Deacon D

 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...

Walk in the Bible - Genesis 16 This chapter starts off right away with mentioning that Sari still hasn't had any children yet, so she devises a plan to have Abram have a child, through her maid, Hagar.  Hagar is actually the pharaoh's daughter! Remember, he was told the leave Egypt when the Pharaoh took Sari as a wife and received plagues in his household for his trouble! Also, Rabbeinu Bahya reminds us that Hagar really belongs to Sari, she's, according to the customs of the day, property Sari brings with her at the marriage. Abram has limits on what he can do with her, in fact, he can't even sell her Rashi reminds us that if a woman lives with her husband for 10 years and no child has been born, the man is bound to take another (Per Yevamot 64) Ramban says as much, himself. Radak even adds more detail - he states that the man could pay out her marriage settlement (Ketuvah) and divorce her and take another wife. Rashi advises us that Hagar started despising Sari. She...

Genesis 15 In verse 1 we see GOD coming to Abram in a vision. Chizkuni reminds us that the same thing would happen to Jacob in Genesis 34:30 after Jacob and his sons fought and defeated the Shechemites. Even though Abram had been victorious in battle, he still worried that other tribes would come after him to avenge the army that he and his people had defeated. GOD lets him know this won't happen, that HE HIMSELF will protect him against that happening. This is backed up the first words GOD says to Abram.     GOD further tells him his reward will be great, and Abram, the man who had just defeated army much larger than the amount of men he had with him at the time, likely fresh from the battle and not thinking too clearly essentially asks GOD what good that reward would do him since he had no child to inherit it and keep it in his house. Because that was true at this time, he believed that Eliezer, his stewart, would possess all of the rewards GOD had promised him. Now, remebe...