Redeemed

  "The earth is the LORD's, and all its fullness (melo/mala - that which fills, entire contents, multitude, full length/fill, fulfill, consecrate, confirm, complete, accomplish, replenish, gather, overflow, abundance), the world and those who dwell therein. For He has founded (yasad - founded, foundation, ordain, appointed, established) it upon the seas, and established (kun - establish, prepare, fixed in place, set, directed, provide, confirmed, be secure, be enduring, be securely determined, be ready) it upon the waters (nahar - a flowing, river, stream, to flow together, to sparkle, be cheerful, to shine, give light, be glad, rejoice, brightness)." (Psalm 24:1-2).

And

     "And He (Lord of heaven and earth) has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord...though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being..." (Acts 17:26-28, and Deut. 32:8).

     From Deuteronomy 32:8, cited above, we find out that the LORD set the boundaries of all of the people of the nations "according to the number of the children of Israel." Deuteronomy 32 continues: "For the LORD's portion is His people; Jacob is the place of His inheritance." (v. 9).

     The Psalms narrow down the ownership of the earth: "I will declare the decree: The LORD has said to Me, 'You are My Son, today I have begotten You. Ask of Me and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Your possession." (Ps. 2:7-8). The Creator has given all of the nations to His Son, the Messiah/Christ, Jesus, a descendant of His people, Jacob (see above). They are His to rule and to judge (see. v. 9).

     The LORD goes on to say: "Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and You perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are those who put their trust in Him." (v. 12).

     These excerpts above from the scriptures completely refute the understanding that most of us have of the world, its economics, and the true ownership rights to it. However, as this week's double Sabbath reading portion shows us, it is better to have things the LORD's way. In fact, the LORD's way is more to our benefit or advantage than our own understanding, as we will see.

     The double reading portion for this week's Sabbath are B'har, meaning "on the Mount," and B'chukkotai, meaning "In My statutes".

     The reading begins in Leviticus 25:1: "And the LORD spoke to Moses on Mount (see B'har above) Sinai, saying, 'Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: 'When you come into the land which I give you, then the land shall keep a sabbath to the LORD. Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather its *aleph-tav/Alpha and Omega) fruit; but the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a sabbath to the LORD. You shall neither sow your field nor prune your vineyard." (Lev. 25:1-4). Everything concerning the land falls under the authority of the LORD. Even the fruit of the land which they gather still belongs to the *Aleph-tav/Alpha and Omega Lord, as noted in the written Hebrew. The seventh year sabbath of the land belongs to the LORD. They will not do with the land as they see fit, but as the LORD commanded.

     We can see in the verses above that the LORD was not speaking from heaven but speaking His statutes on the mount, a physical place on the earth, as our two combined Sabbath portion titles reflect. The LORD retains His possession of the physical earth, and His authority over the land which He gives to Israel. His statutes are to rule the land. Of this land given to Israel, the LORD commanded: "The land shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; for you are strangers and sojourners with Me. And in all the land of your possession you shall grant redemption of the land. If one of your brethren becomes poor, and has sold some of his possession, and if his redeeming relative comes to redeem it, then he may redeem what his brother sold." (Lev. 25:23-25).

     From this foundation of ownership and authority of the physical earth and everything in it, especially the land of Israel, the LORD establishes something called "the year of Jubilee". 

     The year of Jubilee is directly connected to the Sabbath and to the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), which is one of the Feasts of the LORD. This feast is also important to us because we understand that the blood shed by Jesus Christ in His suffering and death was for the atonement (kapar - covering) or propitiation of our sins. Every seven sabbath years, or a total of forty-nine years, on the Day of Atonement the trumpet of the Jubilee is sounded throughout all of the land to announce the fiftieth year, which is the year of Jubilee. In this fiftieth year, the LORD again announces His ownership and statutes of authority of the earth and everything in it, by turning upside down everything that man has bought, sold, traded, bartered, enslaved. The unredeemed house or land that was taken or purchased, the unredeemed debt owed, the unredeemed servitude/slavery are all overturned. Land or house goes back to the original family who received it from the LORD, as He originally divided the land among the tribes of Israel. Those who sold themselves into servitude are repaid the (*aleph-tav/Alpha and Omega) price of his redemption. Those whose debts remain unredeemed by a family member are set free anyway at the year of Jubilee: "For the children of Israel are servants to Me; they are My servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God." (see Lev. 25:47-55).

     Today's thinking might declare that this is economically unfair and even disastrous, but it is the year of Jubilee by which the LORD retains authority by His statute to set His people free. These Torah statutes of the LORD, which are contrary to the thinking and ways of the world, paved the way prophetically for our spiritual redemption as we will see.

      The obedience to the statutes of the LORD affected the land: "If you walk in My statutes (see B'chukkotai above) and keep My commandments, and perform them, then I will give you rain in its season, the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield its fruit...I will give you peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none will make you afraid; I will rid the land of evil (ra - evil, wickedness, trouble, affliction, grievous, malignant, vicious) beasts (hay - living, beast, creature, animal, appetite), and the sword will not go through your land." (Lev. 26:3-6). If the statutes of the LORD are not kept, then the land is affected in the opposite manner. (v. 19-20).

     The statutes of the LORD, including the statute of redemption, in the hand of the prophet Jeremiah assured that Israel would return from their prophesied captivity in Babylon. Jeremiah redeemed the field of his cousin, Hanamel (meaning "God is gracious"), as his cousin said to him: "...for the right of inheritance is yours, and the redemption yours; buy it for yourself." Jeremiah wrote of this request: "Then I knew that this was the word of the LORD. So I bought the field from Hanamel...weighed out to him the money - seventeen shekels of silver. And I signed the deed and sealed it...according to the law and custom..." (Jer. 32:6-11). The LORD then instructed Jeremiah: "Take these deeds...and put them in an earthen vessel that they may last many days (yom - day, time, year, continually, yesterday, today and tomorrow)...Houses and fields and vineyards shall be possessed again in this land." Jeremiah then praised the LORD who has "made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for You." (v. 13-17).

     The verses from Jeremiah, above, contain eleven instances of the use of *aleph-tav/Alpha and Omega, including its connection to "the price of redemption", "the field" of Hanamel, "the money", "the purchase deed", "that which was sealed", "deed/deeds", "the heaven", "the earth".

     Earlier, the LORD had given Jeremiah this prophetic Word: "Thus speaks the LORD God of Israel, saying: 'Write in a book for yourself all the words that I have spoken to you. For behold, the days are coming,' says the LORD, 'that I will bring back from captivity My people Israel and Judah,' says the LORD. 'And I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their forefathers, and they shall possess it." (Jer. 30:2-3).

     Even though Jeremiah completed this prophetic redemption of the land of Israel while being detained in the king of Judah's prison dungeon, and even though the most powerful kingdom (Babylon) was about to lay siege to Jerusalem, Jeremiah knew, based upon the previous spoken Word of the LORD, and confirmed by the use of the written statutes given from the LORD from on the mount, that the LORD had just assured Israel that they would return to the land which He had given them.

     The captivity in Babylon and the Babylonian command over the land of Israel lasted for seventy years. Then, as the LORD promised Jeremiah, the Israelites were freed from captivity and allowed to return to their land...and the ruling king at that time paid the restoration money needed to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem that had been destroyed during the siege, and for the re-building of the temple of God that had been ruined. 

      But wait! We're not done yet with Jeremiah's fulfilling of the statute of the LORD in regard to the redemption of the land. The LORD had told Jeremiah to place the (*aleph-tav/Alpha and Omega) deeds into an earthen vessel so that the deeds could last many days. (v. 14). The Hebrew word for "days" is yom, as we see above, meaning: "day, time, year, continually, today, yesterday and tomorrow." These (*aleph-tav/Alpha and Omega) deeds of redemption were to last not only for the seventy years of Babylonian captivity, but "continually". I believe that these same (*aleph-tav/Alpha and Omega) deeds hidden in earthen vessels not only provided the way back home from Babylonian captivity, but provided for the return of the Jewish people to the land again in 1948, after Israel had ceased to be a nation approximately two thousand years ago when Rome destroyed it. I don't know if even Jeremiah foresaw what the LORD would accomplish by Jeremiah's obedience to His statutes.

     Not only did this prophetic action of Jeremiah guarantee the land of Israel to the descendants of Abraham through his son, Isaac, but it also became part of our spiritual guarantee and covenant with the Lord Jesus. Our covenant with God through Jesus is not a covenant regarding possession of the physical land of Israel, but the new covenant which assures us of life forever in Christ, who rose from the dead, and our inheritance through Him in the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. Our inheritance is not limited to a physical city on earth, but even greater, to the City not made with human hands, but whose Maker and Builder is God. This inheritance was always promised as Abraham also waited for this City. (see Heb. 11:8-10, Rev. 21:1-4, Jn. 14:1-6, Eph. 2:4-7). Jeremiah also had a prophetic understanding of this as he received the Word of the LORD related to this. In our Sabbath reading, we see: "A glorious high throne from the beginning is the place (maqom - locality, standing place, home, country) of our sanctuary. O LORD, the hope of Israel, all who forsake You shall be ashamed...." (Jer. 17:12-13).

      The apostle Paul refers to our guarantee of this spiritual redemption in the New Testament: "...But we have this treasure (thesauros - a casket or coffer in which valuables are kept) in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not ourselves...always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body." (2 Cor. 4:6-10, excerpt). Paul also wrote elsewhere: "...you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee (arrabon - earnest money, purchase money) of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory." (Eph. 1:13-14). And: "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption." (Eph. 4:30).

      We can hear the echo of Jeremiah's prophetic Word, faith and obedience in these revelations of Paul, above. When Jeremiah had the *aleph-tav/Alpha and Omega deeds to the field belonging to "God is gracious" (Hanamel) sealed in earthen vessels for many days to come, he also prophetically sealed our guarantee, the Holy Spirit, to all of the riches in Jesus Messiah/Christ in these earthen vessels - us. 

     If you would like to learn more about the gracious redemption commanded by the LORD on the mount, you can pray with me: "Heavenly Father, the whole earth belongs to You, and You have not only redeemed the land of Israel for Your people, but You alone have also provided our Redeemer Kinsman, Jesus Messiah/Christ, to redeem and retore what was lost - our souls. What a great inheritance You have given and guaranteed to me through Your Son. I had lost all, but Your statutes of redemption and Jubilee in the flesh, Jesus, guaranteed my restoration, my life, and my salvation. I give You all thanks and praise in Jesus' name for Your eternal promises to me and to all who will receive them. AMEN."

*NOTE: aleph-tav written in Hebrew as אֶת, are the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The meaning of the two pictographic Hebrew letters can also be interpreted "Adonai (Lord) of the Cross/Covenant". In the New Testament, these letters are translated as Alpha and Omega written as ΑΩ , the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. These letters are those by which Jesus Christ identifies Himself in the Book of Revelation: see Rev. 1:8, Rev. 21:6, Rev. 22:13.

     

SabbathTiming

           The title of this week’s Sabbath reading portion is B’har, or “On the Mount”. This reading portion comes from Leviticus 25, and the title is taken from verse 1: “And the LORD spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai (meaning "thorny"), saying, ‘Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘When you come into the land which I give you, then the land shall keep a sabbath to the LORD…in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a sabbath to the LORD…” (Lev. 25:1-2, 4).  Why is it important to know that these words were spoken to Moses “on the mount”? One reason may be that it was on Mount Sinai, one of three summits in this range, that the LORD established the foundational precepts for His people to know and follow including the Ten Commandments. It is from the high place that the LORD delivers His truth with power.

  Last week, we saw the LORD reveal the secrets of the sabbath day. This week, the LORD again begins His discourse about the sabbath. This time, the sabbath becomes the foundation for a longer time period and those longer time periods provide specific works, blessings, benefits, miracles, and far-reaching prophetic implications. The Sabbath has now been incorporated into a group of seven years. The seventh year of rest for the land was to restore and strengthen the fields and vineyards so that they would yield even greater produce, but also even more. In the Spirit, we see other things associated with the seven-year grouping of time. There is fruit that is produced during the six years before the seventh year sabbath rest for the land (v. 3). However, the Hebrew root word for sabbath year, sabat, also contains the meaning “produce of the sabbath year.”. There is a kind of produce that is associated only with the seventh or sabbath year that is different from the fruit of the six years before. This seventh-year produce, or increase (v. 7) is called tebua/bo in Hebrew, and means: “income, gain, revenue, profits, result, gain resulting from wisdom/enter into, come in, bring near, gather, place of entrance, of a bride entering the house of a husband, intimacy, to be brought into the barn, entering future times.” As we can see in the root meaning, the “produce” of the seventh year has a prophetic meaning for a time in the future, and also refers to the bride entering the house of her husband. Believers in Messiah/Christ are called “the Bride of Christ” and are waiting to be joined to Him for the marriage supper of the Lamb of God, who is Jesus (Rev. 19:7-9, Rev. 21:1-2). This is connected to the meaning of sabat Sabbath as we see above. We will see more about this later.

We can also see the prophetic importance of Israel keeping this seventh year sabbath rest for the land. In Hebrew, the word for “land” is eres (see above), which can mean a local field, or extend to nations, and then extend further to the land of all living, and then extend even further to encompass the world. This seven-year sabbath that some consign to a religious ritual, and others ignore completely, when obediently observed by the people of God, can have world-wide impact. The seventh-year sabbath is so important to the LORD that, in order to counter the doubts and reservations of His people, He made this promise: “And if you say, ‘What shall we eat in the seventh year, since we shall not sow nor gather in our produce?’ Then I will command My blessing on you in the sixth year, and it will bring forth produce enough for three years.” Lev. 25:20-21).

Can we begin to see why the sabbath is such an important foundational principle to God that He commands us to keep it holy?      

In this same chapter of Leviticus, the LORD reveals another spiritually powerful block of time based upon the Sabbath and the Sabbath year described above: “And you shall count seven sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years; and the time of the seven sabbaths of years shall be to you forty-nine years. Then you shall cause the trumpet (sopar/sapar - trumpet, ram’s horn, clear sharp sound/to be pleasing, be beautiful, goodly, comely, be bright, glisten, shine forth as the dawn) of Jubilee (yobel/yabal - ram’s horn, trumpet, cornet, the signal of silver trumpets, loud noise, joyful sound/to lead away, to be brought, to carry away, to flow)  to sound (abar - pass over or through, pass beyond, to emigrate, to leave one’s territory, to die, to depart, to go over to someone’s side)…on the Day of Atonement…throughout all your land (eres - see above, includes “the world”. And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee (see above) for you;  and each of you shall return (sub - turn back, return, go back, come back, restore, refresh, renew, repair, out of a place, to anyone or place) to his possession (ahuzza - includes the meaning of a possession by inheritance), and each of you shall return to his family (mispaha - family, tribe, nation, clan, kind, genus)…For it is the Jubilee; it shall be holy to you; you shall eat its produce (see the meaning of tebua/bo above) from the field.” (Lev. 25:8-10, 12). We who know Jesus Christ as Savior have an inheritance in Him, and we have been made part of the family of God (Jn. 1:12, Gal. 3:26-29).

The idea of Jubilee in the fiftieth year, based on multiplications of the sabbath, is to cancel debt, and to return/restore all property that was sold in debt back to the debtor. If one of the brethren sells himself to another brother because of a debt obligation, he cannot be treated as a slave, but as a paid servant. He can only serve the owner until the year of Jubilee when he then can return to his own family and his property which he inherited from his fathers. (Lev. 25:39-43). Jubilee sets free, cancels debt obligations, and restores inheritances and families that money/debt has encumbered. Jesus taught us to pray a prayer to our Father that included the idea of Jubilee: “And forgive us our debts (opheilema/opheilo - that which is owed, justly or legally due as a debt, offense, sin/owe, be bound, be guilty, be indebted, to fail in duty), as we forgive our debtors (opheiletes - one who owes another, a debtor, held by some obligation, one who has not made amends to an injured party, penalty, punishment, a sinner, a transgressor).” (Mt. 6:12). The idea of monetary debt and forgiveness of debt extends to spiritual debt, or sin, as well. So we should not be ignoring the Jubilee.

As the spiritual stronghold of Mammon (mamonas - of Chaldee origin, the personification (idol) of riches, wealth and the confidence in them in opposition to God - see Mt. 6:24) began to rule the economy of the world, the command of a Jubilee Year faded away from practice (we are a people of debt, greed and unforgiveness), although men have tried to restore the idea of a Jubilee year according to scripture. In another reading portion from this sabbath, the prophet Jeremiah prophesied the Word of the LORD against this Mammon idol: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the LORD…Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, and whose hope is the LORD.” (Jer. 17:5, 7). The sins or debts of Judah had been engraved deeply with a pen of iron with the point of a diamond on their hearts, the LORD said, and the LORD promised to give their wealth and all of their treasures in which they trusted as plunder to others, and His people would “let go of your inheritance (nahala - possession, property, inheritance) which I gave you.” (v. 1, 3-4). The idea of Jubilee also carries a deep prophetic meaning according to the Hebrew words used above, and we will begin to seek out that prophecy.

The numbers involved in the Day of Atonement announcement of the coming Jubilee Year, have a meaning to reveal to us. In the 49th year, when the announcement is made, the Hebrew letters that represent the number 40 + 9 are the letters mem (“chaos, massive waters”) + teth (“a snake, to surround, to twist, to coil”). By the 49th year God's people have become wrapped in the chaos and destruction of the coiled snake of debt/sin and the bondage to debt/sin and unforgiveness. That snake is constricting us more and more tightly. Then, on the Day of Atonement a mighty sound rings out, a trumpet blast in that 49th year that announces the liberty of Jubilee to come in the 50th year. That atoning blood (of the sacrificed Messiah/Christ) sprinkled on the heavenly mercy seat achieves the redemption of our debt to God and to each other. The Day of Atonement, which is treated as a Sabbath, in this case in the 7 X 7th Sabbath Year, brings the warfare that is part of the meaning of “sabbath/sabat which includes the meaning “put an end to, exterminate, destroy, remove, cease to be”. The number 50 connected to the Jubilee year is represented by the Hebrew letter nun, which means “offspring, multiplying life, descendants, the Heir to the Throne”.

In another portion from this Sabbath’s reading from Jeremiah 32, the prophet Jeremiah, knowing that the LORD has already prophesied that the Babylonians would conquer Jerusalem, which had been under siege for 18 years, and take its inhabitants captive, became the kinsman redeemer of his cousin’s land. The LORD promised Jeremiah that this would not be a waste of his money, but would be part of a prophetic restoration. The inhabitants of Jerusalem would be returned to the land from captivity (this would be according to a timetable based upon the Sabbath), and the land that Jeremiah had paid to redeem would once again be returned to the possession of his family, and all of the land would be inhabited again. He placed the redeemed deed in an earthen vessel to be preserved until that future time (see 2 Cor. 4:7-10).

 

This was a Jubilee prophetic promise. Paul wrote of our Jubilee promise in Christ: “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs - heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.” (Rom. 8:16-17). Here is the Jubilee assurance of our eternal inheritance with the Heir to the Throne, Jesus, the Son of God. It is vital to us that Jesus is both the Son, and the Heir because our inheritance comes through Him. He is also our kinsman Redeemer, like Jeremiah, Who bought back with His own body and blood our lost inheritance, which we lost to debt/sin. The debts were canceled in the Jubilee of the Messiah/Christ, and the inheritance was restored as in Jubilee. That coiled snake of chaos that binds us has been exterminated in this extension of the power of the Sabbath.

Before we leave the prophetic meaning of the Jubilee of God, we saw above in Lev. 25, that on the Day of Atonement, which is a sabbath, the trumpet is to sound in order to announce the coming Jubilee. As we saw above, "sound" is the Hebrew word abar, which includes in its meaning "pass beyond, to emigrate, to leave one's territory, to depart, to go over to someone's side." Those who are in Jesus Christ know of another great departure from our present territory to go over to Another's side. Paul wrote: "For this we say to you by the word of the Lord...the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words." (1 Thess. 4:15-18). In another place, Paul wrote: "...we shall all be changed...for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." (1 Cor. 15:51-52). The sound of the trumpet signals the change of our form and our location in order to join Christ's side. This is also a Jubilee for us as we are liberated from the bonds of earth and flesh and into an incorruptible form.

There is more that could be said about the meaning of the Sabbath year, and multiplications of the Sabbath year that impact the fulfilment of the prophetic word of the LORD, particularly in Daniel's timetable of the Messiah/Christ. However, let this be a call to return to the true meaning of the Sabbath and its importance to us in every way. To reduce this powerful tool of God, used to restore His people, to a set of religious rules, or to ignore its meaning altogether in order to substitute our own thoughts and desires is a great shame. Isaiah wrote: "If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on My holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the LORD honorable, and shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words, then you shall delight yourself in the LORD; and I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth, and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father. The mouth of the LORD has spoken." (Isa. 58:13-14).

If you would like to know more about the sabbath day, sabbath year and Jubilee year, you can join with me in prayer: "Our Father, I want to have a deeper and true understanding of Your Sabbath, which you gave as a blessing to us. Forgive me when I have chosen my own pleasures to pursue on Your Sabbath instead of praying, believing and standing in the miraculous promises of the Sabbath not just for myself and my family but for the eres world. Your prophetic timeline and end time events, including the return of Christ, revolve around the Sabbath. Fill me with Your Spirit and teach me Your Word so I can walk in Your ways. Jesus, You are Lord of the Sabbath, and Your Lordship is of great and mighty things. Show me, great Lord, the great things of the Sabbath, in Jesus' name I pray. AMEN."