The Berean Expositor
Volume 34 - Page 123 of 261
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Mitsrach
"Toward the Sunrising."
(A motto for all Bereans, for the year 1947).
pp. 1 - 3
In the home of any orthodox Jew one will find, to this day, a strange device hanging
upon the east wall of the house. It is called a Mitsrach. Often it takes the form of the
ten commandments. Any who have access to Volume IV of The Berean Expositor will
find on page 62 (or Volume IV/V, page 51) a description and illustration of articles
used in the synagogue and Jewish home. The articles numbered 5 and 6, give some idea
of what a Mitsrach looks like. This word means "From the rising", and is hung upon the
east wall so that prayer can be directed toward Jerusalem. Now we have no intention of
hanging a Mitsrach on any wall of our house, nor of advising any of our readers to adopt
this Jewish custom, but we mention it here because of the lesson it may enforce.
The full expression is Mitsrach Shemesh. "From the rising of the sun", "Toward the
sunrising" (Numb. 21: 11). In Numb. 21: we have the record of Israel's transgression,
the lifting up of the brazen serpent and the healing of all who "looked". The concluding
words are.
"And the children of Israel set forward . . . . . toward the sunrising" (Numb. 21: 10, 11).
We believe every redeemed child of God is expected to follow this course. First to
"set forward". Redemption is a deliverance "out of", therefore Egypt must be left behind.
It is however more than that; it has an inheritance in view, and this must be entered and
possessed. Consequently we discover that from the moment the Passover had been
offered Israel were on the move, and though they wandered forty years in the wilderness,
the word translated "set forward" (Heb. nasa) is used of that period forty-two times in the
record of the itinerary of  Numb. 33:,  where it is variously rendered "depart",
"remove" or "journey".
Among the earliest commands given to the redeemed people under Moses is that
found in Exod. 14: 15, "Speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward". If the
typical teaching of Israel's deliverance be acknowledged, it appears that Christian witness
also must be a "setting forward". There can be no turning back. There is however a great
difference between setting forward along the Divinely appointed path, and merely
blundering onward without guide or goal. Consequently we must add to our statement
taken from Exod. 14: further words of guidance from subsequent passages.
In Numb. 10: 33, for example, we read, "And they departed from the mount of the
Lord", and the word translated "departed" is nasa.  But this statement is followed
immediately by another, "and the ark of the covenant of the Lord went before them".
Here once again the word "went" is a translation of nasa. Further, in Numb. 10: 34, we
read, "And the cloud of the Lord was upon them by day, when they went (nasa) out of
the camp", and yet once more in verse 35 we read the words, "When the ark set forward",