Post by alon on Oct 22, 2019 23:43:27 GMT -8
Name of Par’shah: B’reshit- In the beginning
Par’shah: Genesis 1:1-6:8
Haftara: Isaiah 42:5-43:10
D’rash: This begins our new
reading cycle. It was requested that we go through and pick out the commandments in , which I thought was an excellent idea. Sort of a “back to basics,” because if God said do it, we do. And while we may choose to do some of the things either Rabbinical Judaism or the churches do, we are not beholden to either to follow their traditions. It is therefore important to know what are traditions and what are actuall biblical commandments. So jumping right in:
Genesis 1:5 (ESV) God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
So why start with this as a commandment? Because it sets the calendar, dividing it into days and weeks at this point. This will later be extremely important as HaShem’s moedim, His appointed times will be extremely important that they are kept on God’s calendar. These moedim will be prophetic, dress rehearsals for the times God will interact with man in mighty ways. Even His Shabbat- many times when doing these par’shot on a Shabbat I have gotten insights I know for a fact I didn’t come up with on my own. On one occasion I just started typing and when I was done had no idea what I’d just done. Seriously, I had never even considered any part of what I’d just written before, and put no real thought into while typing. And it was one of “my” (sic.) better ones!
But we live in between the times of God’s major interactions with us, so what’s the problem if we’re off? Well, for one thing it is both arrogant and wishful thinking to say God won’t come in our lifetime. We are supposed to live like we are on the cusp of eternity! No man knows when Yeshua will return. More than that, we have a responsibility to others who come after us to pass on the truth, including a proper calendar!
Genesis 1:14-15 (ESV) And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons [Or appointed times], and for days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so.
God put the heavenly lights in place so we could know when His appointed times were. The commandment to use them is implicit here.
Genesis 2:2-3 (ESV) And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.
Here is the first of the moedim, Shabbat! While it doesn’t yet say we are to keep it, it does say God made it holy; and what God declares set apart, we keep set apart!
Genesis 1:26-27; 2:15 (ESV) Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
So God created *man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
… The Lord God took the *man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
*The Hebrew word for man (adam) is the generic term for mankind, and becomes the proper name Adam.
Man was to keep the Garden, which translates to keeping the earth. We have a responsibility before God to care for our environment. That doesn’t mean we all must become rabid environmentalists. God never told us to give up our common sense. Neither do we abuse it.
Genesis 1:28; 2:16-17 (ESV) And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” … And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
OK, here we have a class of commandment which was specifically given to people living in a specific circumstance. There is no Tree of Life for us to eat from, and God never said to overpopulate. But in the beginning, Adam and Chava had to populate the earth! So the first couple were given this commandment, which would have applied to their progeny as well. So we have here a situation specific commandment.
Genesis 2:23-24 (ESV) Then the man said,
“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.”
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
And here we have the model for marriage. One man and one woman. God allowed multiple wives at times, but He never said to take more than one spouse. And if we look at all the examples where there were more than one wife, it caused a lot of problems.
Genesis 3:7,21 (ESV) Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. … And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.
So we need to cover it all up. Again, this does not say “thou shalt,” but it doesn’t have to. They knew they were naked and tried to cover. God, showing them the penalty for sin killed animals and made them clothing.
Genesis 3:14-15 (ESV) The Lord God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock, and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.
I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
When God says “you will,” there is no discussion about whether this is a commandment. The serpent just will; it has no choice! And so do we. I grew up where snakes are plentiful and deadly. And I can attest, all that is true!
Genesis 4:7 (ESV) If you do well, will you not be accepted [will there not be a lifting up (of your face)] And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.”
The first part is more instruction; do well, be accepted and live. But there is a commandment: speaking of sin, which we are told crouches at the door, we “must rule over it.”
Genesis 4:8-10 (ESV) Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?” And the Lord said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground.
This is interesting, because if there were no commandment forbidding murder, God would not have punished Cain. Yet He did so, and harshly. So from the start there were more laws and instructions than “just don’t eat from that tree.” We are just not told of them; yet.
Isaiah 42:10a, 11b-12 (ESV) Sing to the Lord a new song,
his praise from the end of the earth, …
let the habitants of Sela sing for joy,
let them shout from the top of the mountains.
Let them give glory to the Lord,
and declare his praise in the coastlands.
is not the only place we may be told to do something. In our haftara we are told to sing and praise the Lord. I would take this as a commandment.
Isaiah 42:10a, 11b-12 (ESV) Hear, you deaf, and look, you blind, that you may see!
We are told to do this all through the scriptures! There is sort of a play on words here, a little doble entendre. God, through the prophet was speaking of idols of wood and stone. In one sense, He facetiously tells them to hear and see. However He is primarily telling us to wake up, put away our idols and worship the One True God.
Isaiah 42:23-24 (ESV) Who among you will give ear to this,
will attend and listen for the time to come?
Who gave up Jacob to the looter,
and Israel to the plunderers?
Was it not the Lord, against whom we have sinned,
in whose ways they would not walk,
and whose law they would not obey?
We are looking at the laws and instructions God gave us, and we have made a covenant with God to obey. God takes that very seriously. So we need to be mindful when we parse these out, and do as told.
And if you see another commandment I missed, or you just want to comment, please feel free to do so! This needs to be a group effort, or all we’ll have are my limited insights.
Todah!
Par’shah: Genesis 1:1-6:8
Haftara: Isaiah 42:5-43:10
D’rash: This begins our new
reading cycle. It was requested that we go through and pick out the commandments in , which I thought was an excellent idea. Sort of a “back to basics,” because if God said do it, we do. And while we may choose to do some of the things either Rabbinical Judaism or the churches do, we are not beholden to either to follow their traditions. It is therefore important to know what are traditions and what are actuall biblical commandments. So jumping right in:Genesis 1:5 (ESV) God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
So why start with this as a commandment? Because it sets the calendar, dividing it into days and weeks at this point. This will later be extremely important as HaShem’s moedim, His appointed times will be extremely important that they are kept on God’s calendar. These moedim will be prophetic, dress rehearsals for the times God will interact with man in mighty ways. Even His Shabbat- many times when doing these par’shot on a Shabbat I have gotten insights I know for a fact I didn’t come up with on my own. On one occasion I just started typing and when I was done had no idea what I’d just done. Seriously, I had never even considered any part of what I’d just written before, and put no real thought into while typing. And it was one of “my” (sic.) better ones!
But we live in between the times of God’s major interactions with us, so what’s the problem if we’re off? Well, for one thing it is both arrogant and wishful thinking to say God won’t come in our lifetime. We are supposed to live like we are on the cusp of eternity! No man knows when Yeshua will return. More than that, we have a responsibility to others who come after us to pass on the truth, including a proper calendar!
Genesis 1:14-15 (ESV) And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons [Or appointed times], and for days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so.
God put the heavenly lights in place so we could know when His appointed times were. The commandment to use them is implicit here.
Genesis 2:2-3 (ESV) And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.
Here is the first of the moedim, Shabbat! While it doesn’t yet say we are to keep it, it does say God made it holy; and what God declares set apart, we keep set apart!
Genesis 1:26-27; 2:15 (ESV) Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
So God created *man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
… The Lord God took the *man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
*The Hebrew word for man (adam) is the generic term for mankind, and becomes the proper name Adam.
Man was to keep the Garden, which translates to keeping the earth. We have a responsibility before God to care for our environment. That doesn’t mean we all must become rabid environmentalists. God never told us to give up our common sense. Neither do we abuse it.
Genesis 1:28; 2:16-17 (ESV) And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” … And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
OK, here we have a class of commandment which was specifically given to people living in a specific circumstance. There is no Tree of Life for us to eat from, and God never said to overpopulate. But in the beginning, Adam and Chava had to populate the earth! So the first couple were given this commandment, which would have applied to their progeny as well. So we have here a situation specific commandment.
Genesis 2:23-24 (ESV) Then the man said,
“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.”
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
And here we have the model for marriage. One man and one woman. God allowed multiple wives at times, but He never said to take more than one spouse. And if we look at all the examples where there were more than one wife, it caused a lot of problems.
Genesis 3:7,21 (ESV) Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. … And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.
So we need to cover it all up. Again, this does not say “thou shalt,” but it doesn’t have to. They knew they were naked and tried to cover. God, showing them the penalty for sin killed animals and made them clothing.
Genesis 3:14-15 (ESV) The Lord God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock, and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.
I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
When God says “you will,” there is no discussion about whether this is a commandment. The serpent just will; it has no choice! And so do we. I grew up where snakes are plentiful and deadly. And I can attest, all that is true!
Genesis 4:7 (ESV) If you do well, will you not be accepted [will there not be a lifting up (of your face)] And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.”
The first part is more instruction; do well, be accepted and live. But there is a commandment: speaking of sin, which we are told crouches at the door, we “must rule over it.”
Genesis 4:8-10 (ESV) Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?” And the Lord said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground.
This is interesting, because if there were no commandment forbidding murder, God would not have punished Cain. Yet He did so, and harshly. So from the start there were more laws and instructions than “just don’t eat from that tree.” We are just not told of them; yet.
Isaiah 42:10a, 11b-12 (ESV) Sing to the Lord a new song,
his praise from the end of the earth, …
let the habitants of Sela sing for joy,
let them shout from the top of the mountains.
Let them give glory to the Lord,
and declare his praise in the coastlands.
is not the only place we may be told to do something. In our haftara we are told to sing and praise the Lord. I would take this as a commandment.Isaiah 42:10a, 11b-12 (ESV) Hear, you deaf, and look, you blind, that you may see!
We are told to do this all through the scriptures! There is sort of a play on words here, a little doble entendre. God, through the prophet was speaking of idols of wood and stone. In one sense, He facetiously tells them to hear and see. However He is primarily telling us to wake up, put away our idols and worship the One True God.
Isaiah 42:23-24 (ESV) Who among you will give ear to this,
will attend and listen for the time to come?
Who gave up Jacob to the looter,
and Israel to the plunderers?
Was it not the Lord, against whom we have sinned,
in whose ways they would not walk,
and whose law they would not obey?
We are looking at the laws and instructions God gave us, and we have made a covenant with God to obey. God takes that very seriously. So we need to be mindful when we parse these out, and do as told.
And if you see another commandment I missed, or you just want to comment, please feel free to do so! This needs to be a group effort, or all we’ll have are my limited insights.
Todah!
