To Much is Given, Much is Required
Hello there everyone! We are in the parasha named Vayera and it covers Genesis 18:1-22:24. As we mentioned in the previous parasha, Abraham has now performed the circumcision on himself. I bet John Wayne wouldn't have been tough enough to do that number:. PLEEASEE don't ask who John Wayne was:. According to the sages, in the time frame of this parasha, Abraham is in the third day after the circumcision, which is supposed to be the most painful day of the procedure. Since I wouldn't know about such things, I'll take their word for it. Abraham was known for his hospitality, so hurting or not, when he saw three strangers approaching his tent he ran to meet them. He asked for water to wash their feet right away. We know this was the custom at that time, to wash people's feet as a gesture of hospitality. Also, he begged them to stay and eat. We can come to the conclusion that judging from the bread Abraham served his three guests, it was in the time of Passover. They did not let the bread rise here (hint to Matzah). Notice Abraham did NOT serve the milk and dairy on separate plates as is taught to do in Orthodox Judaism today (Tradition Alert!). In Gen. 18:8, it clearly says Abraham put before them butter, milk and the calf meat. It is believed that it was Ishmael that Abraham told to prepare the calf for their meal. There are differing opinions as to who those three angels were that appeared to Abraham. Some say they were all three angels. Some say they were Michael, Gabriel, and Uriel. Some say all three were YHVH, appearing in three distinct forms. I say it doesn't matter enough to argue over it, but we do see YHVH being named as the one who speaks to Abraham.
We see where YHVH promises Abraham a child of his own by that same time the following year. Then we get into the discussion about YHVH destroying Sodom and Gomorrah and Abraham "bargaining" for people lives with the God of all the Earth. Personally, I believe Abraham did a wonderful job. I've said before, Abraham would make a wonderful used car salesman:. But the bottom line is, YHVH said if He could find ten righteous men in those cities, He would not destroy them. Now when you can't find just ten righteous men in a city, you have to see the level of sin they were in. Sodom was well known for being extremely rich and extremely hostile to anyone else who wasn't rich. Lot was wealthy and so they took him in without a fuss. To discourage undesirable newcomers however, the Sodomites institutionalized state cruelty. It was a crime to feed any starving person passing by, or offer alms to a beggar. Even the sexual perversion Sodom was famous for was employed partly as a means to keep beggars away. So now Lot sees the two strangers from the gate where he is sitting. After begging them to come spend the night at his home, they follow him home. Mean while, all the local deviates hear about this and head on over to Lot's house. When they ask Lot to send out the two strangers, he refuses. He offers them his daughters instead.(I know, I can't figure that one out either as a parent) They almost got a hold on Lot, but the angels pulled him back in the door and smote the men outside with blindness. Now to me, here is another kicker to think about. It says even after being struck blind, the men still tried to find the door! (Gen 19:11) Think about that. If you were going to do something and got struck with blindness over it, wouldn't you think, hey, I'd better give up on this idea while I'm still alive? But these men while even being struck blind still wanted to carry out their evil deeds!!! That shows the depth of their wickedness. So the angels instruct Lot that if he has any other children in this place, he'd better get them out. He had two more daughters and their husbands.
But when Lot tried to warn them what was coming, they thought he was foolish. Gee, that sounds familiar:. So come morning, the angels literally pulled Lot and his wife and daughters out of the city. They told Lot, we can do nothing until you are out of this town. But we all know that Lot's wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt. The angels tell Lot to flee to the mountains, but instead he talks them into letting him flee to one of the smaller cities nearby. In all there were five cities that were destroyed; Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboilim and Zoar. Zoar was later destroyed after Lot and his two daughters had left it to go live in the mountains, which is where they were told to go in the first place. We all know what happened after this. Lot's daughters thought they were the only people left alive on the earth, so they had better lay with their father to have offspring to continue the human race. So the older daughter got Lot drunk one night and laid with him. She conceived that very night. The next night the other daughter gave Lot wine and he got drunk and laid with her. She also conceived that very night. One daughter was discreet enough to name the child a name that would not describe how the child was conceived, the other one didn't care. The older daughter called her son Moab, which in Hebrew means "from father." The younger daughter named her son Be-Ami, which simply means son of my people. Moab is where the Moabites came from. So now the scene switches back to Sarah and Abraham's ordeals. Abraham again journeys into another land called Gerar. Hey, here comes another play acting of Sarah being his sister again. This time it's with King Abimelch. Now as kings went in that day, Abimelch was a good ruler. But even at the age of ninety, Sarah's beauty was such that the king wanted to marry her. That's pretty remarkable, after all, Sarah wasn't any spring chicken, she was more like a fall fryer:. Now YHVH comes to the king in a dream and informs him of what will happen to him if he lays a finger on Sarah. YHVH had closed up the wombs of the king's household because of Sarah. But YHVH did recognize the king did not do this thing out of a wrong heart, so he just informed him, set her free and you'll live, keep her and you'll die.
I believe that would make the choice pretty easy for me:! So free her he does and YHVH removes the curse from his household. Just so you don't get tripped up on Gen. 20:12, the Bible often refers to grandchildren as the person's son or daughter. We read previously where it told you Abraham took his brother's daughter as his wife. Sarah was Abraham's niece, not sister. (See Gen.11:28-32-Iscah was another name for Sarah) So now we see where Isaac is being weaned, there's a party thrown for the occasion and Ishmael is seen mocking Isaac. There are several opinions as to exactly what is meant by that word 'mocking'. Really we don't know for sure exactly what Ishmael was doing to Isaac. It must have involved something more than just teasing him some way or Sarah would not have gotten so upset, so upset to send them away after the boy living there for so many years. So Hagar and her son must go! Abraham sends them away early in the morning with a skin of wine and some bread. As their water ran out, they became thirsty and faint. Ishmael is lying down under a bush. In the English you see him referred to as a lad and you think of him as being something in the area of six or seven years old. But he was much older than that. As we read in English that Abraham offered up the 'lad' Isaac as a burnt offering, we think of him being a young boy too, when he was actually around thirty seven years old. So it is with the 'lad' Ishmael, he was older than the little boy we think of him as being. After all, he was thirteen when Abraham circumcised him, so he had to be at least that old or older when this incident took place. So now Hagar perceives that she and her son are going to die. She walks away from Ishmael and leaves him under a bush to die. But it says YHVH heard the prayers of Ishmael. Why did he hear the son's prayer and not the mother's, good question?
I'm going to give you the answer one of the famous Hebrew writers give. R'Hirsch says, rather than being there to comfort her child in his dying moments, she thought only of herself and the discomfort "she would feel" in the presence of his dying. Therefore, God heard his pleas and not hers. We know that everything happens for a reason and that God has a purpose in mind in the incidents of lives, so we know that Ishmael was never in any danger of dying, because God had future plans for him. But we still have to go through the trials because we don't know how His plans will work out. So we know that YHVH rescued them and that Ishmael grew and prospered in the wilderness. He became a mighty hunter. He took a wife out of the land of Egypt. Now we come to the biggest test I would imagine in Abraham's entire life. He is told by YHVH to offer up Isaac as a burnt offering. But Abraham obeys and rises up early the next morning to head out on the mission. Personally, I wouldn't have had to rise up early, I never would have been able to sleep that night in the first place:! Today, most believers would rebuke such a command as being from the devil and go on about their business. Fortunately, YHVH only had to do this once in man's history. If Abraham was willing to offer up Isaac, then YHVH must be willing to offer up his son.
You see YHVH can not ask a mere man to do something that he Himself is not willing to do. That would be unjust and He is not an unjust God. So Abraham gets the wood and the needed supplies and his servants that he takes along and begins the journey. Notice how many days it takes Abraham before they get to the designated place for the offering, three days. Here is another picture of the resurrection, three days in the tomb and then Yeshua arose. So Abraham instructs his men to stay there and he and Isaac will go and worship and will return to him. The Midrash (which we cannot totally rely upon) says the two men accompanying Abraham was Eliezer and Ishmael, who had come to visit his father. It could have been and could not have been, interesting thought however. I would imagine the one thing Abraham held on to during this trial, was the fact that YHVH had told him that he would make his descendants as the stars in the sky. So if he had to kill Isaac, then YHVH would resurrect him in order to fulfill His promise to him. Some commentaries say Sarah died when she found out what Abraham was going to do. It does record in the next parasha Sarah's death, but we can't prove that statement scripturally. The way I see it is, Isaac was around thirty seven when this incident happened and the Scripture says Sarah lived to be one hundred and twenty seven, she was ninety when she birthed Isaac. So if you subtract thirty seven from one hundred and twenty seven, you get the age that Sarah was when she had Isaac. So the math part of it does work out to make this theory feasible. As emotional as women are in comparison to men, I don't believe this would be much of a stretch to believe Sarah died after hearing what she thought was happening. I wouldn't debate it one way or the other. As great of a patriarch as Abraham was, so much so was the trials he had to endure. Let's recap a few of his life experiences; He was told to leave his home and family and start out for an unknown place. He had to go to war to rescue his nephew Lot. He had to go into a foreign land twice and lie about who his wife was. He remained childless for most of his life. He had to perform a circumcision on his own self (without pain killers-ouch). He had to send his son away into the wilderness. He had to be willing to take his other son and offer him as a burnt sacrifice. Most of all, he had to listen to two women fighting each other in his own household:. So we see when YHVH gives you a lot of wisdom, a lot of responsibility for making right choices comes with it. To whom much is given, much is required! How much are you willing to give? Shalom
We see where YHVH promises Abraham a child of his own by that same time the following year. Then we get into the discussion about YHVH destroying Sodom and Gomorrah and Abraham "bargaining" for people lives with the God of all the Earth. Personally, I believe Abraham did a wonderful job. I've said before, Abraham would make a wonderful used car salesman:. But the bottom line is, YHVH said if He could find ten righteous men in those cities, He would not destroy them. Now when you can't find just ten righteous men in a city, you have to see the level of sin they were in. Sodom was well known for being extremely rich and extremely hostile to anyone else who wasn't rich. Lot was wealthy and so they took him in without a fuss. To discourage undesirable newcomers however, the Sodomites institutionalized state cruelty. It was a crime to feed any starving person passing by, or offer alms to a beggar. Even the sexual perversion Sodom was famous for was employed partly as a means to keep beggars away. So now Lot sees the two strangers from the gate where he is sitting. After begging them to come spend the night at his home, they follow him home. Mean while, all the local deviates hear about this and head on over to Lot's house. When they ask Lot to send out the two strangers, he refuses. He offers them his daughters instead.(I know, I can't figure that one out either as a parent) They almost got a hold on Lot, but the angels pulled him back in the door and smote the men outside with blindness. Now to me, here is another kicker to think about. It says even after being struck blind, the men still tried to find the door! (Gen 19:11) Think about that. If you were going to do something and got struck with blindness over it, wouldn't you think, hey, I'd better give up on this idea while I'm still alive? But these men while even being struck blind still wanted to carry out their evil deeds!!! That shows the depth of their wickedness. So the angels instruct Lot that if he has any other children in this place, he'd better get them out. He had two more daughters and their husbands.
But when Lot tried to warn them what was coming, they thought he was foolish. Gee, that sounds familiar:. So come morning, the angels literally pulled Lot and his wife and daughters out of the city. They told Lot, we can do nothing until you are out of this town. But we all know that Lot's wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt. The angels tell Lot to flee to the mountains, but instead he talks them into letting him flee to one of the smaller cities nearby. In all there were five cities that were destroyed; Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboilim and Zoar. Zoar was later destroyed after Lot and his two daughters had left it to go live in the mountains, which is where they were told to go in the first place. We all know what happened after this. Lot's daughters thought they were the only people left alive on the earth, so they had better lay with their father to have offspring to continue the human race. So the older daughter got Lot drunk one night and laid with him. She conceived that very night. The next night the other daughter gave Lot wine and he got drunk and laid with her. She also conceived that very night. One daughter was discreet enough to name the child a name that would not describe how the child was conceived, the other one didn't care. The older daughter called her son Moab, which in Hebrew means "from father." The younger daughter named her son Be-Ami, which simply means son of my people. Moab is where the Moabites came from. So now the scene switches back to Sarah and Abraham's ordeals. Abraham again journeys into another land called Gerar. Hey, here comes another play acting of Sarah being his sister again. This time it's with King Abimelch. Now as kings went in that day, Abimelch was a good ruler. But even at the age of ninety, Sarah's beauty was such that the king wanted to marry her. That's pretty remarkable, after all, Sarah wasn't any spring chicken, she was more like a fall fryer:. Now YHVH comes to the king in a dream and informs him of what will happen to him if he lays a finger on Sarah. YHVH had closed up the wombs of the king's household because of Sarah. But YHVH did recognize the king did not do this thing out of a wrong heart, so he just informed him, set her free and you'll live, keep her and you'll die.
I believe that would make the choice pretty easy for me:! So free her he does and YHVH removes the curse from his household. Just so you don't get tripped up on Gen. 20:12, the Bible often refers to grandchildren as the person's son or daughter. We read previously where it told you Abraham took his brother's daughter as his wife. Sarah was Abraham's niece, not sister. (See Gen.11:28-32-Iscah was another name for Sarah) So now we see where Isaac is being weaned, there's a party thrown for the occasion and Ishmael is seen mocking Isaac. There are several opinions as to exactly what is meant by that word 'mocking'. Really we don't know for sure exactly what Ishmael was doing to Isaac. It must have involved something more than just teasing him some way or Sarah would not have gotten so upset, so upset to send them away after the boy living there for so many years. So Hagar and her son must go! Abraham sends them away early in the morning with a skin of wine and some bread. As their water ran out, they became thirsty and faint. Ishmael is lying down under a bush. In the English you see him referred to as a lad and you think of him as being something in the area of six or seven years old. But he was much older than that. As we read in English that Abraham offered up the 'lad' Isaac as a burnt offering, we think of him being a young boy too, when he was actually around thirty seven years old. So it is with the 'lad' Ishmael, he was older than the little boy we think of him as being. After all, he was thirteen when Abraham circumcised him, so he had to be at least that old or older when this incident took place. So now Hagar perceives that she and her son are going to die. She walks away from Ishmael and leaves him under a bush to die. But it says YHVH heard the prayers of Ishmael. Why did he hear the son's prayer and not the mother's, good question?
I'm going to give you the answer one of the famous Hebrew writers give. R'Hirsch says, rather than being there to comfort her child in his dying moments, she thought only of herself and the discomfort "she would feel" in the presence of his dying. Therefore, God heard his pleas and not hers. We know that everything happens for a reason and that God has a purpose in mind in the incidents of lives, so we know that Ishmael was never in any danger of dying, because God had future plans for him. But we still have to go through the trials because we don't know how His plans will work out. So we know that YHVH rescued them and that Ishmael grew and prospered in the wilderness. He became a mighty hunter. He took a wife out of the land of Egypt. Now we come to the biggest test I would imagine in Abraham's entire life. He is told by YHVH to offer up Isaac as a burnt offering. But Abraham obeys and rises up early the next morning to head out on the mission. Personally, I wouldn't have had to rise up early, I never would have been able to sleep that night in the first place:! Today, most believers would rebuke such a command as being from the devil and go on about their business. Fortunately, YHVH only had to do this once in man's history. If Abraham was willing to offer up Isaac, then YHVH must be willing to offer up his son.
You see YHVH can not ask a mere man to do something that he Himself is not willing to do. That would be unjust and He is not an unjust God. So Abraham gets the wood and the needed supplies and his servants that he takes along and begins the journey. Notice how many days it takes Abraham before they get to the designated place for the offering, three days. Here is another picture of the resurrection, three days in the tomb and then Yeshua arose. So Abraham instructs his men to stay there and he and Isaac will go and worship and will return to him. The Midrash (which we cannot totally rely upon) says the two men accompanying Abraham was Eliezer and Ishmael, who had come to visit his father. It could have been and could not have been, interesting thought however. I would imagine the one thing Abraham held on to during this trial, was the fact that YHVH had told him that he would make his descendants as the stars in the sky. So if he had to kill Isaac, then YHVH would resurrect him in order to fulfill His promise to him. Some commentaries say Sarah died when she found out what Abraham was going to do. It does record in the next parasha Sarah's death, but we can't prove that statement scripturally. The way I see it is, Isaac was around thirty seven when this incident happened and the Scripture says Sarah lived to be one hundred and twenty seven, she was ninety when she birthed Isaac. So if you subtract thirty seven from one hundred and twenty seven, you get the age that Sarah was when she had Isaac. So the math part of it does work out to make this theory feasible. As emotional as women are in comparison to men, I don't believe this would be much of a stretch to believe Sarah died after hearing what she thought was happening. I wouldn't debate it one way or the other. As great of a patriarch as Abraham was, so much so was the trials he had to endure. Let's recap a few of his life experiences; He was told to leave his home and family and start out for an unknown place. He had to go to war to rescue his nephew Lot. He had to go into a foreign land twice and lie about who his wife was. He remained childless for most of his life. He had to perform a circumcision on his own self (without pain killers-ouch). He had to send his son away into the wilderness. He had to be willing to take his other son and offer him as a burnt sacrifice. Most of all, he had to listen to two women fighting each other in his own household:. So we see when YHVH gives you a lot of wisdom, a lot of responsibility for making right choices comes with it. To whom much is given, much is required! How much are you willing to give? Shalom