Pinchas, Numbers 25:10-29:40
Pinchas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron
Last week we discussed how much of scripture points us toward the relationship between this physical world and the spiritual world that exists all around us. We discussed how this interconnectivity should not be overlooked when considering the ways of God and in our view of those things that could be considered “out dated”, “mere ritual”, or “for someone else and not me”.
In this Torah portion I am proposing that our emotional state plays a very important role that binds what we do in the physical with what is foretold to come about in the spirit. In doing a biblical word search with “your heart” you will find hundreds of verses where God tells us that the condition of our heart (and soul) matter. I think most of us know Deuteronomy 6:5 where God tells us that “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” In all reality, as I review this list it is amazing to me that the entire book of Deuteronomy is laced with this reference. In fact, in Deuteronomy alone there are 33 verses where God ties the condition of our heart to the practice of living a life in harmony with Him and His ways.
In today’s scripture it is not so obvious, but as I read the scripture, I came across two verses that really made me ponder, to move into a place of silence, to ask some tough questions, and to wait on His answers.
In Numbers 25:10-13 God tells Moses what to say to Pinchas after Pinchas kills two people with a spear. The people Pinchas killed were a man who was a leader of an Israeli household and a woman who was the daughter of a leader of a Midian family.
- God tells Moses that what Pinchas did led to the withdrawing of the plague,
- The “wrath” was withdrawn because Pinchas was jealous with God’s own jealousy,
- God re-iterates His covenant with the descendants of Pinchas (Aaron’s family line),
- An atonement was made for the sons of Israel.
The last line is the one that really made me ponder. God says that what Pinchas did brought atonement for the sons of Israel. Is God condoning human sacrifice?
In our relationship with God, there are things that come between us and God that break the intimacy of the relationship. An atonement is something that removes that which is standing between us. Putting this week’s summary together with what we learned last week I would say this.
God has given us particular and peculiar “rituals” that are performed in the physical that when done with the right heart remove what is standing between God and us so that our intimacy may be restored. When our intimacy is restored, we are capable of walking in the full power of the relationship. This power is manifest in and through the spirit world around us.
In this verse we find that Pinchas heart was in the right place when He thrust his spear through this couple. At the same time there is something else that we must take into consideration.
God had sent a plague among the people. 24,000 had died. This couple were heads of families of Israel and Midian. From what I gather, the plague was not leading the people to a change of heart. In spite of the plague, the people of God were still doing what they had been doing, they were still playing the harlot, and were not listening to what God was attempting to tell them or hear what He was attempting to convey.
Because I believe that God is a good father, I do not believe that He sent this plague as a way to get even and to “punish”. Instead, I believe that He sent the plague in His attempt to show the people His Jealousy for the hearts of His people. They had turned their hearts toward the women of Moab AND toward the God’s of Moab. All He wanted was for them to return their hearts back to Him. This is the jealousy that He had and this is the jealousy that Pinchas had. But is the jealousy of the priest alone enough? I don’t believe that it is. I do believe that when Pinchas did this, because of what God told Moses to say in front of the people, because of the graphic nature of what happened, and because of the position of these two people within each of the communities, something was heard that had up to this point not been heard. I believe that Pinchas actions set into motion a series of physical and emotional events that led to a place of repentance in the hearts of the children of Israel. Because the repentance and heart change were the things God was looking for, He removed the plague, and called what Pinchas had done “atonement”. To say it in the words that I believe I heard it. “Because the repentance led to the re-establishment of the intimacy between God and the people, the action that led to the repentance became the “atoning” action. It was the catalyst that led to the repentance.” If the people would have been able to understand what God was communicating through the plague, repented, and turned back to Him with all their hearts, minds, and strength, He would have lifted the plague and it would have been the atoning action.
A verse that really helps bring this home is Isaiah 1:11 “What are your multiplied sacrifices to Me?” Says the LORD. “I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams And the fat of fed cattle; And I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls, lambs or goats.
It is all about the heart, not the “ritual”.
The next verse that really jumped out at me was Numbers 27:20. God has just told Moses that Joshua would be the one who would pick up where Moses would leave off and would be the one to lead the Israeli people into the promised land. God tells Moses to commission Joshua in the midst of the congregation of the people through the laying on of his hands and through this “ritual” Moses was to “put some of your authority on him”. In the Hebrew this “authority” is seen as Moses majesty and interpreted as the glow that was upon Moses face.
This really made me think about the “ritual” we do when we lay hands on people and what we might be missing. I was overwhelmed about how hard this could have been for Moses. God wasn’t just asking him to lay his hands on Joshua and pray over him. He wasn’t just asking Moses to ask God to bless him. No, God was asking Moses to be willing to let go of something that God had blessed him with and let it pass to Joshua. This made me think about tithing. When we tithe we know that the money we have is all God’s, that He has only given it to us because He sees us as trust worthy, and that He knows that when He asks us to give it to someone else we will. There is an understanding that what He has given me is not “for me”. Instead, what He has given me has been entrusted to me, it is for me to have and use for His purposes. I never made this connection with spiritual gifts or other blessings that I should be thankful for. This made me think about how I have abused my body yet remain reasonably healthy. It made me think about the number of toxins I have ingested yet I remain cancer free. It reminded me of how many times I have almost been in horrific accidents, yet somehow had a hedge of protection that I simply can not explain. It made me wonder what the New Testament authors understood from Moses example that we are simply not taught.
How much would it change things if when we laid hands on someone who was sick we would be willing to “put on them” what we have been blessed to carry for all the years of our own lives? How much more grateful would we be for the blessings that we have had? How much faith would it take to put our lives back into God’s hands and trust that He will either replace what we let go of or not?
Isn’t this the promise of His Word? Isn’t this the foundation of faith? Do we believe that the more we give in trust the more He will entrust us with? How much would this kind of heart attitude change what is taking place in the spirit realm when we do some of these “rituals” that we have been doing with little to no understanding? How much more might be possible? How much faith would it take? How much love? How many of us are really willing to lay down our lives for another? Isn’t this what He calls the greatest love? And, isn’t loving God and others what this is really all about?
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