From Genesis 1, we understand that Elohim created humans to be in an intimate relationship with Them. Sculpted by God’s hands and made alive by God’s own breath, we are the image and likeness of our Creator. Adam watched God create the Garden; then God placed the human in the Garden to name the animals, discerning their characteristics. The blessing of…

After God Most High had delivered Abram’s enemies into his hand, Melchizedek, king of Salem and priest of God Most High, brought out bread and wine and blessed him (Gen. 14:18-20, see Blog 22 Fun Factors). Abram chose God’s blessings over the king of Sodom’s worldly wealth. Later that night, YHWH spoke to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid…

What is a name, and why is naming biblically significant? In Genesis 1, God called things by name when He brought them into existence. He called the light Day and the darkness He called Night. God called the raqia heaven, the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters Seas. God created the human in Their task likeness, yet They did not name the human…

In Blog 35, I talked about why an exodus from exile is necessary for life. Blog 36 focused on YHWH’s promise to Abram as the basis for Israel’s deliverance. The Torah closely tracks the patriarchs ‘ ages from the time and date of this paramount interaction between YHWH and Abram to Israel’s exodus out of Egypt and their entrance into the Land. Why? So…

When Abram asked YHWH how he could know that he would inherit the land presently occupied by ten idol-worshiping people groups, the covenant YHWH made with Abram consisted of a two-part promise: the land and deliverance from oppression. YHWH told Abram , “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs and will…

YHWH told Abram that his offspring, like he, would be strangers in a land not their own. But after four hundred years, He would bring judgment upon the people groups of Canaan who “afflicted and mistreated them” and on “that nation who enslaved them.” The two verbs used are `anah (to afflict, to humble) and `abad (to cause another to work, to serve). YHWH would…

Transgressing God’s way of life had its wages in death. In the course of our history, humankind became debt slaves to destruction. During the era Israel was in Egypt, God’s “guilty as charged” judgment fell on both Egyptians and Israelites, for God’s chosen people were equal idolators as the Egyptians (Eze. 20:5-9). YHWH sentenced to death each family’s firstborn and…

The story of Moses is an integral part of YHWH’s bringing Israel out of bondage. The Book of Exodus begins with “And these are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt,” locking into Genesis’s Abraham narrative. We read that the Israelites were indeed fulfilling YHWH’s words to the patriarch, “Look now toward the heaven, and count the stars if…

In five previous blogs about the first Day of Unleavened Bread, I mentioned “the way.” How is “the way” critical to the Days of Unleavened Bread? The first use of “the way” biblically is the way to the Tree of Life guarded by the two cherubim at the entrance to the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3:24). It means the path traveled between two points. Yet metaphorically…