Post by alon on Dec 16, 2022 16:58:42 GMT -8
This Week’s Readings:
Parashah- Exodus 13:21-15:18
Haftara- Isaiah 49:10-13
D’rash: Let’s start with some context:
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you [by the word of the Lord] that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.
The Exodus from mitzrayim and the Pesach observance are prophetic of another, future exodus when God’s people are taken out to meet Him in the clouds. It is both to edify and encourage us when we face trials, even as Yeshua at Gethsemane just after His last Pesach with His disciples; “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” (Matthew 26:38).
Exodus 14:2-4 “Tell the people of Israel to turn back and encamp in front of Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, in front of Baal-zephon; you shall encamp facing it, by the sea. For Pharaoh will say of the people of Israel, ‘They are wandering in the land; the wilderness has shut them in.’ And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he will pursue them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord.” And they did so.
After all that was done to them, Pharaoh and the people of Mitzrayim (those who did not leave with the Hebrew exodus) still did not acknowledge Elohei Yisroel, God of Israel (2 Saml 23:3) as being El-Elyon, Most High/Supreme God (Gen 14:18). Holding on to their familiar gods, they tracked the movement of “their” Hebrews, thinking they could still outwit God. But He is YHVH-Yireh, God Who Sees/ God Will See To It (Genesis 22:14), so He had Moshe encamp his charges with their backs to the Red Sea. God will once again punish those who do evil to those who are obedient to Him. Our God hates evil, and when He rewards trust and obedience while punishing evil he gains glory!
Exodus 14:5-6,8 When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, the mind of Pharaoh and his servants was changed toward the people, and they said, “What is this we have done, that we have let Israel go from serving us?” So he made ready his chariot and took his army with him, … And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he pursued the people of Israel while the people of Israel were going out defiantly [boldly, brazenly].
Here we are told just how God “hardened Pharaoh’s heart.” He did so simply by opposing Egypt- their gods and their leader- and in response Pharaoh and his people hardened their own hearts.
Exodus 14:10-12 When Pharaoh drew near, the people of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them, and they feared greatly. And the people of Israel cried out to the Lord. They said to Moses, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt? Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”
Only two verses earlier the Hebrews were leaving “defiantly.” Yet after all the miracles they had witnessed on their behalf, when confronted by the Egyptian army they cowered. Once again all they could do was “cry out,” then blame Moshe not only for making them confront and possibly have to fight the Egyptian army, but this hints of their unwilling attitude towards self-reliance also. This slave-mentality would plague that generation to their death.
Exodus 14:13a,14,15a,c,16 And Moses said to the people, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. .… The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.” The Lord said … Tell the people of Israel to go forward. Lift up your staff, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, that the people of Israel may go through the sea on dry ground.
Crying out to Adonai is biblical: “When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles.” (Ps 34:17). He will fight our battles for us, but as much as we’re able we still must act, stepping out in faith and trust. The “slave-mentality” of the multitude made them unfit to fight, but they still had to step out and cross the sea between the walls of water. This was a type of tevilah (ritual immersion in a mikvah) for the newly forming nation. Motivated by fear, yes; still they entered between the waters, trusting God to see them safely through.
Exodus 14:21 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided.
Once again HaEl HaGadol, HaGibbor, v’HaNorah, Great Mighty Awesome God (Deu 10:17) uses nature to effect His deliverance. Skeptics and all too often ‘believers’ claim things like “It was a tidal wave where the waters receded and the wind blew, drying the passage so the approximately three million Hebrews and others could escape as the waters receded, then they returned as the Egyptians tried to pass.” However the waters of tidal waves do not recede long enough, nor do winds dry the muck fast enough for this event to happen. And even if this could just naturally happen, the element of chance here with everything occurring just at the right time is about as probable as our existence being essentially the result of similar muck serendipitously creating our ancestors; from an accidental single cell through a series of accidents evolving us to our present state. However I believe our Shofet, Judge (Ps 75:7) gives us the chance to make these claims, and all too often we take the chance in either defiance (of both God and simple logic) or in order to just go along because we too have a “slave-mentality.”
Exodus 14:24-25 And in the morning watch the Lord in the pillar of fire and of cloud looked down on the Egyptian forces and threw the Egyptian forces into a panic, clogging [binding] their chariot wheels so that they drove heavily. And the Egyptians said, “Let us flee from before Israel, for the Lord fights for them against the Egyptians.”
So as morning light reveals the scene, two things are evinced: 1) the Hebrew multitude sees the deliverance of Elohe Yeshuathi, God of My Salvation (Ps 18:46) with the destruction of the Egyptian army; and 2) the Egyptians can now see their plight as they see the waters piled high on either side and their chariots (and presumably their feet) become bogged, probably in mud. “In accordance with the famous statement “Hell is truth seen too late,” the Egyptians finally recognize the Lord (YHVH) as God. But it was too late; they drowned with that knowledge.” (Dennis Prager).
Exodus 14:27-28 So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to its normal course when the morning appeared. And as the Egyptians fled into it, the Lord threw [shook off] the Egyptians into the midst of the sea. The waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen; of all the host of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea, not one of them remained.
This is a rather prosaic description of what was probably a watershed event for those Hebrews, and is endemic of Adonai’s attitude towards the destruction of even those attempting great evil. It is not cause for celebration, or even vivid imagery in describing their demise. We are not told of their emotional state or struggles as they drowned. They were simply thrown into the waters by God and destroyed. And shortly when they wash up on shore we are not given descriptions of the condition of the corpses. They simply wash up and are as a witness and a reminder to those who passed through the waters unscathed. This is the basis for the attitude in Judaism even today that it is wrong to rejoice in the death of even the most evil of enemies. I recall a sermon by (Evangelical) Pastor Keith Schafer who said “many think there will be a great shout of joy as those who reject God are thrown into the fire. But there will be silence as the only sound will be the weeping of the Lord.” “Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles, lest the Lord see it and be displeased, (Prov 24, 17-18a).
Our love for God comes from faith, and faith from seeing His deliverance; but moreso from trust, which comes when we step out in obedience. This is the basis for our halachah, our walk with God. In order to have a relationship with a being we cannot see we must know who He is, know His character, and know that He loves us enough to do what is best for us.
Mekorot: All scripture from the ESV unless otherwise specified; D Stern; JPS Study TNK; D Prager; W Wiersbe; my father and others
Next Week’s Readings:
Parashah- Ex 15:19-16:24
Haftara- Is 45:14-25 * Apostolic references will be given in the darashot
Parashah- Exodus 13:21-15:18
Haftara- Isaiah 49:10-13
D’rash: Let’s start with some context:
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you [by the word of the Lord] that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.
The Exodus from mitzrayim and the Pesach observance are prophetic of another, future exodus when God’s people are taken out to meet Him in the clouds. It is both to edify and encourage us when we face trials, even as Yeshua at Gethsemane just after His last Pesach with His disciples; “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” (Matthew 26:38).
Exodus 14:2-4 “Tell the people of Israel to turn back and encamp in front of Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, in front of Baal-zephon; you shall encamp facing it, by the sea. For Pharaoh will say of the people of Israel, ‘They are wandering in the land; the wilderness has shut them in.’ And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he will pursue them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord.” And they did so.
After all that was done to them, Pharaoh and the people of Mitzrayim (those who did not leave with the Hebrew exodus) still did not acknowledge Elohei Yisroel, God of Israel (2 Saml 23:3) as being El-Elyon, Most High/Supreme God (Gen 14:18). Holding on to their familiar gods, they tracked the movement of “their” Hebrews, thinking they could still outwit God. But He is YHVH-Yireh, God Who Sees/ God Will See To It (Genesis 22:14), so He had Moshe encamp his charges with their backs to the Red Sea. God will once again punish those who do evil to those who are obedient to Him. Our God hates evil, and when He rewards trust and obedience while punishing evil he gains glory!
Exodus 14:5-6,8 When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, the mind of Pharaoh and his servants was changed toward the people, and they said, “What is this we have done, that we have let Israel go from serving us?” So he made ready his chariot and took his army with him, … And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he pursued the people of Israel while the people of Israel were going out defiantly [boldly, brazenly].
Here we are told just how God “hardened Pharaoh’s heart.” He did so simply by opposing Egypt- their gods and their leader- and in response Pharaoh and his people hardened their own hearts.
Exodus 14:10-12 When Pharaoh drew near, the people of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them, and they feared greatly. And the people of Israel cried out to the Lord. They said to Moses, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt? Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”
Only two verses earlier the Hebrews were leaving “defiantly.” Yet after all the miracles they had witnessed on their behalf, when confronted by the Egyptian army they cowered. Once again all they could do was “cry out,” then blame Moshe not only for making them confront and possibly have to fight the Egyptian army, but this hints of their unwilling attitude towards self-reliance also. This slave-mentality would plague that generation to their death.
Exodus 14:13a,14,15a,c,16 And Moses said to the people, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. .… The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.” The Lord said … Tell the people of Israel to go forward. Lift up your staff, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, that the people of Israel may go through the sea on dry ground.
Crying out to Adonai is biblical: “When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles.” (Ps 34:17). He will fight our battles for us, but as much as we’re able we still must act, stepping out in faith and trust. The “slave-mentality” of the multitude made them unfit to fight, but they still had to step out and cross the sea between the walls of water. This was a type of tevilah (ritual immersion in a mikvah) for the newly forming nation. Motivated by fear, yes; still they entered between the waters, trusting God to see them safely through.
Exodus 14:21 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided.
Once again HaEl HaGadol, HaGibbor, v’HaNorah, Great Mighty Awesome God (Deu 10:17) uses nature to effect His deliverance. Skeptics and all too often ‘believers’ claim things like “It was a tidal wave where the waters receded and the wind blew, drying the passage so the approximately three million Hebrews and others could escape as the waters receded, then they returned as the Egyptians tried to pass.” However the waters of tidal waves do not recede long enough, nor do winds dry the muck fast enough for this event to happen. And even if this could just naturally happen, the element of chance here with everything occurring just at the right time is about as probable as our existence being essentially the result of similar muck serendipitously creating our ancestors; from an accidental single cell through a series of accidents evolving us to our present state. However I believe our Shofet, Judge (Ps 75:7) gives us the chance to make these claims, and all too often we take the chance in either defiance (of both God and simple logic) or in order to just go along because we too have a “slave-mentality.”
Exodus 14:24-25 And in the morning watch the Lord in the pillar of fire and of cloud looked down on the Egyptian forces and threw the Egyptian forces into a panic, clogging [binding] their chariot wheels so that they drove heavily. And the Egyptians said, “Let us flee from before Israel, for the Lord fights for them against the Egyptians.”
So as morning light reveals the scene, two things are evinced: 1) the Hebrew multitude sees the deliverance of Elohe Yeshuathi, God of My Salvation (Ps 18:46) with the destruction of the Egyptian army; and 2) the Egyptians can now see their plight as they see the waters piled high on either side and their chariots (and presumably their feet) become bogged, probably in mud. “In accordance with the famous statement “Hell is truth seen too late,” the Egyptians finally recognize the Lord (YHVH) as God. But it was too late; they drowned with that knowledge.” (Dennis Prager).
Exodus 14:27-28 So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to its normal course when the morning appeared. And as the Egyptians fled into it, the Lord threw [shook off] the Egyptians into the midst of the sea. The waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen; of all the host of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea, not one of them remained.
This is a rather prosaic description of what was probably a watershed event for those Hebrews, and is endemic of Adonai’s attitude towards the destruction of even those attempting great evil. It is not cause for celebration, or even vivid imagery in describing their demise. We are not told of their emotional state or struggles as they drowned. They were simply thrown into the waters by God and destroyed. And shortly when they wash up on shore we are not given descriptions of the condition of the corpses. They simply wash up and are as a witness and a reminder to those who passed through the waters unscathed. This is the basis for the attitude in Judaism even today that it is wrong to rejoice in the death of even the most evil of enemies. I recall a sermon by (Evangelical) Pastor Keith Schafer who said “many think there will be a great shout of joy as those who reject God are thrown into the fire. But there will be silence as the only sound will be the weeping of the Lord.” “Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles, lest the Lord see it and be displeased, (Prov 24, 17-18a).
Our love for God comes from faith, and faith from seeing His deliverance; but moreso from trust, which comes when we step out in obedience. This is the basis for our halachah, our walk with God. In order to have a relationship with a being we cannot see we must know who He is, know His character, and know that He loves us enough to do what is best for us.
Mekorot: All scripture from the ESV unless otherwise specified; D Stern; JPS Study TNK; D Prager; W Wiersbe; my father and others
Next Week’s Readings:
Parashah- Ex 15:19-16:24
Haftara- Is 45:14-25 * Apostolic references will be given in the darashot