It is customary for religiously practicing Jews to read from an annual cycle of weekly Old Testament readings called Torah Portions. This is said to be the same reading schedule that was taught every Sabbath in the Synagogues during the times of Jesus in the first century.

As Christians exploring the Torah portion cycle we must maintain a balance of including the Old Testament, the prophets, and the gospels in our weekly bible study.

Torah Portion Name and Readings-

Devarim is the Hebrew word for “words”, this is the name for the weekly Torah Portion reading for the Book of Deuteronomy starting in chapter 1 verse 1 and going through chapter 3 verse 22.

Prophets and New Testament-

It is also important to point out that along with the Torah portion readings and teachings, there are what are called Haftarah portions which are readings from the Bible in the books of the prophets. This week’s haftarah readings come from the book of Isaiah in chapter 1 verse 1 through verse 27.

The gospel readings incorporated with the weekly Torah portion readings come from the book of Matthew in chapter 24 with verses 1 through 22.

Torah Portion Overview-

With today’s modern view of war we tend to view it as distasteful and a necessary evil. The goal of war today is often to limit death as much as possible, especially civilian casualties (which is a good thing). War is televised where people not fighting and risking their lives can sit back from the comfort of their home and judge each and every action. This has led to a modernization of war in the Bible. We seek a reason to justify the war that Israel fought in the land of Canaan, where they often wiped out whole cities of people, including men, women and children. This looks barbaric to us and we often find it, if we are honest, repulsive. Because of this we seek to justify it or make it more palatable.

The term the Bible uses when speaking of wiping out a city is “devoted to destruction” (herem/haram). The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (HALOT) defines haram as:

“dedication to the secularly unusable to destruction or to cultic use only, ban, what is banned”

We get further meaning from the Dictionary of Deities and Demons entry for herem:

“An object placed under herem is destroyed in order to remove it from the social and legal classificatory sphere, that is, from the practical concern of a given community. A similar fate is shared by the spirit (Etemmu) of a person deprived of due burial and cast as carrion to beasts of prey. Such a spirit is driven to the outside waste and lawless sphere where no rule of civilization applies. Physical death itself does not result in such a fate for the spirit. That fate is determined by the kind of death suffered and the deliberate prevention of appropriate burial rites. Similarly, herem may be understood as denoting something more than physical destruction. It probably alluded to the manner of destruction and to the treatment of the physical remains of the enemy or criminal, as in the case of Achan (Lohfink 1982:198–200; Stern 1989:419) By the same token, an object placed under herem in the sense of being consecrated to a deity is also removed from the human sphere to the divine.

A human, therefore, may not enjoy the use of an object designated as herem, for this would transgress the limits between his domain, with its protective socio-legal organization, and the outside non-classificatory domain and cause disequilibrium to encroach upon the former. Should such misuse occur, the perpetrator himself becomes contaminated by the object of the herem and must be subjected to the same treatment as that object in order to ward off the consequent dangers to his community, as indeed in the case of Achan noted above (Josh 6–7).

Who were to be devoted to destruction? Those who sacrifice to other gods (Exodus 22:10), someone who brings an object of idolatry into the tabernacle/temple (Deuteronomy 7:26), the Canaanites (Numbers 21:3, Joshua 8:1-29, 10:28, etc) and the Amorites (Deuteronomy 2:26 - 3:13, Joshua 6:1-27, etc). It is interesting that they were commanded to not just remove the Canaanites and Amorites, but also the Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and the Jebusites (Deuteronomy 20:17). Israel was allowed to take war captives from the cities that were further away, but with close cities Israel was required to put everyone to death (Deuteronomy 20:15-17).

In the past I often related the command to devote to destruction to the removal of the nephilim. It made sense to me that since the nephilim were often connected with people groups that were to be dedicated to destruction, that the cause for such a drastic measure was the need to remove the nephilim. Although there may be a measure of truth to this we find that Scripture actually lists a different reason. The command to wipe out the cities close by was given because of the danger of Israel being led into idolatry.

Deuteronomy 20:17-18 (ESV)

“but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the LORD your God has commanded, that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so you sin against the LORD your God.”

This was shocking to me when I realized this! I had planned to explain the dangers of the nephilim and then use that as a good reason for the herem (Israel wiping out everyone in certain cities). However I found that Scripture has a shocking answer to this question. The reason for herem wasn’t nephilim, it was the danger of idolatry. This then, explains why sins of idolatry are listed as the few sins that are punished with herem! But this leaves us with a more pressing question; why is idolatry such a severe sin?

The modern church often teaches that all sins are equal. For anyone who studies Torah, we know this is not true! John expresses the idea of sin in two categories: sin that leads to death and sin that doesn’t (1 John 5:16-17). All sins are not equal. We can view the severity of the sin by how it was treated; idolatry, adultery, and murder were all capital offenses, but with theft for instance, you were required to repay with a fee for the damages. We understand that not all sins are equal, but what am I getting at? Just this, that the reason that idolatry led to being “dedicated to destruction” was that it was the most serious crime.

Furthermore, the fear that this sin would spread from the nations to Israel showed that it was viewed as almost contagious. A sin that could easily spread to others. Thus it had to be wiped out before it spread.

This is a sad truth that is hard. It seems unfair and unjust. Here we are confronted with our own sense of justice, whatever that is, our own feelings on the matter, and in essence, we perhaps, find ourselves on the other side. Is this justice? Why is this sin so bad? Why must some be wiped out by Israel over idolatry?

It is important here to stop and address the topic of herem (dedicated to destruction). The command to wipe out certain nations was given to Israel in their ancient past. They didn’t fulfill this command fully, but they did wipe out some cities. With the close of the canon it is important to understand that no country, people, or society, will be given this kind of command by God. That is because the purpose of this command was wrapped in the promised land. This was a one-time command with a specific purpose, that is, to provide Israel the land they were promised safe from idolatry. In other words, this was a singular event in Israel’s history.

Furthermore with the New Covenant we see commands like “love your enemy” and “do good to those who abuse you”. There is no such command for herem in the New Covenant. So how does this apply to us today?

As explained earlier the danger and reason for devoting to destruction was the danger of idolatry. We must take this danger and understand how devastating it is to Yeshua when we worship other gods. In todays world it is easy to say “I don’t bow down to any gods” or “I don’t have any idols”. Yes, we do not literally bow down to anything, we don’t worship Baal or any of the other gods. But how often do we look to others for the thing which we should look to God for? What do we “idolize”? Do we look at a certain politician as someone who will save our country? Do we view our job as our provider? Do we look at our spouse as our ultimate source of love? All these things can be a type of idolatry. Let us take this time to look at ourselves, not others, and say “am I pleasing the Lord?” Are we fully following after Him with a whole heart? Are there things that we put above Him? Let us worship the one and true living God!

Torah Portion Scriptural Highlights-

• Deuteronomy 1:1 Israel is commanded to start the conquest

• Deuteronomy 1:9 Remembering the previous appointment of leadership

• Deuteronomy 1:19 Remembering the failure of the spies and Israel’s testing of Yahweh

• Deuteronomy 1:34 The generation that did not believe did not enter the land, except Joshua and Caleb

• Deuteronomy 1:41 Israel rebelled and tried to enter the land without Yahweh and were defeated

• Deuteronomy 2:1 Remembering the wilderness wandering, going through Edom, Moab, and Ammon

• Deuteronomy 2:26 Israel destroys the cities of Sihon king of Heshbon

• Deuteronomy 3:1 Israel destroyed the cities of Og of Bashan

• Deuteronomy 3:8 Israel conquers other cities and peoples

• Deuteronomy 3:12 Rueben, Gad, and Manasseh receive an inheritance

Haftarah (Prophets) Scriptural Highlights-

• Isaiah 1:1 Isaiah preamble

• Isaiah 1:2 The Lord hates the worship of the lawless and calls for cleansing and repentance and lists their sins

Brit (Gospel) Scriptural Highlights-

• Matthew 24:1 Jesus prophecies about the temples destruction, the signs of His second coming, and the end of the age.

Bibliography

• M. Malul, “Taboo,” Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (Leiden; Boston; Köln; Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge: Brill; Eerdmans, 1999), 825–826.

• Ludwig Koehler et al., The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994–2000), 354.

• Joseph A. Callaway, “Ai (Place),” The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992) 125–126.

• T. A. Holland, “Jericho (Place),” The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992) 736.

• THE LEXHAM BIBLE DICTIONARY, s.v. “Makkedah.”

• Eugene H. Merrill, “Review of Did God Really Command Genocide? Coming to Terms with the Justice of God by Paul Copan and Matthew Flannagan,” Themelios 40.2 (2015): 271–273.

To Watch an overview of this week’s Torah Portion CLICK HERE