B'reisheet (ברֵאשִׁית) In the Beginnig- Audio Podcast Oct 29, 2022
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B’reisheet
In the Beginning
Introduction
Introduction
How many of you know that the Bible was written in Hebrew
Many say the OT was written in Hebrew, and the NT in Greek
What we have is only what we have found as evidence: Greek documents showing the NT and Hebrew for the OT.
However, most the characters and places and people found in both the OT and NT are Hebrew
They would have thought using Hebrew thought
And would have written using a Hebrew Alphabet
Our discussion today is not about the Historical, Anthropological, and Archeological evidence of this
But the significance imbedded in this fact
Unless we do it from the Hebrew perspective, we miss the whole message of redemption
Torah Portion
This Torah Portion goes from Genesis 1:1-6:8
But will only cover from Verse 1-8
This is a new Torah portion we are beginning today which presents the gospel of Messiah from the very beginning, establishing the foundation for His ministry - for what He is going to accomplish.
We are going to study this segment in two parts: from verse 1-3, and from 4-8
Presentation
Presentation
What is the significance of the Book of Genesis (In the Beginning)?
What is the Hebrew meaning?
Is it just a historical and chronological account of creation?
Is it only the order in which things were created by God?
NO - In the Book of Genesis Chapter One we find the Promise of His covenant - the prophecy of His divine work
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.
Genesis 1:1 in Hebrew
Aleph and Tav at the center, in the verse
1- The First and the Last
Aleph and Tav - the beginning and the end-
Revelation 1:8 (NKJV)
“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,” says the Lord, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”
Revelation 22:13 (NKJV)
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last.”
ברֵאשִׁית (be-rēʾšît), n. beginning, what comes first; starting point; first and best; first-fruit, choicest portion. Greek equiv. fr. LXX: ἀπαρχή (13), ἀρχή (7).
2- TheHighest Fruit
The First fruit of
“Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘When you come into the land which I give to you, and reap its harvest, then you shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest.
The Foremost
“Thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘Behold, I will break the bow of Elam, The foremost of their might.
The Best of
The best of all firstfruits of any kind, and every sacrifice of any kind from all your sacrifices, shall be the priest’s; also you shall give to the priest the first of your ground meal, to cause a blessing to rest on your house.
Woe to you who are at ease in Zion, And trust in Mount Samaria, Notable persons in the chief nation, To whom the house of Israel comes!
He is the first of the ways of God; Only He who made him can bring near His sword.
Colossians 1:18 (NKJV)
And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.
3- Part of His wisdom
Wisdom is the principal thing; Therefore get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding.
“The Lord possessed me at the beginning of His way, Before His works of old.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, But fools despise wisdom and instruction.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; A good understanding have all those who do His commandments. His praise endures forever.
4- First Fruit
The firstfruits of your grain and your new wine and your oil, and the first of the fleece of your sheep, you shall give him.
Israel was holiness to the Lord, The firstfruits of His increase. All that devour him will offend; Disaster will come upon them,” says the Lord.’ ”
Honor the Lord with your possessions, And with the firstfruits of all your increase;
Aleph and Tav at the center, in the verse
B’risheet Prophecy
He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end.
The end of a thing is better than its beginning; The patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ;
And: “You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the work of Your hands.
Therefore let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father.
“Come near to Me, hear this: I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; From the time that it was, I was there. And now the Lord God and His Spirit Have sent Me.”
Remember the former things of old, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me,
Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things that are not yet done, Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, And I will do all My pleasure,’
How can we be reassured of His promise and work when we read His word, His Bible?
Hebrew
Pictographic
22 pictograms = symbols or letters to form ideas- words
Numeric
22 pictograms are also numbers- meaning based on how that number is used in the Bible
Phonetic
The oldest language in the World- some words are pronounce the same way but mean something different
Let’s take a closer look at the word B’reisheet and the Prophecy in it.
In the Beginning
God revealing the end from the Beginning
Prophetic Significance
Bet:
Floor plan of a House or Tent
Also is IN or INSIDE - the family is IN
Resh:
Head
Head Person or Princes
Authority
The First
Bet+Resh = SON
(Bar)
The Son is the Head person or Prince
Aleph:
Ox
Strong Leader
Number One
The first letter of Elohim
אֱלֹהִים (ʾělō·hîm) = God
The first three letters of B’reisheet now
Bet-Resh-Aleph
Created (Creator)
The Son in the Tent is the Son of God the Creator
Next Letter
Sheen (W)
Teeth
Press Down
Crush and Destroy and Separate
Signature letter of God - Signifying His Special Ownership of Something
Picture of Sheen over Jerusalem
Three Valleys:
Left - Hinon Valley
Center - Refaiim Valley
Right - Kidron Valley
So,
Resh-Aleph - Sheen
Head
Reysh - Confirms the meaning of Prince or Head Person
Bet- Reysh -Aleph -Sheen
The Prince has come out of the Tent
The Prince, the Son of the Creator, has come out of His home
Sheen - To crush or destroy
Is the Prince coming out of His house to crush or destroy (or to be crushed or destroyed) or both?
Next letter
Yod
Hand or Arm
Number 10 - Divine
The hand is doing a Divine Deed
Picture of a Hand
Bet-Resh-Alef-Shin-Yod
The Prince, the Son of the Creator, came out of His home (tent) to destroy something with His divine hand
Next letter
Tav
The last letter (22nd) which means to bring something to and end
Looks like a cross
This divine deed the prince is going to accomplished will be seen in the sign of a cross
The center point of human history from God’s point of view
Everything that happened before this Sign was ordained to set the stage for this event
Anything that happens after this sign is a direct consequence of this sign
It shows the end of sin
It shows God is faithful
The Prince, the Son of the Creator came out of His home (Tent) to destroy with His divine hand the sting of death
In the beginning- This is not about God’s origin, it is about His everlasting, eternal condition. Eternal life that offers to all of us. It is about His eternal covenant
In the beginning - This is not about our present condition but our destination: He is the beginning and the end - The Aleph and Tav- the first and the last
What was His first step into announcing from the Beginning the Word
He was in the beginning with God.
All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.
In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
A plan from the Beginning. God incarnate:
The Prince, the Son of the Creator came out of His home (Tent) to destroy with His divine hand the sting of death
In this beginning, there is no definition of God or any mystical speculation about His nature. God’s nature finds expression not in philosophical abstractions but through His acts and through the demands He makes on human beings.1
1 Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis, The JPS Torah Commentary (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 5.
In the beginning He set off to do his divine work, we must consider our response: His covenant
Let us continue with our Torah portion
Genesis 1:4–8 (NKJV)
And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.
God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.
Then God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.”
Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so.
And God called the firmament Heaven. So the evening and the morning were the second day.
He divided the waters
The mayim from the hamayim
There is a transformation from the waters
There is a kind of water from heaven here on earth
Why is this so important?
Quote
God brings men into deep waters not to drown them, but to cleanse them - James Aughey
This also prefigures what delivers us now, the water of immersion, which is not the removal of dirt from the body, but one’s pledge to keep a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Yeshua the Messiah.
We, as Peter says, must follow the step of Jesus
For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps:
“Who committed no sin, Nor was deceit found in His mouth”;
What was Yeshua’s first step into public ministry: His Baptism
Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him.
A baptism of repentance - although He had nothing to repent from because He never sinned, and He is God
But setting an example for us
To show us that we are divided from the rest of the world
We are set apart
And Yeshua’s response is:
And John tried to prevent Him, saying, “I need to be baptized by You, and are You coming to me?”
But Jesus answered and said to him, “Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he allowed Him.
Righteousness: To do what is right:
7406 צֶדֶק (ṣě·ḏěq): n.masc.; ≡ Str 6664; TWOT 1879a—1. LN 88.12–88.23 righteousness, justice, rightness, i.e., the act. of doing what is required according to a standard (Ps 7:9[EB 8]); 2. LN 88.39–88.45 honesty, fairness, accuracy, i.e., an act. which is proper according to a standard, and not deviant in any way (Lev 19:36); 3. LN 12.1–12.42 Righteousness, i.e., a title of the Lord (Jer 23:6; 33:16); 4. LN 56.20–56.34 justice, i.e., the act. of fairly deciding what is right in a legal case, without prejudice (Dt 16:20), note: further study may yield more domains1
1 James Swanson, Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament) (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997).
Oh, let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end, But establish the just; For the righteous God tests the hearts and minds.
A complete submersion in to water signifies a complete submission to the Lord
This is required by the righteous Law of God to be cleaned
And Moses said to the congregation, “This is what the Lord commanded to be done.”
Then Moses brought Aaron and his sons and washed them with water.
A symbol of purification- mikveh
Beresheet - In the Beginning
The Prince, the Son of the Creator came out of His home (Tent) to destroy with His divine hand the sting of death
For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,
that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
“Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven.
A baptism of water
Now as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, “See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?”
Then Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.” And he answered and said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”
Baptism does not save- put separates us from the world
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,
not of works, lest anyone should boast.
not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit,
whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior,
Saved and made clean to obey the Torah
This is a faithful saying, and these things I want you to affirm constantly, that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable to men.
buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.
And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses,
Today we will celebrate the Lord in a baptism
This also prefigures what delivers us now, the water of immersion, which is not the removal of dirt from the body, but one’s pledge to keep a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Yeshua the Messiah.
Water baptism is an act ( Titus 3:8 ) of obedience that follows our understanding of Who Messiah is - how He, The Prince, came out of His home (tent) to accomplish something with His divine hand in us.
Water baptism symbolizes the washing away of our sins - the death and burial of our old nature and us being born again as a new creation living a new life in Messiah. Baptism does not bring salvation, but it is our obedient response to what the Prince did:
B’reisheet:
B’reisheet Summary
The Prince, the Son of the Creator came out of His home (Tent) to destroy with His divine hand the sting of death
The prophet Isaiah puts it this way:
“Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel, And his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: ‘I am the First and I am the Last; Besides Me there is no God.
Aleph and Tov
That we may repent, be saved, be baptized and obey Him. To be made righteous and set apart for Him
Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?
Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection,
knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.
For he who has died has been freed from sin.
Shabbat Shalom