VAYERA (And He Appeared) Gen.18:1–22:24; 2 Kings 4:1–37; Luke 2:1–38
“The LORD appeared [vayera] to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day.” (Gen. 18:1)
The ‘great trees of Mamre’ were oak trees in Hebron, that were a Canaanite shrine dedicated to the pagan sky god they named, ‘Elyon.’
The oak is symbolic in Scripture of strength and long life, but here is something fundamentally different.
Abraham was sitting a distance away from these trees rather than under their shadow in the heat of the day, revealing that he had removed himself from something from his past. Following his encounter with the one true God he learnt to dwell under the shelter of the Most High and abide under His shadow rather than the shadow of pagan gods. Abram now embraced the ELYON of the Bible, the one true and Most High God, who is the Creator of the Universe and everything within it! Satan seeks to counterfeit everything within God’s creation with poor imitations because his expressed intention is to steal, kill and destroy.
Scripture commands us to separate ourselves from all evil and cleave to all that is good. The apostle Paul urges us in 1Thes.5:21-22 to: “Take a close look at everything, test it, then cling to what is good. Put away every form of evil,” and in 1John 4:1, to “…test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.”
The closer we walk with God the more we will learn to walk in His ways with the Holy Spirit who guides us in His pathways of truth! (John 16:13)
“The LORD appeared [vayera] to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day” and promised him something humanly impossible regarding his offspring through Sara. There is no such word as impossible in God’s vocabulary and we read in Heb. 11 that Abram believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. “11 By faith even Sarah herself received ability to conceive when she was barren and past the age, since she considered the One who had made the promise to be faithful. 12 So from one—and him as good as dead—were fathered offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven, and as uncountable as the sand on the seashore.”
In the text, the Lord also made clear His intention to Abram that He would destroy the wicked inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah. Here we see another aspect of God’s Divine promises, elements that contain both His judgement and mercy. The wickedness of these cities was so great that God told Abram that He would destroy it. So, in what sense was His mercy manifested? It was reflected in the incredible description where Abram tested the boundaries of God’s merciful nature. In chapter 18:23-25 Abram had the chutzpa to challenge Him: “Will you really sweep away the righteous with the wicked? 24 Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you really sweep away and not spare the place for the sake of fifty righteous who are in it? 25 Far be it from You to do such a thing—to cause the righteous to die with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked share the same fate! Far be it from You! Shall the Judge of the whole world not exercise justice?”
Why was Abram so desperate as to risk incurring the wrath of God by challenging Him to a debate? It was because he was acquainted with the merciful heart of God. His nephew Lot and wider family were foremost in his mind but his motivation went beyond to his knowledge of God’s merciful character. Abram bargained with God until he had whittled it down from 50 to just 10. But why did he stop at 10? Why not 5 or less? The number 10 in Scripture represents a quorum, the minimum number of righteous people needed to form an assembly. The Talmud calls to attention the fact that there are 10 different Hebrew words for idols. Therefore, 10 “righteous people” was the minimum number needed to counteract the manifest types of idolatry represented in Sodom and Gomorrah. The math here is quite amazing when one thinks about it. The Bible says in Deut. 32:30, “one man will chase a thousand and two put ten thousand to flight”. Just a handful of righteous people can put to flight a vast army! This is the principle of 10 for the people who can decree in faith, “If God be for us who can be against us” (Rom. 8) no matter how bleak the odds may appear and here we see the bridal identifier of the overcomer who knows that God is our refuge and strength and a very present help in times of trouble. (Ps. 46)
This Torah portion is ‘named Va’era’ (and He appeared). God can speak to us in an infinite variety of ways from His creation, through other people – a friend or a stranger, through circumstance directly or indirectly, through dreams and visions, through a Rhema word in Scripture – if God could speak to a prophet through a donkey you can be sure that God is not limited to how He can speak to each one of us, crafted in unique ways that are infinite and breathtaking; through a rushing wind or in a still small voice, and our challenge as believers is not to marvel at these things from a distance but to recognise His hand at work in our lives and be ready to open our hearts to Him – ‘Hineni’ – “speak Lord for Your servant is listening.” His promises remains steadfast and so we can confidently proclaim that, “All things work together for good for those who love God for those who are called according to His purposes.”
God never deals us a poor hand and He never short-changes us. At every moment in time He remains faithful even when we may sometimes lack in faith! Here are two examples from this Parasha to illustrate this point.
- Sarah was barren, no child, no inheritance, no hope. In everyone’s eyes she was a dismal failure. Despite her unbelief God remained faithful to His promise and gave her a child who she named, Isaac (‘laughter’) because in the fullness of time God turns our mourning into dancing! As the psalmist declared in Ps.30, “Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing: thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness; To the end that my glory may sing praise to thee, and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks unto thee for ever.”
- God instructed Abraham and Sarah to do the impossible: to place upon the altar and sacrifice the very thing they treasured most; to return the same gift He gave them – the son of promise. When God gives us grace to trust and obey Him even against all odds, we discover something incredible that deepens of our love for Him. (Gen. 22:1-18). And so too, God has given us the potential to change the world as did Abram.
In Judaism, observant Jews recite two short prayers every morning known as the ‘Akedah’ which is the Hebrew word for ‘binding.’ It is only used in one verse in the entire Bible which we find here in Gen. 22:9 when Abram bound Isaac onto the altar in obedience to God’s command for him to offer the thing most precious in his life as a sacrifice exclusively to Him. Why do Jewish people pray the Akedah prayer? Because it is a reminder of God’s mercy and judgment.
“There was a group of Hasidim (pious ones) who served the Baal Shem Tov, founder of this movement. One night, they raised a question among themselves.
“What was so special about the test of the akedah (binding)? If God had revealed Himself to us and commanded us to sacrifice our only son, how would we have responded?”
The first one replied: “If God told me to sacrifice my only son, I would delay my doing so for a while, to keep him with me for a few days. Abraham’s greatness lay in that he arose early in the morning to immediately fulfil the Divine command.”
The second one said: “If God told me to sacrifice my only son, I would waste not a moment to carry out His command. But I would do so with a heavy heart. Abraham’s greatness lay in that he went to the akedah with a heart full of joy over the opportunity to fulfil God’s will.”
Said the third: “I, too, would carry out God’s will with joy. I think that Abraham’s uniqueness lies in his reaction upon finding out that it was all a test. When God commanded him, ‘Do not touch the child, and do nothing to him,’ Abraham was overjoyed—not because his only child would not die, but because he was being given the opportunity to carry out another command of God.”
The binding of Isaac was the full expression of faith, obedience and devotion to God in action. Each day, religious Jews read the ‘akedah’ and then pray:
“Master of the Universe! Just as Abraham our father suppressed his compassion for his only son to do Your will with a whole heart, so may Your compassion suppress Your judgment against us, and Your mercy prevail over your justice.”
The akedah was the most important test of Abram’s faith and represents the fullest example of self-sacrifice in the Tanakh that presents a perfect shadow of Yeshua’s sacrifice for us:
- Isaac carried the wood for the sacrifice – Yeshua carried the cross-beam to the place of His sacrifice:
- Isaac cried out to his father – “Where’s the lamb for the burnt offering?” v7 – Yeshua cried out to His father – “My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?”
- Isaac escaped death after 3 days (22:4) – Yeshua was raised from the dead after the 3rd day
- Abraham indicated that God would provide a lamb for Isaac (“God will provide a lamb.” v8) – Yeshua became the Lamb of God for us
- The ram was caught in a thicket of thorns (v13) – Yeshua wore a crown of thorns.
To sacrifice the life of your child is unthinkable although try explaining that to the Democrats who actively promote the murder of unborn children as a woman’s right of choice! But contrast this to the Divine act of God who demonstrated His love for us that while we were yet dead in our sins God offered His only begotten Son for us to redeem us from the slavery of sin.
Obedience to God was more important to Abram than his very life. He had agonised over the fact that he had no heir. Then came the Divine promise: miraculously, at the age of 100, he would have a son, out of whom would stem the people of Israel. “You shall call his name Isaac and I shall establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his descendants after him.” And then God told him to destroy it all.
When Abram bound Isaac upon the altar, it ran contrary to everything he believed in. He could see no reason, no purpose for it but he still obeyed and his trust never wavered and, therefore, it was accounted to him as righteousness.
The second example I want to share is from this weeks Haftarah portion (Prophets) which concerns the story of Elisha in 2 Kings 4:1–37. It mirrors in many ways the akedah. God used Elisha to bring life and hope to a woman who found herself in a hopeless predicament. She was a widow of one of Israel’s prophets. She had lived a godly life but was now reduced to starvation with her creditors ready to take her two children into slavery. She had served God without ever seeking any reward, yet now everything seemed as if God was punishing her for it. Worse still, many people she had thought were her friends now criticised her falsely claiming that her situation was a result of sin in her life.
And now, as in the case with Abram and Sarah, she suffered a sense of utter worthlessness and self condemnation. She had been barren for her entire life until the moment that God miraculously granted her a son and then out of the blue, her husband fell ill and died. Going from a place of happiness and purpose to one where the bottom has fallen out of your world is not an easy thing. Her response to Elisha was filled with someone who felt she had nothing left to live for: “Did I ask for a son from my lord? Did I not say, ‘Do not give me false hope’?” 2 Kings 4:28
Elisha responded by inviting himself to her place for a meal even though all she had left was one small cruse of oil. Her sacrifice was her salvation and set the path for her that led to abundant blessing instead of a lack. Next, Elisha asked her to do what seemed totally ridiculous: He told her to borrow empty containers from everyone and then go in to the house and shut the door and pour the oil into all the containers. So after she had shut the door behind her they kept bringing her containers, and she kept pouring until every one of them had been filled to the brim.
If that wasn’t enough and to illustrate the principle that man’s extremity is God’s opportunity, something even more disastrous occurred some years later. The child grew and one day went out to his father and the harvesters. Suddenly he complained that he had a fever and the next moment he was dead.
But on this occasion the Shunamite woman reacted differently. Instead of giving up all hope, she immediately journeyed to Elisha in Mount Carmel where she begged him to pray for God’s healing for her son. Elisha arrived at the house and discovered the boy lying dead on his bed. He prayed for healing and her son was resurrected, the first recorded instance of resurrection in Scripture.
We may have experienced occasions in our lives where we have faced impossible situations and they may not have always ended as we had hoped for unlike the experience of the Shunamite woman. And life is not something whereby we can simply build a theology such as to ‘name-it-and-claim-it (if only we had the faith!) where we can manipulate God to always get our own way because it may just be out of sync with Gods perfect will. And our personal experiences may not always be the same as in the case of the Shunamite woman, but nonetheless does it then contradict God’s faithfulness or simply mean that He has an equally unique and special plan for our lives that may just take us along a different path from what we had hoped for and expected? Whatever we may face, one thing for sure is that God is faithful to provide us with only the very best for our lives because anything less is not a possibility. So much of the quality of our walk with God pivots on this one thing. He remains for us the resurrection and the life and all we need to do is to embrace it with every fibre of our being for it is this that enables us to experience the reality of an overcomer and more-than-conqueror through Him who loves us with an everlasting love!
Raphael ben Levi
