Blessings and curses. God makes promises to His people that He fully intends on keeping. He promised Abraham that he would be the father of a nation so large that it would be impossible to number them. He promised Adam that in the day that he ate the fruit of the forbidden tree, he would die. God promised David that his seed would be on the throne of Israel for eternity. God promised Noah that He would never again flood the earth so as to destroy it. He promised Moses that He would deliver the Israelites from the egyptians and bring them into a land that was previously promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
In this Parasha, God makes a conditional promise to the Israelites. This promise is not conditional in that whether He keeps it or not will change, but in the sense that the fruit of that promise would depend on Israel’s response to God’s command. On one hand, God promises a blessing in they are faithful to obey His commands, and a curse if they turn aside and chase after “other gods that you have not known.” This promise has 2 potential outcomes, each of which God is faithful to deliver on, as proven throughout the millennia of Israel’s history.
The next chapter focuses on God’s expectation for how He is to be worshipped, as well as the limitation on where certain acts of worship may be carried out, namely sacrifices. Prior to the Exodus, Israel’s forefathers were free to make altars and offer sacrifices wherever they found themselves in the moment. Throughout the Torah prior to the Exodus, Abraham and Isaac, and many of their contemporaries, would construct altars to God near their homes, or wherever they journeyed if the cause and opportunity arose. Once God spoke to the Israelites at Sinai and laid out His expectations for how He is to be worshiped, the people were no longer free to offer sacrifices where they pleased, but only “in the place where the LORD your God shall choose to make His name dwell.” Any person who took it upon themselves to attempt to make a sacrifice outside the tabernacle – or later the Temple – would suffer the consequences of breaking God’s explicit command against doing so. God instructs the Israelites to utterly destroy the “high places” of idol worship put in place by the canaanites, and tells them that they are not to worship Him in that manner. God’s commands do not need to make sense for us to be willing to obey and keep them. However, we can see where this practice of “free spirited” view of worship can lead people to unrighteous acts. Just look at the recent explosive growth of “new age” practices within modern “christian” movements, where so-called believers are adopting demonic and satanic practices while claiming they are repurposing them for Christ. God has laid out very clear directions for how He is and is not to be worshipped.
Following this warning, God lays out strict warnings against following the example of the nations they were to dispossess and copying the rituals and traditions they had put in place for worshipping their false gods. In verse 4, God very clearly warns the people, “You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way.” God wants His people to worship Him in a manner that pleases Him. And this makes sense! If a man were to try to honor his wife by doing something he knows she hates, would he be successful in pleasing his wife? Of course not! God told the Israelites in the previous Torah portion (Eikev) that the children of Israel were not to think that their own righteousness had somehow earned them the Land that they were to possess. Rather, God makes it very clear that the Land was currently inhabited by wicked people who had spat in God’s face and earned His wrath, and it was because of their abominable wickedness that they were to be destroyed. And Israel’s possession of this Land was only to occur if they obeyed the command of God to go in and utterly destroy them for their wickedness, for the sake of the promise He formerly made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
The next chapter deals with false prophets. The text makes it clear that a false prophet does not necessarily have to make a false prophecy to be considered a false prophet. The test of a prophet is not always whether or not his prophecy comes true. More important than the result of his prophecy is the intent behind the prophet’s message. If a person claims to receive visions from God that come true, but the prophet uses this validation to deceive people into disobeying God’s commands, this prophet is a false prophet and a deceiver and should be put to death. The true test of a person’s motives lie in their actions: do they seek to inspire obedience to God, or rebellion against him? And this is true not only of prophets, but v. 6-11 clarify that even if your own family member entices you to rebel against God’s commands, they are not to be spared the same fate.
Clean vs. Unclean
In the middle of the commandments pertaining to abstaining from consuming blood in chapter 12, God clarifies the distinction between eating of a sacrificed animal and eating a meal.
When it comes to animals offered as a sacrifice, God sets clear expectations for the handling and selection of the animals to be offered. Further, God clearly prohibits eating of sacrificed animals in one’s own home. Only the Tabernacle or Temple were to be sites for offering sacrifices to God. As such, one was expected to eat of the meat of that sacrifice within the confines of the Holy Place where God’s name was set. The difference is in the purpose of the meal. God clearly foresaw that the Israelites would be faced with questions about eating meat in a regular, non-sacrificial context, so he gives clear guidance, “If you crave meat, you may eat meat within any of your towns, as much as you desire.” The only real caveat on eating meat within one’s home was to abstain from consuming the blood, “for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the flesh.”
In the midst of these instructions for eating both ceremonially sacrificed and everyday meat, God makes a critical clarification pertaining to the eating of non-ceremonial meat: “The unclean and the clean may eat of it.” Isn’t clean and unclean a food thing tho? No. Cleanliness was a state of being that a person attained based on their actions and proximity to others. Just as the utensils in the temple were considered ritually clean, and as such were not to be taken out of the Temple in order to not defile them, ritual cleanness and uncleanliness could be transferred or obtained based on a number of requirements and situations. What is being referred to here are the people. The people who are unclean should be welcomed to eat at the dinner table, because cleanness was only defined by the person’s relationship with the Temple and the ability to enter and service or sacrifice within the Temple. There was no restriction put in place by God on whether a person could merely eat with another person, whether they were native born or a stranger.
This principle was distorted throughout the centuries following the inhabitation of Israel by God’s people, to the point that it was considered a cultural taboo for a Jew to eat with a gentile merely because that gentile may be “unclean” or unfit to enter the temple based on what they did for a living or if they ascribed to the dietary commands or not. I believe it is this very confusion that caused Peter to be hesitant to welcome Cornelius into his house. Cornelius was a God-fearing man who gave of his income and “feared God with all his household.” Cornelius, in God’s eyes, was considered clean (holy) because his heart was set on pleasing God. When Cornelius set out to visit Peter, God prepared Peter’s heart by correcting this false notion of clean versus unclean when it comes to people. “What God has made clean (holy), do not call common (unclean).” This is not a commentary on what is or isn’t acceptable to eat in God’s eyes. The point of this vision of Peter’s was that God alone has the power to make a person, place, animal, or object clean/holy or unclean/common. Just as Paul says that the Torah itself is not sin, but rather makes known what is sin, people or things that are clean or unclean are not so because of what they are, but rather because of their relationship and position in God’s plan. If God declares something is unclean, no man can make it clean. If God declares something is clean, no make can make it clean. As such, we are not to make distinctions between people based on their place or heritage, but rather we should show love to all and welcome all people from every walk of life to our table in order to share God’s provision for us with them.
Expressions & Meditations 