Sermon Tone Analysis

What to say?

I often come to a Torah Portion - or really any Biblical topic - and find myself at a loss for words as to what to say.

It’s become a bit of a running joke because I tend to say that and more often than not I come good and say some stuff that people seem to like.

Today, as the Blessed Lord would have it, I have been given the task of talking about to 29.

These chapters are part of the Torah Portion Phineas.

Whilst I mean no disrespect to any portion of the Bible, lest God zap me into oblivion, these are hardly the chapters people think to study when it comes to this particular Torah Portion.

‘Oh great, we’re up to Parashat Phineas!

Let’s study !’ said nobody ever.

Before , which consists of a recap of the calendar, you have the incident where Phineas kills Zimri and Cozbi whilst love making as part of pagan cult ritual on the doorsteps of the Tabernacle.

God orders the leaders of the associated pagan revolt ‘hung up’ before the sun, vengeance is vowed against the heathen Midianites and action abounds.

There’s then the census, which might not be the most impressive read but it’s a precursor to war.

The daughters of Tselophedad state their case to Moses regarding the inheritance of women following their father’s death.

The subsequent legal decision rendered by God factors greatly in the genealogy of the Messiah himself.

You also have the appointment of Joshua as the next leader to Moses.

A man who is the answer to Moses’ prayer for a ‘shepherd of Israel’ whose name from the Hebrew can be translated as Jesus...

And then you have the calendar recap in .

So I suppose God wants me to diversify and I suppose He knows I like a good smiting perhaps a little to much.

So the calendar it is!

I have no idea where this will go but let me tell some of what I know…so, ‘thus thinketh he knoweth Jason....’

to

Firstly, the most obvious point to point out, of all the points that one can point to, is the fact that is a clear expansion to .

If you’ve come this far, and you don’t know what is, then you either need to leave or I have failed in increasing your knowledge from a prep standard to grade 1.

But really; is a summary of the Biblical calendar and the quick go to for all things calendar related.

Sure, the Bible has lots to say about the festivals spread throughout it’s pages, but remains the standard reference for how it all looks.

One of the key connections, and key difference between and is this.

would often say ‘you shall present an offering by fire to YHWH’ without necessarily giving what exactly that offering is.

follows the same calendar in but it provides us what exactly those ‘offerings by fire’ to YHWH are to be on the festival occasions.

What results, is a rather tedious lists of sacrifices which coincide with the calendar.

Typical of God’s style, He opens the chapter with ‘Command the children of Israel’ despite the fact that these commands primarily concern the priesthood.

Again, as has been stressed elsewhere in the rants of Jason HRM, God lays bear the Temple system for His people and eliminates the chance that the priesthood, who despite having greater access to the Temple, could start their own mystery cult that was common within the Ancient World.

Phrasing such a command in this way also placed the burden of responsibility on the nation in general and not just with the priests for the prescribed sacrifices.

The sacrificial system was largely the business of the priests, but it was all of our responsibility.

This reminds me of a famous saying amongst the Rabbis and within modern Judaism.

It comes from the Talmud and a parable where God says that ‘Whenever they study (the passages about sacrifices), I will deem it as if they had offered them before me, and I will grant them pardon for their iniquities.’

The context of this is Israel wrestling with the problem of life without a Temple after it was destroyed.

Whilst the saying in essence is good (it basically says study your Bible), part of it’s meaning was true before it was long said and whilst the Temple was still standing.

Studying these things, with or without the Temple, is important.

God gave these things to all of us, not just to some priests in obscurity, but to all of us so we should know them and so we should study them.

Regardless of a standing Temple or not.

This is the Priestly Calendar for the Temple

Now that we understand this basic fact; that is basically but with the prescribed sacrifices, you can basically read it and understand it for what it is.

Pretty much, when it comes to these festivals, these are the sacrifices offered.

There you have it!

There’s more to it, as there always is, but what I really want to stress is the importance this has on the people of the Bible.

Be it our wandering Israelites in the wilderness or those standing on the Temple mount with the Master himself.

Temple stuff, sacrificial stuff, calendar stuff, all that stuff, was a big deal.

It’s become a bit of a fad within the Hebrew Roots Movement to study the sacrifices and be a bit of Temple nerd, but’s there’s truth as to why this is so.

It’s because the Bible invokes the imagery of the Temple, the sacrifices and the calendar much more than people care to admit.

The temple, and all that came with it, was central to the life of Israel throughout the ages.

We won’t go through every festival listed today but we will go through some things from our portion mainly to stress the point my point that it’s all a big deal.

The Temple Sect

Firstly, before we even get to , let’s consider this little tid bit because not only was it a big deal in the Old Testament, but Temple stuff (I’m very scholarly I know), was a big deal in the New Testament.

So, in the New Testament the Church was called, in Greek, the ‘ekklesia’.

Ekklesia doesn’t mean church, that’s a thing in and of itself and translating ‘ekklesia’ as church is a big injustice to the Bible.

But at any rate, ekklesia is a Greek word which translates as ‘congregation’ or ‘assembly’.

It’s equivalent is a Hebrew word ‘kahal’, which likewise translates as ‘congregation’ or ‘gathering’.

Knowing some of the nuance though with kahal is fun.

It tends to refer to a gathering of people within the Temple itself.

First Fruits of Zion have this to say on ‘ekklesia’ and the New Testament.

‘It may have evolved quite naturally.

If the early Jerusalem believers were, every day, greeting one another saying ‘I’ll see you at the assembly’, meaning, ‘I’ll see you at the Temple’, one can imagine a natural evolution in which the believers actually began to refer to themselves as ‘the Assembly’, and in Greek ‘the Assembly’ is ‘the Ekklesia’.

The believers in Jerusalem practiced a type of communal living, selling their possessions and holding everything in common as they lived in Jerusalem.

Why didn’t Paul’s congregations follow that model?

Why was everyone in the Jerusalem congregation selling all they had and moving in together?

Because the temple was in Jerusalem.

Simon Peter did not want to back and live in Capernaum.

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, did not want to go back and live in Nazareth.

Nathaniel did not want to go back to Cana.

And the Greek speaking Jews from the Diaspora wanted to remain in Jerusalem too, near the Temple, near the apostles, near to the Father’s House.

So Joseph Barnabus sold his property in Cyprus and moved to Jerusalem.

Stephen moved to Jerusalem.

Ananias and Sapphira sold their property and moved to Jerusalem.

The Temple drew the apostolic community together.

The believers were a Temple sect.’

Knowing this, I hope, makes knowing the things of more important.

It played a huge part in the lives of Israel and the context of our Master Yeshua.

Whilst I joke about the not so exciting aspect of these things; there is a definite lack of smiting in , but you should want to study this.

We won’t go through all of them today but let’s look at some points from this and understand that this stuff was a big deal.

Daily Sacrifice

Daily Sacrifice

First up is the daily sacrifice.

When we think ‘moed’, meaning ‘appointed time’, we think festival i.e.

Passover, Succot, Shavuot etc. etc. Interestingly enough, the daily sacrifice was also considered a ‘moed’ i.e. an appointed time;

The daily sacrifice, later known as the ‘tamid’, which comes from ‘continual’ (i.e. the continual sacrifice) derived of 2 male lambs without defect.

They were offered in the morning and the ‘twilight’ (or evening depending on your translation) which in reality is more 2 - 3 PM.

The tamid also went hand in hand with the daily grain offering which was likewise offered in the morning and evening.

This is indicated in 28:8 which says ‘the other lamb you shall offer at twilight, as the grain offering of the morning...’

As mentioned earlier, the commandment for these was given to all of Israel and just the priests.

As such, in the time of the Temple, the sages required representatives from all of Israel to be present during the daily service of the Temple.

You might be aware that the land of Israel was divided into 24 courses whereby 24 groups of priests, from around the land, would take turns in the maintaining the Temple Service.

Because the command for these sacrifices included all of Israel the courses also came with representatives of the people.

The representatives were called the ‘standing men’.

The Talmud, which regardless of what you think, remains a wonderful source of history for us, says this;

The representatives were called the ‘standing men’.

Now that are the standing men?

It says ‘command the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘ You shall be careful to present my offering’.

How can a person’s offering be made while he is not standing by its side?

The early prophets divided Israel into twenty four courses, and for each course there was a delegation of standing men to serve as representatives at the Temple in Jerusalem composed of priests, Levites and common Israelites.

When the time for a course to go up to jerusalem came, it’s priests and Levites went up with the Israelites to the Temple in Jerusalem.

- m. Taanit 4:2