Devarim “words”
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” and is the name of the book of Deuteronomy in Hebrew, this is the name for the weekly Torah Portion reading for the Deuteronomy starting in chapter 1 verse 1 and going through chapter 3 and 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 verse 22.
Torah Portion Overview-
In this torah portion we get an abbreviated overview of the story of the journey of Israel through the wilderness. Moses starts by recounting the words from the Lord that they should take the promised land. The people selected their leaders of each tribe and Moses approved of them. The spies were sent out and Israel grumbled and complained. Because of this the people were punished with wondering in the wilderness for 40 years, until each one of the men had died, and Moses was also punished. However, the people did not submit to the Lord’s punishment, Israel went up and attacked the inhabitants of the land even though they had been judged not to enter in, and so were defeated. God made it clear during their travels that they were not to take land that had not been given to them. Israel passed through the land of Edom (Esau’s descendants) and God warned them not to harm Edom because that land had been given to that nation. Israel passed through the land of Moab (Lot’s descendants) and God warned them not to harm the descendants of Lot because they had been given that territory. Israel passed through the land of the Ammonites (descendants of Lot) and they were also warned not to harm them. However, not all were protected. Those who were not extended family, so to speak, were enemies of Israel. Israel was commanded to attack the King Sihon the Amorite and Israel attacked them and defeated them and took their cities. Israel defeated king Og of Bashan and all his people and towns. Israel also defeated two Amorite kings. Two tribes wanted these lands that they had conquered, because they were good lands for cattle. The Gadites, Reubenites, and the half tribe of Manasseh inherited these lands. Yet the men of war could not settle these lands. The tribes of Gad, Reuben, and half tribe of Manasseh were commanded to fight with their brothers to take the rest of the Promised Land.
“When we headed up the road to Bashan, King Og of Bashan came out against us, he and all his people, for battle at Edrei. The LORD said to me, ‘Do not fear him, for I have handed him over to you, along with his people and his land. Do to him as you did to King Sihon of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon.’ So the LORD our God also handed over to us King Og of Bashan and all his people. We struck him down until not a single survivor was left… (Now only King Og of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaim. In fact, his bed, an iron bed, can still be seen in Rabbah of the Ammonites. By the common cubit it is nine cubits long and four cubits wide.)”
Deuteronomy 3:1-3, 11 (NRSVue)
Og was the King of a several cities in the region of Bashan. del Olmo G. Lete explains in his entry for “Og” in Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (1999) page 638-640 that Ashtaroth and Edrei were the capital cities of Og in the region of Bashan. This is of significance because of the connection of those cities in Ugaritic mythology is that they had god kings that ruled over those cities. Lete further explains:
“I. Of unknown etymology, although some connexion with Osa g̃aig (?), Soqotri ʿaig, Hatraean ʿgʾʾ ‘man’ could be established (RABIN ErIsr 8 [1967] 251–154; cf. also Ug PN bn ʿgy, KTU 4.611:19), Og is attested 22 times in the Bible as the king of →Bashan, along with the Amorite king Sihon, both of them vanquished by the Israelite newcomers. More specifically it is said of him that he was “one of the survivors of the →Rephaim” (Deut 3:11; Josh 12:4; 13:12 [NEB]) and was huge in stature, as fitted this race of →giants; this could be verified by the dimensions of his iron bed, preserved in Rabbat Ammon in the days of the redactor (?) (Deut 3:11) and usually still taken as a reference to a Dolmen tomb (?) (MILLARD 1988:484–485). In this way the tradition moves between the ‘historical’ and the ‘mythological’, as happens also with the other biblical references to the Rephaim. It is also said of this king (Ug mlk) and Rephaite (Ug rpu) that he “lived (hayyôšēb) in Ashtarot and Edrei” (Josh 12:4; 13:12 [NEB]), obviously the capital cities of his kingdom Bashan, a region of northern Transjordan according also to these sources. Egyptian documents and two Amarna letters mention rulers of Ashtarot in the fourteenth century BCE (BARTLETT 1970:266–268).
II. Well known are the echoes and agreements of these data in the Ugaritic mythology and cult. Leaving aside the cultic myth of the Rpu/im (KTU 1.20–22) and the characterization as such of the legendary kings Keret and Aqhat (KTU 1.15 iii:14; 1.17 i:17) and of empirical kings, ancient and contemporary, like Ammishtamru and Niqmaddu (KTU 1.161:2–12), text KTU 1.108:1–3 reports that the mlk ʿlm, the dead and deified king, “the eternal king”, when enthroned as rpu, yšb bʿštrt špṭ bhdry, “sits enthroned in Ashtarot, judges in Hedrei”, in amazing correspondence with the biblical tradition of Og, king of Bashan, which in this way appears as a kind of Canaanite Hell, or more exactly, Elysian Fields. The city of ʿštrt Ashtarot is also mentioned as the dwelling place of the god mlk in KTU 1.100:41, 1.107:17 and RS 86.2235:17 place. Now, the equivalence of Ug rpu(m) and mlk(m) is reasonably clear (DEL OLMO LETE 1985:58–62), while at the same time biblical tradition also asserts that Og was ‘king’ (mlk) and one of the Rephaim (rpu) (FORD 1992:84–87). Phoenician tradition also seems to record the existence of a deity ʿg, protector of tombs (POPE 1977:171; MÜLLER ZA 65 [1975] 122), thus in a funerary context consequently.
III. Given all these data, it is not easy to clarify the identity of the biblical Og, king of Bashan, in connexion with the Ugaritic mythological and cultic tradition (PARDEE 1988:86–87). Evidently this does not refer directly to this ‘late’ Amorite king of Transjordan, assuming that he were a historical character (BARTLETT 1970:266–268), nor does he play any role in it. Nevertheless, later Phoenician tradition treats him as a mythical divine entity (hʿg … hʾdr, RÖLLIG 1974:2). So we have a three stage development: the mythical ideological framework in Ugarit; the ‘historical’ record in the Hebrew Bible; the mythological transformation in Phoenicia. In this way, Og, now turned into mlk(m)/rpu(m), can be assumed to have been a historical (but cf. DE VAUX 1971:524) Amorite/Canaanite king of the region which, according to the Ugaritic tradition, was the place where its dead deified kings dwelled.”
This was the place where the dead deified kings ruled, a kind of “Canaanite Hell”! This all makes sense, since the Rephaim are believed to be a subgroup of the Nephilim, a kind of human/angle hybrid creature created when rebellious elohim (spirits) took human wives and produced offspring (Genesis 6:1-4). Indeed the whole region of Bashan was seen as hell, as stated above. del Olmo G. Lete explains in his entry for “Bashan” in Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (1999) page 161-162,
“Biblical geographical tradition agrees with the mythological and cultic data of the Ugaritic texts. According to KTU 1.108:1–3, the abode of the mlk ʿlm, the dead and deified king (DEL OLMO LETE 1987:49–53), and his place of enthronement as rpu was in ʿštrt-hdrʿy, in amazing correspondence with the Biblical tradition about the seat of king Og of Bashan, “one of the survivors of the Rephaim, who lived in Ashtarot and Edrei” (Josh 12:4 [NEB]). This place ʿštrt is also treated in KTU 1.100:41; 1.107:17: and RS 86.2235:17 as the abode of the god mlk, the eponym of the mlkm, the deified kings, synonym of the rpum. For the ‘Canaanites’ of Ugarit, the Bashan region, or a part of it, clearly represented ‘Hell’, the celestial and infernal abode of their deified dead kings, →Olympus and →Hades at the same time. It is possible that this localization of the Canaanite Hell is linked to the ancient tradition of the place as the ancestral home of their dynasty, the rpum. The Biblical text also recalls that “all Bashan used to be called the land/earth of the Rephaim” (Deut 3:13 [NEB]), an ambiguous wording that could equally be translated as “the ‘hell’ of the Rephaim”. In any case, the link between Bashan and the rpum/Rephaim in both traditions speaks in favour of a very old use of the two meanings of this last denomination: ancient dwellers of Northern Transjordan / inhabitants of ‘Hell’.”
Thus when Israel conquered the king of Bashan who was a Nephilim, they were in effect conquering the territory of “hell”. There is an even deeper connection. For according to Jewish tradition, the rebellious elohim who created the Nephilim first descended on mount Hermon which is in Bashan. Thus the whole region is associated with the Nephilim and the Gates of Hell. As Jesus was traveling He asked the disciples who they believe who He is. In response Peter confessed that He was the Messiah, the Son of God. Jesus then explained that He would build His church on Peter, and that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church.
“Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist but others Elijah and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.”
Matthew 16:13-20 (NRSVue)
As Scholar Michael S. Heiser explains in his book The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible (2015),
“In effect, Bashan was considered the location of (to borrow a New Testament phrase) “the gates of hell.” Later Jewish writers understood these conceptual connections. Their intersection is at the heart of why books like 1 Enoch teach that demons are actually the spirits of dead Nephilim.
Lastly, aside from Bashan being the gateway to the underworld, the region has another sinister feature identified in the Deuteronomy 3 passage: Mount Hermon. According to 1 Enoch 6:1–6, Mount Hermon was the place where the sons of God of Genesis 6 descended when they came to earth to cohabit with human women—the episode that produced the Nephilim.18 Joshua 12:4–5 unites all the threads: “Og king of Bashan, one of the remnant of the Rephaim, who lived at Ashtaroth and at Edrei and ruled over Mount Hermon.”
Thus Bashan and Hermon was a symbol of hell and it’s kingdom. However, this place of darkness would not prevail over the church. The dead cannot overcome resurrection life! The resurrection power of Jesus, and His promise to resurrect us, leaves us with no fear of death or hell. We are not overcome by it, indeed, death has no sting for us because we know that we will live again!
“When this perishable body puts on imperishability and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
1 Corinthians 15:54-57 (NRSVue)
After the confession on who Jesus is, Jesus went up on a very high mountain and was transfigured, showing His true glory!
“Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became bright as light. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will set up three tents here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” And when they raised their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.”
Matthew 17:1-8 (NRSVue)
As W. W. Moore explains in his entry for “Hermon” in A Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels: Aaron–Zion (1906), page 717, this very high mountain is most likely mount Hermon!
“HERMON.—A mountain on the north-eastern border of Palestine, the culminating point of the range of Anti-Lebanon, rising to an elevation of 9200 ft. above the sea. Its dome-like summit, usually covered with snow till late in summer, can be seen from almost every part of Palestine. Jesus in His youth must have often seen it from the hill west of Nazareth, and, during His ministry, from the Sea of Galilee. It is not mentioned by name in the Gospels, but is generally believed to be the ‘high mountain’ of Mt 17:1, Mk 9:2, and the ‘mountain’ of Lk 9:28 where the Transfiguration took place. This was probably not on the summit, which could be reached only by long and hard climbing, but on one of the elevated platforms on the southern slope. That Hermon, rather than Tabor (on which there was then a fortified city), is the ‘high mountain’ referred to, seems clear from the fact that the conversation (Mt 16:21–28) which preceded the Transfiguration by six days was closely connected with Peter’s confession; and this occurred at Cæsarea Philippi (Mt 16:13–18), which stood just at the base of Hermon by the springs of Jordan. See also art. TRANSFIGURATION.”
The significance of this cannot be lost! For the very mountain that the rebellious elohim came down on to create the Nephilim, the place of the Gates of Hell, was the very place that Jesus showed His true power and glory! Just as Israel conquered the “Gates of Hell”, so too Jesus did with his death and resurrection! The church is not subject to the kingdom of darkness, it has already been defeated!
Torah Portion Scriptural Highlights-
Deuteronomy 1:1 Moses remembers his words that the Lord spoke to him to take the promised land.
Deuteronomy 1:9 The people chose leaders and Moses approved of them.
Deuteronomy 1:19 Moses recounts the spies that were sent out into the land and Israel’s grumbling.
Deuteronomy 1:34 Moses remembers Israel’s punishment to wonder in the wilderness for 40 years.
Deuteronomy 1:34 Moses tells Israel that it was because of their words that they did not enter the land and Moses himself was also punished.
Deuteronomy 1:41 Moses recounts how Israel went up and attacked the inhabitants of the land even though they had been judged not to enter in, and so were defeated.
Deuteronomy 2:1 Israel passed through the land of Edom (Esau) and God warned them not to harm Edom because that land had been given to that nation.
Deuteronomy 2:8b Israel passed through the land of Lot (Moab) and God warned them not to harm the descendants of Lot because they had been given that territory.
Deuteronomy 2:17 Israel passed through the land of the Ammonites (descendants of Lot) and they were also warned not to harm them.
Deuteronomy 2:24 Israel was commanded to attack the King Sihon the Amorite and Israel attacked them and defeated them and took their cities.
Deuteronomy 3:1 Israel defeated king Og of Bashan and all his people and towns.
Deuteronomy 3:8 Israel also defeated two Amorite kings. The Gadites, Reubenites, and the half tribe of Manasseh inherited these lands.
Deuteronomy 3:18 The tribes of Gad, Reuben, and half tribe of Manasseh are commanded to fight with their brothers to take the rest of the Promised Land.
Haftarah (Prophets) Scriptural Highlights-
Isaiah 1:1 Isaiah’s prophecy about Judah and Jerusalem.
Isaiah 1:2 Israel (Judah) has been unfaithful to God and has been judged.
Isaiah 1:10 The Lord rejects their sacrifices and their feasts.
Isaiah 1:16 Yahweh calls for them to repent.
Isaiah 1:20 Jerusalem has become unfaithful and wicked but the Lord will restore her.
Brit (Gospel) Scriptural Highlights-
Matthew 24:1 Jesus prophecies about the destruction of the Temple.
Matthew 24:3 The Disciples ask when the temple will be destroyed, what will be the sign of His coming, and what will be the sign of the end of the age.
Matthew 24:4 Jesus explains that many anti-christs will arise.
Matthew 24:5 There will be wars, rumors of wars, and earthquakes before the end, which is the birth pangs.
Matthew 24:9 There will be tribulation and many will fall away.
Matthew 24:11 There will be many false prophets who lead many astray.
Matthew 24:12 There will be lawlessness and love will grow cold but he who endures to the end will be saved.
Matthew 24:14 The Gospel will be proclaimed throughout the whole world and all nations, then the end will come.
Matthew 24:15 The prophecy of the abomination of desolation of Daniel reiterated by Jesus, Jews should flee.
Matthew 24:21 There will be great tribulation.
References-
Phillip E. McMillion, “Og (Person),” in The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman (New York: Doubleday, 1992) 9.
del Olmo G. Lete, “Og,” in Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, ed. Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking, and Pieter W. van der Horst (Leiden; Boston; Köln; Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge: Brill; Eerdmans, 1999), 638–640.
del Olmo G. Lete, “Bashan,” in Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, ed. Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking, and Pieter W. van der Horst (Leiden; Boston; Köln; Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge: Brill; Eerdmans, 1999), 161–162.
Michael S. Heiser, The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible, First Edition. (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2015), 201.
W. W. Moore, “Hermon,” in A Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels: Aaron–Zion, ed. James Hastings (Edinburgh; New York: T&T Clark; Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1906) 717.
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