Behar (בְּהַר) “On the mountain” #2022
Leviticus 25:1-26:2
Jeremiah 32:6-27
Luke 4:16-21

Bechukotai (בְּחֻקֹּתַי) “By my decrees” #2708
Leviticus 26:3-27:34
Jeremiah 16:19-17:14
Matthew 22:1-14

This week’s Parsha begins “The LORD spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai.” Exodus 25:1-22 concerns the Shabbat of the land called the Shmitah (שְׁמִטָּה) #8059 “Release.” in Deuteronomy 15:2

 

Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof; But in the seventh year shall be a Sabbath of rest unto the land, a Sabbath for the LORD: thou shalt neither sow thy field nor prune thy vineyard. Leviticus 25:3-4 KJV

Failure of B’nai Yisrael to keep the Shmitah was an integral part of the LORD’s judgment in the Babylonian exile.

This entire land will become a ruin, a waste; and these nations will serve the king of Bavel for seventy years. But when the seventy years are over, I will punish the king of Bavel and that nation for their sin,’ says Adonai, ‘and I will turn the land of the Kasdim into everlasting ruins. Jeremiah 25:11-12 CJB

 In the first year of Daryavesh the son of Achashverosh, a Mede by birth who was made king over the kingdom of the Kasdim — in the first year of his reign, I, Dani’el, was reading the Scriptures and thinking about the number of years which Adonai had told Yirmeyah the prophet would be the period of Yerushalayim’s desolation, seventy years. Daniel 9:1-2 CJB

Those who had escaped the sword he carried off to Bavel, and they became slaves to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia. Thus was fulfilled the word of Adonai spoken by Yirmeyahu, “until the land has been paid her Shabbats” — for as long as it lay desolate, it kept Shabbat, until seventy years had passed. 2 Chronicles 36:20-21 CJB

Next week

Bamidbar
Numbers 1:1-4:20
Hosea 2:1-22

1 Samuel 20:18-42
Romans 9:22-33