Parashat Shemot 5765/2005
EJD
The weekly reading for the week of 20 Tevet, 5765 - January 1, 2005 Parashah: Shemot Exodus 1:1 to 6:1; Haftarah: Isaiah 27:6 to 28:13; 29:22-23 (Ashkenazi) Jeremiah 1:1 to 2:3 (Sephardi); Mei Kituvim: Job 14:1-22; 15:1-14;19:23-27; Brit Chadashah: Matthew 2:1-23; 3:1-2
The Bagel: Stepping out of line. One of the old ways law enforcement had to check for drunkenness was to make the driver walk a straight line. If he stepped out of line too much, then they suspected a case of drunkenness. G-d has a straight line also. This line makes individuals and nations accountable to the direction and course that G-d wants people to go. The readings share this sense of accountability to that line.
Torah:
Exodus 1:1 to 6:1. In Parashat Shemot, we discover that the line of Adonay was drawn by Joseph for Egypt many centuries earlier. But now "there came a Pharaoh who knew not Joseph" (Ex. 1:9). This was a tacit refusal to submit to the higher authority of Adonay. He expressed the rebellion by rejecting the time-honored influence of Joseph in the land of Egypt. Centuries of history were reinterpreted to exclude Joseph and the authority of his G-d. It is not surprising for the Pharaoh to step further out of line by adopting the extermination of the people of Joseph.
Pharaoh redrew the line. Now, it was a crime to support Israel. But there was a man who stepped out of Pharaoh's newly drawn line. That man was Moses. In his zeal to reassert the authority of G-d's line over Pharaoh's line, he killed an Egyptian. Pharaoh was on the hunt for Moses. So he fled into the desert. G-d was in the process of drawing a new line, a line leading out of Egypt and into the Holy Land. Was Israel going to stay in this line or step out of it? Was Pharaoh going to repent? That is, turn around and get back in line? From the readings in the next couple of weeks, we will discover that Pharaoh couldn't let go of his own line and his own destruction. But Israel after a little hiatus, essentially followed G-d's direction and made it out of Egypt.
Haftarah:
Isaiah 27:6 to 28:13; 29:22-23 (Ashkenazi) Jeremiah 1:1 to 2:3 (Sephardi). In the Haftarah reading, for Ashkenazi reading we see a wayward Northern Kingdom of Israel and a deviating Southern Kingdom of Judah in the time of Assyrian hegemony. This was no time to be stepping out of line. G-d gave the line in the form of the Torah at Mt. Sinai. There were great rewards for fidelity and great disasters for taking a different route. "Destruction is certain for the city of Samaria (the capitol of the Northern Kingdom)-- the pride and joy of the drunkards of Israel! It sits in a rich valley, but its glorious beauty will suddenly disappear. Destruction is certain for that city-- the pride of a people brought low by wine" (Isaiah 28:1 NLT). If drunk drivers can't walk a straight line, imagine a whole nation given over to the whims of the world of drunkenness. The Northern Kingdom stepped out of line first and then in 722 BCE the Assyrians came destroyed that city and took the people into permanent exile. The Southern Kingdom made it by a hair's breadth, because of the revival under King Hezekiah. He brought the nation back into line.
In the Sephardic reading of Jeremiah, we have the Southern Kingdom once again stepping out of line. Jeremiah was called right in the midst of the last time that Judah walked in the straight line of Adonay. The godly king, Josiah, brought about a great return to truth. The blessings were cut short by the his death. For upon succession, his replacement king turned the nation back out of the Way: "And I will utter my judgments against them touching all their wickedness, who have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto other gods, and worshipped the works of their own hands" (Jer. 1:16 KJV). To leave the line is to leave G-d. Thus in 587 BCE Judah was taken into captivity and Jerusalem destroyed because of the previous generations that "stepped out of line."
Mei Kituvim:
Job 14:1-22; 15:1-14;19:23-27. In the reading of the Kituvim, Job had been under a verbal onslaught by his counselor-friends. These men stepped out of line by matter of a wrong perception. They were figuring that Job suffered because he had stepped out of line. If they had exhibited humility about Job's situation, then they wouldn't have judged so quickly. They would have seen that Job was still in line: "Surely then you will count my steps but not keep track of my sin" (Job 14:16 NIV). At the end of the book of Job, G-d gave instructions for these men to repent: "Now take seven young bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer on your behalf. I will not treat you as you deserve, for you have not been right in what you said about me, as my servant Job was" (Job 42:8 NLT). Without humility we learn that even an appearance of wrong can cause the beholder to "step out of line."
Brit Chadashah:
Matthew 2:1-23; 3:1-2. When we get to the Brit Chadashah, we have a pseudo-king attempting to maintain power. He did this by stepping out of line. He was playing the part of a Davidic king with no credentials. When the real king showed up in the form of birth, this Herod sought to find him and destroy him lest he should lose his rule. Foreign emissaries (the three wise men) and Jewish scribes alike identified the arrival of the King. He was born is Bethlehem. Herod turned that city into an extermination camp for all infants. This was not Torah. This was stepping out of line and history has a way of repeating itself as others likewise seek to exterminate their rivals.
The only way to prevent the propensity of stepping out of line is to turn to the Living G-d and His Mediator, Yeshua. Without the grace of G-d the natural proclivity is to step out of line in some way. But His Chesed (grace) will be sufficient to avert that tendency.
Cream Cheese His grace will keep you in place.
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