Vayeshev, And he dwelt:
B’resheet (Genesis) 37:1 – 40:23;
Amos 2:6 – 3:8; ZecharYah 2:10 – 4:7
Acts 7:9-16
“I’m not buying your dream.” When I was a boy, this is what my brothers and I would say to each other when one of us would come up with a hair-brained idea. We’d hardly ever say, “I’ll buy your dream,” when one of us actually did come up with something brilliant. Why do brothers like to shut each other’s dreams and visions down so readily?
Joseph’s brothers weren’t buying it. Is the whole family bowing down before Joseph? No way! Who did he think he was? God Himself?
In one sense, the eleven brothers thinking that way was actually in keeping with the faith of our fathers. Today Israel loves to declare “Shema Yisra’el, YHWH Eloheynu, YHWH Echad. Hear O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is One.”
There is only One God and His Name is YHWH. In the first commandment, YHWH tells us: “You shall have no other gods before Me.” Exodus 20:3
Then in the second commandment, He says, “You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I, YHWH your God, am a jealous God.” Then how could they ever bow to Yoseph?
Yes, the brothers were jealous of their favored brother Joseph; but it may have also offended their faith to not worship other gods, whether idols or man. Their fathers taught them to bow before only the One True God, YHWH Elohim. They sure were not going to bow before their youngest brother, or so they thought.
Is this not true of most believers today? We wouldn’t bow before a mere man, not even a messiah if he’s not God. So why would YHWH Elohim, God Himself, give Joseph two dreams of Jacob and his family bowing down before him being a mortal man?
The Real Issue With Hanukkah
What are the real issues with observing Hanukkah? Is it whether the hanukkiah, the nine-branched menorah breaks the Torah by adding two branches? Is the star of David a pagan symbol and shouldn’t be displayed? Yeah, I may have lost readers over embedding this controversial picture of the hanukkiah.
Is one of the issues of this season whether there was a miracle of eight days of oil out of one to burn? Is it okay to exchange gifts during Hanukkah? Are Hanukkah bushes, instead of Christmas trees, wrong too? Should we be eating unhealthy deep-fried fritters? Are Jewish traditions something we should avoid altogether? What does Solomon’s portico have to do with Yeshua observing Hanukkah in John Chapter 10? Like me, are you tired of people missing what’s really important, majoring in the minors?
The Real Issue With Yeshua at Hanukkah
None of the issues by Hebrews haggling over Hanukkah are what John wrote about concerning Yeshua at that time when He walked the earth. What exactly was the issue of that day? What was the controversy that we may need to address at this time?
Then came Hanukkah; it was winter in Jerusalem. Yeshua was walking in the Temple around Solomon’s Colonnade. Then the Judean leaders surrounded Him, saying, “How long will You hold us in suspense? If You are the Messiah, tell us outright!” John 10:22-24, TLV
Oh, so the issue at that time had nothing to do with symbols being used, or pagan origins of traditions, or something questionable being added to the celebration since the days of the Maccabees.
The Jews wanted to know if He was the Messiah or not. They wanted Him to make a declaration by which they could try Him for blasphemy and have Him executed. But Yeshua was not stupid. He knew better than to fall for their trap.
The Jews' Idea of the Messiah
What Messiah were the Jews looking for?
If you look up articles on what the Jews believed the Messiah to be up until the days of Yeshua walking the earth, you’ll find that they were not looking for a Divine Man. Like today, there were a diversity of expectations.
Messiah means the Anointed One, anointed for a high office. Some Jews believed in a mighty warrior from the house of Judah to become a conquering king, anointed to set up the nation of Israel again. They were looking for one greater than Judas Maccabeus who overthrew the Greek armies and regained the temple mount for them to set up temple service. Adherents to the Macabbees were looking for the Anointed One to come as a great high priest to restore true temple worship and service. Others looked for an anointed prophet, the One greater than Moses to shema – hear, believe and obey.
Most rabbis agreed that the two strongest types of the Messiah in the TaNaKh, the ‘Old’ Testament, were Messiah Ben Yoseph and Messiah Ben David. We know Yeshua to fulfill the type and shadow of Joseph’s life in His first coming.
No one was looking for a rabbi among common people. Certainly, no one expected the Messiah to be a suffering servant to be crucified as the worst of criminals.
The Expectations of Messiah in Yeshua's Day
From my research, most rabbis believed from the Scriptures that the Messiah would be divinely appointed and anointed, but not Divine himself. So when the Messiah did come to walk the earth, Yeshua did not fully meet anyone’s expectations of who He would be or what His mission was from the Father.
Nothing new under the sun, there are still many views of who the Messiah is, not just among Judaism. Christians and even Hebrew Roots believers struggle with the same controversy. Is Yeshua God, or is He not? Unfortunately, what I’m hearing in person today is increasing chatter that Yeshua is NOT God. Where are the defendants of Yeshua being Divine? We need more who are ready to defend the faith once delivered to the apostles. What do the Scriptures say about who our Messiah Yeshua really is?
What did Yeshua say to answer the question about Him being the Messiah at the time of Hanukkah? What issue should we be talking about during this season? Let’s read on in John 10:25-30 for Yeshua’s response to the challenge of His Messiahship:
Yeshua answered them, “I told you, but you don’t believe! The works I do in My Father’s Name testify concerning Me.
But you don’t believe, because you are not My sheep. My sheep hear My voice. I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life! They will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand.
My Father, Who has given them to Me, is greater than all. And no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.
I and the Father are one.”
Yeshua Like Joseph
The eleven brothers didn’t believe what Joseph told them either. No way would they ever bow before him. In my view, the only way Joseph could confidently share such dreams as being from God is if the dream had to do with not just Joseph himself, but with him being a type of the Messiah to come. Of course, Joseph was a mortal man and not God. So if Joseph was a type of the Messiah, the coming Savior of the world, then his family would be bowing to the God that Joseph represented. Did you catch that? The family of Israel would bow to the One Joseph foreshadowed, the coming Messiah.
If Yeshua is Messiah Ben Yoseph, the Messiah after the foreshadowing of Joseph in the Torah than Yeshua must be God. He had to be, or the whole family of Israel, keepers of the commandments, would not be bowing to Yeshua the Messiah! YHWH would never give and authorize a dream like that unless it was in keeping with the first and second of the ten commandments! Think about it.
Yeshua declared that it wasn’t so much His words that they didn’t believe, but His actions! The works He did in the character (Name) of the Father answered their question about Who He was. Yeshua’s point during Hanukkah was that His actions proved He was Divine, for He did miraculous works no mere mortal man could do.
His Jewish brethren hated the idea of His Divinity. How dare He say that the people’s sins were forgiven! The Jewish authorities wanted the common people under sin so they could appear more righteous than others and control them. But the Messiah’s words to those who had humble and submissive hearts like sheep would listen to Him to be set free from tyranny, knowing and believing that He alone was their Divine Messiah.
Yeshua ended His response to the Jewish authorities with another way of saying He is Divine: “I and the Father are one.”
That’s in keeping with YHWH Echad, the LORD is One. How could Yeshua be One with the Father and not be God? What reasonable person could ever truly say that?
The Divinity of Yeshua in Prophecy
The prophet Isaiah told us what the Messiah as a human being would be called by those who know Him for Who He is:
For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us, And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:6
He must be God if He’s called ‘Mighty God.’ He is so one with the Father that He’s even called ‘the Everlasting Father.’ How else can you understand this prophecy?
The next verse, Isaiah 9:7 proves His unique, Divine, virgin birth:
Of the increase (l’marbeh) of His government or of peace, there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom.
The one time in all the Hebrew Scriptures that the letter mem occurs in a closed form in the middle of a word is in ‘l’marbeh.’ It’s only closed by the rule of the language when the mem occurs at the end of a word. Here the scribes purposely put the closed mem in the middle to make a prophetic point. Since the letter mem in paleo-Hebrew pictures a womb, the closed womb indicates a virgin birth for this prophesied child. Conceived only by the Holy Spirit, He came from a womb never opened by mortal man.
During this season, most believers in the God of the Bible see the Messiah as a baby in the womb. This is a distraction by the enemy from what happened at this time. Most Hebrew scholars agree that Yeshua was born during the fall festivals, either Trumpets or the first day of Sukkot. That being the case. then Yeshua would have been conceived nine months earlier, which falls at the time of Hanukkah.
So what should we be talking about at this time – His birth or the conception of the Messiah? His conception proves He is God:
Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. Matthew 1:18, NASB
Like-kind begets like-kind (Genesis 1). Yeshua said “God is Spirit.” (John 4:24) So God begets God, the Holy Spirit beget the God-Man Yeshua in the virgin Mary, the only virgin to ever give birth. Thus the title “Son of God” must mean He is God as well.
Joseph’s dream of the sun, moon, and stars bowing to him foreshadowed the Messiah, ‘the Son of God.’ This dream was seen in the heavenly realm where the heavenly Father exists. The dream of the wheat sheaves bowing to him was in the earthly realm, thus prophesying of us bowing to the Messiah Ben Yoseph as ‘the Son of Man.’ Joseph’s heavenly dream had to do with Yeshua the Son of God as Divine; whereas the earthly dream of the wheat had to do with Yeshua the Son of Man as a mortal man.
Oneness With the Father
After Hanukkah, Yeshua addresses the question of His Oneness with the Father with his disciples in the same theme as when challenged on His Messiahship during Hanukkah: Read what He answered Philip with in John 14:8-11:
Phillip said to Him, “Master, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.”
Yeshua said to him, “Have I been with you for so long a time, and you haven’t come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father?
Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me? The words I say to you, I do not speak on My own; but the Father dwelling in Me does His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me – or at least believe because of the works themselves.”
Back in the time of Hanukkah, the Jewish authorities knew Yeshua was claiming His Divinity by saying His works proved it. They admitted His claim, shouldn’t we?
Again the Judean leaders picked up stones to stone Him. Yeshua answered them, “I’ve shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these are you going to stone Me?”
The Judean leaders answered, “We aren’t stoning you for a good work, but for blasphemy. Though You are a man, You make Yourself God!” John 10:31-33
Okay, so the Jew got it! Unlike many religious people today, they understood that Yeshua was declaring Himself to be God! But like Joseph’s eleven brothers, they didn’t want to submit to His Divine Authority but wanted to kill Him over it to not lose their self-appointed authorities over the common people over to His mightier authority.
Why is it that some of us don’t get that? Yeshua saying that He did the works of the Father, which were supernatural, meant that He had to be God to perform them. No mortal man could do what Yeshua did. Like what? How about raising the dead, healing lepers and paralytics from birth, healing the sick that no doctor on earth could help, declaring sinners to be forgiven, you know – acts of God!
Why is the Messiah being God so hard to receive? Yeshua tries to reason with them:
In John 10:31-39:
Yeshua answered them, “Isn’t it written in your Writings, ‘I have said you are gods’? If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the Word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), do you say of Him, the One the Father set apart and sent into the world, ‘You speak blasphemy,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God.’?
“If I don’t do the works of My Father, don’t believe Me!
But if I do, even if you don’t trust Me, trust the deeds. Then you may come to know and continue to understand that the Father is in Me, and I am in the Father.”
Therefore they tried to capture Him again, but He escaped from their hand.
Yeshua wasn’t stupid. He knew that any more dialogue on His Divinity was just going to enrage them to martial forces to seize Him and execute Him. But it wasn’t the right time, it wasn’t Passover, it was Hanukkah. No coincidence, this Torah portion, Vayeshev, falls around the time of Hanukkah. So what should we all be talking about during this time?
Every Knee Shall Bow
Like the eleven brothers not buying Joseph’s dreams, not everyone will accept our declaration of Yeshua to be the Divine Messiah, before Whom all of Israel, that believers in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will call upon and worship. If not now, they will.
Although they didn’t buy his dream at first, eventually the eleven brothers and their parents would bow down before Joseph down in Egypt. We know Joseph wasn’t God. But many of us do believe he was a type of the Messiah to come. So what does that say to us? Eventually, every one of us will bow the knee and confess that Yeshua is YHWH,
For it is written, ‘As I live,’ says YHWH, ‘every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall give praise to God.’ Romans 14:11
Paul expanded on this prophecy in his letter to the Philippians: For this reason, God highly exalted Him and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the Name of Yeshua every knee should bow, in heaven and on the earth (Joseph’s two dreams) and under the earth, and every tongue profess that Yeshua the Messiah is Lord – to the glory of God the Father.
Philippians 2:9-11
That Curious Title: Kurios
What Greek word is translated as ‘Lord’ in this verse? Kurios. In my studies of the Hebrew and Greek languages, I’ve been very curious about the title ‘Kurios’ in the Greek.
The other Greek word for God is ‘Theos’ (Strong’s G2316), found 1430 times in the ‘New’ Testament. ‘Theos’ is always translated as ‘God’ in our English Bibles.
Found 748 times in the ‘New’ Testament, ‘Kurios’ in Greek (G2962) is like our English title ‘The Lord,’ the way this word is most often translated. Other uncommon ways ‘Kurios’ is translated is ‘master’ or ‘sir.’
From the Hebrew language, ‘Kurios’ is the translation for either YHWH or Adonai found in the ‘Old’ Testament. YHWH (Strong’s H3068) is found a whopping 6,824 times in the Hebrew Scriptures, the Tanakh. In most English translations, it’s always translated as ‘The LORD.’ Adonai (H136) occurs far less frequently, 459 times in the Tanakh. Adonai is most often, but not always, a title of YHWH, and is also translated as ‘The Lord’ or ‘Lord.’
So the English title ‘The Lord,’ referring to YHWH, has its origins in Adonai only about 6% of the time. My point is, ‘the Lord’ references the Name ‘YHWH’ 16 times more often than His title ‘Adonai.’
So I’m curious – who does the Greek title ‘Kurios’ most often refer to in the ‘New’ Testament? In keeping with the Hebrew Scriptures, ‘Kurios’ should most often be translated as ‘YHWH’ in the New Testament. YHWH is more than just the title of a British landowner. It stands to reason that ‘Kurios’ most often refers to more than just an earthly lord or master, but our God, YHWH Himself.
I’m curious, what does ‘the Lord Jesus’ really mean as found 101 times in the ‘New’ Testament? Let’s go to what Paul wrote about Yeshua being ‘Kurios.’ Who is the ‘Kurios’ that Yeshua is? Are you curious? What is the true translation for ‘Kurios’?
Let’s translate ‘Kurios’ as ‘YHWH’ concerning Yeshua and see if it is grounded in the Torah. Go to Philippians 2:11 again – ‘every knee should bow, in heaven and on the earth and under the earth, and every tongue profess that Yeshua the Messiah is YHWH.’
In other words, Paul declared that Yeshua IS YHVH!!!!
That would be the only way Joseph’s dream of his family members bowing before him can truly be fulfilled! Joseph wasn’t God but foreshadowed the Man Who is God, Yeshua the Messiah to come. Are you buying Joseph’s dream?
Why can’t Yeshua be God? The Almighty YHWH can manifest Himself in any way He wants to! Why put Him in a box to say that He can’t manifest as a man?
Why should the nations say, “Where, now, is their God?” But our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases. Psalm 115:2-3
If He wants to show up on earth as a Man, who is to say He cannot? Who are we, who are the pottery in His hands, to say how He forms or shapes anyone on earth?
The Importance of Believing in the Divinity of Yeshua
Why does believing Yeshua to be God so important? Here’s where the rubber meets the road with the subject of the Messiah being God. What does it mean to be God?
God in Hebrew in its singular form is El. El is spelled Aleph Lamed. In paleo Hebrew, the two letters mean strong as an ox with horns and a shepherd’s staff, or staff of authority. Simply put, El means ‘Mighty Authority’ or ‘Strong Controller.’
Who do we submit to as our Mighty Authority or Strong Controller? In the decisions we make, who is ultimately the authority we submit to? Who do we allow to control the direction we go in life and the decisions we make?
Put it this way, if Yeshua is not God, then Who is our God? Believers all agree that the Father in Heaven is God. Yet Israel sure seemed to have a problem relating to the invisible, infinite, and almighty God of the universe. There was a disconnect. They kept forgetting about Him, looking for man to be their ultimate authority, and ending up worshiping other gods. It got so bad that YHWH had to kick them out of the Promised Land and destroy their house of worship behind them. But thanks be to God for Yeshua!
So YHWH had to come as the Man, Yeshua, to be the authority that man could relate with and be willing to submit to. The twelve disciples followed the Messiah Yeshua and turned the world upside down with the revolutionary Kingdom that Yeshua brought near to mankind by His authority. Their works were in the Name of Yeshua, the Mighty God!
And whatsoever you do in word or deed, do all in the Name of Kurios (YHWH, the Lord) Yeshua, giving thanks to Elohim and the Father by Him. Colossians 3:17
How can we do greater works in His Name, like cast out demons, heal the sick and raise the dead, if we do it in the name of someone who is not God? Mighty is His Name!
But He (Yeshua) said, “The things that are impossible with people are possible with God.” Luke 18:27
In the Name of the Divine Messiah, the miraculous is possible!
BaShem YHWH Yeshua HaMashiyach,
David Klug