Beshalach – Torah with Joseph

Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.

Shalom from Jerusalem. My name is Joseph Shulam, and together with Brad TV, we are going through the weekly portions of the reading of the Torah.

Last week we talked about the portion that is called Bo, or translated into English, “Come to Pharaoh” or “Appear before Pharaoh.” And this week we are in a portion called Beshalach, which starts in Exodus 13:17 and ends in Exodus 17:16.

We are dealing with some of the most significant portions of the five books of Moses: the Exodus from Egypt, the crossing of the Red Sea, and soon the giving of the law at Mount Sinai. In last week’s portion, the children of Israel actually ate the first Passover and received instructions on how to celebrate Passover in the years to come.

The Passover is very important, very, very important, because so much of our understanding of redemption and of the Gospels centers around the last Passover, the Last Supper that Yeshua and His apostles ate in Jerusalem, on Mount Zion.

So it is very important for us to understand the crossing of the sea, the eating of the manna, and all these events that appear in the subsequent Torah portions read on Shabbat in every synagogue in the world.

This week’s portion is called Beshalach, “when Pharaoh sent them,” or “when he let them go,” depending on the English translation. As I said, it begins in Exodus 13:17 and ends in Exodus 17:16. The portion from the Prophets that is read in the synagogues this Shabbat is Judges 4:4 through 5:31.

We now enter into the story of what happened after the children of Israel left Egypt.

Israel Remembers the Oath to Joseph

One of the first important things we learn in this portion is that the children of Israel did not forget the oath that Joseph made his brothers swear before he died. He said, “I do not want to be buried in Egypt. I want to be buried with my father Jacob, my grandfather Isaac, and my great-grandfather Abraham, in Hebron, in the cave that Abraham bought from the Hittite.”

This is mentioned in our portion. Several hundred years later, roughly two hundred years later, Joseph’s body had been embalmed and mummified like the Egyptian pharaohs. Yet the children of Israel, led by Moses, did not forget to take Joseph’s bones with them when they left Egypt.

For forty years they carried that mummy through the wilderness in order to keep the oath their forefathers made to Joseph.

This is very significant. We live in a generation overflowing with information. Anyone with a smartphone can send and receive information instantly from anywhere in the world. Yet here we see a people who, centuries later, remembered an oath and kept it faithfully.

This same paradigm continued for two thousand years of exile. Jews all over the world remembered the land of Israel. The wealthy and the powerful wanted to be buried in the land God promised.

I once shared a hospital room with a ninety-four-year-old Jewish man from New York who had never visited Israel. As he was dying, he asked to be transferred to Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem so he could die and be buried on the Mount of Olives. He cried for his mother all night long, yet he came to Israel to die there.

The same desire existed with Joseph. The same with Jacob. They wanted to be buried in the land God promised. The Torah makes sure we remember that the children of Israel kept their oath.

The Pillar of Cloud and the Pillar of Fire

Another major lesson in Beshalach comes from Exodus 13:21–22:

This tells us that when Israel left Egypt, the Lord went with them. His presence, the Shekhinah, dwelt among them day and night, even before the Tabernacle was built.

This same concept appears in the words of Yeshua: “Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

God is not a tyrant who rescues people and abandons them in the wilderness. He is a partner who walks with His people through suffering.

God Goes With His People Into Suffering

One of the most moving images I know is a drawing in Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem. It shows Jews being led through barbed wire toward a death camp, and Jesus on the cross extending His hand and saying, “Take Me with you.”

Yes, when Jews went to Auschwitz, Dachau, Bergen-Belsen, and Ravensbrück, God went with them.

Two Orthodox Jews from Budapest, Joseph and David Vactor, marched to the death camps in January 1945 and found Yeshua in the barracks. They later became founders of our ministry in Jerusalem.

God was with His people.

Stand Still and See the Salvation of the Lord

In Exodus 14, Pharaoh changes his mind and pursues Israel. The sea is in front of them, Pharaoh’s army behind them.

Moses says in Exodus 14:13–14:

This takes faith. Faith is not doctrine. Faith is trust. Relationship.

The Song of Moses and the Song of the Lamb

The crossing of the sea leads to the Song of Moses in Exodus 15. Revelation 15:2–3 tells us that in the final victory, the redeemed will sing “the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb.”

The Exodus becomes the paradigm of redemption, pointing forward to the defeat of evil described in Revelation 20.

Miracles Do Not Change Hearts

Finally, Exodus 16 reminds us that miracles do not change hearts. After crossing the sea, the people complain again. Yet God rains bread from heaven.

Yeshua connects this directly to Himself in John 6, saying:

Paul confirms in 1 Corinthians 10 that the rock, the bread, the cloud, and the sea all point to the Messiah.

God is faithful. He keeps His promises. He walks with His people.

May God bless you. Keep reading the Torah, the Prophets, and the New Covenant. In Yeshua’s name, amen.