Your Daily Pesuk Sept. 17, 2018

Parashat Ha'Azinu / פרשת האזינו

• Mon, 17 September 2018 = 8th of Tishrei, 5779
• ח׳ בְּתִשְׁרֵי תשע״ט

Deuteronomy 32:7-12 (6 p'sukim)

Deuteronomy 32:7-12 Tree of Life Version (TLV)

7 “Remember the days of antiquity,

understand the years across generations.

Ask your father and he will tell you,

    your elders and they will say to you.

8 When Elyon gave nations their heritage,

when He separated the sons of man,

He set boundaries for the people

    by the number of Bnei-Yisrael.

9 But Adonai’s portion is His people—

Jacob is the share of His inheritance.

10 He found him in the wilderness land,

in the void of a howling waste.

He surrounded him, cared for him,

    guarded him as the pupil of His eye.

11 As an eagle stirs up its nest,

    hovers over its young,

He spreads His wings, catches him,

    lifts him up on His pinions.

12 Adonai alone guided him—

there was no foreign god with him.

7 זְכֹר֙ יְמ֣וֹת עוֹלָ֔ם בִּ֖ינוּ שְׁנ֣וֹת דּוֹר־וָד֑וֹר שְׁאַ֤ל אָבִ֙יךָ֙ וְיַגֵּ֔דְךָ זְקֵנֶ֖יךָ וְיֹ֥אמְרוּ לָֽךְ׃

8 בְּהַנְחֵ֤ל עֶלְיוֹן֙ גּוֹיִ֔ם בְּהַפְרִיד֖וֹ בְּנֵ֣י אָדָ֑ם יַצֵּב֙ גְּבֻלֹ֣ת עַמִּ֔ים לְמִסְפַּ֖ר בְּנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃

9 כִּ֛י חֵ֥לֶק יְהוָֹ֖ה עַמּ֑וֹ יַעֲקֹ֖ב חֶ֥בֶל נַחֲלָתֽוֹ׃

10 יִמְצָאֵ֙הוּ֙ בְּאֶ֣רֶץ מִדְבָּ֔ר וּבְתֹ֖הוּ יְלֵ֣ל יְשִׁמֹ֑ן יְסֹֽבְבֶ֙נְהוּ֙ יְב֣וֹנְנֵ֔הוּ יִצְּרֶ֖נְהוּ כְּאִישׁ֥וֹן עֵינֽוֹ׃

11 כְּנֶ֙שֶׁר֙ יָעִ֣יר קִנּ֔וֹ עַל־גּוֹזָלָ֖יו יְרַחֵ֑ף יִפְרֹ֤שׂ כְּנָפָיו֙ יִקָּחֵ֔הוּ יִשָּׂאֵ֖הוּ עַל־אֶבְרָתֽוֹ׃

12 יְהוָ֖ה בָּדָ֣ד יַנְחֶ֑נּוּ וְאֵ֥ין עִמּ֖וֹ אֵ֥ל נֵכָֽר׃

Pesuk 8 gives us an often forgotten Biblical fact.  God set the boundaries of the nations, according to the number of the Children of Israel.  Rashi explains:

When the Most High gave nations their lot: When the Holy One, Blessed is He, gave those who provoked Him to anger their portion, He flooded them and drowned them [i.e., that was their lot].

 

בהנחל עליון גוים: כשהנחיל הקדוש ברוך הוא למכעיסיו את חלק נחלתן הציפן ושטפם:

when He separated the sons of man: When [God] scattered the Generation of the Dispersion [which built the tower of Babel], He had the power to remove them from the world [altogether], but He did not do so. Rather, “He set up the boundaries of peoples,” [i.e.,] He let them remain in existence and did not destroy them.

 

בהפרידו בני אדם: כשהפיץ דור הפלגה היה בידו להעבירם מן העולם ולא עשה כן, אלא יצב גבולות עמים קיימם ולא אבדם:

according to the number of the children of Israel: [God let man remain in existence] for the sake of a [small] number of the children of Israel who were destined to descend from the children of Shem, and [the sake of] the number of the seventy souls of the children of Israel who went down to Egypt, He “set up the boundaries of peoples,” [i.e., He separated man into seventy nations with] seventy languages.

 

למספר בני ישראל: בשביל מספר בני ישראל שעתידים לצאת מבני שם, ולמספר שבעים נפש של בני ישראל שירדו למצרים, הציב גבולות עמים שבעים לשון:

Often the sages of Israel reminds us that if it wasn't for Israel, there would be no "nations".  The nations exist for the sake of Israel!  

Keil & Delitzsch explain it similarly:

“ When the Most High portioned out inheritance to the nations, when He divided the children of men; He fixed the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the sons of Israel: for the Lord's portion is His people; Jacob the cord of His inheritance .” Moses commences his enumeration of the manifestations of divine mercy with the thought, that from the very commencement of the forming of nations God had cared for His people Israel. The meaning of Deuteronomy 32:8 is given in general correctly by Calvin: “In the whole arrangement of the world God had kept this before Him as the end: to consult the interests of His chosen people.” The words, “when the Most High portioned out inheritance to the nations,” etc., are not to be restricted to the one fact of the confusion of tongues and division of the nations as described in Gen 11, but embrace the whole period of the development of the one human family in separate tribes and nations, together with their settlement in different lands; for it is no doctrine of the Israelitish legend, as Kamphausen supposes, that the division of the nations was completed once for all. The book of Genesis simply teaches, that after the confusion of tongues at the building of the tower of Babel, God scattered men over the entire surface of the earth (Deuteronomy 11:9), and that the nations were divided, i.e., separate nations were formed from the families of the sons of Noah ( Genesis 10:32); that is to say, the nations were formed in the divinely-appointed way of generation and multiplication, and so spread over the earth. And the Scriptures say nothing about a division of the countries among the different nations at one particular time; they simply show, that, like the formation of the nations from families and tribes, the possession of the lands by the nations so formed was to be traced to God, - was the work of divine providence and government, - whereby God so determined the boundaries of the nations (“the nations” are neither the tribes of Israel, nor simply the nations round about Canaan, but the nations generally), that Israel might receive as its inheritance a land proportioned to its numbers.

This is precisely why that it is both foolish and dangerous for the nations to dispossess and exile the Jews from their God-given Land anymore.  As it is written:

Joel 4 Tree of Life Version (TLV)

Valley of Jehoshaphat

4 “For behold, in those days and at that time,

    when I restore Judah and Jerusalem from exile,

2 I will gather all nations

and bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat.

I will plead[a] with them there on behalf of My people,

    even My inheritance, Israel,

whom they scattered among the nations

    and they divided up My land.

3 They cast lots for My people,

traded a boy for a prostitute,

    and sold a girl for wine, which they drank.”

(The word "plead" here is translated in Hebrew as "enter into judgement") 

You see friend, God is a Zionist.  It is not just a "political" issue regarding the Promised Land to the Children of Israel.  Anyone who tries to touch God's Land and those whom He has given it to; are playing a dangerous game.  It is arrogant and insolent to argue against God, His Word, Israel's right to exist as a nation, as the ONLY DEMOCRACY IN THE ENTIRE MIDDLE EAST.  The only place in the mid-east where there is freedom of religion.  

Some people accuse Israel of being an apartheid state.  They accuse the Jews of genocide and they deny that the Holocaust ever happened.  They plot against Israel in many ways, they terrorize her, they boycott and divest and sanction her; but no matter how much they try to undermine God's Covenant with Israel - they will ultimately fail and bring judgement upon themselves.

As believers, whether Messianic or if you are a Christian, it is critical that we align ourselves with God's Word, and with political and religious forces that are also in line with God's Word, otherwise, we can find ourselves on the WRONG SIDE of God's Plan for Israel, the Land and His Word.