Covenant Connection

Audio Teaching

NOTES

We have reached the third week of our study through the Torah. So far, we have seen God’s goodness pronounced in the blessing over Adam and Noah, as well as the tragedies resulting from not walking with God. This week, we come to the beginning of God’s plan of redemption: the Jewish people. We see a pagan polytheist named Abram called by God to leave the way he has known and follow the way of God.

Genesis 12:1-3 ESV “Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

In this week’s portion, a lot takes place that would be impossible to cover in one message. We will focus on the first three verses and journey through the Hebrew Bible, discovering God’s everlasting covenant with the Jewish people.

Lech Lecha: Get thee out; go forth; go to yourself

• Abraham had to leave his country, kindred, and father’s house.
• Abraham’s father stopped short in Haran (Gen. 11:31-32).
• Abraham had to cross over – he was the first Gentile that God redeemed. (Hebrew: one who crosses over).
• Abraham was not just leaving one identity behind; he was moving toward who God called him to be.
• Land I will show you – he was shown that land in Gen. 13:14-18.
• Abraham had to leave where he was before God would show him where he was going.
• Abraham will be made into a nation, to be blessed, make his name great, and be a blessing.
• Israel’s destiny is tied to the land God promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
• Great: (Heb. root #1431): to be large, advance, excel, become rich, and triumph.
• To bless is plural, and curse is singular.
• Amplified Bible – Bless: do good for and benefit those who bless you.
• All the earth will be blessed through Abraham.
• Torah Yesharah: blessed with the wish that they may be like you.
  • Isaiah 2:2-3 ESV “It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, 3 and many peoples shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”
  • Zephaniah 3:9 and Zechariah 2:8-12; 8:23
• Dishonor (Heb. #7043): to treat as insignificant, to have contempt.

Replacement and Fulfilment Theology

• God cannot break the covenant.
• The New Covenant is with Israel (Jer. 31:31-40 & Ezek. 36:22-28).
• Jesus never intended for a Christianity that wasn’t Jewish.

God’s Covenant throughout the Hebrew Bible

• Abraham: Gen. 12:7; 13:15; 15:18-23; 17:8
• Isaac: Gen. 26:2-5
• Jacob: Gen. 35:10-12 (ref. 50:24-26)
• Ex. 6:8; 33:1, Lev. 25:38; 26:42, Num. 14:31; 33:53, Deut. 34:1-4 
• Jos. 1:2-4; 21:43-45, Judges 2:1

We must understand at this point in history, what we are seeing against Israel and the Jewish people is not political; it is spiritual. We are seeing the manifestation of the ancient spirit Amalek, a Jew-hating spirit. As Christians, we must understand that God’s covenant with the Jewish people is eternal; it matters where we stand.

• Psa. 132:13-16
• Isa. 14:1-2; 27:12-13; 31:4-5; 46:3-4, 13
• Isa. 60:10-11 foreigners will build up their walls (ref. Isa. 60:10-22; 61:8-9), Isa. 66:20-23
• Jer. 31:31-38 (v. 36 – see Isa. 41:8)
• Ezek. 28:24-26; 36:22-37
• (Ezek. 37 and Micah chapters 4 and 5).
• Amos 9:11-15
• Joel 3:1-2 Those who divide the land will be judged
• Isa. 40:27-41:16 

---

BONUS INSIGHT for Genesis 13 

“AND THERE WAS A QUARREL. Rashi wrote, “Because Lot’s shepherds grazed their cattle in other people’s fields, Abram’s shepherds rebuked them for this act of robbery, but they replied, ‘The land has been given to Abram, and he has no [son as an] heir, and so Lot will be his heir. Hence this is not robbery.’ Scripture however states, And the Canaanite and the Perrizite abode then in the land, so that Abram was not yet the legitimate owner.” This is a Midrash of our Rabbis.

But I wonder: The gift of the Land declared to Abram was for his children, as it is said above, Unto thy seed will I give this land, so how can Lot inherit it? Perhaps the shepherds heard of the gift and they mistook its meaning, for Scripture states that in the meantime, the land belonged neither to Abram nor to Lot. Accordingly, the verse stating at the outset, for their possessions were great, intended to say that because of their extensive possessions, the land could not support them, and Lot’s shepherds therefore found it necessary to bring their cattle into fields that had owners. This was the cause of the quarrel.

By way of the plain meaning of Scripture the quarrel concerned the pasture as the land could not support them both. When Abram’s cattle were grazing in the pasture, Lot’s shepherds would come into their territory and graze their cattle there. Now Abram and Lot were both strangers and sojourners in the land. Abram, therefore, feared that the Canaanite and the Perrizite, who inhabit the land, might hear of the abundance of their cattle, [whose great number was made apparent when Lot’s shepherds encroached on Abram’s land, thereby combining the flocks], and drive them out of the land or slay them by sword and take their cattle and wealth since the mastery of the land belonged to them, not to Abram. This is the purport of the verse, And the Canaanite and the Perrizite. Scripture thus mentioned that there were many peoples dwelling in that land, they and their cattle being innumerable, and the land could not support them and Abram and Lot.

From the word oz (then) — [And the Canaanite and the Perrizite abode ‘then’ in the land] — it appears to me that the nations dwelling in the land at that time were those who live in tents and have cattle, some of them converging on one district and grazing there for a year or two and then journeying from there to another district in which they had not previously pastured. And so they continued to do, as is customary among “the children of the east.” The Canaanite and the Perrizite were thus “then” in the land of the south, and in the following years the Jebusite and the Amorite would come there.” – Ramban Commentary (Source: sefaria.org).