Seder 72: Exodus 35-36---Freewill Donations and Service: Comparing Tabernacle and Temple

 With the Golden Calf crisis resolved, plans to build the tabernacle in the wilderness went forward.  Moses announced a call from God to collect donations of materials for the tabernacle (Ex 35:4-19).  The Israelites responded with enthusiasm (vv 20-29), quickly donating more than enough (36:2-7).  

There was also a call for skilled craftsmen to work under Bezalel and Oholiab in building the tabernacle, and many were moved to answer this call as well (36:2).  

Because many donated materials and labor to the tabernacle project, the Israelites felt a close personal connection to the tabernacle.  

It is natural to compare the construction of the tabernacle to the later building of Solomon's Temple.  This was a much larger project.  King David collected lots of wealth for the future Temple, and the tribes of Israel gladly added much more (1 Chron 29:1-9), leading David to joyfully thank and praise God (vv 10-19).  

The building of the beautiful Temple, though, was not entirely a volunteer effort.  Solomon drafted lots of workers for this mammoth endeavor (1 Ki 5:13-18).  Some wonder if the Israelites, as a result, felt less of a personal tie to the Temple than they had to the tabernacle.  Instead, there was more resentment about the high taxes that Solomon levied.  Sharon Rimon proposes that a lack of personal connection to the Temple allowed many Israelites to join Jeroboam's rebellion and leave Jerusalem and the Temple behind ( I Ki 12).

Seder 42: Leaders from Ephraim and Manasseh

 In Genesis 34-50 Judah and Joseph emerge as leaders among the sons of Jacob.  In future generations, many leaders of Israel would come from those tribes.  

This was especially true of Judah, from whose tribe the Davidic dynasty would arise.  To a lesser extent this was also true of Joseph's descendants, the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh.  

Leaders from the tribes of Joseph included Joshua; judges Deborah, Gideon, Abimelech, and Jephthah; and kings Jeroboam and Ahab.  In one chapter in her book Tribal Blueprints, Nechama Price discusses these leaders, exploring what character traits of Joseph might be evident in their lives.   

Joseph was often most comfortable in a second-in-command role, managing the affairs of Potiphar, the warden of Pharaoh''s prison, and later Pharaoh.  Similarly, Joshua served for forty years as Moses' assistant before taking over leadership of Israel.  

Joseph had a healthy amount of ambition that led to his attainment of positions of responsibility.  Some of his descendants were also ambitious, sometimes to such an extent that they would go to great lengths to cling to power.  Jeroboam comes to mind in this regard.  He set up idolatrous worship centers at Dan and Bethel and a new date for Sukkot in order to compete with the Temple at Jerusalem (1 Ki 12).  

Jeroboam was also following in the footsteps of Micah, an earlier Ephraimite who wanted to set up his own worship center (Judges 17).  

Sadly, there was rivalry between the two tribes of Joseph.  Gideon and Jephthah, leaders from the tribe of Manasseh, both had to contend with Ephraimites who wanted a greater military role (Judges 8:1-3; 12:1-7).  

Seder 98: Lev 25---Land Sabbaths and the Year of Jubilee

The sabbath and festivals wouild provide regular rhythms of rest and worship in Israel.  The land Sabbath--Ex 23:10-11; Lev 25:1-7---is also part of that picture.  Every seventh year the land was to receive a rest from cultivation, giving a break to both people and animals.  Today there are some in Israel who are keeping the sabbatical year again.  In general, those who follow this sabbatical principle experience blessing.  (By the way, 2021-2022 is a sabbatical year in Israel.)  

Leviticua 25 also describes the year of Jubilee, to be held either on every seventh sabbatical year or on the year after every seventh sabbatical year.  During a Jubilee year personal debts are forgiven and families regain ancestral lands that they have lost.  

In the ancient Near East kings sometimes declared times of debt forgiveness.  Interest rates were high (e.g., in Mesopotamia 1/60 of the principal of a loan was due every month, a 20% annual interest rate).  In these cultures, a lot of the debt being forgiven was owed to the king.  Kings drew their armies from landholders, and a landholder couldn't go out to battle if he was working to pay off a debt to someone else.  So this policy was in a king's best interest.  The Lev 25 Jubilee was intended to put this kind of clean slate on a regular schedule.  

The Bible does not tell us about any Israelite Jubilees.  That does not mean that none were held. Still, it seems likely that the Jubilee was too often a gift that remained unwrapped.  A Jubilee would have alleviated the economic oppression that led to the division of Israel into northern and southern kingdoms during the reign of Rehoboam (1 Kings 12), for example.  Later prophets would call the elite of Israelite society to account for their lack of help for the poor.

In his Nazareth synagogue sermon (Luke 4), Jesus declared a kind of Jubilee in which good news would be announced to the poor and captives would be freed.  

In a sermon at Church of the Messiah on April 2, 2022, Kyle Kettering called upon the congregation to practice the Jubilee principle.