PARASHAT BAMIDBAR - IN THE WILDERNESS ...

Saturday 31st May 2025       48th Day of the Omer          4th Sivan 5785

PARASHAT BAMIDBAR

Numbers 1:1 – 4:20; Hosea 2:1 – 22;

Matthew 4: 1 - 17

Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. And there I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt. (Hoshea/Hosea 2:16-17; English 2:14-15)

This week’s Haftarah (selected reading from the Hebrew Prophets) is from Hoshea, Hosea in English. It is a message of extremes, which is not unusual for God’s ancient spokespeople. The extremes are those of Israel’s great unfaithfulness and their eventual restoration to God.

I think it is accurate to say that this is a core biblical theme, both in the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Covenant Writings. From a New Covenant perspective, it’s reasonable to regard God’s restoration of the unfaithful as the theme of all Scripture. Despite the Hebrew Scriptures’ focus on a single nation, the people of Israel, New Covenant adherents tend to universalize God’s workings with Israel to the extent that the depictions of wayward Israel become a prototype of the general waywardness of the human race. For many Christians, the promised Jewish Messiah, the vehicle of Israel’s restoration, becomes the Savior of the whole world.

This connection is not only valid, it’s intentional. It fulfills God’s promise to Abraham, “In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen 12:3). However, the fact of fulfillment has been leveraged in misguided ways. Many have concluded that this outworking of God’s covenantal commitment to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob nullifies its implications for its original recipients.

The universalization of God’s restorative work, as vividly depicted in Hoshea’s relationship with his wayward wife, if anything, should emphasize, not detract from, God’s faithfulness to the people Hoshea’s wife symbolized.

In fact, denying God’s ongoing faithfulness to Israel undermines the basis of his restoration work among the nations. To deduce that the broader scope of restoring wayward Gentiles in some way makes God’s message through Hoshea to Israel obsolete is to not only deny Scripture, but also misrepresents God.

Few seem to be aware of how destructive it is to deny God’s ongoing faithfulness to Israel. It wouldn’t be so bad if people would simply treat the Hebrew Scriptures as obsolete. It’s still wrong, just not as bad. This way of thinking sees God as working among Israel for a time, but whose purpose is complete once the Messiah comes. This approach might continue to use the Hebrew Scriptures for background information and to foreshadow New Covenant fulfillment, but that’s all.

Come to think of it, that’s a very common approach. And even though it’s scripturally unsound, I wish it would end there. Yet, tragically, something very insidious usually happens instead, with passages such as our Haftarah being used against the Jewish people. In the name of obsolescence, God’s faithfulness to Israel is denied, while Israel’s waywardness remains.

In our Haftarah, the people of Israel are described in fairly negative terms. That’s pretty much par for the course throughout Hebrew Scripture. But that’s because they are normal people, just like everyone else. God didn’t choose Israel for Israel’s sake alone. He did so as part of his great worldwide restoration plan. 

A main feature of Israel’s function in the grand scheme of things was to demonstrate everyone’s need for the one true God. We (my being Jewish myself) do that by being both the historical vehicles of God’s Word and by being examples of human beings’ need for God. That’s why the Bible doesn’t only have teaching about God, but includes our stories of failure (and some successes).

But God didn’t broadcast our failures via the world’s all-time best-selling book in order to shame us. Instead, he wanted to vividly display his extraordinary graciousness for all to see. God’s faithfulness to wayward Israel is designed to demonstrate his faithfulness to wayward you! 

And yet, through the centuries, despite passages like this week’s Haftarah, the Church has denied the enormity of God’s faithful love. You can’t have it both ways. Either his covenantal commitment to Israel is secure or it’s not. And if not, what hope do any of us have?