Torah Portion Re’eh – I will establish My Name and Dwell among You.

The video version is available at: https://youtu.be/mH7oH6pyjWk

Reading – Deuteronomy 12

 

By Dan and Brenda Cathcart

Our Torah Portion this week is called Re’eh which means “behold.”  The Children of Israel are on the cusp of entering the Promised Land that the LORD had promised to give them through their father Abraham. But first, before they were to take possession of it, Moses was to reiterate the commandments, statutes, and judgments. These included instructions that were to be carried out once they finally entered the Promised Land. One of these instructions was to seek out the place where God would put His name and dwell among them.

Deuteronomy 12:5 NKJV 5 "But you shall seek the place where the LORD your God chooses, out of all your tribes, to put His name for His dwelling place; and there you shall go.

After the children of Israel took the Land, they set up the Tabernacle of Meeting at Shiloh where it remained for about three hundred years. Was the place that God would place His name wherever the Tabernacle was set up or was there a permanent place that God had in mind all along? What were they to do at this place?

Since the children of Israel were to permanently occupy the Promised Land and move no more, God’s dwelling place would also be established in a permanent place. But before this could happen, the kingdom of Israel had to be firmly established.

Many years later, God spoke to King David through the prophet Nathan confirming that, until the proper time came, God’s dwelling place would remain in the Tabernacle first constructed in the wilderness.

2 Samuel 7:5-7 NKJV 5 "Go and tell My servant David, 'Thus says the LORD: "Would you build a house for Me to dwell in? 6 "For I have not dwelt in a house since the time that I brought the children of Israel up from Egypt, even to this day, but have moved about in a tent and in a tabernacle. 7 "Wherever I have moved about with all the children of Israel, have I ever spoken a word to anyone from the tribes of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd My people Israel, saying, 'Why have you not built Me a house of cedar?'"'

In all the years that Israel had been in the land, from Joshua through the judges, God had not commanded any of them to build Him a house. Now, the LORD told David that He would select a place where they would build a permanent house for him and that he would not move again.

2 Samuel 7:10-11 NKJV 10 "Moreover I will appoint a place for My people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own and move no more; nor shall the sons of wickedness oppress them anymore, as previously, 11 "since the time that I commanded judges to be over My people Israel, and have caused you to rest from all your enemies. Also the LORD tells you that He will make you a house.

This permanent dwelling place was not only associated with Jerusalem, but it was also associated with David. God said He would plant the children of Israel and make a house, a permanent dwelling place, for David, God’s chosen king. God would establish His covenant with David forever.

Psalms 89:3-4 NKJV 3 "I have made a covenant with My chosen, I have sworn to My servant David: 4 'Your seed I will establish forever, And build up your throne to all generations.'" Selah

After David’s son Solomon completed the temple, he spoke about this in his prayer of dedication, first reminding the people that God had chosen David to be king.

1 Kings 8:15-16 NKJV 15 And he said: "Blessed be the LORD God of Israel, who spoke with His mouth to my father David, and with His hand has fulfilled it, saying, 16 'Since the day that I brought My people Israel out of Egypt, I have chosen no city from any tribe of Israel in which to build a house, that My name might be there; but I chose David to be over My people Israel.'

Solomon goes on to say that God honored David’s desire to build a house for God.

1 Kings 8:17-18 MKJV 17 And it was in the heart of my father David to build a house for the name of the LORD God of Israel. 18 And the LORD said to my father David, Because it was in your heart to build a house to My name, you did well that it was in your heart.

Solomon carried out what was in David’s heart, fulfilling God’s instruction through Moses that they were to seek the place where God would place His name. When God appeared to Solomon after this prayer, God confirmed that this temple in Jerusalem was the place that He would place His name forever.

1 Kings 9:3 NKJV 3 And the LORD said to him: "I have heard your prayer and your supplication that you have made before Me; I have consecrated this house which you have built to put My name there forever, and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually.

The Temple that Solomon built, and the throne of the kingdom go hand in hand! It is a reciprocal arrangement. God built a house for David and the ensuing future kings that would rule over the children of Israel; and David, in turn, through his son Solomon, built a house for God. The temple in Jerusalem is the place in all their tribes that God told the children of Israel they were to seek out for His dwelling place.

What were they to do at this place? And how or why is the house of David connected to the place where God makes His name dwell?

Starting with what they were to do there, we need to back up a couple of verses in Deuteronomy chapter 12 and look at the preparations for the place, and the land of Israel in general.

Deuteronomy 12:2-4 MKJV 2 You shall completely destroy all the places in which the nations which you shall possess served their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. 3 And you shall overthrow their altars and break their pillars, and burn their pillars with fire. And you shall cut down the carved images of their gods, and destroy their names out of that place. 4 You shall not do so to the LORD your God.

Moses’ instructions to the children of Israel were that they were to cleanse the land by removing all the pagan altars and idols of the current inhabitants. Everything used in the worship of other gods was to be destroyed. Nothing was to be salvaged or used in any way for any purpose. Even the names of their gods were to be destroyed, never to be remembered or spoken. Moses finishes by stating that they were not to do the same thing to the LORD; they were not to destroy God’s name or His altar. Instead, they were to seek the place where God would permanently place His name and dwell with them forever! Before they could build God’s house, the land had to be pure and holy.

Then, once they found and established this place, they were to worship at that place and only that place. They were to bring all their offerings, sacrifices, tithes, vowed offerings, firstfruits offerings, and freewill offerings. Everything and everyone were to go to the place where God caused His name to dwell. They were to go there and partake of a shared meal before the LORD.

Deuteronomy 12:7 MKJV 7 And there you shall eat before the LORD your God, and you shall rejoice in all that you put your hand to, you and your households in which the LORD your God has blessed you.

This was to be a place of fellowship with God, rejoicing in all that God had blessed them with. Even though they may have been tempted to conduct their offerings in a place more convenient to where they were living, they were not to do so.

Deuteronomy 12:13-14 MKJV 13 Take heed to yourself that you do not offer your burnt offerings in every place that you see. 14 But in the place which the LORD shall choose in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I command you.

They were not to build altars and make sacrifices in any other place but the place God chose. They were allowed to slaughter animals for food, but not for sacrifice in other places. When slaughtering an animal for food, they were to pour out the blood from any animal slaughtered on the ground.

Deuteronomy 12:15-16 NKJV 15 "However, you may slaughter and eat meat within all your gates, whatever your heart desires, according to the blessing of the LORD your God which He has given you; the unclean and the clean may eat of it, of the gazelle and the deer alike. 16 "Only you shall not eat the blood; you shall pour it on the earth like water.

They were reminded that they were not to eat the blood of an animal. They had received previous instruction that the blood was set apart as an offering on the altar to make atonement for their souls.

Leviticus 17:10-12 MKJV 10 And any man of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that are staying among you, who eats any blood, I will set My face against that soul who eats blood, and will cut him off from among his people. 11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood. And I have given it to you on the altar to make an atonement for your souls. For it is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul. 12 Therefore I said to the sons of Israel, No soul of you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger that is staying among you eat blood.

life was in the blood, and it was set apart to God. So, the blood that was not from an offering or sacrifice, if an animal was simply slaughtered for food, the blood could not be poured out on the altar of God, or any other altar and, therefore, must be poured out on the ground.

But we still have an unanswered question. How or why is the house of David connected to the place where God makes His name to dwell?  We see that God’s selection of David is like His selection of Abraham. God told Abraham’s son Isaac that he would be the recipient of God’s promise to his father because God knew that Abraham would walk in His ways.

Genesis 26:4-5 MKJV 4 And I will make your seed to multiply as the stars of the heavens, and will give to your seed all these lands. And in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, 5 because Abraham obeyed My voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.

The prophet Samuel testified that God had chosen David to be king in place of Saul, because David was a man after God’s own heart, a man who walked in the ways of God.

1 Samuel 13:14b MKJV 14b The LORD has sought Him a man after His own heart, and the LORD has appointed him to be leader over His people, because you have not kept what the LORD commanded you.

Just as God told Isaac, God also told Solomon that if he would walk in the integrity of David, He would establish his throne forever like He established David’s throne forever.

1 Kings 9:4-5 NKJV 4 "Now if you walk before Me as your father David walked, in integrity of heart and in uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded you, and if you keep My statutes and My judgments, 5 "then I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever, as I promised David your father, saying, 'You shall not fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.'

Abraham obeyed God’s voice when God asked him to take his son Isaac and offer him as a burnt sacrifice at the place God would show him on Mt. Moriah. Abraham knew full well that God’s promises to him regarding possession of the land and a multitude of descendants would be through Isaac! Abraham trusted God fully and knew that God would provide a way. Now it just so happens that Mt. Moriah is the place where Solomon would build the temple!

2 Chronicles 3:1 NKJV 1 Now Solomon began to build the house of the LORD at Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the LORD had appeared to his father David, at the place that David had prepared on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

When David expressed the desire to build a house for God, God remarked about choosing David from out of the sheepfold to be the king of His people.

2 Samuel 7:7-8 MKJV 7 In all places in which I have walked with all the sons of Israel, did I speak a word with any of the tribes of Israel, those I commanded to feed My people Israel, saying, Why do you not build Me a house of cedars? 8 And now so shall you say to My servant David, So says the LORD of hosts: I took you from the sheepcote, from following the sheep, to be ruler over My people, over Israel.

Ezekiel writes that when God brings Israel and Judah back to the Promised Land following their exile in Babylon, He will restore both the throne of David and the temple. Regarding the throne, He says that the one who sits on the throne of David shall feed His sheep.

Ezekiel 34:23-24 MKJV 23 And I will set up one Shepherd over them, and He shall feed them, My servant David. He shall feed them, and He shall be their Shepherd. 24 And I the LORD will be their God, and My servant David a ruler among them. I the LORD have spoken.

David, or a descendant of David, will be their shepherd and their ruler forever, and the LORD will be their God forever. The proper hierarchy is achieved with God as the head of all, and a descendant of David reigning subordinate to God. At the time of David, this was the accepted order of authority. When this perfect order was in place, God said He would plant the people and they would no longer move about in tents.

Jeremiah says that when God returns Israel to their land, He will plant them and not pluck them up again.

Jeremiah 24:6 MKJV 6 For I will set My eyes on them for good, and I will bring them again to this land. And I will build them and not pull them down; and I will plant them and not pluck them up.

Ezekiel continues to explain that when the children of Israel return to the Land they will walk in God’s statutes as Abraham did, and with integrity of heart as David did.

Ezekiel 37:24-25 MKJV 24 And David My servant shall be King over them. And there shall be one Shepherd to all of them. And they shall walk in My judgments, and obey My laws, and do them. 25 And they shall dwell in the land that I have given to Jacob My servant, the land in which your fathers have lived. And they shall dwell in it, even they and their sons, and the sons of their sons forever. And My servant David shall be their ruler forever.

Clearly David had died a long time before their Babylonian exile and return to the land. So, this ruler is obviously a descendant of David. Yeshua brings up this question when the scribes question Him as He taught in the temple.

Mark 12:35-36 MKJV 35 And answering, teaching in the temple, Jesus said, How do the scribes say that Christ is the Son of David? 36 For David himself said by the Holy Spirit: "The LORD said to my Lord, Sit at My right hand until I place Your enemies as Your footstool."

Messiah will come as the Son of David who will restore the kingdom making His enemies into His footstool. We can compare this to the children of Israel coming into the Promised Land and driving out all their enemies! After driving out their enemies, the children of Israel, under the kingship of David, sought and found the place where God would place His name! God said that He chose Jerusalem and will choose Jerusalem again.

Zechariah 1:16-17 NKJV 16 'Therefore thus says the LORD: "I am returning to Jerusalem with mercy; My house shall be built in it," says the LORD of hosts, "And a surveyor's line shall be stretched out over Jerusalem."' 17 "Again proclaim, saying, 'Thus says the LORD of hosts: "My cities shall again spread out through prosperity; The LORD will again comfort Zion, And will again choose Jerusalem."'

Jerusalem was the place that God had in mind all along. It was the place that God chose to demonstrate to Abraham how God would sacrifice His only son to bring salvation to the world. It was the place where atonement was made for David’s sin of exalting himself and his force of arms over God. It was the place that Solomon built the temple for God and where the Shekinah glory entered and dwelt. When Yeshua returns, It is this place where He will reign forever as the King of Israel.

Study Questions:

Teaching Questions

 

1. Read Revelation 21:9-27. How are the temple of God and the city of Jerusalem forever linked together?

 

2. The temple is a bridge between heaven and earth. In what ways is that fulfilled through the temple in Jerusalem?

 

3. The children of Israel were to destroy the names of the gods that the Canaanites worshiped and not to destroy God’s name. In what ways did Israel destroy God’s name? Consider Jeremiah 23:26-27 and Psalm 44:20-26. How were they to establish God’s name?

 

General Portion Questions

 

4. One of the things that the children of Israel were to take to the place where God put His name were judgments that were to difficult for the judges to decide. See Deuteronomy 17:8-13. How is does this establish the LORD as the ultimate judge? How does this tie into the house of David and the coming reign of Yeshua?

 

5. Many scriptures link the house of David with the temple and worship of God including Psalm 122, Jeremiah 22:1-6, Jeremiah 33:14-18, and Zechariah 12:8-13:1. How do these reinforce that the place where God places His name is connected with the reign of David?

 

6. What other insights did you gain from this teaching? What indicators are there in this Torah Portion that point to Messiah Yeshua?

 

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