The Great Commandment
Deuteronomy 11:10-21
Verse 10 gave us a glimpse of the many features associated with our pending inheritance. One of those features included the fertileness of the land. Yahovah compared the fertileness of the land of Canaan compared to Egypt, the land we had left behind 40-years prior. We know that that land was Goshen (Sifri). Now, we must remember that most of us who had lived in bondage in Egypt had by now died off in response to Yahovah’s punishment for our breaking of the covenant and for purposes of starting over with a new generation that he could actually work with. Indeed, Yah kept his covenant to bless our people with the land inheritance, but it would not be realized by those of us who had participated in the Exodus 40-years hence. So Yahovah and Moshe were educating us about the land of Egypt, but in contrast to what we would experience once we entered the land of promise. The cultivated portion of Egypt where our fathers once resided consisted of a low but level plain where rain rarely if ever fell. The primary source of water for the Egyptian agriculture/produce was provided primarily via the annual overflow of the Nile River and advanced irrigation systems that would tap into the receded Nile. Jamieson, Faucett and Brown’s Commentary on the whole Bible describes this irrigation system as thus: “the cultivator opens a small sluice on the edge of the square bed in which seed has been sown, making drill after drill; and when a sufficient quantity of water has been poured in, he shuts it up with his foot. Where the bank is high, the water is drawn up by hydraulic engines, of which there are three kinds used, of different power, according to the subsidence of the stream. The water is distributed in small channels or earthen conduits, simple in construction, worked by the foot, and formed with a mattock by the gardener who directs their course, and which are banked up or opened, as occasion may require, by pressing in the soil with the foot.” Indeed, relatively ingenious adaption seen here on the part of the Egyptians who were forced to adapt to the arid nature of their country. One scholar described the irrigation technology in Egypt as that of a water-wheel pump that during our time in Egyptian captivity and our associated slave laborings, we worked with our feet. Apparently, this apparatus or system is highlighted on several ancient monuments in the land of Egypt to this very day. Although fertile, the maintenance of agriculture in the land of Egypt did not come without great manual labor and continuous oversight. But this would not in any way be the case in the land of promise according to the Creator. “The hills would attract the frequent clouds, and in the refreshing showers the blessing of God would especially rest upon the land.” (ref. JFB)
Vs. 12 was one of the most enlightening verses for me to have come to in this study. It reads in the CJB as, “It is a land (talking about the land of promise) Adonai your God cares for. The eyes of Adonai your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.” For me, this is most fascinating passage: (1) Yahovah cares for the land of Israel; and (2) Yahovah’s eyes are always on the land of Israel from the month of the Aviv to the next month of the Aviv. So favored is the land that that Yahovah that watering of the land required no human or mechanical intervention. Indeed, the context of this passage seems to be related to Yahovah favoring the land from an agricultural perspective. But one could reason that if the Father was so in love with this splotch of land, then there must be something special about the land. It’s like us: what was so special about us that we caught the Creator’s attention? Certainly it has nothing to do with how wonderful we were or how holy we were or that we were inherently so special in comparison to the rest of the nations. What that something is, I can’t tell. However, as it ties directly into this passage, it is clear that the love Yahovah had (and continues to have) for us was to such a degree that He was placing us in a land (somewhat Edenisque) that required little from us in terms of labor and care. Yah was going to pamper us as one with means would pamper their children and their spouse. We would want for nothing and we would in return declare our undying allegiance to Him as our one and only Elohim.
Again, in verse 13 we receive an admonishment to hearken (diligently) to Yahovah’s commandments. As I tried to drive home last post of this portion, it is this diligent hearkening–this willful obedience to Yah’s Torah, that defines our love for Him. It is here that we also realize the famous allusion to what the greatest commandment is, and that being to love the LORD your God, and to serve Him with all our heart and with all our soul. This is what the Master was referring as He responded to a question challenge by a Scribe who obviously attempted to ensnare Messiah with a perceived technicality of the Law–Matt. 22:35-38. Hertz’ Pentateuch and Haftorah defines “to serve Him with all your heart” as heart service, which entails the institution of prayer 3-times daily, attributing this institution to the time of Daniel 6:11, 14. Overall, I see no problem with this connection, this application. However, I find this so-called institution to be nothing more than another fence around Torah, whereby men have developed mechanisms to ensure that we stay within the confines of Torah. This is what Yahoshua came to deliver us from: the drudgery of law–no, not deliver us from Torah, but deliver us from man made pharisaic rules and traditions. Indeed, there is nothing wrong with praying 3-times a day. Shaul instructed us to pray without ceasing–1 Thessalonians 5:17. And it is this concept of praying without ceasing that carries over from the teaching of our Master, as recorded in Luke 18:1. So, prayer is an essential element of our loyalty and service to Yahovah. However, is this what Father is expecting from us in terms of our love for Him being with our whole hearts? I don’t necessarily think so. To begin with, most of the prayers the Jewish leaders would pray 3-times/day were recitations and not heartfelt intercessory, repentive, and praiseworthy prayers to Yahovah. In fact, most of their prayers had nothing to do with the heart. It was all mechanical. This is why Yahoshua’s disciples approached Him and asked Him to instruct them on how to pray. Obviously, Yahoshua’s method of praying defied anything that the disciples had ever witnessed before. Matthew 5 records Yahoshua’s instructions on the viable, appropriate method to pray. Who other than Mashiyach should be the expert on how we as humans are to communicate with Father? He knows His Father better than anyone and is a worthy example to emulate. Prayer is to be a private intercourse with the Father that no one else is to be necessarily privy to, as those Pharisees who would stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners (NAS) or according to the Aramaic stand in the assemblies and on the corners of the marketplaces to pray (Roth’s Aramaic). So there is a side of prayer that beckons us to pray in “secret.” Another aspect of proper prayer demands that we reject the methods of prayer that other religions employ to communicate with their gods. These particular forms of prayers–if they can be called prayers–typically involved the adherent reciting a litany of meaningless repetition of words and phrases (NAS) or as Roth translates the Aramaic, these are “chatterers.” As it relates to the orthodox Jewish understanding of prayer, most of their prayers are prefabricated and are repeated on the advent of whatever occasion that particular prayer was formulated for. I am a firm believer that we are not to employ such formulated prayers. They can not reflect the true thoughts and feelings of the one in prayer as a pure, spontaneous, and yes, heartfelt prayer would. Thus, I believe service to Yahovah with all our heart–which in Hebrew is “lebab” –is referring to service to Yahovah with our whole inner man. Service to Yahovah with our whole inner man involves mind, will, heart, soul and understanding. It’s doing that which Yahovah requires and commands of us to do in such a spirit that we absolutely can not wait to accomplish the tasks. For our goal is always to make Daddy happy and we all know from the example of children and parents, that children do a great many things in order to make their parents happy and thus garner even great love from them.
The remainder of this passage speaks to “reward and punishment.” We would reap rewards for diligently keeping and honoring and obeying Yah’s commandments–He would provide rain for our crops (vs. 14). According to Hertz–“the agricultural year in Palestine consists of 2 seasons, the one rainy and the other dry. The whole of the winter is the rainy season. The heavy rain towards the end of October are the Yoreh or the “former rain.” They open the agricultural year. The rainfall increases throughout December, January and February; it begins to abate in March and April. Coming as they do when the grain is ripening and being the last before the long summer drought, they are of great importance.” Boy, we could use some of that rain here in Southern California. Maybe if we would turn our hearts and minds and souls to Yahovah and obey his mitzvot–well, that’s a pipe dream huh? Thus, it is the rain that Father provides that will secure the well being of our livestock by providing grass for their consumption. This rain blessing is but a small aspect of the goodness to be had when we obey Yahovah in the land of promise. But rain was a crucial aspect of life if we are to flourish as a people. Failure to follow the commands of Father would result in a closed heaven devoid of rain. Thus, we were admonished to ensure our well being and safety by obedience to Torah. Verse 18 and 20 tells us to bind the Word of Yahovah on our heads, arms and post them on the door posts of our homes. This has been interpreted by certain Jewish sects as a literal binding of little boxes that contain a passage of Torah onto the adherent’s arm and the top of their forehead. These boxes are called philacteries and the posting of the Word on door posts are called mezzuzahs. I would encourage you to read Carmen Welkers excellent work on philacteries at https://www.themessianictorahobserver.org/2015/06/29/tzitzits-tefillin/. At this stage in my walk with Messiah where I tend to agree with Carmen on this issue and that is that Yahovah is requiring us to essentially cement His Word in our minds and in the actions that we take each and every day. And it is this thinking–this admonishment–that I pose as today’s Torah Living Daily Challenge: that we cement His Torah into our minds and that we serve Him, in obedience to His Torah, with every fiber of our being. This is a challenge indeed. The cares of life often drown out the Word of Yahovah. Thus, we must continually bind His Word in our minds and factor them in whatever tasks we are doing throughout the day. As it relates to binding them on the door post of our homes? Well, that’s simple: we are to bind His Word in our hearts–our bodies comprise the House of God.
Have a blessed day friend. Shalom.
With much love in Messiah–Rod Thomas