Law and Covenant: Lame Man Walking
Genesis 9:1-17
By Ed Nelson
After the Flood, the question remained, “Would man, both male and female, newly emerged from the ark, walk with [’eth] God?” Just as previous generations failed to walk with God, except for two persons, no promise was held that Noah and his descendants would either. True, Enoch and Noah both “walked with God” before the Flood (cf. Genesis [Bereishit] 5:22-23; 6:9). But, now, in the new world, would Noah continue to do so? What about his family and descendants? The prospects were dim to none that any would accomplish this divine purpose. History shows that none did.
Walking is a divine act. The short phrase, “walked with God,” implies something that God does first. Man is a participant in God’s walk. The text in Genesis [Bereishit] 3:8 confirms that walking was a divine act before it was ever a human act. The first instance of walking in the Bible is of God walking in the Garden of Eden:
And the man and his wife heard the sound [qol “voice”]
of the LORD God walking in the garden
in Spirit [ruach – “wind,” “spirit”] of the day,
and they hid themselves from the LORD God
among the trees of the garden.
Whatever else you may understand about walking, foremost, it is descriptive of Almighty God. Ultimately, it is not a human act. We walk because God walks. Our walking, demonstrated physically by the stride of our legs and feet forward, is only a pattern, a metaphorical likeness of what walking truly is.
Our walking is an act of God-likeness. When man was created in God’s image and likeness, he was given legs and feet for walking. Just as he was given a physical head for guidance, arms for strength, hands for service, he was given legs and feet for mobility. All these human features are physical expressions of divine reality. We were made God-like in our physical, material world to act in God-likeness as whole persons.
Our legs and feet, because they are made in his image and likeness, tell us that we were made to walk with God. He gave us heads to think and choose his objectives, as He has chosen. He gave us arms and hands to extend his care to creation according to his Name. He gave us procreative powers for reproduction of his image and likeness in all the world, so we may participate in his creation of mankind. With our legs and feet, then, we demonstrate our solidarity with God in his missional purposes. As He goes, we walk with Him, at least, we were made for this purpose.
When Jesus [Yeshua] told his disciples, “And as you go, make disciples of all nations” (cf. Matthew 28:18-20), He was referring to the biblical concept of walking, i.e., engaging in God’s mission with solidarity. “And as you are walking, make disciples of all nations.” Without the walk, solidarity is not demonstrated in Messiah’s mission.
Life is about walking. Walking is about life. In Hebrew, the words “walk” and “life” may even be considered synonyms. For whatever else man was created, he was made to walk with God. Because God walks, we were made to walk in God’s likeness.
“To walk” in biblical Hebrew. The biblical Hebrew language is concrete, emotional, experiential, and typically physical. It manifests a fondness for images rooted in the human body. The reason for this is that in the physical body we see the image and likeness of God and can relate to Him and his activities. After all, biblical Hebrew is about God’s revelation of Himself to us.
In English, we tend to convert images from the concrete and physical into abstractions. When this is done in translating biblical Hebrew into English, often we loose the heart and soul of the intended mood and depth of feeling intended to be expressed. Take for example, the word “faith,” [emunah]. “Faith” derives its Hebraic, concrete meaning from body parts. Here is a Hebraic way of explaining “faith.” What is hoped for in our heads must be matched within our torso so that our arms and hands, and legs and feet are summoned into action to accomplish what was hoped for. A faith that does not move the arms and hands, and legs and feet into action is dead faith. Such faith is illusion. It has no evidence of things not seen. True faith in God activates the entire body in seeing the invisible and realizing it in hope. Our English word “faith” does not carry such a depth of emotion and spiritual meaning and can be sold short as positive thinking apart from physical action.
Another word is halak which is most closely translated into English as the word “to walk.” The physical characterization of a person moving a right and left foot in a repetitive surge forward is visually captured in our minds. We can visualize it. We say the person is walking. The noun derived from the verb halak is halakah, a familiar word to those who study the Torah.
In biblical Hebrew, the word halak always remains a concrete term so that we are never removed from our physical experience of walking and how it is manifested in us in an emotional, experiential and spiritual way. When we translate this very physical word halak into English, because we are given to abstract ideas, we often sell it short of the full-embodiment of what it means “to walk” in God’s image and likeness. Thus we expand the word into a variety of abstractions and turn the pungency of the word into a stale paraphrase.
If you look at how English Bibles render the word halak, “to walk,” you will find an array of words in which the original picture of walking practically gets lost in the process. For example, a Hebrew-English lexicon may define the word as “to access,” “to go,” “to accompany,” “to flow,” “to move,” “to continue,” “to travel,” “to enter,” and in some cases, “to disappear,” “to perish,” and “to die.” When it refers to death, it means “went” to the grave. In special regard to the Torah and God’s 613 commandments [mitzvot] to Israel, it more generally means “to obey” God’s commandments in ordinary living (cf. Daniel 9:10). All of these are abstractions of a very simple, physical, concrete, experiential word used throughout the Hebrew Bible. We forget that originally walking, first and foremost, describes God’s missional activity with or without man walking with Him. And, second, it describes us participating in God’s missional activity as creatures made in his image and likeness. Anything less than this is lame and crippled.
Walking with God. Only on two occasions does this statement “walk with [‘eth] God” appear in the Bible as historically occurring. Actually, a third time is mentioned, but it is a stated as a promise that when Messiah reappears, those who overcome the world will “walk with God” (Revelation 3:4). Obviously, the word “walk” in these two instances is an anthropomorphism, a way of describing God in terms descriptive of man’s physical movement.
What does the Bible mean when it speaks of a person who “walked with [‘eth] God”? The meaning is to join with God in his walk, in his missional steps. It means to accompany Him in his missional ways, or acts, a going along with what He is doing, how He does it, and when and where He does it.
Enoch “walked with God.” Take a close look at the biblical narrative concerning Enoch in Genesis 5:21-24. In the seventh generation from Adam through the line of Seth, we read the unique and enigmatic “epitaph” of Enoch:
A Enoch [Chanok] lived sixty-five years
B and became the father of Methuselah.
C And Enoch walked [yithhalek] with [‘eth] God
after he fathered Methuselah three hundred years.
B¹ And he had other sons and daughters.
A¹ And all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years
C¹ Enoch walked [yithhalek] with [‘eth] God,
D and he was not
C² for God took [lakach] him away.
The verses conform to a variation of the Hebraic literary style of reverse concentric symmetry where the main emphasis is on the pivotal point C about Enoch walking with God. In the subset, the main emphasis is on his disappearance—“and he was not.”
Enoch, the text shows, did not “walk with God” his first 65 years. Why did he begin to walk with God then? It was the same year his son Methuselah was born. Was the prophetic meaning of Methuselah's name so powerful to Enoch that when he named him, he took on a greater relationship with God, becoming aware of the impending judgment of the world? The prophetic name of Methuselah indicates that when he [Methuselah] dies, the present age will come to an end. He, of course, died just before the Flood in accordance to the prophecy. Likely, the prophetic name of Methuselah motivated his father to repent and move forward with God. At any rate, Methuselah’s birth is the same year that Enoch began to walk with God.
Noah “walked with God.” A second occurrence of the phrase, “…”walked [yithhalek] with [‘eth] God,” is in Genesis 6:9-10 regarding Noah. The Hebraic literary style also is in the form of reverse concentric symmetry:
A These are the genealogies [toldoth] of Noah.
B Noah was a righteous man,
C Sound [tamim] in his generations.
B¹ And he walked [yithhalek] with [‘eth] God.
A¹ Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.
In reference to the phrase describing Noah, “...and he walked with God,” the phrase is essentially the same as used to describe Enoch. Enoch was the seventh generation of Adam, and Noah the tenth. However, whereas with Enoch the emphasis of the passage was on his walk with God and his disappearance, line C shows that the emphasis in this passage about Noah is that he was “sound [tamim] in his generations.” In some English Bibles, the word “sound” is rendered as “blameless.”
Why do you think Noah’s sound judgment [tamim] in his generations is the emphasis in the structure of the biblical narrative and not his walking with God as was the case of Enoch?
Likely, it has to do with the extremely corrupt condition of the end-time of the First World Era. No one except Noah had sound judgment. It was an utterly lawless world where personal license to do as one pleased was esteemed above what was good for humankind.
Noah was a remnant person of a better time. Now he lived in stark contrast to his generations, more so than Enoch was in contrast to his. The point is, this additional description of Noah as righteous and of sound judgment “in his generations” was not needed of Enoch. It was enough to say of Enoch that he walked with God. But with Noah, he was contrasted to his generations as righteous and sound in judgment to justify God’s action to send the end-time Flood and destroy mankind, saving Noah and his family.
Common ground between Enoch and Noah. When we consider that the Bible is silent on others who “walked with God,” leaving us to believe that no one else has done so in keeping with the meaning applied to Enoch and Noah, we should look at what is the common ground between Enoch and Noah that would help to explain the depth of the meaning of this unique phrase.
First, both lived in the First World Era before the Flood. God’s people in the Second World Era are, by contrast, known “to walk before God,” or “to walk in his ways,” as if walking behind Him in his trail. None are known to “walk with God.”
Further, the two persons, Enoch and Noah, who “walked with God,” both escaped death in the First World Era. This is a critical point to understanding the meaning of this phrase. God is life, and death is not in Him. To accompany Him who is life, i.e., “to walk with Him” is to escape judgment and death. Whereas, the escaping of death did not include Enoch’s household, it did so for Noah. Noah’s family shared in his relationship with God in a life-saving way.
Enoch's “walk with God” is stated to justify his disappearance from the earth, the text leaving us the remarkable presumption that he did not see death. Note that the Genesis 5 genealogy of Seth states at the closure of each genealogical description: "...then he died." Not so for Enoch. And, of course, not so for Noah! He did not see death in his generation. His generation died in the Flood. He entered a Second World Era.
When Noah entered the Second World Era, he lived another 350 years. Then the familiar phrase, "...then he died," is attached to his epitaph (cf. Genesis 9:29). This textual note about Noah's death in Genesis 9:29 separates Noah from Enoch. Noah died eventually, but like Enoch, he did not die in the First World Era. We have no evidence that Noah continued “to walk with God” in the Second World Era. On the contrary, we find evidence that he didn’t.
Noah after the Flood. Upon disembarking the ark, neither Noah nor his family are reported to have walked with God. We should not assume it happened. On the contrary, any mention of his former character as being righteousness or sound, or of him again walking with God are missing from the biblical narrative.
Instead, one single remarkable line describes him. Euphemistically, it may be translated: “And began [vayyachel] Noah, a man of the soil [‘adamah], and planted a vineyard” (9:20). The question is, “Began what?” The Hebrew verb vayyachel, sometimes rendered in English as “and began,” is a very weak translation for it fails to describe what began.
Examine this verb up in the way it is used in biblical Hebrew. The verb is from the root word chalal, meaning “to defile, “to profane,” “to debase,” or “to begin to use as common.” It’s a term that describes a turn away from God-likeness to evil inclinations. The strength of this verb is found in its use in the Bible to signal sexual perversion, defiling an altar, or profaning a divine covenant. The line is more appropriately translated, as does the Stone Edition of the Chumash [the Torah]: “Noah, the man of the earth, debased himself and planted a vineyard.”
How far Noah had gone adrift in virtue and character after he left the ark! He entered the ark on the basis that he walked with God. After he departed the ark, somewhere he chose to walk apart from God. To do so renders one spiritually lame who is centered on self. The biblical language here is strong about Noah. He chose to debase himself right at the start of a new world era. Perhaps we have a clue from the narrative as to why his walk with God deteriorated when God had to remind him that he was made in his image and likeness. God saw something in Noah demanding a direct word of remembrance. We see that Noah did not give heed to God’s reminder. Soon after, we shows disrespect for his body enough to not cover his nakedness (cf. 9:22), and disrespect for the fruit of the land intended for nourishment. He took the fruit of his vineyard for purposes of drunkenness (cf. 9:21). He used his drunkenness to loosen his inhibitions about respect for his body. All was premeditated. Callous about his divine purpose to walk with God as before, the new world is imperiled. If Noah by his actions after the Flood did not respect animal life, his body or the purpose of food, how would he treat other people?
Truth was, if change somehow did not occur at a deep relational level, humankind would not survive long. If left alone, they would sow the seeds of global collapse as did their ancestors who produced only ten generations before catastrophe. If God’s favor did not continue for this family and their descendants, the Second World Era had no promise to last very long either. Like Adam, Noah also failed the human race as its head. What, then, was God’s solution? Details are found in Genesis [Bereishit] 9:1-17.
Deep change at the societal level. By divine solution, mankind’s relationship with God underwent radical social change necessary for survival of the human race. Humanity would no longer be expected, for the time being, to walk with God. It was evident that no human could. If Noah couldn’t, then his seed had no chance of doing so either.
God’s solution was to treat mankind at a different level. A second chance was given to humanity, no longer based on personal righteousness, but on maintaining integrity and uprightness as a human society. This came in the dual form of (1) codified law and (2) a divine covenant with humanity.
In the First World Era, man did not interact with others well. His value system led him to act from motives of self-consciousness, selfishness, self-defense and self-determination. The idea of a community shaped for the common, societal good to bring out the innate resourcefulness of people was an alien concept. Only one city is mentioned, in fact, as existing in the First World Era, Cain’s city, which he named after his firstborn son. Essentially, this city was a fortress [root meaning of ‘iyr] to withstand people intent to kill Cain and his little family (cf. 4:15-17). Its merits for the common, societal good are dubious, at best. Cain built the city as an act of self-defense. It wasn’t a community for community sake.
In the Second World Era, man would work within the bounds and responsibilities of a social community, from extended family, to clan, village, city and state. The Table of Nations in Genesis 10 and the building of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 summarize this fact (cf. 10:32). In short time, man as community member would join as one to become the city-builder. His progeny would proliferate in cities where they would come together to make a common name for themselves (cf. 11:4). The new anthem was “one for all, all for one.” Humanity resisted separation and preferred groupings, seeking to be one community whereby they may exploit their mutual opportunities together.
Protecting human society. While humanity would seek to monopolize on their new found community spirit, God introduced two fundamental conditions for human society to exist. First, man was to act for the good of society based on codified laws to protect human life (cf. 9:1-7). Second, God would support the effort by making a covenant of relationship with mankind (cf. 9:8-17). He would not destroy humanity again by a flood.
Codified law, essential for human society to exist, restrained lawlessness. Hope for long-term survival of humanity was guaranteed by God’s unconditional covenant with humanity. Civilization was made possible. City-building began in earnest.
Noah’s family quickly learned that legal terms of order in a covenantal relationship now governed humanity. The old governance by intuitive law of the heart was gone. The new had come in the dual form of codified law and divine covenant.
In this new relationship, man would have to keep and enforce laws of society to restrain his animal-like tendencies toward lawlessness. Survival of society depended on it. In tandem, God would keep his covenant of divine oversight represented by the sign of the overarching rainbow. Of the rainbow, God said: “I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant” (Genesis 9:16). Human society of the Second World Era had a visible sign of hope. The sign of his hope was in the sky.
Yet human nature, at a deeply personal level, remained bent out of shape from original God-likeness. The human heart remained unchanged. Though capable of good works, human tendencies still favored self above others, even above God. Noah proved this true. Evil thoughts and acts based on selfish motives remained.
Even today, political tensions exist between the necessity for a societal level of law and order for human survival and welfare, and individual claims for freedom from legal restraint for sake of personal expression. Civilization is always being tested at its roots between the forces of societal good and personal liberty. The tension is healthy and needed for checks and balances.
As long as laws overall favor the preservation of human society, and are manifested predominantly in protecting and preserving human life, human society has a chance for continuation. When the pendulum swings in human society to the absolute protection of individual rights over the common good of society, when individual freedom becomes the mandate for making law over community order, human society will again be weighed in the balances regarding its survival as we know it. The last period of time before the second coming of Messiah Jesus [Yeshua] will be when laws are made to protect lawlessness, good is called evil, and evil is called good (cf. Romans 1:18-2:16). Then the end of the Second World Era shall come, even as in the days of Noah except it will not happen with a flood.
The standard for society. God reminded Noah and his family, the first human grouping in the Second World Era, that they were made in his image and likeness and should act accordingly (cf. 9:6). This was the standard God set for human behavior. The reminder was necessary to explain why God had full rights on individuals and the newly emerging human society. Yet He would allow mankind to persist, even in a misguided sense of independence, as long as his laws to protect human life were enforced.
The keystone for society’s survival and expansion is the knowledge that man is more than an animal with instinctive behaviors and, therefore, must have law. Even if society fails to acknowledge that it exists under God, it must understand and appreciate the supreme value of law. The fact law exists creates the expectation that people should live in community under government for the social good. The fact law exists also superimposes the belief system that people do evil from their hearts. Because humanity is corrupt, it must be restrained.
The failure of corrupt humanity to obey God’s intuitive law of the heart led to a social contract issued by God that was based on codified law legislated by God but enforced between man and man (cf. Genesis 9:1-7). Codified law between God and man would come much later at Mount Sinai when He would make a covenant with the newly born nation of Israel fresh out of Egyptian slavery (cf. Exodus 20).
Law-abiding men and women in community take responsibility for the survival of the fragile human society. Codified law, like glue, binds human society together. Lawlessness is quelled by those called to serve and protect, but, because of the nature of the human heart, law and order remains a constant burden of society. Human society was given possibilities for long-term survival, but the evil hearts of men being what they are, it would always exist on the cusp of revolution and anarchy. The spirit of lawlessness would endure, being restrained, however, by the human spirit of community.
The tandem purpose of law and covenant. In Genesis 9:1-7 is the narrative about God introducing law for human restraint, and the basis for it with man being made God-like. Immediately following in 9:8-17 is the account of God making his covenant with Noah for the survival of humanity. The two ideas of codified law and covenant from God’s vantage are kept in tandem. For covenant to exist, law must also. Law without covenant yields vigilantism. Covenant without law to restrain man provides a covering for tyranny. Without law and covenant is anarchy.
Law within the context of divine covenant provides the basis for legitimate government to have the tools of law and order to support society and sustain civilization. By God’s favor to issue law in tandem with his covenant, mankind was enabled to form a society in which man was encouraged to walk upright before God as human society.
The first laws introduced after the Flood were about man’s responsibilities toward men regarding respect and value for human life. They were to be enforced by man in his new executive position overseeing societal responsibility, making possible civility, cities and states, civilizations, and, in modern times, corporations. Whereas, before the Flood man was to rule over animals only, now he would legislate, govern and execute justice over man, whether the empowered executive man was God-fearing or not.
The divine covenant with man would be established for perpetuity in tandem with codified law that respects human life. While law treats man’s failure, divine covenant gives hope that God would never leave nor forsake his people. In the covenant, terms were non-negotiable. God was, and remains, the Suzerain. In his supremacy over humanity, man would be his vassal people, subject to Him. Regardless of man’s worst behavior, evil intentions, lawlessness and denials of God, God would remain faithful to his purpose for humankind. He would tolerate humanity until such time that law is swept aside for the spirit of lawlessness, including legal lawlessness when justice is universally turned on its ear.
Until then, all people would be under law to be enforced and executed by executive man. All people, whether they believed in God or not, or obeyed Him or not, would be under God by virtue of his covenant. Ultimately, every person would stand before God, the Suzerain and Judge, to give an account to him for his or her life. After death, the Bible teaches, comes the judgment.
God would preserve man with a divine covenant that guaranteed survival of human society. He made the rainbow to be a sign of his covenant (cf. 9:8-17). In this covenant, man would have hope for a greater day when law would reach its fullness in the Perfect Man—the Anointed One. When He appeared as the Second Adam, in Him man would be capable of having a transformed heart to obey the laws of God by spiritual recreation.
Law and covenant, the glue and framework for human society, anticipated the first coming of the Messiah. He would come at the right time in history when many, having understood their sinfulness based on law and covenant, would repent and turn away from wickedness to God’s kingdom. When Messiah did come in the first century A.D. to minister to Israel and, through Israel, to all mankind, as many as received Him received the right to become children of God (cf. John 1:12). They were granted spiritual capacity to walk upright again, but not with God as did Enoch and Noah. Their walk was not with God, or before God, but “in Messiah.” Such is the case for all who entrust their lives in his care today.
Thus lays the purpose of law and covenant, and their dual fullness in the Messiah Jesus [Yeshua]. Regarding law, He is the Living Torah [Law]. Regarding covenant, He is the Giver of the New Covenant. In Him, and in Him only, man may walk upright with God again.
Man as being lame. Why was God so kind to prop up humans with the crutches of law and covenant to live together as a society when the human heart was bent so low in its crooked walk through life? Like Noah, humans in all civilizations are given to personal debasement. None in themselves are upright and whole. At the core of being of man is a law-breaking spirit moving, limping along a crooked path. Everyone walks as cripples, unable to walk upright on his or her own.
What man really needed, of course, when Noah and his family emerged from the ark was a transformed heart so his legs and feet may walk in righteousness and soundness of judgment with God. But this was far from their desire, and God does not make people into robots to walk with Him.
Law, meanwhile, would suffice to instruct man on how crippled, and lame and ruined his life is without God. Civil laws governing society told man that he may no longer be a law to himself. His evil inclinations would be confronted and duly penalized. Law would be a witness against him and his ways, teaching him about his wicked and deceitful heart, and, ultimately, his need for personal transformation. Law enforcement would coax him to repent.
The outcome was that he knew something vital was missing within his sense of well-being. He was incomplete, without peace [shalom], i.e., without wholeness. Worse, he discovered that he was unable to rectify the internal problem and fill the void through any assortment of solutions, including shamanism and idolatry. He could not manipulate God to perform his will.
Law with divine covenant offered the possibility for man to walk upright again, if somehow he walked in obedience to God’s law. If he could, he would obtain a legal standing of righteousness before God. If he didn’t, to break one law had the equivalent results of breaking them all. Whether he broke one or several, he was still crippled.
Jacob, lame man walking. This common human experience of trying to walk through life on our own terms is pictured dramatically in the story of Jacob [Ya’acov] when he wrestled with God through the night at Peniel. Before the wrestling match, an effort to manipulate God, Jacob didn’t truly understand he was crippled. He looked upright. He felt self-justified. But he should have known better except for a strong sense that he was an able-bodied person ready to meet life, even his brother Esau, on his terms in spite of its difficulties. His pride met God at Peniel. He left there humbled, limping as a lame man ever after. Such is the picture of all humanity.
The irony of the story is that Jacob was crippled before he wrestled with God and tried to manipulate Him. Only he did not reckon himself as such. The physical disjointing of his hip socket reminded him for the rest of his life of his true posture before God—that of a cripple. After this unsettling event, he limped until he died (cf. Genesis [Bereishit] 32:22-32), even as humanity does today.
Jacob’s descendants did not forget that this crippling event was speaking of them, too, in their relationship to God and the world. Genesis [Bereishit] 32:32 reads:
Therefore, to this day, the Israelites do not eat the tendon
attached to the socket of the hip,
because the socket of Jacob’s hip was touched near the tendon.
Everyone is like Jacob whose hip socket was put out of joint. Before Jacob’s time, God tells Noah by virtue of giving the codified law and the covenant that he and his family are crippled, unable to rise to the task of walking upright in the Second World Era under their terms.
In ourselves, it is impossible to walk upright. The lesson is that all humanity is crippled, limping through life whether we know it or not. We are so accustomed to limping along, that we do not know what upright walking is like, at least, not until we participate by faith in Messiah Jesus [Yeshua] who walked upright as the Second Adam.
Jacob’s other name, Israel, is the name given the nation that came from his loins. The wrestling match with God at Peniel left him to understand who he really was—a crippled man not upright in himself. And, like father, like sons. His descendants were crippled as was the rest of the world. Israelites, children of Jacob, cannot afford the luxury of feeling proud about themselves. If Israel, the nation of the covenants, cannot boast, certainly the rest of the world may not either. We all are unable in ourselves to walk upright in this world. Yet, not everyone has such a self-understanding.
Under law, man walks before God. As Noah’s family emerged from the ark into the Second World Era, man would never again “walk with God” as did Enoch and Noah. Another way of “walking” began for crippled mankind. Man would walk [lepanaiv] before God—with the legal props of law and covenant giving supporting to his weight.
Such a walk before God does not have the same import of meaning as “walking with [‘eth] God” (cf. Genesis 48:15). Persons who walk before God are the actors performing before the audience of God. When persons walk with God, God is the Actor and we participate with Him in his acts.
Wise persons know that people cannot stand very long on their own two feet without collapsing. As sure as you reap what you sow, those who choose to walk on their own will fall down. Pride comes before a fall. Their crippled state is made manifest in many different ways, pride being at the core of man’s foolish self-understanding. Pride is that human sense that one is able to walk through life on his terms in his own merits. The outcome is disaster. Wisdom teaches that legs and feet, after all, do not make a person upright, especially when they are crippled.
In God’s sight, it is a matter of the humble and obedient who are made able to walk upright before God. When God makes us to walk upright, in fact He props us up with law and covenant to walk before Him. He sustains us in his covenant that reveals his lovingkindness and faithfulness to us.
Abraham and others walked [yithhalek] before [lepanaiv] God. Enoch was the seventh generation of Seth, and Noah the tenth. Corresponding generations in the Second World Era beginning with Shem, Noah’s son, are Serug (the seventh generation) and Abraham (the tenth). Nothing is mentioned of Serug as walking before God, nor are we given hints as to Serug’s relationship to God. The text is silent on this account. Perhaps he had become an idolater and walked with false gods. Tradition teaches that his grandson, Terah, was an idol-maker. At any rate, Serug is not comparable to Enoch, his counterpart in the First World Era before the Flood.
Of Abraham, he is the first listed as “walking before God,” though not, of course, as “walking with God.” Interestingly, the LORD commanded Abraham “to walk [halak] before [lepani]” Him (Genesis 17:1; cf. 48:15), and, like Noah, “to be sound [tamim]” in judgment. But he is not asked “to walk [halak] with [‘eth]” Him. Nor is it ever reported that he did.
Moses [Moshe] addressed the young nation of Israel in Deuteronomy 10:12, saying:
Now, Israel, what does the LORD your God
require from you,
but to fear the LORD your God,
to walk in all His ways and love Him,
and to serve the LORD your God
with all your heart and with all your soul…
Joshua, near the end of his rule over Israel, repeats almost the same words as his predecessor Moses in Joshua 22:5: “… love the LORD your God and walk in all His ways and keep His commandments and hold fast to Him and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul.”
Kind David was known to walk before God (cf. 1 Kings 3:14). He told his son Solomon to do the same: “And keep the charge of the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, to keep his statutes, his commandments, his ordinances, and his testimonies, according to what is written in the law of Moses” (2:3). In Leviticus 26:13-19, the LORD tells Israel:
I am the LORD your God,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt
so that you would not be their slaves,
and I broke the bars of your yoke
and made you walk [halak] upright [qomemiyyuth]...
But if you do not obey me
and do not carry out all these commandments,
if you reject my statutes,
and if your soul abhors my judgments
so as not to carry out all my commandments,
to break my covenant,
I, in turn, will do this to you…
I will break down your pride [gaon] of power.
I will make your sky like iron
and your land like bronze.
The LORD warned that if his people failed to walk upright in obedience to Him, to his law and covenant, if they became proud of their power as if they were indigenous of God, He would no longer make them to walk upright before Him. They would fall under their own weight, unable to sustain themselves. And, time and again, they did.
Israel’s cure remains national repentance. Our cure is no different. We, too, must repent, turning away from ourselves to God in Messiah, the Upright Man, who fills up the law in himself and gives us a new covenant to guarantee our salvation.
The Messiah takes us into his walk with Father God. We do not walk with God in the sense of Enoch and Noah. Nor now do we walk before God in the sense of Abraham, Isaac, Moses, Joshua and David in their efforts to fulfill the righteousness of law by faith.
With the coming of the Messiah and in the fullness of his redemptive work for Israel and the nations, we no longer seek to establish our righteousness in ourselves or by the support of codified law. Rather, those who trust in the Messiah with all their hearts and souls and depend exclusively upon Him for their righteousness, now walk in the Messiah who became God in flesh as the Second Adam. Not with, nor before, but in Messiah.
He is the fullness of the Torah with all its laws and statutes, filling it up entirely in Himself as the Holy and Anointed One of God. He became the Maker of the New Covenant that guarantees more than long-term survival of the human race, but guarantees salvation for eternity for all who repent and receive Him as Savior and Lord. Law and covenant remain, the law being internalized on our hearts, and the covenant remaining external, its sign being the cup of communion.
Therefore, we walk not after the flesh in its legal restraints, but in the Spirit of Messiah who sets us free to be human again. We live by participating in Him as He walks with his Father.
Because law is not done away with in the Messiah, but made complete in Him, his Holy Spirit who writes his Torah with all its laws upon our hearts. Law still exists in codified form, of course, for the world is still a composite of crippled people living in community supported by law and covenant. But for those in Messiah it is no longer a matter of a written legal code that we consult in order to know how to live. Importantly, we have an intuitive sense of God’s law written on our hearts of flesh to love God and others. God’s law is internalized and intuitive for those who receive the Messiah. He grants us capacity by walking in Him to obey his law of love.
The Messiah makes us into a new, spiritual community. Where there is law and covenant, community is held together. The fact that Jesus [Yeshua] is the Living Torah and the Maker of a New Covenant indicates that community continues in Him. Those who do receive the Messiah in this period of time, the Second World Era, are made by Him into a new community of faith. Jew and Gentile belong to this community, beginning with the Jews first, then the Gentiles.
Jesus [Yeshua] prayed that we all may be one [echad] as He and the Father are one [echad]. The notion of “all for one, one for all” reappears in this new community as it appeared when God gave the first laws and made the first covenant. This time, however, the community transcends the old nature of human community. It is a community of the Spirit and not the letter of the law.
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