B'reishit Bara Elohim (Genesis #4)

What is the first line of your favorite book?  Can you recall?

Moby Dick:  "My name is Ishmael."
A Wrinkle in Time:  "It was a dark and stormy night."
A Tale of Two Cities:  "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..."

English nerds say the opening lines are of utmost importance, and I agree.  We are going to examine the opening words of Genesis 1 which, of course, are also the opening words of the greatest book ever written.

The title of today's post is an English transliteration of the Hebrew for "In the beginning God created".

At those simple words the secular world flips out.  Game on.  God inserts Himself into the consciousness of mankind by declaring He is responsible for starting it all.

Let's begin with the word, Elohim.  Elohim is a plural word. One of the names for God, it represents the Trinity:  Father, Son and Holy Spirit, all of whom were present at "the beginning" during the creation of the universe, of all that IS.

1In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God, and the Word was God.

2He was with God in the beginning.

3All things were made through Him, and apart from Him nothing was made that has come into being.

4In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.  

John 1:1-4 TLV

So, there is Jesus (Ben Elohim), the Son, the Logos, the Person of the Godhead who made all things.  He is called by John "the Word", because He spoke all things into existence.  In addition to John's testimony, we have Paul's as well in Colossians 1:15-17 (TLV) - - -

15He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

16For by Him all things were created— in heaven and on earth, the seen and the unseen, whether thrones or angelic powers or rulers or authorities. All was created through Him and for Him.

17He exists before everything, and in Him all holds together.

We find the Holy Spirit in Genesis 1:2, where He is called in Hebrew the Ruach Elohim (Spirit of God).

So, Elohim - - Father, Son, Holy Spirit - - Three-in-One, holy perfection!

Elsewhere in Genesis, God gives us a glimpse into the interactions of the Trinity, when He reveals conversations the three Persons had with each other.  The clue is the word "us".

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness! 

Genesis 1:26a (TLV)

Then Adonai Elohim said, "Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil."

Genesis 3:22a (TLV)

And then, at the Tower of Babel . . . 

Come! Let Us go down and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand each other’s language.”

Genesis 11:7 (TLV)

Here are other passages in scripture where the word "Creator"/"Maker" would be more accurately translated  "Creators"/Makers:  Ecclesiastes 12:1, Isaiah 54:5 and Deuteronomy 6:4.  You may recognize that last scripture reference as The Shema, which Jews recite as the bedrock foundation of their faith.  They do so to affirm the "one-and-onlyness" of Jehovah.  But, this is quite curious... Here is the entire Shema from the Tree of Life version, a Messianic Jewish translation, publ. 2014:

Shema Israel, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad

4“Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one .

5Love Adonai your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

6These words, which I am commanding you today, are to be on your heart.

7You are to teach them diligently to your children, and speak of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up.

8Bind them as a sign on your hand, they are to be as frontlets between your eyes,

9and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Deuteronomy 6:4 (TLV)

When examining the Hebrew of this verse, it appears that a wrong word was used for "one".  The word God used here is from the Hebrew root "echad", which means "to collect", "to unify", a "united one".  A more appropriate Hebrew word, to signify "one, and only one God", would have been the Hebrew "yachiyd".  But, that is not the word God inspired Moses to use.   This has troubled many orthodox Jewish rabbis over the centuries.  Some of them, in fact, have called this a scribal error! Smh... no error!  Rather, it is a testimony to the Triunity of Adonai Elohim!

One of my favorite hymns is "Holy, Holy, Holy".  It was written, based on the spoken testimony of praise given by the angelic beings called seraphim, who surround the throne of God and call out night and day "Holy, Holy, Holy is the LORD of Hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!" (Isaiah 6:3)
Ever wonder why Isaiah witnessed them crying out "Holy" three times in succession like that?  Could they be praising each holy Person of the Triune God?  It would seem so.

Here's another mystery, though, as if the Trinity were not mystery enough.

"Bara" ("created and keeps on creating") is a singular verb, occurring 46 times as a verb in the Old Testament.  When seen in scripture this verb is always found with God as its subject, implying only God can "bara".  Would you not expect a plural verb, for the three Persons of the Godhead?  But no!  We worship One God, who makes it apparent from the opening words of His book that He is a plural being.  Hallelujah!  "Bara" is singular, because it conveys the Oneness, the perfect unity of the only true God.  Furthermore, and this is amazing also - - every time Elohim is used as God's name in scripture, it is paired with a singular verb.  In other words, the pairing is grammatically incorrect, although it is spiritually correct!
It is assumed by many evangelicals that Elohim created "creation" out of nothing.  But, implicit in the word "bara" is an opening up, a filling up, more like populating or bringing into tangible existence.  "Populating from what or where?", you might ask, and rightly so.  From Elohim, of course, from the Everlasting One, from The Alpha and the Omega (The First and the Last), who SPOKE the worlds into existence (again, the Word, John 1:1-4).  We see this use of the word "bara" in 1 Samuel 2:29.  The phrase "making yourselves fat" or "fattening yourselves" (depending on the translation you are using) is lə·haḇ·rî·’ă·ḵem, related to "bara".  (See biblehub.com reference.)

So, we see that God (Adonai Elohim) opened Himself and spoke all creation into existence, both seen and unseen.  To believe otherwise contradicts the laws (not the theories) of Science as well as the nature of the (3) Creator(s).

Astounding.  Incomprehensible.  Stunning.

In the next post....b'reishit.

Sources:

http://xwalk.ca/elohim.html

https://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/hebrew/nas/bara.html

https://zondervanacademic.com/blog/we-have-been-di/

http://www.wildbranch.org/teachings/word-studies/55bara.html

http://biblehub.com/hebrew/bara_1254.htm

Perez, the Unsung Ancestor

There is a Hebrew word, Toldot or ṯō-wl-ḏō-wṯ (H8435), which appears in Genesis 2:4, and then does not reappear with the same spelling until Ruth 4:18.

Why did this word, translated often as “generations” disappear?  Why did it reappear?  Why did it reappear where it did?

First, let’s look at Genesis 2:4 (ESV) - - 

These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.

Now, here is Ruth 4:18 (ESV) - - 

Now these are the generations of Perez:

In both of these passages, the word "toldot" is spelled with a Hebrew letter, "vav", sometimes called "waw".  Even though you see "generations" or "toldot" in between Genesis 2:4 and Ruth 4:18, the word is not spelled with that missing letter.

"Who cares?", you say.

Good question.  But, this is something very curious....

One of the reasons we are able to read the Old Testament today is because of the painstaking way the scriptures were copied and re-copied by heavily-vetted scribes.  Not just anyone could become a scribe.  A scribe had to be the most trustworthy of men.  Furthermore, each scribe regarded any error as a huge sin.  No mistakes, errors of any kind, were tolerated.  If an error was made, the entire scroll was discarded and “buried” in a sort o “scroll graveyard”.1

I share this to emphasize that the elimination of this "vav" was not an error or mistake.  It was deliberate, as the Author of scripture, God's own Spirit, inspired the Old and New Testament writers.

Genesis 2:4 occurs after God has created the heavens and the earth, but right before He created man.  The "vav" is the sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet.  We see it first appear in Genesis 1:1, in the word "and" - - the heavens AND the earth.  Here is the word, and "vav" is the hook letter:

וְאֵ֥ת

The "vav" looks also like a fish hook or a tent peg (see above, the huge picture, which I can't seem to make smaller)  In the case of Gen. 1:1 the vav is a divine hook which joins heaven and earth.  This shows a connection between spiritual matters and earthly matters.  Man, similarly, is a spirit being in an earthly body.  In those days before The Fall of Man, creation was sinless, including Adam and Eve.

But, that soon changed, with The Fall.  When Adam sinned, Yahweh removed the vav from mankind for many generations.

Now, take a look at Exodus 27:9-10, which talks of the silver hooks which were part of the first Tabernacle, the Tent of Meeting, as it was called.  These silver hooks were used to anchor the curtains of the Tabernacle, the place where Yahweh came to meet with man.2  Again, the vav, in a sense, joined heaven and earth.  Silver as a metal has antimicrobial properties; it always symbolizes redemption, in scripture.  

Back to Perez, whose name means "breach" or "breakthrough", and who was the offspring of Tamar and Judah.  That is an interesting story.  You can read it in Genesis 38.  This is another story of levirate marriage (as was the story of Ruth and Boaz)!  How amazing, right?

Tamar had been married to Judah's eldest son, Er.  Before they could have children Er had died and, through a succession of events, Tamar ended up married to her father-in-law.  She was an amazing woman, which may explain why she is only one of 4 women (other than Mary, the mother of Jesus) mentioned in Matthew's genealogy of the Lord Jesus.  God had a sovereign plan, as He always does.  God accomplishes His purposes in spite of man's unrighteousness.  And, He used another broken woman to achieve it, in this case.  Praise His holy Name!

Satan attempted to disrupt the genealogy of Messiah by ending Judah's line with the death of Er.  And, he attempted to interfere again with Perez' birth.  You see, Perez was an identical twin. At the twins' birth (Genesis 38:27-30), the brother's hand emerged from the birth canal first; so, the midwife tied a scarlet thread around it.  However, the first baby to emerge fully did not have the scarlet thread! This was Perez, who then was crowned the firstborn.  

Aren't you glad the ancestors of Jesus Christ were not already "squeaky clean"?  God does not attempt to gloss over or hide the human frailties of those who loved Him. He knew who would be in the family tree of Jesus Christ.  As infamous as the stories of Judah and Tamar (and Perez and his twin brother, Zerah) are, they illustrate redemption so beautifully.  It is no accident the midwife used a scarlet thread, you know.  

But WHY did those 10 "witnesses" from Ruth 4:1-2 bless Boaz with a "Perez blessing" in verse 12?  Maybe they recognized some parallels between Judah and Boaz?  Judah had 3 sons.  The older 2 died and the younger was much younger.  Meanwhile, Judah's wife died.  At this point, Judah had no grandchildren to carry on the line. It all looked rather bleak.... Based on what we know of Boaz, he (before Ruth) had no heirs either.  In both cases, God provided an unusual route for each man to continue the family line that would eventually produce the Messiah, Jesus.

Or, maybe the 10 witnesses did not fully understand the significance of the blessing they pronounced.3  They knew that, to carry on the line of Judah was a tremendous blessing in and of itself, because God had promised "The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs; the nations will obey him. " (Genesis 49:10 NET).  This was absolutely a prophecy of Messiah. The 10 men certainly could not have known that 1700 or so years later, a baby would be born, in Bethlehem Ephrathah, from the line of Judah, who would fulfill the Perez blessing pronounced that day.

When I was sojourning and serving in a local Presbyterian church decades ago, the pastor would say this when he baptized a baby:  "Behold!  How good God is!"  The theology of infant baptism - - let's not careen off into that right now.  Instead, let's behold how GOOD God is, as we ponder the closing words of the story of Ruth:

18Now these are the generations of Perez: Perez fathered Hezron, 19Hezron fathered Ram, Ram fathered Amminadab, 20Amminadab fathered Nahshon, Nahshon fathered Salmon, 21Salmon fathered Boaz, Boaz fathered Obed, 22Obed fathered Jesse, and Jesse fathered David.

Ruth 4:18-22 (ESV)

Sources:

1  http://www.justthesimpletruth.com/was-the-bible-copied-accurately/

2  http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Grammar/Unit_One/Aleph-Bet/Vav/vav.html

3  http://www.feelingoutstanding.com/Perez.html