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This week’s
parsha is entitled Lech L’cha, which is
translated, “Go forth!” and takes us through Genesis
chapters 12 through 17. These chapters focus on
Abraham, the father not only of the Jewish people,
but in a real way the father in the faith to all
who love the God of Israel and follow Yeshua the
Messiah. Just as Noah was a uniquely righteous
man in his generation, so Abraham had a singular
relationship with God. What made this one man
so different? In a word: obedience. In chapter
12, God says to Abram (in Hebrew: Avram,
“exalted father”), “Go forth from your country
and from your relatives and from your father’s
house ...”
Now maybe
that doesn’t seem like such a big deal to we “moderns”
who think nothing of moving across the country
as our careers demand of us, and being thousands
of miles from our parents and siblings. We can
always fly home to visit. But in the ancient world,
the idea of picking up and moving away from one’s
ancestral home was difficult, to say the least.
In this case, however, the journey had begun with
his father, Terah. We are not told why Terah left
Ur. Perhaps Terah had ceased to believe in the
false gods of Ur, and wanted to remove his family
from that polytheistic environment. Perhaps it
was grief over the death of one of his other sons,
Haran, as recorded in the previous chapter (11:27-28).
We just don’t know. What we do know is that Terah
intended to bring his family to Canaan, but got
only as far as Haran (11:31), where he settled.
Even that journey was considerable - nearly 550
miles - on foot (or camel). Terah would remain
there another sixty years before dying.
But not
long after settling in Haran, God summons Abram
out, saying, “Go forth from your country and from
your relatives and from your father’s house, to
the land which I will show you.” Along with the
command, God also makes a series of amazing promises
to Abram:
- “I will make you a
great nation”
- “I will bless you,
and make your name great” (honor, renown)
- “I will bless those
who bless you”
- “The one who curses
you I will curse”
- “In you all the families
of the earth shall be blessed”
So Abram
went forth in obedience to the Lord’s command
- at age 75! Which reminds me: don’t believe the
excuse that someone is “too old” to change. Remind
them about Abraham.
Abram
left Haran and his father, setting out for parts
unknown, but trusting in God, and taking with
him his nephew, Lot. When they arrived at Shechem,
God appeared to Abram, promising that his descendants
would inherit the land of Canaan. A famine in
the land forced them to sojourn for a time in
Egypt, where he lied to Pharaoh about Sarai, saying
she was his sister. Pharaoh fancied Sarai, took
her into his house, and incurred a plague from
God. When the truth finally emerged, Abram and
Sari were unceremoniously escorted out of town!
It would prove not to be the last time they tried
to maneuver things instead of trusting in God
for what they sought.
They journeyed
to the Negev, at which point it became apparent
that between Abram and Lot their flocks were too
numerous to occupy the same pastureland. Rather
than quarrel over it, Abram suggested that he
and Lot separate, giving Lot the choice of which
direction he preferred. Lot took a fancy to the
(then) lush Jordan valley to the east, and settled
in the vicinity of Sodom - described here in Genesis
as an exceedingly wicked city.
Chapter
14 chronicles the war between the various kings
of that region. Lot is taken captive, and Abram,
along with 318 trained men, has to rescue his
nephew. After returning from the battle, Abram
is met by two kings, and presented with two offers.
Bera, king of Sodom, offers him riches - the spoils
of war. Malki-tzedek (Melchizedek), king of Salem,
offers bread and wine. Abram chooses wisely. He
breaks bread with Malki-tzedek rather than enter
an unholy alliance with Sodom’s king. He even
pays Malki-tzedek a tithe (you may recall that
Melchizedek was not only a king, but a priest
of El Elyon - the Most High God).
In chapter
15 and again in chapter 17, God promises a son
to Abram, who thus far had been childless - even
telling him in advance to name his son Yitzchak
(Isaac: “laughter”), probably because both he
and Sarai at different times would laugh when
they heard this news. God seals the promise with
a covenant. But Abram got more than he bargained
for. He was also told in chapter 15 that his descendants
would be enslaved four hundred years in a foreign
country, but after that would return to Canaan,
and take possession of the land.
Chapter
16 is an object lesson on so many levels. Sarai
grow impatient at not having children, and convinces
Abram to take her handmaid, Hagar, as a concubine
and bear children to Sarai by proxy. Abram does
what Sarai says, and the result is Ishmael...
and the further result is many ensuing generations
of contention between Ishmael’s descendants and
those of their not-yet-conceived son, Isaac. If
it’s true that “those who wait upon the Lord will
renew their strength,” then I suggest those who
will not wait upon the Lord will renew tzuris
- troubles for themselves.
Finally,
in chapter 17 God tells Abram, now 99 years old
and still without a child by Sarai, that his name
is to be changed to Avraham, meaning, “father
of a multitude”. Likewise, Sarai’s name is to
be changed to Sarah. Each acquire the addition
of the letter hay into their name, possibly from
the Hebrew word “hamon - “multitude” since God
promises each of them that multitudes of peoples
will descend from them. Abraham still has a hard
time believing he and Sarah will have a son together,
and pleads for Ishmael to be the heir. God promises
that Ishmael also will be blessed and become a
great nation, but that His covenant would be continued
through Isaac.
And here
in chapter 17 Abraham is given the physical sign
of the covenant: circumcision. Every one of Abraham’s
male descendants, for all generations to come,
was to be circumcised on the 8th day. Covenants
were always sealed in some way through blood.
In fact, when you read, for example, in Genesis
15:18 that God “made” a covenant with Abraham,
you should know that the Hebrew word is actually
translated to “cut” a covenant. It was this very
question that propelled Stan Telchin, a beloved
Jewish brother in Yeshua, to faith. He asked himself,
“If circumcision was the ‘cutting’ on man’s end,
where was the ‘cutting’ on God’s end? Then he
suddenly understood, as he envisioned Yeshua dying
on the cross, shedding His own blood. This, in
fact, would be the way in which all the families
of the earth would be blessed through Abraham
- by the death and resurrection of the greatest
of his descendants: Messiah Yeshua.
Shalom,
Rabbi Glenn
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