Lekh L’kha
(Get yourself out) / B’resheit (Genesis) 12:1 – 17:27
This week’s reading contains a parashah, which is one of
my favorites, the reading for Thursday.
Though short, a mere ten verses (14:21 – 15:6), there are two
opportunities for Abram to have great gain.
Personally, I love the contrast between the two.
The first opportunity for gain comes from the mouth of
the King of S’dom. He offered Abram all
the booty that has been captured from his having slaughtered the 4 kings of the
North, those who had previously received yearly tribute from the 5 kings of the
South. Why had he gone to battle? It was not due to any love for the kings of
the South, but he was responsible for his brother’s son Lot who had been taken
captive along with his family.
Abram refused the offer of reward, for he had merely done
his duty. Merely seems like a word of
diminution, minimizing his accomplishment, but the meaning here is that he was
simply doing that which he had been called to do. I believe that in a sense, all he would have
needed to hear was, “well done, good and faithful servant.”
At some later date, Abram received a word (rhema in the
Septuagint) from the Lord that He was Abram’s protector, and not only that, but
he would be the receiver of a great reward. Being a mere seventy-five years old without
any children, Abram questioned as to what good would the reward be if he had no
real heir(s) to pass it on to. Again the
word of the Lord (phone-a in the Septuagint) revealed that he would have a
natural-born heir. This was a reward
that Abram apparently had been seeking.
As a sign of the veracity of what he had been hearing,
HaShem commanded Abram to go out and count the stars, for “So shall your
descendants be” (NASB). Now some would
have us think that that was meant to indicate the number of Abram’s
descendants. However, on even the
clearest night, the most stars that can be seen by the naked eye generally
ranges up to around 9,000 (http://www.stargazing.net/david/constel/howmanystars.html). Hmm, it seems to me that I have seen some
censuses of the Hebrew people showing more than 67 times that number of
men. So what is meant by the statement
that “So shall your descendants be”?
Well, it is my opinion, though not shared by all, that
the gospel message is “told” in the stars of the zodiac. I’m not going to go into it here, but I do
hold to some extent that beginning at Virgo and following the zodiac as it
appears through the year’s completion at Leo the story is told. We can follow from the virgin birth until that
son becomes the lion of the tribe of Judah.
After all, does it not say in B’resheit 1:14 that the lights in the sky
are “for signs and for seasons and for days and years…”?
Though neither Abram nor anyone else is able to see the
whole zodiac at one time, if he knew the story of the stars already, it would
not be difficult for him to relate the story to HaShem as well as himself. What a confidence builder in believing the Word
of the Lord. It would, in my opinion, be
a stronger confirmation than Cyrus received when he found that his name had
been recorded for a great deed many years prior. Additionally, as an afterthought, I wonder if
the young Yeshua knew the story told by the stars as well. Hmmm.
Shalom to all.
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