Deacon D

 Walk in the Bible - Genesis 23 This passage opens up with Sarah's lifetime. This indicates that she died, but it also lets us know that this was considered a blessing. In fact, according to Jewish customs, death at an old age was considered a blessing and that's what this first chapter would have implied to the Jewish listeners at that time. In fact, Chizkuni echos this thought in his comments on Genesis 23 verse 2. The second verse, in the Targum of Jonathan, outright tells us that she died during the time Abraham went to the mountain at GOD's request and almost ended up sacrificing Isaac. It also lets us know that Abraham mourned Sarah. On the same day, he heads over to the Hittites and asks to buy land to bury his wife. Abraham had to do this on the same day as his wife's death, this was also a part of Jewish custom and to be honest, this was also a smart move, after all, there was no refrigeration at that time, and the Jewish people didn't cremate their dead ei...

 Walk in the Bible - Genesis 22      In chapter 22, the Torah scholars aren't really sure if the Bible jumps forward in time or backward. This is because they're not really sure what "some time afterward" is referring to. When we look at the the Jerusalem Targum (a targum is a translation of the Bible from one language to another - be aware that this is being written during the second temple period where the Hebrews started speaking Aramaic rather than Hebrew, which was the language of Babylon, their captors, therefore this Targum was a translation from Hebrew to Aramaic) the same verse states "And it was after these things that the Lord tried Abraham.." whereas the Targum of Jonathan goes into more detail and says that it was after Isaac and Ishmael had an argument about who was really Abraham's first born son (and thus who should get the double portion of his inheritance, as was customary). The Talmud, Sanhedrin 89b:8 also refers to this argument as we...

 Walk in the Bible - Genesis 21      Abraham had just prayed for King Abimelech and the wombs of all his wives and concubines had opened up, now GOD was going to reward Abraham, just like HE did for Job over in Job 42:10. Job had lost everything, had boils all over his skin and here he was praying for his friends benefit, and GOD gave him back everything he lost, twice over. Abraham wasn't in quite as dire a situation as Job, but GOD had promised him a son, he'd waited, he and his wife were now past the age where they could have children by any means known on Earth, and GOD's now about to give him a son since HE promised HE would grant Abraham a son. In fact, not only was GOD going to do this, but scripture goes out of it's way to tell us that HE's going to do it exactly when he said it would happen to begin with, over in Genesis 18:10.      Verse 2 goes out of the way to confirm this is Abraham and Sarah's son, to once again back up GOD's promise to t...

 Walk in the Bible - Genesis 20      In verse 1, Abraham is shown leaving - he's leaving the same place he was when he entertained the angels, under the trees of Mamre and he's traveling to Negeb. This chapter tells us that he's staying for a while in Gerar which is the home of King Abimelech of the Philistines. None of the Torah scholars really know why he left. They state emphatically that there was no famine in the land, so that wasn't it, they just simply don't know why he left.      We do know that in Gerar, we have a replay of what happened in Egypt, namely, Abraham told King Abimelech that Sara was his sister. Most of the Torah scholars believe that Abraham did this because he thought the king might kill him to take his wife. Although we have one scholar, Rabbeinu Chananel who postulated that Abraham had divorced his wife, and because she was his half-sister, wasn't really lying. The Bible doesn't support this anywhere in this story. The Bible d...

  Genesis 19 In verse 1, we see that there are now TWO angels. Before ( in Genesis 18:2 there were three angels and we see that the Lord went on HIS way in Genesis 18:33.  That's lead some of the scholars to believe that GOD was actually one of the angels that met with Abraham, face to face! No one's really sure if it was HIM or not, but in either case, we now see that there are TWO angels going to Sodom and Gomorrah. The angels are said to have arrived in the evening, however, some scholars actually think it was closer to sunset for a few reasons, the first being that the gates would have been closed at night to keep out bandits and secondly, the word used for evening "ereb" could mean "evening", "night" or even "sunset".  When the angels arrived, Lot was said to be "sitting in the gate" and this is absolutely correct. At that time each city had two sets of gates, an outer gate and an inner gate. The space between those two...

Walk in the Bible - Genesis 18      This chapter pick up three days after Abraham was circumcised. Although the chapter itself doesn't say as much, pretty much all of the Torah scholars believe this is when this happened, as kind of a "get well" visit as this is when the circumcision would have been the most painful.  A lot of Bible translations say that Abraham was sitting by the "Terebinths" or the "Oaks" of Mamre.  Mamre was both the name of a city in Palestine and the name of a person. We know it's a person because he's mentioned back in Genesis 14:13 as Mamre the Amorite and Abraham was shown to be living in that same location as well!      He's shown sitting in the door of his tent on the fourth hour of the day, now according to Daat Zkenim, this is when people ate lunch, typically the biggest meal of the day. The fourth hour of the day would be between 10-11 as the day started right at daybreak, and the first hour would fall roughly ...

Genesis 17 ​ ​ ​ Four or Five years (depending on which Torah commentator you ask) have passed since the end of Genesis 16, Abram’s now 90 years old, well past the age where he should be able to have a son, not to mention the fact that Sari’s actually a bit older than he is and is also at an age where she too, couldn’t have a child herself. ​ GOD’s first words when he appears to Abram is to tell him that he is GOD Almighty "El Shaddai". Pretty much all of the Torah commentators agree that El Shaddai means "powerful enough to sustain any creature", that GOD has no need of anything else outside of HIMSELF to sustain HIMSELF.​ His next words to Abram, interestingly enough can be translated to "Walk before me and be whole" or "walk before me and be intact", which is a really intersting play on words considering what he’s about to ask Abram to do! ​ ​ ​ He tells Abram that he’s going to make a covenant, a binding promise, between HIMSELF and Abram, un...