Testing Lab by Flickr User USDAgov, CC License = Attribution
Click image to open a new tab/window to view the original image and to access the user’s full photo stream at Flickr.
It sure seems hard to find anything or anyone that is truly pure anymore. Even when you find shows that are “pure” for the most part, you must endure commercials that are not. It’s like trying to find pure seeds that have not been affected by the farm next door that is growing genetically modified crops. Everything around us seems to be seeking to bring us out of a state of purity and into a state of chaos.
In today’s reading from Numbers 5:11 through Numbers 6:27 (the end of the chapter), we have a long reading with God telling Moses how to have the priests deal with matters of impurity. I chose the image of the lab above because it reminded me of what the office of the high priest might look like today if God still wanted purity testing done. It’s a pretty detailed process that God lays out, but it’s interesting to read about.
If a man becomes jealous of his wife because he thinks she cheated on him, he is to bring her to the high priest for a test of her purity. The husband comes in with a sacrifice for his own spirit of jealousy, and then the wife meets with the priest who performs a ritual to see if she really has been unfaithful. The ritual involves water, a clay pot, and some dust, and if the woman is found guilty, she receives a curse that her private parts will shrivel and her abdomen will swell. I think that would be enough to keep a woman faithful, don’t you? Read it for yourself if you want to see the details of the ritual.
The next part of the reading concerns men who want to take the Nazarite vow. This is the same vow that Samson took, and it includes not cutting the hair, not drinking any wine or other alcohol, and not ever touching anything dead. Again, it has a lot of details, which is why the reading is so long, but it’s actually quite interesting. It is in my plans to go read it in The Message Bible as well, to see how he deals with it in a more poetic type of writing. But there is a poetic end to the reading that some of you may be aware of. It is called the Aaronic blessing and it goes like this from The Complete Jewish Bible…
24 ‘Y’varekh’kha Adonai v’yishmerekha.
[May Adonai bless you and keep you.]
25 Ya’er Adonai panav eleikha vichunekka.
[May Adonai make his face shine on you and show you his favor.]
26 Yissa Adonai panav eleikha v’yasem l’kha shalom.
[May Adonai lift up his face toward you and give you peace.]’
And just a quick note before I close tonight: Most of the images we see of The Messiah have Him with long hair because of this Nazarite vow. The confusion comes in the crossover of the words “Nazarite” and “Nazarene.” Yeshua was a Nazarene because He was born in Nazareth, but He did not take the Nazarite vow as evidenced by His touching the young girl to raise her from the dead. So, if you didn’t know this already, you can say you’ve learned something today. And with that, may the blessing above be upon all of my readers and followers, and upon the whole community of those who love Our Almighty Creator, Yahveh. Amen!
May 20, 2014
Posted by Crystal A Murray (aka CrystalWriter) |
Bible Study, Nonfiction, Torah Commentary | Bible Commentary, Bible study, Complete Jewish Bible, God, Israel, jealousy, Lord, Nazarite, Numbers, priest, purity, Scripture, Torah Portions, Yahveh |
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Church Cleaning by Flickr User Judy Baxter, CC License = Attribution, Noncommercial, Share Alike
Click image to open new tab/window to view original image and to access user’s full photo stream at Flickr.
When I was younger and a member of a small congregation, I took my turns with church cleaning duty because I believed it was a necessary sacrifice. It was odd to go to a larger church where they had a paid cleaning crew. Even though I’m not one of those who really likes to clean, I like the feeling of doing my part and being a part of everything.
In today’s reading from Leviticus 15:29 through Leviticus 15:33 (the end of the chapter), we finish the portion on being clean and unclean from leprosy and bodily discharges. The one thing I noticed that was different is the following statement from verse 31…
“In this way you will separate the people of Israel from their uncleanness, so that they will not die in a state of uncleanness for defiling my tabernacle which is there with them.”
I’m big on looking for the purpose in God’s laws because I am convinced that He never does anything without some reason that will ultimately benefit His creation. I loved reading this verse and seeing that His purpose in keeping Israel clean was to keep them from dying in a state of uncleanness and to keep the tabernacle pure. God is merciful, and He knows the end results of impurity. The biggest result of purity and cleanness though is being able to draw nearer to God because He will not dwell in the presence of sin.
I wonder sometimes if the people back then really understood why God wanted them to stay pure since so many of us now question why God wants us to do or not do certain things. As I’ve been reading all these rules since we’ve been in Leviticus, I’ve imagined both the frustration of the people when they didn’t understand the “why” of it all, and I’ve thought about the great mercy of God and how much He just wanted the people to trust Him. It’s not easy to just blindly trust, but that is the goal of putting our faith in Him–trusting that He always knows what’s best for keeping the church body clean and close to Him.
April 4, 2014
Posted by Crystal A Murray (aka CrystalWriter) |
Bible Study, Nonfiction, Torah Commentary | Adonai, Almighty, Bible, Bible Gateway, Bible reading, Bible study, church, clean, Complete Jewish Bible, Creator, crystalwriter, God, Holy Bible, Israel, Leviticus, Lord, Old Covenant, Old Testament, Parashah, Portions, purity, Scripture, The Complete Jewish Bible, Torah, Torah commentary, Torah Portions, Torah Reading, unclean, Word, Word of God, Word of the Lord, www.biblegateway.com, Yahveh, Yahweh |
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Crystal Writes A Blog 
Purity Testing & The Nazarite Vow
Testing Lab by Flickr User USDAgov, CC License = Attribution
Click image to open a new tab/window to view the original image and to access the user’s full photo stream at Flickr.
It sure seems hard to find anything or anyone that is truly pure anymore. Even when you find shows that are “pure” for the most part, you must endure commercials that are not. It’s like trying to find pure seeds that have not been affected by the farm next door that is growing genetically modified crops. Everything around us seems to be seeking to bring us out of a state of purity and into a state of chaos.
In today’s reading from Numbers 5:11 through Numbers 6:27 (the end of the chapter), we have a long reading with God telling Moses how to have the priests deal with matters of impurity. I chose the image of the lab above because it reminded me of what the office of the high priest might look like today if God still wanted purity testing done. It’s a pretty detailed process that God lays out, but it’s interesting to read about.
If a man becomes jealous of his wife because he thinks she cheated on him, he is to bring her to the high priest for a test of her purity. The husband comes in with a sacrifice for his own spirit of jealousy, and then the wife meets with the priest who performs a ritual to see if she really has been unfaithful. The ritual involves water, a clay pot, and some dust, and if the woman is found guilty, she receives a curse that her private parts will shrivel and her abdomen will swell. I think that would be enough to keep a woman faithful, don’t you? Read it for yourself if you want to see the details of the ritual.
The next part of the reading concerns men who want to take the Nazarite vow. This is the same vow that Samson took, and it includes not cutting the hair, not drinking any wine or other alcohol, and not ever touching anything dead. Again, it has a lot of details, which is why the reading is so long, but it’s actually quite interesting. It is in my plans to go read it in The Message Bible as well, to see how he deals with it in a more poetic type of writing. But there is a poetic end to the reading that some of you may be aware of. It is called the Aaronic blessing and it goes like this from The Complete Jewish Bible…
And just a quick note before I close tonight: Most of the images we see of The Messiah have Him with long hair because of this Nazarite vow. The confusion comes in the crossover of the words “Nazarite” and “Nazarene.” Yeshua was a Nazarene because He was born in Nazareth, but He did not take the Nazarite vow as evidenced by His touching the young girl to raise her from the dead. So, if you didn’t know this already, you can say you’ve learned something today. And with that, may the blessing above be upon all of my readers and followers, and upon the whole community of those who love Our Almighty Creator, Yahveh. Amen!
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May 20, 2014 Posted by Crystal A Murray (aka CrystalWriter) | Bible Study, Nonfiction, Torah Commentary | Bible Commentary, Bible study, Complete Jewish Bible, God, Israel, jealousy, Lord, Nazarite, Numbers, priest, purity, Scripture, Torah Portions, Yahveh | Leave a comment