Torah Commentary Archives


D'varim ( Words)

Deuteronomy 1:1-3:22

Isaiah 1:1-27

John 15:1-11

Hebrews 3:7-4:11


While We Wait     


With the turn of a page we enter into the last words of Moshe before his death. It has been argued that these words were spoken all in one day or over a few days. What a waste of time that conversation is so we will move on.


For me, I turn the page with excitement as I love this book for many reasons. It is a summary. For a person like me who just wants to get the facts and move on, it is perfect. My main excitement is when I think of how close they were to entering into the Land. Just one sermon and the wilderness journey would be complete! Israel's feet would finally step onto a Land that was their home even though they had had forgotten while living in exile in Egypt. Reading the first words of D'varim makes me wonder just how close or how far away I am to going home. I wonder, “Are we far from making that first step, not as a tourist, but as a resident”?


It is also with heaviness I read these words. I think of Moshe and all he went through with these people over those forty years. The trials and tribulations he endured only to end up one step short of entering in. Thankfully Moshe has the millennium to look forward to. The emotions this man must have felt as he looked out over the heads of the Hebrews and gazed into the Land while speaking. How he wanted to take back the incident at the rock, but could not. A day of anger and frustration cost him dearly.


Forty years and a very long road for the Hebrews brought them to D'varim. This is a trip that could have been taken in three days. Why? The answer is quite simple. The generation that left Egypt was not prepared spiritually or emotionally to enter in. Had they been allowed to go directly into the Land the inhabitants dwelling there would have slaughtered them. The generation waiting on the other side of the Jordan would not have survived to take possession! A work had to be done in the Hebrews so the Land would not immediately cast them out because of their own lack of faith, attitudes and lifestyle. In the end they would all have to agree the good work begun some forty years earlier had been perfected by Yah in them.


How close are we to turning our own D'varim page and entering the Land?  For some people this is a question they have not thought of because exile has become home. Israel is a distant place that has little to no meaning. If you are reading this commentary, it is probably not you. Others are trying to force their way into the Land by way of conversion to Judaism or methods of attempting to manipulate the system. In the end this means denial of Yeshua which is a road I cannot consider.


What about those of us who find ourselves stuck in the middle? We like Moshe stand with a longing gaze toward the Land. Two or three times a day we recite the shema and pray for the shalom of Jerusalem and plan a tour or visit to Israel, but at the airport have our passport stamped with the word visitor. We follow alerts as rockets are shot from Gaza and wonder why and how the government of Israel can allow this to continue. In the end we continue to long and wait.


The answer to it all is patience. We wait on His timing and do not push our own agenda. We do not join the voices who say we should go to the government with Bible in one hand and DNA tests in the other to “demand” our “Scriptural rights.” We wait. We do not try to find or make some loophole. We wait.


While we wait, we long. While we wait we ask that His life would be brought forth in ours to make us worthy of being in His land. While we wait, we work to further His Kingdom. While we wait we gaze in the direction of home.


One day our page will turn. One day our feet will stand. One day we will look back and join the chorus of those before us who agree Yah's ways are perfect, His timing is perfect. He again is much wiser than we are.