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B'reisheet
(Genesis) b'reisheet 1:1-6:8 |
Meaning
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Day Two
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Haftara
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B'rit Hadashah
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1 Our Father, we receive Your Words and hide Your commandments with us; 2 we incline our ear unto wisdom, and apply our hearts to understanding; 3 We cry after knowledge and lift up our voices for understanding; 4 we seek it as silver; and search for it as for hidden treasures; 5 We declare that we shall understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God. Declaration of Proverbs 2:1-5
Genesis 1:1-25 (NASB)1
1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed and all their hosts. 2 By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.
3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made. 4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made earth and heaven. 5 Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the LORD God had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground. 6 But a mist used to rise from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground.
7 Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. 8 The LORD God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed. 9 Out of the ground the LORD God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 10 Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it divided and became four rivers. 11 The name of the first is Pishon; it flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 The gold of that land is good; the bdellium and the onyx stone are there. 13 The name of the second river is Gihon; it flows around the whole land of Cush. 14 The name of the third river is Tigris; it flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. 15 Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. 16 The LORD God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die." 18 Then the LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him." 19 Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. 21 So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. 22 The LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. 23 The man said, "This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man." 24 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made. 4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made earth and heaven. 5 Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the LORD God had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground. 6 But a mist used to rise from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground.
7 Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. 8 The LORD God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed. 9 Out of the ground the LORD God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 10 Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it divided and became four rivers. 11 The name of the first is Pishon; it flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 The gold of that land is good; the bdellium and the onyx stone are there. 13 The name of the second river is Gihon; it flows around the whole land of Cush. 14 The name of the third river is Tigris; it flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. 15 Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. 16 The LORD God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die." 18 Then the LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him." 19 Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. 21 So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. 22 The LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. 23 The man said, "This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man." 24 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
It's a lovely sunny day and God is good! I made the decision yesterday to keep on the way I was. I will continue sending the Torah project out every day in the mail-out, on the website, Facebook, and SUBSTACK. I will not be expanding the Torah Bites project to more social media. I went and snooped around Instagram, and it was SO BUSY! Too much stimulation and pictures for this geezer. The 'help' pages were NOT helpful and NOT geezer-friendly. So, opting out for the stand that “it's not worth the aggravation”, I'm quite happy to continue as I have. I'm glad to have tried it out so that I can say, “Yeah I tried it, didn't like it, am happy to keep the status quo.”
I did make a small change on the website. I replaced the information regarding church and midweek services and such with a graphic of an anchor, but kept everything else as Gaylen set it up back in the day. It will still have the same web address for now. It will still be 'anchorchurchsurfside', just no longer the Anchor Church that has now reverted to Lake Jackson.
The first two chapters of Genesis are a fascinating study! The first is a wide-angle view. It is a sort of 'step by step' chronology, while the second chapter is more of a zoom-in focus that takes in some details that weren't present in the first view.
The term “generations” in verse four is a very Biblical and Hebrew manner of speaking of the genealogy of the heavens and the earth. We will see this word 'generations' used later on when it refers to the 'generations of' the patriarchs. It will refer to them also in the same sort of genealogical and historical sense. You might also say that generations also means 'origins'. Verse four of chapter two, in this more focused view, adds detail about the creation of the vegetation that we saw in verses ten to thirteen of chapter one.
10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. 11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. 12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 13 And the evening and the morning were the third day. Genesis 1:10-13.
Creation of the 'generations' of our planet was chronological and orderly. Here is the focus on the vegetation that comes later in the next chapter.
4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, 5 And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. Genesis 2:4-5.
I found a most elegant addition in the Biblical Illustrator that was compiled by Rev. Joseph Exell. He gathered good and illustrative quotes from many theologians and preachers of his era. H. Bonar (1808-1889) was a Scottish hymn writer and preacher.
“A new section of creation history: — A new section of creation history now begins, and the fourth verse is the title or heading: "The following are the details of what took place when God created heaven and earth." The fifth is intended to state that all that was done was entirely God's doing, without the help of second causes, without the refreshment of rain, without the aid of man, There had been no power in action hitherto but God's alone. His hand, directly and alone, had done all that was done, in making plants and herbs to grow. The soil was not of itself productive; no previous seed existed; there was no former growth to spring up again. All was the finger of God. He is the sole Creator. Second causes, as they are called, are His creations: they owe their being, their influence to Him. The operations of nature, as men speak, are but the actings of the invisible God. God is in everything. Not as the Pantheist would have it, a part of everything, so that nature is God; but a personal Being, in everything, yet distinct from everything; filling, quickening, guiding creation in all its parts, yet no more the same with it than the pilot is with the vessel he steers, or the painter with the canvas on which he flings all the hues of earth and heaven. Let us beware of this subtle delusion of the evil one, the confounding of the creature with the Creator; of God, "the King eternal, immortal, and invisible," with the hills, and plains, and forests, and flowers which He has made. To deify nature seems one of the special errors of the last days. And no wonder; for if nature be deified, then man is deified too. Man becomes God, and nature is the throne on which he sits. Let us not lose sight of God in nature. Let not that which is the manifestation of His glory be turned by us into an obscuration of Himself. Let us look straight to the living God. Not nature, but God; not providence, but God; not the law, but the Lawgiver; not the voice, but the Speaker; not the instrument and its wide melodies, but the Master who formed the lyre, and whose hands are drawing the music out of its wondrous chords! (H. Bonar, D. D.)”
We can see the heart of Horatius Bonar in his closing remarks that echo his love of melody and music. Indeed, we must be aware of the “subtle delusion of the evil one” who not only confounds the creature with the creator but who lures men away from admitting that there is a Creator of everything they see, and so instead of turning to Him, they turn away and set themselves over Him. As H. Bonar said, men then deify themselves. Paul, or Rabbi Sha'ul, said in his letter to the Romans.
20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: 21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Romans 1:20-23.
Journeying through these first five books (in association with the rest of the Bible) each year grounds us like nothing else. I don't know about you, but the daily hours spent reading it over and ferreting through the commentaries, and waiting on Him to reveal Himself through His Word and the cogitations of others more spiritually knowledgeable have kept me focused. I'm all over the place as it is!
I think we’ve all been on the road long enough now that we know for a certainty, if we argue with God, on our platform of humanistic logic, the best we can do is lose. But on the other hand, we do have the option of choosing to admit that we really do not know as much as we think we do, and we can place our trust in the Creator as to how we got here and where we came from.
3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. Hebrews 11:3.
The Garden of Eden is thought to have been in the area where the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers are today. The flood of Noah is believed to have wiped out the river beds of all but the Tigris and Euphrates, and even the rivers that remain may have changed their courses over the centuries, making it nigh impossible to pinpoint its locale specifically. The only thing many scholars have agreed upon is that it was in that general area of the Middle East.
15 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. Genesis 2:15.
Certainly, God had to be the source of information to Moses regarding creation because of the details of the event. Who else would know these things? Imagine the things that God might have shared with Moses that Moses was not allowed to disclose!
The body of the man was “formed” out of the basic elements of the “earth”. One of the most fascinating things learned today is that Adam is Hebrew for ‘man’. Adamah is Hebrew for ‘earth’. Both of these Hebrew words are derived from the Hebrew words adom, meaning ‘red’, and dam, meaning ‘blood’. One of the defining characteristics of man is the sustenance of life in “red blood”. Of all of the creation stories which have been studied in various cultures and nations, and even those similar to the Biblical account, none have on them the handprint of Yahweh.
7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. Genesis 2:7.
One of the commentaries I searched today implied that God did not “literally” blow into man’s nostrils the breath of life. They contend this expression was an allegorical way of addressing how God put the life into the man that turned man into a living soul. Why can’t this be taken literally? If we can take it literally, then we can glimpse the love of the Creator towards his creation. There is a sort of intimacy indicated in this act. In this act, He makes us His very own! We don't usually consider how fragile we are! Our body is made of dust, and it shall return to dust when our spirit leaves it at death.
7 Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. Ecclesiastes 12:7.
Or I can go to Psalms 139:15-18, and find the same truth with a softer edge.
15 My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. 16 Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. 17 How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! 18 If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee. Psalm 139:15-18.
The mysteries of Torah will someday be shared with us. We will know where the Garden was, and He will show us the Tree of Life and the other tree, the Knowledge of Good and Evil. He loved His creation enough to instill in it the function of choice, and take the chance of the creation spurning Him and turning their backs on Him for eternity! This “life breath” is what separates us from all other creations. We must dwell on its importance and its worth. To take it for granted, or lightly, would be just as grievous to our Creator as if we chose to turn our backs on Him. And so, we can live life with security, because we’ve faced the truth about death!
I did make a small change on the website. I replaced the information regarding church and midweek services and such with a graphic of an anchor, but kept everything else as Gaylen set it up back in the day. It will still have the same web address for now. It will still be 'anchorchurchsurfside', just no longer the Anchor Church that has now reverted to Lake Jackson.
The first two chapters of Genesis are a fascinating study! The first is a wide-angle view. It is a sort of 'step by step' chronology, while the second chapter is more of a zoom-in focus that takes in some details that weren't present in the first view.
The term “generations” in verse four is a very Biblical and Hebrew manner of speaking of the genealogy of the heavens and the earth. We will see this word 'generations' used later on when it refers to the 'generations of' the patriarchs. It will refer to them also in the same sort of genealogical and historical sense. You might also say that generations also means 'origins'. Verse four of chapter two, in this more focused view, adds detail about the creation of the vegetation that we saw in verses ten to thirteen of chapter one.
10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. 11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. 12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 13 And the evening and the morning were the third day. Genesis 1:10-13.
Creation of the 'generations' of our planet was chronological and orderly. Here is the focus on the vegetation that comes later in the next chapter.
4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, 5 And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. Genesis 2:4-5.
I found a most elegant addition in the Biblical Illustrator that was compiled by Rev. Joseph Exell. He gathered good and illustrative quotes from many theologians and preachers of his era. H. Bonar (1808-1889) was a Scottish hymn writer and preacher.
“A new section of creation history: — A new section of creation history now begins, and the fourth verse is the title or heading: "The following are the details of what took place when God created heaven and earth." The fifth is intended to state that all that was done was entirely God's doing, without the help of second causes, without the refreshment of rain, without the aid of man, There had been no power in action hitherto but God's alone. His hand, directly and alone, had done all that was done, in making plants and herbs to grow. The soil was not of itself productive; no previous seed existed; there was no former growth to spring up again. All was the finger of God. He is the sole Creator. Second causes, as they are called, are His creations: they owe their being, their influence to Him. The operations of nature, as men speak, are but the actings of the invisible God. God is in everything. Not as the Pantheist would have it, a part of everything, so that nature is God; but a personal Being, in everything, yet distinct from everything; filling, quickening, guiding creation in all its parts, yet no more the same with it than the pilot is with the vessel he steers, or the painter with the canvas on which he flings all the hues of earth and heaven. Let us beware of this subtle delusion of the evil one, the confounding of the creature with the Creator; of God, "the King eternal, immortal, and invisible," with the hills, and plains, and forests, and flowers which He has made. To deify nature seems one of the special errors of the last days. And no wonder; for if nature be deified, then man is deified too. Man becomes God, and nature is the throne on which he sits. Let us not lose sight of God in nature. Let not that which is the manifestation of His glory be turned by us into an obscuration of Himself. Let us look straight to the living God. Not nature, but God; not providence, but God; not the law, but the Lawgiver; not the voice, but the Speaker; not the instrument and its wide melodies, but the Master who formed the lyre, and whose hands are drawing the music out of its wondrous chords! (H. Bonar, D. D.)”
We can see the heart of Horatius Bonar in his closing remarks that echo his love of melody and music. Indeed, we must be aware of the “subtle delusion of the evil one” who not only confounds the creature with the creator but who lures men away from admitting that there is a Creator of everything they see, and so instead of turning to Him, they turn away and set themselves over Him. As H. Bonar said, men then deify themselves. Paul, or Rabbi Sha'ul, said in his letter to the Romans.
20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: 21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Romans 1:20-23.
Journeying through these first five books (in association with the rest of the Bible) each year grounds us like nothing else. I don't know about you, but the daily hours spent reading it over and ferreting through the commentaries, and waiting on Him to reveal Himself through His Word and the cogitations of others more spiritually knowledgeable have kept me focused. I'm all over the place as it is!
I think we’ve all been on the road long enough now that we know for a certainty, if we argue with God, on our platform of humanistic logic, the best we can do is lose. But on the other hand, we do have the option of choosing to admit that we really do not know as much as we think we do, and we can place our trust in the Creator as to how we got here and where we came from.
3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. Hebrews 11:3.
The Garden of Eden is thought to have been in the area where the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers are today. The flood of Noah is believed to have wiped out the river beds of all but the Tigris and Euphrates, and even the rivers that remain may have changed their courses over the centuries, making it nigh impossible to pinpoint its locale specifically. The only thing many scholars have agreed upon is that it was in that general area of the Middle East.
15 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. Genesis 2:15.
Certainly, God had to be the source of information to Moses regarding creation because of the details of the event. Who else would know these things? Imagine the things that God might have shared with Moses that Moses was not allowed to disclose!
The body of the man was “formed” out of the basic elements of the “earth”. One of the most fascinating things learned today is that Adam is Hebrew for ‘man’. Adamah is Hebrew for ‘earth’. Both of these Hebrew words are derived from the Hebrew words adom, meaning ‘red’, and dam, meaning ‘blood’. One of the defining characteristics of man is the sustenance of life in “red blood”. Of all of the creation stories which have been studied in various cultures and nations, and even those similar to the Biblical account, none have on them the handprint of Yahweh.
7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. Genesis 2:7.
One of the commentaries I searched today implied that God did not “literally” blow into man’s nostrils the breath of life. They contend this expression was an allegorical way of addressing how God put the life into the man that turned man into a living soul. Why can’t this be taken literally? If we can take it literally, then we can glimpse the love of the Creator towards his creation. There is a sort of intimacy indicated in this act. In this act, He makes us His very own! We don't usually consider how fragile we are! Our body is made of dust, and it shall return to dust when our spirit leaves it at death.
7 Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. Ecclesiastes 12:7.
Or I can go to Psalms 139:15-18, and find the same truth with a softer edge.
15 My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. 16 Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. 17 How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! 18 If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee. Psalm 139:15-18.
The mysteries of Torah will someday be shared with us. We will know where the Garden was, and He will show us the Tree of Life and the other tree, the Knowledge of Good and Evil. He loved His creation enough to instill in it the function of choice, and take the chance of the creation spurning Him and turning their backs on Him for eternity! This “life breath” is what separates us from all other creations. We must dwell on its importance and its worth. To take it for granted, or lightly, would be just as grievous to our Creator as if we chose to turn our backs on Him. And so, we can live life with security, because we’ve faced the truth about death!
16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. Genesis 2:16-17.
1 Scripture reading from the NASB www.lockman.org and KJV unless otherwise stated.
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