TISHA B’AV “’We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.’” Numbers 13:33 I would like to take a moment today to remember the Jewish day known as Tisha B’Av. I would venture to say not many know about this day. It is not a happy day by any means. In fact, many Hebrew teachers agree that if anything could go wrong for the Jewish people, this would be the day in which it would. So then, let us open our Bibles and see what happened on this day in history that causes the Jewish people of today to still mourn and weep, fast, and sit in low chairs. Let us open to Numbers 13. This is probably a story that we all know pieces of. As Moses and the Israelites neared the Promise Land, spies were sent out to report back not only what the land looked like, but the oppositions that they would have to face in taking the land. For forty days they were away doing just as Moses had asked. Then finally they returned. When pressed for the details of the people and place, the spies all had something to say. Ten of the spies said that the people of Israel were no match for them, that they looked in their own eyes as grasshoppers. Two of the spies told different, remembering that God Himself had promised this land, and with God on their side they knew they could defeat the foe. The odds were not in the favor of the two, however, and the report of the ten became the belief of the nation. Yet notice this – the ten spies didn’t say they were grasshoppers, but rather said in their own eyes they seemed like grasshoppers. Their own perception of themselves became the basis of Tisha B’Av. Tisha B’Av is translated as the 9th day of the Hebrew month, Av. It is agreed by historians that the spies returned on the 9th day of Av. The report they spread became the belief of the people, and as a result they wandered in the desert for forty years, one year for each day the spies were gone. This one instance changed their lives. This one instance set a wheel in motion for the sadness of a nation. Moving forward in history, it was on this day in 422BC that the first temple was destroyed. It was on this day in 70BC that the second temple was destroyed. In 132AD, the Bar Kochba revolt took place which ended in the death of over 10,000 Jews. Likewise, in 1095AD, during the first of the Crusades, another 10,000 Jews would lose their lives. On this day in 1290AD, Jews were expelled from England, followed by their expulsion from Spain and Portugal in 1492AD. With unresolved factors sprouting from World War I, World War II follows in which, on this day in 1942, finds the Jewish people within Warsaw starting to be transported to concentration camps. And most recently, in 1994, it was on this day that the purposed bombing of the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, took the lives of 86 Jews. Coincidence? No. There is no Hebrew translation for the word coincidence. What it is, though, is the sad fact that when people take their eyes off of God and begin to see themselves in a different light, evil creeps in. These spies saw themselves as grasshoppers. No one told them they were grasshoppers; there is no record that they spoke with the people in the Promise Land and were advised, “Hey, you look like a grasshopper.” No, it was their perception of themselves. And this is the point I want to make clear today. The world does have an opinion of you, whether they tell you what it is or not. But the opinion we should be listening to is God’s. God was about to give the people all they needed to defeat the giants of the land, but He was unable because they allowed their perception to be their belief. Let us not be the same, but rather let God’s promise be our perception. In so doing, perhaps the Tisha B’Av’s can be turned around.
Posted on: Tue, 16 Jul 2013 13:12:27 +0000
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