(This word is pronounced "be-choo-ka-TIE," at least in my American accent. The ch should come from the back of your throat, similar to the way we should pronounce challah. I admit to struggling with this.)
"And YHWH spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, 'Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them...'" (Leviticus 25:1-2).
I couldn't really figure out what was so special about the name of the Behar portion. I suppose it's just
called that because those are the first significant words of the portion, but why did God feel He needed to remind us that He was speaking to Moses from Mount Sinai? Hasn't He been speaking from Mount Sinai for the entire book of Leviticus?
I read a commentary that mentioned this exact problem. The author
said that this portion talks about how we are to treat the earth, the ground, the literal "land" of Israel. It is as if God is speaking from the Mountain, in defense of the mountains and hills and valleys, the land on which things are grown.
God tells us that He owns the cattle on a thousand hills -- and He
even owns the hills! In fact, we read this week that "the land is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants" (Leviticus 25:23, NIV).
I understand what it is to be a tenant. My husband and I have been married for over 25 years, yet we have never owned our own home. We've always had to ask permission to hang
pictures on the walls or decorate. We call our landlord if anything breaks. We take extra-good care of things so that we can get our security deposit back when we move out. However, the houses have never belonged to us.
We often forget that the very ground belongs to our King. We are foreigners and His
tenants. Therefore, when He says that the land must rest every 7 years, we must take Him seriously. He created the world, and He is its King. We are but His vassals who have been allowed to live on His land. He will provide for us, but we must always do what He says.
In fact, another author reminded me that
while we set our slaves free in the 50th year, the year of Jubilee, we are never really free. In Leviticus 23:55, God says that "the Israelites belong to me as servants. They are my servants, whom I brought out of Egypt."
We are only freed from bondage to sin and to the Prince of this World, an evil landlord who treats his subjects cruelly and seeks their destruction. We have been bought
back, but now we are "free" only to serve our new Master and to do as He commands.
Doesn't this help the book of Galatians make more sense?
"It is for freedom that Messiah has set us free" (Galatians 5:1, NIV).
