Bo – 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 Torah portions that are being read in every synagogue on the Sabbath day. And we have arrived to the Torah portion that is called Bo in Hebrew which means, go to Pharaoh, come to Pharaoh.

God says to Moses, “Come to Pharaoh and I will harden his heart. Then the hearts of his servants that I may show these signs of mine before him.” So people say, “Oh, God hardens the heart of Pharaoh? It’s not fair. God is on purpose not allowing Pharaoh to give a positive answer to Moses request of, let my people go.”

Not so simple dear brothers and sisters because we have at least six times before this event in chapter 10, where Pharaoh hardened his own heart. I’m going to go and look at these events. I’ll go back to chapter seven, verse 13 and 14. So that you see that God is fair. God just did exactly what Pharaoh wanted. He (Pharaoh) chose to harden his own heart.

I’m going to read from the New King James version, verses 13, 14 and 15 of chapter seven of the book of Exodus,

Then again in chapter seven verse 22, we read the same development.

Then next in chapter seven verse 22 we read, then chapter seven verse 19. No, chapter eight verse 19, sorry.

Notice this refrain that repeats, “Pharaoh’s heart grew hard and he did not listen, did not heed, did not receive the words of the Lord that came from Moses and Aaron.” Again in chapter eight, we have in verse 11, I skipped already. Verse 28 of chapter eight. Again, the same refrain, the same text, the same idea. Verse 28 of chapter eight. Again... The verses in the, between the Hebrew Bible and the English texts are not exactly the same here.

So I’m going to go to chapter nine verse seven,

Even after the plague of devil (in Hebrew), that struck the livestock of Egypt, Pharaoh did not let them go. Chapter nine verse seven.

Again, chapter nine verse 35,

So six times Pharaoh hardens his own heart with the advice of his own magicians. Then finally in chapter 10 God says to Moses, you know what?

This Time, God Did It

Now I did it. He did it to himself till now by the advice of his magicians. But now it’s my turn. Why is it my turn? “Now I may show signs of mine before him that he understands that what his hardening of his heart is, it’s actually a mistake.” It was something that he shouldn’t have done. And now that he’s hardened his heart so many times against the children of Israel, and refuses to listen to me, I’m going to show him now who I am.

Wow, that’s verse two of chapter 10. I’m going to harden Pharaoh’s heart because I want this story published. I want this story, whatever I did in Egypt, the world to know, and not only one generation, the children of this generation and the children of the children of this generation and the children of Israel in general, I want them all to know who I am and what I’m capable of doing to people that harden their heart against me and against my will.

I can go along with their hardening of their heart, but it’ll be a lesson to you and to your children and to your children’s children. Some very interesting motif. So much of God’s actions, especially in the book of Exodus, including the whole Passover saga, is for the sake of the next generations, for the children of the next generations until the end of the world.

Yes, God wants the world to know that he is the creator. The only God that created this world with everything in it, from the mosquito to the hippopotamus. And he wants the world to know that it’s his world, and we are his children. And that brings to mind the texts from John chapter three, verses 16 and 17,

Yes, God loves the Egyptians also, but when an empire like Egypt, which was the greatest empire of the world in those days, becomes abstinent, difficult, doesn’t hear from the Lord, doesn’t want to obey the Lord, wants to do its own thing and is against the Lord and against His people, then God takes the steering wheel of history and steers that nation.

Ultimately God’s Will Is Fulfilled

But in the end, whether they like it or not, they will do God’s will. But the price that they will pay will be a very high price. It’s true throughout history, not only with Moses in Egypt, but throughout history, when nations and empires rebelled against God, and did things that were abominable, they paid the price. They paid the price.

So God says, I’m hardening Pharaoh’s heart so that you will have a story. You will have a narrative to tell your children that demonstrates who I am. Because that’s God’s purpose in history. God’s purpose in history is for the world to know who He is, that He created the world and that He loves the world. And so Moses and Aaron came to Pharaoh and said,

Another plague.

We’re Living Through a Plague Now

We’re living now in a time of a horrendous, horrible plague that really envelopes the whole world from Antarctica to the North Pole. In every continent, in every island, in the most beautiful places in the world and in the ugliest places of the world, this coronavirus is there, and it mutates, and it kills, and it destroys economies. You think it’s an accident that it’s called the coronavirus? I don’t think so.

I think it comes to us because we didn’t want the crown of God, the kingdom of God, to reign over us. And that includes all the European countries, the North American, and the South American countries, have rejected God’s word and God’s rule over them. And God said, you want another crown? Okay, there, you got it. You’re getting another crown. Just like the plagues over Egypt, he started them and he ends them.

God Is in Control

So now we understand that the plagues over Egypt, all 10 of them, were in order for the world to know and for Egypt to know that God is in control of the gods of Egypt. Every one of the plagues over Egypt involve the territory of one of their gods, beginning with the river Nile, which was one of the most important lifelines for Egypt. And the God of the Nile was very, very famous and worshiped by the Egyptians.

And ending up with the livestock and with the nature itself and finally with the human being himself. God is in control and God wanted the world to know and Egypt to know that this is His world and when He demands something, He will get his way every time without doubt. So Moses goes, another plague and another plague.

And one of the more interesting plagues is upon us. And that is the plague of darkness. Just like the plague of, it’s called Devorah in Hebrew, over the livestock. The livestock of the Israelites was not affected, only the livestock of the Egyptians was affected. The darkness also was a plague, where the children of Israel were in the light. The darkness was over the houses of the Egyptians. That is an interesting thing because light comes from the sun. It covers the earth. So how God arranged, for the children of Israel to be in the light and the children of the Egyptians to be in the darkness, that I don’t know physically how that’s possible, but it’s possible. And it was done and God did it.

Pharaoh offers compromises several times. And in our Parashah, he offers a compromise. After the plague, Moses and Aaron were brought again to Pharaoh, they didn’t come by themselves. It wasn’t their initiative. After the last plague Pharaoh sends for Moses and Aaron and... He says, “Go serve your Lord, your God, who are the ones that are going? No, you can go but tell me who is going?” And Moses said,

Then he said to them,

In other words, Pharaoh offered a compromise. Okay, the men can go, but the women and the children stay behind. He wanted the insurance that they will come back, that he’s not losing his workforce. His slaves, that built his cities and his tombs, you know, funerary cities in Egypt.

So he said, you men can go, why not? Go worship your God in the mountain that you want to go worship, but the women and children stay. It’s not good for you to take women and children into that wilderness. And verse 12 of chapter 10,

Another plague coming from the Lord. This time it’s on the plant life, on the vegetation. On their vegetables, on their wheat, on everything that is growing out of the land.

The locust, and even in my lifetime, I’ve seen three or four locust plagues over Egypt that even arrived to Israel and ate up the wheat fields of the Negev and the fruit of the Negev. So yes, we have seen the locusts. They literally cover the sun. And today we have, you know, dusting planes that dust fertilizer and pesticides over the fields. But with those dusting planes, it’s easier to get, you know, kill a lot of the locusts. But at that time they didn’t have that technology and the locusts, you know, devoured everything in Egypt.

But... Again, we see again that Pharaoh doesn’t give in. Doesn’t give in to him. He tries to compromise again. Says, okay, you can go with your wives but leave your livestock behind, leave your wallets and your bank accounts behind. No, we will go, Moses answers. We will go with our livestock, with our property, with everything, women and children, old and young, we’ll all leave together. We’re in this together.

Still Pharaoh hardens his heart again. And... The final plague that comes upon us is the plague of the firstborn. You know, He hit the river, He hit with the varmints, the frogs, the lice, the plagues over the animal world, the plagues of the locusts and now darkness.

And then he doesn’t want to listen to them, he doesn’t want to let the people of God leave... See, remember this, God had promised Abraham that his children will be in Egypt for four generations and that they will serve another nation, the Egyptians. And after that they will return back to the land of Canaan. That’s in chapter 15 of Genesis, and God keeps his promises.

Pharaoh Doesn't Know the God That Keeps His Promises

Pharaoh doesn’t know God and he doesn’t know that God keeps his promises. And a lot of us today, Jews and Christians, don’t realize that God is keeping his promises. The fact that we as Jews, have come from 103 different countries back to this land, is not the work of Zionism, it’s the work of God. God promised it’s going to happen in Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Hosea and Amos and on and on, Zachariah and finally, Malachi.

So folks, God keeps his promises. Pharaoh doesn’t realize that. I don’t know if even Moses really realized it, but I think he believed it. I don’t think he understood the depth of what God was doing. And I just want to go on and not end talking about this portion without getting to chapter 12.

In chapter 12, after the promise of God that he will, you know, bring the last plague over the first born of Egypt. And he commands the Israelites in each family to get a lamb and store the lamb in the house for a few days and then on a certain night, on the first night of the 14th of Nisan, the first month. The 14th, full moon. Remember the Hebrew calendar goes by the moon, not by the sun. The 14th of the month is a full moon. The angel of the Lord will descend and strike down the firstborn of Egypt and of everyone who did not put the blood of the lamb on their doorposts.

But whoever put it, whether they’re Egyptians, Canaanites, Canaanities and others, if they put the blood, like if they saw what the Israelites are doing and they did the same, the angel of death skipped their houses, but he hit the houses of Egypt. And then Pharaoh finally understood the mistakes he had made. And he says to Moses, now you can go.

And the children of Israel in obedience to God’s command take the wealth of Egypt with them and leave, in a hurry, hurriedly. After they eat the Passover lamb all night, at dawn they hurriedly leave Egypt and go toward the unknown, toward the desert of Sinai. And then they come to the sea, but that’s in the next week’s portion.

Blood Placed on Door Posts

Right now we are still in chapter 12 of Exodus. And God says, let each one of you take a lamb, bring it to your house, store it in your house. And on the 10th of this month, the 10th of the month of Nisan, which is the first month in the ancient Hebrew calendar, each man should take this lamb and slaughter it and place its blood on his door post and on the threshold of his house and put the blood on the door posts and go inside, cook the lamb, roast the lamb and eat it and don’t leave anything behind.

Anything left behind you just forget it. And they didn’t have time for the bread to rise. It became matzah, became unleavened bread, and they packed their bags and they left Egypt. But one more verse I want to share with you before I end, and that’s from chapter 12 verse 26.

After they do all this, the feast and everything, God explains why all this rigmarole, why all this ceremony, why this, the lamb and the blood and all of these, why this is happening. And there’s a wonderful explanation that opens the door to a lot of very important things.

Verse 26 of chapter 12 of the book of Exodus,

So the people bowed their heads and worshiped.

Look, this text is very important because it shows us a very important interest of the Lord. God is interested in our children, and all this Passover ceremony, and all this, is so that your children will ask you, what is all this service? What is all these running around about that you’re doing? It’s so, you know, that God took us out of slavery and into freedom from Egypt.

And as Christians, you are commanded to do the same in chapter five of 1 Corinthians verses seven and eight it says, “Keep the feast for Christ is our Passover.” It doesn’t say like Christian tradition says, don’t keep the feast, keep Easter. It says, keep the feast of the Passover for Yeshua Hamashiach is our Passover. We’re going to continue in the next portion, the story of the Exodus from Egypt. God bless all of you. Shalom from Netivyah and from Jerusalem.