How are we made holy or “set apart”? Our good deeds or the good deeds of an illustrious ancestor? It isn’t by genealogy — Yokhanan (John the Baptist) made that clear. He counts us among His people when we answer God’s call upon our heart and actions through Mashiakh Yeshua (Christ Jesus). The foundation for that holiness through the Messiah is put down in Torah reading כי תשא Ki Tisa (“when you take,” Exodus 30:11–34:35).
The garments of Israel’s High Priest, detailed in Torah reading תצוה Tetzaveh (“you shall command,” Exodus 27:20-30:10), mark him as the highest representative of the people before God. Messiah Yeshua, equally God and equally man, is uniquely qualified to fill that role completely.
The connection between the menorah, the altar of incense and the people of Israel is equally profound as the work of their hands and their prayers are lifted to God symbolically by Aharon the High Priest and literally in Heaven by Messiah Yeshua, our eternal High Priest.
The cost of freedom for enslaved Yisra’el was the death of the firstborn of Mitzraim, and the cost of our freedom from slavery to the deathward lifestyle away from the Creator is the death of the LORD’s Firstborn.
The last three plagues, including the coming of the Destroyer for the firstborn of Mitzraim, and the first Pesakh are the focus of Torah reading בוא Bo (“come,” Exodus 10:1-13:16).
It’s cold comfort while we’re suffering to understand that learning how to endure it will make us stronger (James 1:2–4). And it can seem cruel to watch such a struggle from the outside, thinking someone with power should step up and stop it.
That heart cry for deliverance is the focus of the Torah reading שמות Shemot (“names,” Exodus 1:1–6:1). Amid the passage’s exploration of the key question of why the Kingdom of Heaven that spoke the Earth into existence seems to be unable or unwilling to stop the oppression of one of its superpowers — Mitzraim (Egypt) — there’s the subtle hit of Heaven’s coming knockout blow to that bully.
The Holy One blessed about three-score and 10 Israeli immigrants, lifting Mitzraim above its neighbors during a punishing famine while multiplying Israel’s numbers at a rate that was frightening to a pharaoh who thought he was in control of his own destiny. Just think what Heaven will do for those who cry out for relief.
Aesop’s ancient saying “familiarity breeds contempt” could easily sum up how Yosef’s brothers treated him in his early years and how many leaders of Yisra’el treated Yeshua. The prophetic parallels between Yosef and Yeshua the Mashiakh sharpen further in the Torah section Vayigash (“he approached”).
In it, the brothers’ contempt turns to fear when they realize their plots against Yosef have put them at his mercy. It’s also a picture of the Day of the LORD, when Yisra’el then the world must confess, “Blessed is He Who comes in the name of the LORD.”
Torah section Miketz (“from the end,” Genesis 41:1-44:17) is a passion play of the Mashiakh. The suffering Yosef puts his brothers through was not only a recollection of Yosef’s own sufferings but also a foreshadowing of the suffering of the future Anointed One.
Are you living where God wants you to live? That’s the question the LORD explored with Yosef and Yehudah in the Torah section Vayeshev, which means “and he dwelled.” It introduces in earnest the two main characters ― biblically, called “houses” ― in the leadership of Israel’s legacy, the knowledge of and connection with the Creator.