3-Year The Torah Portion | Parashat #119 Torah Cycle Pinchas (Reading 2 of 3) Parashat #119 February 6, 2021 s''x.nyiP I) Reading the Torah Portion Pinchas Now it’s time to read the Torah portion. You will get the most out of the Torah portion if you have a disciplined plan for approaching it each week. I suggest the following (although you may want to Numbers 26:52-27:23 develop your own plan of attack). Prepare by having a pen and paper ready to take notes or by having Joshua 17:1-6 your computer ready. Read the Torah portion quickly just to get a bird’s-eye view of it and to gain a John 14:1-31 general understanding of its contents. Then read it again slowly and more contemplatively. As you read it, you should keep track of 1) changes in the main storyline (plots and subplots) of the text, 2) the introduction of new major themes you have not encountered heretofore and 3) connections to the main themes developed in the Torah portion. Keeping track of the major themes will provide you with thoughts to help you outline the passage later on. Recording changes in the storyline (subplots) will Revelation 21:9-14 1) help you more accurately interpret Scripture and 2) see connections to themes that may be repeated in the Haftarah and Apostolic readings. I strongly recommend that when you study these lessons you have the following tools available. 1) A Bible [all references are based on the NKJV], 2) a printed copy of this lesson, 3) pen and paper [notebook preferred] where you can either write extra notes or complete answers to questions where the lines in this lesson are not enough space to write on, 4) an on-line version of the Bible. I suggest BibleGateway (https://www.biblegateway.com/). There are many instances where I will ask you to make a connection to some other passage. The BibleGateway app has an awesome SEARCH feature to find Bible passages. Also, once you find a passage you can use Control-F or Command-F (MAC users) to find words, numbers or phrases in the text on display. Lastly, as often as possible . have a partner studying with you! II) Outlining the Torah Portion Now that you have read the Torah portion, it’s time to outline it. Try to divide the Torah portion into its major subject divisions. Please limit the outline to no more than seven major headings. Also, try to limit each subject division to a short phrase. In the chart below provide a brief phrase describing each significant change of events in the reading. Outlining will help you develop the skill of “seeing” the themes in the text. I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. Copyright © 2021 Restoration of Torah Ministries. III) Torah Portion Discussion Questions I have given you a number of questions to stimulate your thought about the Torah portion reading. My goal is two-fold. First, I want to ask you questions about what the Spirit has shown me are important lessons to learn from the Torah reading. Secondly, I want to help you develop the art of making thematic connections. This skill will develop as you practice, practice, practice. 1. How many thematic connections can you find between Numbers 27:21 (“He shall stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall inquire before the LORD for him by the judgment of the Urim. At his word they shall go out, and at his word they shall come in, he and all the children of Israel with him—all the congregation.”) and I Samuel 28:4-6 (Then the Philistines Gathered together, and came and encamped at Shunem. So Saul gathered all Israel together, and they encamped at Gilboa. 5 When Saul saw the army of the Philistines, he was afraid, and his heart trembled greatly. 6 And when Saul inquired of the LORD, the LORD did not answer him, either by dreams or by Urim or by the prophets.)? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 2. Thus, we see that Israel’s leaders were able to inquire of Adonai from the high priest who would use the Urim and Thummim to give an answer. But how did the Urim and Thummim work? No one knows for sure, but there is speculation amongst Christian theologians and Jewish rabbis pertaining to how these objects, which were stored within the high priest’s breastplate, worked. We are about the find an answer! And we will do it the Good old fashion way—by thematic connections. Remember, the Bible is its best commentary on itself, so our job is to make thematic connections and see where they lead us. Once aGain, we will need to make use of the chiastic nature of how the Scriptures are written. So first, a short review. A chiastic structure is a thematic way of writing a story. Whenever you see a story in the Bible being told chiastically the story will have two halves. All the themes in the first half of the story will repeat in the second half of the story in reverse order. The middle section is called the central axis, which sometimes functions as the most important hiGhliGht of the passaGe. It’s like a divine hiGhliGhter saying, “This event/theme is very important.” At other times, the central axis functions as the turning point in the story. Where things may have progressed negatively in the first half, after the central axis, the plot will chanGe and the second half will be very positive. Please review this pattern in the example below and make sure you understand the pattern. Theme 1 Theme 2 Half Theme 3 st 1 Theme 4 Central Axis Theme 4 Theme 3 Half Theme 2 nd 2 Theme 1 Copyright © 2021 Restoration of Torah Ministries. 2 For the most part, the chiastic structures we’ve studied have been easy to decipher because the first and second halves of the chiasm were within the same book and typically within the same chapter or two. What I’ve learned over the years is that sometimes the first half of a chiastic structure is in one book of the Bible and the second half is in another totally separate book! You may be thinking, “What in the world?” Well, it’s true. Let’s see how this works. One day I was mindinG my own business reading I Samuel 29:1-11. I Samuel 29:3a (Then the princes of the Philistines said, “What are these Hebrews doing here?”) stood out to me. The phrase, these Hebrews, was like a neon liGht to me because I seemed to recall readinG somethinG similar to it earlier in the book of I Samuel. After a minute or two of searching, I found this passaGe in I Samuel 14:11 (So both of them showed themselves to the Garrison of the Philistines. And the Philistines said, “Look, the Hebrews are coming out of the holes where they have hidden.”). As I’ve said before, whenever you see one connection, you should read a little before and after both thematically- connected passages to see if you can find more connections. And I sure did find more connections! So, now it’s your turn. Quickly read I Samuel 13:1-15:31 and I Samuel 28:3-31:13 and see how many thematic connections you can find. Write them on a separate piece of paper. Now let’s work on this chiastic structure, which has the following form, with no central axis: A) B) C) C´) B´) A´) How many thematic connections can you find between element A) I Samuel 13:1-23 and element A´) I Samuel 31:1-13? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 3. Now let’s find the connections for element B and B´. But there is one caveat. I Samuel 30 is not part of the chiastic structure! There is a good reason though (I think). The entire chapter of I Samuel 30 is a totally messianic prophecy! It’s all about the death, burial and resurrection of Messiah Yeshua. We will study this in the Messiah in the Parsha section. For now, just look at I Samuel 30 as one of those passages that seems to be dropped into our chiastic structure for some reason. We’ve seen this before. It makes findinG these more difficult, but once we complete the chiastic structure and see how well balanced it is without I Samuel 30 “in the way,” you’ll aGree that we were correct in eliminatinG it for the purpose of elucidatinG our chiasm. Thus, we Go to I Samuel 14 and I Samuel 29 next. How many thematic connections can you find between I Samuel 14:1-23 and I Samuel 29:1- 11? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 4. Finally, let’s find the connections for element C and C´. How many thematic connections can you find between I Samuel 14:24-15:31 and I Samuel 28:3-23? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 5. How is I Samuel 28:6 (And when Saul inquired of the LORD, the LORD did not answer him, either by dreams or by Urim or by the prophets.) thematically connected to our Torah portion? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Copyright © 2021 Restoration of Torah Ministries. 3 6. We’ve talked many times about the importance of makinG thematic connections and how Adonai has them all over the Bible! Just think of how many similes and metaphors there are in the Scriptures. Each simile and metaphor is a thematic connection where Adonai is tellinG us A is thematically connected to B.