Exploring My Strange Bible - Torah Crash Course: Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy (Remastered)

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

Torah Crash Course E3 — The books of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy tell the story about God’s covenant with Israel at Mount Sinai—and make up two-thirds of the entire Torah! God gives Israel 613 laws, interspersed with stories that offer commentary on them. Tragically, the Israelites demonstrate their inability to truly love and obey God and follow the laws. This unresolved tension creates a future hope announced by Moses himself: God will one day transform the people’s hearts and minds so they can be loving and faithful covenant partners. In this message, Tim explores Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, showing how they develop the storyline that Jesus fulfilled. Tim taught this series in the early 2010s at Door of Hope Church in Portland, Oregon.REFERENCED RESOURCESCheck out Tim’s extensive collection of recommended books.SHOW MUSIC“Nob Hill (Instrumental)” by DrexlerSHOW CREDITSProduction of today’s episode is by Lindsey Ponder, producer, and Cooper Peltz, managing producer. Aaron Olsen edited and remastered today’s episode. JB Witty writes our show notes. Powered and distributed by Simplecast. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey everybody, I'm Tim Mackie, and this is my podcast, exploring my strange Bible. I am a card-carrying Bible history and language nerd who thinks that Jesus of Nazareth is utterly amazing and worth following with everything that you have. On this podcast, I'm putting together the last 20 years worth of lectures and sermons where I've been exploring the strange and wonderful story of the Bible and how it invites us into the mission of Jesus and the journey of faith. And I hope this can all be helpful for you too. I also help start this thing called The Bible Project.

We make animated videos and podcasts and classes about all kinds of topics in Bible and theology. You can find all those resources at Bibleproject.com. With all that said, let's dive into the episode for this week. All right, this is part three of a three-part series called the Torah Crash Course. so if you haven't listened to Parts 1 and 2, I highly recommend you go do that. That'll give you context for this last lecture. This was a Friday night event that I did at Door of Hope where I served as a teaching pastor many years ago. And this brings to its conclusion the overall survey of the Torah, the first five books of the Bible.

What we focus on in this lecture is the purpose of the laws in the storyline of the Torah and in the storyline of the whole Bible. The covenant that God made with the people of Israel at Mount Sinai after he saved them from Egypt is it's a long section of the Torah. It starts in Exodus, goes through all of Leviticus, a lot of numbers. And then the last book of the Torah, Deuteronomy, is itself a recollection and a revisiting of hundreds of laws that were made back at Mount Sinai. The classic number is 613 laws that God gives to Israel through Moses at Mount Sinai. Why? What's the importance of these laws? Many people often mistake the Old Testament as a book of law telling you to earn your way to be saved

by obeying and earning God's favor, and that is so not what this story is about. In this lecture, we'll talk about where the laws come in the story, and how if you track with the storyline of the Torah, you'll see the whole point of this story is to tell you that Israel is unable to truly love and obey God and to follow the laws of the Torah, which leaves room for some future work that God's going to have to do to transform people from the inside out

so they can truly love God and love their neighbor as themselves. And this is the story that Jesus saw himself as bringing to its fulfillment. So this, again, is the last, of our three-part series on the Torah Crash Course. Hope it's helpful for you. Here's where we're at, essentially. Yahweh has called Israel to be in a covenant relationship with him. He wants them to be obedient because obedience and allowing themselves to be shaped by God's

teaching, his Torah, his instruction will make them stand out in a big way. I want to hit on a couple of passages that talk about why are there all of these laws in the Torah, and then we'll move in specifically to issue of sacrifice. But when most of us think of all of the laws, basically this whole year that they spend, all of this in Exodus, Leviticus numbers, is the giving of the law, all these Torah's, and 613 of them. And they cover every aspect of life. They're not just about sacrifices. Like I said, it's like a lot of this, how you build your roof or how you deal with your neighbor's ox or something like that. And there's a number of reasons why the laws are about those kinds of topics. So Leviticus 19, this is actually kind of a

famous verse 19, verse 1, the Lord said to Moses, speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them, be holy because I, Yahweh, your God, am holy. So one of the big themes, in these laws is that if the people can obey them and allow these laws to shape them, they will become like Yahweh, which is holy. Now holiness is one of those concepts. In English, I think it mostly means like being a moral person, a moral religious person. Like she's so holy. It's like negative almost to be called holy. She's so holier than now, whatever. That's the idea. In Hebrew, this concept of to be holy is the Hebrew word Kadoosh. And you may be familiar with this.

It just means to be set apart or distinct. And so Yahweh is the ultimate source of holiness. Because he's the completely, he is the being in the universe to which nothing else can be compared. You know what I'm saying? He's like the ultimate distinct being. You know, the idea is that every all being and creatureliness and everything is generated out of him. And so he's the ultimate thing that nothing else is like. But Yahweh wants to be in relationship and create a people around him that also reflect this holiness.

And so it's like there's this ring of people around him that are called to share in that uniqueness. Now, the idea is that there to be a kingdom with priests, the kingdom of priests. So here was the idea. What actually happened, though, is because the people are so screwed up that it became a kingdom with priests. And so you get a special, select group of people who live like, you know, not like Catholic priests, because Israeli priests could be married, you know, it wasn't, but they had to

observe very strict diet. Holiness was symbolically enacted by the kind of clothes they wear, by the kind of food they ate, how they dealt with their bodily fluids and so on. There's a lot about bodily fluids in the book of Leviticus. Sorry about that. So we could do a whole thing on what's going on with that and so on. It actually makes sense, but it's a cultural symbolic system. A lot of these are symbolic behaviors that seem strange to us. Like why can't they eat pig? Why if you touch a dead body, you have to take a bath, you know, and you can't go into the tent for seven days? That seems weird to us. And it is weird to us because there's a different culture. So, but these are,

were symbolic ways of enacting that when I enter into Yahweh's presence, I need to be in a mode and in a state of being that's different than normal everyday life or something. So priests had to live this crazy regimen and so on, and then you get the people and so on. And so a lot of the laws about like food and bodily fluids and clothes are supposed to wear and not wear and so on, these are all related to this holiness. But then holiness was also supposed to be effective their moral, their moral status too. So just look at the chapter before, chapter 18. You have a heading describing the content. What's chapter 18 all about? Sex. All chapter is about sex. And particularly, it begins by saying, here's the practices of the Canaanites and of the Egyptians.

And I don't want you to live like them. And so the whole chapter is a list of people that the Israelites weren't supposed to have sex with. And basically, all elizuous is in the marriage covenant, the place for sex. And the Canaanites didn't live that way. Egyptians didn't live that way. And so holiness was not only symbolically enacted, like with clothes and food, but it was a moral enactment as a way of reflecting Yahweh's character. That's one piece of holiness is that the laws call Israel to a very high standard of holiness.

why? This is key here. Why? Let's come back to this one. So the idea is obedience to these laws was not just because Yahweh is uptight and he wants people to do what he says or something. That's not the idea. The idea is holiness, this distinct lifestyle, is the way that they will mirror Yahweh's character and his intentions for the world to the nations, the priests. They represent Yahweh. which is precisely what Yahweh says. Turn to the book of Deuteronomy with me. This is another really, really cool passage, Deuteronomy chapter four.

This is a good passage to highlight along this topic of why are there 613 of them? That's so many. And it is. That's a lot. That's a lot. But why? Why? Deuteronomy chapter four.

And this is Moses talking to the Israelites. He says, see, I have taught you decrees and laws. just as Yahweh my God commanded me, so that you will follow them in the land that you're entering to take possession of. Observe them carefully. This is how you'll show your wisdom and understanding to whom.

Do you see this here? Moses is working with this whole scheme in mind here, that the nation is a priestly representative to Yahweh. And so if Israel follows, follows Yahweh's instructions and teaching, what do they show to the nations? Wisdom, understanding. And people will hear about all these decrees and says, man, surely, surely this is a great nation so wise and understanding people.

I mean, what other nation is so great as to have their gods near them? the way Yahweh our God is near us whenever we pray to them. So this is very important. In a sense, we're going to see the laws keep coming as a result of Israel's sin. Are the laws bad? Is it bad for Yahweh to say, be holy? That's good because it's Yahweh inviting people into his life and his character. And it's a part of Yahweh wanting to be in relationship with his people.

Because we're screwed up and we have little snakes wrapped around our hearts, right? And so he wants to release us from that and bring us into another way of living that shares in his character. He wants to be with us. What other nation has a God so near to them? He says, verse 8, what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I'm setting before you today? This is another good Bible word that gets thrown around, but none of us actually know what it means. So, righteous. What is righteous? So if something's righteous, it's cool. If you grew up in the 70s or something, right? So that's righteous, right? So, I mean, you can see the kind of the root word in there. Yeah, right? But it's not just like morally right. Righteousness is about, it's at its core. It's about relationship. I think the best phrase is it's a state of right relationships. Righteous. So in other words, all of the laws are meant to create a community. and a society of people where the common theme is right relationships,

equity, fairness, generosity, compassion, kindness. There's so many laws in the 613 commands about how Israel was to treat the poor and the widow and the orphan and immigrant with generosity, take them into their homes and so on. And so this was to be a nation permeated by Yahweh's holiness, and his righteousness, his generosity. And so we shouldn't think of the laws. They're not bad.

They're good. What's bad is us. Right? And so like, don't covet any of your neighbor's stuff. Oh, that's a good idea. You know, it's sort of like, the laws are good. What's broken is us. And so what I'm doing right here is I'm acting out a whole section of the book of Romans.

This is what Paul's wrestling with this problem. Paul is reading these things. stories and saying, God's, this laws and instruction is so good. It offers us, shows us the way of life. And what he says ultimately is the fact, it's not the laws that are bad. It's me. I'm so broken. I can't even obey when God tells me exactly what to do. And so how are we going to solve that problem? Keep waiting. So Deerondi will tell us. So this is the idea. God wants to shape the people who are holy and who are righteous, but they can't do it. And so we saw that if, because, they can't do it and they can't live up to it, how is the holy, righteous God going to dwell among

people who are not holy and not righteous? And that's what the book of Leviticus is all about. And so the center, actually, let's just go back to Leviticus chapter one. Chapters one through seven are just straight up of priestly tech manual. Like if you ever like buy, I don't know, a computer and just that thing you never read, that book you never read or whatever. So that's Leviticus 1 through 7. It's straight up a tech manual for priests about how to slaughter animals. So chapter one is all about what kind of offering. The headings kind of clue you in here. What do you have there? And anybody have headings? There's all these different types of offerings and they offer them for different purposes. The burnt offering is like your catch-all. It covers lots of different purposes.

You can just offer a burnt offering to say, thanks, God, you're awesome today. Thank you. You're great. Whatever is, you didn't do anything wrong. So it's like a thank you card. Chapter two. So a grain offering. So this is like, thank you. You brought the wheat harvest this year. Thank you. Here's some wheat back. Chapter three, fellowship offering. So this is an offering that celebrates. Again, it's almost kind of like a thank you. It's a praise offering and so on. So we've, it's very nice. One chapter for each kind of offering. Chapter four, the sin offering. Chapter five is still the sin offering. Right? Because Apparently, we're going to need a lot of these. So this will get a lot of space.

Chapter 6? Yeah, chapter 6, we're still in the middle of a new kind of offering for something called the guilt offerings, and that gets a lot of attention. And then we're kind of back to sin offering, and then the guilt offering again in 7. So again, even just the amount of space given to what kind of offerings give you a clue here. Of like, what are the offerings that are going to be most needed? Sin offerings and the guilt offerings. So just go to chapter 4, and we'll just get a flavor. here. Well, we'll spare you the details. Go to the butcher shop and you'll learn what they did to the

animals. Go to verse 20 with me, verse 20. So the priest will do with this bowl, just as he did with the bowl of the sin offering, which is cut it up in all these different ways and burn it on the altar. In this way, the priest will do what? Make atonement for them. And what will result? They'll be forgiven. So this is somebody who, they cheated their neighbor. They feel guilty about it. They go confess it to their neighbor, take this land to the temple or the tent, the priest does this, and the priest makes atonement by killing this animal. And then they're forgiven, like magic. Verse 22. Let's say this happens. Let's say a leader sins unintentionally and does something forbidden of any of the commands of the Lord, and he's guilty. When he's made aware of his sin, he committed, should bring an offering, and then here's

going to go, bring a male goat without defect, lay his hand on the goat's head, and sloth. moderate at the play. So this is the theme we're going to see. I do something wrong. Cheat my neighbor. So here's this goat that I take to the tent and I lay my hands on it. But then look at verse 26. The priest is going to do all this, cut it up and burn it up. Burn the fat on the altars. Just to burn the fat of the fellowship offering. In this way, the priest will do what? Make atonement. And what results from atonement? You're forgiven. If you read through this chapter, this little phrase is repeated about a dozen times. all these different ways to make a sacrifice, put your hand on the animal's head, and then

it's just, you're forgiven, atonement. Now, Atonement is another Bible word that actually no one used that word. So, atonement. In English, you can, there's three, there's three little parts to this word in English, at one. So the English word, atonement is essentially, it's actually a word is talking about reconciliation. There's two parties at odds with each other. one has wronged the other. Atonement is the process to which those two are made at one, at one meant.

So that's a fine image, but that doesn't get us to the heart of this concept here, why an animal has to die, something like that, because this seems weird to us. So the Hebrew word here, you want to say Kipper, don't you? But don't say Kipper, say Kippeer, with a little Italian roll of the tongue there. Kippeer. Kepaer. So literally it means to cover over or like wipe out. Let's say like this. You, we go out to dinner and the check comes and you conveniently have forgotten your debit card. And so I have my response to you is, oh, it's totally cool. I got you covered. I'll cover you. Say that in English, don't we? There you go. That's it. Right there. That's atonement. That's Kippe. I got you covered. So I put down my debit card. and I pay in your place by which I cover over your debt or your failure to pay. I cover over it and it takes it away.

That's cu pair. And so what it just raises is a question then. How does an animal dying after I put my hand on it cover over my wrongdoing so that I can be forgiven? Does it say anywhere in the chapter here? We haven't come anywhere. It doesn't say why. It says it works, which is great news. Why does it work? Go to chapter 17 with me. It's interesting for all of their sacrifice in the Bible. In the Old Testament, this is the one paragraph that talks about how sacrifices work. Why does killing an animal work? Is it just magic?

Okay, so let's read. Leviticus 17 verse 8. Say to the people, any Israelite or alien, not aliens. So for me, it's 21st century American alien means one thing. Alien. That's what the word means, right? So it's referring to immigrant. Any Israelite or immigrant living among them who offers a burnt sacrifice or a sacrifice and doesn't bring it to the tent of meaning to sacrifice it to Yahweh, that person must be cut off from his people. In other words, the tent was to be the place where people offered sacrifices to Yahweh. If people are offering sacrifices to Yahweh just elsewhere, out there, like, we know how screwed up the people are. Like, who knows what God they might be offering to? So let's keep it in the tent, keep it in the family. Any Israelite, immigrant,

living among them who eats any blood, I will set my face against that person who eats blood and cut him off from his people. So, you know, I don't meet eaters in the rim. It's a bummer, if you lived in Israel. If you love a juicy steak, not an ancient Israel, right? So this is a part of modern-day kosher laws is draining the meat of as much blood as possible. Why? Why? What's so what's what's with the blood? Verse 11. For the life of a creature is in the blood. And I have given it to you to Kippe'er for you on the altar. It is the blood that covers over for somebody's life. Do you see that here? Do you see the logic? So blood, blood is a visible, it's not just a symbol for life. It is actually the stuff of life, right? So you

have blood equals life. And essentially what you have here is that the animal's life covers for your life. Do you see that there in verse 10 and 11? So that's the idea. So we could use the word that has come to be used here in Jewish and Christian tradition is that the animal acts like a substitute. It's tricky because I think for Westerners, this is such a strange practice to us. I've never slit an animal's throat, you know, but maybe some of you in the room have if you're urban chicken farmers or whatever, so you've maybe do this regularly. I don't know. I've seen it done before in person, and it's a very disturbing experience, like, because it's not.

noisy and gurgly. And it's really, it's gnarly. It's super gnarly. And so I cheat my neighbor. I get caught or I own up to it. And I take like a, you know, a goat, which is, you know, that costs money, right? And it's costing me something. And I go take it.

And I personally, I accompany the priest up to the altar and the blood, gurgling, bleeding, screaming animal. And I'm like, that's because of what I did. I can't. That obviously will have a deep impact on you, you know. And whether or not it's a real deterrent, my guess is that six months later, it probably wears off and you're back at it again, you know. But that's the idea here.

And so it seems barbaric to us. But then in another sense, the idea is it's saying the gravity of the sin and the mess of the raw that we have unleashed into the world. It's so serious. The remedy for it, the way this gets resolved for screwed up people to dwell in God's presence, it's serious. It's a matter of life and death. But in his grace, Yahweh provides this substitute of this animal. And all of a sudden we're back to Passover, aren't we?

The idea is that this blood of the animal somehow covers for me. And that if I do this, I'm covered. And so there you go. that becomes the means by which Israel is allowed to enter and dwell in the present of the Holy God. Now, the chapter right before this, chapter 16, is the chapter called the Day of Atonement, where the one day a year, the priest would do some stuff with a couple animals to represent dealing with the sin of all of the people together. And so you think, all right, okay, this could work. It's bloody, it's gurgly, but this maybe could work.

you know, with fixing the problem of the people's sin and so on. And what happens essentially from here is the book of Leviticus. You have the sacrifices. And then remember what chapter they leave Mount Sinai? Numbers and Numbers 11. So here they finally, Exodus 19 to Numbers 10. They're at Mount Sinai for one year. Here they leave.

And do you remember, we read the first story after they left Numbers 11 and happy face, sad face. This is total sad face, right? It gets crazy then. What happens is the rest of the book of numbers, you get a sad face story followed by a whole bunch more laws. Let's go back to Numbers Chapter 11. This will be a quick part of the story to the overview. So we had Numbers 11.

They grumbled, they complained twice. The people are grumbling and they're like, oh, we don't have any food and so on. Moses went out and told the people what the Lord said. He brought 70 of the elders and had them, stand around the tent. Then Yahweh came down and cloud and smoke and spoke with him. Then he took of the spirit, the Ruach, that was on Moses,

and put the Ruach on the 70 elders. And when the Ruach rested on them, they prophesied. And then they didn't do it again. However, there are these two guys whose names were Eldad and Me Dad. It's a great boy names. they remained in the camp. They were lifted among the elders, but they didn't go to the tent. But the Ruach, yeah, it rested on them.

And they were still prophesying in the camp. So basically, you have the people grumbling. And so Moses said, let's get all the elders together. And then Moses, they have this crazy Holy Spirit experience that happens, and then it stops. But then there's these two guys out in the camp, Eldad and Modad, me dad, whatever. and they have the Holy Spirit power too, and they keep prophesying. And so a young man ran and told Moses, hey, you know, Eldad and me, Dad, they're still prophesying in the camp. Joshua, the son of Noon, who had been Moses' aid since youth, he spoke up

and he said, Moses, stop those guys. Stop that. They shouldn't be doing that. But Moses replied, are you jealous for my sake? I wish all of Yahweh's people were prophets. I wish I wish Yahweh would put his spirit on all of his people. Then Moses and the elders return to the camp. What? What strange whole story? This is like a little random story. Like, what? So the people are screwed up.

They're grumbling. They can't obey. We have the animal sacrifices. The clear of the animal sacrifices. Even though they may cover for the people's sins, they are not reshaping the people's heart. And so in the first story of a sad-faced story, Moses cries out,

man, I just wish Yahweh would come and personally breathe his presence into all of God's people. That would fix the problem. Chapter 12. Then Miriam and Aaron, like Moses's brother and sister, they start to rebel against Moses. They start to talk against Moses because he married a wife who wasn't in Israelite. So now you have among the ranks of leadership themselves, like people are rebelling and grumbling against Moses. Moses. Chapter 13, Yahweh said to Moses, why don't you send some men to explore the land of Canaan that I'm giving to the Israelites? What was one of the promises given to Abraham? So the land, yeah, because they're on their way here to the promised land. And so now they're going to send out spies to go begin investigating the land. And so you look right here, there's a whole long list of

names of the 12 spies that they send out, one from every tribe. And the spies come back, again summarizing here, this might be a familiar story to you. And what do the spies say? The land is full of all these powerful people. There's no way Yahweh can rescue us and bring us into the land. And we're thinking, duh, like, just go reread the book of Exodus. You know, remember that? So, and they're like, no. So they turn all 10 of the spies, turn all the people into this huge frenzy.

Look at chapter 14. After the spies get back and they stir everyone up, chapter 14, that night, all the people of the community raised their voices. They wept aloud in all the Israelites. That's what they did. They grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said, Oh, if only we died in Egypt. We're in this desert. I mean, why is Yahweh bringing us into this land just to let us fall by the sword? Our wives and children are going to be taken as plunder. Let's just go back to Egypt. Let's go back to Egypt. They said to each other, let's choose a new

leader. Let's go back to Egypt. We're right back here again, right? And then chapter 15 is a bunch of laws about more offerings that are going to be needed. Chapter 16. Then Cora, the son of Ishar and the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, and a bunch of Ruvonites, Daphon and Aviram, the sons of Eliaab and Ohn, the son of Pellif. I mean, they became insolent, and they rose up against Moses. This is another sad, safe story of dissension in the ranks, and they lead the people to grumble. I mean, we could go on, but you get the point, that you. The rest of the book of numbers is just story after story of rebellion, dissension, the fracturing of the people of Israel. And then they get more laws and then they keep doing the same thing.

And you're just like, what on earth is happening? This family is imploding. It's like the Joseph story all over again, you know, except it's the whole people of Israel. And so it's with a very kind of dark, somber tone that we turn to the last book. of the Torah. And this is story number four. So just turn to Deuteronomy chapter one here. And we'll just do a few things. And we'll turn to the end of the book and wrap all of this up. So Deuteronomy is a collection of beaches of Moses right before the people go into the land. So Deuteronomy fits right here. As the people have wandered right away from the mountain.

They're about to go into the land. They're literally standing right above the mountain. They're literally standing right above the Jordan River looking into the promised land. And so the book of Deuteronomy is a collection of speeches of Moses. So, first words of the book here. These are the words Moses spoke to all Israel in the desert east of the Jordan.

That is in the Arava, opposite Suf between Paran and Tofel, Lavan, Hatseroth, and Dezahav. You know, those places. It takes 11 days to go from Horeb, Horeb is another name from Mount Sinai.

It's called by two names, based on kind of region and dialect and so on. It takes 11 days to go from Horeb to Kedars Barnea by the Mount Seer Road, where they are right now about to go into the land. It's an 11-day journey. How long did it take them? 40 years. 40 years. Because of all this rebellion, Yahweh doesn't allow them to go into the land.

He lets this generation of rebellion die off in the desert, and he lets their kids be the generation that goes into the promised land. So it's a little jab right here at the beginning of the book. You know, this should have just taken 11 days, you guys. Instead it took 40 years. So, in verse 3, in the 40th year, on the day of the 11th month, Moses proclaimed to the Israelites, all Yahweh commanded him concerning them. This was after he defeated Sihon, king of Amrites, who reigned at Heshbon. and Edry, defeated Gog, King of Bashan, who reigned in Osteros. East of the Jordan in the territory of Moab, Moses began to expound the Torah.

And these speeches, they are very, very powerful. In chapters 1 through 12, these read like sermon, just these impassioned pleas of Moses to say, you guys, like Yahweh has set you up, he's given you his Torah, the promised land is in front of you. This story doesn't have to end badly. You know? He's like, this is going to go great. Choose life.

You have a choice. You can choose good or evil, life, or death. Chapter 30, verse 11. He says, now, what I'm commanding you today, it's not too difficult for you, which we're thinking, really? It's not beyond your reach. It's not like you have to go up to heaven

and ask, like, who will ascend into heaven? and get the Torah and proclaim it to us so we can obey it. It's not like it's beyond the sea, so you have to go ask who's going to go across the sea and get the Torah so we can learn it and obey it. No, no, listen, the word is right near you. Y'alli is spoken to you. He's with you.

He's in your midst. It's in your mouth and in your heart so you can obey it. He says, listen, I'm setting before you life, and NIV has prosperity. Any other translations? He says, I set before you life and good. What's the Hebrew word for good?

Tov. I set before you life and tov and what? Death and, literally he says, evil, rah. And we're back in the garden, right away? Right? But now a lot's gone down because we have a means to cover sin so that Yahweh doesn't like just roast them.

So we have a means to cover sin, and we have 613 commands about how they are to live. Here we are again, the choice that Israelites are forced to make. It's the same choice every human being is forced to make. We have riot before us. Here's, I know what I should do. I know what I shouldn't do. What are you going to choose? It's very powerful.

We're right back in the garden. So he says, listen, I set before you life and toes and death and raw. I'm commanding you today to love Yahweh your God to walk in his ways, to keep his commands and decrees and laws, then you'll live and increase

and Yahweh your God will bless you in the land that you're entering to possess. If your heart turns away, if you're not obedient, if you're drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day, you're going to be destroyed.

You won't live long in the land that you're crossing the Jordan today to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth today as witnesses against you. I have set before you lives and death. Blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your children can live and you may love Yahweh your God and listen to his voice. Hold fast to him for Yahweh is your life.

He will give you many. years in the land he swore to give to your father's Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It's very powerful, isn't it? It's like this impassioned plea. But Moses has been with these people through all of this. What do you think? He thinks the odds are of how this story is going to go. Chapter 30. He says, when all of these blessings and curses I've set before you come upon you. And when you take them to heart, wherever Yahweh your God has dispersed you among the nations. So there you go.

What is Moses? How does he think the story is going to go? He knows. He knows. They're going to disobey. They're going to face the consequences of their actions and be scattered among the nations. He's assuming that. But is that the end of the story with Yahweh?

Just think about all of the story up to this point. What's at stake here? Not just Israel. What's at stake here? the fate of this people. So I think Genesis 12, this is, on this people, somehow rides the fate of all of the nations

and the blessing of the nations. And who walked through the pieces in his covenant with Abraham? Yahweh did. Alone, alone. So somehow, so we're back to this, humans choose Ra,

not Tov, but Yahweh is somehow going to redeem that Ra and turn it into Tov. How? How? He always determined to use human beings to rule and make his will in the world. But we're screwed up. How? How's that tension going to be worked out? And this is where we begin to see. He says, verse two, when you and your children, when you return to Yahweh your God and obey him. So this is a Hebrew word shuv. This is the biblical word for repent, which just means to turn around. When you and your children repent and turn back to Yahweh your God, and when you obey Him with all of your heart and all of your soul, according to everything I command you, then Yahweh your God will restore your fortunes.

He'll have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you, even if you've been banished to the most distant land under the heavens. From there, Yahweh your God will bring you back. It will bring you back to the land. You belong to your fathers and you will take possession of it. You'll become more prosperous and numerous than your fathers. Okay, let's stop real quick here. So is there always a second chance, according to these verses?

Absolutely. Absolutely. You can always turn back. Verse 6. Yahweh, this is one of the most important verses in the Torah. Yahweh your God will circumcise your heart and the hearts of your descendants so that you may love him

with all of your heart and with all of your soul and live. Huh? How is it that Israel is going to be able to repent and turn back to Yahweh and obey and follow him? What does verse 6 say? So circumcise your heart. Okay, now obviously that's a metaphor. Okay, obviously, that's a metaphor. Okay?

And you might even think of the gross metaphor. So circumcision was one of the signs of the covenant for the people of Israel, obviously for the males. And so Moses takes this covenant practice for Israel, and he turns it into this metaphor. That's a physical symbol of their membership in the covenant. But what he realizes is that this people so screwed up with all the sad. faith, that they don't actually just need more rituals and lives. What they need is a fundamental transformation of their heart. Somehow, Yahweh is going to bring about that fundamental transformation

of the heart so that they can love him and finally obey him and live. Do you see that right there? This is leaping forward. The story doesn't, and right after here it drops, the steam drops, and you hear about this theme ever again. And the story of Israel plays itself. They go into the land, they abandon Yahweh. It's just, it's what you would expect. And they run the nation into the ground. And they get conquered by the nation of Babylon. And as Babylon is knocking at the door, the prophet Jeremiah says these words. He says, the days are coming, declares Yahweh, when I'm going to make a new covenant with the people of Israel and the people of Judah.

It won't be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and led them out of Egypt because they broke that covenant, even though I was like a husband to them. So he says, this is the covenant I'm going to make with the people of Israel at that time.

I'm going to put my Torah in their minds, and I'm going to personally write the Torah, Torah on their hearts. And I will be their God and they'll be my people. They won't have to teach their neighbors or say to each other, hey, you know, obey Yahweh. No, Yahweh. No, no, they're all going to personally know me. From the least to the greatest declares Yahweh, forgive their wickedness and remember their sins no more.

Where would Jeremiah get the idea that Yahweh is going to do something like this? So he's been reading the Torah. He's looking at this promise right here of circumcising the heart. And so he drops that metaphor and he uses this new metaphor. It's like a time's coming when Yahweh is going to personally write his loving truth on the human heart in a way that will heal that broken relationship. And he calls this a new covenant. There is another prophet who is contemporary of Jeremiah. He lived in Babylon because he was taken into captivity there.

He saw this for Israel's future after the exile. This is Yahweh speaking to Israel. He says, I will take you out of the nations, and I'll gather you from all the countries and bring you back to your own land. I'll sprinkle clean water on you, and you'll be clean. Ezekiel was a priest, so he envisions Israel's healing and restoration as like it's like priestly activity. I'll cleanse you from all your impurities

and all your idols. I will give you a new heart. I'll put a new spirit in you. I'll remove your heart of stone. I'll give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit in you. What did Moses dream for in Numbers 11? Oh man, what if Yahweh would personally

come inhabit every one of these people? I will put my spirit in you and so move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. Which is right what Moses said. Yahweh will circumcide your heart so that you can finally love him. And so what Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Moses, right, the Torah basically ends with them about to go into the land. I think of the book of Deeronomy is like the locker room speech of a coach with his players before the game. And he's revving him up. Choose life.

Choose life. Even though I know you're not going to. So actually, he's a really bad coach because he's like, go, you guys, go you guys. You're going to lose horribly. But go, go. He does anyway. Right? That's what he's doing.

And then he says, actually, the only thing that's going to make you win is something that's completely beyond your power. Because we already know how the story is going to go. And so these words and then these words of the prophets, they just create back back to our little flower pot analogy. They just, they create this theme that the human heart is so broken, we choose raw instead of Tov. And so Ezekiel and Jeremiah, they add descriptions of it. It needs to be Yahweh's spirit. And so all of this is left totally hanging. No blossom in the storyline of the Old Testament. And then this is precisely all of these themes. Have you been seeing New Testament Jesus everywhere as we pop up here?

Right? So sacrifice, the Passover lamb, the need for a new covenant, the spirit inhabiting God's people so that they can finally be changed in their hearts to obey and to love. And so on this is all this. There you go. There you go. The script was already written. This story is just creating the need for,

Jesus and what happens. And that's precisely what the New Testament is claiming, is that every need and problem and plot tension and conflict that's created in this story comes to its blossom and fruition. In the death of Jesus, which is the sacrifice for all sin in his resurrection, his power over death to reverse the power of death and human estrangement from God from back in Genesis 3. And then also the ability to give his life and his spirit to those who turn to him so that he can begin to change and transform their hearts. And that's where all of this is going. And so then all of a sudden you see all of those themes in the New Testament, like you could maybe understand them without reading the Torah.

But now, it's sort of like the first time of hearing like Mozart or Bach or something like that. Anybody could listen to Mozart or Bach, and some people might be bored, you know, but some people might think it's cool. But then, like, spend 10 years studying music theory in school or whatever,

and then listen to a piece by Mozart or Bach. And then all of a sudden, you're hearing things you've never heard before and all co-hears and it's small. So that's what it's like to read the Torah. immerse yourself in the Torah and then go back and read the New Testament again. And you see it's all right there. It has always been there.

And all of a sudden, Jesus, his words from Luke, we'll end with his words here. We begin with. He said, I mean, you guys, this was all left hanging. Everything written in the Torah of Moses. I mean, all we've done is the Torah, even. The Torah of Moses. We haven't even touched the prophets. or the Psalms, it all just set the stage for everything that's just taken place.

And so repentance, forgiveness of sins, the Messiah suffering and rising from the dead, we didn't hit that theme. But isn't the Bible rad? Yeah, it's so great, man. So there you go. The Torah. There's a famous saying of the Jewish rabbis about the Torah. They say, Torah is like a diamond.

Turn it. Turn it again. turn it again because everything is in it. So like you look in each facet and you just see, holy cow, the whole story is right there, just waiting, you know? Every category is right there and you turn it again and you always see something new. Your appreciation for Jesus rose deeper. The more you immerse yourself in the Torah.

All right, that was our Torah crash course series. I hope that you are stimulated. I hope you're asking so many questions right now and that your appetite has been at least wetted to go read the first five books of the Bible for yourself now in this brave new world. So there you go. We'll be exploring many more of these themes and ideas in podcasts to come,

but for now, thanks for listening to Strange Bible Podcasts.