When God says, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay” (Deut. 32:35; Rom. 12:19; Heb. 10:30), He means it. We can take matters into our own hands and enact a form of justice on those who commit evil against us and our people, but we can only right the wrong done to us. Our acts of justice don’t vindicate God and bring Him honor and glory.

We see the intersection of vengeance and mercy in the 10th plague on Egypt, memorialized in the annual remembrances of Passover and Unleavened Bread, two key lessons in the Torah reading בוא Bo (“come,” Exodus 10:1-13:16).

Those annual appointed times also are key lessons that teach us about the Messiah in the Gospels.

Feasting on Yeshua

The Hebrew words mitzvot (commandments) and matzot (unleavened bread) have an identical root, which is מצה.

When reading the Torah in the original Hebrew, you can only ascertain which word is being used in context. What we have here is a play on words. When we feast the unleavened bread, we are supposed to also symbolically or mystically feast upon the commandments of God.

Yeshua brought this point out when He was being tempted by HaSatan in the wilderness (Matt. 4:1-11) and Yeshua rebuked him by quoting Deut. 8:3:

““He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD.” (Deuteronomy 8:3 NASB)

How God punishes Egypt and her gods for slavery and genocide

Moses and Aaron did not participate in any way in the 10th plague in the way they had in the previous nine plagues. God performed the 10th plague on His own.

Moses and Aaron had to put the blood on their doors and wait patiently for the angel of death to finish his work just like all the rest of the people of Israel.

“Moses said, “Thus says the LORD, ‘About midnight I am going out into the midst of Egypt, and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of the Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the millstones; all the firstborn of the cattle as well. Moreover, there shall be a great cry in all the land of Egypt, such as there has not been before and such as shall never be again. But against any of the sons of Israel a dog will not even bark, whether against man or beast, that you may understand how the LORD makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.’ “All these your servants will come down to me and bow themselves before me, saying, ‘Go out, you and all the people who follow you,’ and after that I will go out.” (Exodus 11:4–8 NASB)

It’s in a dog’s nature to alert his or her master to stranger danger yet Moses tells Pharaoh that after God goes through and kills all their first born, even their dogs will show fear respect for the people of Israel. That is how strong the God of Israel is compared to all the false gods of the world. He will command both men and animals to respect His people.

The “gods” of Egypt were not merely fantasy. Angels who had fallen from their station and became demons are the inspiration for most, if not all the false gods. These demons receive false worship when people worship these false gods in another name.

And God was publicly shaming them.

“Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may perform these signs of Mine among them, and that you may tell in the hearing of your son,

The Torah reading Va’era (Ex. 6:2–9:35) is the first of two accounts of how the 10 plagues on Mitzraim (Egypt) humbled a superpower of the time to bring freedom not just to Israel but to the entire world.

How much more would Heaven’s sending the quintessential Son of Man to humble the “prince of the power of the air” win freedom for Israel, and by extension the whole world.

Victuals from Va’era

* Our forebears in faith were charged to take the Name of God to the nations. Are we proclaiming the Name or blaspheming it?* Are we hardening our hearts against the plans of Heaven or working toward them? It is easy to resist where Heaven is going, that is why we have to check ourselves. We need to measure ourselves to see if we have really left our house of bondage. Have we repented of our actions or do we merely regret our actions?* Do we acknowledge with our very lives that we know who’s really in charge of the Earth?* Yes, there are moral lessons and shadows of Messiah in this reading, but this is real history! In other words, real Israel in Egypt, real plagues, real redemption.

The cycle of plagues we see in Exodus are repeated in the book of Revelation. Also we see that just as Pharaoh hardened his heart, dug in his heels and refuse to submit to HaShem, the leaders of the earth in the last days will be the same.

Everyone experienced the first three plagues but starting with the fourth plague, God made a distinction between where the children of Israel lived in Goshen vs. the rest of Mitzraim (Egypt).

Most of the plagues were inflicted on all the citizens of Mitzraim, but starting with the seventh plague, the people of Mitzraim did have a choice to avoid the consequences of the hail. Moses called out to the people of Mitzraim to exercise just a little faith and compassion and to bring their livestock and servants indoors to save them from the hail to come. Those who headed Moses’ warning didn’t lose their servants and livestock in the plagues. The stubborn ones who refused to believe Moses’ words and those who lacked compassion for the animals and servants entrusted to them lost those livestock and servants to death by the hail.

Ezekiel’s prophecy against Pharaoh (Ezekiel 28:25–29:21)

In the haftarah (parallel reading) for Parashat Bo, the prophet Ezekiel was speaking to the descendants of Israel about 1,000 years after the Exodus. They are being threatened with exile from the land that God had given them. Israel thought Mitzraim had their back, but that mighty nation had been crippled over time.

The people of Israel had fallen down by trusting in Mitzraim to save it from a long-running folly of trusting in mankind’s power and understanding of the source of power, rather than trusting in the Source of life and existence as well as Israel itself.

Don’t trust in a Mitzraim, Babylon or another power that’s supposedly more powerful than the LORD’s promises.

From Babylon on, Mitzraim was a vassal state of all the subsequent empires that came through, including the Persians, Greeks, Romans and the Islamic empires.

What do we see in the book of Revelation? Again, there will be those who will appeal to Babylon for a sense of safety, but it is an illusion.

‘Finger of God’ vs. Lord of Flies (Luke 11:14–23; Matt. 12:22–30)

How is Yeshua’s rebuke to the crowds and the Pharisees who couldn’t ...

In the Torah reading שמות Shemot (“names,” Ex. 1:1–6:1) and its parallel passage, we learn about Moses and Samuel, great leaders of ancient Israel. But their greatness came from their humility, not grasping at the reins of power. Because of their meekness, Heaven appointed them to be chief agents of the power of Heaven on Earth.

How much more does the Messiah, the exact representation of Heaven (Heb. 1:3), show us what a faith-worth leader should be.

Who does God remember?

When the Torah gives us the name of a person, it’s because God wants us to remember that person for some reason. The reason we don’t know the name of the pharaoh that was the oppressor of the Hebrews is that God didn’t want him to be remembered. This is why to this day we can only guess as to which pharaoh was the arch-oppressor of Israel.

In Egyptian theology, if your name is forgotten on earth, your spirit dies in heaven. God was happy to make sure this particular pharaoh’s name was forgotten so that his name died with him.

On the other hand, the names of the righteous midwives who refused to kill the Hebrew babies are recorded for us so their memory is eternally with us.

God valued these people enough to make sure their names were recorded and if He finds them valuable, we should too. He also rewarded these midwives with households that survived the onslaught that decimated the rest of Egypt.

Playbook of oppression: taxation and slavery

Pharaoh’s attempts to check the Israelite proliferation unfolded in four stages which were more oppressive. First they were subjected to forced or draft labor, slavery, a secret attempt to murder newborn boys, and a public attempt to do the same.

They also attack the leadership of the community they want to dehumanize, then they use those humiliated leaders to humiliate and subjugate the others. Oppressors always use incremental steps to subjugate others. That is human nature, which was the same in the time of the Pharaoh as it was in the days of Hitler as it is now.

The Egyptians were enslaved to Pharaoh by having to pay him 20% of their income every year, but the type of slavery he forced on the Israelites was far more brutal.

The slavery in Egypt doesn’t appear to be chattel slavery that we think of in America. Based on Moses’ statement to Pharaoh that the children of Israel needed to take their own flocks with them into the desert for three days to worship HaShem, we can ascertain that the slavery of Egypt was more of an extreme sort of feudalism or serfdom where they had to give Pharaoh their labor for a good portion of the year.

Amram and Jochebed had three children: Aaron, Miriam and Moses. Aaron was three years older than Moses and it is most likely that Pharaoh’s edict to kill the Hebrew boys was put into law well after Aaron was born and was only applied to the youngest children. It appears that Pharaoh’s edict to throw all the Hebrew boys into the Nile was not retroactive.

The midwives who spared the Hebrew boys from execution used very sophisticated racist code-language to plant the idea in Pharaoh’s head that the Hebrew women didn’t need midwives because they bred like animals.

The best leaders are those who don’t want to be

When God calls Moses at the burning bush, we are told the bush was a thorn bush. I don’t know for sure why God chose a thorn bush rather than another tree for this revelation but this is not the last time we read about thorn bushes in the TaNaKh.

Just as Judah and his brothers did not recognize the gentile Egyptian governor as their flesh and blood Hebrew brother Joseph, many Christians may not recognize their Jewish Messiah, Yeshua (Jesus) of Nazareth, when He returns to Earth for His bride.

In Torah reading ויגש Vayigash (“he approached,” Genesis 44:18–47:27), Joseph disguised himself as a gentile to save Egypt and the entire world from famine. Yeshua’s apostle Paul tells us that the Messiah disguised Himself from His Jewish kin for a time for the sake of the Gentiles, but He will reveal Himself as our Jewish Messiah at His second coming. The question is, are we prepared to see Him as He really is?

Joseph’s testing of his brothers was pretty obvious, particularly regarding his favoritism towards Benjamin. Joseph’s entrapment of Benjamin as a thief catches his older brothers so off guard they don’t  know what to think so they operate under the assumption that the governor’s accusation against Benjamin is true.

Judah’s plea to the governor of Egypt for Benjamin’s life is purely emotional. As the brothers interacted with Joseph at various times, there were some things that were amiss, such as the return of their money the first time and how he was able to seat them in perfect birth order but, when Judah confronts Joseph, he is careful not to accuse Joseph of any wrongdoing. 

He appeals to Joseph’s heart, which is what you do when you have no concrete facts to present in your defense. However, did Joseph believe Judah? At some level Joseph did believe him but at another level, Joseph still did not believe that Judah or the other brothers were honest men.

Even though Judah tells Joseph several times over the course of their interactions that their father is alive, the first question Joseph asks after he reveals his true identity is “Is my father still alive?” Joseph knew his brothers knew how to lie. 

What Joseph didn’t know until he put them to the test is that Judah has grown up since experiencing the death of his own sons and how he protected his youngest son.

Judah also had greater empathy for Jacob and his anguish over Joseph and Benjamin. Judah would rather go into slavery than to see his father lose another son. 

Joseph has learned that Judah has really grown up, now Joseph can have a real relationship with him and the rest of his brothers. 

Later when the brothers go to Egypt to bring Jacob back to Egypt, Jacob didn’t believe Judah and his other sons either, their lies had been exposed. 

The brothers didn’t believe Joseph either when he first revealed himself to them either. 

Joseph is a messianic figure. Joseph lived before the Messiah and fulfilled a part of the Messiah’s mission. The partial fulfillments of various pre-Messianic figures helps us know who the Messiah is when we actually see Him. 

There are some parts of Joseph’s life that parallel Messiah Yeshua. 

Joseph

Yeshua

Joseph was imprisoned with two notables of Pharaoh’s house.

Yeshua was crucified with two thieves. 

One prisoner lived (wine=blood), other died (bread=flesh). 

One of the thieves repented and gained eternal life, the other thief did not repent. 

Joseph asks the survivor to remember him. 

Yeshua promised to remember the repentant thief. 

All of the family are under his authority

All of His people are under His authority

Now let’s compare Joseph to King David and Yeshua Messiah so we can see the Messianic threads more clearly. 

David had many sons but the son that caused him the most grief was Absolom, but of all of David’s sons, Absolom was the one whose life had the most Messianic hints (except mayby Solomon). 

Joseph

David

Yeshua

Heaven calls us to be “ambassadors” of the Messiah (Christ) and “temple(s) of God” (1Cor. 3:16; 6:19), and Yeshua (Jesus) called His body a temple (John 2:19–22).

The prophet Haggai’s message was that the House of God is not a building, but it does reflect the heart condition of the people. Haggai proclaimed that the glory of God and foretold a time when God will fill His house with a greater glory than He did when Solomon commissioned the first Temple (Hag. 2:9). That greater glory arrived when Yeshua stepped foot into the Temple during the Festival of the Dedication (Chanukah, John 10:22-39) in fulfillment of what that prophet foretold would be a crucial work of the Mashiakh (Christ).

The gospel by apostle Yokhanan recounts Yeshua’s teaching in the Temple at the time of Hanukkah/Chanukah, which is called the Feast of the Dedication.

The gospel of John is a lot like Paul’s letter of Romans. It’s laid out as a running discussion from beginning to end. The gospel is a methodically and thematically laid out book. There are a couple of key statements in John 10 that really stirred up Yeshua’s audience.

None of the accounts Yokhanan brings into his gospel are haphazard, just as Yeshua’s visits to the Temple were never haphazard. During His celebration of Chanukah in the Temple, He proclaimed there, “I and the Father are one” (Jn. 10:30), clarifying shortly thereafter, “the Father is in Me, and I in the Father” (Jn. 10:38).

Yokhanan collected this account with those of what Yeshua said and did between a celebration of Sukkot (Festival of Tabernacles/Booths) in the seventh month of Israel’s calendar (roughly September–October) and the eight-day celebration of Chanukah, starting on the 25th day of the ninth month (typically in December).

* John 7: Yeshua goes to the Temple during Sukkot.

* John 8: Yeshua pardons a woman caught in adultery and teaches about true light in the world.

* John 9: Yeshua, ‘light of the world,’ brings ‘light’ to a man born blind.

* John 10 continues the discussion of chapter 9: the blindness of key leaders that Yeshua was the Messiah by way of His teachings and use of God’s power.

A deep dive into Chanukah: The Hell of Hellenism

The history behind Chanukah mirrors the themes of this week’s Torah reading: מקצ Miketz/Miqetz, covering Gen. 41:1–44:17. Miketz continues the story of Jacob and Rache’s oldest son Yosef. the title means “from the end,” relating to “at the end of two years” (Gen. 41:1). The Sages and commentators have noted over the centuries that this phrase points to the future.

Two major themes of Miketz:

* Yosef’s rise: Key to this is the God-given insight into pharaoh’s dreams, which positions Yosef as the savior of Mitzraim and Yisrael. 

* Yisrael’s descent: Famine drives Yisrael and his family into Mitzraim for food. This is the LORD’s doing.

The history of Chanukah leading up to the time of the gospels is recorded in the Apocrypha books 1–4 Maccabees (mostly 1Maccabees). The Jewish people’s descent into Hellenism was a slow slide but it was arrested for a time when that which was considered weak (the priestly Maccabees) were able to gain the upper hand and kick the evil empire out. 

The Maccabean movement overcame a far larger, better-trained and equipped army under Greek Seleucid king Antiochus IV (Epiphanes), who profaned the Temple. 

The cultures of the Greek world blatantly co-opted and adopted the pagan practices of their conquered peoples. In modern parlance, we would call the Greek’s rampant cultural appropriation Hellenism. 

The priests then rededicated the Temple on the 25th day of the ninth month (also called Kislev) in 165 B.C. They celebrated for eight days to mirror the eight-day festival of Sukkot they weren’t able to celebrate two months before.

The accounts in Torah reading וישב Vayeshev (“he settled,” Gen. 37:1–40:23) of Judah’s hooking up with his daughter-in-law and Joseph foretelling the rise and deeper fall of his jailmates seem as unrelated as they are dismaying. But the two actually contain prophecies that reveal the transforming work of the Messiah.

The first person we will discuss is Joseph. There are four “first born” sons in Jacob’s family: Reuben, Joseph, Dan and Gad.

When Reuben lost his right of the firstborn by his sexual relationship with Jacob’s concubine Bilhah, Joseph as the first born of the second wife inherited the right of the first born. Joseph’s dreams about being the first born was correct.

Later Joseph’s descendants obtain the double portion when both Manasseh and Ephraim are both elevated as equal tribes in the nation of Israel.

Amos 3:1-8 tells us that God reveals His will to His prophets first. Ezekiel 33 also tells us that if a prophet remains silent when God warns him of a calamity, the blood of those who died are on the prophet’s head. The prophet must share God’s message, whether it was in the best interest of the prophet or not.

Reuben had no hand in the conspiracy to dispose of Joseph. He desired to protect Joseph. He treated Joseph the way he wanted to be treated. I don’t think that Reuben was ever told in full about what the other brothers had done to Joseph. The brother’s respected Reuben enough not to kill Joseph, but they also went along with Judah’s decision to sell Joseph off.

For all the years that Joseph was in Egypt, one wonders why Joseph didn’t send word back to Canaan that he was still alive. There seems to be something in Joseph’s nature to not contact Jacob while he was the head of Potiphar’s household. I suspect that Joseph already understood that he was in Egypt because of God’s will, not because of his brothers.

Judah had three sons with a Canaanite wife and we are told that Judah “separated himself from his siblings.” We don’t know if that was before or after they had sent Joseph away because the bible is not written in a strictly chronological order.

I want to compare Judah and Joseph and show you how similar their stories are, as recorded in this parashat.

Judah

Joseph

He travels to Adullam

He travels to Egypt

Tamar (forbidden to him)

Potiphar’s wife (forbidden to him)

Tamar removes her garment, covers her face

Removes Joseph’s garment

Disguised as harlot

She acts as a harlot

Obtains Judah’s signet, staff, belt

Possesses Joseph’s garment

Accused of harlotry

Treated like a harlot

Ordered to death

Ordered to prison

Exonerated based on evidence

Finds favor in the eyes of the warden

Declared righteous

Lifted up as greater than the other prisoners

Twin sons: Zerah and Perez

Baker and cupbearer

Both Tamar and Judah rightfully deserved death because Tamar was promised to Shelah, Judah’s youngest sons. They committed adultery against Shelah but they were not executed.

Both women, Tamar and Potiphar’s wife conducted themselves in such a way that we would never encourage our daughters to act. Sleeping with one’s father in law or trying to seduce your husband’s young employee are equally gross. Later when Moses reveals the Torah, these types of relationships are bluntly forbidden.

When we look at Zerah and Perez, we see that Zerah, who was the literal first born, was downgraded while Perez, who broke through and took the first born status was elevated to become the ancestor of King David and the Messiah himself. Perez received the greater blessing.

The Torah reading וַיִּשְׁלַח Vayishlach (“and he sent,” Genesis 32:4–36:43) gives us an active example of what the apostle Paul calls the “ministry of reconciliation” (2Cor. 5:18). We see Jacob’s offering to Esau. The mission of the ambassadors of the kingdom of heaven is the same. Abraham went, Isaac went and now Jacob went out and returned.

The LORD sends us into the world to be His ambassadors and part of the kingdom of priests. Will we go? Will we face challenges of our own making or ones that are out of our control?

Division is toxic to the Kingdom of God. How are we living this out? The Kingdoms of Israel and Judah were separated and they are still separated. But one of the great hopes we read in the TaNaK (Torah, Prophets and Writings, i.e., the Hebrew Scriptures) is that separation will be healed (Ezek. 37:15–22).

“If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.” (Romans 12:18 NASB)

Yeshua tells us in the Beatitudes that those who make peace are happy and blessed. There are those who don’t want peace like we see in the history of the people of Edom, but even though not everyone wants to live in peace, we must strive for it without naiveté.

In other words: Get over it! If somenone offends us, in the name of peace, we need to get over ourselves and think of how to win our brother.

But division must exist between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of Edom, between the realm of the eternal and the realm of the temporary.

Struggling with God has been an important part of the people of God from the beginning.

Adam and Chavah (Eve) “wrestled” with the instruction to trust the LORD or the voice of the serpent.

The appearance of an agent of Elohim to wrestle with Ya’akob is a reminder that the spiritual realm can use agents to act or speak for them, such as the serpent in Eden for the Adversary. We need to remember that much of the spiritual realm is beyond our senses yet it is very real.

Money and information are also spiritual. How is money spiritual? When there’s a crisis and we have stockpiled food and someone wants to buy some food from us for some pieces of paper with a dead president or dead monarch on it, would we be willing to engage in that exchange? Probably not, if we don’t know when we will have more food.

The only reason those pieces of paper have any purchasing power is because of the faith we have in the government that issues them. If there’s no more faith in that government, then the money they issue doesn’t have value either.

When we think of information or language as spiritual, we can download hundreds of video and books onto our computer tablets, yet the tablet weighs the same. The increase in information doesn’t increase the weight of the computer tablet but we still engage in something of value.

Abraham had a vivid vision of God as a torch in deep blackness, passing between the sacrifice pieces to seal the deal single-handedly with Abraham.

Though the account doesn’t say what time of day the LORD came after Moshe’s uncircumcised sons during the trip to Mitsraim from Midian, it could have been at night (Ex. 4:24–26). The account says they were “at the lodging place,” presumably after traveling by daylight. Zipporah seems to have “wrestled” with God on Moshe’s behalf.

Israel “wrestled” with God’s destroyer during the night of the first Passover, “prevailing” over the destroyer via the blessing of the blood of the Pesakh (Passover) lamb/goat.

Lesson: Apostle Paul admonished the Ephesian congregation to “put on all of God’s armor” — truth, righteousness, readiness of news about peace from the Kingdom of God, trust in God, God’s salvation and the word of God — because:

“our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

The Scottish poet Robert Burns said, “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”  This famous quote summarizes quite nicely the trajectory of Jacob’s life from the time he pretended to be Esau and took Esau’s blessing to the time he returned from Laban’s house 20 years later.

Jacob and Rebecca’s conspiracy to steal the blessing Isaac wanted to give Esau,  and Laban’s various conspiracies against Jacob had eternal consequences, as well study in the Torah reading ויצא Vayetze/Vayetzei (“he went out,” Gen. 28:10–32:2).

“And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28 NASB)

Isaac, so far as we know, never left the Promised Land, so he had no first hand knowledge of the land which he was sending Jacob. Isaac had no idea the trials and lessons Jacob would encounter in Aram. 

The first place Jacob stops for a nights rest was at the place called Luz. The Scriptures tell us that when God gives a person a dream, it’s prophetic in nature. They are not for the recipient of the dream to keep to themselves, but for the future, too. 

The firs thing Jacob notices is a ladder or stairs and messengers of God traveling up and down this ladder. Angels do not need stairs or ladders, so it’s obvious the dream Jacob sees is prophetic and not literal. 

This dream gave Jacob great comfort during a time when he was starting on his refugee journey from the safety of his home to the new and strange land of his mother’s family in Aram.

Although Jacob and Esau had an agreement regarding the birthright, it had nothing to do with Isaac. It was never God’s intention for Jacob to inherit any physical wealth from Isaac.

At the end of it all, Esau received his wealth from Isaac, while Jacob received his wealth from Laban, which was God’s plan all along.

On the surface, God’s comment, “I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you” seems to imply that God will only be with Jacob until Jacob returns from Aram, but when you read God’s promises, they extend to Jacob’s descendants. It’s open-ended for a reason. At this point, Jacob sees God as the God of Abraham and Isaac but not his own God. The agreement that God and Jacob arranged seems to show that Jacob and God didn’t really trust each other yet. 

Jacob thought that all his schemes from bribing Esau with a bowl of soup to his deception of Isaac to get the blessing were tokens of his success but God upends all of Jacob’s “success” during his time living in Aram. 

Jacob was sent into exile because of his selfishness and sibling rivalry. This happens later to his descendants as well during the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles. 

God, by giving Jacob this vision in Bethel, is telling Jacob and Jacob’s descendants that wherever they live outside the land of Israel, that they will always have a link to the Promised Land. 

“But they said, “We cannot, until all the flocks are gathered, and they roll the stone from the mouth of the well; then we water the sheep.”” (Genesis 29:8 NASB)

When Jacob arrives in Haran, he sees a large well with several shepherds surrounding it. No one was allowed to move the rock covering the well until all the shepherds were there. They didn’t trust each other to share the water fair and square. Jacob didn’t care about their rules. He moved the rock all by himself and watered Laban’s flock and then left the rest of the shepherd’s to their own devices. 

“So when Laban heard the news of Jacob his sister’s son, he ran to meet him, and embraced him and kissed him and brought him to his house. Then he related to Laban all these things.” (Genesis 29:13 NASB)

Who we came from doesn’t necessarily define who we are or will become. On the flip side, if we aren’t “born again” (John 3) into the best of the legacy passed to us — the Kingdom of God — we can turn it into an abomination.

The Torah section תולדות Toldot (“generations,” Gen. 25:19–28:9) reminds us that we are called to recognize the good around us and must become wise to the frequent folly of “following your heart.” We should have the desire to be mature and complete in the knowledge of and relationship to God. We should not be dismayed when “curveballs” come our way.

Ya’akov vs. Eysav: Round 1 (Genesis 25:19–34) 

What are toledot or towldah (H8435)? The word translates as “generations” in English and comes from the Hebrew word yalad (H3205).

There are several genealogical lines recorded so far in the Torah:

* of creation (Gen. 2:4)

* of Adam (Gen. 5:1)

* of Noach (Gen. 6:9)

* of the sons of Noach (Gen. 10:1)

* of Shem (Gen. 11:10)

* of Terah (Gen. 11:27)

* of Yishmael (Gen. 25:12)

* of Yitskhak (Gen. 25:19)

We see God is narrowing our focus from the creation to the line of a single family: the descendants of Isaac. 

We see that prophecies demonstrate God’s foresight (knowledge and control of events) and insight (knowledge of what’s really happening now or happened at a certain point).

In this reading, we will be introduced to the two nations descended from the Matriarch Rivka. 

* יַעֲקֹב Ya’akob (Jacob), the “blameless” man

* תָּם tam (H8535), complete; from primitive root תָּמַם tamam (H8552), to complete, in a good or a bad sense

* עֵשָׂו Eysao (Esau), the “hairy red” man, the first Edomite

*  red = אַדְמוֹנִי ʾadmoni (H132), ruddy

* Edom = אֱדוֹם ʾEdowm (H123); from אֱדֹם (H122), ruddy, red

* hairy = שֵׂעָר seʿar (H8181)

* From which will descend the legacy of Abraham to Yitzkhak?

We see that the names Edom and Se’ir become the names of tribes and nations in the Middle East. The nations of Edom and Israel wrestled throughout history.

* Amalaki came from Edom and attacked Israel during the Exodus. Amalek attacks the young and weak, just as a 1 Peter 5:8 warns us. 

* Edom turned away Israel from safe passage during the Exodus.

* David made Edom a vassal after border skirmishes.

* Edomi cheered and helped by inaction the destruction of Yerushalayim by Babylon (Ezek. 25:8; 35:1–15; Obadiah 11). We see this even in our day where the spiritual descendants of Edom are trying to carve up the holy city of Jerusalem and steal it from the Jewish people. 

* Edom hoped to inherit the land after Yehudah was destroyed.

* Edom = Rome = Christianity: Rabbinic view of Psa. 137:7 equated Edom with Yerushalayim-sackers.

“I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises, whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.

But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel; nor are they all children because they are Abraham’s descendants, but: ‘THROUGH ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS WILL BE NAMED.’ That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants.

“’You have heard that it was said, “YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy” (Lev. 19:18; Deut. 23:3-6). But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.’” (Matthew 5:43–45 NASB)

We can learn from Abraham, the father of our faith in God, how to put these words of Yeshua the Messiah (Jesus the Christ) into action in the Torah reading חַיֵּי שָׂרָה Chayey Sarah (“life of Sarah,” Gen. 23:1–25:18). Even as God’s hundreds of years of merciful patience with Canaan’s reprehensible behavior were ticking down, Abraham was praying for the nations’ safety and paying them a large sum for property in the area.

The first topic I want to cover is to compare the conversation that Eliezer had with Rivkah (Rebekah) with a similar conversation Messiah had during his earthly ministry.

Abraham goes to the “sons of Heth” to purchase a burial site for Sarah. Although the “sons of Heth” were descendants of the Hittites, and they were politically dominant but they were not the only ethnic group in Canaan. There were many other groups living in Canaan, such as the Amorites. 

Unforgivable sin?

Most of these tribes were so culturally abhorrent to God that God told Abraham back in Genesis 15 that He in about 400 years, he would wipe out the Amorites and these other Canaanite groups. They were so unteachable and incorrigible that He had to wipe them out of the Promised Land.

Some of these groups were exterminated but most of them were pushed out and they fled elsewhere. However, there were some that the children of Israel refused to push out, disobeying God’s explicit command and they suffered greatly as a result.

As as believers in the Messiah Yeshua, we wonder “How can you possibly say this into great? Is there a sin too great for God to forgive?” This isn’t about forgiveness.

What God has said is that the culture of the Amorites and other Canaanite groups was so foul and the cultures were so severe that they could not be molded and changed. They were too severe and set in their ways to be forgiven.

These groups had institutionalized injustice to such an extent that they couldn’t be fixed. He destroyed them before they got even worse. I don’t even want to guess how much worse they could have become if God hadn’t intervened.

Torah doesn’t record all of the Canaanite’s reprehensible deeds, and that’s God’s wisdom that those deeds weren’t recorded because humans tend to repeat history. We would duplicate what they had done because of our natural curiosity.

Leviticus 20 gives more than enough information to understand why the Canaanites were so horrible that they had to be wiped out. We get enough of a glimpse into the nature of these people that we can understand why Abraham told his servant, “Do not choose a wife among these people for my son Isaac.” Abraham was not pleased with how the Canaanites conducted themselves.

“You are therefore to keep all My statutes and all My ordinances and do them, so that the land to which I am bringing you to live will not spew you out. ‘Moreover, you shall not follow the customs of the nation which I will drive out before you, for they did all these things, and therefore I have abhorred them. ‘Hence I have said to you, “You are to possess their land, and I Myself will give it to you to possess it, a land flowing with milk and honey.” I am the LORD your God,