Behar/Bechukotai (“on the mountain”) Vayikra/Leviticus 25:1 – 27:34
I like
numbers – since it is not capitalized I am obviously not speaking of the
book. Don’t get me wrong, I like Numbers
also; but this week’s double parashah happens to be in the book before Numbers.
The 25th
chapter of Vayikra commences with directions regarding the land’s Sabbath year
and the Year of Jubilee. As I read it
here, HaShem’s instruction regarding the Sabbath Year were in much the same
pattern as those given dealing with the gathering of manna.
One
obvious difference is that one was done weekly and the other done on a
septennial basis. Going along with that
difference, as the people gathered a double portion on the 6th days
of the week and nothing on Shabbat, they still needed to gather on the first
day of the following week. However, in
reference to the Seventh Year Rest, HaShem tells the people that He will
provide for them from the 6th year’s harvest, food for the remainder
of the 6th year, the 7th, and 8th years, and
up to the 9th year – three full years of foodstuffs (see Lev. 25:20
– 22). Wow! I wonder how tasty, nourishing, and abundant
that food would have been had His children been obedient! Someday we will find out, I am sure.
In
addition to the directives in reference to the land, similar guidelines are
given regarding their fellow believer.
Should someone become poor enough that they felt the need to sell their
inherited land, they were not permitted to do so, for they would be dispersing
the inheritance of their descendants.
Nevertheless, “leasing” the land to another until the Year of Jubilee
was permitted because, joy of joys, the “ownership” of the land would revert
back to the family it belonged to in the first place. Isn’t His Social Security program so much
better than ours?
Furthermore,
as is related in Lev. 25:39 – 41, should one of the fellow Israelites need to
become a “servant” or “slave” to another Israelite, he is NOT to be treated as
such, but as an employee or hired servant, and then only to the Year of
Jubilee. The dignity of the man and his
family is preserved.
I wish
to take a look at these numbers a little further. My desire is to give us all, including me,
something to meditate on, something to chew on – actually “to chew the cud”.
(See http://www.olivetree.com/learn/articles/meditating-on-gods-word.php
for more on the two Hebrew words for “meditate” in the Word – Strong’s 1897 and
7878).
Let us look
back into the sixth chapter and the third verse of the first book of the
Tanakh, B’resheit/Genesis. What do we
see? Well, Noah is 480 years old, for it
is shown that this is 120 years before The Flood.
“And the LORD said, ‘My Spirit shall not always strive with man,
for that he also is flesh:
yet his days shall be an hundred and
twenty years.’” (KJV)
Though
it is an extra-Biblical source, the Book of Jasher (5:8) reports on this
conversation as follows:
“For thus saith the
LORD, ‘Behold I give you a period of one
hundred and twenty years; if you
will turn to Me and forsake
your evil ways, then will I also turn
away from the evil which
I told you, and it shall not exist,’ saith the LORD.”
Ok, so
we have established the one hundred twenty year time period. How does that fit in with this week’s
readings? How many years are there
between Jubilee Years? Fifty, of course. How many years old do we presume the earth to
be when the thousand year reign begins?
Six thousand by most conservative believers. How many Years of Jubilee are there in 6,000
years? One hundred twenty!
One
hundred twenty years after the discussion with Noah, HaShem cleansed the world
with water. At some point He is going to
cleanse the world again, but with fire.
The world was and will be restored by these two cleansings. However, in our reading this week we see that
the land and the child of HaShem are both restored in the Year of Jubilee. Perhaps the 6,000th year will be
the Jubilee of Jubilees, for the land and the people will truly be restored.
I know
that at some points this is an imperfect comparison, but I believe it is worth
chewing on, and on, and on as if we were chewing our cud – for that is how we “meditate”.
Blessed
are You, O Lord most high. If we only
had the peshat, dayenu, it would be enough.
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