Numbers 10:35: “And it came to pass, when the ark set forward, that Moses said: Rise up Lord and let your enemies be scattered and let them that hate you flee before you.”
“God protect me from my friends, I can take care of my enemies myself.” Abraham Lincoln
I read Numbers 10:35 in the Jerusalem Targum, an Aramaic translation of the Scriptures with commentary attached, sort of like the Living Bible of its day; and found it read “Rise up Word of the Lord and let your enemies be scattered. Although the Targum is just a translation and not considered the true inspired Word of God, the sages did however view this passage in a Messianic light. In fact this passage is set off by two inverted Nuns. This is a rare glyph often referred to as an Ach and Rak (from Kap and Resh) and sets it apart from the rest of the passage. Jewish literature teaches that the inverted Nuns in this passage create a separate book in itself. I personally believe the inverted Nuns pick this passage up and transports it to the New Testament as a prayer to Jesus to rise up against His enemies and those that hate him and they will be scattered and flee. Jesus rose up against the religious Jews who placed the Oral tradition on the same level as Scripture and rejected him as their Messiah and as a result they were scattered. These were the enemies of Jesus and in 70 AD when Jerusalem fell they were scattered throughout the world. We also learn in James 4:7 that if we resist the devil, He will flee from us.”
So in my humble opinion I believe the inverted Nuns were meant to separate this passage to speak of a time in the future when the Messiah (Jesus) would come and the descendants of Moses would reject this Messiah and in fact become his enemy and they would be scattered as a result. It also predicted that He would defeat those that hate Him which would be the devil and his demons and they would flee from Him.
Take a look at this word for enemy, it is oyev. It looks and sounds like the word ahev which means a friend or lover. The word used here is oyev is where the Name Job comes from. Job means one who is persecuted. The sages teach that oyev is a word meaning enemy, but an enemy who masquerades as a friend or lover. Such an enemy is far more dangerous as an antagonist, because you trust in them.
The other word for enemy here is rendered as hate and is the word sonei. The sonei’s will flee. I believe James 4:7 expressing the idea of the devil fleeing is a reference to this passage separated by the inverted Nuns. The reason I believe this is because the word sonei is taught by the sages to be onomatopoeic (a word whose sound describes what it is). This is a hissing sound, the sound that a snake uses to announce its presence before it strikes. It would seem that the Hebrew word sonei references a spiritual enemy which we see as the devil (the serpent or dragon) and his demons.
Thus Moses’s prayer is that those who profess love and friendship to God, the oyev, but really express love and friendship for their own personal agenda or gain should be scattered or dispersed. The spiritual enemy, the devil and his demons, the hissing ones or the soneis will present no threat and will flee by themselves.
But soft! Those oyevs who claim love and friendship to God but are really serving God out of self-interest and personal gain, will be scattered which in the Hebrew is yapetsu. The word scattered yapetsu has two possible roots which are patsah or pavats. Pavats means to be scattered like broken into pieces. Patsah means to be scattered in the sense of being torn away from that which is threatening you and to be saved or delivered. If I follow the line of thinking that the inverted Nuns transport this passage to the time of Jesus, then I believe the root word for scatter is patsah. The scattering of Israel after 70 AD after their rejection of Jesus as the Messiah was an act of mercy on the part of God to remove them from the threat against their relationship with God. That threat was tradition and religious impurity. He scattered them throughout the world as a cleansing process so that one day they would return to their land and enter into a purity in their worship and relationship to God.
If we are an enemy or oyev to God, if we pretend to be His lover or friend, but have a personal agenda or use Him for our own pride or personal gain, whether monetary or just to gain respect and honor among men, God will patsah us, tear us away from this abomination, take us to a land where He can cleanse our motives and bring us into a purity in our worship and relationship to Him.
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