In this week’s reading, Massei, Moses reviews the forty years of Israelite journeys through the desert. The Torah discusses the boundaries of Israel, its division amongst the tribes, the cities which the Levites would receive, and the cities of refuge. Zelophehad’s daughters are restricted to marrying within their own tribe.
Let’s read from the parsha:
Num 34:1 The LORD spoke to Moses, saying,
Num 34:2 “Command the people of Israel, and say to them, When you enter the land of Canaan (this is the land that shall fall to you for an inheritance, the land of Canaan as defined by its borders),
Num 34:3 your south side shall be from the wilderness of Zin alongside Edom, and your southern border shall run from the end of the Salt Sea on the east.
Numbers 34 continues to sketches out the borders for the land of Israel, which Joshua was to distribute among the nine and a half tribes that remained to be settled. The tribes of Reuben and Gad and half the tribe of Manasseh had already made claim to territories east of the Jordan. The Levites were not to receive tribal territory. Joshua and Eleazar were to cast lots to parcel out the land among the remaining tribes. Numbers 34:19-29 gives a list of the tribal leaders responsible for dividing the parcel among the clans and families of the tribe.
It is easy for believers in Messiah to read about geographical Israel with little interest. Descriptions of the land seem inconsequential to us. After all, Christianity provides a spiritual inheritance in heaven, not an earthly inheritance. Why should believers care about the land of Israel?
One reason we should take an interest in the land of Israel is that God does. The Bible is filled with details about this particular piece of real estate. The land of Israel is the stage on which the majority of the Bible is played out. In God’s Book, the land of Israel is a central concern. If it matters to God, it should matter to His children.
Another important reason for a believer to have an interest in the land of Israel is that the kingdom to which we all belong started there. The Messiah Yeshua was sent to Israel with the message of the coming Kingdom. In one place, the Master described the Kingdom this way:
Mar 4:30 And he said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it?
Mar 4:31 It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth,
Mar 4:32 yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”
Yeshua planted the seed of His Fathers Kingdom in the Land of Israel and His disciples carried it into all of the earth. Thanks to their work, we are all part of that Kingdom of Heaven that Yeshua proclaimed right now. Since the time of the disciples, the Kingdom has been advancing and growing. In the day that the Lord returns to earth, the center of God’s Kingdom will be established in Jerusalem. According to the prophet Micah:
Mic 4:1 But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow unto it.
Mic 4:2 And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
The King will have returned, He will set up the administration of His Kingdom in Jerusalem, and we all will go to worship Him there. The Land itself has been given to the children of Jacob, but our King and our Lord will be there. We should continue to pray for peace in the Land and for the quick return of Messiah Yeshua. The Land has been central to the plans of God in the past and will continue to be in the future.
Moses writes:
Deu 11:11 But the land, whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven:
Deu 11:12 A land which the LORD thy God careth for: the eyes of the LORD thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year.
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