This week’s Torah reading, Matot, begins with the laws of oaths. The Israelites wage battle against Midian and the spoils are divided and tithed. The tribes of Reuben and Gad request and receive territory outside the mainland of Israel.
I want to read just the first verse of the parsha:
Num 30:1 Moses spoke to the heads of the tribes of the people of Israel, saying, “This is what the LORD has commanded.
Today, I want to focus on the word that is the name of our parsha, the word Matot. This word is here translated tribes. This is the plural form of the word. The singular form of the word is mateh.
In a literal sense, the word mateh does not mean tribe, it means branch or rod. In fact, the rod that Aaron throws down before Pharaoh that turns into a serpent is a mateh. So, by using the word mateh here to speak of the tribes of Israel, God was teaching them (and us) something. The idea that that the different groups among the Israelite people are called “branches” makes sense. God was telling them that they are all branches on the same tree and are all unified together. While they had separate tribal identities, they were all united and drawing their life from the root of the tree, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
This concept of the tribes as branches of a tree was not lost on the Apostle Paul. He uses this same idea to show how we gentiles are also attached to the same tree as the tribes of Israel. In Romans it is written:
Rom 11:13 Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry
Rom 11:14 in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them.
Rom 11:15 For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?
Rom 11:16 If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches.
Rom 11:17 But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree,
Rom 11:18 do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you.
Rom 11:19 Then you will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.”
Rom 11:20 That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear.
Rom 11:21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.
Rom 11:22 Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.
Rom 11:23 And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again.
Rom 11:24 For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.
Rom 11:25 Lest you be wise in your own sight, I want you to understand this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
Rom 11:26 And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, “The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob”;
Rom 11:27 “and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins.”
Since we are now part of the same tree as the tribes of Israel we share in the nourishment from its root. We can call Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob our fathers. The covenant rights and responsibilities are ours. All of this is God’s doing. Through the redeeming work of His Messiah, Yeshua of Nazareth, our adoption and grafting in is made possible. So, as a people grafted in, please join me in prayer and ask a blessing on Israel (the root of our tree). This prayer was written by the Chief Rabbi in Israel shortly Israel gained its independence.
Our Father Who art in Heaven, Protector and Redeemer of Israel, bless the State of Israel which marks the first glimmering of our deliverance. Shield it beneath the wings of your love; spread over it your canopy of peace; send your light and your truth to its leaders, officers, and counselors, and direct them with your good counsel. O God, strengthen the defenders of our Holy Land; grant them salvation and crown them with victory. Establish peace in the land, and everlasting joy for its inhabitants. Remember our brethren, the whole house of Israel, in all the lands of their dispersion. Speedily let them walk upright to Zion, the city, to Jerusalem your dwelling place, as it is written in the Torah of your servant Moses [in Deuteronomy 30:4–5], “Even if you are dispersed in the uttermost parts of the world, from there the LORD your God will gather and fetch you. The LORD your God will bring you into the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it.” Unite our heart to love and revere your Name, and to observe all the precepts of your Torah. Shine forth in your glorious majesty over all the inhabitants of your world.
Let everything that breathes proclaim, “The LORD God of Israel is King; His majesty rules over all.”
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