All of the words in the Torah translated as 'obey' are variations on 'shema', 'listen'. God explicitly forbids making any sort of image to be used in worship - even worship of Him. Seeing and listening provide two very different levels of understanding. Seeing is superficial and detached from the one being observed. It tells nothing of what's going on inside. Listening, on the other hand, can provide an entirely different level of understanding, since it goes past the superficial and and allows the speaker to expose what's inside.

In both of these two short letters, John speaks of the duty and limits to Christian hospitality. In one he warns against extending hospitality to those who would sow confusion about the identity of Messiah and in the other he commends hospitality to missionaries.

The corruption of Jerusalem has become so great that even God expressed His surprise. They were burning their children for Baal in the Valley of Ben Hinnom. Therefore God was going to turn the entire city into a place for burying the bodies of the people of Judah. In doing this He would defile the place entirely.

When evil is in the minority, it tries to be attractive and seductive. When it is in the majority, it becomes ugly and coercive. It is thus possible to gauge the moral state of a society by the prevalence of coercion in service of things that God clearly says are wrong.

John closes his first letter with what seems almost like a throw away line, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols." Far from being a non sequitur, that line summarizes the entire letter.

The heart, being preoccupied with the things of the world loses focus on the things of God. This loss of focus cascades until Judah is so deep in sin that she must be sent into exile. Even then, God offers hope that if they just kept Shabbat things might turn around.

Over the past three millenia calamities have happened to the Hebrew people on the ninth day of the month of Av. Remembrance of those events have shaped the Israelite character and community. So too with everyone; community history and personal experience shape our character and perspective. The past cannot be changed, but the future is not yet written. If circumstances have brought you to an unsatisfactory place, with a decision and the help of God that can be changed.

John speaks of Messiah abiding in us, we in Him and we in God. The criteria for this are belief that Y'shua is the Son of God who came in the flesh and obedience to His commandments.

Judah has made one of her formulaic expressions of regret and repentance, but God does not believe their sincerity. He says that He is weary of relenting from exercising the negative side of His covenant. The nation is to be conquered and sent into exile.

Numbers ends with a list of the places where Israel camped in the wilderness. The message here is that between liberation and the Promised land there is a long period of testing and travel and that this process takes more than a single generation. Indeed, between the Exodus and present day, Israel has spent the majority of the time sojourning away from the land. This says something important about God's plans for the world.