Biblical Commentary

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 8: A Stone of Stumbling

In Isaiah chapter 7 it is described that Ahaz, King of Judah, had been vexed by the kings of Israel and Aram, or Syria. With that, we had examined the historical accounts of Scripture in the books of Kings and Chronicles, wherein it is described that both kings working together in an alliance had invaded Judah, killed many tens of thousands of men in battle, and had taken many of the people into captivity. The scale of the war which they made with Judah was not fully reflected in the words of Isaiah, which were directed personally towards Ahaz himself. But in the historical books it also becomes evident that Yahweh had humbled Judah on account of the sins of Ahaz, who had led the kingdom much deeper into idolatry than it had been in the days of his fathers. But in spite of those sins, and in spite of the great harm which had come upon Judah, here in Isaiah Ahaz had been granted mercy, and Yahweh had promised him deliverance from those hostile kings, who had even sought to kill and replace him. As a sign of this forthcoming deliverance we read in verse 14 that “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”

But this Immanuel was a sign, and the child should not be confused with the method by which Ahaz would be delivered. In the text of the passage in chapter 7, it is said that “16 … before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings.” Therefore the child would only be an infant when the kings of Israel and Aram would be removed. So we should not confuse this child with the king of Assyria through whom the removal had come, or with any historical figure of the period, since the child is otherwise unknown and unidentified in Scripture – except for what we are about to see here in Isaiah chapter 8. We have also stated that this child cannot be the good king Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz, as some commentators have imagined, since Hezekiah must have been born before Ahaz his father had become king, and now Ahaz has already been king for at least a couple of years and the child is still not born. That is made evident where Hezekiah became king at age twenty-five after his father had ruled for only sixteen years, as we have already elucidated from Scripture.

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 7: A Virgin Shall Conceive

Thus far in Isaiah we have seen three recorded visions, first in chapter 1 where there was a general condemnation of Israel, then in chapters 2 through 5 where there was another condemnation of Israel, and a lengthier condemnation concerning Judah, and finally, in chapter 6, there was another vision in which it was proclaimed that the people would be blind, and deaf, ostensibly so that the Will of Yahweh described in the prophecies which concerned them would be fulfilled. That is how Isaiah understood it, where in verse 11 he described himself as having responded to the vision by asking “How long, Lord?” and the answer he received was: “Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate, 12 And the LORD have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land.”

So Judah is condemned, the cities of Judah were destined to become wasted and without inhabitant, and at this time there had not been any contingencies provided by which Judah may escape such a fate. Therefore, as we proceed throughout Isaiah from this point, we must keep in consideration the fact that these judgments would indeed be executed in spite of any other promises of deliverance, or a promised appearance of a beneficent ruler, or even of a savior or messiah figure, things which we shall see here in the next several chapters. In that it becomes evident that such promises may have some partial near-term fulfillment, but ancient Judah was not going to be saved, and therefore the promises must indicate something else, something with a long-term fulfillment, a fulfillment far off in the future. This is a phenomenon of many prophecies, that they have a dual nature, which we label as the near vision and the far vision.Now before we discuss Isaiah chapter 7, we should recall that in an appendix to our recent Genesis commentary, and in the opening chapter of our commentary on Isaiah, we spoke of some of the problems with rectifying the chronology of the kings of Judah, and that may start to become apparent here. Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he ruled in Judah for sixteen years, according to 2 Kings chapter 16 (16:2) and 2 Chronicles chapter 28 (28:1). In 2 Kings chapter 17 (17:1) it states that in the twelfth year of king Ahaz, Hoshea became the king of Israel. So Ahaz is likely to have died some time in Hoshea’s fourth year as king of Israel.

Here we shall continue our commentary on Isaiah with the later half of chapter 5, where we are still in the second vision that had been recorded in the words of the prophet. As we had explained, this vision runs through four chapters of the book, and now we are nearing its end. In the opening verses of the chapter there is a rather brief song of a vineyard. That the vineyard serves as an allegory for the children of Israel was stated explicitly where we read in verse 5 that “…the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant…” Later in Isaiah, in chapter 18, there is yet another description of a vineyard where we read what seems to have been a rather ominous warning: “5 For before the harvest, when the bud is perfect and the sour grape is ripening in the flower, He will both cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks and take away and cut down the branches.” While we should not get too far ahead of ourselves, for now it may suffice to say that the vineyard in Isaiah chapter 18 is also an allegory for the children of Israel, and as we had already explained in relation to this chapter, it also relates to the Gospel of Christ and the Parable of the Vineyard, as well as the visions of the harvests of the grapes found in chapter 14 of His Revelation.

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 5: The Vineyard of Yahweh

Here we shall continue our discussion of this second vision which had been recorded in the words of the prophet Isaiah, which runs through four chapters of the book, and now upon our coming to chapter 5 we are nearing its end. This chapter contains a rather brief song of a vineyard, and it is within this context that we should also consider the parable of the vineyard, as well as the parable of the vineyard workers, which are found in the Gospel of Christ. This song is a song of lamentation, accompanied with a message of a coming punishment. In the words of the later prophet Jeremiah, Yahweh further laments His vineyard, and then even later, Yahshua Christ makes an example of a portion of its history, however in His Gospel it is also evident that the lamentation shall ultimately turn to wrath, and that wrath is expressed in even stronger terms in His Revelation. In these messages it is fully evident that the vineyard is an allegory for the society of His people, in which the grapes are metaphors for the people themselves.

As we had discussed in Isaiah chapter 3, where the punishment of the people of Judah for their sins was first announced by the prophet, it is evident that the Patterns of Societal Collapse which had been described there are aspects of that punishment, and they had evidently already come upon Judah even before Isaiah had begun writing. They are the inevitable result of sin which would lead to the breakdown of society and its ultimate punishment. So in the course of the execution of that punishment, the great, wise and mighty men of the society would be neutralized, in one way or another. Then while the youth are magnified and the women caught up in feminism, they would all be humbled by the violence of their enemies. The men would end up dead, and the women, scarred with their own excess of debauchery, would be laid bare in the face of their enemies.

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 4: Patterns of Societal Collapse

Isaiah chapter 2 had opened with a promise of hope, which was evidently a vision for some time far off in the future, since it was followed by a much more immediate condemnation and imminent judgment of the people of Israel of Isaiah’s own time. This condemnation was for greater Israel, since it had made references to the cedars of Lebanon, the oaks of Bashan, which were allegories for various of the tribes of ancient Israel, and also to the ships of Tarshish, the ships by which the children of Israel had spread themselves abroad. In this condemnation they were condemned for their sorceries, for their idolatry, for their haughtiness, and because they had pleased themselves in the children of strangers, which is fornication or race-mixing.

Therefore we must understand that since there was a message of hope which had accompanied the condemnation of Israel for their sins, that Yahweh God had never intended to destroy Israel entirely, but rather, His intention was, and is, to punish them for their sins, so that they would ultimately conform to His will and through their conformance, He could fulfill the things which He had promised to their fathers. As we also hope to have illustrated, it is very likely that by the time Isaiah had written these words, the prophet Amos had already completed the course of his prophecy, and in Amos chapter 3 we read: “1 Hear this word that the LORD hath spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying, 2 You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.”

In Isaiah chapter 1 we hope to have elucidated the commonality of the opening message of the prophet with those of his contemporaries, Hosea and Amos. In verses 2 through 5 the prophet upbraids the children of Israel for rebelling against Yahweh their God, and departing from Him. Then in verses 6 through 9 the inevitable result of that rebellion is described, where strangers, people of other nations and races, have devoured their land. This prophecy also parallels other similar prophecies of Scripture, both contemporary and remote. One example is found in Joel chapter 1, who wrote in reference to the land of Israel some short time after the deportations of Israel and much of Judah by the Assyrians, and said “4 That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpiller eaten.”

But then this also parallels another example, a more distant prophecy in Revelation chapter 9, where there is a vision of the hordes of Arabia who tormented the Byzantine Empire for over a thousand years: “2 And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. 3 And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. 4 And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. 5 And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.”

In the opening presentation of this commentary on Isaiah we had sought to focus upon the historical circumstances in which the prophet had begun his ministry. So with the evidence we presented, Jonah had already prophesied some decades earlier, and it seems that the prophet Hosea had already begun his ministry, which, like that of Isaiah, had also endured to the time of Hezekiah. The prophet Amos had also already begun, even if his ministry had evidently not endured for as long as that of Hosea. Now along comes Isaiah, in what appears to be the final years of the rule of Uzziah king of Judah, some time before 740 BC. We have also explained, from evidence which Isaiah provides in chapters 7 and 8 of his prophecy, that he is a man a Judah, that he was married and had at least one child, and he was of some importance to the degree where he could have the attention of the king, and he could command scribes and priests. So it seems that Isaiah may even have been a man of rank in the court of the king before he started his prophetic ministry.

In the opening words of his prophecy, in the first nine verses, there is a blanket condemnation of the entire nation of Israel, which includes both Israel and Judah, and it is not entirely certain that anyone in Israel proper had yet been taken into captivity, but it is evident in the inscriptions that many Israelites dwelling north of Israel proper, in lands already captured by the Assyrians, had most likely been taken, and as we have also seen, as early as the time of Ahab the Israelites had been sending men north to fight against the Assyrians, in league with the Syrians of Damascus and other towns which at one time had been governed by Judah. So concerning this struggle, which is evident in the prophecy which Jonah had made concerning Jeroboam II, and the Assyrian success against Aram and Israel after the time of Jeroboam, it is difficult to tell whether Isaiah is speaking prophetically, or if he is speaking as if the news were a current or recent event, where he announced in verse 7 that “Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.”

Here we are going to venture a commentary on the book of the prophet Isaiah. While it seems as though it may be a long journey, and I am persuaded that it may take as long as a year and a half to complete, the Genesis commentary had taken that long to complete. I can only pray that it is worth the time and effort in the end. As we discussed here last week, I am still pondering some supplementary material for the Genesis commentary, so I may occasionally revert to that in the near future. The Book of Isaiah is nearly as long as the Book of Genesis, about 37,000 words in the King James Version where Genesis has just over 38,000, and the dives into ancient history and some elements of the language may be nearly as deep. However we also hope to elucidate its close relationship to the Gospel of Christ and the epistles of His apostles in ways beyond those we have already discussed in our New Testament commentaries.

Here we are going to venture a commentary on the book of the prophet Isaiah. While it seems as though it may be a long journey, and I am persuaded that it may take as long as a year and a half to complete, the Genesis commentary had taken that long to complete. I can only pray that it is worth the time and effort in the end. As we discussed here last week, I am still pondering some supplementary material for the Genesis commentary, so I may occasionally revert to that in the near future. The Book of Isaiah is nearly as long as the Book of Genesis, about 37,000 words in the King James Version where Genesis has just over 38,000, and the dives into ancient history and some elements of the language may be nearly as deep. However we also hope to elucidate its close relationship to the Gospel of Christ and the epistles of His apostles in ways beyond those we have already discussed in our New Testament commentaries.

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 1: The Sinful Nation

The prophet Isaiah describes himself as the son of Amoz, and little more can be known about him with any absolute certainty, aside from the apparent fact that he was a man of Judah. Being a man of Judah, he could have been of the tribe of Judah or of Levi, or perhaps even of Benjamin, and the only indication is found in circumstantial evidence later in his writing. There it is also evident that Isaiah had been married with children, as he recorded in chapter 7 that he had been told to go to meet Ahaz the king, and to bring “Shearjashub thy son” along with him. If this were the only reference to a son, we may think the Hebrew term בן or ben (# 1121), which is literally a son, was being used metaphorically, as it is used on many occasions. But in the subsequent text there is another indication that he did indeed have a wife and children, and very much in the same fashion that the prophet Hosea had children – as an example to the people for whom he had prophesied.

On Genesis, Part 60: A Post-Genesis Chronology

As we have often stated, one of the primary endeavors of this ministry is to provide Christian Identity with a firm academic foundation. That is because Christian Identity is Truth, and it certainly can be established in Scripture, history and archaeology that it is truth. Of course, our enemies can find ways to try to undermine us, just as they have found countless ways to criticize Scripture itself. But those ways are hardly honest, and always deceptive. One of the many avenues they have exploited in order to achieve their ends is Biblical chronology. They take simplistic interpretations of certain passages and use them to assert that somehow the Bible is false, that it can only be a collection of fairy tales, because, for example, there is no record in Egypt that the Israelites were in slavery there for four hundred years. But upon deep scrutiny of those same passages, and with an accurate understanding of Scripture and history, all of their attacks fail.

In recent weeks here we have concluded a commentary of the Book of Genesis, and in the course of that work we had provided a rather detailed chronology, using the Septuagint as our primary resource, which in this respect is certainly much more accurate than the translations which are based on the Masoretic Text, such as the popular King James Version. In that chronology, we asserted that among the last significant events in Genesis, Jacob had gone to Egypt with his family around 1665 BC, and since the call of Abraham was about 1880 BC, when the patriarch was 75 years old, and since Paul of Tarsus had written in Galatians chapter 3 that there were 430 years from the time of that call to the giving of the law at Sinai, the sojourn to Egypt was halfway through that period, leaving 215 years. So from the time Jacob went to Egypt, there would be another 215 years until the giving of the law at Sinai some time around 1450 BC. Moses, having been 80 years old at Sinai, must have been born some time around 1530 BC.

On Genesis, Part 59: The End of the Beginning

The first and last books of the Bible are its most important books. The book of Genesis is the story of the origin of our race, and the Revelation is the story of its destiny after its reconciliation to Christ. The entire purpose in the interim, is succinctly described by Solomon, in Ecclesiastes chapter 1 where he wrote that “13 … I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven: this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith.” With this, Paul of Tarsus agreed, and upon it he expounded, in Romans chapter 8 where he wrote: “18 Therefore I consider that the happenstances of the present time are not of value, looking to the future honor to be revealed to us. 19 Indeed in earnest anticipation the creation awaits the revelation of the sons of Yahweh. 20 To transientness the creation was subjected not willingly, but on account of He who subjected it in expectation 21 that also the creation itself shall be liberated from the bondage of decay into the freedom of the honor of the children of Yahweh.” By “creation” in that passage, Paul meant the Adamic creation, since later in the chapter he compared that creation to other elements of the creation of God.

So while the Greek word γένεσις means origin or beginning, and the book of Genesis describes the origin and beginning of our race, the Revelation describes the beginning of the end. While Genesis contains the promises to our race, the Revelation reveals how Yahweh God shall keep those same promises. Here as the book of Genesis closes, it offers an uncertain future for the children of Israel since it has already warned that they would be afflicted in Egypt, in the promises which Yahweh had made to Abraham in Genesis chapter 15. But in the final chapters of the Revelation, that end is described as having a more promising future, where it offers yet another beginning and the promise of something much greater than what this world has offered, although we continue to remain uncertain as to how that shall materialize.

On Genesis, Part 58: Premonitions

As we have already discussed at length where Jacob had first blessed the sons of Joseph in Genesis chapter 48, thereby leaving his favorite son with the inheritance of The Double Portion, Jacob was ill and he knew that he was about to die, at the age of a hundred and forty-seven years, which was some time around 1648 BC. While Abraham had lived to be a hundred and seventy-five years old, and Isaac lived even longer, having attained a hundred and eighty years, the typical lifespans of men in general seem to have been gradually getting shorter over the many centuries which followed the Flood of Noah, and now at this point it has been fifteen hundred and thirty-eight years since that event had occurred. Following the death of his father, at which time he was about fifty-seven years old, Joseph would live to be only a hundred and ten, although Levi lived for a hundred and thirty-seven years and his son Kohath for a hundred and thirty-three (Exodus 6:16-18).

Perhaps Joseph’s shorter lifespan could be seen as an act of mercy by Yahweh God, rather than as a curse, as life gets more difficult for men as they advance in age. It certainly is evident that Jacob did not want to live as long as he did, and when he had first arrived in Egypt, at the age of a hundred and thirty, and he was reunited with Joseph, he is recorded in Genesis chapter 46 as having said to him: “30... Now let me die, since I have seen thy face, because thou art yet alive.” But perhaps Yahweh kept Jacob alive for another seventeen years so that Ephraim and Manasseh could receive his blessing as young men, rather than as young boys. The fact that Joseph and his two sons were blessed first by Jacob, and apart from the others, is quite significant, since they were the recipients not only of the double-portion of the inheritance, but they had also explicitly received the greater promises which were made to Abraham, and passed on to Jacob.

On Genesis, Part 57: The Double Portion

Where we had left off with our commentary at the end of Genesis chapter 47, it had been determined that the sons of Israel would dwell in the land of Goshen, and it was also evident that the famine had, at least for the most part, run its course, so that Joseph was renting the land of Egypt back to the people so long as they paid pharaoh the fifth part of their annual yields. Seeing that, we remarked that a twenty-percent levy was far more equitable than the oppressive taxes which men in a supposedly “free” world are forced to pay to their respective governments today. But home ownership in this “free” world is a separate issue from today’s taxes, and people do not get it from the government. Instead, they acquire their homes from Jewish usurers, and the typical rental or mortgage rates are far higher than a fifth of the median income. Therefore by comparison, Joseph’s management of Egypt actually sounds quite appealing, and so does the medieval feudal system which it resembles.

At the end of that last presentation, we had a lengthy discussion about the wife of Joseph, Asenath, and we were obliged to discredit the assertions made by Howard Rand and others, that she, as well as Joseph’s pharaoh, were of the house of Shem. There is no proof of that assertion, and Rand did not provide any conclusive proofs in the articles where he had made it. Rather, we demonstrated that the evidence which he did offer as proof doesn’t actually support his assertions at all. The reference to a shepherd named Philitis which was made by Herodotus had described him as a common shepherd, and certainly not as a king. The Hyksos which were described differently as either “shepherd kings” or “captive shepherds” in the copies of the writings of Manetho which had been employed by Flavius Josephus were only one and the same group which was described in two different ways in two different copies of the manuscripts of those writings which Josephus had possessed. They were clearly not two different groups, as Rand had insisted, but one group which was associated with the late 15th Dynasty of Egypt, and according to our chronology, Joseph had received Asenath as a wife not long after he was thirty years old, which is at least forty years before that dynasty had taken control of Lower Egypt.

On Genesis, Part 56: Subjects of the State

In March of 2009, one of the first articles I had published on the Christogenea website, which at that time was only two months old, was titled Who is your god? The article was actually written a year or so before I created the website. In June of 2018, that same article became the basis for Part 39 of my presentation of the Protocols of Satan, which bore the same title. The premise of the article is that America had begun as a Christian nation, but was slowly secularized and descended into humanism. Then, when the trial of the so-called Great Depression had come, Americans looked to the government for their salvation rather than to Christ. So the government, beginning with the so-called New Deal of the Roosevelt administration, was happy to oblige them, instituting many new social programs which had promised to save Americans out of their poverty, and assure their futures. As Americans accepted this new paradigm of government, the government became more and more powerful and more pervasive in the daily lives of the people. However poverty never ended, and instead, in the growth of the federal government which followed, now all Americans are enslaved under increasingly burdensome regulations by the resulting tyranny.

In this same manner we find one more prophetic type in these very chapters of Genesis which we now discuss. We have already mentioned this in brief, but thought that perhaps we should repeat it again here, and elaborate upon it in different ways. So in our last discussion in this Commentary, in relation to Genesis chapter 46 and the account of Israel’s Descent into Egypt, we described the seven kingdoms represented by seven mountains upon which the children of Israel, herself having been represented as a woman, would sit throughout the course of her history, as it is prophesied in Revelation chapter 17. There we further explained how Egypt had been the very first of those kingdoms. Here the children of Israel certainly are sitting upon the mountain of Egypt in that manner, as they have come to Egypt in order to survive the famine, which may be likened to an ancient Great Depression, and they would find their sustenance at the good graces of an earthly kingdom represented by the pharaoh.

On Genesis, Part 55: The Descent into Egypt

As we may have already stated too frequently over these past several presentations in this Genesis commentary, we hope to have illustrated all of the ways in which Joseph was a prophetic type for Yahshua Christ, and the salvation of the children of Israel which is promised in Christ. However even more parallels may be made in this regard, and other avenues may be explored. Here, the children of Israel attained salvation from the famine because they had obeyed a worldly ruler, but even if they did not know it at the time, that ruler was Joseph their brother.

Then, while they were indeed preserved in Egypt, at the same time, and unbeknownst to Joseph himself, they were also being led into captivity in fulfillment of the words which Yahweh had spoken to Abraham in Genesis chapter 15 where we read: “13 And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; 14 And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.”

On Genesis, Part 54: Salvation and Mercy

Discussing Genesis chapters 42 and 43, where it is described that a grievous famine had persisted throughout the world of Jacob and his sons, we have commented at length on the Angst and Desperation that they must have suffered on account of it, as well as the Surrender and Submission that they were compelled to make before the governor of Egypt, so that they could obtain food and survive the famine. But upon their having done that, they were a special case, because Joseph had recognized them and treated them accordingly, but they did not recognize Joseph. The Scriptures were always written with a focus on the central characters with which it is concerned. So what we are not told in Scripture is that in the background, many other people from Canaan must have also journeyed to Egypt seeking to buy grain, and that must have also been how Jacob had initially even heard that there was grain in Egypt. But those who had bought it and traded it in Canaan would have sold it at a considerable markup, and for that reason it is very likely that Jacob had wanted his sons to go to Egypt and buy it for themselves.

Now here in Genesis chapter 44, before they would attain to any Salvation and Mercy, from their perspective the prospects of emerging from the famine unscathed must have been even more dismal, since at this point in Genesis, Benjamin had been charged with having stolen the governor’s silver goblet. However, as we had described the prophetic parallels with the history of the later children of Israel in relation to Christ which are found throughout these accounts, this situation also serves as a lesson for Christians today.

On Genesis, Part 53: Surrender and Submission

As we have progressed through these later chapters of Genesis and the life of Joseph in Egypt, we have attempted to illustrate the many ways in which events in the life of Joseph had been Figures of the Messiah, where it becomes evident that the account of the life of Joseph serves as a prophetic type for the ministry and purpose of Yahshua Christ. Now here we shall also venture to assert that the very circumstances under which Jacob and his sons had been compelled to submit to Joseph and go to Egypt for salvation from the famine also foreshadow the circumstances by which all of the seed of Israel, in these last times, shall ultimately find their salvation in Christ. So in that manner, Jacob and his sons are a prophetic type for their own future descendants.

First, Israel was found in Angst and Desperation as the seven years of famine pressed on, and even more so when his sons had returned from Egypt and he received word that the governor of the place had demanded to see Benjamin. The anxiety which he apparently must have suffered was on account of the famine, and then the prospect of losing his son, which is manifest where he said “Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away”, in response to Reuben’s pleas. So Jacob steadfastly refused to comply with the Egyptian governor’s demands and vowed to Reuben that “my son shall not go down with you”, referring to Benjamin in the closing verse of Genesis chapter 42. In that same place, he also attested that “his brother is dead”, speaking in reference to Joseph. Where he said “Simeon is not”, it is evident that he would have even preferred to have written Simeon off as dead rather than risk losing the second son born of his beloved wife Rachel.

On Genesis, Part 52: Angst and Desperation

As we have illustrated in our discussions of each of the events in the life of Jacob, in only a few years from the time that he had entered Canaan his daughter Dinah had been raped, and Jacob had been angered by the rash manner in which Simeon and Levi had avenged their sister. Then his son Judah had run off and taken residence with a Canaanite woman, where he had stayed in Chezib, a place which is literally named falsehood, while having had his three sons with her. His eldest son Reuben had sinned against him by having slept with one of his wives. His son Joseph was esteemed to have been killed, and he never knew that his other sons had lied to him about what had actually happened. Then in addition to all of these things, his favorite wife, the only one whom he was said to have loved, had died at a relatively young age, shortly after she had given birth to his youngest son, whom he named Benjamin.

So even though Yahweh his God had promised to be with him after he departed from Haran, Jacob had continued to experience both Hope and Despair, as we had titled part 45 of this Genesis commentary, because in spite of the fact that he had inherited the wonderful promises which Yahweh God had made to Abraham, that his seed would inherit the world, and he himself was reassured those promises, as it is recorded in Genesis chapter 35, he nevertheless had to suffer the circumstances of the evil world into which he had been brought. Modern Christians should take note of this, and consider what Jacob had suffered when they themselves suffer, because having the promises of God obviously does not make anyone immune to suffering. None of us are better than Jacob, who continued to trust in God regardless of his suffering.

On Genesis, Part 51: Redemption and Deliverance

We have already discussed the Figures of the Messiah which are evident in the life of Joseph, the accounts of which certainly contain several prophetic types for Christ, and we shall see further examples of that as we proceed through Genesis. But in one significant aspect the life of Joseph is not only a prophetic type for Christ, but also a type, or perhaps a prototype, for the subsequent history of the children of Israel in Egypt. As Joseph went to Egypt against his own will, became a servant, ended up in prison, and was freed and this elevated to an exalted position, so would Israel enter Egypt under constraint and become a nation enslaved and in a sort of prison. But ultimately, like Joseph, the nation had been liberated by Yahweh, and eventually elevated to an exalted position. So in that respect, the life of Joseph in Egypt serves as a prophetic type for the history of Israel in Egypt. Then, as we shall see in subsequent chapters, it shall also further serve as a type for Christ in ways which are far beyond the parallels which we have already observed. So among other things, Joseph shall ultimately serve as a prophetic type for the absolute mercy and salvation which Christ has promised to all of Israel.

Now, as it is described in Genesis chapter 40, Joseph had dreamed dreams, much like the prophet Daniel, and Joseph could also interpret dreams, just like the prophet Daniel. So his discernment which he had exhibited in the interpretations of dreams while in prison would be his introduction to the pharaoh of Egypt, which is where we are presently in Genesis chapter 41. Having successfully interpreted the pharaoh’s dream, Joseph was elevated to a position in his government. Much later, Daniel had apparently earned a reputation for discernment as a young man in Babylon, which is represented in the story of Susanna, and having already been introduced to Nebuchadnezzar, in Daniel chapter 1, he later found an audience with the king and interpreted his remarkable dream of the metallic image which represented four great kingdoms, as it is described in Daniel chapter 2. For that Daniel was also rewarded and elevated into the government of his captors. So within the life of Joseph are found patterns which are repeated throughout later Scriptures, and that is one of the wonders of this book which we call the Bible, because once all of these patterns are noticed all we can do is marvel in awe at the wisdom of Yahweh our God, who is the Author of all of these things.

On Genesis, Part 50: Joseph, The First Prophet

As we have already seen in Genesis chapter 39 where we had discussed Joseph in Egypt, Sex, Lies and Prison, after an unspecified time as the steward of his master’s house in Egypt, Joseph was put in prison among the prisoners of the pharaoh, on account of his alleged attempt to violate the wife of Potiphar. Evidently Potiphar, an officer in the court of the pharaoh, had apparently had the authority to commit prisoners into the prison of the king. However Yahweh had blessed Joseph, and he became a steward of the prison, a sort of trustee, which is an inmate who is given certain responsibilities within a prison. Even today this is a popular phenomenon in modern jails and prisons, and it is often a significant aspect of their daily operations.

It is very likely that during this time, Joseph still had in mind the dreams which he had communicated to his brethren some years before. As it is recorded in Genesis chapter 37, “6 And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed: 7 For, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf.” Then he told them again, “9… Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me”, and his brothers despised him for those dreams, precipitating the events by which he had become a slave in Egypt.

On Genesis, Part 49: Joseph in Egypt, Sex, Lies and Prison

Thus far in these chapters describing the lives of the sons of Jacob, we have observed a notable contrast which is illustrated in the accounts of the circumstances of Joseph and Judah, of which certain aspects continue to be illustrated both here in Genesis and in the words of the later prophets. Here we have seen that in Joseph are Figures of the Messiah, as many aspects of the life of Joseph are certainly types for the ministry Christ Himself. Joseph was cast into a pit and left for dead by his brethren, but he was taken out of it and as a result he had become a temporal savior of his people. But Judah, who was present when Joseph was thrown into the pit, had made choices in his own life which had both been a cause of and had served as a type for the circumstances of the later Kingdom of Judah as well as the Judaea of the time of Christ. Where Judah had sexual relations with the Daughters of Diverse Gods he had sired legitimate sons in Pharez and Zarah, but he had also had illegitimate descendants through Shelah, the only surviving son which he had with the Canaanite woman. Then, quite ironically, Judah did not intend to have children with Tamar, as he thought that he was only sleeping with some random whore, and there are probably further analogies which may have been made with that circumstance. Later in the writings of Moses, the sin of Judah would become apparent in the law, and then in instructions to the children of Israel invading the land of Canaan.

However Judah remained responsible for his remaining Canaanite son, so the descendants of Shelah remained with Judah, subsequently they were listed in the accounts of the families of Israel in the Book of Numbers, and their dwelling places in and around the territory of Judah are described in 1 Chronicles chapter 4. In that chapter, in a context which is perhaps 250 years later, it was described that many of them had dwelt in Chozeba, which is ostensibly the same place as Chezib, the place where Judah’s Canaanite sons had been born. Both towns were in the same area, and each of the names had been translated from similar forms of the same word, which means falsehood. That is a fitting place for them, since having been Canaanites they would indeed be sons of falsehood.