mordekhi v yisraela

Torah: Mikketz (At the end of), B’resheet (Genesis) 41.1-44.17
Haftorah: M’lakhim Alef (1 Kings) 7.13-26, 40-50
Suggested Messianic Writings reading: Mattityahu (Matthew) 27.15-46

Shalom,

“At the end of two years, Pharaoh had a dream….” Two years after Yosef’s (Joseph’s) interpretations of the chief baker and chief cupbearer’s dreams in B’resheet 40, Pharaoh had a significant dream – two dreams, actually, both pointing to the same conclusion. The ArtScroll commentary notes that this was twelve years after Yosef was first imprisoned. (Pharaoh is from the Egyptian word Phre, signifying the sun, and was not a name, but a title of the Egyptian kings of this period.) The dreams were so vivid that only when Pharaoh awoke did he realize they were dreams. Being naturally disturbed, he called for all those who were “expert” in dream interpretation from throughout the land of Egypt. But the hand of the Creator was involved here, and the meaning of the dreams was hidden from all of these “magicians and wise men”.

Then, as if coming out of a mental stupor, the chief cupbearer, whose life had been spared as prophesied by Yosef’s interpretation of his own dream, recalled his error. Some commentators believe the cupbearer’s announcement was not so much regretful and apologetic, but rather was a statement to make himself look good to Pharaoh – “I remember that I once met someone who can interpret dreams.”

So Yosef was brought up from prison, cleaned up, and taken before Pharaoh, who then related his two dreams of the seven fat and seven lean cows, then the seven full ripe ears of grain and the seven thin ears of grain.

You may wonder why Egypt was the land that the family of Yosef came to when they were nearly out of food. How was Yosef so easily accepted into Pharaoh’s court? To briefly look at a lengthy historical account, there is about a 150 year period during this time when official Egyptian government records ceased to exist. This is because the Pharaohs of the period would not record their defeats. There have been private writings found that did record events of the period. One account, by a historian named Manetho, records a time that raiders from the east came and defeated the Egyptian king. These raiders were of Arabic descent – thus they were Semites; Semites are descended from Shem. Arabs and Jews are both Semites, although the modern usage of anti-Semitism refers to anti-Jewish sentiment. The Egyptian king of that era who had been defeated did not record this fact, so official Egyptian history was lost for a season and the Egyptian Pharaoh’s for a season were in fact not of Egyptian blood. They apparently opted to retain the royal terminology of the newly conquered people.

So yes, the Pharaoh of Yosef’s day was not of Egyptian blood, but of Arabic blood, from this band of Arabic raiders. This would explain why Yosef was able to be received so readily in Pharaoh’s court – they were “cousins,” and the Egyptian-Jewish hostility of course did not then exist – at first. This also explains how the nation of Israel was able in their beginning stage to grow and prosper in Egypt under the Semitic Pharaohs, thus eventually incurring the jealousy of their native Egyptian neighbors.

The religion of Egypt at this time was Babylonian based, and had many gods and goddesses, and included much magic and sorcery. This religion was a very important part of the life of many of the Egyptian rulers, from Pharaoh on down. The magicians that Pharaoh called on were the experts in this religion. The wise men he called on were the ones who represented worldly science and wisdom. Both groups were stumped by Pharaoh’s dreams. The dreams that Pharaoh had were sent by HaShem, thus only HaShem could reveal the meaning of them, and this is what Yosef told Pharaoh. Yosef not only gave the interpretations, he basically took over, telling Pharaoh how to best deal with the coming years of prosperity, which would be followed by years of famine. Pharaoh was so impressed, he put Yosef in charge of all details of preparation for the famine.

Because Pharaoh was “religious,” he had the ability to believe in a word from a “god;” as it turned out, this word was from the only true God, the Creator of all. If only in our own time would our highest ranking rulers bypass the “wisdom” of religious and secular leaders and seek the counsel of the Most High. However, what we have are vain religious leaders pushing an agenda of “anti-Semitism (anti-Israel, anti-Jew) and replacement theology,” while secular leaders yet exalt “science and wisdom (of man)” and scoff at anything to do with a righteous Creator. “The wisdom of this world is foolishness before God” (1 Cor 3.19).

The fact that Yosef and the Egyptian government exacted grain from the Egyptian farmers during the years of prosperity no doubt remained in the minds of the Egyptians in later years. Even though Yosef provided for them in the years of famine, still in their minds was the fact that the government in essence “stole” from them. This no doubt played a part in the Egyptian people growing to hate the descendants of Yosef and his family, for Yosef was the visible one in these transactions. We will see in a later parashah that he was the one who traded grain to the Egyptians in exchange for their livestock and their lands; thus the current “non-Egyptian” Semitic Pharaoh became owner of most of Egypt. This would of course incur the wrath of the native Egyptians upon the Israelites, who were prospering under this Pharaoh’s hand while the “natives” sank deeper into debt to him.

In later centuries, after Egypt defeated the foreign raiders who had taken over the government, the Pharaohs of Egypt were again of Egyptian blood, and were now in power to come against the people of Israel. Even though it was Israel that was prospering in the land of Egypt, and were living in freedom, the tables were turned when Egypt began enslaving them.

Back to our chapters for this week. The brothers of Yosef went to Egypt for food, because the famine had extended to their region. They didn’t recognize Yosef, because of his Egyptian appearance, but he recognized them. B’resheet 42.9 says that Yosef remembered the dreams he had had about his brothers. What followed were times of testing of the brothers by Yosef, a family reunion, a “return from the dead” in a sense for the old father Ya’akov, and more times of testing of the brothers, and a greater family reunion.

I was recently asked why we see the terminology Abraham, Isaac and Jacob more often than Abraham, Isaac and Israel. In B’resheet 43, the name Israel is used for the father of the brothers; the ArtScroll Commentary says it is because, “Israel is the name used to depict Jacob in his spiritual role as Patriarch of the Jewish nation.” I would imagine then that Jacob is used when referring to the human blood relationship – Jacob is a blood father of the Jewish nation; Israel is a spiritual father of the Jewish nation. But that reasoning is not set in stone, for if you do a study on the two phrases, they are often-times used interchangeably; that is, sometimes Jacob is used in the spiritual sense and Israel in the human sense.

One thing to point out is in B’resheet 43.33-34. Here the brothers were seated according to age when being served before Yosef, and the youngest, Binyamin, was given five times as much as the others. Commentators give various possible reasons for the preferred treatment of Binyamin – 1) to test the others to see if they were jealous of this one as they were jealous of Yosef; 2) Yosef was honoring the one brother with whom he held a common mother; 3) Binyamin was innocent of anything to do with Yosef being sold into slavery. Perhaps it was because of this blessing from the hand of Yosef upon Binyamin that the first reigning King of Israel in later centuries was from the tribe of Benjamin – King Saul.

Yosef has been given to us as a picture, a “type,” of Yeshua. Not that Yosef is in any way an incarnation of Yeshua; rather, when we look at how Yosef lived his life, how he treated others, we see Yeshua. Yosef was, in a sense, a pattern that Yeshua would follow. Yosef was only a man, so he cannot compare to the stature and holiness of Yeshua, but we can learn some valuable principles of Yeshua in what we read of Yosef.

Would that modern Israel (Jews globally and in the Land) would recognize Yeshua through Yosef. Pray for the Ruakh HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) to open spiritually blind eyes and change spiritually darkened hearts.

שַׁאֲלוּ שְׁלוֹם יְרוּשָׁלִָם – Sha’alu shalom Yerushalayim – Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!

Torah: Vayashev (And he settled), B’resheet (Genesis) 37.1-40.23
Haftorah: Z’kharyah (Zechariah) 2.14(10)-4.7 Shabbat Hannukah
Suggested Messianic Writings reading: Mattityahu (Matthew) 1.1-6; 16-25

Shalom,

Torah moves into the story of Yosef (Joseph) now, and for the rest of B’resheet he will be the primary character. Some of the commentators point out that as important as Yosef was to the history of Israel, he is not considered by the sages to be one of the Patriarchs; that role is filled only by Avraham, Yitz’khak v’Ya’akov (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob). There is no real definite answer as to why Yosef is not considered a patriarch also; one idea is that as much as ADONI aided him, there is a marked contrast in the way that ADONI operated with Yosef. ADONI had direct 2-way communication with Avraham, Yitz’khak and Ya’akov, but He did not communicate that way with Yosef, even though Yosef saved and in a sense began the nation of Israel. The “why not” is not answered in Torah; we can only speculate. This does not in any way lessen the importance of Yosef, nor diminish his spirituality or his walk with ADONI.

The narrative begins with Yosef as a young man of 17 years of age pasturing sheep with a four of his elder half-brothers, the sons of the concubines of Ya’akov. This was Dan and Naftali, sons of Bilhah, Rachel’s slave-girl; and Gad and Asher, sons of Zilpah, Leah’s slave-girl (see B’resheet 35.25-26). Some commentators note that here Bilhah and Zilpah are called נְשֵׁי n’shey, from אשּׁה ishah, generally used as the term for a legal wife. The sages believe that by this time both Rachel and Leah had passed away, and possibly Avraham had elevated the two slave-girls to the position of legal wives. If this was so, that probably caused some turmoil within the family also.

The JFB [Jamieson, Fausset & Brown] Commentary notes that the Hebrew of vs 2 is literally, “‘Joseph, being seventeen years old, was a shepherd over the flock.’ This seems to imply oversight or superintending, whether so because he was son of a principal wife, or from the qualities of his own character. With this being a probability, we can know that Yosef was not coming to his father as a tattle-taleing gossip, but rather as a ‘faithful steward’ reporting on the bad conduct of the other sons.”

We get a clue to Yosef’s position from vs 3, “Now Isra’el loved Yosef the most of all his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he made him a long-sleeved robe” (Complete Jewish Bible [CJB]). It has been pointed out that if just being a son of Ya’akov’s old age was the reason of favoritism, then Binyamin (Benjamin) should have been the favorite. The literal Hebrew meaning, according to JFB, is that Yosef was a “‘son of old age to him’ – a Hebrew phrase for ‘a wise son’ – one who possessed observation and wisdom above his years – an old head on young shoulders.” This would explain Yosef being in a position of authority at age 17 over some of his older brothers.

Note in the above verse that the CJB translates the garment Ya’akov made for Yosef as “a long-sleeved robe”. This is very probably the correct translation, as opposed to “a coat, robe, or tunic, of many colors”. In cultures of that day, noblemen, kings, and those of a preferred position would wear a robe with sleeves reaching to the wrists, and the garment reaching to the ankles. There may have been a few varied colors and multiple fabrics sewed together, but it would not be the bright multi-colored garment that many artists like to picture. At any rate, there was a favoritism shown that does not bode well in any family. Ya’akov had essentially promoted the younger Yosef to the position of a prince over his elder brothers. It was probably well known among all of the sons that Rachel had been the favored and chosen wife; Leah of course had been given to Ya’akov by Laban in a move of deceit and trickery. It would stand to reason then that the sons of the favored wife would be the favored sons. To elevate the second to youngest son, who was already favored, to a royal position was sure to cause problems. And to those familiar with the story, there were indeed troubles to come.

In fact, verse 4 states that his brothers grew to hate Yosef so much that they could not speak to him in a civil manner. The commentators say this means that the brothers could not even return the common salutation, “Shalom aleikhem, Peace be unto you”. JFB explains: “It is deemed a sacred duty to give all this form of salutation; and the withholding of it is an unmistakable sign of dislike or secret hostility. The habitual refusal of Joseph’s brethren, therefore, to meet him with ‘the salaam’ [the usual expression of good wishes among friends and acquaintances] showed how ill-disposed they were towards him. It is very natural in parents to love the youngest, and feel partial to those who excel in talents or amiableness. But in a family constituted as Jacob’s - many children by different mothers - Jacob showed great and criminal indiscretion.”

A favored child usually tries to get away with more, and oftentimes does. Yosef began relating to his family about the dreams he had been having, all which pictured him as ruling over the rest of the family. We, as readers of the story know that the dreams were prophetic, but at the time they did nothing but create more hatred of Yosef by his brothers. Yosef, in his youthfulness and more than likely feeling good about his favored position, was a little braggadocio about his dreams, which further ruffled feathers. Some commentators stated that it is possible that the brothers believed that the dreams could possibly come true, and they figured that if they got rid of Yosef altogether, there was no chance of the dreams coming true. What they had not planned on was the intervention of the Creator Himself in this drama.

B’resheet 38 is one of those parenthetical chapters that appear from time to time in Hebraic writing. Of course, the original text does not contain the chapter breaks, and scholars debate back and forth as to whether the events in this section could have taken place in the approximate time of 23 years from the selling of Yosef to the moving of Israel down into Egypt, with feasible arguments on both sides. The chapter begins with the words, similar in all translations, “At that time it came to pass….” The unknown factor is whether “at that time” is right after the selling of Yosef, or shortly after Ya’akov arrived back to Shechem from the abode of Laban. But we see from the events of this chapter the truth of Romans 8.28, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God.” Some of the events of this chapter are indiscretionary; some are cultural of the day. But I think that inside, Judah loved ADONI, and ADONI used the events here to bring through this family line the Messiah Yeshua.

The narrative then moves back to Yosef, and the events surrounding his life at Potiphar’s home, his promotions, his being thrown into prison when he refused the advances of Potiphar’s wife and thus angered her, the interpretation of dreams of fellow prisoners, the interpreted dreams coming true, and the now freed chief cupbearer forgetting about Yosef in prison. And thus at the end of the reading we are left with a cliff-hanger – what will happen to the imprisoned Yosef? Stay tuned.

שַׁאֲלוּ שְׁלוֹם יְרוּשָׁלִָם – Sha’alu shalom Yerushalayim – Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!