Return unto Me

At home we often take a short walk in the middle of the day, somewhere between twelve and one. Just outside, just walking. And because we live in an area with much farmland, on such a walk you see the whole process of the fields unfold before your eyes, week by week.

One time a field still lies completely bare. A few weeks later you see the ground being worked. It is ploughed. The ground is broken open. It is made ready, the weeds are dealt with — everything prepared for the moment the seed goes in.

Then comes the seed. And for a while you see almost nothing. You know it has been sown, but when you look at the field, little seems to have changed. And then suddenly it comes up. First very small. Then you see rows appear. The crop is tended — watched for weeds, for water, for food, for everything it needs to come to growth. And of course the goal is not merely a nice green plant. The goal is fruit. A harvest.

And here is what strikes me more and more: the field changes constantly — bare, ploughed, green, harvested, bare again. The seasons come and go, the times pass. But the seed that falls into the ground and bears fruit stays the same through it all. Hold on to that; at the end something is hidden in it that runs through this whole parashah.

And while I looked at that these past weeks, I had to think of an image Yeshua uses more than once. Of seed. Of ground. Of fruit. Of a sower who goes out to sow. But also of that other word of Yeshua, where He says that a grain of wheat must fall into the ground and die to bring forth much fruit. That image began to sound along more and more as I read this parashah.

For in this parashah we are given a great many practical commandments. Commandments that ultimately show what happens when the Word of God is not only heard, but truly lands in a human life and begins to bear fruit. And at the same time the haftarah brings us to the return of Israel. To God’s call to return. To teshuvah — turning back.

And then I thought: perhaps the image of the field helps us see it better. Not because Yeshua, in the parable of the sower, literally says “the good ground is teshuvah.” He does not say that, and we should not read it into the text. But throughout Scripture we do see a strong connection between turning back, the heart, hearing, working the ground, sowing, and bearing fruit. And so I want to begin with that image.

The sower went out to sow

The parable goes roughly like this. Yeshua tells of a sower who goes out to sow. And as he sows, some of the seed falls along the path. The ground there is hard; the seed lands on it but does not really sink in, and the birds come and eat it.

Another part falls on rocky ground. There is only a thin layer of soil, so the seed comes up quickly — it even looks promising. But there is no depth, no good root. And when the sun comes and things grow hard, it withers.

Another part falls among thorns. There too it begins to grow; the seed is not gone, it truly comes up. But the thorns grow up with it, and in the end they take so much room that the young crop is choked.

And then there is seed that falls into good ground. It sinks into the soil, it takes root, it grows, and it bears fruit. Thirtyfold. Sixtyfold. A hundredfold.

And Yeshua Himself explains later what He means. The seed is the Word. And the difference is not in the seed — the same sower sows, the same Word comes. But the Word is received in different ways. Matthew says of the good ground that a person hears and understands the Word and bears fruit. Mark says: he hears and receives the Word and bears fruit. And Luke says it is about people who hear the Word, keep it in a good and honest heart, and bring forth fruit with patience. Always roughly the same movement: hearing, receiving, keeping, enduring, bearing fruit.

And that matters. The good ground does not make the seed. The field does not say, “I will produce some wheat myself.” No — the seed comes from outside. The sower brings it, the ground receives it. But receiving does not mean nothing happens. For where the seed is truly received, the field changes. There is growth. There is development. And in the end there is fruit.

Sometimes the ground must first be broken open

And when we go back to the prophets, that image becomes even more interesting. Jeremiah 4 begins with a call to Israel:

“If thou wilt return, O Israel, saith the LORD, return unto me.” — Jeremiah 4:1

There stands the Hebrew root shuv: to return, to turn, to come back to God. But God does not only say “be sorry.” He says Israel must put away the idols and stop wandering. And then Jeremiah suddenly uses farming language:

“Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns.” — Jeremiah 4:3

That is striking. Turning back. Breaking open the ground. Not sowing among thorns. And right after it Jeremiah speaks of the heart: the heart must be circumcised. Later he says: wash the evil from your heart. So in Jeremiah himself we already get a whole movement — turning back, putting away what points the wrong way, breaking open the fallow ground, not sowing among thorns, the heart, going another way. We need not bring in the parable of Yeshua at all to make Jeremiah stand. It stands there already.

And just because of that, it stands out. For when you hear Yeshua a little later tell of the sower — seed, ground, thorns, fruit — He uses exactly the words the prophets already used. In the Greek of Jeremiah the very same two words sound that also stand in the parable: to sow, and thorns. It seems that Yeshua takes up this old prophetic image. And then we may, in faith, go a step further. For the prophets did call out: break up your fallow ground — but the ground stayed hard. The command sounded, and it ran aground, again and again. That is why God had already promised something alongside it: I will circumcise the heart, I will give a new heart. And in Yeshua that promise comes home. He is the Sower whose Word truly breaks the ground open — and He is, as we saw, Himself the seed that fell into the ground and died. So He does not only take up that prophetic image; He mends it. Not because the prophets fell short — they were themselves already pointing to it. But what was a call that kept stalling with them becomes, in Him, a gift that bears fruit.

And Hosea uses almost the same image:

“Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the LORD.” — Hosea 10:12

So this is evidently an image the prophets use more than once. Man has turned away from God. The ground has grown hard. Other things grow there. And God says: return, break open the ground, seek Me, let there be sowing again.

Teshuvah is first of all turning back

And here too we must stay very simple. The Hebrew word teshuvah belongs to the root shuv. And that root means, at bottom: to go back, to return, to turn around. On its own it need not even be a religious word — someone can simply return to a place. But the moment God says “return unto Me,” the word gains its spiritual depth. Then it is about direction.

We see that clearly in Deuteronomy 30. Moses speaks there of Israel having turned away from God, and then he says: when you return to the LORD your God and hearken to His voice, with all your heart and all your soul… Then we get: turning back, hearing, heart, obeying. And a little later Moses says that God Himself will circumcise the heart.

That matters, for there we see both movements at once. God says: return — the person must truly answer. But God also says: I will do something to your heart. So teshuvah is not “I make myself over,” and not “I just sit still and God must do everything.” It is: God calls, the person answers, God renews, the person walks.

So the good ground is a beautiful picture

And now we may carefully make the connection with Yeshua. Not to say: the good ground means teshuvah — that would be too strong. But we may say: the good ground shows beautifully what a heart looks like that has truly turned to God. It hears. It receives. It keeps. And it bears fruit.

And this is exactly where this parashah comes into view for me. For Ki Teitzei shows us what that fruit looks like when God’s Word truly lands in daily life. Not only in what we believe on the Sabbath, but in how we deal with people, with power, with money, with our children, with sexuality, with property, with animals, with strangers, with the land. The parashah shows, as it were: what happens when the seed truly begins to bear fruit?

The seed dies to bear fruit

And then there is that other image of Yeshua. In John 12 He says:

“Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” — John 12:24

That is first of all about Yeshua Himself. About His dying. About His way to the cross. We must let it begin there too. He is the one who, as it were, falls into the ground. He dies. And precisely through His dying comes fruit.

But that image also teaches us something about the movement of God’s kingdom. Fruit does not come by clutching yourself tight. The seed that keeps itself and says “I want to stay as I am” abides alone. But the seed that falls into the ground enters a process in which the form it had breaks open, and new life becomes visible. And perhaps that touches something of teshuvah too. For returning to God also means we cannot keep holding on to everything that carries us away from Him. There are things that must be let go. There are idols that must go. There are thorns that may not keep their room. Not to destroy ourselves, but because God wants to give life. Fruit.

And so we come to Ki Teitzei

The parashah of Ki Teitzei is for a large part about the spiritual struggle we meet in the practice of ordinary life. That is, to me, one of the beautiful things about this parashah. For when we think of spiritual struggle, we may quickly think of something big — of war, of powers, of special spiritual events. But Ki Teitzei keeps bringing us back to ordinary life. To your marriage. To your children. To money. To sexuality. To your animals. To another’s property. To what you do when no one is watching. To how you treat the stranger, the poor, your trade, the land. And finally to the question: who is God for us, and how does it become visible that we truly fear Him?

That, I think, is the running line. The parashah begins with a situation of war and ends with Amalek. Amalek was the people that attacked Israel when it was on the way, and that struck precisely the rear guard — the ones who were weak and had fallen behind. And then something important is said of Amalek: he feared not God. That, in the end, is the problem. And so God says at the end of this parashah: when you are once in the land and God has given you rest from the enemies around, blot out the remembrance of Amalek. And then it says: forget it not.

That is striking — we must remember in order not to forget. Why? Because Amalek stands for a way of living that runs straight against God’s kingdom. The right of the strongest. Attacking the weak. Using another’s vulnerability. Grabbing what you can grab. Using power to make yourself bigger. No fear of God. And in between, between the war at the beginning and Amalek at the end, God gives dozens of very practical commands. More than seventy mitzvot are traditionally tied to this parashah. That means God does not only say to His people “be righteous” — He teaches them how. Very practically.

You are going to live in the land

Israel is not yet in the land. They are on the way there, and God is preparing them. We saw that last week in Shoftim already. There we read, for instance: “if one be found slain in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee to possess it…” That is remarkable — it has not happened yet, they do not live there yet. But God says, as it were: soon you will live there, and when this happens, I want you to know how to deal with it.

So God does not give loose religious rules for an hour on the Sabbath. He teaches a people to live. He teaches them to do justice, to form an economy, to deal with marriage and family, with the poor, with strangers, with animals, with sexuality, with loss, with war. God forms a society.

And that matters. For the Torah thereby shows that our relationship with God does not float somewhere above ordinary life. You cannot say “I love God” and then act dishonestly. You cannot say “I fear God” and meanwhile abuse someone weaker. You cannot say “I serve God” and then treat your wife, your children, your worker, your neighbour, or the stranger as though God had nothing to do with it. God comes and stands right in the middle of those things. That is the fruit of the seed: the Word comes in, and then it becomes visible in life.

The captive woman

The parashah begins with a law about war. When Israel wages war and a man sees among the captives a woman he wants to marry, he may not simply take her as though she were spoil or property. A whole process is prescribed. She is taken out of her old surroundings. Her head is shaved, her nails are trimmed, the clothing in which she was captured is laid aside. And she is given a full month to mourn her father and mother.

That is far-reaching. Everything that bound her to the life she knew falls away; she is loosed from her old place. We must not be romantic about it. For her this must have been a terribly drastic event. War is terrible. Loss is terrible. To lose your family, to be taken from your people — terrible. The Torah does not make war beautiful. But right in the middle of that hard reality God sets limits on the power of the victor.

The man may not simply say: I have won, so she is mine. There is time. There is mourning. There are rules. And when the man in the end no longer wants her, he may not sell her. He may not make money off her, he may not treat her as merchandise. Why? Because she is not a thing. She is a human being. Even in war. Even when the balance of power is completely unequal. God sets a limit on human power. That is an important pattern in this parashah.

Your preference may not decide what is right

Then comes the case of a man with two wives. The one he loves, the other is called “hated.” We must be careful with that word. In the Bible, to love and to hate can also be used in the sense of preference, precedence, or being put second — we see it in the language around Jacob and Esau, and in Yeshua’s saying that whoever does not “hate” father and mother cannot follow Him. That does not mean we must loathe our parents; it is about first place, about preference, about loyalty. In Luke 14 He says that whoever does not “hate” his father and mother cannot be His disciple. That sounds hard — but Matthew gives the very same saying explained: he that loveth father or mother more than Him is not worthy of Him. There the “hating” has become “loving more than.” So it is not about loathing; it is about first place.

And then God says here: even when you have a preference for the one wife, you may not therefore take away the birthright of the firstborn of the other. That matters to me. For here the parashah of last week returns: “that which is altogether just shalt thou follow” — in the Hebrew, doubled: justice, justice. And now God shows what that looks like when it comes close.

It is easy to talk about justice when we have nothing to lose ourselves. But what happens when our feelings pull the other way? When we find someone more likeable? When it suits us better to bend what is right a little? God says: your feeling does not change what is right. Your preference does not change it. Your relationship does not change it. That is spiritual formation. That is fruit.

The rebellious son

And then we come to a passage I have thought about myself: the stubborn and rebellious son. A son who does not listen to father and mother, who gives himself to a dissolute life, described as a glutton and a drunkard. That is a very heavy law. And I do not want to step over it too easily, or act as though we could take this legal ruling straight into our society. But it did set me thinking about something we have perhaps come to find too normal.

In our culture we have a period we call “puberty.” And with that puberty there almost seems to be an expectation attached: then someone becomes rebellious, then he need not listen, then it is logical that he pushes back, then it just belongs. Of course we know that young people change physically and emotionally — that is truly so. But must we therefore also come to regard rebelliousness as normal and harmless? That is another question.

The Torah lays responsibility here. A son is not seen only as someone who gains rights as he grows older — he gains responsibility. And that matters to me as a parent, but also for young people. We live in a culture where growing up shows itself mostly in what you are allowed to do: when do I get my own phone, when may I go out alone, when may I do this or that. But perhaps we should ask another question: when do I learn to carry responsibility before God?

In the Jewish tradition we later know the bar mitzvah, where a boy around his thirteenth year is consciously addressed on his responsibility toward the commandments. That custom is not the same as this law and is not literally prescribed here. But the thought that a young person must learn “your choices matter,” I find very valuable.

And as a father that touches me too. For then I must not only look at my sons — I must also look at myself. Have I taught them to carry responsibility? Have I only corrected when something went wrong, or have I discipled them? Have I taken them into God’s Word, explained why something is good, taught them to live before God’s face? I have made mistakes in this myself. Not because I am disappointed in my children, but because I sometimes see afterwards that I could have done things differently. And do you know what is beautiful? It is never too late to take responsibility. Your children remain your children. We can address them in love — not patronizing, not condemning, but discipling. Opening the Word together, seeking together: what does God ask of us?

Cursed is he that hangeth on the tree

After this we read something that points straight to Yeshua. When someone is put to death for a crime and hanged on a tree, his body may not remain all night; it must be buried the same day. Why?

“For he that is hanged is accursed of God.” — Deuteronomy 21:23

And notice exactly what it says. In the first place the body may not remain, for otherwise the land — which God gives — is defiled; there lies the emphasis. And the little word “curse” is double. “The curse of God” can mean: cursed by God. But the Jewish tradition reads it mostly otherwise — an affront against God, precisely because the hanged one bears God’s image; to leave him hanging so dishonours the Name. Hold both of those together, for it only makes what follows deeper. Paul follows the Greek translation — “cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree” — and applies it to Yeshua:

“Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.” — Galatians 3:13

Yeshua was hanged on the tree. And His body too did not remain the night — He was buried, the same day. And do you see now how deep it goes? The image-bearer on the tree dishonours the Name — and precisely there hangs He, the true image of God, and bears the curse. Remember that. We will come back to it.

God gives the land too

And meanwhile God says again: do not defile the land. That matters, for we can read very man-centredly — how must I deal with my wife, my children, the stranger, money. All important. But God also says: the land matters. Why? Because the land is a gift. Israel did not make the land itself; God gives it. And therefore they may not deal with it as though it were absolutely their possession.

That is really a broader principle. What do we have that we have not received? Our body — received. Our family — received. Our land, our abilities, our time, our money — received. When we truly come to see that it is received, it also changes how we handle it.

Do not look away

Then we come to a very simple command. You see an ox or a sheep of another wandering about — what do you do? You do not look away. You bring it back. If you do not know the owner, you care for it until it becomes clear whose it is. The same holds for a donkey, for a garment, for lost property. And then it says: thou mayest not hide thyself.

That I find so practical. For love is sometimes not complicated at all. You see that someone needs help, and you help. You see another’s animal, and you do not think “not my problem.” You see someone struggling with a burden, and you do not walk around it. You help. Last week I heard a sermon by Christiaan Verwoerd on love, and when I read this parashah afterwards, I thought: this is love. Very practical. Not only a feeling, not only saying “I love you,” but not hiding yourself from your responsibility for another.

God's presence comes into the hidden things too

And so this parashah goes on. Clothing. Marriage. Sexuality. Purity. Even going to the toilet in the war camp. Things we would perhaps rather not talk about too long in a meeting. And yet they stand in the Torah. Why? Because there is no part of our life where God is absent.

That matters. We can make a distinction between holy and ordinary in a way the Bible does much less. We think: here is my faith, and there is my bodiliness. Here is the congregation, and there my sexuality. Here is prayer, and there is my money. But God comes everywhere — also into the things we would rather keep hidden. That does not make life narrower. It makes it whole. We need keep no part of our life outside God.

The stranger

And then I find it remarkable that the same Torah which sets such clear limits at the same time says: have no abhorrence of the Edomite, have no abhorrence of the Egyptian. Why not? The Edomite is your brother. And in Egypt you were yourself a stranger. There is something important there. God does not say to Israel: because you are My people, you may look down on everyone. On the contrary — precisely because you are My people, you must learn how I look at people.

The stranger must be protected. The poor must be protected. The widow, the orphan. Even a runaway slave may not simply be handed back to his master. God keeps setting limits on the grabbing of the strong. Why? Because He wants His people to live differently.

No holy wrapping for what God abhors

Temple prostitution too is forbidden. You cannot make something holy by sticking a religious label on it. And that still holds. Not everything we call “spiritual” therefore comes from God. Not everything we call “worship” is therefore worship. Not everything we call “love” is therefore love. Not everything we call “freedom” is therefore freedom. The question remains: what does God say?

That is where the fear of the LORD begins. Not out of dread — if I make one mistake God will strike me. But out of relationship. I want to know Him. I want to know what He loves, what He abhors. I want to live out of His heart.

The Torah and grace

And when I read these laws one after another, I understand less and less of the simple opposition sometimes made between law and grace — as though grace meant: we no longer need this instruction. But look at what stands here. You may not treat a human being as merchandise. You may not bend what is right because you like someone more. You must take responsibility for your children. You may not defile the land. You must bring back lost property. You must help when another’s animal sinks under its load. You must weigh and measure honestly. You must protect the poor, the orphan, the widow, and the stranger. And then we would say: happily we live under grace and need take no notice of it? That surely cannot be the meaning.

The problem with the Torah is not that it is bad. Paul says precisely: the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. The problem arises when we grab the Torah. When we use it as a means to lift ourselves up: look how good I am, look how many commandments I keep, look how much better I am than that other. Then we have made God’s gift once again into a means of putting ourselves at the centre. That is legalism. Not obedience.

And the solution to legalism is not disobedience. The solution is to return to the right source. God has spoken. We receive. Because we love Him, we want to walk as He teaches us. Not to save ourselves, not to earn a position with God, but because He first loved us.

Remember that you were a slave

That is why the same reminder keeps returning: remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt. That is so important. God does not say: help the poor because you are better than the poor; help the stranger because you as an Israelite stand above him. No. Remember where you yourself came from. You were a slave. You could not free yourself. You needed God’s rescue. You are someone to whom grace was shown.

And so the right movement becomes: receive and pass on. God blesses, we become a blessing. God frees, and we do not go and oppress others again. God saw us when we were vulnerable, and so we do not look away when we see someone else vulnerable. That is humility. That is priesthood.

And then comes Isaiah 54

And then, after all those laws, the haftarah does something else. Ki Teitzei showed what God asks of us. Isaiah 54 shows how God Himself is. And listen how tender it suddenly becomes:

“For thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name. For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee.” — Isaiah 54:5,7

Jerusalem stands there as a woman. A forsaken woman. A despised woman. And God calls her back as His first love. Beautiful. But when I read that, something jarred. For a few pages earlier, in this very parashah, stands Deuteronomy 24.

The bill of divorcement

There it stands like this. A man sends his wife away, gives her a bill of divorcement. She leaves, becomes the wife of another. And then the Torah says: her first husband may not take her again to be his wife. That is a hard limit. And that limit is not there for nothing — God takes faithfulness seriously; what we do with a covenant matters. A marriage is not a thing you shove back and forth.

Hold on to that limit, and then read the prophets. Israel is called God’s wife. Israel becomes unfaithful, goes after other lovers — other gods, other securities. And in Jeremiah 3 God says it in so many words: I sent her away and gave her the bill of divorcement. And then you have a problem. For if Deuteronomy 24 says that woman does not return — how can Isaiah 54 say: thy Maker is thine husband? How can God take back what His own Word forbids to take back?

The Bible sets that tension down itself. And the rabbis saw it. In Yoma 86b Rabbi Yochanan says: great is teshuvah — so great that it breaks straight through a prohibition of the Torah. And he brings in precisely Jeremiah 3, over against our law of the bill of divorcement. Now that does not mean you may set Deuteronomy 24 aside with enough remorse. It is about the wonder. How great must God’s willingness to restore be, if He of all people says to this unfaithful people: come back.

Where is the bill of divorcement?

And then it becomes more wondrous still. For in Isaiah 50 God suddenly asks a question:

“Where is the bill of your mother’s divorcement, whom I have put away?” — Isaiah 50:1

Wait — Jeremiah says: I gave her a bill of divorcement. And Isaiah asks: where is that bill then? As though it can no longer be found. God explains what He means. Did I send you away because I fell short? Has My arm grown too short to redeem? No. For your iniquities you were sold. The problem never lay with His faithfulness. It lay with their unfaithfulness. And that changes everything. For in the exile Israel could come to think: God is done with us, He cannot even save us anymore. And God says: do you not know Me anymore? Has My love vanished? Has My power vanished? You walked away — but do not think My heart has changed with it.

The seed that died

But how can that be? How can the guilt be truly guilt, and yet be forgiven? How can the charge be just, and yet lose its power? Teshuvah alone does not do that. If I break something, I can come back — but my return does not undo what happened. There is guilt. There is damage. There is something that must be set right.

And there stands the tree again. Remember, at the beginning of the parashah: the hanged one, cursed, buried the same day. Paul says: the Messiah redeemed us from the curse by becoming a curse for us. The curse is not talked away. It is borne. The guilt is not argued away. It is borne.

And do you now hear the image of the field return? The grain of wheat that falls into the ground and dies, to bear much fruit — that is He. Yeshua is that seed. He falls into the ground, He dies, and precisely out of that comes the fruit: the way back, broken open. The hard ground between God and us went open — not because we dug it open, but because the Seed Himself went into the ground.

The charge is taken away

Colossians says it in courtroom language: the handwriting that was against us, that accused us, God took away and nailed to the cross. And think of Revelation 12: the accuser, who accuses the brethren day and night — overcome by the blood of the Lamb. Do you hear who returns there? Amalek, from the end of this parashah: the people that attacked the rear guard, the weak, and that feared not God. That is the accuser — who preys on the defenceless. And the accuser can say all kinds of things that are true: look what they did, look how often they turned aside. But God does not say: it was not so bad. God says: the price is paid. Do not look at yourself — look at the Lamb.

The new covenant

And that is why Yeshua, at the meal, takes the cup and says: this is the new covenant in My blood. That did not come out of nowhere. Jeremiah 31 had promised it — to the house of Israel and Judah — and notice what God promises: not only forgiveness, but “I will put My law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts.” The problem was never in His Word; it was in our heart. So God says through Ezekiel: “A new heart will I give you, and My Spirit within you.” Do you see who begins? I will. God speaks, God cleanses, God renews — and then the person answers. That is exactly the good ground: not the field that made itself fruitful, but the field in which the Word was given room.

And that is why, at the end of Isaiah 50, comes that warning I cannot let go of myself. There are those who walk in the dark and see no light. The one is told: trust in the name of the LORD, lean on your God. But the other cannot wait in the dark — and kindles a fire himself, makes his own torches. And God says: you will walk in the light of your own fire, and it ends in sorrow. That is the mirror for teshuvah. Sometimes turning back is not: going and doing something new. Sometimes it is: stopping making your own light. Stopping your own security, your own justification, your own fire. And listening again: LORD, what do You say?

And we, from the nations

And then something else happens. That new covenant was promised to Israel and Judah — but through the blood of the Messiah we too, from the nations, are brought near. Ephesians says: you who were once far off are made nigh. Not into another tree — Romans 11 says: there stands an olive tree, and wild branches are grafted in. We do not replace Israel. We may come along, share by grace in the blessings of Israel’s Messiah. And that makes humble. Israel cannot boast: we kept the covenant so well that God took us back. And the nations cannot boast: we were so much better that God put us in the place. Neither. God is faithful — that is the ground. We are all receivers. Return, He says to Israel. Be not high-minded, He says to us.

Through it all

And then there is one more thing. The stillest thread of all — a thread that runs through this whole parashah without your seeing it at once. Remember, at the field: the ground changes, the seasons pass, but the seed abides. Listen now once more to Isaiah 54, a few verses after that “with great mercies will I gather thee”:

“The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed.” — Isaiah 54:10

And hear beside it the word of Yeshua, from the gospel read with this parashah:

“Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.” — Matthew 24:35

Do you see that it is twice the same? The mountains may depart — but My kindness not. Heaven and earth pass away — but My words not. The perishable over against the one thing that abides. And that is the thread you now see everywhere. The seed that is sown is the Word that abides — the field changes, the season shifts, but the seed is the same every year. The bill of divorcement is nowhere to be found, because the covenant did not waver. Amalek turned aside, the accuser points at all that turned aside — but the Word abides. Yesterday, now, and what is yet to come; through our faithfulness and through our unfaithfulness; through all the times — there is one thing that does not pass away.

And take heed, for precisely here we must be careful. That the covenant abides does not mean our unfaithfulness does not matter. It does not abide over our sin, as though it were nothing — we have just seen what it cost; the curse was truly borne. The covenant abides through our unfaithfulness. That is something else. It is not: it makes no difference what you do. It is: whatever you did, He remained. And precisely because He remained, there is a way back.

Return unto Me

And perhaps we sometimes stand ourselves with that bill of divorcement in our hand. We say: it is over, God does not want me anymore, I have gone too far, I have promised it so often already. And God says: where is that bill then? Who told you My arm is too short? Who told you the blood of Yeshua is not enough? That is no invitation to think lightly of sin — quite the opposite. Whoever sees what it cost God to open the way back takes sin more seriously. But takes grace more seriously too.

We are moving toward the time of teshuvah. And let us then not make it a month in which we try to feel enough, produce enough guilt, promise enough. Teshuvah is not: make yourself fruitful first. Teshuvah is turning back. You notice you are walking one way — and God is there. And you turn around. Not only with your head, but with your life. You stop. You listen. You return. And do you know why we may? Because He calls. The invitation itself is already grace — for if God were truly done with us, He would not need to call.

So if you take a walk this afternoon, past a field perhaps: look at the ground. Where has mine grown hard? Where have I been kindling my own little fire? Where am I holding on to something God asks me to let go? And then do not break it open yourself by force. Let it go, and hear the Sower. He went out to sow. His Word comes, again and again. He is the Seed that fell into the ground and died, so that fruit came. And over that broken-open ground still sounds that one old word:

Return unto Me.