Between the holidays... from Kansas City on Shabbat Bamidbar

Introduction 

Shabbat shalom to each of you here at the congregation and to any who will watch us on YouTube later. I appreciate the opportunity to address you this morning on Shabbat Bamidbar. You might know that I’m originally from Kansas City, from Prairie Village, born in 1951 and even graduated KU back in the 1970s. But when I drove here this morning from Overland Park, I passed through Ruskin Heights, and I had a flashback of 1957 and the tornado that devastated that area. Perhaps some of you were around then and remember that season as well. (For full details, see https://www.weather.gov/eax/RuskinHeights ) The anniversary of that tragic meteorological event is next Wednesday on the 20^th. Next year will be its 70^th anniversary. 

You see, I was only 5 years old at the time, but every year during tornado season which was then defined as 2 months, April to June, at our home, from then on, we had a practice drill, and then often real actions when someone would report a sighting of a twister. The drill included flipping the sofa onto its back in the living room and bringing the transistor radio into the small cavern that created. We each had a glass of water and some reading materials. We were ready for the tornado if it came. We had no basement. No real safe place. But that posture and that position is how we prepared for the eventual weather problem. As you can see, we survived and never had to survive any more than a drill. 

You will understand why when I passed the exit for Blue Ridge Boulevard this morning, I pondered that fateful day when 44 people died and hundreds more were injured. Even though we are officially here in Tornado Alley, it was only 1957 and Ruskin Heights which are fixed in my mind. You might be thinking, ok, Bob, why are you telling us about this?

A packed series of holidays

Let me give you some Jewish context. Next week we will celebrate Shavuot. In fact during the last six weeks, we have celebrated Passover, as well as the Feast of Matzot, and that mysterious 3^rd day holiday, First Fruits. We have also noted during the counting of the Omer other Yomim. These holidays are Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance), Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day), Yom Ha'atzmaut (Independence Day), and Lag BaOmer. Then last week we noted Yom Yerushalayim. Are you weary of such continuous observances? Perhaps if you lived and worked in Israel, then Memorial Day (Zikaron) and Independence Day (Ha’atzma’ut) and Jerusalem Day would make much more sense. But think about it. We have similar events in the US; they are just more spread out. Shoah in January is even noted worldwide. Memorial Day will feature next weekend. July 4 is in a couple of months. We don’t have a special day for a city like Jerusalem or even a region that came into the Union after our Founding, but otherwise, we, like other countries, honour the past. 

Let me ask you. What is the point of all these holidays? Or really, what is the point of any holiday? Is it just to take time off work and get paid for it? Like Presidents’ Day or Labour Day? Is that why we have those holidays? Or is it only to look backwards?

What is the point?

Today

You see, I believe that as people, set apart people, we have responsibilities in time. We must live as godly people today. That’s the present. We are called to holy living. We are commanded to do what God wants. And what is that? Micah the prophet says, “What does the Lord require of thee? To do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God.” (6.8)

James, or Ya’akov, the apostle taught us that “pure and undefiled religion is to take care of widows and orphans in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” (1.27)

OK, that’s part of the mandate for believers in our day. And on this day. Care for the stranger. Love of neighbour. Love God with everything you have. Lock it in. That’s a today thing.

What about the future? What will God want from us in the future? Read through the tochacha which we saw in last week’s parasha, the short list in Leviticus 26 (Behar-Bechukotai) and even if you have time the long list in Deuteronomy 28. The commands are detailed, and the consequences of failure is repeated so clearly, that we must surely take it all on board. We think we do ok, now and then, with biblical compliance, but if we are honest, rigorously honest, we will admit to continuous failures. Listen to this warning in Deuteronomy 28.47 and following: 

“Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and a glad heart, for the abundance of all things;  therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in the lack of all things; and He will put an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you.” (.47-48)

I love that passage. God doesn’t want us to function as machines. He loves us personally. Not privately, don’t get that wrong. Personally, and communally. That’s why you meet together. That’s why you are a congregation.  And together we are responsible for one another to help support each other to do justly, love mercy and walk together humbly with God, with joy and a glad heart, for the abundance of all things. I don’t have everything, but together we have all things. I’m not the body of Messiah; we are. Together. And as the body, we take care of one another, like a comforting hand to a stubbed toe. That’s an honest future hope.

I’m not called to fulfill Torah by myself. I’m not called to love in the new commandment that Yeshua invoked on us. We are. I’m part of y’all. You are part of me. And there are other parts of the Body of King Messiah here in KC meeting even this morning. And there are other parts of His body meeting tomorrow and Tuesday and any and every day. We are not in another body; we are in His body. And together we can, as the first disciples were, called to monitoring and support, to make His great name known on the planet. To the Jew first, and also to the Gentiles. 

So that’s present and that’s the future. But what about the past? 

That’s where holidays come in. And memory. And history. And grandparents. You see, in our days, for many looking backwards is considered passé. Even though we know the citation of Santayana from over 100 years ago, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." This famous aphorism by philosopher George Santayana, published in his 1905 work The Life of Reason, emphasizes that learning from history is essential to avoid repeating past mistakes, failures, and conflicts.

It’s shocking, isn’t it, when you speak with some people near us or online, especially those who are fuelling racism and antisemitism, when we try to speak to them, and help them with history about Jewish people, that they are surprisingly ignorant of us. It’s disappointing. 

Friends, here at B’nai Yeshurun, I’m keen to help us all find meaning looking at all times. Whether that is looking backwards, or looking in the mirror, and in the Word of God, and in the future plans of the Lord. Those backward looks are designed to strengthen us for today. They are designed to remind us of good times and bad times in our own history and in the history of the people in the Bible. 

So we have holidays and Scripture and memories. And here’s one—corroboration. You see, as we age, we tend to certain mistakes. We forget things. Not the whole thing, but certain aspects of an event or a situation. And thus we amplify, amend, exaggerate, or omit data points. The time I hit a home run becomes the time I hit three home runs and a double and stole a base. The time we made a pumpkin pie for Mrs Goldberg becomes the time that our whole family brought pies and cakes and soda pop to the entire Goldberg family for a couple of days in a row. The purpose of telling and retelling the stories, the tribal history of our clan, of our family, of our nation—the purpose is to ensure that the story is correct, and the results of the encounters remain accurate and repeatable.  We tell stories and others corroborate the story.

For instance, how many people finally escaped Egypt in the Exodus?

How many of our people over the age of 20 entered the Promised Land under Joshua?

When did Yeshua die and rise again?

Who were the first people to testify about him after the Resurrection?

All of these are facts found in the Book, and by them we are strengthened in our faith and in our confidence in the rest of the Book. Faith comes. Hearing the Word of God increases our trust, our faith, our belief that the Scripture is reliable. We corroborate the Word in our own lives!

And I know, I know, holidays are tiring at times. But they also are times of retelling of stories, whether the modern stories of taking Jerusalem as we recounted last week on Yom Yerushalayim or as we did in early April by retelling the story of Passover. The stories are corroborated and find their way into us. It’s tradition, for sure. And remember, it’s not you who keeps tradition. Traditions keep you!

Bamidbar

Today’s sedra is not about twisters and holidays. It’s fairly diagrammatic. Duties are dispensed and a census is taken. That’s pretty ordinary. After all it’s “in the wilderness.” Out there, nothing much is supposed to happen. It’s usually barren. It’s commonplace. Compare where we are just now in Greenwood or as I drove here this morning with where I live in Sydney Australia—those are two very different locations. But whether you are near the ocean or near Kauffman Stadium, most of your life, and most of my life is fairly ordinary. Most of our lives are ‘in the wilderness.’ Nothing to write home about; nothing to celebrate. We eat and drink, but not much to be merry about.

I’m not complaining, mind you. In fact, coming to that realization that most of life is mundane and ordinary gave me a wonderful sense of relief. I didn’t have to have a ‘great day’ in capital letters. I didn’t have to win lottery, or the Chiefs didn’t have to win each game they played. My lawn didn’t have to be the greenest and most manicured on the street; my kids didn’t have to be the most spectacular in their schools. Ordinary is ok; it’s not a failure. It’s normative. 

And in those ordinary times, in the wilderness, we remember. What is it we are to remember? The words of God. The stories of God and his people. The stories of God, his people and us. And if we tell those stories, and they are corroborated, then others are benefitted by them as well.

The Jewish prophet Hosea didn’t have many good things to say to our people in his prophecies during 14 chapters of the Older Testament. But even he said this of the wilderness and the Jewish people.

“Therefore, I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will sing as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt.”  (Hosea 2.16-17)

Rabbi Sachs of blessed memory said this of that passage, “Hosea used the wilderness as a symbol of the betrothal between God and the Israelites. God had ‘married’ the people, but they had acted unfaithfully. God would punish them. They would suffer disasters. Yet He could not abandon them, so great was His love. So, in an act of reconciliation, He would bring them back and renew their marriage vows in the wilderness, understood as a kind of second honeymoon.” 

It was for me in 1971 when I was 19 years old that I finally heard the story of Yeshua, our Messiah. I’d probably read the Kansas City Times or Star in my youth and read the daily column, “My answer” by Billy Graham, the evangelist. Of course I also read the comics with Blondie, Charley Brown, and Dennis the Menace. I’d probably given as much weight to all four. 

But there I was at 19, walking in Volker Park, right next to the Nelson Art Gallery, and there I met two young people, my age, who were out to share their newfound faith. They were members of the community nicknamed the House of Agape and they met on Sunday nights at 55^th and Oak. There these two, John and Pam, were sitting on the steps and saw me in my hippie clothes, haircut and attitude, and they called out to me. I stopped in my tracks. We had a Bible argument, and they were overwhelming in their love of the Lord and although I might have said later that “I won that battle”, they pointed me to the Messiah, to our Saviour, and I couldn’t shake their impression. They lived it. They wanted me to experience the salvation that only comes from Messiah.

Three days later, in Leawood, I sat again on a stoop, this time of a house. This time with a Christian gal I had met only a week previously. I knew she was born again. I knew she believed in Jesus. And yet, she had helped me read the Bible after meeting John and Pam. In fact, we stayed up all night that Friday night and read Matthew and even parts of Revelation. I pummelled her with questions. She answered as best as she could. 

So here I was on the stoop at her parents’ house. I told her I wanted what I was reading in the Bible. I wanted peace and I wanted to follow this Nazarene. I really liked this man—a classic hippie. He had peace and love and that’s what I wanted. But I said, “I don’t want Jesus.” I knew that my Orthodox family would not have understood. We were members of Kehilath Israel. 

She replied, “you don’t get this Jesus stuff unless you take him as your Messiah and Saviour.” Surprise of surprises, that was enough for me. I prayed with Marva that night, May of 1971, 55 years ago, one week before Shavuot, to receive Yeshua as my Saviour. I cried. I was forgiven. Hallelujah! 55 years ago this weekend!

After we sang “Amazing Grace” and she gave me some words of assurance, I returned to my parents’ house in Prairie Village. I told them of my newfound faith. They didn’t like it. They were enraged. They kicked me out of the house; I got a new apartment near Westport, got a new job, and a new life in Yeshua—all within 12 hours. 

My life as an adventure began with a start, maybe with a jump start. And since that evening in May of 1971, I’ve lived in KC, then Lawrence, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Washington DC, Sydney Australia, and now split time between Sydney and Nashville.  My life is an adventure in the wilderness. Even though I have home, and a wife of 49 years, 3 adult children and 7 grandchildren, I still consider myself a wanderer in a wilderness. 

I joined our mission, “Yehudim l’ma’an Yeshua” which is usually known as Jews for Jesus, in 1979, and love our work of living out the Gospel and sharing with our Jewish people. This weekend I have visits set with three more Jews here in KC to help them unpack the issue of Messiah and maybe to make a decision to follow him. 

Our teams worldwide are working again this week. 70 full time staff in Israel; 250 full time staff worldwide. Here’s a quick glimpse of our latest work, on this video.

On the screen you will see a QR code that I hope you will use with your phone to sign up to hear more from our organization about the good work of partnering we are doing in Israel, in London, New York.. Sydney… friends, it’s global. I hope you will consider supporting our efforts financially and in prayer. And I hope we can cooperate to make Yeshua known in Kansas City among our people here as well. 

If you don’t like using QR codes, you can use the brochure like this “Nets are breaking” brochure which you will find up the back and sign up in the traditional method to hear from us. We are your partners in Ukraine and Israel; we are working in South Africa and Russia, and reopening new branches this year in Boston and South Florida. We aren’t done by a long shot!

My wilderness wandering continues and I am glad.

 Next week, I’m sure you will speak much about Torah and the giving or the receiving of Torah, about the lightning and thunder and fear on and around Mt Sinai. But that was of course, not near a city, not an urban centre—it was out in the wilderness. In fact, so much of holy life and biblical activity is found in the wilderness.  And maybe Rabbi Yosef will again mention Ruskin Heights and the tornado in 1957 and the commensurate fear and violence of the storm and lightning and thunder. After all Ruskin Heights was not exactly an urban center those 69 years ago. 

But here you are, today, in a major city readying to host The World Cup of soccer, with over 2 million residents in the metropolitan area and it does not seem like the wilderness that it was back then. (As of 2024–2025, the Kansas City, Missouri, city population is over 508,000, while the 14-county bi-state metropolitan area (MO-KS) has surpassed 2.25 million residents. The metro area is experiencing steady growth, with suburban counties like Clay, Cass, and Jackson seeing population increases, with an estimated metro population of 2,270,682 in 2025). 

But don’t you feel like you are in one every now and then? 

So what are you supposed to take away from today’s service and today’s sermon? 

1)     That Jewish people can find Messiah and are doing so in surprising numbers since October 7 two and a half years ago.

2)     That your ordinary life is not less, it’s not weak, it’s not without meaning. God uses the valleys as a training ground for us. Oswald Chambers emphasized this when he said that ordinary life is the primary, sacred venue for spiritual growth and service to God, stating that "we are not made for the mountains, for sunrises, or for the other beautiful attractions in life" but for the "valley" and the "ordinary things". He maintained that true spiritual character is revealed through mundane daily routines, not in spectacular, emotional experiences.

3)     That holidays have a solid place in our walk with the Lord, to remind us of his actions in the past and even of our actions then, so that we can trust him today.

4)     That God is Sovereign over all times, past, present and future, and we can trust him in each of those throughout our days, even to the end of our days.

Thanks again to Rabbi Yosef and all of you here this Shabbat Bamidbar, as we walk the journey together, today here, and tomorrow and from now on, with the entire Body of Messiah, and make His name known, for there is no other name given under heaven by which anyone can be saved. Shabbat shalom!

A time to mourn: Dr Robert Levene

Mt Carmel Cemetery in KC

Last weekend I flew to Kansas City. I was in town a total of 17 hours. Then back to the airport and on to Nashville. Most of the people who attended the funeral of our friend (or for some, a family member) lived nearby and they could attend not only to the chapel and gravesite services, but also to Shiva held later that afternoon. I had to head back before the Shiva gathering.  

They say, "funerals are for the living, not for the dead." They may be right. The reason we gathered at Mt Carmel was to farewell Dr Robert Levene. For some it was cathartic; for others appropriate and polite; for me, it was very personal. Bob and his family had moved to our neighbourhood when we were about 10, and he and I became fast friends. We were both November babies, and thus usually among the youngest in our classes. He was 10 days my junior.  Early on we played together, sometimes with others from the school or the synagogue to which we both were regular in attendance. He and I were very often playing singles tennis until the middle of junior high school. We were in the same class in Hebrew school and graduated there in 1966. We rode bikes together. I remember a time Bob was over at my house and my parents were gone somewhere. My sister was 'in charge' and for whatever reason she determined it necessary, she chased him out of the house with a broom. Needless to say, Bob didn't return very soon after that.

Hebrew school graduation

We played chess and had tournaments at his house or ours. Other Jewish boys from the neighbourhood joined us. We loved science and had a chemistry club in at least my garage, maybe in his, I don't remember. Nowadays we would have video evidence from our TikTok and YouTube channels, but back then, nope. All we had and have is our memories.

Maybe that's why we attend funerals. To recapture the lost memories. To remember. To remind ourselves we were not always 73 yearss old. Of course, memories are often seen through glasses that are rose-coloured. Especially as times increase between them and us from hours to days to decades. So one person tells a story, and without a challenge, those stories will now remain true for all time. And as each person passes out of our spheres, less corroboration is possible. Oh for a journalist among us who would keep the truths and keep them accurately. 

Dr Bob as he came to be known was a searcher, an inquisitive, a man of 20,000 books in his library, which no doubt will be dismantled. He ended his life with some significant satisfaction. In the final week, he got to see his grandchildren who are both pre-school aged. What a treasure that is to Bob's two sons and it was to him as well, I'm sure. 

We argued about so many things, and in his most lucid moments over the last five years, those arguments were healthy and cordial, loving and respectful, as all debates ought to be between friends. He wondered about eternity and his final resting place. He listened as I explained my views on God, on Jesus, on resurrection and eternity. I bought him a Bible and had his name engraved on the front. Another time I brought him a couple of DVDs from the tv series "The Chosen" and according to his attendants, he really enjoyed watching those. 

We stopped playing tennis back in school days, and Hebrew and chemistry gave way to other pursuits, but friendship knows no bounds and no insurmountable obstacles. In the last 18 months I've lost some men in KC with whom I walked in my youth, like Dave Rabinowitz and Danny Kass, like Hyman Seifer and now Levene. 

When I return to visit my sister and some local KC family and friends, a piece of my life will be missing. I'm a better man for knowing Dr Bob. Maybe he was better for knowing me, but that's not for me to know or at this point, even to consider. 

Today, what am I going to do to make the world in which I live a better place? Tennis has given way to pickleball. Chemistry has given way to other academic interests, especially history. Synagogue continues and has widen to messianic interests and the Gospel Truth has replaced true-enough thinking. 

Each day I age, but only one day at a time. Our lives in Prairie Village gave way to St Joseph for him and New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, Washington, DC, and Sydney Australia for me. But home is where the heart is, and our hearts were ever together then, and he remains in mine to this day. Funerals are for the living. 

How many messiahs are there? (A study in chapter 9 of Zechariah)

 OUT OF THE CHAOS: A study in the book of Zechariah

Chapter 9:  Two Messiahs; One neighbourhood

  To watch this on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/EIciBKhC038

The Jewish world changed because of the 2^nd world war. Obviously the loss of 6 million of any people, even Chinese or Indian people in 2023 when their populations are over a billion would suffer significantly if 6 million were suddenly taken. But when our Jewish global ranks only numbered nearly 17 million in 1939, to lose 1/3 of the nation-- that’s a devastation. The remainder of the Jewish population scattered, not reckoning a return to their homelands would allow them safety, and Jewish migration continued even so far as coming to Australia. In 1901, at Federation, the population of the country here was less than 4 million people, only 15,000 of whom were Jewish. During and after the Holocaust, the Jewish escape took us as far away as possible, and in 2011, our numbers had swelled to over 100,000.^[1] 

But when I say the Jewish world changed, I’m not only referencing population and evacuation. I’m referencing Jewish thinking as well. To be fair, making the point that Jewish thinking is singular is both dismissive and puerile. There have always been thinkers who thought outside the proverbial box in the Jewish world. Einstein, Spinoza, even Moses Mendelssohn are primary examples. So when I say “Jewish thinking”, what I’m referencing is the general mood or majority concept that finds its way into most, certainly the plurality, of the Jewish people in an area or globally. 

For instance, just now, even though there are several major denominations of Jewish people, with representative synagogues and temples, Jewish thinking today is significantly concerned with ‘tikkun olam’ even if less than half the people who are so concerned don’t know the term. The ‘repair of the world’ and ‘making the world a better place’ are global issue #1 in the philosophical mindset of our people. Internal concerns of Jews might also include Jewish maintenance (intermarriage, conversions), but the not-only-us perspective almost always includes tikkun olam. 

Those of you who are messianic, that is, believers in Yeshua as Messiah, would aver that Jewish people are, or at least should be, concerned about the coming of Messiah. Certainly that was 1/13^th of the thinking of Jewish people when Rambam wrote his 13 articles of faith in the 12^th century in Spain.

In 1885, the Jewish world self-edited again and I think a shift away from a personal Messiah significantly began to be noticed. Combine that doctrinal movement and the Shoah and now, we, who are alive in 2023, are the result of such. Most Jewish people today do not believe in a personal Messiah, nor think of Judaism as a religion, rather as a community among all other religious communities, and our main task is to get along with, and bring social justice to, the globe. With that as an overview of our messianic amendments, I want to talk to you today from our chapter, Zechariah 9, and use a personal anecdote to showcase all we can learn from this ancient and sacred text.

The year was 1971. I was a 19-year-old hippie living again in Kansas City. I had returned to my birthplace after dropping out of university and hitchhiking around the south, that region of the US not exactly known for political openness, and certainly in those days, not known for welcome to long-hairs and guitar-toting hitchhikers. Even so, that’s where I found myself when four Southern Baptists surrounded me on the streets of Atlanta, Georgia. They harangued me and announced to me that Jesus was the messiah. I told them I was Jewish. That didn’t seem to move their thinking or their intentions. They had Bibles and biblical answers to anything and everything, even though I wasn’t asking them any questions. These men certainly had messiah on the brain. 

Even though I was a Jew, and still a practising one, and even though I’d heard of messiah; if I had to take an examination on the subject, I would have answered “yes” to the question, “Do you believe in the messiah?”, I still didn’t think about it much. 

Many people in our days, certainly those who survived the Shoah, have split thinking on this. Some, and dare I say most, of our people respond with thoughts like, “If there were a God, and if he really cared about our people, why didn’t he save those 6 million?” Others will say, “If a messiah were coming, he should have come long before Auschwitz!” To be fair, there are many who continue to hold onto the historical Jewish thought of Rambam that “though he (messiah) tarry, yet will I wait for him.”

Today I will tell you of an episode later in that year 1971 that forever shaped my thinking personally and maybe it will help you as well in considering this issue.

Also, I’m not the focus of the author of this chapter, Zechariah, and I want you to see the plan of God clearly as he announced, so that whoever you are, believer or not-yet-a-believer, you will draw comfort from God’s eyes across the world. Let’s dive in.

1.     God’s plan for some nations: The coming of the warrior (.1-.8)

Verse 1. This is extremely difficult in the Hebrew. There is no verb. The term for oracle is not always used. We don’t know the subject and the object, but otherwise, the sentence is fairly clear. Basically the section is introducing us to the complex considerations of God in relation to the nations around the Jewish people. What nations are those? It starts up north with Syria, moves south to Phoenecia (namely Tyre and Sidon) which is in Lebanon today and finally lands us in Philistia with the Gaza towns mentioned. 

The translation of the verse is all over the place, but it is probably best to retain the difficult reading “eve of man” and understand it as a subjective genitive, “belong to Yahweh,” i.e. “the eyes of Gentiles and all the tribes of Israel should be on Yahweh.”

Let’s deal with the geography. Each of the three areas will experience different outcomes. First is Syria. We read, “Even as far as Hamath.” This is beyond the scope of the land of Judah and even Israel in the days of Zechariah, and certainly beyond today’s boundaries, but it indicates that in the Messianic Age the government of the Lord of the whole earth will extend way up north into Assyrian territory. Way north of Damascus. And the point is that this territory will be godly! As verse one says, “unto the Lord”

כִּ֤י לַֽיהוָה֙

The next settled territories are not so fortunate, however. 

Verses 2-4: Tyre and Sidon, self-endowed and self-strengthened, are gathering stuff and their accumulation even of wisdom. Their wisdom, wealth and weaponry are not enough to prevent God’s judgment to fall on them.  Verse 4 says God will dispossess her. Note the verb is singular and yet Tyre and Sidon (Tsor and Tsidon) are two, but in their dismissal of God they are as one. 

The third is Gaza today, and back then Philistia. 

Verses 5-8 lists 4 of the 5 cities along the coast from Ashdod south, the usual 5 towns, but one is missing. The sound of judgment actually produces something good here. 

We read: “Ashkelon will see it and be afraid. Gaza too will writhe in great pain; also Ekron, for her expectation has been confounded. Moreover, the king will perish from Gaza, and Ashkelon will not be inhabited. And a mongrel (mamzer: bastard) race will dwell in Ashdod, and I will cut off the pride of the Philistines. And I will remove their blood from their mouth and their detestable things from between their teeth. 

Then they also will be a remnant for our God, and be like a clan in Judah, and Ekron like a Jebusite.

But I will camp around My house because of an army, because of him who passes by and returns; and no oppressor will pass over them anymore, for now I have seen with My eyes.” (.5-.8)

 

The removal of penalty and the inclusion into the house of God is staggering. Ekron becoming a Jebusite!??? That’s Jerusalem. Verse 8: My house and God encamping there and God’s eyes are there. Wow, this stanza is making Philistia into a community that is welcomed and formerly detestable, formerly bastardized, now with pride removed and blood removed from their mouths. This is a picture of godliness.  Verse 7, like a clan is in Hebrew, K’alef, like a chief. This is seriously what we might call ‘inclusion.’  For years I read this as judgment on all three geographical areas, but now I see this portion of Zechariah 9 as a hint of what is coming, that the Lord of all the earth, whose kingdom is coming, whose king is coming, has the intention of bringing in the foreginers and they will also be his. 

2.     Shiloh on a donkey: The coming of the king (.9-10)

Verse 9. This is where the story zooms in on a particular, on the method of bringing salvation to the territories, and dare I say, to Judah as well. I’m not sure that salvation was in the mind of our father Jacob when he prophesied (Genesis 49.11) about Judah and pre-broadcast this scene. He uses very similar language as here in verse 9, but I read the Genesis account as talking about abundance and prosperity.  Remember, there we read this of Jacob’s prophecy to his 4^th son: “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes, and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. He ties his foal to the vine, and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine; He washes his garments in wine, and his robes in the blood of grapes.” (Gen 49.10-11) 

Shiloh, later we know this to be Messiah, but for Jacob, just read this as a prediction on the first horizon. When Shiloh comes, the abundance of produce will be so great that you can tie your donkey to a grapevine, and the vine will be strong enough to function as a hitching post. Your donkey is safe; your investments will be safe. That’s how the people of Jacob’s time, his sons and larger family, would have heard the prediction. 

In a few minutes I will finish the story of my encounter with a rabbi in 1971 that shaped my thinking about this passage to this day.

Who is this humble donkey-rider? Jewish interpreters love to highlight the effectiveness of this donkey-rider. He will make things happen which sections one and three advance. Verse 10, speaking peace to the nations is obviously an admission of control and repair in the military and political troubles of the past. His dominion will be far reaching from sea to sea, or if you are an American, from sea to shining sea. And that phrase which persists in Zechariah “to the ends of the earth”  (Ad afsei aretz)

עַד־אַפְסֵי־אָֽרֶץ

Is not only a description of geography, but to the nations, the peoples. Again I’m thinking of Jacob’s prophecy to Judah, that “to Shiloh, to him shall the gathering and the obedience and the tribute of the peoples be.” These are taxes and pledges of loyalty. To the ends of the earth and from the ends of the earth they will come. 

Verse 9 says, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; He is just and endowed with salvation, Humble, and mounted on a donkey, Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

But now, the long-awaited story. The year was 1971. I was 19 and change. In May that year I was found by Messiah and came to believe that Yeshua was our Messiah. I quickly told my family (not advised) and within hours I was asked by my parents to exit their home. I booked and moved into a new apartment. It was a traumatic time, but a most significant one. 

A couple of months later, and I’m not sure of the circumstances. Did he invite me? Did I invite myself to the rabbi’s study? I don’t remember. But that summer of 1971, I remember being with Rabbi MD Solomon in the office of the Kehilath Israel Synagogue on Meyer and Rockhill in Kansas City. We had a lively albeit frank and confrontational conversation about my recent change of faith, as he said, and he wanted me to return to Judaism. We traded Bibles. My King James Version for his Hebrew/English. Both hardback. We traded Bible quotes. I was way out of my league, to be sure, in this Gospel witness. 

At one point, the rabbi admitted with words like these, “Look, we know that there are two pictures of messiah in Tenach. Messiah the son of Joseph and Messiah the son of David. Both in one chapter of the Scriptures. Zechariah perek tet (Chapter 9) says that he will come into Jerusalem on a donkey or he will come on the clouds. Two clear pictures. Two very different actions by the messiah. That means, he explained, we as Jews, as the prophet has been warning us for chapter after chapter, have a choice. We can welcome him on a donkey or on the clouds. What causes him to come in either of those methods? Our sinfulness.” 

He went on. “If all Israel lives sinfully, messiah will come on a donkey and deliver us. If all Israel lives faithfully, if we observe the mitzvot and keep Torah as Orthodox Jews, messiah will come on the clouds.” 

I processed it for only a moment, but I’ve processed it again and again for the next 52 years. What I said then, I would still say today. “Rabbi, I think you have just convinced me that Jesus is our messiah.”

My explanation was probably weak then, but it boiled down to this. Where in Tenach do we read of Israel’s faithfulness? Where in the prophets, or even Moses’ Swan Song do we hear of God bragging about our keeping Torah? Most of the time God is calling us back to faithfulness BECAUSE we have failed him. If Rabbi Solomon’s thesis is right, then messiah has to come on the donkey and save us. But listen, he’s only half right. The two pictures, the two messiahs are actually one messiah coming twice. 

Yes, we lived sinfully and Messiah had to come on the donkey.  (Matt. 21.7, John 12.15)

Then at the end of days, which God knows, he will send Messiah yet again, we who are the redeemed, who keep his love and commands for all people, he will come in the clouds of glory as Daniel predicted, as Zechariah says here, as John the Revelator says in chapter one of Revelation. 

I’m sure we shook hands. We kept our traded books. It’s right here for me. Rabbi Solomon made Aliyah and died in Israel many years later. If he was honestly seeking God, the Lord would surely have made my words clear to the rabbi. We shall see in due course, you know?

Verse 10 says, “And He will speak peace to the nations;” Again the hint is becoming louder like Bolero’s earliest themes continuing in the rest of the orchestral piece by Ravel. 

Nations will come to the Lord. Nations CAN be included in God’s economy. There is a place for Gentiles along with Jews in God’s eyes. The hint is increasing. The Lord is Lord over all the earth. 

3.     Summary blessings to the victorious cloud-rider: Sharing in the victory (.11-.17)

The third section of today’s class is found in verses 11 to the end.  Bishop Stead broke this down into four separate outline units. Verse 11 is the release. “I will free your prisoners from the waterless pit.”  Look at Isaiah 42.22 “This is a people plundered and looted, all of them trapped in pits or hidden away in prisons.” Or Jeremiah’s prophecy about the sin of Judah being trusting in the ‘cisterns which hold no water.” (2.13) It could also be the empty pit of Joseph, sold by his brothers to the travelling nomads that got him to Egypt and covenant blessings, even there. 

Emptiness, and yet going to the well, what a waste, what a pretence. Release from falsehood, that’s how I want to define this verse. That’s so huge in our mechanical understanding and deployment of religious activity. Matthew West sang, “I don’t want to go through the motions…without your all-consuming passion inside of me …what if I had given everything instead of going through the motions?” Religion and its commensurate hypocrisy—God says he will release Judah from this prison!

And how is this release possible? Verse 11 tells us, “the blood of the covenant” which will free us! 

The next verse, 12 is a second promise of Restoration. The hint of ‘double’ blessing is clarified in this verse. That sounds like a change from the double problem of Isaiah 40 which Jeremiah 16.18 also told us. The punishment for our sin, even double there, could be countermanded by the grace of the Lord and the Word of his testimony. Blood and covenant, again applied to the people of God. Without both, we are left in pain and emptiness and suffering. But here, due to the donkey-riding messiah, we can be restored to hope. Note the phrase in .12 about prisoners of hope. Note in verses 11 and 12 the use of ‘asirei’ or prisoners. We were held in chains and now the result of the blood, the covenant, and the Word of God make us prisoners of hope. 

This is not only hope for Temple restoration, but peoplehood! When we are broken, without hope, we need the Almighty to give us hope, by relating to and being in relationship with him. Note the Psalms (18.2, 46.5-7) that call us to hope in God, my refuge, my shield the horn of my salvation and my stronghold. Hope is personal and springs eternal, for those whose hope is in the living God and not in man’s solutions or treaties or self-capacity. 

Verses 13-15, Bp Stead said, is about Victory itself. Who are the weapons? Judah and Efraim, the southern and northern kingdoms, now functioning as a unit. How did that happen? By the blood of the covenant. And wait, it’s not only the people of God who are weapons (arrows, bows and swords), but now God himself joins the armies. We have called him Adonai Ts’vaot throughout this prophecy, Lord of the armies, and now he takes the battlefield himself! Verse 15 has that title trumpeting ahead of the armies of Israel and Judah. 

Verse 14 is the one that Rabbi Solomon cited. The Lord will appear “over them.” And go “forth like lightning.” That’s heavenly; that’s from above. The rabbis have taught us that messiah will fight for us, win the battles against our enemies, and here victory is won by God and by God’s people. 

One more note on verse 15^[2] showcases making noise as in a boisterous banquet.

Then finally, the fourth section of the last of chapter 9 is “Salvation.” Look at verses 16 and 17. For those who have read ahead, the shepherd of verse 16 will feature again, certainly in contrast to the false shepherds next week and the one who will suffer and be stricken later. Hold those thoughts. What is great about this final thought in chapter 9 is the tender care of a shepherd. He was a warrior a moment ago, and now he will ‘save …the flock.’ That’s tender. It’s also the result of a warrior-shepherd which makes sense in context, but don’t miss it. Yeshua, the gentle shepherd of the flock of God’s people will go to war on our behalf, for the “weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God for the tearing down of strongholds and every lofty thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Messiah.” (2 Cor. 10:4-5)

The scenes of chapter 9 make this one of the most compelling chapters in the Bible, especially for us who know the suffering one, who rides in Triumphal Entry (ha, what a misnomer!) into Jerusalem a few days before Passover nearly 2,000 years ago. Yeshua is hailed as king, and it’s so close you can almost taste the victory. But his kingdom is a now and not yet kingdom. He’s riding on the donkey, not the clouds, to bring suffering, sinful Israel back into covenant relationship with God. How? By his shed blood. By dying for us on the cross in a few days after this event recorded in all four gospels. He rode into Jerusalem as king, not on a white horse with military trumpets and accolades, but with humility and suffering in the forecast.  The people got it wrong; the Romans got it wrong; we all get it wrong until we meet the one who is the Suffering One, the donkey-rider who brings salvation in his own manner. 

Don’t miss it; you who don’t yet know Messiah, today could be your day. Find salvation in the donkey-rider, the messiah Jesus. He’s your life and your hope. Without him, we are doubly in trouble; with him we are doubly blessed. 

How, what do you do now? Pray a simple prayer and ask him to be your salvation and your messiah. He wants to forgive you your sins and make you born again to a living hope. Not a dead one. 

Sample prayer. 

Then write me and tell me what you’ve done… we’ll support you, etc. Shabbat shalom!

 

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Remember, you who are watching today, if you are not yet a follower of Yeshua, and see his love for you, his kindness extended, his offer of forgiveness available, right where you are, submit to him, to his lordship, to his care, and your life will take on new meaning, new substance, and you will have mates on this call, and in your neighbourhood and wherever you travel… the Kingdom is advancing under the King. Chaos is subjugated, life is available.

Would you like that? Pray with me just now. (Prayer Sample)

Shabbat shalom!

 

Resource on video 

To see a fun video overview of the book of Zechariah see this from Bible Project:

https://bibleproject.com/explore/video/zechariah/

 

Bibliography:

Ryken, Leland (and others), Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, 1998.

Smith, Ralph, Micah to Malachi: Word Biblical Commentary (Volume 32), Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, 1984.

Stead, Michael, Zechariah: The Lord Returns, Aquila Press, Sydney, 2015.

Webb, Barry, The Message of Zechariah: Your Kingdom Come, Intervarsity Press, Nottingham, 2003.

Wiersbe, Warren, Be Heroic: Demonstrating Bravery by your Walk, David C. Cook Press, Colorado Springs, 1997.

 

ACTUAL TEXT

Zech. 9:1   The burden of the word of the LORD is against the land of Hadrach, with Damascus as its resting place (for the eyes of men, especially of all the tribes of Israel, are toward the LORD),² and Hamath also, which borders on it; Tyre and Sidon, though they are very wise. ³ For Tyre built herself a fortress and piled up silver like dust, and gold like the mire of the streets. ⁴ Behold, the Lord will dispossess her and cast her wealth into the sea; and she will be consumed with fire. ⁵ Ashkelon will see it and be afraid. Gaza too will writhe in great pain; also Ekron, for her expectation has been confounded. Moreover, the king will perish from Gaza, and Ashkelon will not be inhabited. ⁶ And a mongrel race will dwell in Ashdod, and I will cut off the pride of the Philistines. ⁷ And I will remove their blood from their mouth and their detestable things from between their teeth. Then they also will be a remnant for our God, and be like a clan in Judah, and Ekron like a Jebusite. ⁸ But I will camp around My house because of an army, because of him who passes by and returns; and no oppressor will pass over them anymore, for now I have seen with My eyes.

 

⁹ Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; He is just and endowed with salvation, humble, and mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a donkey. ¹⁰ I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim 

and the horse from Jerusalem; and the bow of war will be cut off.  And He will speak peace to the nations; and His dominion will be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.

 

11 As for you also, because of the blood of My covenant with you, I have set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. ¹² Return to the stronghold, O prisoners who have the hope; this very day I am declaring that I will restore double to you. ¹³ For I will bend Judah as My bow, I will fill the bow with Ephraim.  And I will stir up your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece; and I will make you like a warrior’s sword. ¹⁴ Then the LORD will appear over them, and His arrow will go forth like lightning; and the Lord GOD will blow the trumpet, and will march in the storm winds of the south. ¹⁵ The LORD of hosts will defend them. And they will devour and trample on the sling stones; and they will drink and be boisterous as with wine; and they will be filled like a sacrificial basin, drenched like the corners of the altar.

 

¹⁶ And the LORD their God will save them in that day as the flock of His people; for they are as the stones of a crown, sparkling in His land. ¹⁷ For what comeliness and beauty will be theirs! Grain will make the young men flourish, and new wine the virgins.

^[1] By 1920, intermarriage, mainly on the part of Jewish men, was leading some observers to question the long-term viability of the Jewish community in Australia. But the mass arrival of Jews from Eastern Europe from the 1920s onwards, combined with refugees from Central Europe, ensured a vibrant future. Over 5000 "thirty-niners" arrived as refugees just before or at the outbreak of World War II.  Between 1946 and 1954, 17,000 Jews, mostly Holocaust survivors, arrived from Europe and Shanghai. A significant number came after the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, a further 10,000 arrived by 1961.  The Suez Crisis of that same year precipitated an exodus of Jews from Nasser's Egypt. Jews from Middle Eastern countries, even Sephardim of comparatively light complexion, were effectively barred by the White Australia policy, enshrined in the Immigration Restriction Act of 1901 and not repealed until 1972, but an easing of this barrier following representations to government facilitated the entry of several hundred refugees from Egypt. Australian Jewry doubled in size from 23,000 in 1933 to 60,000 in 1966. With the arrival of substantial numbers of Jews from South Africa and the former Soviet Union, there were about 84,000 Jews according to the 2001 Census, with communal leaders believing the actual number to be around 110,000.  The Census of 2011 indicated about 112,000 Jews in Australia. (From Suzanne Rutland, Australia: 1788 to the Present

by Suzanne Rutland, updated by Hilary L. Rubinstein
Last updated June 23, 2021

 

^[2] Literally it reads “and they shall drink and make noise like wine.” Some scholars follow LXX and read ‏דמם‎ “their blood” for ‏המוּ‎ “they make noise.” It is better to maintain the MT text and consider ‏המוּ‎ a 3rd com pl qal pf ‏המה “to make noise.” The idea of a boisterous banquet is being presented.