Tag Archives: Genesis

On Guys Wearing Earrings

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Genesis 35:4, Strange gods …earrings. Strange in Hebrew means “foreign or alien” gods or mighty ones.” Before going up to Bethel to worship Elohim, Jacob instructed the men to put away their idols and remove their earrings, which this passage links to idol worship. It was acceptable for women to wear earrings (Ezek 16:12), but here, strange gods and earrings are linked.

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These rings were not worn as mere ornaments, but for superstitious purposes perhaps as amulets or charms. They were first consecrated to some false god, or formed under some constellation, and stamped with magical characters. Maimonides mentions rings and jewels of this kind, with the image of the sun, moon, etc., impressed upon them; and Augustine describes them (Epist. 73,) as used for this execrable purpose.

In the Scriptures, men wearing earrings is often connected to paganism. Note the following Bible passages:

And Aaron said unto them, “Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me.” And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron. And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, “These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.” (Exod 32:2)

And Gideon said unto them, “I would desire a request of you, that ye would give me every man the earrings of his prey.” (For they had golden earrings, because they were Ishmaelites.) And they answered, “We will willingly give them.” And they spread a garment, and did cast therein every man the earrings of his prey. And the weight of the golden earrings that he requested was a thousand and seven hundred shekels of gold; beside ornaments, and collars, and purple raiment that was on the kings of Midian, and beside the chains that were about their camels’ necks. And Gideon made an ephod thereof, and put it in his city, even in Ophrah: and all Israel went thither a whoring after it: which thing became a snare unto Gideon, and to his house. (Judg 8:24–27)

 

What is Jacob’s Trouble and how does it relate to end times prophecy?

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Genesis 32 is the story of Jacob’s return to Canaan after having been exiled from his homeland for 20 years. This is often referred to as Jacob’s Trouble (from Jer 30:7). His exile occurred after he obtained his divinely promised birthright through shrewd if not unscrupulous means from his brother Esau resulting in his having to flee Canaan for fear of his life due to Esau’s vengeance. Jacob found refuge in the region of Babylonia at his Uncle Laban’s home where he married Laban’s two daughters, Leah and Rachel. Genesis 32 recounts Jacob’s encounter with Esau who, along with his small army, physically stood in Jacob’s way from entering the land of his promised inheritance—later to be known as the land of Israel or Promised Land.

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The Jewish sages believe that this encounter between Jacob and Esau is prophetic in nature and will happen again in the end times, but this time on a much larger scale and this time involving the numerous descendants of Israel and Esau. The Israelites will be attempting to return to their ancestral homeland, while the descendants of Esau will be attempting to block their way. As we proceed in this study, we will see whether this prophecy is beginning to come to pass in our days.

Rolling the film backwards a little, Laban had chased Jacob out of the area of Babylon, and yet Jacob was being blocked from entering Canaan by Esau (or Edom meaning “red”). This is reminiscent of Pharaoh chasing the Israelites out of Egypt only to find themselves blocked by the Red Sea, which is a picture of Edom (meaning “red”). In both instances, Continue reading →

 

On Laban and His Modern-Day Babylon the Great Counterparts

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Genesis 31:19, Household idols. Heb. teraphim, from rapha meaning “to heal, make healthful.” The ancient pagans viewed these idols superstitiously as good luck charm for good health and prosperity.

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But there is more. In ancient Babylon, each family had a shrine where it worshipped its household gods, which were in the shape of clay figurines. These family gods served as guardian angels of the home, and would be left to the eldest son, who, acting as the family high priest, would perpetuate the family’s idol worship after the father’s death. The theft of these household idols left Laban in a very agitated state in that he was willing to pursue Jacob to retrieve them, by force, if necessary.

The reason is that these gods conferred the right of primogeniture (to the firstborn son), and acted as a title deed to the father’s inheritance. Thus, Rachel must have stolen her brother’s inheritance thereby making Jacob the legal heir of Laban’s estate (Manners and Customs of Bible Lands, pp. 119–120, by Fred H. Wight; TWOT, p. 980).

Genesis 31:43, These daughters are my daughters. Laban claims that Jacob’s wives and children belonged to him. Laban was also steeped in the idolatry of Babylon having in his possession idols or images called teraphim (Gen 31:19, 34–35). Is there a modern counterpart to this? Does modern Babylon want to control and possess the wives and children of redeemed Israel, indoctrinate them in its pagan religious system and then keep Jacob’s modern descendants from returning to their spiritual and physical homeland and birthright inheritance, and from returning to the Torah-faith of their fathers?

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Are governmental systems (e.g., public education and Child Protective Services, social welfare programs, various government regulations that have greatly diminished or eliminated many of our personal freedoms), socio-political organizations (e.g. ACLU, UN) and greedy corporate systems (banking systems that enslave people through debt, corrupters of our food supplies that destroy people’s health, pharmaceutical companies and the mainstream medical establishment that enslaves people’s minds and bodies through drugs) modern-day Labans who want to kill, steal and destroy for the benefit of money and power?

Revelation 18:13 says that Babylon the Great traffics in the souls of men. This speaks at Continue reading →

 

Jacob: The Law of Reaping and Sowing

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Genesis 28:22, I will surely give the tenth. To whom would Jacob ultimately tithe? We don’t know, but Jacob may have been making a prophecy about his descendants bringing their tithes and offerings to the house of El or the temple that would eventually be built on that exact spot.

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Jacob’s dream in Genesis 28 was his first, life-changing personal encounter with the Elohim of his fathers (Gen 28:10ff). What is his response? It was to serve YHVH and to worship him by giving him one-tenth (a tithe) of his increase (verse 22). What prompted this response on Jacob’s part? Why was such a response appropriate? When did you have your first encounter with your Heavenly Father and Master? Have you faithfully used the first fruits of your increase to honor, worship and express gratitude to him ever since? If not, why not? Scripture calls not tithing “robbing Elohim” and that as a result a curse may be on your finances (see Mal 3:8–11). Proverbs 3:9 lays out a solid truth about how tithing is a form of worshipping the Creator. “Honour [glorify] YHVH with thy substance, and with the first fruits of all thine increase, so shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine.”

The Scriptures reveal the importance of the spiritual law of reciprocity: You reap what you sow (Gen 8:22; Gal 6:7–9). If you don’t sow you will not reap. If you sow evil or good you will reap the same. Jacob had to learn this law the hard way. In Job 4:8 we read, “Even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same.” Jacob gained the birthright through posing as Esau (a deception) and Laban in turn deceives Jacob by putting Leah under the veil posing as Rachel in Jacob’s Continue reading →

 

Jacob’s Ladder Explained—YHVH’s Plan of Salvation from Genesis to Revelation

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Introduction to the Study of Genesis 28:10–22

Jacob’s vision of a ladder to heaven is one of those enigmatic Scriptural passages which has befuddled the keen intellects of many Bible scholars down through the ages. Perhaps the deeper elucidations of Jacob’s vision has escaped the reader as well. If so, you are not alone, for well-known Christian commentators such as Matthew Henry and Adam Clarke have stabbed at its meaning realizing it has something to do with the Person of Yeshua the Messiah and his heaven-ordained ministry to reconcile earth’s inhabitants to their Heavenly Father and Creator. Keil and Delitzsch don’t even connect this dream to the Person of Yeshua. Other than vague explanations as to the dream’s interpretations, these esteemed scholars have nothing more to proffer the reader. Little if anything is said of the allegorical meaning of the ladder, the dust, the stones (plural) becoming a stone (singular) or of the significance of “the place.” Even the unusually insightful biblical scholar Arthur W. Pink in his book, Gleanings In Genesis, though he draws 101 parallels between Joseph and Yeshua the Messiah, can gives us no more insights into the spiritual and prophetic implications of Jacob’s ladder than do Henry and Clarke. This is some of the best that Christianity has to offer on this subject.

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Now what does the best of rabbinic Judaism have to offer us by way of explanation of Jacob’s dream? It goes without saying that their interpretations will be devoid of any references to Yeshua, but can we learn anything else from them. After all, they have been studying this passage for more than 3800 years! Rashi, viewed by some as the greatest Torah expositor of the last 1000 years has little to add to our understanding as does Samson Raphael Hirsch, the great nineteenth-century Torah teacher. The Baal HaTurim in his Torah commentary adds some interesting insights relating to the subsurface or hidden meaning of some of the Hebrew words used in the text that not only confirm the simple or plain meaning of the text, but add depth to it as well on an allegorical or prophetic level. We will cite a number of other Jewish scholars who between them contribute greatly to our understanding of the text. But for all their collective wisdom, they, not surprisingly, fail to connect the meaning of the ladder to YHVH’s plan of redemption and salvation for mankind. They fail to see the big picture and master plan involving the Messiah, the Living Word of Elohim sent from heaven to redeem lost mankind.

Both the Christian scholars and the Jewish sages are blind in part since both have rejected half of the key to unlocking the full depth and panoramic understanding of this vision. The former has, to one degree or another, rejected its Jewish or Hebraic roots and the relevance of the written Torah to theological understanding and lifestyle, while the latter has rejected Yeshua, Living Word or Living Torah sent from Heaven to give us wisdom, understanding, redemption and salvation. Each side is spiritually blind in part to one-half of YHVH’s truth (Rom 11:25). Both have stumbled over the stone of stumbling and the rock of offence (Isa 8:14). The Christians have rejected much of the truth of the written Torah, while the Jews have rejected the spirit of prophecy as revealed through Yeshua, the Living Torah (Rev 19:20). To understand the heart of the Father as revealed in his written word, Yeshua said that it would take both spirit and truth (John 4:23–24). With these thoughts in mind, let us proceed to understand this vision of Jacob.

The Text 

Let’s now read the text in Genesis 28:10–22 pertaining to Jacob and his dream of the Continue reading →

 

New Video: Abraham on Dealing With Struggles in Marriage & Ministries

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The Bible is a book of life about real people with real struggles in the marriages, ministries, families, friends and associates. We can gain strength, comfort and wisdom from people like Abraham as this video explains.

 

Genesis Teaches Salvation by Grace Through Faith Resulting in Good Works

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Genesis 26:5, Because. Based on Paul’s teaching in Romans 4, we see that the Abrahamic Covenant is the model for salvation, which is salvation by grace through faith leading to or resulting in good works or righteousness (Eph 2:8–10).

From this verse, it might appear the Abrahamic Covenant wasn’t a faith-based covenant at all, but a works based on. In other words, Abraham had to do something to attain to be counted righteous or to come into good standing with Elohim — a concept which is commonly referred to as “receiving salvation.”

The fact is that in the Abrahamic Covenant, Abraham only had to have faith and believe in YHVH to be justified or to be considered righteous by Elohim (Gen 15:6). It was on this basis that YHVH granted him “salvation.” But this initial faith on Abraham’s part and the righteousness Elohim attributed to him was but the first step in Abraham’s faith walk. He had to walk out his faith and continue trusting YHVH.

The apostolic writers present the idea that one’s faith is a walk, not a one time event. It’s more than faith. It’s faithfulness to YHVH’s instructions. James clearly states in his epistle Continue reading →