Tammuz 5
Putting Down Roots
“Yahweh, who shall dwell in your sanctuary?” (Ps 15:1
WEBA)
When the nation of
Israel entered the Promised Land, the land itself was divided up into different
areas, according to the different tribes (see Num 34; Jos 13). Ownership of land belonging to a particular
tribe had to stay within that tribe;
it could not be sold to any other (see Lev 25; 27:24; Num 26:55). We even find ‘check valves’ within the
instructions of Torah, wherein the land should always return to its original
owner in the year of the yovel (jubilee,
the 50th year. See Lev 25:10).
Land was passed down from father to son, a practice that continued for
many centuries throughout virtually every continent of our world, and is still
found in agricultural societies today.
However, in our ‘modern’
society of the United States of America, We have become a transient
nation. If we don’t particularly like
where we are living, we move. If we can
find a better employment prospect on the other side of the country, we move,
and think nothing of it. If we desire to
retire to a warmer climate, we move, and it is not a big deal. The ageless concept of ‘putting down roots’
has vanished into the barrow ditches of the highways and byways that take us
where we think we need to go. In the last ten years, I personally know of
several large family ranches that were first homesteaded in the mid-to-late 1800’s,
that have now been sold and divided up into smaller ‘ranchettes’, all because
none of the remaining offspring wanted anything to do with their family ‘roots’. Sad, so very sad.
As believers and
disciples of the Elohim of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, where are our roots? Where do we choose to take up permanent residency? Or are we just passing through, waiting on
that better job opportunity that is sure
to come along at any moment …
“For a day in Your
courts Is better than a thousand days.
I have chosen rather to be a doorkeeper In the House of my Elohim, Than to dwell
in the tents of the wrong.” (Ps 84:10 ISR)
©2018
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