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For King and Country

- onward, to a national revival Its enough to make you despair. The moral decline in the Netherlands seems unstoppable. Church attendance has never been so low. Our Christian heritage has been squandered. Yet there is a way back. Just imagine that Queen Beatrix should make a speech during the 8 oclock news bulletin in which she proclaims a Day of National Mourning. Thereby she would be following an ancient patriotic tradition. Queen Wilhelmina believed firmly in a strong covenant between God, Fatherland and the House of Orange. She regarded it as her duty par excellence to maintain the link and, in times of crisis, to strengthen it, radiant with God and history. Thereby she found inspiration in her forbears, who at decisive moments had stretched out a saving hand to the motherland.

Photo: Jackie Kever Charlotte Pallandt has depicted Queen Wilhelmina as the indomitable woman. This monument in The Hague reminds the Dutch of the 'Mother of the Resistance' who through her radio messages from London to the Dutch people during World War II inspired them with courage.

I asked myself what the core of a National Day of Mourning would be, and ended up with Isaiah 8:20: To the law and to the Testimony! If they do not speak according to this word it is because there is no light in them. To the law and to the testimony is not a call to personal conversion but simply a collective appeal. This interpretation fits in very well with the subsequent verses (9:2 sqq.): Because the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light that shines out from the king upon whose shoulder the government rests. We may ask: what is a king without a people? But more

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importantly, what is a nation that turns away from God as a dog returns to its vomit? A Day of National Mourning, a collective confession, may sound fine, but is it scriptural? A fair question. Therefore we are now going to look for a theological foundation.

1 - The Psalms of Moses

The Prince of Preachers, Charles Spurgeon, taught that in the entire Psalter there is nothing more cheery than Psalm 91: Its tone is elevated and sustained throughout, faith is at its best, and speaks nobly. The rhyming version of the Psalms by Isaac Watts sets it out as follows:
Our God, our help in ages past, Our hope for years to come, Our shelter from the stormy blast, And our eternal home. Under the shadow of thy throne Thy saints have dwelt secure; Sufficient is thine arm alone, And our defence is sure.

Talmud writers ascribe to the pen of Moses not only the 91st Psalm but also the nine ensuing ones. It is indeed remarkable that many expressions used there are consistent with the spirit of the fifth book of the Bible which, as you know, was written by Moses. Nonetheless, the usual explanation places the theme of these ten Psalms in the personal sphere whereas he happened to be the prophet of bringing the entire people to an elevated state of consciousness.

2 O people of Israel listen

Although under the Old Covenant a personal sacrifice could be made for lesser wrongdoings and the spiritual cleansing consisted of immersion in the Mikveh bath - as also the water of the Word (Eph. 5:26), this was unthinkable for serious crimes such as adultery, which was punishable by death as a matter of course. However this was rarely applied. Only after Christs substitutionary death is forgiveness possible for such serious matters. Therefore the action of Moses, especially as regards the rite of Azazel (the scapegoat) as outlined in Leviticus 16, focused on reconciliation between God and the collectivity. Moses does not say: Do all that I commanded you that your soul shall live, but: Now, O (people of) Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgements which I teach you to observe, that you (as a people) may live. Therefore be careful to observe them, for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes, and say: Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. And further on: The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb face to face. I am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth Generations of Those Who Hate Me. (Deuteronomy 4:1,6; 5:2,4,9) This is the tone of the rite of Azazel although the personal element is not entirely lacking. Because Moses had to make first, as High Priest, atonement for himself, and only then could he bring reconciliation to the house of Levi and to the children of Israel for all their impurities and violations committed in that year. A not unimportant factor was that the people had to show repentance (teshuva) for their transgressions and that is undoubtedly also a contribution from the personal element. (see Lev. 4:31) And so, after the scapegoat had been sent out, atonement was made for the temple or what preceded it for the priesthood and for all the assembled people. (Lev. 16:33) I speak in the past tense since Yom Kippur (or the Day of Atonement), as it is now within Judaism, is in the Covenant saga a very late development of

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the Azazel Kippur rite and deviates from it in essential points. Before I note how that has come about, let me first mention some details of Yom Kippur itself.

3 - Structures of sin
Through deep contrition, and no longer via offerings, Yom Kippur is directed towards atonement between God and individuals, individuals amongst themselves and finally between the community at large and God. A remarkable factor is the repentance (teshuva) for sins committed under duress or coercion. This is related to communal sin. There are always powerful, nearly invisible agents at work that resemble the coercive conditions of duress. They could be called the selfperpetuating structures of sin, all related to situations gone wrong, circumstances in which people act sinfully and in which each newcomer must show great courage and insight if he does not want to adopt such behaviour. If perchance he does have the courage to pluck out his eye, as it were, or cut off hand and foot, for that is what it takes, the structure will spit him out immediately. This is the fate that awaits the whistleblowers! This coercion is often very subtle and devolves from the circumstances and necessities of Life, from general opinion and from our erroneous convictions derived from ignorance and upbringing, but also from our unrestrained passions and the slavery of heavy obsessions. These are an inherited and collective burden, in biblical parlance typified as a stronghold or fortress. (1) Something very typical happens if someone joins a group. Personal desires move into the background, unnoticed and unconsciously, and the individual starts to direct his attention to the aspirations of the group. In addition to the stated group objective and job description there always exists another silent convention. Beware if these are unethical! Here, in an ideal setting, we encounter the group mind. Therefore, the Yom Kippur confessions (the Al Khet) are made in the plural.

4 - Christian forgiveness
As regards reconciliation between individuals, even sincere teshuva can only win forgiveness if it concerns offences committed against God. As far as offences against man are concerned, the conversion and repentance that follows are insufficient. The injured party has to be appeased in order that forgiveness be obtained, and this is also the Christian notion if within the range of possibilities. Of course, each offence against man is a grave sin against Gods infinite majesty because it violates the splendour and greatness of His laws and ordained natural order and because all men are His offspring. (2) Nonetheless, appeasement of our fellow man always remains necessary. The requirement for appeasement poses a problem within the Jewish frame of mind if the injured party is deceased or if, in the case of defrauding or gossiping, the damage cannot be undone. Hence, within Jewry, the forgiving by Jesus of the robber on the cross, who doubtless was also a murderer, and who went straight to Paradise, is an impossibility. The Christian type of forgiveness is an oddity to the Jews. The New Testament teaches that the precious blood of the Son fully compensates for the injustices against our Father in heaven and appeases His anger. If true, and I believe it to be true, it also has the capacity to compensate for past collective faults because morally an insult to God weighs heavier than insults between people. Strangely enough this aspect is not mentioned in the New Testament, with the exception of Revelations 6:10 where, in the terminology of mourning (3), we read: How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? In mirror image, the Son not only atones Gods justified anger because God is merciful but also the justifiable rancour of the innumerable victims throughout history.

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Kapparot, a ritual held on the day before Yom Kippur. By pronouncing a blessing on a live chicken held above someones head, God is asked to transfer to the chicken the sins of that person

5 - Now a re-evaluation is required

So within the Yom Kippur rite, in contrast to the Azazel Kippur, forgiveness is possible for a certain class of individual sins. In this context we can speak of a major innovation. This change and others took place following the return of the Jewish people from Babylonian exile, led by two men, the scribe Ezra and Eliashib the high priest. Ezra probably played an important advisory role since the high priesthood was in the hands of Jesus (or Jeshua) and his descendants (Eliashib was number three). The reforms were continued by the men of the Great Synagogue, which was the forerunner of the Sanhedrin. Yom Kippur and other major reforms in the organisation of the festive cycle were established in barely two hundred years, extending until the beginning of Hellenism. Here I refer to the occupation of Judeah in 332 BC by Alexander the Great. The coming of the Messiah was imminent and it is therefore not surprising that God inspired the exile prophet Ezekiel, especially in chapter 18 of his book, to prepare the people for this. His writings served as an important source of inspiration for religious thought during the intertestamentary period (between Malachi and Jesus) and his influence on liturgical practice was so great that he is called the father of Judaism. His plea for an individual response to Gods invitation to a righteous way of life, offering the possibility of mending the broken relationship, marked a dramatic change in Jewish thought, summarised in the slogan: You shall no longer use this proverb in Israel: the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the childrens teeth are set on edge, in antithesis to: I am a jealous God who visits the crime of the fathers on the children unto the third and fourth generation. Until then it had been the community that counted, but now, for the first time, the focus is on the individual confronted with Gods supreme majesty and mercy. Now, a man may no longer bear the sins of another, but only his own. Note well, however: it means a shift in emphasis and not a waiver of the fact that from a very early stage in Christian exegesis people placed the foregoing within the framework of the Old Testament God of vengeance as if we could

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speak of an unbridgeable gap. Wrongly, of course, for God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. (Malachi 3:6) As indicated, the collective element in the social organisation is inevitable. The family is the smallest unit within which the continuing structures of sin reproduce, often without reference to any kind of conscious evil. The opportunity of life, indeed, claims its exigencies. Just be realistic! Well Under the renewed covenant (Hebr. 8:13) in this process Christian thought is gradually detached from the Jewish thinking and people went too far, which meant that too little attention was given to the collective in the relationship between the loving God and his people. A re-evaluation is now required in order to bring into balance both the collective and the individual element.

6 - The Ten Commandments

A reading of Ezekiel 18 will cause many people to think of Easter instead of Yom Kippur. I have no problem with that, but in the Jewish world Easter is a feast of salvation and not one of reconciliation though not without bloodletting. (4) Seen from a biblical point of view Easter is intended for the people outside the covenant in order that they become allies, for those who had never been inside or who, according to Hosea 1:9 and Jeremiah 3:8, were once inside but through serious circumstances had received from God a letter of separation (amni became amnilo: my people became my non-people). In contrast to Easter, Yom Kippur should be seen as an atonement for the people of God (amni), which is already in the covenant. This explains why the renewed formula of Exodus 34: 6-10 is central to the Yom Kippur liturgy, which is the passage describing the creation of the two tablets of the law. Both sets of tablets with the Ten Commandments, those broken and the new ones, were kept in the Ark as a sure sign that the Mosaic Covenant can be broken and mended again. The morning after the painting of the blood upon the doorposts something that required a personal initiative, a dedication to the mass of people left Egypt. After a journey of nearly ten days they were baptised in the depths of the Red Sea. Then on day fifty, which is Pentecost, Moses seals the Covenant in what can be called a baptism of fire; this act is known as the Old Covenant or Testament. From that day on all were going to live in the Covenant. The conversion (the return home, to the fathers house) and baptism happened when still outside the Covenant. After the solemn sealing of the Covenant, Moses goes up the fiery mountain and he returns forty days later with the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments. He angrily breaks them asunder when he sees the people busying themselves with worship of the Golden Calf. Surely, they said to themselves, Moses must have died on the roaring mountain. After this awful scene, he turns back the way he has come and for forty days on end he begs God for mercy for that unfaithful people. Thereafter, for a further forty days, he receives the new stone tablets that happen to be exact replicas of the first. Added up, the whole episode comes to one hundred and seventy days after Easter, which according to the Talmud coincides with the period between Easter and Yom Kippur. The previous section shows the intrinsic connection between Yom Kippur and Easter and the central role therein of the Ten Commandments, which state the minimum requirements for a viable society. (See also the Appendix: The intrinsic bond between Eastern and Yom Kippur.)

7 - We have behaved wickedly

The main theological argument to show that the collective forgiveness of sins still has its place in Gods economy of salvation is the observation that in addition to Ezekiel thus in precisely the same period the three other major exile prophets have left us wonderful prayers as a way of having the nation forgiven before God. In heart-moving terms Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah pray for their people in each chapter 9 of their respective books prayers, therefore, known as the 999

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prayers, a nice allusion to the beast whose number is 666. An anthology of these chapters is as follows: The children of Israel were assembled, fasting, in sackcloth and with dust on their heads. They stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. O Lord, spoke their leader, we have sinned and behaved wickedly and rebelled. Righteousness belongs to You but to us shamefacedness. We are too humiliated to look up at you even for a little while, because our iniquities have risen higher than our heads and our guilt has grown up to the heavens. To You belong mercy and forgiveness. Bless the Lord, Who gave us just ordinances and true laws. But our fathers hardened their necks, acted proudly and cast Your law behind them. They were not mindful of Your wonders. O Lord, let Your anger be turned away from us. Incline your ear and forgive us. You are always ready to pardon; You are gracious and full of compassion; You are slow to anger and abundant in kindness. Now therefore, our God, the mighty and awesome God, Who keeps mercy: do not let all our troubles seem small before You. You have dealt faithfully, but we have behaved wickedly and we have trampled your commandments. Here we are before Your countenance, in our guilt, though no one can stand before You because of this! Such a prayer makes sense only if it is clear what is at stake. The people, newly arrived back from the Babylonian galut (exile), knew it well. They had undergone a cultural mix. A dangerous trait, even worse than dangerous: Woe to the whore-hoppers, those who mix drinks. (paraphrase of Prov. 23:27-30; see also Is. 5:22) It is clear that a national rite of mourning is only useful if it is preceded by a broad public debate on how we as a nation have failed and what to do about it. The great 12th century Rabbi Maimonides writes in his Laws of Repentance that a mourning requires five elements which also agree with the Roman Catholic teachings: recognition of ones deeds as sins (hakart ha-cht), remorse (charat), the strong desire to desist from sin (azivt ha-cht), restitution where possible (peiran) (5), confession (vidi) and finally only then! forgiveness (michila), though the disadvantaged party can give foregiveness earlier and by this act make it easier for the wrongdoer for penance and remorse and the foregiveness by God. No, it is not an easy remedy. It is also, of course, the general moral decay in all its forms that needs repentance and a turning back. The low point so far (2008) was reached during the annual gay parade in Amsterdam, now even attended by government ministers. What an embarrassment!

8 - A year veiled in black

The sin of Israel was that they danced around the Golden Calf. Was that their only sin? Of course not! But that was the breaking point, the crucial moment when the broken covenant became fact. What was the breaking point in the relationship between the Netherlands and God, in which in Wilhelminas words the strong covenant between God, Fatherland and House of Orange was broken, the point where the "C" of the CDA (the Christian democratic party known as Christian Democratic Appeal) became a vermiform

Relief on the facade of the Supreme Court in the U.S.

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appendix, a vestigial organ? I had long thought that the breaking point was on May first 1981 when the abortion law was passed please note: under the Roman Catholic Prime Minister van Agt. But now I know it was merely a stage and not the beginning. I was made aware of this after reading Oriana Fallacis latest book, The Force of Reason, in which she documents clearly how, after the 1973 oil crisis, the MEPs handed over our Europe to the stranglehold of Islam, under the guise of healthy pluralism. (6) Former French Prime Minister Giscard dEstaing defines pluralism in his book Two Frenchmen of Three (pp. 115-116) as the coexistence of different ideologies, but he says: It goes much further than tolerance, for pluralism is the competitive battle between the ideologies. And this was, and still is pursued by the MEPs and the Dutch politicians, although not with strictly binding decisions. We are the best-behaved kid in the class, because the number of Muslims in our country (one eighth of the population) is the greatest in Europe. The fact that the Netherlands is thereby squandering its Christian heritage is, for the majority of politicians, with former Minister of Justice Donner in the lead, a subject of no concern. Woe to the mixers of drinks! Squandering, says my dictionary, means to spend wastefully, to lose a chance for something, to waste on useless things, to sell at an unfavourable price. Thats exactly it. The breaking point was thus in 1973, a year shrouded in black in our national history, a year in which the Netherlands was weighed on Gods scales and was found wanting. Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo, International Director of the Barnabas Fund (7), published in the London Evening Standard of 4th September 2006 an article on terrorism and Islamic schools, and as a historian voiced the opinion that Islam requires differential treatment from other faiths because Islam is different from other faiths He wrote: It is the only faith which teaches its followers to gain political power and then impose a law which governs every aspect of life, discriminating against women and non-believers alike. And this is ultimately why a naive multiculturalism leads not to a mosaic of cultures living in harmony, but to one threatened by Islamic extremism. (He explains that the Islamic conditions in England are a mirror of the conditions elsewhere) because once colonialism removed power, jihad and territorial control from Islam, it was left a benign force focusing on prayer and good deeds. But contemporary Islam has reverted back to early Islam, with all its theological rage against the non-Muslim world. (8) () The Islamic creed is nonnegotiable. Those who do not share this creed are despised as kafir (infidels). Hatred of nonMuslims is preached in many British mosques.

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Dutch government policy in the Dutch East Indies during the twentieth century matched up well with this. For the Muslims living there the government granted the constitutional right of freedom of religion. However, it was emphasised in official statements, Islam is more than a religion in our Western sense. It is a system that not only sets the relationship of man to the Supreme Being, but also fosters a social, economic and political programme. From a Western perspective this is not a religion and therefore the principle of unrestricted religious freedom cannot be applied to this part of their system. To protect public order and the acquisitions of the rule of law, action had to be taken against the programme militarily if necessary if the Muslims attempted to implement it. This policy followed an old tradition. By way of example, the following. When Peter Stuyvesant wished to curtail religious diversity by refusing to give shelter to Dutch Jews among others who had fled from Brazil to what is now called New York, he was reprimanded by the board of the West Indies Company in a letter dated 16th April 1663: Do not close your eyes, or at least restrict not the conscience of people, but let each have his or her own faith, to the extent that it is peaceful and follows the standards of the law and is not objectionable to its neighbours and does not resist the government. The latter was written with the Quakers in mind, who often disturbed public order. With this paragraph I would wish to emphasise that we as host country must respect the Muslims and their values as long as they respect us and our values and our Christian culture and acquisitions. So let there be no one-way traffic, and certainly not a competitive battle, sanctioned by government, between the ideologies.

9 - To the law and to the testimony!

This is not the place to go into the reconstruction of the Dutch state in detail. As I have already said, that belongs in a broad social debate. The main points are not hard to find. As a guide, the Ten Commandments can be used, for they contain the minimum conditions for a viable society. Yom Kippur, I have shown, cannot be separated from a return to the law, especially that law. What I have in mind is a constitution with the Ten Commandments serving as a frame of reference for interpreting the Constitution which, after all, is interpretable. There is a precedent. In early April 1990 the Belgian Chamber and Senate approved a bill liberalising abortion. On 30th March King Baudouin informed the Prime Minister in writing that he, the third branch of the Legislature, could not in conscience confirm this law. The King was declared temporarily incapable because Belgian law does not provide for such a situation. However this should be provided for. So it should be possible for the Crown to test both a law and a Supreme Council decision by way of the Constitution and the Ten Commandments, with the option of a right of veto. This right can only be implemented on his own initiative and does not imply that the monarch shows how the law or act could have been otherwise formulated, for then it would not be a pure right of veto and would not raise the monarch above the legislative process and political squabbling. Thanks to the deterrent effect of such an arrangement, this right of veto will in practice never or scarcely ever have to be used. In the initial stage it is different. Let God be with us once more become a reality! Hubert Luns
[Published in Prophetisch Perspectief, Winter 2006 - No. 53]

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Notes:
The castle verses (1) The stronghold or castle verses in the Psalms, as also those that speak of a high retreat or fortress (e.g. Ps. 144:2), provide the remedy against the fortress, difficult to take, of our evil inclinations (jetzer hara), also known as the chain burden of our past unto the third and fourth generation. The Hebrew word for castle is metsudah, but the word can also mean a net, as in Psalm 66:11. In Jeremiah 10:17 stronghold is used in the pejorative sense, but with the use of the term matsuri, with the meaning of a besieged fortress, thus something that can bring about despair. (2) See Psalm 51:6 and Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologiae (IIIa, q1, a2). (3) See also Apocalypse Now: a calendar of joy or a calendar of mourning? to get a better understanding of the term the terminology of mourning. The Sacrifice of the Cross simultaneously a Yom Kippur and Easter Sacrifice (4) In the late 1980s Ron Wyat carried out excavations in Jerusalem in the place where he believed Christ was crucified. At the time he unearthed the Ark of the Covenant, a find he wished to announce to the world at a later date in close cooperation with the Israeli authorities. He died in 1999, so the future work, including verification of the find, were reserved for the Wyatt Archaeological Research in Tennessee, USA (See Exploring the Ark of the Covenant). In connection with our subject it is of paramount importance that Ron Wyatt was able to show that Jesus blood descended on the Mercy Seat (cover) of the Ark, thereby leaving a visible sign that Christ's Cross was simultaneously a Yom Kippur sacrifice and an Easter sacrifice. (5) Every broken or shattered relationship requires that the offender (sometines a government office) heal the shame of the victim. So, paying back what is stolen, does not suffice. To reconcile oneself with God and fellow humans, one must take steps to also heal the pain and anguish that were caused by the actions. (6) See also the article Green is the new colour of black (in memoriam Oriana Fallaci). Practical aid for the persecuted Church (7) The main ministry of the Barnabas Fund is to send financial support to projects that help Christians wherever they suffer discrimination, oppression and persecution as a consequence of their faith. The projects aim to strengthen Christian individuals, churches and communities by providing material and spiritual support in response to needs identified by local Christian leaders. The interpretative gate permanently closed (8) The Hadith, reflecting the oral tradition and its interpretation, was given its final shape shortly after the year 1000. The gate of ijtihad, as it was known, was thereby closed (ijtihad means freedom of doctrinal interpretation) and any attempt on the part of the Arab world to change it is nipped in the bud. There are many examples of this, including some from the recent past. It is therefore incorrect to speak of Muslim extremism as this suggests that this is something extraordinary and does not fit in with the core ideology (Islam is less a faith, more a vehicle for empowerment).
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APPENDIX The intrinsic bond between Eastern and Yom Kippur

By Hubert Luns The Mosaic Covenant was modeled after the Christian Covenant and not the other way round. So the Mosaic covenant is a copy and not the original. The Mosaic pointed to the better one God had already in mind to be installed at the particular point in time. (Hebr. 8:5, 8) From the onset God must have understood the limitations the other Covenant would bring. It speaks for itself that a copy can never be as perfect as the original, but being a copy it is to be expected that the Mosaic has much in common with the Christian Covenant. Because of their resemblance we may learn from the old practice. In the Jewish frame of mind it is difficult to understand how the Eastern- or Passover Sacrifice from our Lord and Saviour has anything to do with kaphar or its synonym kippur, that is atonement, the same word that appear in Yom Kippur that is is known as Day of Atonement. From the Jewish point of view, based on Exodus 12:14 and 13:3, the Eastern Festival is a memorial service that commemorates the redemption, not atonement, from the Egyptian slave house, yet not without the flowing of blood. It indicates the start of the Covenant: for those outside who were coming in. This is one of the reasons why a Jew has great trouble adopting the Christian faith, for they consider themselves already in the Covenant. The key words in this difficult exchange of views are redemption and atonement. Of course the Catholic Mass is, just like the Jewish practice of Eastern, a memorial service, but in such a way that it places Jesus' unique sacrifice of two thousand years ago as a true sacrifice in our midst. This difficult play of words is made possible because in God time does not exist. The most cogent example of this assertion is found in the first phrase of the Bible: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, which the apostle John reiterates slightly different (John 1:1): In the beginning was the Word. After this announcement, that provides evidence that at that stage God had set Himself to the task of creating, the enumeration ensues of the ten sayings of creation. Each time it is reiterated: God said, let there be This impelled me to interpolate Genesis 1:1 in the following way: In the beginning (breisheet) God spoke the Ten Words (of creation), saying them in One Utterance, in like manner as He did anew on the mount Horeb when He handed over the Ten Words or Commandments. The Talmud interprets Exodus 20:1 similarly, a place where it is written: And God spoke all these words, saying them (in one utterance). Later, in this chapter of Exodus, the enumeration follows of the Ten Commandments. It is thaught, however, that they were said already in that single utterance! (Mechilta Bachodesh 4) The interpolation of mine of the first verse of Genesis is acceptable because it is written that in the beginning God created, which very meaningfully is put in the eternity present tense - the past, present and future are one. The term in the beginning is superfluous; God created the heavens and earth would do as a title for the work of creation itself. To make sense of it, the phrase could have been that in the beginning God started to create, but it isnt formulated that way. In the beginning is just a moment without duration. Therefore, if the text states created in the beginning it implies that everything from beginning to end was created at that untimely instant, which like a kind of tape is slowly unwinded. In like manner the Pascal Sacrifice of our Lord and Redeemer is present, now and here, and yet remains the unique sacrifice that was once. (Hebr. 10:14)

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The same root for beginning (rosh or reish) appears in many Biblical passages in the meaning of sum or total. Especially interesting in this respect is Proverbs 8:26, a notoriously difficult text, which according to my rendering goes: (23) I (the Wisdom) have been established from everlasting, (25) before the mountains were settled (26) while the sum of the earth or outer space (the cosmos), or its primeval dust, had not yet been made. The classical rendition goes as follows: while as yet He had not made the earth or the open spaces, or the primal dust of the world. Here the term as yet renders the Hebrew for total, which actually is no translation, but an adaptation. For redemption and remission exist several words in Hebrew and Greek, but not so for atonement and reconciliation that point at the reestablishment of the sundered relationship between God and Man. There is one word for it in Hebrew and there are two in Greek: hilasmos and kattalage. The Hebrew kippur for atonement is related to a thorough covering (literally with bitumen) and this - in the Jewish mind - refers exclusively to Yom Kippur; I am talking about the present state of affairs where there is no Temple Service any more. (9) The Greek hilasmos for atonement is derived from a root that indicates an attitude provoking cheerfulness and mercy. It is the correct translation for kippur, because hilasterion, used in Romans 3:25 and Hebrews 9:5, means mercyseat, which denotes the lid of the Ark in the Temple (in Hebr. kapporet) that covered the broken tablets of the Ten Commandments (and also the not broken ones that replaced it). The other Greek expression, kattalage (reconciliation), is derived from words that indicate a radical transformation, which seems to refer more directly to the Pascal Sacrifice. Kattalage is not mentioned even once in Pauls Greek letter to the Hebrews, which is very clearly written in the jargon of the Yom Kippur sacrificial practice at the time, of course, when the Temple was not yet put out of function. Instead, the main kattalage texts are to be found in Romans 5:10-11 and 2 Corinthians 5:18-20. In spite of this distinction it remains true, and this is the drift of the argument in Hebrews 9, that Christs sacrifice is a replacement for all sacrifices, not only in the meaning of kattalage but also of hilasmos. This does not mean, however, that Yom Kippur has become useless. To apprehend this question we should consider the general picture to be discussed now. The Passover, described in Exodus 12, announces the beginning of the flight from Egypt, onwards to the Mosaic Covenant. The blood of a lamb redeemed the people of Israel from the Egyptian yoke. God would pass over the punishment of killing the first-born where a family had stricken the blood of the lamb on the jambs of the front door. The foolishness of the striking of the blood was each time based on a personal decision by the Israelite, a step in faith. Apparently a number of foreigners followed suit, which we identify with the mixed multitude from Exodus 12:38. (10) This will have included many ethnic groups who were equally suffering under the Egyptian yoke and stayed together with the Israelites in their settlements in the land of Goshen, that is the most Northern part of Egypt that borders on the desert of Paran (now called the Sinai Peninsula). This signifies that the redemptive power of the blood is indiscriminately applied to all members of human society just like with the blood of Jesus; it was no exclusive Israelite affair. The morning upon the striking, the whole pack left Egypt. After nearly a ten days journey, while traversing the whole area of Paran, they were baptised in the deep of the Red Sea (1 Cor. 10:2), called in Hebrew Sof or Frontier Sea. Then on day fifty, which is Pentecost, Moses seals the Covenant in a baptism of fire; this we know as the Old Testament. (Ex. 24:8, 17) From that day on all were going to live in the Covenant. The conversion (the return home; to the fathers house) and baptism happened when still out of the Covenant. After the solemn sealing of the Covenant, Moses goes up the fiery mountain and he returns forty days later with the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments. (Ex. 24:18 and Ex. 32) He angrily throws them asunder when he discovers that the people was busying itself with the golden calf worship. Surely, they said to themselves, Moses must have died on the roaring mountain. After this awful scene he turns back on his steps and for forty days on end he begs God for mercy for that unfaithful people. (Deut.

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9:25) Thereafter, during another forty days, he receives the new stone tablets that happened to be exact replicas of the first. (Ex. 34:28) Added up, the whole episode amounts to hundred seventy days after Eastern which, according to the Talmud, coincides with the distance between Eastern and Yom Kippur. (Seder Olam 5-6) (11) Both sets of tablets with the Ten Commandments, the broken and the new ones, were kept in the Ark as a sure sign that the Mosaic Covenant can be broken and mended again. The foregoing demonstrates the intrinsic link between Yom Kippur and Eastern and the central place in it of the Ten Commandments, which stipulate the minimal requirements for a decent society. (12) From the foregoing it is evident dat Eastern was meant for the people who stood out of the Covenant to become confederates, for those people who had never been inside or for those who according to Hosea 1:9 and Jeremiah 3:8 were once inside but due to grave circumstances received from God a certificate of divorce (amni becoming lo-amni: my people versus not my people). Lo-amni occurred when the Jewish people rejected Christ. But their lo-amni was not final, has actually finished, for nonetheless they remained the beloved of the Father whose calling is irrevocable. (Romans 11:28-29) In contrast to Eastern, Yom Kippur is to be understood as an atonement for Gods people (amni) in the Covenant. This explains why the renewal formula of Exodus 34:6-10 makes up a central element in the service of Yom Kippur, which is the passage that describes the making of the second set of tablets. There is another distinction between the two festivals, briefly touched upon. Yom Kippur concentrates on the communal part of sin while Eastern on the individual part. In this we ascertain Yom Kippurs function as a pendant to the Feast of Tabernacles yet to be adopted by the Christian Church in the glorious time ahead, commonly known as the Time of Nations. (Zach. 14:16) How eagerly I await this time!

Notes:
(9) In the old days great numbers of lambs were slaughtered in The Temple during Passover, with a continuous flowing of blood and the insistent bleating of many animals. Then it was easier to grasp why this was also a service of reconciliation and not just a commemorative ritual. (10) Philo of Alexandria describes the mixed multitude that went forth with the Israelites. Among these were those who had been born from mixed marriages. (De Vita Mosis I:147) (11) The distance between the ever changing equinoxes should be investigated to know whether the conclusion tallies that during Mosaic Covenant the distance between Eastern and the rite of Azazel, which later evolved into Yom Kippur, was exactly 170 days. (12) The Ten Commandments are sometimes said to be a copy of the Laws of Hammurabi. This is untrue. The laws of Hammurabi are not a constitution, but the first inception in human history of an ordinary legal code. The Ten Commandments, on the contrary, are the beginnings of a constitution. The book of Leviticus represents the elaboration of the Ten Commandments and at that level is comparable to the laws of Hammurabi. (www.wsu.edu/~dee/MESO/CODE.HTM).

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