Hebrew Word of the Week – Parashat Behar
This week’s parasha, Leviticus 25:1 to 27:34, features national legislation engineered to block escalating inflation, restrain exploitation of the working class, and encourage good land management, all neatly packaged in the simple push of a button. Every fifty years the reset button would be hit on the whole country of Israel. All debts were cancelled, all slaves became free men in a single day, and all property reverted to its original owners, previous foreclosures and resales notwithstanding. One can only imagine the emotion connected with this bi-centennial. The exhilaration of newfound freedom. The relief of finally becoming debt-free. The joy of returning home to the farm after being forced to live in urban tenements for three decades.
Our Hebrew Word of the Week sums up that rush of emotion. It’s what the Torah instructs is to be proclaimed at the start of that new era. The Hebrew in Leviticus 25:10 reads,וּקְרָאתֶם דְּרוֹר בָּאָרֶץ" u’kratem dror ba’aretz“ which in English reads “and you shall proclaim a release, you shall proclaim freedom, throughout the land.” What was to be proclaimed throughout the land? Freedom! The Hebrew word here for freedom is “דְּרוֹר dror”. You pronounce it the same way you pronounce the English word ‘drawer’. “ דְּרוֹרdror” is an excellent example of how Hebrew uses concrete objects to communicate abstract concepts. “ דְּרוֹרdror” is actually an animal that pictures freedom. In Psalm 84:4 we read of the “ דְּרוֹרdror”, the swallow, finding a nest in God’s sanctuary. The swallow, soaring, darting, flying swift and free, is the Biblical picture of freedom.
Let’s take that to the next level. Have you ever wondered if, in the midst of the wonderful “ דְּרוֹרdror” of the bicentennial, it occurred to anyone that their experience was a fore glimpse of an even greater freedom that the people of God would experience in Messiah? Genevieve pointed out to me today that the day that “ דְּרוֹרdror” was proclaimed was the day of atonement. So, what’s the connection between Messiah’s atonement and our “ דְּרוֹרdror”, our freedom? How is the swallow a picture of us, and the release we have experienced through the Gospel? You may not be able to answer this question until the next time you see a swallow, and take some time to watch him closely. I hope you see one soon!
And what about the future? What about when Messiah returns and gloriously fulfills the Day of Trumpets and the entire set of Appointed Times that we observe every autumn? What about when that great shofar is sounded to signal the advent of God’s ultimate bicentennial? What will be we doing as we see the Master hurtling through the sky? What will be doing as we fly like swallows to meet him in the air? I don’t know. But I do know what we’ll be doing after that. We’ll be living with King Yeshua in Israel, according to Isaiah 66, Zechariah 14, Ezekiel 40-48, and Revelation 20-22. We’ll be living by the law of the Kingdom, God’s Torah. And we’ll be celebrating the Jubilee every fifty years, just as it’s written in this parasha, in glorious “ דְּרוֹר dror”.
Until then,
Yisrael
