As Egypt experiences the judgment of God through the plagues, the children of Israel are given a yearly and daily reminder of their time as slaves in Egypt. For what purpose? Why do we remember? Why do we share generational testimony? How does the Lord keep our hearts from becoming hardened, just as Pharaoh’s heart was hardened? What would this hardening produce in us as we carried the Gospel over the mountains to those who need to hear it? Give a listen!
Rahab heard the sound of the trumpets, the shouts and cries of men. She could hear the mighty walls of Jericho cracking. She could feel its formidable foundation shaking. Yet, she, along with her household, sat safely and expectantly inside the walls of her house.
The walls of her house were attached to the same crackling walls of the city. Its foundation sat atop the shaking foundation of the city. Yet, her house did not shake, crack or fall until the Lord called her household out.
“But Rahab the prostitute and her father’s household and all who belonged to her, Joshua saved alive. And she has lived in Israel to this day, because she hid the messengers whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho” (Josh. 6:25).
Rahab the prostitute. Rahab the sinner. Rahab the heathen. Rahab the saved.
Put the flesh and blood of today on that, set your name in that list: Justin the prostitute, Justin the sinner, Justin the heathen, and Justin the saved.
Rahab showed kindness to the spies of Israel when it would have made more sense to expose them. Rahab stayed in Jericho, knowing of its impending destruction, when she could have fled. Rahab placed the red skein of salvation out the window, her own Passover, when she could have sold it. She trusted in the word given to her, when she could have feared for her life.
Then Joshua, Yehoshua, saved her. Joshua, the one leading Israel into the Promised Land, saved a gentile prostitute from the destruction that surrounded her. How did the Lord bless Rahab? She would become a grandmother of David, and ultimately a grandmother of Messiah Yeshua/Jesus (Joshua).
Every believer, born-again by God’s grace (Eph. 2:8-10), had prostituted themselves to the desires of this world. We have all been Rahab at one time, therefore we can speak to those who yet are.
Are the walls of your city crumbling? What will you do saint? Wait on the Lord, safely within the walls of His promise, with the hope of redemption displayed for all to see, and behold His salvation: Yeshua/Jesus!
The walls of society are crumbling as the breath of the trumpet begins to blow. But you are secure in Him. Even while you are feeling the walls and foundations shake, the blood of the Lamb makes safe. What then shall we do?
Paul exhorts us: “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up” (Gal. 6:9).
How many will fit in your household? You are yet on a mission, advancing the Gospel, not retreating as the walls shake. No matter where He found you, like Rahab, He has great plans for you.
Be well. Shalom.
In the midst of the plague narrative of Exodus, the Lord gives the children of Israel a continual remembrance even as He commands a yearly remembrance. How are the two, applying a physical reminder and Passover, related?
In Exodus 13:9, 16 we read, “And it shall be to you as a sign on your hand and as a memorial between your eyes, that the law of the Lord may be in your mouth. For with a strong hand the Lord has brought you out of Egypt … It shall be as a mark on your hand or frontlets between your eyes, for by a strong hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt.”
The rabbis understand this literally: a physical application of the words above upon the body. The practice of laying Tefillin, defined below, endured through Israel’s long history, to the time of Yeshua/Jesus, even to today. Perhaps some background will aid our understanding.
The word תְּפִילִּין/Tefillin is the plural of Tefillah, meaning to pray. The word “tefillin” is not found in the Bible; rather, the Torah refers to Tefillin as: ot, zikaron, or ṭoṭafot, sign, remembrance and something immovable, respectively.
When the Jewish translators of the Septuagint were searching the Greek language to translate, וְהָיוּ לְטטָפת בֵּין עֵינֶיךָ, “they shall be as frontlets between your eyes,” they settled on φυλακτήριον/phylaktērion, phylacteries, meaning: guarded post, safeguard, or security; as the Word of God is to guard, protect, and keep the people of God, something, as noted above, that is immovable. Why?
The command for תְּפִילִּין/Tefillin is found in Exodus 13:9, 13:16; Deuteronomy 6:8 and 11:18.
These four paragraphs are written on parchments inserted into the תְּפִילִּין/Tefillin – one compartment in the hand tefillin, and four compartments in the head tefillin. There is one parchment in the hand תְּפִילִּין/Tefillin, and four in the head תְּפִילִּין/Tefillin, from the singular and plural language found in the text of the Torah. As Deuteronomy 6:4-9 commands, the Word is to be applied to the head and the hand in order to demonstrate the love of God with all our heart, mind/soul and strength, more on this below.
Going a little deeper. The תְּפִילִּין/Tefillin are made from the skin, hair and sinew of kosher animals. The rabbis explain this demonstrates that the “animal nature” of man must be submitted to the will of God, or in Christian parlance: “the flesh/sin nature.”
Numbers play a symbolic role in the Tefillin as well. The boxes are each sealed with 12 stitches: for 12 months of the year. The number seven is found in the windings on the arm, as well as the Hebrew letter ש/shin found on two sides of the head תְּפִילִּין/Tefillin. The seven stems found on the two ש/shin letters may represent the patriarchs and matriarchs (7 total), the week of creation, or the perfect plan of God. The number seven in Hebrew is שָׁבַע, meaning to “to bind oneself by seven things,” also means to “make covenant,” the covenant partner being the one we are bound to. In Revelation 1:4, the Bride of Messiah, is represented by seven, as in the seven letters.
The two straps hanging from the head תְּפִילִּין/Tefillin represent love and judgment – love on the right, and judgment on the left, reaching down to creation. The three windings on the middle finger of the weaker hand represent betrothal.
As you apply the תְּפִילִּין/Tefillin, the following blessings are recited:
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה’. אֱלהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעולָם. אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָׁנוּ בְּמִצְותָיו. וְצִוָּנוּ לְהָנִיחַ תְּפִלִּין
“Blessed are you, Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe, who sanctified us with God’s commandments and commanded us to place the tefillin.”
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה’ אֱלהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעולָם. אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָׁנוּ בְּמִצְותָיו וְצִוָּנוּ עַל מִצְוַת תְּפִלִּין
“Blessed are you, Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe, who sanctified us with God’s commandments and commanded us regarding the mitzvah of tefillin.”
בָּרוּךְ שֵׁם כְּבוד מַלְכוּתו לְעולָם וָעֶד
“Blessed is the name of the Glory of God’s Kingdom forever.”
As the hand is wrapped:
וְאֵרַשְׂתִּיךְ לִי, לְעוֹלָם
וְאֵרַשתִּיךְ לִי בְּצֶדֶק וּבְמִשְׁפָּט וּבְחֶסֶד וּבְרַחֲמִים
‘וְאֵרַשתִּיךְ לִי בֶּאֱמוּנָה. וְיָדַעְתְּ אֶת ה
“I betroth you to me forever. I betroth you to me in righteousness, justice, lovingkindness, and mercy. I betroth you to me in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord” (Hosea 2:21-22).
The verses from Hosea 2:21-22 brings the picture together. The donning of the טַלִּית/tallit, the Jewish prayer shawl, and the laying of the תְּפִילִּין/Tefillin is a picture of a bride preparing: a bride in identifying attire. In Hebrew bride and betrothed is כַּלָּה/kallah, from the root כָּלַל/kalal, meaning to make perfect or complete: to put a crown upon.
In the typological picture of the תְּפִילִּין/Tefillin, the head תְּפִילִּין/Tefillin is referred to as “the crown,” or “crown of righteousness,” a type Paul references. In the straps on the arm and hand, and on the boxes we find His name, identifying to whom we belong, and upon our hand, when we say the words from Hosea 2:21-22, we find a ring. All of this together טַלִּית/tallit and תְּפִילִּין/Tefillin is the bridal attire for those betrothed to Messiah to prepare for the Marriage Feast of the Lamb.
Finally:
Just as the Passover Seder as a remembrance is a living sermon meant to engage generations and the senses, Tefillin brings the head and the heart together in prayer. How?
1. Thought and Action
2. Creed and Deed.
3. Knowledge and Compassion.
The orthodoxy of mind, right thinking in learning, is taken a step higher through orthopraxy, doing what is right as an act of worship and prayer unto the covenant Lord.
Messiah Yeshua/Jesus teaches us: “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock” (Matt. 7:24-25).
To hear and do the Word of Messiah, the forever settled Word of God, makes us, His disciples, a ṭoṭafot, something immovable in Him. Adorned in the garments of betrothal, no matter the plague or storm in life, we stand firmly established.
Underlying the faith life is the remembrance of deliverance as family gathering and bodily adornment. Now that we are free, how then shall we live?
Be well. Shalom.
the mountain mensch 