For the week of May 3, 2025 / 5 Iyar 5785

Tazria & Metzora
Torah: Vayikra/Leviticus 12:1-15:33
Haftarah: 2 M’lachim/2 Kings 7:3-20

This day is a day of good news (2 M’lachim/2 Kings 7:9)

This week’s Haftarah (selected reading from the Hebrew Prophets) includes one of the Scriptures’ most surprising turnarounds. The northern kingdom of Israel’s capital city, Shomron (English: Samaria), was under siege by the Arameans (ESV: Syrians). The famine was so severe that the people were eating their own children! Eventually, the prophet Elisha prophesied a sudden end to the siege and a complete economic upturn. In the natural, this was impossible.

In the meantime, four men afflicted with leprosy decided to surrender to the Arameans, thinking they had nothing to lose given their desperate situation in the city. The mention of these men is likely why this story was chosen for the Haftarah, since the parsha (Torah reading portion) refers to leprosy. To their surprise, when they arrived at the enemy’s camp, it was deserted. We read:

For the Lord had made the army of the Arameans (ESV: Syrians) hear the sound of chariots and of horses, the sound of a great army, so that they said to one another, “Behold, the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Egypt to come against us.” So they fled away in the twilight and abandoned their tents, their horses, and their donkeys, leaving the camp as it was, and fled for their lives” (2 M’lachim/2 Kings 7:6–7).

As the men helped themselves to the goods left behind, they realized they shouldn’t keep this turn of events to themselves. They said to each other, “We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news. If we are silent and wait until the morning light, punishment will overtake us. Now therefore come; let us go and tell the king’s household” (2 M’lachim/2 Kings 7:9). The Hebrew word, translated as “good news” in the English Standard Version and others, is b’sorah.

Interestingly, the Septuagint (LXX), the ancient, standard Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, translates b’sorah here as euangelion. This is the word used in the New Covenant Writings (the New Testament), which in English became “gospel” or “good news.” Surveying b’sorah in the Hebrew Scriptures demonstrates that the news so proclaimed wasn’t necessarily always “good” for everyone. It depended on how you related to the particular news being announced.

That’s certainly true for Israel’s turn of events in this story. What was good news for Israel was bad news for the Arameans. Messiah’s b’sorah is different as its universal goodness is based on how we relate to it. If we receive Yeshua on his terms, then it’s good beyond comprehension. However, not only will it not go well for those who reject him, but also how such people regard this otherwise good news becomes warped and severely misconstrued.

There’s other news this week that functions similarly to Messiah’s b’sorah. Like the story in the Haftarah, it has to do with a remarkable turnaround in the history of Israel. But like Messiah’s b’sorah, its goodness depends on how we relate to it. Tragically, many people’s view of this, like the Gospel, is entirely obscured by all sorts of misunderstandings and conflicting values. I am referring to Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel Independence Day. This Thursday marks seventy-seven years since the birth of the modern State of Israel. The return of the Jewish people to our ancient homeland is b’sorah, which should be proclaimed and celebrated worldwide if only people understood it correctly.

Some of the remarkable aspects of this include: the modern state of Israel was established after 2000 years of exile from our ancient homeland in the wake of attempted genocide (two-thirds of the European Jewish community, half of the worldwide Jewish community, died in the Holocaust). After Israel declared independence, Israel survived the united onslaught of five Arab nations and, within the next three years, absorbed 700,000 Jewish refugees and immigrants, doubling its population. Through it all, it integrated a vast array of languages and cultures and revived Hebrew as a living everyday language after more than two thousand years. Despite ongoing existential challenges, Israel has thrived in so many ways, including being an extraordinarily pluralistic and democratic society and a world leader in agricultural, medical, and computer technology.

I could go on, but that won’t change the fact that a great many people don’t regard Israel’s miraculous rebirth as good news—anything but. This tragic misunderstanding reflects a view of the world contrary to God’s plan and purposes. To navigate the world effectively and be the people God desires requires a biblical view of Israel, one that can celebrate the good news of another anniversary.

Scriptures taken from the English Standard Version