In this same principle, God commanded that the members of tribes should camp together in the wilderness, each under the banner of his own clan, and that the army (technically, the militia, since the army included every able bodied male twenty years and older) should be organized by families. (Numbers 1:3) Judges were also appointed and given authority based on their tribal and clan affiliations. (Deuteronomy 1:9-18)

If a family on one plot of land is under the authority of the patriarch of Ephraim and the family on the next plot of land is under the authority of the patriarch of Naphtali, national defense and civil law becomes as confused as tribal boundaries and much more likely to incorporate favoritism for the judge’s own tribesmen. If the national Judge or King makes a call to arms, without instantaneous and secure communications, how would the militia know where to assemble or to whom they should report? God’s plan for land inheritance solves both of those problems.

In Deuteronomy 1, Moses says that he chose one man from each of the tribes to scout out the land. Numbers 34 outlines the boundaries of the Promised Land and gives the names of the twelve men–one from each tribe–whom God selected to divide it. Moses and God could have chosen women for these roles if they had wanted to. Neither of them bowed to cultural expectations in other matters, such as the Shemitah year, dietary rules, and the sacrificial monopoly, so they certainly could have allowed female priests or appointed a woman to participate in the surveying and division of the land, yet they didn’t. Both the survey and the division had to be executed by men representing each of the twelve tribes, because only men have the authority to speak for their people on covenantal questions.

When the patriarchs of Manasseh explained the practical difficulty of allowing daughters to inherit land in Numbers 36, they weren’t trying to oppress women. They too were trying to honor Zelophehad, the covenant, and all of the people of Israel.

There are no prohibitions in Torah against women owning property or operating businesses, but only sons routinely inherit land from their fathers. As detailed in Numbers 36:6-9, if a man dies with only daughters, then his daughters will inherit his property as if they were sons with the one restriction that they must marry a man from his tribe so that the land won’t permanently become the territory of some other people. The point isn’t to restrict women, but to protect the sanctity and continuity of God’s covenant with Abraham. Ultimately, the Torah’s directives on tribal land inheritance in Numbers 36 are far more than a matter of property distribution. They encapsulate the very essence of the covenant between God and his people.

Women are vital in God’s covenantal order and his plan of redemption for mankind. Where would we be without Sarah, Ruth, and Mary? But however much our modern ears may rebel against it, God counts nations by their patriarchs, and covenants in the Bible are inherited from fathers. Zelophehad’s daughters respected their father, their tribe, and God on this matter. We should too.

Hear more about Zelphehad’s daughters and God’s promises in this video on Joshua 17.

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Yeshua and the Red Heifer

The sacrifice of the red heifer (parah adamah, in Hebrew) is one of the most enigmatic rituals commanded in Torah. An unblemished red heifer is entirely burned up outside of the city and the ashes collected to be mixed with water, as needed, to sprinkle on people who had contacted a corpse or grave. Despite these seemingly straightforward instructions, the symbolism and purpose behind each element of the ritual have puzzled scholars and theologians for at least three thousand years. The red heifer’s rarity, the meticulousness of the procedures, and the profound purity laws it addresses all contribute to the mystery that surrounds this ancient practice, inviting an endless stream of speculation.

We know that it must contain prophetic imagery of Yeshua’s role in our redemption from sin, as do all of the sacrifices in Torah. But how? I’m going to add my own speculations to the mix, but first, let me describe the ritual as detailed in Numbers 19.

  • A completely unblemished red heifer, that has never been put to labor (pulling a cart, plowing a field, etc) is selected and presented to the High Priest, who presumably verifies the animals eligibility.
  • The animal is taken outside of the camp (wilderness) or Jerusalem (Israel) and slaughtered by unspecified people eastward from the Tabernacle (wilderness) or Temple (Israel).
  • The High Priest takes a small amount of blood on his finger and sprinkles it toward the entrance of the Tabernacle/Temple seven times.
  • The entire heifer, including skin, organs, blood, and dung, is completely burned to ash.
  • As it is burning, the High Priest will take a piece of cedar, a branch of hyssop, and a single thread of scarlet yarn, and throw them into the fire.
  • The High Priest, who didn’t touch the heifer after it was certified except for a small amount of blood, is made ritually unclean by the process. He must wash his clothes and body before returning to the camp/city, and will be unclean until sunset.
  • The person who burned the heifer is made unclean and must wash his clothes and body and be unclean until sunset.
  • A man who is clean collects the ashes of the heifer and deposits them in another, clean location, still outside the camp/city, where they will be mixed with water to make the Water of Separation as needed.
  • The one who collects the ashes is made unclean and must wash his clothes–but not necessarily his body–and be unclean until evening.
  • Anyone who has touched a human corpse, bone, or grave or who has been in a tent or house with a corpse will be unclean for seven days. He is to be sprinkled by a clean person with the Water of Separation on the third and seventh day, then wash his clothes and body on the seventh day.
  • Whatever that person touches while he is unclean also becomes unclean (presumably until evening), and anyone who touches that unclean object will become unclean until evening.
  • The person who sprinkles water on the unclean person becomes unclean and must wash his clothes and be unclean until evening.

As you can see, the specific instructions aren’t difficult to follow if you read carefully, but the purpose of each instruction is elusive. Why does the Water of Separation (mai nidah) make a clean person unclean and an unclean person clean? Why does one person need to wash his clothes and body to resolve a state of uncleanness, while another person only needs to wash his clothes?

Ritual uncleanness (tumah) in Scripture doesn’t have anything to do with being dirty and isn’t even directly related to sin. As the ritual of the red heifer shows, a person can sometimes become unclean through obedience to God’s commandments. Uncleanness is always associated with a contact with death or a loss of life-force (for lack of a better word). For example, a woman becomes unclean when the capacity to create new life leaves her body. Unclean animals are often associated with carrion-eating or bottom-feeding. The closer the contact with death, the more serious the state of uncleanness. Contact with a human corpse is much more serious than contact with the body of a mouse.

And yet, somehow, the ashes of a cow, a bit of wood, a small plant, and a bit of string can be mixed with water, and sprinkled on a person who became unclean through contact with a dead body…and make that person clean. I won’t pretend to understand the mechanics of all that, but I do see a number of connections between these instructions and the crucifixion of Yeshua (aka Jesus).

The Red Heifer

Red is the color of earth, mankind, and blood. In Hebrew, red is adom, earth is adam, and the first man is Adam. The heifer must be perfectly, uniformly red because the redeemer of mankind must be a perfectly sinless man, the Second Adam.

A heifer is a young cow that has never had a calf. It seems odd that in some way the Messiah might be represented by a heifer, but I believe the connection might be in the cow’s temperament.

Jewish tradition says that the heifer must be at least three years old. Although that isn’t stated explicitly in Scripture, it is implied by two facts: 1) There is another word for calf (egel), which is not used here, and 2) A heifer isn’t meaningfully a heifer unless she is old enough to have given birth.

Calves are both playful and fearful. They chase each other in mock battles, and start at any unusual sight or sound. A mother cow can be aggressive in the defense of her calf or the whole herd. Likewise, and more obviously, a bull is powerful and even more aggressive. In the ancient mind, a bull was the epitome of masculine strength. A heifer, on the other hand, is the most docile of adult cattle.

And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Philippians 2:8 ESV

Yeshua came humbly and courageously, not to conquer, play, or cower. In his first appearance, he was more like the heifer than the bull. In his second coming, that will change radically, and he will be more like a bull defending his herd from a competitor.

Unblemished

The red heifer was to be perfectly unblemished, with no spots, scars, breaks, or any other physical defects. This points to Yeshua’s unblemished life. From birth to death, Yeshua lived as a normal man, being tempted to sin, but never sinning.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
Hebrews 4:15 ESV

Unyoked

The red heifer must never have been under a yoke. A cow that has been yoked has been put to forced labor. It has no choices about where it goes, nor what labor it performs. Even though it would much rather be grazing with the rest of the heard, it pulls a plow or cart where its master drives it, or else it feels the sting of a whip.

Yeshua came to serve, not to be served, but he also answered to no one but his Heavenly Father. He referred to himself as the Son of Man, an allusion to divinity used by earlier prophets, and both men and demons recognized him as the heir of King David. Even as he washed his disciples feet, he was King of Kings.

Despite this cloaked majesty, Yeshua went willingly to his death. He wasn’t forced into it. The Father didn’t need to threaten or hobble him to keep him on course to the cross. He knew his mission and accepted it because of who he was (and is!) and how much he loved all of mankind.

For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.
John 10:17-18 ESV

Given to the High Priest

The red heifer is to be given to the High Priest by the people of Israel, not for him to kill, but to examine and certify the animal as suitable for the sacrifice.

Yeshua was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane and, like the red heifer, delivered to the high priest at his home. He was then tested and evaluated by Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin and judged worthy of death, even though he had done nothing more than speak the truth about his own identity and the abuses of the Jewish religious leadership.

Then those who had seized Jesus led him to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the elders had gathered….Then the high priest tore his robes and said, “He has uttered blasphemy. What further witnesses do we need? You have now heard his blasphemy. 66 What is your judgment?” They answered, “He deserves death.”
Matthew 26:57,65-66 ESV

Slaughtered by Unidentified People East of the Camp/City

The red heifer is taken eastward out of the camp and killed in front of the High Priest by unspecified people. I say “people” because a cow is a large animal and could not be handled and slaughtered by a single person. Tradition says that these people must also be priests–and in practice that might be how it was actually done–but that’s an imposition on the text. Numbers 19 doesn’t say that they need to be Levites, let alone priests. It doesn’t even say that they need to be ritually clean. I believe this is a prophetic picture of who would later kill Yeshua on behalf of the High Priest in his day.

The Jewish religious leaders handed Yeshua over to the Roman authorities and demanded that they execute him for insurrection. Despite his own misgivings and his wife’s warnings, Pontius Pilate gave in to their demands and ordered Roman soldiers to take him out of the city to be crucified.

22 And they brought him to the place called Golgotha (which means Place of a Skull)…. 24 And they crucified him and divided his garments among them, casting lots for them, to decide what each should take.
Mark 15:22-24 ESV

There has been much debate over the years about the precise site of the crucifixion. The most popular beliefs are that it was either northwest of the Temple at or near a place known today as “The Garden Tomb” or else west of the Temple at the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. I believe both of these to be in error for three reasons.

First, the centurion, who was supervising the crucifixions that day, witnessed the tearing of the curtain at the entrance of the Temple. Since the Temple faced eastward, this would be impossible from any direction except eastward.

And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. 39 And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!”
Mark 15:38-39 ESV

Second, Ezekiel’s vision includes numerous events and structures associated with the North, East, and South of the Temple. Nothing in his vision happens to the West, behind the Temple, but those events to the east, toward the Mount of Olives, tend to feature a group of twenty-five men who defy God and give wicked counsel, but also some awesome encounters with God. This would seem to point to something of profound prophetic significance happening on the Mount of Olives regarding rebellion of the Jewish religious leadership and the ultimate triumph of God.

Then the cherubim lifted up their wings, with the wheels beside them, and the glory of the God of Israel was over them [at the east gate of the Temple. See Ezekiel 10:19.] 23 And the glory of the LORD went up from the midst of the city and stood on the mountain [the Mount of Olives] that is on the east side of the city.
Ezekiel 11:22-23 ESV

Third, when the High Priest sprinkles the blood of the red heifer, he is to sprinkle it toward the gate of the Tabernacle/Temple, which always faces east. This means that the sacrifice must also be toward the east or else the priest would be sprinkling it toward some other wall of the Temple. Of course, this assumes that there God intended a prophetic connection between the red heifer and the crucifixion, but as I’m sure you will agree by the end of this article, I think that’s a reasonable assumption.

The Blood Sprinkled Seven Times

As I noted above, the High Priest is to sprinkle the blood of the red heifer towards the entrance of the Tabernacle/Temple seven times. Seven is associated with completion and perfection throughout Scripture. God rested on the seventh day of creation. The week ends on the seventh day with a day of rest. Debts are forgiven in the seventh year. Hebrew slaves are to be set free in the seventh year. The land is to rest every seven years. It takes seven days to ordain a priest.

After shedding his blood on the cross to the east of the Temple, Yeshua said, “It is finished,” and then he died. With his blood, he created us anew, he erased our spiritual debt, he set us free from slavery to sin, and he gave us rest from the curse of disobedience to the Law.

When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
John 19:30 ESV

Cedar, Hyssop, and Scarlet

The cedar, hyssop, and scarlet of the red heifer have obvious connections to both the Passover lamb (hyssop used to brush the lamb’s blood on the door frame) and to the crucifixion. The cedar foreshadows the tree on which Yeshua was crucified, hyssop was used to give him vinegar to slake his thirst at the end, and just prior to the crucifixion, the Roman soldiers dressed him in a scarlet robe to mock his claim to royalty.

And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, 29 and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and put a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!”
Matthew 27:28-29 ESV

That scene with the soldiers could even contain all three elements on its own. The crown of thorns clearly isn’t cedar, but it is made of wood. The reed that they put in his hand could have been hyssop, since Matthew uses the same Greek word for the hyssop branch with the vinegar in verse 48 of the same chapter.

Entirely Consumed

Yeshua wasn’t burned, but he did give everything for his mission. He temporarily gave up all unimaginable power and glory in order to live a humble life as a craftsman and wandering preacher. He lived his entire life without sin and willingly gave up his life in one of the most painful and humiliating manners imaginable.

Ashes Taken to a Clean Place Outside the Camp

The ashes of the red heifer are to be gathered by yet another unidentified man. There is nothing in the text that requires this man to be a priest, so it could be any male who is ritually clean.

Graves are inherently unclean. In fact, contact with a grave is one of the severe cases of uncleanness which the red heifer’s ashes are used to resolve. This was one of the reasons there were no graves inside of Jerusalem. Everyone was buried outside the city. However, Yeshua’s body was taken down from the cross by Joseph of Arimathea and placed in his `freshly cut tomb that had never been used, a clean place outside the city.

And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud 60 and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away.
Matthew 27:59-60 ESV

The process of collecting and depositing the ashes makes the man who does it unclean. Since Joseph touched Yeshua’s corpse in order to move and bury it, he also became unclean in the process.

Burning the Heifer Makes One Unclean

If the burning of the red heifer is a metaphor of the crucifixion of Yeshua, then the connection here is clear. Judas, the priests and scribes, Pontius Pilate, the mob who shouted “crucify him”, the Roman soldiers, and even Peter, who denied him, all brought guilt on themselves.

However, just like with the red heifer, none of those people really caused Yeshua’s death. As noted above, Yeshua went to his death willingly at the instructions of the Father.

This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.
Acts 2:23 ESV

God commanded that a man should burn the red heifer and become unclean by it, but in becoming unclean he enables all the people, including himself, to become clean again. God also commanded that his Son should be delivered up to be crucified, bringing guilt on those who chose to participate, but enabling forgiveness and salvation for all people, including themselves.

And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.
Acts 6:7 ESV

Water of Separation for the People

The ashes of the red heifer are mixed with water, and this mix, called mai nidah, is then sprinkled on an unclean person to make him clean. Most English translations call this something like “water for impurity” or “water of purification”, but the King James translates it more literally as “water of separation”. The word nidah isn’t a reference to the state of uncleanness, but to the impact of that uncleanness. It causes a person to be separated from others because he transfers his uncleanness to everything and everyone he touches. The water of separation resolves the state of uncleanness that keeps a person separate, and allows him to rejoin his family and community, especially where it concerns worship at the Temple.

Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
John 4:13-14 ESV

The Water that Yeshua gives is superior to the Water of Separation because the latter only removes the ritual uncleanness that clings to flesh and physical objects. It can’t remove the spiritual uncleanness of sin that separates us from God. Only Yeshua can do that.

Yeshua’s blood and the water that flowed from his side on the cross reunites us with God. We were eternally separated from him by our sin, but Yeshua enables our forgiveness so that we can approach God with a clean slate, all debts erased.

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Hebrews 4:16 ESV

Yeshua has not only removed the separation between man and God, but between man and man. The Jews had grossly misunderstood God’s instructions about being a holy people to mean that they were supposed to keep non-Jews at arms length for fear of contamination. Yeshua brings together Jew and Gentile in a united Commonwealth of Israel.

God told Peter in Acts 10 that he should not consider any believer in Yeshua to be unclean or common. Paul wrote in Romans and Galatians that we are all sinners and saved alike in Yeshua regardless of our ancestry.

For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 by abolishing the [man-made] law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.
Ephesians 2:14-16 ESV

The person who sprinkles the mai nidah on another person to remove his uncleanness, must himself be clean when he does so, but he is made unclean by the process. This is like Yeshua who had to be sinless in order for his blood to remove our sins and take them upon himself. On the day of the Final Judgment, God will count Yeshua’s perfect, infinite righteousness as ours. A tiny pinch of ashes makes a large volume of water into mai nidah, and just a sprinkle is sufficient to make a person clean. Likewise, there is no limit to how many people can be made spiritually clean by Yeshua’s blood, how many people can be made perfectly righteous in God’s eyes by his perfect righteousness.

Once a person has been infected by the uncleanness of death, there is a seven day process to make him clean. In Scripture, the number three (especially three days) is used a metaphor of death and resurrection, and seven is a metaphor of completion and finality. On the third and seventh days, the clean person sprinkles the mai nidah on the unclean person. The third day sprinkling represents the resurrection of Yeshua that enables our forgiveness. The seventh day sprinkling represents our own resurrection on the Day of Judgment at the end of the seventh age, when all of heaven and earth will be remade, and those who have been made clean from death by the blood of Yeshua will have eternal life in God’s presence.

At that time, there will be no more temple, no more death, no more uncleanness of any kind. I don’t know what that time will be like, but it we won’t be bored or idle. Our existence in the new universe compared to our existence today will be like life compared to death, a full color world to a flat gray printout.

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Adultery of the Heart

Adultery of the heart isn't punishable by a civil court and isn't grounds for divorce, but it is definitely a serious problem.

I recently posted this on social media:

If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.
Leviticus 20:10

By Biblical standards (not modern English nor American legal), adultery is a sexual relationship between a married woman and someone who is not her husband. A man cannot commit adultery with an unmarried, unbetrothed woman. It’s impossible by definition. A sexual relationship between them might be sinful, but it is not adultery because she’s not married or betrothed to another man.

Don’t get mad at me. I’m just letting the Bible define its own terms.

I added that last sentence because I know that this can be a very sensitive topic and will put many people into fight-or-flight mode. Sure enough, this post had many times more comments than normal, many of them quite irate and accusing me of having all kinds of nefarious motives for even discussing the topic. I’m not going to waste my time defending myself from other people’s imaginations, so I blocked most of them.

One person had the self-awareness to recognize that her emotional reaction against what I was saying might be only emotional.

Holly wrote…

I think this discussion raises hackles because it seems to insinuate a greater standard of fidelity upon married women than upon married men. Biblically, the latter will not incur the death penalty if they sleep with a woman who isn’t married; whereas the former will incur capital punishment in 100% of cases in which they stray from their marriage. A married man could potentially justify a range of unfaithful behavior with any unmarried woman, could he not? Also, I struggle to reconcile the Torah commands about adultery with Yeshua’s statement about a man looking upon a woman with lust in his heart. The Savior did not qualify His statement by saying “a man who looks upon a MARRIED woman…” He knew the Torah far better than we do, so what are we to conclude from this?

If you can help shed any light on this difficulty, it would be much appreciated. A husband, as the head of his household, ought to have at least an equal standard of fidelity as his wife, if not a higher one.

I thought Holly’s questions were good, and I appreciated that she wasn’t trying to attack me for merely exploring what the Scriptures might mean. She deserved a thorough and honest reply.

Thank you for the honest questions, Holly. Topics related to male-female relationships can be very difficult for most people to think objectively about, so it takes a lot of thought and study, and a willingness to confront ideas that might be very difficult. So, I sincerely appreciate the spirit of your question.

Remember that Yeshua was primarily addressing heart conditions and not delivering sermons on the technicalities of the Law. For example, if you hate your brother in your heart, you are guilty of murder in your heart, but you haven’t actually murdered your brother. Torah says it is a sin to hate your brother in your heart, but it’s not a crime that can be punished by anyone.

The same principle is true in marriage.

Matthew 5:32, Matthew 19:9, Mark 10:11-12, and Luke 16:18 all give somewhat different versions of the same teaching. We’re not getting precise transcripts in the Gospels. We’re only getting summary versions. I think this causes some confusion in cases like this, but we’d probably find even more to argue about if we had full audio recordings of everything Yeshua said.

Keeping in mind that Yeshua almost never discussed technicalities of the Law, choosing to teach about the state of people’s hearts instead, here is how I believe these 4 statements, along with Matthew 5:27-31, harmonize:

It’s a sin to covet another man’s wife, even if you haven’t done anything about it. In Matthew 5:27-30, Yeshua discusses lust that is tantamount to adultery. The text doesn’t specify “married woman”, but it also doesn’t specify “married man”. I think we’re all in agreement that adultery requires at least one party to be married, so we already have to make some assumptions about what Yeshua’s intent. (I know that some people believe it’s adultery even to desire your own wife, but I hope we agree that’s nonsense.) In v28, I believe he meant for his audience to understand he was talking about a married woman, because it wouldn’t have made any sense to them otherwise. Just like we assume that he must have been talking about married *people* because it doesn’t make sense to say that two unmarried teenagers have committed adultery because they find each other sexually attractive.

(Please note that I am NOT saying it’s ok for anyone to lust after someone who isn’t their spouse. I’m neither saying it nor implying it.)

If a man despises the covenant of marriage, whether his own or someone else’s, he has adultery in his heart, even if he hasn’t committed actually adultery. It is a sin for a man to hate his wife and want to divorce her when she hasn’t done anything to deserve it. It’s a sin to despise another man and want to take his wife. However, these aren’t crimes of which he can be tried and convicted. These are sins in the heart that can lead to sins of the body.

There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.
Mark 7:15 ESV

If a man does divorce his wife without just cause, then the adultery in his heart is beginning to come out. If you willfully put someone else in a position where you know they are likely to sin, you are making yourself guilty too.

You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God: I am the LORD.
Leviticus 19:14 ESV

In the ancient world, a divorced/put away woman who had no family to fall back on, was in a very bad economic situation, facing possible starvation and constant abuse from strangers. She must either find another man to support and protect her or possibly resort to prostitution. If she was put away unjustly, her former husband shares in the guilt of her ensuing adultery because he put her into an impossible situation. He is guilty, she is guilty, and any man who sleeps with her is guilty.

Adultery of the heart isn’t punishable by a civil court and isn’t grounds for divorce, but it is definitely a serious problem that needs to be addressed. Just like having murder in the heart, eventually it comes out into the real world.

Any time you are trying to fill in gaps in the Scriptures, you are going to be engaging in some speculation, and there is significant danger that you are going to get it wrong. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make the attempt, though. Yeshua’s teaching style makes it necessary.

Believers need to stop being afraid or ashamed of the Bible. If it’s God’s word, being ashamed of what it says is tantamount to being ashamed of God. Since the Father, the Son, and the Apostles all tell us that God’s Law teaches us how to love one another, why in the world would you be afraid of it?

God doesn’t want childish marionettes who only follow orders with no understanding. Writing the Law on our hearts means that it must be internalized. To do that, we must spend a lot of time studying God’s Word, looking for connections between different passages, meditating on the meaning, and praying for understanding.

Sometimes you’re going to get it wrong. Don’t worry too much about it unless it leads you to doing something that seems to contradict some direct commandment or it bothers your conscience. Those are both warning signs that your understanding could be wrong. Keep studying. Keep meditating. Keep praying.

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Be Holy, for YHWH Is Holy

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” 1 Peter 1:14-16 ESV

This week’s Torah reading is called Kedoshim, which means “Holy Ones” and includes Leviticus 19-20. These two chapters contain two of the most famous sentences in the Old Testament. Ironically, most Christians think these are New Testament ideas and have no idea that Yeshua and Peter quoted them from Leviticus:

  • You shall be holy, for I am holy. 1 Peter 1:16
  • Love your neighbor as yourself. Matthew 22:39

I want to focus on the first quote.

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” 17 And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, 18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.
1 Peter 1:14-19 ESV

God makes this statement four times in Leviticus, three times in Kedoshim.

  • Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I YHWH your God am holy. Leviticus 19:2
  • Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am YHWH your God. Leviticus 20:7
  • You shall be holy to me, for I YHWH am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine. Leviticus 20:26

In all three of these instances, the surrounding text emphasizes three things:

  1. Don’t do what the pagans do.
  2. Do what God tells you to do.
  3. Honor your parents.

When Peter quoted this command from God, he also included all three points: “Live according to your heavenly Father’s rules, not according to the pagan traditions of your ancestors.” Some will say that the “futile ways inherited from your forefathers” are God’s commandments as given through Moses, but Peter is clearly quoting from that very same Torah, and from the one book of Torah that is most despised by modern American culture: Leviticus.

Whether Jew or Gentile, we have all inherited pagan and man-made religious traditions. God said we are to leave them behind and adopt God’s ways instead. At the end of that chapter, Peter also quotes from Isaiah 40: “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.”

That includes Leviticus.

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The Tabernacle and the Family

The wilderness Tabernacle is a picture of God, the individual, and the family.

YHWH is a God of patterns. You only have to look at DNA for the proof. Humans share a large percentage of their DNA code with monkeys, fish, and bananas. Contrary to popular opinion, that’s not evidence for evolution. It’s evidence for a Creator who loves to reuse a good pattern. Every good coder does the same thing. He writes a module, which is a small bit of code, that can be called and reused from numerous other parts of the program. That’s not laziness or a shortcut. It’s elegance. Efficiency. God is the master coder, the most elegant and efficient coder who has ever existed.

He follows patterns in other ways too. Consider the feast days. They are all patterns of his interactions with Israel and the world. They remind us of what he has done in the past, and they prophesy of what he will do in the future. Also consider the creation of mankind. God said “Let us create mankind in our own image.” Then he took a pattern of himself and applied it to his favored creation: man.

The image of God in mankind is much like his signature or fingerprints. First, God created Adam in his own image, and then he created Eve in Adam’s likeness to be a helper “suitable to him”, unlike any of the animals. She was shaped like him, had free will, and an eternal spirit like him. Adam and Eve, both together and individually, are made in the image of God, and the two together are tasked with creating new people who will carry the image of both of their parents and, through them, of God himself. If you look closely enough at all of God’s creations, you can find evidence of his fingerprints in everything he created. God loves to reuse a good pattern.

In Exodus 25, we begin to see God’s instructions for his Tabernacle, the place where he would dwell in the center of the camp of Israel. If we did not see evidence of his fingerprints in the design of the Tabernacle, I think we should be very surprised and begin to wonder if the Tabernacle was from God at all. Fortunately, we do see those fingerprints.

Like God himself, the Tabernacle is a unit. It is echad. Yet within it there are compartments and furnishings, and the primary components of the Tabernacle follow the pattern of the primary components of God.

The Ark contains a memorial of divine provision (manna), and the tablets of the Law, and so is an image of the provider and law giver, God the father.

The Menorah is a source of light generated by oil, like the anointing of the Holy spirit. Like the Holy Spirit the menorah has seven branches. Recall the seven spirits of God in Isaiah 11:2 and in Revelation 3, 4, and 5.

The Table holds within the bounds of its crown twelve loaves representing both the bread of life and the twelve tribes of Israel. Since it holds all the people of Israel, the Table is a metaphor of the King and Messiah of Israel, Yeshua.

If the Tabernacle is an image of God–and it certainly appears to be–then it must also be in some way an image of mankind, since mankind bears the image of God. I have written elsewhere of how the Tabernacle can be an image of a single person, but it is also an image of the family, which God instituted at the same time and on the same day he created man in his image.

The commandments in the preceding chapters of Exodus show some ways in which a man’s responsibility to his family includes providing sustenance and protection. Elsewhere in Torah, a man is commanded to teach his children, to be a lawgiver and law enforcer in his house. In this, every husband and father is intended to follow the pattern of God the Father, as he his represented in the Ark of the Covenant.

The very nature of the woman’s creation and her physical aspect shows us that she was created to be a life giver, a source of wisdom and comfort to her family, and to light the way of the children to their father. She nurtures her children when they are too young to understand explicit instruction, teaches them the ways and wisdom of their father when they are older, and comforts them when they are hurting. She is the Menorah in the tabernacle of man, and in some ways an image of the Holy Spirit for the family.

The firstborn son, according to God’s order, receives a double inheritance over his brothers, putting him in the position of a secondary provider for the extended family and the captain of his father. He is the father’s right hand, an extension of his father’s power into the world, and he sustains his siblings as the showbread table holds the sacred bread. The first born son of a man in this respect is an image of the first born son of God. When his father deems him ready, he will sit on his father’s throne and become the patriarch of his family. Even more than other believers, a firstborn son should look to Yeshua, the Son of God, for his role model.

Be careful of reading too much into these patterns. We are very good at finding patterns where none exist, so it’s important that any lesson drawn from allusions and apparent patterns in Scripture is supported by more explicit texts elsewhere. Some of the roles pictured by the Tabernacle and its furnishings are explicitly commanded in torah, while others may only be illustrated or even just hinted at. There may be characteristics of the Tabernacle that could be extrapolated into roles in the family but that are not commanded in scripture. Patterns like these might be illustrative but are not definitive.

For example, there is no explicit command in Scripture that younger children should obey the firstborn son in the absence of the father. This is an idea that could certainly be derived from the structure of the Tabernacle and the pattern of the firstborn son of man after the firstborn son of God, and it might even be a good principle in many respects, but it is by no means commanded by God and should not be treated as if it is.

For another example, a father is not to be hidden away from his family. To some extent he will be inscrutable to his children due to his superior strength, knowledge, and wisdom, and perhaps the oft inexplicable nature of his rules. Like God, he has no obligation to explain his actions or his laws, but also like God, his laws shouldn’t be arbitrary. Every commandment of God is given in love for the good of his children, and so should be every instruction of a father. He must be actively involved in the care and teaching of his children, aware of their activities and experiences so that he can speak directly to them when needed. A father should not only be a lawgiver and disciplinary, but a caregiver and a protector. He holds the staff of Aaron as a rod of correction, guidance, and comfort.

Likewise, a mother is not simply a source of light and comfort, she also is a lawgiver of sorts and a disciplinarian. The difference between the roles of father and mother in these respects is more of degrees and ratios, than ironclad laws. The Holy Spirit is God just as much as is the Father and Son, and a woman is just as much the image of God as is her husband.

Reading through scripture, you won’t be able to find a clean division between the authority and roles of Father, Son, and Spirit, and this is true in the household as well. There is no hard line between the roles of mother and father and firstborn son, but a gradient. Deborah was both mother and judge of Israel. Yeshua is our master, brother, friend, and servant. There will be times when a wife must take command of the household because her husband is ill, absent, or incapacitated. That’s not a sin. It’s part of the flexibility that God has built into all of humanity. It is part of our image to be able to fill in for and support one another.