13th of the 3rd month 2017/2018
Shalom all,
Mattithyahu/Matthew 5:16 “Let your light so shine before men, so that they see your good works and praise your Father who is in the heavens.”
After making it clear to His taught ones that we are the light of the world and that we should not hide our light but let it shine before all, we take note that the very next words that Messiah spoke were that He did not come to destroy the Torah or the Prophets but to complete! What He was making abundantly clear in this very powerful message about being the true salt and light of the earth is that we are now able to be the salt and the light that we should be, for our Master Himself had come to make fully known the Torah and the Prophets in order that we may faithfully guard all that is written in them and shine the Light of His Truth through complete obedience! It is this concept or theme of shining our light that I would like to address in this brief message called, ‘LET YOUR LIGHT SHINE!’
Having just celebrated the Feast of Shaḇuoth (Feast of Weeks/Pentecost) this past 1st day, one of the key messages or lessons that we are able to learn from this Feast is how we are privileged to have the Torah of Elohim now written upon our hearts and as a Bride that is making Herself ready we have been well equipped to shine the Truth of our Master by letting the True Light of obedience shine forth in our lives, as we live as a faithful set-apart and betrothed Bride of Messiah, having the seal of His Spirit of promise as a pledge of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession takes place when our Mighty Husband and Elohim returns for us.
Shaḇuoth marks for us a joyful celebration of the Feast of Oaths and the promise that is kept forever in Elohim.
My wife, Carlien, explored many verses that highlight a powerful lesson on what we ought to look like as we embrace the
proper understanding of the celebration of Shaḇuoth and whether we are shining the way we should or not.
It is with that thought in mind that I would like to highlight some of the verses that help us take/make a sober assessment of our own lives to determine whether we are letting our light shine or whether we are hiding what should be seen!
Shaḇuoth celebrates for us the promise of having the Torah of Elohim now being written upon the fleshly tablets of our hearts and not on tablets of stone, which we see being given as a promise, in:
Yirmeyahu/Jeremiah 31:31-33 “See, the days are coming,” declares יהוה, “when I shall make a renewed covenant with the house of Yisra’ěl and with the house of Yehuḏah, 32 not like the covenant I made with their fathers in the day when I strengthened their hand to bring them out of the land of Mitsrayim, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them,” declares יהוה. 33 “For this is the covenant I shall make with the house of Yisra’ěl after those days, declares יהוה: I shall put My Torah in their inward parts, and write it on their hearts. And I shall be their Elohim, and they shall be My people.”
Shaḇuoth celebrates this putting of the Torah in our inwards parts and having it written upon our hearts, and these words of Elohim that we see here in Yirmeyahu/Jeremiah 31 are quoted in:
Iḇ’rim/Hebrews 8:8-10 “For finding fault with them, He says, “See, the days are coming,” says יהוה, “when I shall conclude with the house of Yisra’ěl and with the house of Yehuḏah a renewed covenant, 9 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Mitsrayim, because they did not continue in My covenant, and I disregarded them,” says יהוה. 10 Because this is the covenant that I shall make with the house of Yisra’ěl after those days, says יהוה, giving My laws in their mind, and I shall write them on their hearts, and I shall be their Elohim, and they shall be My people.”
Iḇ’rim/Hebrews 10:16 “This is the covenant that I shall make with them after those days, says יהוה, giving My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I shall write them”
What we are able to faithfully celebrate is that His laws are now given into our minds and written upon our hearts!!! They are not done away with, on the contrary, they are now firmly established on the fleshly tablets of our hearts so that we can walk in the full life of His commands, as we stay in Him and guard to do all He has commanded us to, expressing our complete love for Elohim through diligent obedience! And we can be reminded of what Yoḥanan tells us in:
Yoḥanan Aleph/1 John 5:3 “For this is the love for Elohim, that we guard His commands, and His commands are not heavy”
Yoḥanan Bět/2 John 1:6 “And this is the love, that we walk according to His commands. This is the command, that as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it”
And again, we take note of our Master’s words, as recorded in:
Yoḥanan/John 14:15 “If you love Me, you shall guard My commands.”
The reason for me highlighting these verses on love and obedience is to emphasise the importance of recognising how we have been faithfully equipped to love through the Spirit of Elohim, as He writes His commands on our hearts – that is the fleshly tablets of our hearts and not on stone! The picture of fleshly tablets is a picture of renewal and this is what we celebrate at Shaḇuoth, as we recognise that having a stony heart is a picture of being hardened towards the Truth and rebelling against the need to obey what is commanded, and we see the promise of having rebellion removed in order to obey, being given in:
Yeḥezqěl/Ezekiel 11:19-20 “And I shall give them one heart, and put a new spirit within you. And I shall take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, 20 so that they walk in My laws, and guard My right-rulings, and shall do them. And they shall be My people and I shall be their Elohim.”
Yeḥezqěl/Ezekiel 36:25-27 “And I shall sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean – from all your filthiness and from all your idols I cleanse you. 26 “And I shall give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. And I shall take the heart of stone out of your flesh, and I shall give you a heart of flesh, 27 and put My Spirit within you. And I shall cause you to walk in My laws and guard My right-rulings and shall do them.”
A new heart and a new spirit – given to us in order to walk in His laws and guard His right-rulings and do them!!!
This is Good News! Sadly, we see how many have been led away by the delusion of the lawless and while they assume to have new hearts of flesh, their disobedience and rebellion against the Torah of Elohim highlights that their hearts are still hard and stony and therefore unable to shine the True Light of the Word!
It is the same commands and right-rulings – that never changed! What changed was the tablets upon which they were to be written – and this is the ‘new covenant’ – new in its ‘renewal’ of being written upon fleshly tablets and not in a doing away with the covenant itself!
The Greek word that is used in Iḇ’rim/Hebrews 8 for ‘renewed’, which is often translated as ‘new’, is καινός kainos – Strong’s G2537 which means, ‘new, fresh, of a new kind, unprecedented’. What we must understand here is that in the Greek this word does not mean ‘new’ as in ‘brand new’ and never having existed, but rather that it is ‘new’ in its quality and not in its time!
The Greek word that is also translated as ‘new’ is νέος neos – Strong’s G3501 which means, ‘new, young’ and this word expresses that which is ‘new’, in time, and reflects that which could be described as ‘brand new’ and not having been before; whereas kainos denotes that which is not new in time, but is new as to the form or quality. Neos represents something as being chronologically
new. It denotes that which just came into being, whereas kainos denotes that which is qualitatively new or different. It denotes that which is not necessarily new in time, but that which has existed for some time. Then a change occurs in its
quality or character, however slight, that makes it different, qualitatively, from what it was before. This difference in quality makes it new in the sense of kainos. This difference makes it new, not in time, but in quality. In other words, something could be a hundred years old and acquire a new and different quality, and it would be considered new in the sense of kainos.
I hope that you are understanding this, as it is vitally important for us to understand that the Covenant that we have been brought near to by the Blood of Messiah is a kainos covenant, in that it is from of old, but has a new quality in that it is now not with the blood of bulls and goats, but rather the covenant that יהוה made with Yisra’ĕl is kainos through the Blood of Messiah – and this was His Promise to us!
The Hebrew root word that is translated as ‘new’ in Yirmeyahu/Jeremiah 31 (which Iḇ’rim/Hebrews 8 is quoting) is חָדַשׁ ḥaḏash – Strong’s H2318 which means, ‘to renew, repair, restore, restored’, and this should make it very clear and plain in understanding that יהוה is saying that He would ‘renew, restore, repair’ His covenant with his Bride who broke it – and He would renew it is His own Blood!
To illustrate the validity of what I am saying, we know that a derivative of this word חָדַשׁ ḥaḏash – Strong’s H2318 is the word that is typically used in Hebrew for ‘month’, which is the word חֹדֶשׁ ḥoḏesh – Strong’s H2320 which also gives reference to the moon – which ‘renews’ itself each month – for there is one moon and it renews each month in its cycle and it is not a ‘brand new’ moon that has never been before!
Having established the clear fact that Shaḇuoth highlights for us the celebration of entering in to a Marriage Covenant with our Master and Elohim and having His covenant renewed in us by Him writing His Torah upon the fleshly tablets of our hearts, we need to be people that look like we have His Torah written on our hearts, and the way we do that is to let our light shine through our obedient works of righteousness – which is to guard His commands (Deḇarim/Deuteronomy 6:25)!
In Mishlĕ/Proverbs we are given some very clear parables on how we are to have His Word upon our hearts and how we are to guard His Word in order to shine!
Let us take a look at the following:
Mishlĕ/Proverbs 7:1-3 “My son, guard my words, and treasure up my commands with you. 2 Guard my commands and live, and my Torah as the apple of your eye. 3 Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart.”
Shelomoh makes it clear in regards to the ‘how’ we are to guard the Words, commands and Torah of Elohim as the apple of our eye! They are to be bound on our fingers and written on our hearts!
The Hebrew word translated as ‘bind’ is קָשַׁר qashar – Strong’s H7194 and means, ‘to bind, league together, knit, tied’, and the idea here of them being knit together on our fingers implies a clear message that whatever we do it must be done according to the clear word, commands and Torah of Elohim!
The writing of His commands on the tablet of our hearts He has done through the renewal of His Covenant in the Blood of Messiah!
Deḇarim/Deuteronomy 11:18-20 “And you shall lay up these Words of Mine in your heart and in your being, and shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 19 ‘And you shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up, 20 and shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates”
The Torah is to be in our heart and in our beings – it must define who we are and lead our every step as we walk in Messiah.
Shemoth/Exodus 13:9 “And it shall be as a sign to you on your hand and as a reminder between your eyes, that the Torah of יהוה is to be in your mouth, for with a strong hand יהוה has brought you out of Mitsrayim.”
Shemoth/Exodus 13:16 “And it shall be as a sign on your hand and as frontlets between your eyes, for by strength of hand יהוה brought us out of Mitsrayim.”
What we see from all these accounts we see that the Sabbath is a sign that it is יהוה who sets us apart, and that we will know that יהוה is Elohim and there is no other! Pěsaḥ and Matzot is a sign for us to remember that the Torah is to be in our mouth and that יהוה brought us out of Mitsrayim! And from here in Deḇarim/Deuteronomy we are further told that we are to bind His words on us as a sign! Observance of His Sabbath and Appointed Times marks us, and our ability to bind His Word on our hand and be as frontlets between our eyes every single day will be how we are able to faithfully guard His Word diligently!
The root word for ‘bind’, as already mentioned, is קָשַׁר qashar – Strong’s H7194 and means, ‘to bind, league together, knit, tied’ and the idea here is that we are to have His Word ‘knit’ and interwoven into our lives, so much so that when others look at us they should see the Torah that is written upon our hearts and is in our mouths – to do it – in other words we become a ‘letter’ of the Truth!
Qorintiyim Bět/2 Corinthians 3:2-3 “You are our letter, having been written in our hearts, known and read by all men, 3 making it obvious that you are a letter of Messiah, served by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living Elohim, not on tablets of stone but on fleshly tablets of the heart.”
When the Torah in as frontlets between the eyes – then we can begin to understand more clearly how the Torah is a lamp and light for our daily walk:
Tehillah/Psalm 119:105 “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”
Are you ‘shining’ the Light of the Truth? Can people see that you are ‘marked’ by the Truth, or do you hide it through compromise?
Binding the Torah on our hand and letting it be that which guides our every step as it lights the way will cause us to ‘enter in and possess’ all that has been promised and is yes and aměn in Messiah, and will guard us from the strange woman!
Written on the tablets of our hearts!
The Hebrew word that is translated as ‘tablets’ in Mishlĕ/Proverbs 7:3 is the noun לוּחַ luaḥ – Strong’s H3871 which means, ‘a tablet, board or plank, a plate’ and the first time that this word is used in Scripture is in reference to the ‘tablets of stone’ upon which Elohim wrote the 10 Words that all Yisra’ěl had heard Him speak:
Shemoth/Exodus 24:12 “And יהוה said to Mosheh, “Come up to Me on the mountain and be there, while I give you tablets of stone, and the Torah and the command which I have written, to teach them.”
This word is chiefly used for the stone tablets on which ten words were written; as well as being used to describe a tablet for writing prophesy and is also used figuratively for writing wise counsel and the inscribing on the sins of Yehuḏah. It is also used to describe the plates that were on the bases of the bronze laver that Shelomoh had built, upon which were engraved keruḇim, lions, and palm trees.
With the reference of this word being used for the tablets of our hearts, we take note that it is for the purposes of presenting the clear truth that The Word of Elohim is to be written upon our hearts!
This word comes from an unused root and we take note that in Arabic this root can carry the meaning, ‘to shine, to be bright’ and can even be understood to mean, ‘to glisten’, hence it can carry the meaning of being polished and smooth!
Something that is polished and able to glisten and shine is something that has been perfectly worked to a finished shine! Whenever wooden furniture of implements are sanded, worked and polished to a brilliant finish they certainly can glisten and shine or even when rough precious stones are cleaned and polished they are able to shine and glisten and have magnificent reflections of light!
When we embrace this picture of the tablet of our heart being a polished tablet that glistens or shines with the Truth we can begin to get a clearer understanding of what Shelomoh is telling us in Mishlĕ/Proverbs 7:3; and so when he tells us that we are to ‘bind them on our fingers and write them on the tablet of our heart’ we could see it being expressed as follows:
Hold the commands firmly in your grasp and MAKE IT GLISTEN on your heart!
Make it glisten – make it shine!!! This image is very clear in describing the need to make the commands on the tablets of our heart glisten and shine! So how do we do that? By having a firm grip on the Truth and guarding to do all that is commanded!
What does it look like when one makes it glisten on your heart? Well in Scripture we have a wonderful example of what shining the light of the presence of Elohim looks like! When we look at the example of Mosheh, we know that after he had been in the presence of Elohim he came out shining as His face shone with the esteem of the presence of Elohim!
Shemoth/Exodus 34:29-30 “And it came to be, when Mosheh came down from Mount Sinai, while the two tablets of the Witness were in Mosheh’s hand when he came down from the mountain, that Mosheh did not know that the skin of his face shone since he had spoken with Him. 30 And Aharon and all the children of Yisra’ěl looked at Mosheh and saw the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him.”
When Mosheh came down from the mountain his face was radiant and the people were afraid of him. Mosheh had just spent 40 days without bread and water as he was on the Mountain with יהוה. This was a miracle in itself as one may be able to go without bread for 40 days but not more than 3 days without water. יהושע said in:
Yoḥanan/John 4:34 “יהושע said to them, “My food is to do the desire of Him who sent Me, and to accomplish His work.”
While Moses was in יהוה’s presence he was sustained by the author of life and he radiated the Light of the Presence of יהוה as he simply reflected the presence of whom he had been basking in. When he returned to camp holding the two stone tablets in his hands all the people were pretty freaked out by his appearance and were afraid and Mosheh therefore veiled his face, after having spoken what he was commanded to. We must also realise that when we spend time in His Presence we too will radiate His Light and often look strange to those outside of His presence.
Qorintiyim Bět/2 Corinthians 3:12-18 “Having then such expectation, we use much boldness of speech, 13 and not like Mosheh, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Yisra’ĕl should not look steadily at the end of what was passing away. 14 But their minds were hardened, for to this day, when the old covenant is being read, that same veil remains, not lifted, because in Messiah it is taken away. 15 But to this day, when Mosheh is being read, a veil lies on their heart. 16 And when one turns to the Master, the veil is taken away. 17 Now יהוה is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of יהוה is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, as with unveiled face we see as in a mirror the esteem of יהוה, are being transformed into the same likeness from esteem to esteem, as from יהוה, the Spirit.”
יהושע tells us He is the Light of the world:
Yoḥanan/John 8:12 “Therefore יהושע spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall by no means walk in darkness, but possess the light of life.”
When we ‘follow’ Him by walking as He walked and walk in the Torah then we possess the Light and when we possess the Light we are to shine as lights in a dark world:
Luqas/Luke 11:33-36 “And no one, when he has lit a lamp, puts it in a hidden place or under a basket, but on a lampstand, that those who come in shall see the light. 34 “The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore, when your eye is good, all your body also is enlightened. But when your eye is evil, your body also is darkened. 35 “See to it therefore that the light which is in you is not darkness. 36 “If then all your body is enlightened, having no part dark, all shall be enlightened, as when the bright shining of a lamp gives you light.”
יהושע’s light will shine through us only as we are diligent in obeying His Word, having been cleansed in His Blood and continually keeping ours hands and feet clean through the washing of His Word and we are careful not to make treaties with those in the land, when we break down our idols, when we do not worship other false pagan mighty ones or cast idols in their image and when we remove all filthy habits, ornaments and addictions far from us.
The light will shine in us when we appear before יהוה, not with empty hearts or hands, but clean hands and pure hearts that are filled with His Word and with the evidence of how we have kept His covenant, as we show we have His sign upon our hands and heads, seen in our observance of His Sabbaths and Feasts according to His clear instructions; and by faithfully living in this way we see that this loving obedience is what produces the Light in our lives. So, go and shine forth servant of the Most High!
What does it look like when one is filled with the Set-Apart Spirit and shines? We are able t see a good example given to us, in:
Ma’asei/Acts 4:13 “And seeing the boldness of Kěpha and Yoḥanan, and perceiving that they were unlearned and ordinary men, they marvelled. And they recognised that they had been with יהושע.”
Just as all Yisra’ěl could see that Mosheh had been with Elohim, as His face shone brightly, so too do we see here that the people recognised that Kěpha and Yoḥanan had been with Messiah, the Light of the world!
Can people recognise that you have been with יהושע? Are you ‘glistening’ the very Truth of His esteem as you reflect His character and witness through your complete set-apartness and obedience to His Word or is your light hidden through compromise and you do not glisten but rather come across as tarnished and dirtied by sin and lawlessness?
We are to shine bright His Truth as we reveal that we are His letters that have His Word written on the fleshly tablets of our hearts that glisten with the brilliance of His Spirit!
Qorintiyim Bět/2 Corinthians 3:2-3 “You are our letter, having been written in our hearts, known and read by all men, 3 making it obvious that you are a letter of Messiah, served by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living Elohim, not on tablets of stone but on fleshly tablets of the heart.”
Is it obvious that you are a letter of Messiah or is it often too difficult for others to read you, so to speak!
We can and should be a letter of Messiah who has made us competent to be so through His Spirit:
Qorintiyim Bět/2 Corinthians 3:5-8 “Not that we are competent in ourselves to reckon any matter as from ourselves, but our competence is from Elohim, 6 who also made us competent as servants of a renewed covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit, for the letter kills but the Spirit gives life. 7 But if the administering of death in letters, engraved on stones, was esteemed, so that the children of Yisra’ěl were unable to look steadily at the face of Mosheh because of the esteem of his face, which was passing away, 8 how much more esteemed shall the administering of the Spirit not be?”
What Sha’ul was making very clear here in his letter to the believers in Corinth was simply this:
YOU SHOULD BE SHINING BRIGHTLY!
We are to shine because we have His Word written upon our hearts in order to shine and glisten the perfect work of our Master!
Dani’ěl/Daniel 12:3 “And those who have insight shall shine like the brightness of the expanse, and those who lead many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever.”
The Hebrew word that is translated here as ‘insight’ comes from the root word verb שָׂכַל saḵal – Strong’s H7919 which means, ‘to be prudent, act wisely, comprehend, consider, discern, give attention, wisely understand and prosper’ and it is from this word that we get the word that is often translated as ‘understanding’, which is the word שֵׂכֶל seḵel – Strong’s H7922 which means, ‘insight, discretion, prudence, wisdom’. It is through continual meditating upon the Word and the doing of the Word that we gain understanding and insight and are able to rightly divide the truth, and find ‘functional insight and wisdom’!!!
Prudence, according to the Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, carries the meaning of, ‘the ability to govern and discipline oneself by the use of reason, skill and good judgment in the use of resources, caution or circumspection as to danger or risk’. To be prudent, in the positive sense, is to be marked by wisdom or judiciousness, which is the ability to exercise or be characterized by sound judgment! This can only be done when you watch over the commands and do not let loving-commitment and truth be forsaken!
The understanding ones will shine! Understanding comes in the doing and therefore we can safely say that those doing the Word will shine while those who are disobeying the word will not and picture many who hide the light instead of shining it!
Sha’ul tells us that we are children of light and therefore we should live as such and not live in the darkness of lawlessness and sin!
Eph’siyim/Ephesians 5:8-11 “For you were once darkness, but now you are> light in the Master. Walk as children of light – 9 for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, and righteousness, and truth – 10 proving what is well-pleasing to the Master. 11 And have no fellowship with the fruitless works of darkness, but rather convict them.”
The Greek word that is used here in Sha’ul’s letter to the believers in Ephesos for ‘darkness’ is σκότος skótos – Strong’s G4655 which means, ‘physical darkness, darkened eyesight, blindness’ and is also used to metaphorically describe, ‘spiritual darkness, implying error and ignorance, sin and misery and immorality’.
Sha’ul makes it very clear to us that we are to walk as children of light and have nothing to do with the fruitless works of darkness and the Greek word used here for ‘walk’ is περιπατέω peripateō – Strong’s G4043 and carries the same meaning and that is, ‘to walk, behaviour, to conduct one’s self, to make one’s way, to tread with the feet, to make one’s life’.
We are children of the Most High Master and Elohim, and we are to walk as such, for those who overcome shall be called children:
Ḥazon/Revelation 21:7 “The one who overcomes shall inherit all this, and I shall be his Elohim and he shall be My son.”
Yoḥanan Aleph/1 John 2:6 “The one who says he stays in Him ought himself also to walk, even as He walked.”
In speaking of the Day of יהוה Sha’ul made it clear to the believers in Thessalonica that they were not to be ignorant of the times of our Master
Tas’loniqim Aleph/1 Thessalonians 5:4-5 “But you, brothers, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief. 5 For you are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness.”
As we guard the Word of Elohim and walk as children of light then we shall not be caught unawares at our Master’s coming but will be a prepared Bride that has made herself ready!
As we consider these various passages that I have quoted from we need to be diligent in our walk as true children of light and recognise the trust we are to have in our Master and Elohim and guard to walk in righteousness, as we walk in the light of His face, being equipped to stand armed in His Torah of Light so that we can withstand the fiery darts of the enemy and not fear what man can do to us!
Romiyim/Romans 13:12-14 “The night is far advanced, the day has come near. So let us put off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. 13 Let us walk becomingly, as in the day, not in wild parties and drunkenness, not in living together and indecencies, not in fighting and envy, 14 but put on the Master יהושע Messiah, and make no provision for the lusts of the flesh.”
Put off darkness and put on the armour of light and walk as children of light! The Torah is a light (Mishlĕ/Proverbs 6:23)!
Mosheh’s face glistened with the presence of Elohim! Kěpha and Yoḥanan glistened with the presence of Elohim!
How are you ‘glistening’? Another good example we have in regard to shining the light of the presence of Elohim is seen in the life of Ḥanoḵ (Enoch), which one can read about in the Book of Yasher and the Book of Ḥanoḵ as we are told that he shone so much that the people could not look at him any longer and the Father took him into His presence!
We see the following from the Book of Yasher (with the restored Names version):
Chapter 3: 17-20 “And it was in the year of Adam’s death which was the two hundred and forty-third year of the reign of Ḥanoḵ, in that time Ḥanoḵ resolved to separate himself from the sons of men and to secret himself as at first in order to serve YAHWEH. 18 And Ḥanoḵ did so, but did not entirely secret himself from them, but kept away from the sons of men three days and then went to them for one day. 19 And during the three days that he was in his chamber, he prayed to, and praised YAHWEH his ALMIGHTY, and the day on which he went and appeared to his subjects he taught them the ways of YAHWEH, and all they asked him about YAHWEH he told them. 20 And he did in this manner for many years, and he afterward concealed himself for six days, and appeared to his people one day in seven; and after that once in a month, and then once in a year, until all the kings, princes and sons of men sought for him, and desired again to see the face of Ḥanoḵ , and to hear his word; but they could not, as all the sons of men were greatly afraid of Ḥanoḵ , and they feared to approach him on account of the Elohim-like awe that was seated upon his countenance; therefore no man could look at him, fearing he might be punished and die.”
Ḥanoḵ reflected the Light of Elohim and this is how the tablet of our hearts are to shine the brilliance of the Word of Elohim, which comes through spending proper quality time in the Master’s presence, meditating upon His Torah day and night, in order to properly reflect His character and be a faithful and trustworthy witness.
Another wonderful picture we are able to glean from, in terms of our ability to shine as we should and reflect the purity of set-apartness that befits the House of Elohim, is when looking at the breastplate of the High Priest which contained the 12 precious stones that represented the whole nation of Yisra’ěl!
As the High Priest would come into the Most Set-Apart place before the esteem of Elohim, the very light of the presence of Elohim would reflect off the very precious stones that had been set into the ephod of the High Priest as it would clearly reflect the majesty of the One before whom the High Priest would stand!
We cannot glisten or shine properly without the deposit of the Set-Apart Spirit, which is what we certainly are able to celebrate as we reflect on the Feast of Shaḇuoth, having the Spirit set upon our hearts as a pledge, in order to glisten and shine the Light of our Master!
As we consider the need to let our lights shine may our hearts and faces GLISTEN as we walk this earth, so that people may see that we have been in the presence of the Most High and that the earth be filled with His esteem through the faithful and trustworthy witness of the true set-apart ones who let their light shine!
Our Master has delivered us from darkness and destruction in order that we may walk boldly in the light of His path of Truth and He has equipped us with His Word that strengthens our belief in Him so that we can stand and not be shaken or moved by any attacks or worries!
How are you walking? Are you walking as true children of light or have you found your feet slipping into darkness due to your inability to trust Elohim as a result of not delighting yourself in His Word? It is time to make your heart glisten as you let the clear truth that His Word has been written upon the fleshly tablets of your heart, as seen in the clear evidence of your works of obedience before all!!!
Mishlĕ/Proverbs 4:18 “But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, that shines ever brighter unto the perfect day.”
The Hebrew word that is translated here as ‘light’ is the root word אוֹר or (oor) – Strong’s H215 meaning, ‘to be or become light, give light, shine’, and from this we see the derivative – אוּר ur – Strong’s H217 which actually means, ‘a flame, fire, fires, light’ or ‘light of fire’. The plural of the word אוּר ur is used in:
Shemoth/Exodus 28:30 “And into the breastplate of right-ruling you shall put the Urim and the Tummim, and they shall be on the heart of Aharon when he goes in before יהוה. And Aharon shall bear the right-ruling of the children of Yisra’ĕl on his heart before יהוה, continually.”
אוּרִים Urim – Strong’s H224 means ‘lights, illuminations’ – this was placed in the breastplate of right-ruling of the High Priest, together with the תֻּמִּים Tummim – plural of תֹּם tom, and carries the meaning of ‘perfections’
While there is no evidence to clearly tell us what the Urim and Tummim consisted of, be it stones or any other substance, what we can see is that the High Priest would use these in order to get right-ruling and so speaks of seeking the perfect truth from יהוה. What is very interesting and worthy of noting is that the first letter of ‘Urim’ is the א ‘aleph’ and the first letter of ‘Tummim’ is the ת ‘taw’:
Ḥazon/Revelation 1:8 “I am the ‘Aleph’ and the ‘Taw’, beginning and end,” says יהוה “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”
Yeshayahu/Isaiah 44:6 “Thus said יהוה, Sovereign of Yisra’ĕl, and his Redeemer, יהוה of hosts, ‘I am the First and I am the Last, besides Me there is no Elohim.”
What are the urim and tummim? They are the things that illuminate and perfect. We know that יהושע is the Light and He was the Perfect Lamb, and so this represents for us our need to hunger and thirst for righteousness and be perfect before Elohim, for He is perfect and we are called to be the salt and light, which we can only be when we seek out His Right-Ruling and walk according to that which is to be upon our heart – His Torah (notice the positioning of the Urim and Tummim in the breastplate – by the heart!!!)
He writes His Torah on our hearts and so it is our hearts and mouths that we may do it!
As we walk in the Light of the Torah of Elohim we, as children of light, shine the light of that Truth more and more as we grow in the wisdom and understanding of Elohim.
LET YOUR LIGHT SHINE!
יהוה bless you and guard you; יהוה make His face shine upon you and show you favour; יהוה lift up His face to you and give you Shalom!