This week’s Parashah is Exodus 27:20-30:10 and is called “Tetzaveh”, which means “you shall command”, in the context of the Lord telling Moses to command the children of Israel to bring clear Olive oil for the lighting of the menorah, the temple lights, for a “perpetual candle-light” (“neir-tamied” means perpetual candle). This command to keep the temple lights burning perpetually was so necessary that it even necessitated the priests and Levites of the temple to “break” the Sabbath by lighting the menorah lights on the Sabbath. God’s Presence, the light of His Presence, must persist perpetually, because without it even our rest becomes meaningless, for there is no true rest without the Presence of God in our lives.
These chapters bring us intricate detail of the makings of the priestly garments, the anointing oil, the incense and the construction of the altar of incense and the manner in which the sacrifices were to be made upon the altar of sacrifice. Here we learn of how the priest was to “wear” or “carry” the whole of the twelve tribes of Israel upon his own shoulders, in the form of two beautiful Onyx stones attached to the Ephod, each engraved with the names of six tribes of Israel.
There is no other nation on the face of the Earth that was given such commands and regulations for the temple sacrificial system. We are told in Galatians 3:24
Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith.
(Galatians 3:24 NRSV)
This NRSV seems to be a good translation here, because the word for “disciplinarian” or “guardian” (NIV) or “tutor” is translated from a Greek word paidagógos, which means “a trainer of boys”, a boy’s guardian or tutor, a slave who had charge of the life and morals of the boys of a family, not strictly a teacher.
The twelve tribes of Israel, their names carried in precious stones on the shoulders of the high priest, were being trained as no other nation has ever been trained, to understand the mysteries of atonement, propitiation for our sins, the sentence of death on an innocent sacrifice in the place of sinners deserving the penalty of death, the concept that there is no salvation without the shedding of innocent blood.
To literally top it all, the high priest wore a plate of pure gold attached to his turban with these words engraved on it (Exodus 28:36):
HOLY TO YaHuWeH
Holiness, God’s Holiness, is at the centre of this entire temple sacrificial system of which the priests and Levites were guardians and ministers.
There is no other nation on the face of the Earth, the nation of twelve tribes that emerged from the sons of Jacob, that was so tutored, so trained, so disciplined, so prepared to understand the Gospel of Yshua the Messiah, because as Paul says in Galatians, the law and its temple sacrificial system was put in charge as a trainer to lead us to Messiah.
In spite of all this “training”, Israel for the most part rejected their Messiah. Yet this was all part of God’s grand design, so that the gospel, in its rejection by the remaining tribe of Judah, should go to the nations.
the Jewish tribe of Israel may have rejected their Messiah, but God has not rejected them. They, together with the “ten lost tribes”, jointly referred to as “Ephraim – the fullness of the Gentiles” (Genesis 48:19), will once again be reconciled to their God. Jacob’s words to his son Joseph, shortly before Jacob passed from this life on Earth, were that Joseph’s son Ephraim would become the fullness of the Gentiles (m’lo ha-goyim). That does not just mean “many nations” as some translations would put it, but all nations, the fullness of all nations. What this truly means is that all believers in Jesus the Messiah, no matter what nation or tribe they come from, are represented by one of the sons of Israel, namely Ephraim. Whenever a Gentile is born again into the family of God through repentance and faith in Jesus, that person becomes enjoined to the collective family of the tribe of Ephraim. You, Jew or Gentile, have become members of God’s household and your collective name “Ephraim” is born on the shoulder of our High Priest and Messiah Y’shua. He bears also on his shoulder the tribe of Judah, who too shall be reconciled wholesale to their God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
So if you think that the lessons or “tutoring” given through the law of Moses and the sacrificial temple system is relevant only to Jews, then think again. You Gentiles, as the collective tribe of Ephraim, are equally born on the shoulders of your High Priest Y’shua, so that every word of the Old Covenant given to the twelve tribes of Israel for understanding the New Covenant Gospel message is as much relevant to you, as you work out your salvation with fear and trembling in the enabling power of the Holy Spirit through faith in Jesus.
Each of the gates of the City for which you long, the New Jerusalem, the Jerusalem that is above and the Jerusalem that is indeed free, has inscribed upon it not the name of your Earthly tribe or nation, but the name of one of those twelve tribes of Israel (Revelation 21:12)
Adopted or not, you are Jacob’s family and household and just as the high priest had HOLY TO YaHuWeH inscribed in gold upon his turban, you too have entered into a life of Holiness to your God.
