DECEMBER 18, 2021 Exodus 33:11 So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. One of the reasons that Judaism places so much stock in the first five books of the Bible — the Torah — is because of this statement in the Scripture. Prophets were moved upon by the Spirit […]
ONE OF THE GREATEST PROMISES in the Bible for parents or grandparents is this verse: “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Prov. 22:6). The word train in Hebrew refers to using some form of discipline. Many sports teams have spring […]
DECEMBER 17, 2021 Exodus 33:7 Moses took his tent and pitched it outside the camp, far from the camp, and called it the tabernacle of meeting. And it came to pass that everyone who sought the Lord went out to the tabernacle of meeting which was outside the camp. After hearing that God’s Presence was being remove from the people, the children of […]
DECEMBER 16, 2021 Exodus 33:1-3 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Depart and go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘To your descendants I will give it.’ And I will send My Angel before you, and I will drive out […]
DECEMBER 15, 2021 Exodus 32:34 Now therefore, go, lead the people to the place of which I have spoken to you. Behold, My Angel shall go before you. After such a horrendous upheaval among God’s people — the rebellion, the aftermath of their sin and the drama of Moses’ intercession — God tells Moses to get back on track […]
DECEMBER 14, 2021 Exodus 32:31-32 Then Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Oh, these people have committed a great sin, and have made for themselves a god of gold! Yet now, if You will forgive their sin—but if not, I pray, blot me out of Your book which You have written.” When Moses said, “Blot me out of Your book,” what […]
DECEMBER 13, 2021 Exodus 32:31-32 Then Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Oh, these people have committed a great sin, and have made for themselves a god of gold! Yet now, if You will forgive their sin—but if not, I pray, blot me out of Your book which You have written.” Once again, we get a glimpse into the man Moses […]
DECEMBER 12, 2021 Exodus 32:27 And he said to them, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘Let every man put his sword on his side, and go in and out from entrance to entrance throughout the camp, and let every man kill his brother, every man his companion, and every man his neighbor.’” As we discussed in […]
Jacob gave each blessing prophetically through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The blessings granted him glimpses into the prophetic future of each tribe. He searched those prophetic insights for hints about the Messiah. As he turned to bless his son Dan, he foresaw Samson, Dan’s most famous descendant. He supposed that Samson, the strongest man in the world, must be King Messiah.
Jacob uttered the words, “Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel.” Then Jacob foresaw the waywardness of Samson, his failure, and his demise. He declared, “Dan shall be a serpent in the way, a horned snake in the path, that bites the horse’s heels, so that his rider falls backward” (Genesis 49:17). After the utterance over Dan, the patriarch interrupted himself. His prophetic song stopped, and he exclaimed, “For Your salvation I wait, O LORD.” (Genesis 49:18).
Jacob exclaimed, “For your salvation (yeshu’ah) I wait, O LORD” (Genesis 49:18). Yeshua’s name means “salvation.” The sages understood Jacob’s exclamation to reflect his longing for Messiah, the true judge of Israel and ultimate salvation. The daily prayer for the coming of Messiah borrows language from Jacob’s expression. Observant Jews pray the blessing three times a day. Notice how the name of Messiah finds its way into the blessing:
Cause the branch of your servant David to blossom forth speedily, and lift up his horn through your salvation (yeshu’ah), for we await your salvation (yeshu’ah) every day. Blessed are you LORD, who causes the horn of salvation (yeshu’ah) to blossom forth. (Shemoneh Esrei 15)
The Hebrew word translated as “wait” (kavah) can also means “hope.” In that sense, Jacob says, “I hope for your Yeshu’ah.” Messiah is the “hope of Israel.” We wait for Yeshua, and hope in Yeshua. He is our hope of salvation.
We should not consider our wait for Messiah as a passive waiting, as if we were simply passing time at the bus stop while waiting for the bus to arrive. We ache for His coming and His appearing. Our hearts break with the anticipation. We pine away for Him like a romantic young girl longs for the return of her fiance from a foreign land, continually scanning the horizon for some sign of his appearing, starting at the sound of every footfall, sighing by day, and shedding tears by night. Hope of being united with Him infuses each passing day. Maimonides says that a person who does not believe in Messiah and await His coming denies the Torah.
Rabbi Yitzchak said, “Everything is bound up with waiting. Suffering is bound up with waiting, martyrdom with waiting, the merit of the fathers with waiting, and the desire of the World to Come with waiting. Thus it is written [in Isaiah 26:8], “Indeed, while following the way of Your judgments, O LORD, we have waited for You eagerly; Your name, even Your memory, is the desire of our souls.” (Genesis Rabbah 98:14)
Believers wait and hope for the one called Salvation. In Him we place our hope in suffering, in persecution, in the covenants of the forefathers, and in the World to Come. We hope in Him for grace and forgiveness. We agree with our forefather Jacob, and we say with him, “For Your salvation I wait, O LORD.” May the hope of Israel come speedily, soon, and in our lifetimes.
Vayechi – ויחי: “And he lived” Torah : Genesis 47:28-50:26 Haftarah : 1 Kings 2:1-12 Gospel : Luke 4:31-5:11
DECEMBER 10, 2021 Exodus 32:26 Then Moses stood in the entrance of the camp, and said, “Whoever is on the Lord’s side—come to me!” And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together to him. In the previous devotion, we addressed the need for boundaries and the role of God’s people in regard to those boundaries that the Almighty […]