Torah Portion Summary
The word chukat means “statute” and is the thirty-ninth reading from Torah. This portion presents the mysterious laws of the red-heifer ceremony for purification after contact with human death, contains the retelling of Moses striking the rock, the deaths of Aaron and Miriam, and the wars with the Amorites. The portion concludes with the host of Israel encamping on the edge of the promised land.
Haftarh Portion Summary
The last section of Chukat (i.e., Numbers 21) tells how the king of Bashan and the king of Ammon tried to prevent the Jewish people from passing through their borders to get to the promised land. Both kings decided to wage war against Israelites - and both kings lost. The Israelites then settled in their vanquished territories.
Fast-forward 300 years, the Haftarah for Chukat chronicles the king of Ammon demanding Israel return to him the territories which were conquered - and threatened war if the land was not given back. Yiftach (Jephthah) was the "rejected" firstborn son of Gilead and a concubine, who had become renowned for his military prowess in the place of his exile (the land of Tov). The leaders of Gilead sought Yiftach's help and asked him to deliver them from the threat of the Ammonites. Yiftach agreed on the condition that if he was successful, he would be restored as the firstborn of Gilead, and thus the tribal leader.
Yiftach then made a rash vow to the LORD, saying: "If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then whoever comes out from the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the Ammonites shall be the LORD's, and I will offer up for a burnt offering." After victoriously returning from his battle with the Ammonites, Yiftach was dismayed to see his own daughter come out of his house to meet him, since this meant that he would be forced to sacrifice her as a burnt offering as he had vowed to the LORD. As Kohelet said, "Better not to vow at all than to vow and not fulfill" (Kohelet 5:4). The LORD Yeshua taught us, "Do not take an oath at all..." (Matt 5:34-36). Let us take heed!
B'rit Chadashah Portion Summary
The Brit Chadashah readings both show how Yeshua H'Mashiach is the fulfillment of the "types and shadows" of the Torah (Hebrews 10:1-2). In the reading from the book of Hebrews, Yeshua's sacrifice is shown to be superior to the Parah Adumah sacrifice: "For if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Messiah, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God?"
In the reading from John's gospel, Yeshua explained to Nicodemus the way of salvation. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life." (John 3:14-15). Humanity as a whole has been "bitten by the snake" and needs deliverence from its venom. We are all perishing with a fatal condition before the LORD.
But just as the image made in the likeness of the destroying snake was lifted up for Israel's healing, so the One made in the likeness of sinful flesh (Romans 8:3) was to be lifted up as the Healer of the world. The LORD Yeshua became our "serpent" and represented God's judgment upon our sinful condition. Paradoxically, by looking to Him as the One who bears our judgment before the LORD, we are delivered from the judgment that is rightly our own. We are forgiven and healed on account of the LORD Yeshua's willingness to become the One who is "smitten of God and afflicted" (Isaiah 53). Praise God Almighty!