Naso (elevate), Numbers 4:21-7:89
Weekly Torah Studies for 2025/26 ( 5786).
On the road to Emmaus, Yeshua met with two of His disciples and, beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. (Luke 24:27). For our Torah studies this year, therefore, week by week we will seek to discover how all of Torah prepared the way for the coming Messiah.
22nd May 2026 (6 Sivan)
Shavuot (weeks), Exodus 19:1-20:23, Numbers 28:26-31
23rd May 2026 (7 Sivan)
Naso (elevate), Numbers 4:21-7:89
All Torah points to Yeshua, and very meaningfully so at each of the yearly Feasts of the Lord. This week, Shavuot is one day before our Sabbath reading, so we will include them both.
First, a reflection on Shavuot.
Moses was called up to Mount Sinai, the Mountain of God, soon after the Children of Israel were released from captivity in Egypt.
In the third month after the children of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on the same day, they came to the Wilderness of Sinai. For they had departed from Rephidim, had come to the Wilderness of Sinai, and camped in the wilderness. So Israel camped there before the mountain. And Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain ….. (Exodus 19:1-3)
Then followed the dramatic experience of God’s presence descending onto the mountain. Moses went down and prepared the people for what God intended to do. It was something quite new at this, the beginning of Almighty God’s drawing near to His chosen people, to show them what was expected of them in return. It is good for us all to pause and consider this event as if we were there. It is intended that God’s people remember it, calling it to mind in a special way each year at this time.
Then it came to pass on the third day, in the morning, that there were thunderings and lightnings, and a thick cloud on the mountain; and the sound of the trumpet was very loud, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled. And Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was completely in smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire. Its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly. And when the blast of the trumpet sounded long and became louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him by voice. Then the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai, on the top of the mountain. And the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up. (Exodus 19:16-20)
God’s purpose was to give His people the Ten Commandments, ten things that form the basis of all His Torah, interpretable into the entire life of righteousness before God. To be given through such a powerful encounter surely impresses on us its importance. We must pause and read these commandments prayerfully. How much we need to return to them at this time, realising how consciousness of them so easily erodes away in this busy world. We have largely lost the depth of application in our lives, at a time when they are now not even taught to the multitudes of people of our generations. How many of us can write them down on paper, as God once wrote them on stone for His people?
And God spoke all these words, saying:
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
“You shall have no other gods before Me.
“You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
“Honour your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.
“You shall not murder.
“You shall not commit adultery.
“You shall not steal.
“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.
“You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbour’s.”
Israel left Egypt at Pesach, on the fourteenth day of the first month, arrived at Sinai at the beginning of the third month, and with the time for Moses to go up the mountain and back, call the people to prepare and return up onto the mountain on the third day, the number of days from the first Pesach to the giving of the Ten Commandments is understood to be fifty days.
From Leviticus 23:15-22, combined with the tradition of the Feast of Firstfruits being on 16th Nissan, two days after Pesach, Shavuot celebrates the giving of Torah fifty days from Pesach, traditionally on 6 Sivan.
It is important to remember these details, and the awesome day at Sinai when God first began to show Israel how to live as a holy nation, in ordered fellowship with Him and as a witness for Him in the world.
Otherwise, it is easy to detach the events of Acts 2 from their context. There is continuity between Acts 2 and Exodus 19-20.
Luke records how Yeshua’s disciples were instructed, following His Ascension to the Father (Luke 24:50-53):
He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” (Acts 1:4-5)
When the Day of Shavuot came, the disciples went to the Temple as was their custom, in obedience to the commands of God through Moses, where all of the men of Israel were called to be before the Lord at the three main Feasts. Their expectation, along with all others of their nation assembling there, from far and wide, was founded on the remembrance of the giving of Torah through Moses, beginning on the first Shavuot at Sinai. Then came a second awesome moment prepared by God for all the years since the first Shavuot. The parallels are clear with the flames of fire residing on the disciples just as it had on Mount Sinai, with the accompanying manifestations of God’s presence:
When the Day of Shavuot had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. (Acts 2:1-4)
The house where they were sitting was an area of the Temple where they would be studying and praying together. Who knows what the discussion might have been, around their contemplation of Torah? Perhaps, somewhere the question, “when Lord will you fulfil your promise of the Holy Spirit?”
Whether or not the question was asked explicitly, it had been through the weeks from the Lord’s fulfilment of the first Passover in Egypt (1 Corinthians 5:7), His Ascension, presenting Himself as the Firstfruits to the Father (1 Corinthians 15:20) that they had waited – seven long weeks in patient anticipation.
What could not be achieved, however hard God’s people tried to fully obey Torah, was now made possible through empowering and inner transformation by the Holy Spirit, so we can both worship God and serve Him. Multitudes have born witness to this as even Gentiles, once excluded from the community of the Israel of God, can now be included (Ephesians 2). It was a long time for Israel from the events at Sinai to that special Shavuot recorded in Acts 2; a time of many centuries duration, when lessons were to be learned about the need for a greater fulfilment of the Feasts of the Lord.
As significant as those first celebrations were, more magnificent is their fulfilment.
We can now link this with the Torah study for this week.
Naso
Our entire purpose in this series of Torah studies is to show how they are fulfilled in Yeshua. Yeshua did not start a new religion but transformed all that went before into a new and living way. What was not possible on account of human weakness, despite the awesome presence of God among the Children of Israel, became possible through His sacrificial death and the giving of the Holy Spirit.
If we were able to return to the days when Yeshua walked the earth, many Christians might be surprised if they encountered Him. He would not be dressed in a grey suit, or wear a “dog collar”, or be addressed by His disciples as Jesus rather than Yeshua, the Hebrew name given to Mary by the Angel Gabriel (Luke 1), or many of the things depicted on “works of art” that transform His image into whatever we might like Him to be, to fit into our present-day culture. He would be found in Jewish clothes, speaking the language of Israel, with a prayer shawl, with tassels (tzittzit) on the fringe of His garment, and in all ways, fully complying with the true interpretation of Torah (i.e. without sin).
One must consider these matters very carefully. Though obvious when one discerns how Yeshua brought fulfilment to Torah, including the Feasts, a renewed mind is needed in tackling the many questions that might arise.
The Apostle Paul was clear concerning the continuity of God’s purposes as well as the new beginning through Yeshua. His letters, though sometimes needing close attention, have brought light onto difficult issues. He was gifted in raising matters in the First Century that have helped others over many generations, though much that he wrote requires careful and prayerful study. Peter once remarked about the difficulty of understanding some of the things that Paul wrote:
…as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures. (2 Peter 3:16)
Paul, a Hebrew himself, of the Tribe of Benjamin, lived in the days when Yeshua was on the earth, and interpreted the new beginning in Yeshua from within the life of those days. As Paul said in one of the “difficult” passages to understand:
But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. (Galatians 4:4)
Yeshua, not only led the way to a right understanding of Torah but was born into the community of Torah-observant Jews, according to the right understanding of Torah. He embodied Torah, so that in following Him, we might be redeemed, whether Jew or Gentile, from the curse of the law (not freed from the law itself but from the curse for disobedience).
Christ (Messiah) has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. (Galatians 3:13-14)
There are difficult passages to interpret correctly. Therefore, we are encouraged, as are all who study the Bible, to search the Scriptures. We search them for full understanding, with the help of the Holy Spirit, and truly find God. That is how the difficulties are resolved and the continuity of God’s purposes are understood.
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. (Jeremiah 29:13)
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. (Matthew 7:7)
This was a natural thing to the Jews in Berea, when they were shown by Paul how Yeshua fulfilled Torah:
The brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. (Acts 17:11)
How can we relate these things to our Torah Portion this week, in the context of Shavuot? First, a few points of continuity that could be missed, especially by Christians.
Our portion continues to describe the responsibilities of the Levitical Priesthood. We quickly come to a regulation concerning the age for service:
From thirty years old and above, even to fifty years old, you shall number them, all who enter to perform the service, to do the work in the tabernacle of meeting. (Numbers 4:23)
Many years later, this would apply to the years of service of both Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, John himself, and Yeshua. Though Zechariah was advanced in years (Luke 1:7), he and his wife were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. (Luke 1:6). Zechariah was “old”, but not too old to serve, according to the above command. He was therefore under the age of fifty, as required by the Torah.
It is said of Yeshua:
Now Jesus Himself began His ministry at about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, the son of Heli…. (Luke 3:23)
From the account of the birth of John the Baptist and of Yeshua, in the first chapters of the Gospel accounts, we know they were born within a few months of each other. They were both, according to the Torah and conforming with rabbinical tradition, at the age of 30, designated as the right time to begin a priestly ministry. So it was for all of their lives that they kept Torah as interpreted from all that we are reading week by week. Yeshua was constantly challenged by the leaders of Judaism concerning His interpretation of Torah and He always met their challenges. Born within the precepts of Torah, He lived in accordance with Torah – therefore sinless.
Our portion, in Numbers 5, describes some of the reasons why a person would be excluded from the community – lepers, those with an unclean discharge, those defiled by a corpse and unfaithful wives. One must reflect much on this and ask, who really is clean before God?
When a woman caught in adultery was brought before Yeshua, in accordance with our Torah portion this week, His words convicted everyone present of their own sins, not only the woman who was brought before Him:
He stooped down and wrote on the ground. Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, “Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.” (John 8:8-11)
In this and in accordance with all the requirements of Torah, Yeshua interpreted Torah and fulfilled it. Those who accused the woman according to what we read in our portion this week, needed to be sinless themselves for the whole of Torah to be observed. If one part of Torah is broken, the whole of Torah is broken (James 2:10). One cannot pick and choose – Torah is intended for all of life in a righteous community. Yeshua demonstrated that there was need for a greater means of attaining righteousness, through this episode and many others recorded in Scripture.
There is a requirement of one who has separated himself to God in the rules for one making a vow. Yeshua made such a vow on our behalf of those who would accept His sacrifice by faith:
He shall separate himself from wine and similar drink; he shall drink neither vinegar made from wine nor vinegar made from similar drink; neither shall he drink any grape juice, nor eat fresh grapes or raisins. All the days of his separation he shall eat nothing that is produced by the grapevine, from seed to skin. (Numbers 6:3-4)
At the Passover before Yeshua’s sacrificial death as the unblemished Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world (John 1:29) He said:
I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom. (Matthew 26:29)
When He suffered agonising pain on the Cross, and was offered wine vinegar to ease the pain:
They gave Him sour wine mingled with gall to drink. But when He had tasted it, He would not drink. (Matthew 27:34)
Yeshua, made a commitment before the Father on our behalf and still keeps it within the parameters of Torah. Yeshua was born according to the Torah and fulfilled the Torah in every way, raising it to a new level, but not neglecting all its precepts. He committed Himself to intercede for all who will believe, transforming that which could not be obeyed fully, because of the inherent weakness of fallen human beings, to a new possibility.
With this in mind, what was the blessing mentioned at His Ascension in Luke 24:50-51? Surely it was the High Priestly Blessing of Numbers 6:
Say to them:
“The Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.”
יְבָרֶכְךָ יְהוָה וְיִשְׁמְרֶךָ (Yevarechecha Adonai veyishmerecha)
יָאֵר יְהוָה פָּנָיו אֵלֶיךָ וִיחֻנֶּךָ (Ya'er Adonai panav eilecha vichuneka)
In our portion this week, the Levites brought their costly offerings, Tribe by Tribe, to inaugurate their ministry of the Tabernacle. Nevertheless, theirs was not to be a permanent ministry when the greater ministry of Yeshua was revealed. In light of Yeshua, the ministry of the Tabernacle and the Temple as a place of sacrifice and offerings to maintain peace and fellowship with the God of Israel, was replaced by the new and living way. For all the dignity, glory and honour that seemed possible from the awesome beginning in the wilderness of Sinai, the testimony of time and mankind showed that a new and permanent sacrifice was needed. Out of the depths of Torah emerged Yeshua to fulfil and be that sacrifice.
In those wilderness years, exclusion from the community, due to sin or other uncleanness, was a matter of constant concern. Indeed, the entire gentile world was kept outside of the camp of God’s people. Yeshua reversed this curse for those who accept the free gift offered by faith, made clean where it was not before possible – even Gentiles! This was made possible by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to cleanse and renew, beginning on the Feast of Shavuot recorded in Acts 2.
So, returning to our celebration of Shavuot, we see a continuity of God’s purpose. All Torah points to Yeshua, and very meaningfully so at each of the yearly Feasts of the Lord.
Dr Clifford Denton
Founder and Director
Tishrei Bible School
www.tishrei.org
