Two Times Only
Then he said to them, “Go, eat of the fat, drink of the sweet, and send portions to him who has nothing prepared; for this day is holy to our Lord. Do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” Nehemiah 8:10 NASB
Joy – Are you tired? Are you weary? Do you long for some far-away place without the incessant demand of the trivial necessary? A vacation from living? You’re feeling like you’re all alone in the fight, that God Himself is absent. Then suddenly something happens, and rays of hope stream down from heaven. You feel the presence of the Lord and you know, deep inside, that your life matters. Tears of joy can’t be withheld.
That’s the situation when this audience hears the words, “Go, eat, drink.” After decades of captivity, after the struggle to rebuild and fight the enemies at the same time, after feeling that God has left the scene, suddenly the words of the Book, found in the Temple, remind you that God’s love does not fail, that He cares, that there is a purpose in all this. You weep for joy—and the scribe tells you, “Listen, this is a time for great celebration. Party!”
The word used here isn’t the usual one, śimḥâ. In fact, this word is only used twice in the Tanakh. ḥed-vaw´ is found here and in one other occurrence in 1 Chronicles 16:27. Derived from the second stem of ḥādâ which means, “to make glad, rejoice,” it is not what we expected. Perhaps a look at the context in 1 Chronicles 16 will help us understand why this rare word is used here too. The event in 1 Chronicles 16 is the return of the Ark. It is a monumental day for the people of Israel. On this day David composes a song which is sung by Asaph and his brothers. It is a song that extols the continued faithfulness of the Lord in the history of His people. In the song, David reaffirms the covenant between Israel and YHVH, especially as it applies to the giving of the land. The song confirms that no pagan power will defeat God’s purposes and those purposes mean that Israel will have its inheritance, the land of promise. This fact is witnessed by the heavens and the earth, and will never change. In this context, David uses the word ḥedwâ, the only other occurrence in the Tanakh. When the reading of the Word occurs centuries later, this word recalls the song of glorification penned by David and sung over the Ark. Even though it is extremely rare, it evokes a particularly important and significant fact for the people who are rebuilding Jerusalem: God does not renege on His promises. He is with us and will ensure that our efforts to rebuild His city will prevail.
This is “joy” in a special sense. It reminds the people of something that happened long ago that continues to the present. It isn’t the usual śimḥâ, found throughout Scripture. It is historical, covenantal joy, anchored in God’s unshakeable word, heard this day once again after a long hiatus. So, “Go, eat, drink, and party.” This is joy for the ages.
Topical Index: joy, ḥed-vaw´, 1 Chronicles 16:27, Nehemiah 8:10
For me oh, this is one that goes deep. My brother-in-law, who I have spoke of in times past.. Who was used mightily I’m the Lord to bring our family to the Lord. When he unwrapped the scriptures with such passion and love, and conviction. The change in his life, brought change in o u rs . As I continue to mature, I long for the rebuilding of the Tabernacle of David. I think that this reading today has captured it in a way I never song before. A truly rare gem. Amos 9, 11 and 12. Is the text that open the treasure chest in my heart, that God longs to have again. It happened then, at certain times it happens now. And it will certainly happen in the future. Faith is the key, where does faith come from? It comes from the word of God. The substance of things hoped for. In the evidence of Things Not Seen. Deep leads to Deep, I’ve often Been Told that my heart should break up with the things that breaks God’s heart. That’s a call for repentance, but the joy of the Lord being our strength. That rare Joy, that we speak of here, is that rare strength, that when it’s been uncovered it is a strength that must be renewed daily, to fight the Unseen battle takes place. To win. Only the Lost, but to also strengthen those who are in the battle. For me today at this time, I will connect the meaning of true Koinonia, as a foundation Stone, with this type of joy. Thank You. Skip, and looking forward to other comments. Shalom for now.
There were long decades that I thought I had to fabricate and uphold both ends of a contract with myself: that I was supposed to love all by myself and make things work out. I was operating outside the Word: the other end of the human symbiont deal. I was trying to power myself. In the process, I inadvertently spent my Father’s inheritance on unholy alliances with “harlots” (false belief systems and worldly alliances based on those beliefs) and vain living – living that did not produce the fruit of peace. Love was not working for me!
I now know that the inheritance (covenant with) the Father is tied to the promises and the promises are tied to the land: to spiritual Israel. When I read the Book and realized that I had to get back into covenant (because I began to see how I was out of covenant and what the covenant really was), I rejoined the commonwealth of the Body. Paul has a lot to say about spiritual Israel, and he clearly shows that it is the Body of Christ Who is the Messiah of that Israel. What are the lost sheep? The ones outside the Body of Israel – the spiritual dominion of the King.
Why do we watch sports? Why do the stands erupt when someone makes a goal? I think the world is trying to replicate joy. Joy is about when someone else makes it: succeeds. It’s sad that this is the closest the world can get to true joy.
Skip has taught that heaven rejoices when the sheep are back home. The “joy of the Lord”, then, is all about the dead returned to life and the lost being found. We were commissioned to be the means by which heaven rejoices. We are the “spectacle of heaven”: we are the event in the arena. This is what the Great Commission is all about. We are called to find and bring those sheep back home to Israel: to the Body. There is strength in numbers. The more the Body is complete, the stronger we get. Strength is a collective phenomenon. Joy is about getting stronger. Our strength is heaven’s joy. Let’s go out and make some heavenly peace: let’s rejoin the lost to the commonwealth today! There’s where all the fun is. Heaven is waiting with bated breath for the next touchdown.
Laurita, you said, “the Body of Christ Who is the Messiah of that Israel.” What? Wait. I have always understood Yeshua to be THE Messiah, not the Body. You want US to be the Messiah? As for me I can barely get out of bed most days, and looking around I don’t see much Messiah material for “that Israel”. And what Israel is “that Israel”? I understand Traditional Replacement Theology as the replacing of Israel with the Church, but you seem to be replacing the Messiah with the Body. I am unfamiliar with this neo-Replacement theory. I have, of course, read Rabbis who speak of the nation of Israel as being The Messiah (in order to avoid having a “Christ-like” physical human king), but I have never heard a believer use this phraseology. After our promotion to ‘Messiah” what do you plan to do with Maschiach Yeshua? Retire Him? Demote Him? Return Him (to being The Father)? Did I misread you or Paul? Colossians 1:18 seems pretty straightforward, “Also he is head of the Body, the Messianic Community — he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might hold first place in everything.” As well as Romans 12:5, 1 Corinthians 12:12–27, Ephesians 3:6 and 5:23, and Colossians 1:24.
Please come back to earth and help me understand these mysteries of “the Body of Christ Who is the Messiah of that Israel.”
Hi Michael…I read it differently than you did. The body of “Christ”…who (He, Christ) is the Messiah…of “that” (the spiritual believers, not secular) Israel. Maybe Laurita will have additional clarification.
P.S. Glad you made it out of bed this morning and found time to post by 8:56 am…not bad! ?
Not out of bed, but from my bed I write, eat and have my being.
Well that’s OK too. At least we hear from you. You’re part of the family. ??
Let us not forget, that the grafting in of gentiles, make spiritual Israel complete.
Thank you, Judy. I always appreciate Michael when he shows up, too.
Michael, you ask really good questions that help me to think better. Thank you, as usual, for that. I am sorry I didn’t flesh things out better. Shooting from the hip is not going to hit as many targets.
I think of the calling of Abraham as the creation of a template: a pattern: for the rest of the world to follow. It’s like a giant drama played out. Everything his descendants were told to do was highly symbolic: a picture of a reality enacted out. That picture was Messiah: the whole nation was enacting the role of Messiah. What was the wilderness tabernacle? A picture of the heavenly one. What were the sacrifices? Symbols of “sacrifices better than these”. What was the land of Israel? A place that either the whole world had to move to to get blessed, or, conversely, a place that nobody who lacked the genetics could access? Really?
I think everything they were instructed to do was a picture – an allegory – of larger realities. The concept of type and anti-type was perfected by the Jews who viewed time and history as a repeating, strengthening spiral. We see patterns repeated over and over, getting more ‘real’ each time. You could say the entire nation culminated in Messiah. He personified an entire people. His life showed what their lives had been all about up to that point. They were the shadows: He was the substance.
The Jews of Yeshua’s day were like prepubescent children: they were literalists. They knew there were larger symbolic meanings behind the rituals, but they were ignoring them. They wanted what they wanted: a literal king to combat Ceasar: a literal land that was paradise on earth, too. When Yeshua told them that, yes, He was that King, but that land – that kingdom – was “not of this world”, He was informing them that territory was not always literal dirt and stones: it could also be spiritual. The land of Israel was a symbol, too, of a kingdom “not of this world”. That kingdom is increased one heart at a time: not one hectare at a time, and it is built out of “living stones”, too.
The whole fight about replacement theology has to have something to fight: there has to be two sides to that dialectic. I say both sides are wrong to begin with. The Jews have to think that they (and their land) are the literal substance that Messiah is just an adjunct support of. Replacement theologists have to believe that they are the literal “replacement” of that other literal substance. I suspect both sides conveniently dropped the idea that Messiah replaced nothing: He is the embodiment of all those other place-holders. Neither Jews or Christians get a Messiah that ‘supports’ where they are at because He is already where they should be at. Everything and everyone else is just a faint shadow on a screen on the back of a cave, at best.
Laurita, thank you for your reply. Unlike King Agrippa, your allegories, shadows and types do not “almost persuadest me to be a Christian”. Perhaps it is because I am becoming more and more anti-Pauline in my Christology specifically and in my overall theology generally. In fact, I now concur with Festus who said in Acts 26:24 “…Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad.” I, for one, am not persuaded to throw physical Israel and the Jewish people under your allegorical bus. Apparently, I am a “prepubescent child in understanding” too because I still believe in the promised future physical Millennial Kingdom where Yeshua will be a literal king over all the nations of the earth from a literal land (Israel) and that it indeed will be a “paradise on earth” for 1,000 years. And, yes, while that new Temple will be built out of “living stones” it will also be made out of the literal dirt and stones from the very real mountains of Jersusalem. Call me a literalist, a fundamentalist, a Zealot or even an anachronistic idiot, but this is what makes sense to me (for now). Where we appear to disagree is where you state that “both sides of that dialectic are wrong to begin with” while I believe they are both RIGHT; things can be and are BOTH spiritual and literal.
Michael, I apologize. I really thank you for sharing with me where your head and heart are. I had no intention of butting heads at all! Please allow me to back off and I want you to know I respect you. I have no intention of trying to change your beliefs! That’s not for any of us to do. I also believe that the Jews are deeply loved, and not forsaken. I also believe that what they were given was given to me, too: specifically, the Torah and Messiah, too. I pray that we can all follow our Lord with all our hearts. Most importantly, I pray that we stay together, no matter what. May YHVH be true and all of us wrong-headed folks be His no matter what, too. The rest? I pray for discernment to recognize what we see when it happens!
Laurita, I apologize if my “head butting” became too much butt and not enough head. I too value your friendship and scholarship too much to jeopardize it over doctrinal spilt-ends. My writing is more an avenue for me to gain clarity on my own BS (belief systems) than it is challenging or channelling other’s BS.
Sincerely, your wrong-headed friend Hopefully Heading Home.
Eat, drink and be merry?
No.
Eat, drink and share.
THAT will make you joyfully merry.
God’s gladness is shared with us as we
in turn share His goodness with others.
There IS a time for everything. Celebrating in
the true conviction that His Word brings, demonstrates
to all that God’s powerful presence and purposeful will
is always a joyous encounter.
Party on . . . we’ve been given the goods!