The Blessing of Judah

TORAH
Gen. 47:28-50:26

 

HAFTORAH

1 Kings 2:1-12

 

B’RIT HADASHAH

Acts 7:9-16 (15-16)
Heb. 11:21-22

1 Peter 1:3-9; 2:11-17

Gen. 49:8-12

By means of the blessing that Jacob gives to his son Judah, God sovereignly sets in motion another phase in His unique plan for the redemption of His chosen people, the remnant, who are the seed of the promise made to Abraham.

 

Judah was not Jacob’s first born and, according to tradition, should not have been the recipient of such a blessing. In fact this blessing is a variant of the two previous blessings when Jacob deceived Isaac into giving him the blessing that should have fallen, by tradition, to Esau and again when Jacob unexpectedly turned the tables on tradition, giving Joseph’s son Ephraim, the younger, the blessing that would normally be part of the birthright of Manasseh the elder. (Incidentally, we learn from 48:22 that Joseph, not Reuben, received the double portion reserved for the firstborn.)

 

By these unexpected means, God demonstrates His own hidden (that is to say, sovereign) purpose in creation and simultaneously teaches that “my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa. 55:8-9). God’s sovereign will is of necessity hidden from our sight and understanding until such a time as it comes to fruition. It is in this sense that the blessing can be understood as being two-dimensional: it not only predicts the events that will unfold toward the close of time, the “latter days” of some translations, but it in fact is instrumental in bringing those events to fruition, “so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it” (Isa. 55:11). This illustrates the essential aspect of true prophecy: it not only foretells but is the actual working out of what God wills within creation. Rarely is prophecy understood except in hindsight, that is, until accomplished.

 

So how then are we to understand Jacob’s blessing of Judah?

 

Jacob is clearly prophesying a prominent role for the descendants of Judah. In fact, he is prophesying that kings shall come from Judah who will rule all Israel and who will be victorious over their external enemies as well. Jacob likens the tribe of Judah to a lion (for majesty, dignity and justice) and a lioness (for strength, ferocity and prowess). These qualities must be found in all good rulers and leaders of peoples. The greatest of these earthly kings were David and his son Solomon. According to verse 10d, “to him shall be the obedience of the peoples (or nations).” This was true to some degree in David’s life but more completely in the heyday of Solomon (1 Kings 4:20-21).

 

But is this a prophecy only about David and Solomon alone or even about the dynasty of David? Yes and no. It certainly points to David as being the progenitor of a dynasty of Kings but it goes far beyond that for we learn from the OT that the Messiah would come from the house of Jesse, David’s father. And as such, He is a direct descendant of David, in David’s role as King over all Israel. “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit” (Isa. 11:1-5. See also 2 Sam. 7:12-13; Jer. 23:5). We learn that the earlier prophecies were fulfilled in the person of Yeshua ben Yoseph according to Matt. 1:1-3; Luke3:33; Acts 13:22-23, Rom. 1:3 and Heb. 7:14. So according to the Bible, the Messiah was to come from the tribe of Judah and the house of David. Indeed, in Revelation He is titled the “Lion of the Tribe of Judah” (Rev. 5:5) who is also of the “root of David.”

 

Now what was not fully understood by many people of the OT, and only hinted at in the prophets, mostly in Isaiah, was that the Messiah would come not once but twice, according to God’s sovereign will: His first appearance in humility and servant-hood, and His second in majesty and authority. Verse 10 of our passage seems to describe someone from the tribe of Judah in terms of royalty (i.e. the scepter and ruler’s staff, both emblematic of regal authority). Different Bible versions offer differing translations of 10b: “until tribute comes to him” (ESV, JSB); “until Shiloh come” (KJV, NASB); “until he comes to whom it belongs” (NIV, CJB) and so on. The word shiloh, according to John Sailhamer (Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 2, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 1990, p. 276) is “simply an untranslated form of the Hebrew expression meaning ‘one to whom it belongs.’ It is not a name as such, [Shiloh, in some Christian traditions was considered one of the names of the Messiah] nor is it to be associated with the site of the tabernacle in the days of Samuel (1 Sam 1:3).”

 

Because of the context as well as later, fuller revelation from the NT, I believe an appropriate translation would agree with that of J. Barton Payne’s, “The scepter shall not depart from Judah until the One come whose it is” (Encyclopedia of Biblical Prophecy, Baker House, Grand Rapids, 1973). Payne also points out that “the same Hebrew syntax is repeated in the confirmatory Messianic prophecy of Ezek21:27.”

 

Gen. 49:10 speaks not in general terms but specifically of an individual who will rule—not only his own nation of Israel, but all nations (“peoples”, ESV). This theme of course is taken up in several places in the Bible including Psalm 2:8;Dan. 7:13-14 and Rev. 5:5, 9.

 

What is being described by these few verses is a further elaboration of the promise found back in Gen. 3:15 in which the hint of a Saviour (i.e. her offspring, singular) is given, but now more fully disclosed in our present passage. The passage, in describing the obedience of the peoples in future tense is alluding to a future reign, one in which at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:10-11, see also Isa. 45:23).

 

As prophecy, this short passage makes it clear that a Messiah will indeed return to take up the rulership, not just of Judah, but a united Israel as well. Moreover, we know by comparing this predictive passage with several others—especially in the Revelation—that this Messiah is to be identified first with Israel when, for example, He is spoken of as the “lion of Judah”—Judah being a metonymy for all Israel, and again where in Rev. 19:11-16 He is eloquently and clearly described, “Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron.  He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.” This passage is in full agreement with Isaiah who declares, “In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious” (Isa. 11:10) which predicts the coming to faith of Gentiles as well as Jews.

 

So we have here a picture of the returning King Messiah, removed as it were for a time in order to ensure that all who have been appointed for salvation have “come in to their fullness”, including all born again believers, Jew and Gentile alike “‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’ And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed” (Acts 13:47b-48). But this King Messiah will no longer be a “servant.” Indeed as we see from Revelation, He is coming to exact payment from the reprobates and to dispense blessings and rewards to the elect from all generations.

 

Does this bring us hope or fear, confidence or uncertainty? The NT prophet and apostle John speaks of these things in his letters. He reminds us that we are able to know we love God, and are therefore loved by Him, when we are keeping His commandments—His easy yoke and His light burden, Matt. 11:30—“And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments”; “Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us”; “And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it” (1 John 2:3; 3:24; 2 John 1:6).

 

Keeping the commandments is, when performed out of love, not burdensome. Nor can we keep the commandments without God’s sovereign grace. Only His intervention—through faith by the Holy Spirit—will re-vivify our spiritually dead souls and enable us –through wills now fully redeemed and so truly free—to demonstrate our love to God and His precious Son by our obedience to His commandments, which are the same commandments as found in the so-called OT. “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart”; “You shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord” (Deut. 6:4-6; Lev. 19:18. See also Matt. 22:37, pars; Mark 12:31, pars.). These, among other such commandments are still in effect for all those called as His disciples. Not only so, but by quoting these commandments and using their teachings as an aspect of His teachings, He not only legitimizes them, He makes them His own, therefore still binding. And since in quoting these and other commandments and teachings, He in effect is demonstrating that the whole teaching of the OT—the Torah—is still operative in the lives of believers. Therefore, let us pay close attention to these things lest we should become disqualified from winning the prize.

AMEN

I Will Be Their God, They Shall Be My People

TORAH
Gen. 44:18-47:27

HAFTORAH

Eze. 37:15-28

B’RIT HADASHAH

Acts 7:9-16 (13-15)

 

Gen. 45:7; Eze. 37:15-28

Ezekiel, who was a priest of Adonai as well as a prophet, wrote this prophecy during the captivity of Israel by the Babylonians and their king, Nebuchadnezzar. The first temple had been destroyed, the country had been laid waste and all but the very poor and unskilled had been forced into exile in Babylon. A national tragedy threatened the very existence of this people. Prophets such as Isaiah and Jeremiah had foretold this catastrophic event but from the point of view of the average Judean exile, nothing worse could have happened.

The sticks being referred to by Ezekiel were tribal “totems” as in Num. 17:2, “Speak to the people of Israel, and get from them staffs, one for each fathers' house, from all their chiefs according to their fathers' houses, twelve staffs. Write each man's name on his staff.” The fathers mentioned in this verse are the twelve sons of Jacob. In Numbers, each staff represented the tribe composed of the descendants of one of the twelve sons, thus they represent the fullness of the nation of Israel. In this particular passage, there are two sticks, which represent the two most important Hebrew tribes, that of Ephraim in the north (descended from Joseph’s son, Israel’s grandson) and Judah, a son of Jacob, in the south. The identity of every other tribe is located in one of these two, so that again, these sticks represent the complete fullness of Israel.

I believe this act of naming and combining the staffs is more than a symbolic proclamation and may in fact be a form of divinely sanctioned sympathetic magic. (The prophet Hosea carried out similar acts.) The commentators Jamieson, Fausset and Brown describe it as “a prophecy in action” of the re-unification of all the tribes of Israel. The prophecy was meant partly to offer immediate hope and comfort at one of the darkest periods in Jewish history. It was more than that however. It was also a divine promise to bring the fractured nation of Israel back into a state of grace and blessing on the Land that God had previously promised to the Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, after a period (or several periods) of chastisement by God for the sins of His people, particularly idolatry, apostasy and spiritual fornication. Ezekiel speaks for God in chapter two, verses three to five, “And he said to me, ‘Son of man, I send you to the people of Israel, to nations [Ephraim and Judah] of rebels, who have rebelled against me. They and their fathers have transgressed against me to this very day. The descendants [i.e. the exiles in Babylon, Ezekiel’s own generation] also are impudent and stubborn: I send you to them, and you shall say to them, “Thus says the Lord God.” And whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house) they will know that a prophet has been among them.’”

The Assyrians had already conquered and exiled the northern tribes and they had become virtually extinct as any kind of Hebrew entity by time of this prophecy. They had become absorbed by gentile peoples and had become a kind of “hybrid” nation. This prophecy however, is saying to the remnant of both houses of Israel that there will come a time when God will call all His people—His chosen people—back to the land of Canaan. This passage is an extended “sermon” that Ezekiel began back at verse one with his prophecy of the Valley of Dry Bones.

The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones. And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry. And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.’” So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was a sound, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. And I looked, and behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them. But there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, ‘Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.’” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.

Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the Lord.”

Ezekiel is here prophesying that God will bring back and re-constitute the nation, (but not necessarily all the individuals within it). But he is also saying, as did Jeremiah before him, that in effect God would re-create His people by giving them a new covenant, one that He will write on their hearts. “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.  And I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jer. 31:33). This new covenant will be the “constitution” of the repatriated nation but it will be unlike the last since it will be administered by a new David. Ezekiel speaks prophetically of David as God’s servant and king who will reign over a reunited Israel and who will be its shepherd. However, David had been dead for several hundred years. So we must see something else being referred to here. Ezekiel is in fact referring to the Messiah, who is David’s descendant and of course is in fact Yeshua.  That it is not the historic King David who is being referred to is confirmed by the prophet Isaiah, “Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness” (Isa. 42:1, 6-7).

Now the new covenant was not new in the sense of being different or innovative. Rather, it was new in the sense of being renewed, even, if you will, updated, through Christ and the Holy Spirit. That is to say, it is that covenant made with Israel at Sinai but which God is renewing and is in fact applying to the hearts of His people through the Holy Spirit—the Ruach HaKodesh. Indeed, the LXX uses the Greek word kainos, which has this sense of renewal, in its description of the new covenant. In addition, this covenant was made with Israel as a whole. For the Church to apply it directly to itself  is entirely wrong; although it can be applied to Gentiles in another sense, as did Paul in Chapter eleven of his letter to the Romans, and chapter two of his letter to the Ephesians. Lending support to the Church’s belief that the new covenant applies to her is Hebrews 8:7, which seems to be saying that the first covenant [with Israel] was faulty and had to be replaced, and because it was faulty it was being revoked and replaced with a new covenant, which the Church felt justified in hijacking. But reading the very next two verses we learn that it was not the covenant that was faulty—since it came from God and so fulfilled perfectly the purpose for which it was intended—but rather the people’s obedience to it that was faulty and that necessitated a renewal of the original, not a replacement of it. This is what Christ meant when He spoke of “building His church” in Matt. 16:18. It is also what James had in mind when, in Acts 15:16-18 he quotes the prophet Amos, “After this I will return, and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it, that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who makes these things known from of old.”

Even so, this new covenant does not apply to every ethnic Jew either. Isaiah (among others) makes this abundantly clear, “In that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no more lean on him who struck them, but will lean on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God. For though your people Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will return. Destruction is decreed, overflowing with righteousness” (Isa 10:20-22). In other words, all those who do not accept the new (and final) covenant, administered and mediated by the Messiah, will not be called back to the Promised Land, and who will therefore be recipients of God’s wrath.

I believe the passage from Ezekiel is referring to the millennial age to come, not the final post-resurrection glory. It is a physical blessing in this current world, after the great tribulation and will be characterized by peace, abundance and joy (although not perfectly). The believing remnant of Israel alive at the time will have been brought back by God—every person. But since the dead are not yet resurrected they cannot not share in this millennial period. God is not here calling the dead to life but rather He is fulfilling His promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the original covenant that created the Hebrew people. But as we learn from Romans, Gentiles too will have a share in this new covenant because of God’s sovereign will to make it so through His Messiah, Yeshua.

Gentiles will share in the eternal Kingdom through faith or trust—even as it has always been for all God’s people, whether Jew or Gentile. As Paul says, God will cause Israel to be jealous through the salvation of the Gentile elect (not the visible Church) and thereby come to faith (Rom. 11:11). God will then bring them back to join their Messianic brothers and sisters and the grafted-in Gentiles in the Holy Land. This happens in time, not outside of time—we are not here speaking of the last day or final judgment. This passage from Ezekiel is speaking of the millennial reward, the day when, according to Isaiah, “The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent's food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain” says the LORD (Isa. 65:25, italics added).

This is a glorious hope for God’s elect remnant—Jew and Gentile alike. And while those who are asleep in Christ will not see this wonderful time, they receive their compensation by being in the very presence of their Lord, Christ Jesus, Yeshua ha Massiach, in a state of perfect bliss, awaiting the ultimate fulfillment in the New Heaven and New Jerusalem.

AMEN

 

Trust in God’s Promises?

TORAH

Gen. 41:1-44:17

HAFTORAH

2 Kings 3:15-4:1

B’RIT HADASHAH

Acts 7:9-16 (11-12)

Gen. 42:1-38

The theme of this comment is Jacob’s lack of trust in the providence and promises (but also the corrections to reestablish justice and order) of God. See also Gen. 37:23-28 for the triggering act for which God would later exact payment. God will bless His people, but will also curse His chosen nation, as well as individuals, for their injustices. He often uses apparently evil circumstances (as seen from the purely human perspective) to chastise but also often uses the very same circumstances to bring about ultimate good (Rom. 8:28).

Compare Jacob’s response to negative circumstances with that of Job, who lost all his children, all his possessions and even his health. Job too was perplexed; he could not understand why God would allow the catastrophes to happen to him, nevertheless the Bible says, “Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said, ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’ In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong” (Job 1:20-22). While he could not understand, still he did not despair. He accepted God’s apparent chastisement with acceptance born of an inner trust, the same trust experienced and modeled by Abraham on the mountain of sacrifice.

Jacob—even though God confirmed with him the earlier promises made to Abraham and Isaac—still could not bring himself to trust God. All his life he had tried to shape events by relying on his own native intelligence and efforts, even going so far as to wrestle with God’s angel at Bethel. Nevertheless, even this “close encounter” did not convince him to “let go and let God.” He resorted primarily to craftiness and deceptive stealth all his life. (At the end of his life, though, Jacob finally did come to have trust in God through the blessing he gave his grandchildren, the two sons of Joseph—read Heb. 11:21; Gen. 48:16.)

Because of Jacob’s lack of trust, God would have been justified in rejecting him and his children outright and permanently. But God did not do that. Instead, he chastised Jacob for his lack of trust by means of Joseph’s deceit, recounted in our current passage. God used Joseph to chastise his own family for their iniquities, including their deplorable treatment of Joseph. (Even Rueben—who was a righteous man by the standard of the world—had to undergo the trial of chastisement. He was not spared any more than those brothers of his who were quite ready to kill Joseph because of their jealousy.)

But Joseph was also the instrument chosen by God to ultimately be a blessing to Jacob’s family as well as the Gentile nations. God brought the famine on the land so that these other events would unfold within, and because of, His sovereign grace. And had it not been so—if God had chosen not to exert such sovereign control (hypothetically speaking of course)—who is to say if there would ever have been a King David, a Joseph and Mary, a Saviour or an evangelizing apostle?

All the events, all the persons with their quirks and foibles, all the unfolding of this history was (and still is) merely an expression of God’s hidden but sovereign will to carry out His ultimate plan of redemption.

Nor does this plan deny the free agency of the human will. To quote the Rabbi Akiva, “All is foreseen, choice is granted, and the world is judged in kindness.”

It is one of the great mysteries of the Bible that God is presented as utterly sovereign (omnipotent and omniscient) but at the same time unwilling to take away the freedom of the will with which He imbued us at our creation, notwithstanding that at the same time our wills—unaided—are corrupt. We are spiritually dead because of our sin.  What a marvelous paradox!

So what can we learn from this part of Joseph’s story? How can we appropriate the message—knowing that “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16)?

When we read this story, it’s a little like looking at fish in an aquarium. We see the filters and heaters, the lights and other necessary elements of aquarium maintenance. The fish however are ignorant of these things. They are ignorant of the necessity of all the contrivances and all the activities of the aquarist—including the provision of food—to maintain the healthy lives of all the fish.

So it is with us. Our lives are too often lived as though God does not exist, or if He does, He seems to have no concern for us or our welfare and is at best a mere observer of the human condition. Consequently, we try to compensate by trying to provide for all our needs by ourselves. We deny hope—which is really the assurance of things not seen, that is, God and His perfect love for those who love Him—by which we may accept all things as manifestations of God’s perfect will.

How willing and able are we to cast our bread upon the waters—in the firm expectation that we will be given even greater abundance through the grace of our God, King of the universe?

This world has such a hold on us!

AMEN

The Triumph of the Sons of Israel over the Sons of Esau

TORAH

Gen. 32:4-36:43

HAFTORAH

Obadiah 1-21 (Sephardic)

B’RIT HADASHAH

1 Cor. 5:1-13

Rev. 7:1-12

Obadiah 1-21

In the parashah selection from Friday, November 16, we discussed the relationship between the figures of Jacob & Esau. In that commentary we discussed the idea that “This passage (i.e. Gen. 25:19—28:9) is a very good example of the four levels of Biblical interpretation: the simple (plain, “literal”), the hinted (secondary or implied), the comparative (analogical, symbolic) and the spiritual (mystical, deeply hidden). The simple sense is an historical recounting of the birth and early lives of two brothers. The hinted sense is found in the statement that these two brothers also represent two historical people groups or nations. We see the events of the selling the birthright for a bowl of stew and later, the deceitful presentation of a meal to Isaac in order to obtain blessing as being highly symbolic. Even the names of the brothers, especially of Jacob, have symbolic meaning. Finally, we understand, in light of Gen. 3:15 that in Jacob and Esau, we are dealing with spiritual or mystical truth regarding the establishment of God’s kingdom and the ultimate role of the Messiah in the redemption of God’s people.”

Our comments today build on what was introduced in that previous post, specifically that Esau represents a people (the nation of Edom) but further—for the prophets of Israel—on a spiritual level the nation of Edom represents all the kingdoms of the world that stand in opposition to the Kingdom of Heaven. In other words, Edom represents the realm of Satan. As we wrote in our previous post we take this understanding from a consideration of Gen. 3:15, “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.”

This verse is a key to understanding the symbolism of Obadiah. For him, Esau’s kingdom is the national symbol of all that opposes Israel, which nation is God’s chosen nation—intended, through her Messiah, to be a “light to the nations” (Isa. 42:6; see also 60:1-22).

In verses 2-4, we have an attitude shared by several other prophets, especially Isaiah and Ezekiel. Obadiah writes, “We have heard a report from the LORD, and a messenger has been sent among the nations: ‘Rise up! Let us rise against her for battle!’ Behold, I will make you small among the nations; you shall be utterly despised.  The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rock, in your lofty dwelling, who say in your heart, ‘Who will bring me down to the ground?’ Though you soar aloft like the eagle, though your nest is set among the stars, from there I will bring you down, declares the LORD.”  Such language is reminiscent of that found in Ezekiel to describe the king of Tyre—himself a stand-in for Satan, “…I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God, and I destroyed you, O guardian cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Your heart was proud because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. I cast you to the ground; I exposed you before kings, to feast their eyes on you” (Eze. 28:16b-17).

As Esau was to his brother Jacob, so Edom was to Israel. Edom had historically always been an enemy of Israel. When she was not actively joining other nations in their wars of conquest against Israel, she was standing by in complicity, waiting and hoping for Israel’s destruction, ready to move in and take whatever spoils she could. (Edom was approximately the size of Israel and lay south of the Dead Sea. Edom bordered Judah and Moab.)

In verses 10-14 the LORD through Obadiah warns Edom against taking delight in Israel’s destruction and in verses 15-18 He declares the punishment that awaits Edom, while in the concluding verses God re-invokes His promises to the remnant of Israel that “this host of the people of Israel shall possess the land of the Canaanites.”

In his prophetic testimony, Obadiah makes it clear that the kingdom of Satan ultimately cannot stand; that God is even now in control and working all things according to the good pleasure of His will. Indeed that Christ has already won the victory; it has already been accomplished in principle. It only awaits the fullness of time for its complete consummation in glory. Verses 19-21 of this prophecy make it clear that the forces of evil will not just be defeated. They will themselves be given over in eternal subjection to the Kingdom of God—represented by “the exiles of this host”, that is to say God’s “chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession” (1 Peter 2:9a).

Once again the Bible testifies that God has not only not abandoned His chosen people, but that in due course He will uphold His ancient promises and actually give all the blessings to Israel, including but not limited to the promise of the Land. More than that however the last verse makes it plain that a remnant—“the exiles of this host”—shall actually become the “saviours” of the final and ultimate “Israel of God.” And from the spiritual center of Jerusalem/New Jerusalem they shall go as saviours to rule Mount Esau—the stronghold and center of evil in the world.

The word rendered into English as “saviours” is the plural Hebrew verb yasha from which comes the word Massiach (Messiah) and which also forms the root of the name Yeshua which itself means God saves or God delivers. This is significant when we consider the NT verse, “you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21, which Gospel was originally written in Hebrew, not Greek). Jesus is simply the English version of the Greek Iesous, which is a meaningless phonetic rendering of the Hebrew Yeshua, itself so pregnant with meaning.

The fact that the word saviours is plural indicates, on the one hand that real individual people—the remnant, the exiles—will do the saving but that, in light of the fact of the Messiah as God’s chosen and anointed one, they will do this saving as members of His body, of which He is the Head, and therefore it is done with His authority. When Paul was persecuting followers of the Way in Jerusalem and elsewhere, Yeshua came to him on the Damascus road and asked him, “Why are you persecuting me?”  He did not ask, “Why are you persecuting my people or my followers or my disciples?” We must understand this in light of such passages as John 15:5; 17:11; Rom. 12:4-5; 1 Cor. 10:17; 12:20; Eph. 5:23, 29, 32 etc. The bond between Christ and His true church (Ekklesia) is so intimate that they are in effect “one flesh” (Eph. 1:25; Rev. 21:9; Gen. 2:24).

It is in this mystical or spiritual sense, with prophetic insight, that Obadiah can affirm that even though it is a plurality that will carry on the saving (whether he knew it or not) it is at the same time, because of the intimate union we have with Christ, that it is really He—as the Messiah—who ultimately accomplishes the salvation.

AMEN

The Promise of the Land

TORAH

Gen. 28:10-32:3

HAFTORAH

Hosea 11:7-14:9

B’RIT HADASHAH

John 1:43-51

Hosea 11:7-14:9

The prophet Hosea prophesied to the Northern Kingdom of Israel, which he also calls Ephraim. Ephraim, as the largest of the northern tribes, stands for the entire federation, usually called Israel in the Bible. Hosea prophesied in a time between invasions by the Assyrians and some years before the invasion of the north by the Assyrian kings Tiglath-pileser and Shalmaneser V, in 724-722 BCE.

Up to that point, Israel had obtained a degree of political stability, economic prosperity and agricultural abundance (2 Chron. 26:10). After much struggle and hardship, she had gained her independence through the efforts of strong kings such as Jehoash and his son Jeroboam. Therefore, by the time of Hosea, there had been peace for a generation and many people were becoming quite well off. Luxuries were available and building projects went on apace. However, at the same time, degrading social and moral conditions were developing. As the number of the very wealthy grew, so also did the number of the very poor. The rich were selfishly exploiting the poor and the politically disenfranchised for their own profit, (Isa. 5:8; Amos 8:5-6) even to buying and selling those who, out of extreme desperation, had to become indentured slaves in order to survive. Religious conditions were just as bad. Pagan Ba’alism was still ubiquitous in the land and was manifested by calf worship at Bethel and Dan. Sacred prostitution was common (Hos. 4:14) and the people (both rich and poor) were building “high places”, erecting idolatrous images and asherah poles that became objects of worship. This period of prosperity and peace did not last long. After the reign of Jeroboam II, there was increasing political and military instability, culminating in the complete destruction of the northern kingdom and the exile of most of her people by the Assyrian military.

Hosea’s principal prophetic theme is the necessity for moral repentance and social justice, as it was for his near contemporary, the prophet Amos. In this passage, God, through His prophet, delivers dire warnings of calamities certain to come. “The Lord has an indictment against Judah and will punish Jacob according to his ways; he will repay him according to his deeds” (12:2; see also Exo. 34:7; Num. 14:18; Nahum 1:3). But along with these warnings are included promises of ultimate hope and restitution, “…the Lord  when he roars, his children shall come trembling from the west;  they shall come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria, and I will return them to their homes, declares the Lord” (11:10-11).

However, in this prophecy God did not reveal His exact plan of redemption. He did not reveal to Hosea—as He did with Isaiah—that the blessings to come would be for a portion of His people, a remnant that is, “In that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no more lean on him who struck them, but will lean on the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, in truth” (Isa. 10:20).

Be that as it may, the prophecy is chock full of hope. But not hope in some vague, watered-down promise. True, the guilty must pay for their injustice and idolatry, which would soon be so great as to cause God to do to His own northern tribes what He had already demanded of Joshua through the conquest of the land of Canaan and the complete destruction of the “cities of these peoples” (Deut. 20:16-18).

But we also have in this particular prophecy a three-fold restatement and confirmation of the promise made to Jacob at Bethel (see Gen. 28:13-15)—and which itself was a divine confirmation of the promise made to Jacob’s grandfather, Abraham.

The first confirmation comes at 11:10-11, “…the Lord when he roars, his children shall come trembling from the west;  they shall come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria, and I will return them to their homes, declares the Lord.”  The second confirmation is found at 12:9, “I am the Lord your God from the land of Egypt; I will again make you dwell in tents, as in the days of the appointed feast.” And the final confirmation comes at 14:7, “They shall return and dwell beneath my shadow; they shall flourish like the grain; they shall blossom like the vine; their fame shall be like the wine of Lebanon.

Together, these verses re-iterate God’s plan of redemption for His chosen people, not through their moral righteousness but through His own sovereign grace. However, we see from several biblical passages of which Isa. 10:20 cited above is but one example, that not all Israel is the chosen of the promise. Rather, there is to be a saved remnant that will not include the northern tribes, at least in the national sense (although there is always the possibility of national salvation in a limited degree). “In just a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel” (Hos. 1:4). But this remnant will include at least a portion of the southern kingdom, the largest, most representative tribe of which is Judah, “But I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and I will save them…” (Hos. 1:7). In addition, this remnant will ultimately include Gentiles.

We know from Paul that, “…not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but ‘Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.’ This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring” (Rom. 9:6-8). And we know from both the OT and the NT that God’s remnant will be composed of both Jews and Gentiles (Isa. 66:20-21; Zech. 8:22-23; Acts 28:28).

For instance, in Paul’s famous passage of the olive tree he makes known that God is including Gentiles in His plan of salvation, “Now I am speaking to you Gentiles…But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you” (Rom. 11:13a, 17-18).

So a remnant, including both Jews and Gentiles, will inherit the Kingdom. But in the OT passages, including the above quoted verses from Hosea, there is also an added dimension for “Israel.” God has always included the promise of the Land to His chosen people—who indeed are part of the remnant. This Land is known by various terms including the “land flowing with milk and honey”, the “glorious land” and so forth. Throughout the OT, part of God’s promise is—after a period of chastising—to gather together the people that He Himself has scattered because of sin and return them to the land of Israel (Jer. 29:14; 31:10; Eze. 11:17; Mic. 4:7). This will not happen however, until “the fullness of the Gentiles has come in” (Rom. 11:25b). This is a pre-condition for the fulfillment of the promise.

I believe that the modern return of Jews to the land of Israel may be considered a kind of foretaste or a type for the return promised in the Bible but is not a fulfillment of the promise because the extent of the Biblical borders of Israel as described in Numbers, chapter 34 are not yet in place (and probably won’t be until after the fall of Islam) and because the modern nation of Israel is essentially unbelieving and secular. God promised the land to the children of the offspring, that is, the offspring of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that is, those counted righteous through their faith. Symbolically speaking, this would exclude the offspring of Ishmael and Esau.

Significantly, the promise of the land to the remnant (the “Israel of God”, Gal. 6:16) includes Jerusalem—the place where God makes His name to dwell (Deut. 12:5; 2 Chron. 7:12). So the full redemption of the redeemed house of Israel will include Gentiles in some dimension and will incorporate the Biblical borders of the Land as well as Jerusalem as the central place of worship for God’s people.

Yet in the book of Revelation, Jerusalem itself is redeemed and as such comes down from Heaven (Rev. 21:2). John does not have in mind (entirely) the notion of the physical city, or its temple. Does this constitute a Scriptural error? I don’t think so. I believe we can find the answer in the portion of Scripture from Gen. 28:12-13, which describes Jacob’s dream at Bethel. Bethel was for a long time a center of public worship but was eventually superseded by Jerusalem. The point here is that the physical location of the dream—at the place Jacob named Bethel—was simultaneously the location of the heavenly realms. It was then the point in time and space that heaven and earth intersected. And it is in Jerusalem that—in some mysterious way—access to heaven from our place on earth will be made available to all the Children of the Promise.

In this way, I believe that the earthly Jerusalem and the new, heavenly Jerusalem are intimately connected. There will indeed be a complete fulfillment of the promise to Jacob found in the first book of the Bible, Genesis, and simultaneously a complete fulfillment of the promise of “New Jerusalem” found in the last book of the Bible, Revelation. God says of Himself that He is the first and the last (Isa. 44:6; Rev. 22:13) and since we know that “as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” should we doubt or wonder how God could possibly bring this to pass or should we rather stand in awe of an omnipotent, all merciful God.

AMEN

Sovereignty through Opposition

TORAH

Gen. 25:19-28:9

HAFTORAH

Mal. 1:1-2:7

B’RIT HADASHAH

Rom. 9:6-16; Heb. 11:20; 12:14-17

Gen. 25:19-28:9

The essential lesson of this complex narrative comes from from Gen. 3:15, “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.”

A predominant form of the theme of God’s sovereign plan of redemption throughout the Bible is seen as the interplay of opposites. One particular motif seen repeatedly is that of two brothers or close relatives in conflict. The Holy Spirit teaches with this motif that God is sovereign and that He elects—that is, sovereignly chooses—His people through the seeming paradox of human free will. In our narrative from Gen. 25:19—28:9, we see, through several dramatic scenes, that though humans are making decisions concerning the status, wealth and power of their families it is God, working in the background, who causes these decisions and subsequent actions to come to pass.

This story of the twins Jacob and Esau, illustrates the outworking of God’s salvific intentions and the promise He made to Abraham (Gen. 12:1-3). God’s word in Gen. 3:15 sets up the dynamic of consequent history, which begins with the brothers Cain and Able (Gen. 4:1-2) and is also evident in the relationships of the three sons of Noah (9:25-27), Abraham and Lot (13:7-12), Isaac and Ishmael (21:9), Jacob and Laban (29-31) as well as Joseph and his brothers (37-50). The lesson is enunciated clearly and unequivocally in Gen. 50:15, 19-20, “When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, ‘It may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil that we did to him.’ But Joseph said to them, ‘Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.’” 

Joseph is testifying that the conflict between himself and his brothers was part of God’s plan to ultimately redeem for Himself a people. It is interesting that so often God chooses the younger over the older (Cain and Able), the weaker over the stronger (Jacob and Esau), women over men (Sarah, Rebekah and Rachel) as the instruments of His grace. The example of the Matriarchs is given as further evidence that God works sovereignly since all three women were barren and only conceived and gave birth under extraordinary (supernatural?)  circumstances. It is also intriguing that Rebekah plots with the younger Jacob to bring about the fulfillment of God’s word to her that “the one shall be stronger than the other, the older shall serve the younger.”

Another motif from this portion of Scripture is that of birthright and blessing. Esau sold his birthright and all that it entailed. The birthright of the oldest Hebrew son was a double portion of all the possessions of his father, the remainder to be divided up between any other sons. But the birthright was more than just a determiner of one’s inheritance. In Genesis—which is partly the story of the formation of the Hebrew people—God determined that leadership was to be through the father and consequently through the eldest son—the “firstborn.” Under normal circumstances Esau would have become not only the Patriarch of his family, but—far more importantly—he would have been a son of the “promise” and accordingly would have been a link through whom the covenant promise made to his grandfather, Abraham, would be realized in due course.

But God—in the hidden recesses of His wisdom—chose Jacob instead. He determined this outcome before either boy was born when He loved Jacob but hated Esau. In the context, “loved” means chosen or preferred while “hated” means not chosen or preferred. The words do not represent affection and hostility. It is also worthy of note the moral similarities between Jacob and another man known as “a man after God’s own heart”—King David. (Yes, like Jacob, David was the youngest son. And like Jacob, David too was morally wanting, a great sinner in fact.) But one’s moral character was not—and still is not—the determiner of God’s sovereign grace. Abraham was a pagan gentile who undoubtedly practiced all sorts of heathenish idolatries before he was saved through faith—and who consequently became obedient to Ye’ hovah, the one true God.

God chooses whom He will, for reasons which are rarely, if ever, clear to us until they have come to pass. According to Paul, Esau was never a son of the promise, even though he was the rightful heir as Isaac’s firstborn. Nevertheless, Esau traded his birthright—essentially the promise or covenant given by God to Abraham—for nothing more than a bowl of lentil stew. (Judas traded His eternal security for thirty measly pieces of silver, the standard price, by the way, for a slave at the time.) At one level, I believe we can see this bowl of stew as representing the world because we are tied to this world through the food we consume. The idea of worldliness here is further supported when we consider that Esau was described as “a skillful hunter, a man of the field.” He was a man’s man. Jacob, on the other hand is described as a quiet (or peaceful) man, dwelling in tents. He was, in other words, a wimp. Esau was probably a macho man an outgoing extrovert, a man of action, while Jacob was likely a milquetoast, a contemplative and perhaps deceptive—the name Jacob can mean both “deceiver” and “may God protect”—introvert.

In any event, the blessing that was intended by the simple Isaac for his son Esau was appropriated by the connivance of Rebekah, who was the instrument God had chosen to ensure the promise would go to His chosen one, Jacob. In almost the very same words as those spoken to Abraham by God in Gen. 12:3 and again by the rogue prophet Bala’am in Num. 24:9b, “Blessed are those who bless you, and cursed are those who curse you” Isaac blesses Jacob the real son of the promise, “Cursed be everyone who curses you, and blessed be everyone who blesses you. And of course, Bala’am was speaking an oracle concerning the nation of Israel, the ancestor and namesake of which was Jacob, whose name God changed to Israel (Gen. 32:28) which means “God strives.” And what was God “striving” to do but to bring to pass His enduring promise for a whole people, the Hebrew people, the Israelites, the true remnant, of which we, as Gentiles, now belong as grafted in branches. This is why God said to Rebekah, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided” (Gen. 25:23a). The division—as we come to understand at a deeper level of apprehension—is not just between two brothers; it is not just between two nations, Israel and Edom along with their descendants. Rather it is between two kingdoms: the fallen Kingdom of Satan and the redeemed Kingdom of Christ, the Messiah—God’s ultimate “Chosen or Anointed One.” In our story, using Gen. 3:15 to unlock the hidden meaning, Jacob stands for “her offspring” that is, the children of the promise, while Esau stands in as “your offspring”, that is, the children of the Serpent, Satan.

The main purpose of this story—and the commentary on it by Paul from Romans—is the absolute sovereignty of God and His ensuing omnipotence to make good on His promise of redemption. This is why He first makes up the rules of His covenants with His people but then goes to great pains in order to fulfill them in ways that seem to human reasoning as arbitrary and perhaps irrational. The narrative we’ve been considering is a prime example. God will ensure that His promises will not be appropriated by creatures though He uses their decisions and actions, carried out by their own free will, to sovereignly bring about His own good purpose. Indeed, Ye’ hovah will always have the last laugh!

AMEN

Addendum:

This passage (Gen. 25:19—28:9) is a very good example of the four levels of Biblical interpretation: the simple (plain, “literal”), the hinted (secondary or implied), the comparative (analogical, symbolic) and the spiritual (mystical, deeply hidden).

The simple sense is an historical recounting of the birth and early lives of two brothers. The hinted sense is found in the statement that these two brothers also represent two historical people groups or nations. We see the events of the selling the birthright for a bowl of stew and later, the deceitful presentation of the meal to Isaac in order to obtain blessing as being highly symbolic. Even the names of the brothers, especially of Jacob, have symbolic meaning. Finally, we understand, in light of Gen. 3:15 that in Jacob and Esau, we are dealing with spiritual or mystical truth regarding the establishment of God’s kingdom and the ultimate role of the Messiah in the redemption of God’s people.

All of these levels are to be found in this portion of Scripture and give up much more than the simple or plain meaning of this story