PARASHAT EIKEV

Saturday 16^th August                                        22^nd Av 5785

PARASHAT EIKEV                                                                              Herschel

Devarim 7:12 – 11:25; Isaiah 49:14-51:3; Matthew 16:13-20

Deut 7:12-15

Then it will happen, as a result (or because of  - eikev – עֵ֫קֶב) of your listening to these ordinances, when you keep (ush’martem) and do (v’asitem) them, that Adonai your God will keep (safeguard – shamar) with you the covenant kindness that He swore to your fathers. He will love you, bless you and multiply you. He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the produce of your soil, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock, in the land that He swore to your fathers to give you. From all peoples, you will be blessed — there will not be male or female barren among you or your livestock. Adonai will remove all sickness from you, and He will not inflict on you any of the terrible diseases of Egypt that you knew, but will inflict them on all who hate you.

We can all agree that these are wonderful promises. However, a superficial reading might suggest that these promises are conditional. The wonderful promises continue throughout chapter 8, but then, come a warning of they break covenant.

Deuteronomy 8:19-20

"Now, if you do forget Adonai your God, and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you will certainly perish. Like the nations Adonai makes perish before you, so you will perish, since you would not listen to the voice of Adonai your God.

Some decades ago, when Rabbi John Fischer taught here at our yeshiva, he suggested that we should read these verses through a covenant lens rather than through a conditional lens. Peering through the lens of covenant transforms the way we read and understand God’s word and instructions.   

When I sign a bond with a bank, I am bound to the terms of that contract. I commit myself to pay off a monthly fee over a long period of time. However, there are consequences if I do not adhere to the terms of that contract. I was listening on Cape Talk recently to a financial consultant who said that if you find yourself in financial distress, you can go to see the bank manager and hopefully renegotiate the repayment terms. The premium is reduced but the period of repayment is extended.

But this is not the way we should understand the covenant that HaShem cuts with mankind. We cannot renegotiate the terms of the covenant if we find them too challenging to comply with. As the Americans are fond of saying: it is a package deal!

Breaking any one of the covenant terms has serious implications and it causes a separation between you and HaShem because sin is always sin and the wages of sin is always death – spiritual death that creates a barrier between you and God!

Yes, aspects of the covenant are conditional but God’s covenants are sourced in a love relationship rather than black words on a sheet of white paper, where you get wacked on the knuckles if you break the rules.

Notice that we are instructed to hearken (listen) and do (obey) the covenant terms.

• to hearken – תִּשְׁמְעוּן – tishm’un – comes from the root שָׁמַע which means 'to hear'. (Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheynu, Adonai echad).

The principle is to carefully listen to HaShem’s words so that you understand them and then, you DO them! There are aspects of Torah that are called a ’chok’ (statute or ordinance) that defy human logic. In such instances, we simply humble ourselves and obey because the Father has instructed us to do so. We surrender the human need to understand and agree. We simply humble ourselves and obey!

·      ‘shamar’ –  שָׁמַר    (with a ‘r’ at the end) means to ‘safeguard’. 

HaShem is called ‘Shomer Yisrael’ – the Guardian of Israel. A watchman on the wall is one who patrols up and down the battlements, ensuring that the enemy cannot creep up and take the inhabitants of the city by surprise.

To keep/safeguard God’s precepts is to guard them with all your being as you would a treasure that is beyond price. There is also a caveat that we are to obey and do them!

But ‘to guard’, can also imply ‘to guard against’. We are instructed to always be alert because the enemy is prowling around like a roaring lion, always looking for a weak point so that he or his underlings can find an opening to wreak havoc in your life.  

Equipped with the full armour of guard (Eph 6), we stand guard. We watch and pray, as Yeshua instructed us to do in Matthew 26:41. Rav Sha’ul instructs to stand firm, resist the wiles of the adversary and then, he must flee. We who know Yeshua are filled with God’s Spirit, and therefore, the adversary must flee for ‘greater is He who is in you, than he who is in the world’ (1 John 4:4).

The midrash in Devarim Rabbah 3:2 sums up this tension:

“HaShem said to Israel, “My children do not think that I desire to treat you like a slave whose master desires to sell him at an auction for what he may fetch. But I will go on bringing chastisement upon you until you direct your heart towards Me”.

This is I believe, is our calling - whole hearted devotion and service to God. To love the Lord our God with all our heart, all our soul and all our strength, and to love our neighbour as ourself, is to stand guard as a watchman on the wall!

I have concluded – and I offer this as my opinion - that the enemy works strategically. Just think about Supersessionism (replacement theology) and how it has over the millennia, infiltrated and weakened the church. Think about anti-Semitism that unfortunately, is still rampant in many churches to today.

When Yeshua stood before Pilate, Pilate asked the age-old philosopher’s question: ‘what is truth’. Well, we know the answer. Truth centres on the person and the redemptive work of our risen Lord, the one who himself, is all truth (John 14:6).

The very definition of deception means that those who are deceived do not know or believe they are. As the great Derek Prince remarked on hearing of my decade long involvement in the new age movement, “Isn’t it amazing that when we are deceived, how utterly deceived we can be!” I confess and own up to being utterly deceived during that period of my life.

As believers, it is vital that we adopt the posture of a watchman, standing guard on the ramparts of our own being, our home, our families, our businesses. Some decades ago, I befriended a retired pastor who told me that he concluded all his letters by quoting Ecclesiastes 8:8 “yours in the warfare from which there is no release’.

However, if you think that you are free from this constant state of vigilance, I draw your attention to 1 Corinthians 10 where Rav Sha’ul instructs us to learn from not only our own mistakes, but also, from Israel’s mistakes.

1 Corinthians 10:11-12

“Now these things happened to them (Israel) as an example, and it was written down as a warning to us — on whom the ends of the ages have come. ¹² Therefore let the one who thinks that he stands watch out that he doesn’t fall”.

Yours in the warfare from which there is no release! Shabbat shalom!

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