Parasha Vayishlach
Don't Be Like a Horse or a Mule Welcome to parasha Vayishlach. It begins in Genesis 32:4-36:43. We have now came to the place where Jacob (Yaakov) has decided to confront his brother Esau. As he prepares to meet Esau, he is informed that Esau is coming to meet him with four hundred men with him. Now Jacob may be one of the three famous patriarchs of the Bible, but he is still just a man, subject to emotions, which at this time happens to be fear. So he comes up with a plan. I like a person who can come up with a plan when things get tense:. Jacob divides the people into two groups and the animals into groups. He then begins to do some serious praying! He reminds YHVH that He had promised to do good for him and make his seed like the sand of the sea. He decides to send a drove of animals ahead of himself as a gift for Esau (an appeasement). He sent three different droves out to meet Esau. Each one was to keep a space between himself and the drove both in front and in back of him. Notice what Jacob replies to the servant's questions when they ask, who do we tell Esau we are. Jacob instructs them to tell Esau they are bringing gifts that are from his "servant" Jacob for Jacob's "master" Esau. Talk about trying to butter someone up, at this point Jacob has used enough butter to season an entire bushel of corn:. But can you blame him? After all, like Darth Vader, he knows Esau's dark side! Then we have the famous wrestling with an angel incident and the angel changing Jacob's name to Yisrael and giving him a limp. The English word limp is not in the 'original Hebrew Scriptures' here. YHVH changed Jacob's 'direction in life'. You have to go back to the original Hebrew words like Tsaw-lah, which means to curve. It is only 'related' to a root word that could mean to limp, but limp is NOT the word used there.
YHVH never gave Jacob a hurt thigh and made him limp the rest of his life, but he did turn him around to go a different direction in life. The word means to curve around. Sometimes you get wrong meanings in the English dictionaries because words have been played around with. You have to check several sources to get the full picture. I don't believe Yeshua would 'physically hurt someone' who was only seeking a blessing from Him. Does that sound right to you? I don't believe this was just any ordinary angel either, but He was Yeshua incarnate. No created angel has the power to change Jacob's name and his walk in life. Now Jacob looks up and sees Esau coming with his four hundred men. He decides he should divide his wives and families up into separate camps also. So he puts the handmaidens and their children out in front. Next he puts Leah and her children and then last comes Rachael and her son Joseph. This couldn't make Leah feel very loved:. Jacob sure knew how to show whom he favored between his wives and their handmaidens, which he also had children by. Then Esau runs to meet Jacob. The passage said he ran and kissed him and fell on his neck and they both wept. Now here we have a puzzling word in the original Hebrew. The word kiss has dots over each letter, an exegetical device that calls attention to hidden allusions. But the Sages disagree as to what that hidden allusion is. Some hold that it meant Esau's kiss was 'insincere'. Others say that although it was a fact that Esau hated Jacob, at that particular moment his mercy was aroused and he kissed Jacob with all his heart. Following the last view R'Hirsch comments that one cannot cry unless he is genuinely moved, for tears flow from the innermost feelings. The tears proved that Esau was more than a violent, selfish hunter, he too was a descendant of Abraham and at some point could display some humane feelings. I'll let you decide which point of view you agree with on that one. We know they end up agreeing to meet again at Mount Seir. We also know that Jacob never ended up going there to meet with Esau, he only wanted Esau to think he would meet him there. So Jacob arrives in Shechem. Jacob wanted to establish an inalienable right to the land by means of a purchase.
The Midrash notes this plot became the eventual site of Joseph's sepulcher. It is one of three places of which the Torah vouches for Israel's ownership. The other two places are the Cave of Machpelah bought by Abraham and the site of the Temple bought by King David. Now we are switching gears to check in on Dinah and what she's up to. Remember Dinah was the daughter of Jacob and Leah. The first thing Dinah did was to go out looking for friends among the wrong people. Maybe that's where that old country music song came from, you remember, Searching for Love in all The Wrong Places:. It would be like a believer looking for a friend in a bar. The two do not mix. So Dinah meets Shechem and is intimate with him. Apparently, it was love at first sight for Shechem, because he wanted Dinah to marry him. As a matter of fact, the Bible does record that Shechem was more honorable than anyone else in the house of his father. (34:19) He pleads with his father to get Dinah for him to marry. So the father and his son proceed to go meet with Jacob to ask permission for Dinah to marry Shechem. Jacob will not give him an answer until his sons arrive from working out in the fields. The Scriptures say that the sons were very angry at what had happened to their sister, so they answered Chamor (Shechem's father) deceitfully. We all know they told the father and son they would allow Dinah to marry Shechem, if he and all the men in their town became circumcised. Shechem was so enamored by Dinah, he never hesitated at this request. But on the third day when the men were in the worst shape, Simeon and Levi went in and slew all the men with their sword. It says they brought Dinah home from Shechem's house, so evidently Dinah was already staying in Shechem's house with him. They plundered the city and took all their women, children and livestock. When Jacob heard of this, he was very upset with them. Jacob believed since the sons did this evil thing, now all the surrounding towns would join forces and come after them to wipe them out as they had just done to Chamor's people. Jacob decides it's time to leave, immediately! So he instructs his household to put away the strange gods and change their clothes, they are going up to Beth-El.
They gave all their strange gods to Jacob and he buried them under an oak tree. Notice it was not the pagans here that were harboring strange gods among them, it was the people of YHVH. They were in Jacob's very household. They had their issues to deal with just as we do today. But as they journeyed YHVH put fear in the cities around them so they would not war with them. Notice YHVH appeared to Jacob again when he came out of Padan-Aram. It was really at this point that the actual name change of Jacob to Yisrael went into effect. You will see previous to this, even after the struggle with the angel, he was still called Jacob in the Scripture. It was not until this particular point in time that what the angel has previously told him came to pass. Even later on, you see when Jacob does what is right in the eyes of YHVH, he is referred to as Yisrael, when he does not, he is referred to as Jacob. Now after having heard from YHVH, Jacob journeys from Beth-El. Then Rachael goes into labor. She dies there giving birth to Benjamin. Benjamin was born eight years after Joseph. It is thought by some Sages that Rachael died early in her life because of her taking her family's pagan idols when they left Lavan. Here, if you remember, is where Jacob uttered the words to Lavan, let whoever took the idols die. This was her punishment for holding on to false gods, so the sages believe. No one really knows why she died but YHVH alone. We can speculate about it all we want, but it's just that, speculation. Later we see the death of Isaac. Jacob and Esau are there to bury him. It seems that for a while anyway, Jacob and Esau lived close to one another. But just as Abraham could not live next to Lot, Esau could no longer live next to Jacob for the same reasons, too many animals and not enough grazing land. Here the Scripture goes into detail giving you the genealogy of Esau and his descendants. Up until now, only Esau was called Edom, but now after his having wives, children and grandchildren, the entire nation was called Edom.
The genealogies are what we usually skip over reading:. But many chiefs came out of Esau's lineage. However, there is one man named in the lineage that is of interest, his name is Anah. Rashi writes that Anah did something that has come down the line to us in this time line. Anah crossbred a donkey with a mare and the result was a mule. He states that Anah himself was illegitimate, for in verse twenty he is called Zibeon's brother, yet here he is called Zibeon's son, indicating that Zibeon committed incest with his own mother. Thus, the illegitimate Anah, introduced into the world a "tainted" animal which was born of an illicit breeding, thus intimating that "evil begats evil." As we know mules cannot reproduce mules and YHVH wanted everything to reproduce 'after its kind'. So a mule is not really supposed to exist. Stubbornness doesn't just stop at mules however, we humans can give them a run for the money in that area! Until next time, when it comes to YHVH, do not be like the horse or the mule, which must be led around by bit or bridle or they will not come to you. Gee, that sounds familiar doesn't it, or at least it should, if you are reading your Psalms every day:. Shalom
YHVH never gave Jacob a hurt thigh and made him limp the rest of his life, but he did turn him around to go a different direction in life. The word means to curve around. Sometimes you get wrong meanings in the English dictionaries because words have been played around with. You have to check several sources to get the full picture. I don't believe Yeshua would 'physically hurt someone' who was only seeking a blessing from Him. Does that sound right to you? I don't believe this was just any ordinary angel either, but He was Yeshua incarnate. No created angel has the power to change Jacob's name and his walk in life. Now Jacob looks up and sees Esau coming with his four hundred men. He decides he should divide his wives and families up into separate camps also. So he puts the handmaidens and their children out in front. Next he puts Leah and her children and then last comes Rachael and her son Joseph. This couldn't make Leah feel very loved:. Jacob sure knew how to show whom he favored between his wives and their handmaidens, which he also had children by. Then Esau runs to meet Jacob. The passage said he ran and kissed him and fell on his neck and they both wept. Now here we have a puzzling word in the original Hebrew. The word kiss has dots over each letter, an exegetical device that calls attention to hidden allusions. But the Sages disagree as to what that hidden allusion is. Some hold that it meant Esau's kiss was 'insincere'. Others say that although it was a fact that Esau hated Jacob, at that particular moment his mercy was aroused and he kissed Jacob with all his heart. Following the last view R'Hirsch comments that one cannot cry unless he is genuinely moved, for tears flow from the innermost feelings. The tears proved that Esau was more than a violent, selfish hunter, he too was a descendant of Abraham and at some point could display some humane feelings. I'll let you decide which point of view you agree with on that one. We know they end up agreeing to meet again at Mount Seir. We also know that Jacob never ended up going there to meet with Esau, he only wanted Esau to think he would meet him there. So Jacob arrives in Shechem. Jacob wanted to establish an inalienable right to the land by means of a purchase.
The Midrash notes this plot became the eventual site of Joseph's sepulcher. It is one of three places of which the Torah vouches for Israel's ownership. The other two places are the Cave of Machpelah bought by Abraham and the site of the Temple bought by King David. Now we are switching gears to check in on Dinah and what she's up to. Remember Dinah was the daughter of Jacob and Leah. The first thing Dinah did was to go out looking for friends among the wrong people. Maybe that's where that old country music song came from, you remember, Searching for Love in all The Wrong Places:. It would be like a believer looking for a friend in a bar. The two do not mix. So Dinah meets Shechem and is intimate with him. Apparently, it was love at first sight for Shechem, because he wanted Dinah to marry him. As a matter of fact, the Bible does record that Shechem was more honorable than anyone else in the house of his father. (34:19) He pleads with his father to get Dinah for him to marry. So the father and his son proceed to go meet with Jacob to ask permission for Dinah to marry Shechem. Jacob will not give him an answer until his sons arrive from working out in the fields. The Scriptures say that the sons were very angry at what had happened to their sister, so they answered Chamor (Shechem's father) deceitfully. We all know they told the father and son they would allow Dinah to marry Shechem, if he and all the men in their town became circumcised. Shechem was so enamored by Dinah, he never hesitated at this request. But on the third day when the men were in the worst shape, Simeon and Levi went in and slew all the men with their sword. It says they brought Dinah home from Shechem's house, so evidently Dinah was already staying in Shechem's house with him. They plundered the city and took all their women, children and livestock. When Jacob heard of this, he was very upset with them. Jacob believed since the sons did this evil thing, now all the surrounding towns would join forces and come after them to wipe them out as they had just done to Chamor's people. Jacob decides it's time to leave, immediately! So he instructs his household to put away the strange gods and change their clothes, they are going up to Beth-El.
They gave all their strange gods to Jacob and he buried them under an oak tree. Notice it was not the pagans here that were harboring strange gods among them, it was the people of YHVH. They were in Jacob's very household. They had their issues to deal with just as we do today. But as they journeyed YHVH put fear in the cities around them so they would not war with them. Notice YHVH appeared to Jacob again when he came out of Padan-Aram. It was really at this point that the actual name change of Jacob to Yisrael went into effect. You will see previous to this, even after the struggle with the angel, he was still called Jacob in the Scripture. It was not until this particular point in time that what the angel has previously told him came to pass. Even later on, you see when Jacob does what is right in the eyes of YHVH, he is referred to as Yisrael, when he does not, he is referred to as Jacob. Now after having heard from YHVH, Jacob journeys from Beth-El. Then Rachael goes into labor. She dies there giving birth to Benjamin. Benjamin was born eight years after Joseph. It is thought by some Sages that Rachael died early in her life because of her taking her family's pagan idols when they left Lavan. Here, if you remember, is where Jacob uttered the words to Lavan, let whoever took the idols die. This was her punishment for holding on to false gods, so the sages believe. No one really knows why she died but YHVH alone. We can speculate about it all we want, but it's just that, speculation. Later we see the death of Isaac. Jacob and Esau are there to bury him. It seems that for a while anyway, Jacob and Esau lived close to one another. But just as Abraham could not live next to Lot, Esau could no longer live next to Jacob for the same reasons, too many animals and not enough grazing land. Here the Scripture goes into detail giving you the genealogy of Esau and his descendants. Up until now, only Esau was called Edom, but now after his having wives, children and grandchildren, the entire nation was called Edom.
The genealogies are what we usually skip over reading:. But many chiefs came out of Esau's lineage. However, there is one man named in the lineage that is of interest, his name is Anah. Rashi writes that Anah did something that has come down the line to us in this time line. Anah crossbred a donkey with a mare and the result was a mule. He states that Anah himself was illegitimate, for in verse twenty he is called Zibeon's brother, yet here he is called Zibeon's son, indicating that Zibeon committed incest with his own mother. Thus, the illegitimate Anah, introduced into the world a "tainted" animal which was born of an illicit breeding, thus intimating that "evil begats evil." As we know mules cannot reproduce mules and YHVH wanted everything to reproduce 'after its kind'. So a mule is not really supposed to exist. Stubbornness doesn't just stop at mules however, we humans can give them a run for the money in that area! Until next time, when it comes to YHVH, do not be like the horse or the mule, which must be led around by bit or bridle or they will not come to you. Gee, that sounds familiar doesn't it, or at least it should, if you are reading your Psalms every day:. Shalom