Torah: Deut. 1:1-3:22
Haftarah: Is. 1:1-27

In this post I will talk about the parsha reading, D’varim (Words), scheduled this year for July 18. This is the first portion from Deuteronomy, the last book of the Torah. The name comes from the Greek word deuteronomion, meaning “repetition of the law” (Complete Jewish Study Bible, 225). It is largely that. It is a long speech given by Moses recounting the journey of Israel, the instructions God gave them, and the importance of following them. Even the rabbis call this book Mishnah Torah (the repetition of the Torah). The Hebrew name for the book, D’varim, simply means “words”. And that’s also what it is, the words of Moses. Since there is not necessarily new action introduced in this book, I will be spending the last leg of my journey through the parsha looking for Messiah primarily on the textual format in which the material is presented, and certainly in light of its pairing with haftarah portions.

This week, Moses begins his speech to the new generation of Israel on the east side of the Jordan River, summarizes their exodus from Egypt and the reason for their desert wanderings and the instructions God gave them and the covenant God made with them at Horeb (Sinai). From the haftarah, we read the introduction of another book, the Book of Isaiah. First, I want to flesh out the Emmanuel of the Torah and the pattern it says wayward Israel will follow in the last days. Then, I want to compare and contrast Isaiah’s introductory prophecy that Israel’s sins will be whiter than snow to Jeremiah’s introductory prophecy that no matter how much Israel scrubs, the stain of their sin remains, and how both can be true only in Messiah.

The Immanuel of the Torah and Beyond

In Deuteronomy, Moses recounts the traveling directions God gave to the Israelites and why. As they passed the Edomites, God told Moses how He gave Edom their land as their possession, and how they dispossessed the giants, whom they called Horites. As they passed Moab, God told Moses the same thing for them. They called the giants the Emim. And as Israel passed Ammon, God told them not to take any of their land either, for God gave it into their hand to remove the giants from that land, whom the Ammonites called Zamzummim. This sort of repetition is used as a literary tool to get our attention. It provides a stark contrast between Israel the other nations established from Abraham’s family who were before them. Edom came from Esau, the son of Isaac. Moab and Ammon came from Lot, the nephew of Abraham. These people groups were clearly given God’s blessing to conquer the lands of giants, and they were successful. Yet when it was Israel’s turn to go in and conquer their land of giants, they wept and cried because they did not believe they could do it. They treated this opportunity of blessing like a curse from God:

²⁶ “Yet you would not go up, but rebelled against the command of the Lord your God. ²⁷ And you murmured in your tents and said, ‘Because the Lord hated us he has brought us out of the land of Egypt, to give us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us. ²⁸ Where are we going up? Our brothers have made our hearts melt, saying, “The people are greater and taller than we. The cities are great and fortified up to heaven. And besides, we have seen the sons of the Anakim there.”’ ²⁹ Then I said to you, ‘Do not be in dread or afraid of them. ³⁰ The Lord your God who goes before you will himself fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes, ³¹ and in the wilderness, where you have seen how the Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way that you went until you came to this place.’ ³² Yet in spite of this word you did not believe the Lord your God, ³³ who went before you in the way to seek you out a place to pitch your tents, in fire by night and in the cloud by day, to show you by what way you should go (Deut. 1:26-33).

Even though Israel had the examples of Edom, Moab, and Ammon before them to demonstrate what is possible with God, and even though they were eyewitnesses of God’s miraculous provision in the wilderness, they would not believe in God when it was their turn. They were going to be blessed seven times over compared to the other nations, for they would be given “seven nations more numerous and mightier than you” (Deut. 7:1). They were God’s specially chosen people. How much more would He bless them! Eventually, they did take the land. It took forty years in the wilderness and a new generation to rise up, but they did eventually. I think there is a very significant spiritual truth hidden in this pattern.

“These forty years the Lord your God has been with you,” says Moses, yet they could not dispossess the inhabitants of Canaan because they did not believe (Deut 2:7). The God Who was with Israel was the same God who told Abraham He would be with him (Gen. 26:3), and Who told Jacob He would be with him (Gen. 31:3) and his descendants (Gen 48:21), Who told Moses He would be with him (Ex. 3:12). But despite all these examples, they did not believe. Yet all that mattered was that God was with them. It didn’t matter how big the giants were. It didn’t matter how fortified the cities were. All that mattered was that God was with them. But it wasn’t enough. It took a new generation to rely on God’s promise that He would be with them.

This reality reminds me of a story from this week’s haftarah prophet, Isaiah. Judah was faced with the northern kingdom of Israel (who was an enemy at that time) and Syria, but God told Ahaz not to fear them. All that mattered was that God would be with Judah. In that message, Isaiah told the king,

If you are not firm in faith,
    you will not be firm at all (Is. 7:9b).

Maybe Isaiah also reminded Ahaz of how God was with Gideon (Jud. 6:16). Years later, God made the same promise to Jeremiah (Jer. 1:8). Though Jeremiah was young, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that God was with him.

In Isaiah 7, when God gave Ahaz a sign of His faithful protection over Judah, He promised His presence in a child:

“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel, He shall eat curds and honey when he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the boy knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings you dread will be deserted. ” (Is. 7:14-16).

This was a literal near-sighted fulfillment about Isaiah’s son, but its larger far-sighted fulfillment was in Messiah. Immanuel means “God with us”. Jesus came to save us not from a nation, but from our sins (Mt. 1:21). It doesn’t matter how big and bad your sin is. God is with you in Jesus Christ the Messiah. Immanuel.

But Jesus’ generation largely rejected Him. They did not believe. There were those who did, and they were like Joshuas and Calebs who got to enter the Promised Land. In the face of Israel’s unbelief, they had the Gentiles as examples of recipients of eternal life and deliverance from sin. When the gospel went to the Gentiles, the Gentiles were now receiving the Holy Spirit and eternal salvation before most of Israel did. Yet despite this example, just like ancient Israel had Edom, Moab, and Ammon as examples, they did not believe, and largely still don’t. Isaiah calls this Messiah the light of the nations:

³ And he said to me, “You are my servant,
    Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”…
⁶ he says:
“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
    to raise up the tribes of Jacob
    and to bring back the preserved of Israel;
I will make you as a light for the nations,
    that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (Is. 49:3, 6).

The Complete Jewish Study Bible breaks down Isaiah 49 in a Jewish context explaining how this servant is indeed the Messiah:

Chapter 49 opens with the servant speaking. He was called Isra’el (49:3) and since he will “bring Ya’akov back to God (vv. 5-6)), he should be identified as the “Redeemer of Isra’el (v. 7). The Messiah epitomizes the nation and fulfills its original purpose by being as light to the Gentiles, “so my salvation can spread to the ends of the earth” (v. 6). God refers to him as the “one despised, whom the nations detest (v. 7). the Messiah will help his people return to their land, and their captors will not be able to hold them (vv. 9-13, 24-26; 51:11). This was not a reference to the return from Bavel but a future return, because the Jews will “come, some from far away, some from the north, some from the west, some from the the land of Sinim (Aswan or perhaps as far away as China; v. 12).

In this section of Isaiah, “its focal point is the salvation provided by the Servant Messiah. God’s ultimate plan of restoration includes personal and communal salvation, obtained by the Messiah (Complete Jewish Study Bible, 571).

Just as God dispossessed the giants for Edom, Moab, and Ammon, Messiah shines as a light for the nations. In fact, Jesus says He is the Light of the World (Jn. 8:12). And just as the first generation of the exodus did not believe, so too the generation of Jews in Jesus’ day did not believe. But just like a new generation rose up to claim God’s promise, so too will a generation rise up in Israel that will receive the Messiah, and it will happen in the last days (Deut. 4:40).

Just as God was still with Israel in the wilderness after their unbelief, God is still with us in our belief and even in our unbelief (Mt. 28:20). This was Jesus’ last promise before He ascended to heaven: “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” In the wilderness, God was not only with Joshua and Caleb, but He was with everyone. He still fed them all manna. He still gave them all water from the rock. So God through Jesus offers salvation to everyone who believes, and to those who do not believe, He still holds out His blessings, waiting to be fully actuated by faith.

When Edom, Moab, and Ammon received their inheritances through God’s provision, it was amazing, but when Israel received their inheritance, they dispossessed seven nations, a greater deliverance than that to the other three nations. So too, concerning salvation in Messiah, Paul says,

For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead? (Rom. 11:15).

Just as Israel received their promised Land in a new generation, after Edom, Moab, and Ammon, so too will a new generation receive the promise of salvation through faith in the last days after the nations have received salvation in Messiah:

“a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in” (Rom. 11:25).

Jesus also said,

 And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come (Mt. 24:14).

That end will be the close of the last days, after the fullness of the Gentiles has come into God’s eternal kingdom, when Israel finally receives the promise of salvation through faith in Messiah too. The pattern of Deuteronomy 2 in the physical inheritance is the same pattern Israel will follow concerning spiritual inheritance:

 And the Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the Lord will drive you. ²⁸ And there you will serve gods of wood and stone, the work of human hands, that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell. ²⁹ But from there you will seek the Lord your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul. ³⁰ When you are in tribulation, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, you will return to the Lord your God and obey his voice. ³¹ For the Lord your God is a merciful God. He will not leave you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them (Deut. 4:27-31).

Israel will be saved after the salvation of the nations and return to the Lord through Messiah, just like God promised in the Torah and the rest of the Scriptures.

The Difference Between Our Soap and God’s Soap

In the last parsha, Jeremiah told us,

Though you wash yourself with lye
    and use much soap,
    the stain of your guilt is still before me,
declares the Lord God (Jer. 2:22).

No matter how much Israel tried to get their act together and put on a good face, it was useless in God’s sight. It was like someone trying to take a bath and never getting clean. Yet this parsha, in Isaiah, he says,

Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
    remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes;
cease to do evil,
¹⁷     learn to do good;
seek justice,
    correct oppression;
bring justice to the fatherless,
    plead the widow’s cause.

“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord:
though your sins are like scarlet,
    they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red like crimson,
    they shall become like wool (Is. 1:16-18).

That sounds like the opposite of what Jeremiah said, right? Jeremiah said they can’t clean themselves. Isaiah tells the people to wash. So if it’s the same God speaking through both prophets, what’s the difference? Israel continued to portray the appearance of religion and even participated in the sacrificial system, but there was no repentance in their hearts. They were no different when they walked out those temple doors after they made their sacrifice. Isaiah said their hands were covered with blood (Is. 1:15). Jeremiah said their clothes were covered with the blood of the poor and innocent (Jer. 2:34). They weren’t simply to have the appearance of godliness and religion. They were supposed to have the heart of God, Who helps the poor and needy, the Refuge of people I talked about in my last post. Isaiah says, “cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.” James, the brother of Jesus, says something very similar:

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world (James 1:27).

Isaiah says to cease evil. James says to remain unstained from the world. Isaiah says to bring justice to the fatherless and plead the widow’s cause. James says to visit orphans and widows in their affliction.

And the section that prefaces James 1:27 is very important to compare to what precedes Isaiah’s command to wash:

¹⁹ Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; ²⁰ for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. ²¹ Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

²² But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. ²³ For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. ²⁴ For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. ²⁵ But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

²⁶ If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless (James 1:19-26).

Just like the ancient temple worshippers who walked out the temple doors were no different than before, so the worthless religion of the early Church James wrote to made no difference in their hearts when they left the fellowship and the reading of the Word.

The Law and the Word calls for a genuine heart change. Only that will effect our relationship with God and our neighbor, which includes the poor and needy (the orphans, fatherless, and widows). Jesus said anger is like murder:

²¹ “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ ²² But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. ²³ So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, ²⁴ leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift (Mt. 5:21-24).

This is what Isaiah wanted the people to do before they offered their sacrifices, to be reconciled to the people whose blood they spilled through anger either figuratively or literally or both. But they would not. James’ audience sounds no different:

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? ² You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. ³ You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. ⁴ You adulterous people! (James 4:1-4).

James also says that because the rich have not paid their employees like they should have, “You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you” (James 5:6). Greed and fraud against the less powerful is also like murder.

Ancient Israel was supposed to amend its ways, and so was the early Church, but they couldn’t do it without a change of heart. That change would produce a meaningful faith: “So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:17).

Who is the object of that faith? The Lord, Jesus Christ (James 2:1). Zechariah shows us that it is Messiah who removes the filthy stains on the people’s clothing. As Joshua stands before the Lord in Zechariah’s vision, his old clothes are removed and new clothes are given to him. His filth represented the filth of Israel inasmuch as he represented the people to God. Giving him clean clothes meant to give all Israel clean clothes before God, that is, to cleanse them from their sin.

If you will walk in my ways and keep my charge, then you shall rule my house and have charge of my courts, and I will give you the right of access among those who are standing here. ⁸ Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, you and your friends who sit before you, for they are men who are a sign: behold, I will bring my servant the Branch. ⁹ For behold, on the stone that I have set before Joshua, on a single stone with seven eyes, I will engrave its inscription, declares the Lord of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day. ¹⁰ In that day, declares the Lord of hosts, every one of you will invite his neighbor to come under his vine and under his fig tree” (Zech. 3:7-10).

By God’s servant, Messiah, the Branch, the Stone, will Israel’s sin be removed in a single day. Repentance and faith is required, but it is God Who removes the guilt from Israel. They do not remove their own guilt. Zechariah very clearly says God removes it. One effect of this removal of iniquity is that people will not be greedy and evil toward one another anymore, but “invite his neighbor to come under his vine and under his fig tree.” That would include the fatherless and widows. The same Servant through Whom God removes Israel’s guilt in Zechariah is the same Servant in Isaiah 49. This Servant is Jesus, who removed our sin in a single day:

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed (1 Pet. 2:24).

He did not remain on the cross beyond that day:

⁵⁷ When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who also was a disciple of Jesus. ⁵⁸ He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. ⁵⁹ And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud ⁶⁰ and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away (Mt. 27:57-60).

When it was evening, before the sun went down and ushered in a new Jewish day, Joseph of Arimathea had buried His body. Normally, those crucified could remain on the cross for days, alive or dead, but not Jesus. It was all done in a single day, just like Zechariah prophesied.

So this is a long way to explain a simple truth: Israel’s deeds did not remove the stain of sin, but faith in the Messiah through Whom God removed the stains, evidenced by repentance, would.

The Apostle John received a vision of many people from every nation in heaven not in stained robes but in white robes, and an angel tells John why they are able to wear them: “They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Rev. 7:14). So yes, Isaiah does tell Israel to wash itself clean, but it’s done in the blood of the Lamb, that Messiah that Isaiah, more than any other prophet, foretold of. The people from all the nations obeyed Isaiah’s command to wash, and they did, in the blood of the Lamb. Wow.

Conclusion

I hope this post blessed you. I hope you got something out of it and that it gave you something to think about. I pray that you too would believe in God and receive your inheritance through your faith, that you would wash your stained hands and clothes in the blood of the Lamb and become whiter than snow that you may live unto righteousness (1 Pet. 2:24). Until next time, God bless.

No matter how I wash, it all remains,
Washing with superficial piety–
Does not remove the bloody crimson stains
Fresh and old, set by my iniquity,
Because the stain goes deeper than the skin.
It bleeds to the deepest part of my heart
Because the source of my stain is my sin,
Requiring a new rhythm, a new start,
And only them is my garment washed white.
Only then I have wool-white, snow-white clothes,
When from my deepest heart I do what’s right
And wash in that from which purity flows.
All of my religion is but a sham
Unless I wash in the blood of the Lamb.

Sources

The Bible. English Standard Version. Biblegateway.com. Accessed 26 Jul. 2026.

The Complete Jewish Study Bible. Peabody, Hendrickson Publishers, 2016.