Vayak’hel (He Assembled) Exodus(Sh’mot) 35:1-38:20
Torah Portion: Vayak’hel (He Assembled) Exodus(Sh’mot) 35:1-38:20
Haftorah Reading: I Kings 7:13-26, 7:40-50
Tonight, we cover basically two major subjects in this portion. We start off with G-d giving His directions about the Shabbat, a subject I want to cover in a few minutes and get your thoughts on the question I sent out this week.
Matot (Tribes) Masaei (Journeys) Num 30
Torah Portion: Matot (Tribes) & Masa’ei (Journeys) Numbers (B’Midbar) 30:2-36:13
HafTorah: Jeremiah 1:1-2:28
NT Matthew 5:33-37; James 4:1-12
This week we read a double Torah section, the first Matot is given to the heads of the tribes of Israel and covers some very important material, especially for us as grafted in believers. It begins with a teaching on vows and also the responsibility of the husband in the matter of vows, not only for his own but of special importance to us, also those of his wife. Why should this be of any interest to us? Yeshua is the head or husband of the assembly. (Eph. 5:22-33) Given this, these verses in B’Midbar can give us insight into how Yeshua freed us from our sins and took them upon Himself.
Vayakhel (And He Assembled)
Torah Portion: Vayakhel (And He Assembled) Exodus 35:1-38:20
HafTorah: I Kings 7:40-7:50
II Cor 9:6-11; I Cor 3:11-18
Tonight we look at the Torah section, “And He Assembled.” The root word in Hebrew Khal is the word usually translated as assembly. In the Hebrew Scriptures this word often refers to the people in the tabernacle or temple as the assembly. You have heard me often refer to the group here as the kehila which is the assembly. When the Hebrew Scriptures were translated to Greek, in the 2nd or 3rd century BCE, this word passed over into Greek as ekklesia. It appears throughout the Septuagint in place of khal. However, when this same Greek word appears in the New Testament it is almost always translated by the English word “church.” What does it matter? A recent letter to the editor in the Pensacola News Journal highlights this problem by stating, “The Old Testament is Jewish scriptures; those living under it are living under the law. Although it is our history, for Christians it has been replaced with the New Testament. Those living under the New Testament are living in the age of grace, which was ushered in by the resurrection of our Lord….” This gives the impression that the church is an exclusive New Testament term and draws a stark boundary between the two sections of the Bible. It is a way of disconnecting us from our Jewish roots as believers. Another even more striking example is the Hebrew word “eda” translated in Exodus 35:1 as congregation. When it came into the Septuagint it was translated with the Greek word “sunagogay”, it was usually linked to the place the “eda” met. However in places like James 2:2 the Greek again was translated into English as assembly. Paul uses the same word in I Cor. 11:16. The effect of such translation biases has been to hide any connection between Judaism, from which we sprung and Christianity. We as believers are the worse for it. We have to a large extent been deprived of the sweetness and spiritual food of the Hebrew Scriptures because of these sort of deceptions. And I for one count us most blessed that we have begun to restore some of what has been lost for almost 2000 years.