Crystal Writes A Blog

Holy Moses, Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Mo by Flickr User Scott Fitzgerald, CC License = Attribution, Noncommercial, Share Alike
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If this post sounds like I wrote it tired, I did. I’m not complaining because I had a wonderful day that led up to this tiredness, but I thought I should let my readers know in case I have trouble making sense with my sleepy brain. 🙂 That said, I’m going to try and talk a little about good and not-so-good birthday gifts. A good birthday gift is one the receiver wants to get. A not-so-good gift is one the receiver knows he’s going to get but isn’t exactly excited about. A good birthday gift celebrates your time on the earth. A not-so-good birthday gift might make you wonder if your time on earth was just a bunch of wasted days.

In today’s reading from Deuteronomy 31:1 through Deuteronomy 31:3, we begin a new week and a new portion of Torah. Parashah 52 is titled Vayelekh in Hebrew and means “He Went” in English. In it, we’ll find out what kind of birthday gift Moses was about to get for his 120 years on this earth. Since the portion is only three verses, I’ll paste the text from The Complete Jewish Bible here…

Moshe went and spoke the following words to all Isra’el: “I am 120 years old today. I can’t get around any longer; moreover, Adonai has said to me, ‘You will not cross this Yarden.’ Adonai your God — he will cross over ahead of you. He will destroy these nations ahead of you, and you will dispossess them. Y’hoshua — he will cross over ahead of you, as Adonai has said.

In case you don’t recognize a few of the words in this one, Moshe is the Hebrew for Moses, and the Yarden is Hebrew for “The Jordan River.” Adonai means “The Lord” but is also sometimes substituted for the use of God’s memorial name, Yahveh. The other name you may not recognize is “Y’hoshua” and it means “Joshua” but it also the same word for Yeshua and/or Jesus. So, our three verses can be summarized as follows:

Hey, Israel, it’s your old friend Moses with a message from The Lord. For my 120th birthday, I don’t get to cross into The Promised Land with you, but God will go before you to kill your enemies, and then Joshua will lead you there just like The Lord said would happen.

All the parts of the portion for this week will be short like this, so it may be a bit difficult coming up with commentary no matter how awake I am, but I’ll do my best. All I can think about in this one is that, after 120 years on the earth, it would have to be pretty hard to know your birthday gift does not include following a people you have been willing to lay down your life to save and lead. I’m certain that God would rather have had it go differently as well since He Himself said He thought of Moses as a friend. But, if you thought Israel was hard to keep in line with strict laws, imagine how much worse it would have been if God wavered even a little–or even for a friend.

The good part of Moses birthday present was that at least two of the men he lead, Caleb and Joshua, turned out to be great leaders themselves. Joshua had learned well enough from his mentor that he would take Moses’ place in going before Israel to the land of their inheritance. Besides that, Moses had to have known that without his intervention on the part of Israel, there may not have been a promised land or an opportunity to destroy the enemies of his “Best Friend.”

I truly hope Moses realized just how much he did as a patriarch for not only ancient Israel but the grafted-in seed of Abraham now. We can look to his dedication and obedience for an example of how to walk uprightly before God. We can look at his love for God to learn how to share true friendship with Our Creator. We can look at his longevity, and where he is at 120 years old, as an inspiration to persevere even to the end. If Moses couldn’t look at himself and see the gifts in these things, we certainly can now. And just in case Moses is able to look down and read this blog, won’t you join me in wishing him a hearty Happy Birthday, Mo for all of eternity?

September 13, 2014 - Posted by Crystal A Murray (aka CrystalWriter) | Bible Study, Nonfiction, Torah Commentary | Bible Commentary, Bible study, birthday gifts, Complete Jewish Bible, Deuteronomy, Happy Birthday, Israel, Moses, Scripture, Torah commentary, Torah Portions