Vayera (And appeared): Genesis 18:1-22:24

Weekly Torah Studies for 2025/26 ( 5786).

On the road to Emmaus, Yeshua met with two of His disciples and, beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. (Luke 24:27). For our Torah studies this year, therefore, week by week we will seek to discover how all of Torah prepared the way for the coming Messiah.

8th November 2025 (17 Cheshvan)

Vayera (And appeared): Genesis 18:1-22:24

All the covenant purposes of God, not only for Israel, but for the entire world, hung in the balance when Abraham raised his knife above his son of promise, bound onto the crude altar on Mount Moriah. The faith of Abraham was tested and was victorious. The victory that was later manifest in Yeshua was enabled, so that the victory of faith for all who would believe in Him would be the granting of eternal life. Such is the magnificence of what we read in our Bible study this week.

Abraham needed to grow in faith on his long journey through life. It was his willingness to learn such faith that commended him to God. There were failures along the way, but redeemed failures are learning points. Fear of Abimelech led him to hide the truth that Sarah was his wife, even when he had been promised so much by God. This is an indicator that he was then not yet ready to trust God in the most challenging matters of life and death, which were soon to be tested on Mount Moriah. Just like us, through many trials, we must be willing to learn on the journey of life. Abraham grew more strongly in faith, so that in his human weakness, he could stand strong in faith at the appointed time.

Abraham had been told that he was to be the father of many nations, so he cared enough to pray for the wicked people of Sodom and Gomorrah. He had enough faith to bargain with God but not enough understanding of sin and its consequences. Yet his intercessions did enable the escape of Lot and his family from the impending judgment. We learn much from this concerning our own prayers for the world today, as our Covenant Father continues, without compromise, to build up the family of Abraham. Just as at the time of the judgment of Sodom, God sees a darkness over the world that we do not.

The Prophet Isaiah spoke of such darkness covering the world, but that a great light would come to Israel:

Arise, shine;
For your light has come!
And the glory of the Lord is risen upon you.
For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth,
And deep darkness the people;
But the Lord will arise over you,
And His glory will be seen upon you.

The Gentiles shall come to your light,
And kings to the brightness of your rising. (Isaiah 60:1-3)

Searching the Scriptures reveals that Yeshua HaMashiach is that light, so clearly understood by His disciple John:

In Him (Yeshua) was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. (John 1:4-5)

Yet Yeshua Himself warned that for those who do not believe, it will be worse for them than for Sodom. When He sent out 70 disciples to teach about His fulfilment of the Covenant purposes of God, He said:

 Whatever city you enter, and they receive you, eat such things as are set before you. And heal the sick there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ But whatever city you enter, and they do not receive you, go out into its streets and say, ‘The very dust of your city which clings to us we wipe off against you. Nevertheless know this, that the kingdom of God has come near you.’  But I say to you that it will be more tolerable in that day for Sodom than for that city.  (Luke 10:8-12)

When the light of the sun shines over the earth each day, we can easily forget the spiritual darkness in which all mankind can live. Our focus on the physical world alone can blind us from the darkness of sin that God sees more clearly. This leads to the same level of understanding that Abraham had and limits our clarity for intercessory prayer. Abraham needed to learn such lessons before the ultimate test of his faith, where his entire trust was put in God for not only his son but for the multitude that he was promised as his heirs, from all nations. This was a significant and unrepeatable moment of history.

But for our Bible record, this could have been lost in history. Indeed, did not people offer human sacrifice to their gods in Abraham’s day – what was unusual? Anyway, who witnessed this moment on Mount Moriah other than Abraham, his son and the invisible God?

When Abraham raised his knife, it was not a sacrifice in the manner of others. That was just the outward manifestation. The inward reality was that Abraham gave back his son to God, and God looked as much on his heart as he did on the raised knife. How measured Abraham had to be in his act of obedience. Any rash movement would have pre-empted God’s intervention:

 And He said, “Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.”

Then Abraham lifted his eyes and looked, and there behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his son. (Genesis 22:12-13)

All the symbolism is here for us to understand that in saving Isaac, through the substitute of a ram, God planned an even greater work for the salvation of all who would be heirs to the covenant promise given to Abraham. It is one of those points of Bible teaching where we understand the  how much more of God. If Abraham would not spare his only son, how much more will God not spare His only Son?

Around 2000 years later, just as Abraham had gone to Mount Moriah with his son, where an altar of sacrifice was erected, so God the Father was with His Son Yeshua. He was taken as sacrifice for the sins of all who would come by faith and join the family of Abraham and Isaac. The Gospel accounts help us to understand, through prayerful study, that Yeshua was in the place of Isaac as a sacrifice. He is the fulfilment of the ram in the thicket, which Abraham used as a substitute for Isaac.

We must not simply leave this as a logical exercise for comparison across the Scriptures. Isaac was allowed to live and bear children who, generation by generation, built up the physical family of Abraham. Not only did they live on this earth, but all the pain that their sins would bring to God was also released over many generations. We must not forget the judgement of Sodom as we appraise the depth of painful sacrifice that was put on Yeshua’s shoulders.

He warned that in every generation, especially concerning the time of His return:

 … as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.  Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed. (Luke 17:26-30)

Even Jerusalem, without faith, can be likened to Sodom. Speaking of the death of two witnesses in Jerusalem in the end times, the Apostle John wrote prophetically:

And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. (Revelation 11:8)

Ezekiel too (Chapter 16) did not compromise his prophetic word at a time when Jerusalem was likened to Sodom.

Just as God did not compromise with the sins of Sodom, so He will not compromise with the sins of even of the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who were given life when the ram in the thicket was substituted for Isaac. Yet deep in the heart of God is forgiveness for all who can live by faith. It was an immense moment of history when Isaac was spared. It was infinitely more immense when God did not spare His own Son, in prophetic fulfilment on Mount Moriah. The faith of Abraham is now to be through belief that Yeshua has saved us from our sins, and from the spiritual darkness of this world, for all eternity.

Dr Clifford Denton

Founder and Director

Tishrei Bible School

www.tishrei.org

Lech Lecha (Go forth): Genesis 12:1-17:27

On the road to Emmaus, Yeshua met with two of His disciples and, beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. (Luke 24:27). For our Torah studies this year, therefore, week by week we will seek to discover how all of Torah prepared the way for the coming Messiah.

1^st November 2025 (10 Cheshvan)

Lech Lecha (Go forth): Genesis 12:1-17:27

God teaches us step by step through history. The record of His teaching (torah) enables us to review the steps by which mankind is being redeemed from the fall of Adam and Eve and the proneness to sin of all mankind.

According to the years of the generations following Noah, it was 292 years from the great flood to the birth of Abraham. Genesis 11:10 tells us that Shem’s son Arphaxad was born two years after the flood, so we can begin the calculation of years from there. During this time much had happened in the continued rebellion of mankind leading up to Babel. Noah and Shem witnessed it all, since the length of their lives wassufficient to overlap the life of Abraham.

God’s covenant plan went forward through the choice of this man, Abram (later to be called Abraham), a direct descendant of Noah and Shem. Modern day archaeologists have concluded that Ur, the city where Abram’s family lived, was among the largest cities of the world. We can imagine the bustle of such a city and compare it with a modern-day large city, where people’s lives are full of the activity of business, entertainment and survival, and where false gods can so easily divert attention to themselves.

It was out of such a lifestyle, offering security in human terms, that Terah took his son, Abram, his grandson Lot, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, Abram’s wife (Genesis 11:31). We do not know how preparations were made in the lives of these people, but there must have been a growing unsettledness with the life of the big city. This was the first step. When Terah died in Haran, Abram was commanded by God - Lech Lecha(Go forth!) to a land that he would be shown. He was given a great promise:

I will make you a great nation;
I will bless you
And make your name great;
And you shall be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
And I will curse him who curses you;
And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

So began Abram’s walk of faith. God made covenant with Abram, promising all the Land from the river of Egypt to the river Euphrates (Genesis 15:18-21). Abram was counted as righteous because he believed God. Note that he later made mistakes, including in the birth of Ishmael, but it was his willingness to learn to grow in faith that pleased God, rather than a sudden impartation of perfection.

Here we read of the life of faith that has become the model for all of God’s covenant family. A covenant is said to be cut, as signified in our study by the cutting and shedding of the blood of animals. Abram’s name (meaning exalted father) was changed to Abraham (father of a multitude of people) when the sign of the covenant was given - the cutting of the flesh that is required for all Abraham’s physical offspring.

There is much to study in this account of the life of Abraham and Sarah and we must read it over and over, relating it to all Scripture, especially the interpretation and relevance given to us in the New Covenant. God chose a man and through that man established the foundation for all who will live by faith and inherit eternal life. Abraham had sons and a physical line of descent through Isaac and Jacob. This physical line of descent defined the nation of Israel, through which God would continue to teach us about His covenant plan both on this earth and for all eternity. Later, as covenant history proceeded, as we read in the Bible, God added to His covenant family,those who lived by the same faith as Abraham, first from the nation Israel, then those from every nation who live by the same faith.

There is layer after layer to uncover in our studies. The appearance of a mysterious man, Melchizedek, for example, Priest of the Most High God, to whom Abraham gave tithes, opens up many questions. The writer to the Hebrews (Hebrews 5 ) brings insights concerning Yeshua MaMashiach, who is High Priest of the order of Melchizedek. Abraham submitted himself to Melchizedek and gave tithes to him as one receiving tithes on behalf of God. We gain insight into such matters by prayerful consideration of all Scripture, and always find fulfilment through the revelation of Yeshua.

In another way, Abraham is God’s representative earthly father. With his wife Sarah, he was to bring about a miraculous birth, considering their old age. Their son Isaac was to be heir of the covenant promise. This father/son relationship can be considered as an earthly outworking of God’s higher purposes. He Himself was to bring His own Son into the world when the time was right, much later on from this beginning in Genesis. We will see more details of this next week, but for now it is sufficient to see how the promise to Abraham was a pointer to what God would do in a similar way to what happened in Abraham’s life. We discover inIsaiah 9:6-7, the promise of a Son:

For unto us a Child is born,
Unto us a Son is given;
And the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called
Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of His government and peace
There will be no end,
Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom,
To order it and establish it with judgment and justice
From that time forward, even forever.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

In Matthew 1:18-23, God’s Son is announced:

 Now the birth of Jesus Christ (Yeshua HaMshiach) was as follows: After His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly. But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus (Yeshua), for He will save His people from their sins.”

So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.”

Abraham waited a long time for the son of promise, Isaac. All Israel waited many centuries for the birth of God’s Son Yeshua. Both were born by God’s supernatural help. In Matthew 3:16-17, we read of God’s identifying Yeshua as His Son.

When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, andHe saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

The writer to the Hebrews understood that Abraham’s faith pointed to something far greater than he understood, but that he knew that in the distance there would be a fulfilment of all that his life and that of his son represented. This was the eternal life brought through the sacrifice of God’s own son.

Hebrews 11:9-10

By faith he (Abraham) dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise;  for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

God selected a man, Abraham, from whom came a nation, walking with Him through outworking of a life that prefiguredHis covenant purposes until they were fulfilled in the One Man Yeshua. The great darkness (Genesis 15:12) that came upon Abraham when God cut His covenant with Abraham, conditional only on faith, shows us the immense spiritual battle that takes place to fulfil the covenant. The Book of Revelation contains a picture of this spiritual battle when the nation of Israel, through the chosen virgin Mary, brought forth the Saviour of the World:

Revelation 12:1-5

Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars. Then being with child, she cried out in labour and in pain to give birth.

And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born. She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was caught up to God and His throne.

Truly all Scripture points one way, in the lives of God’s people and in the workings of God, to the eternally momentous day when Yeshua HaMashiach, the Son of God, was born to die as the sacrifice for our sins.

Dr Clifford Denton

Founder and Director

Tishrei Bible School

www.tishrei.org

Noach (Noah): Genesis 6:9-11:32

Weekly Torah Studies for 2025/26 ( 5786).

On the road to Emmaus, Yeshua met with two of His disciples and, beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. (Luke 24:27). For our Torah studies this year, therefore, week by week we will seek to discover how all of Torah prepared the way for the coming Messiah.

25th October 2025 ( 3 Cheshvan)

Noach (Noah): Genesis 6:9-11:32

Ancient man is often depicted as primitive and ignorant, not much different from animals that scavenge for food. This does not conform to the message of the Bible. Before the Flood, men and women lived long lives. They were closer to Creation than we are, stronger and healthier. Adam, the first man, was surely a wonderful result of God’s creativity, not a weak physical failure.

Nevertheless, we can only conjecture on what the pre-flood world was like. Over more than a thousand years, mankind had multiplied. Potentially, their world could have been quite sophisticated, in many ways perhaps comparable to ours. The one thing we do know, however, is that the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. (Genesis 6:6)

This is where we pick up the account from last week’s study. God declared, I destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them. (Genesis 6:7)

Yet there was one man, Noah who, like Enoch before him, had learned to walk with God. The pre-flood world was washed away, except for this one man, his family and representatives of every kind of animal and bird, who would bring a new beginning to populate the earth once more.

What happened has not since been repeated and never will be repeated. A mighty flood arose, as water poured from the skies and welled up from the earth. The world that we now live in results from the surging floodwater, moving earth, sand and rock, throwing up new hills and mountains and beginning to resettle after about a year. We can only imagine the world before Noah and his family entered the Ark. The clues to the devastating Flood are in the solidified sediments and rock layers, with their fossils found in our world today. However we interpret these rocks, it is important to know that the depth of sin in the ancient world brought a tremendous judgement from God.

After the Flood, God made a Covenant with Noah that this would never happen again. This is the beginning of God opening His heart to mankind, that even if the wickedness of the pre-flood world arose again among mankind, it would not be dealt with in this way.

As the Torah studies progress week by week we will find other aspects of God’s covenant purposes, and they all point one way. They point to a different response from God to the sin of mankind. As sorry as God was that He had made mankind, it is surely true that, when He covenanted with Noah, He knew what pain lay ahead. He knew that sin and wickedness was not washed away by the water of the Flood. We only need to go a short distance into the future with Noah himself to find that his son Ham did something very wrong in the tent of his father (Genesis 9:22,24). Then in the genealogy of nations descended from Noah and his sons, described in our reading,  arose much evil leading up to Babel.

So the world went on until today when wars continue to rage, jealousies and evil between members of Noah’s descendants multiply bringing lust and greed and all kinds of evil, so that we can ask whether the modern world is any different from the pre-flood world. Indeed, Yeshua Himself said, speaking about the days preceding His return,

And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. (Luke 17:26-27)

Just as there were surging waves at the Flood so the emotions of God must have surged for His people. His remedy was not another such devastation, but the sacrifice of His own Son Yeshua HaMashiach, as we read in the Gospel accounts. The height of Yeshua’s sacrificial death is an atonement for the sin of all who will believe and like Enoch and Noah desire to walk with their Creator God. This must be measured against the Flood devastation of the ancient world.

The days of Noah are comparable with every generation of mankind. Noah himself, like others such as Abraham after him are forerunners of Messiah. Noah’s name means rest. It was said of him Lamech lived one hundred and eighty-two years, and had a son. And he called his name Noah,  saying, “This one will comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord has cursed”. (Genesis 5:28-29) Through one man, Noah, a new beginning came for the earth and all that was in it. This pointed prophetically to the future, when a new beginning for all who find faith in Yeshua would find a new beginning for their eternal life.

The Hymn writer, William Rees, drawing inspiration from Psalm 85, at the time of the famous 1904 Welsh revival had it right:

Here is love, vast as the ocean,
Loving-kindness as the flood;
When the Prince of Life, my ransom,
Shed for me his precious blood.
Who his love will not remember?
Who can cease to sing his praise?
He shall never be forgotten,
Through Heav’n’s everlasting days

On the mount of crucifixion,
Fountains opened deep and wide,
Through the flood-gates of God’s mercy,
Flowed the vast and gracious tide;
Grace and love, like mighty rivers
Poured incessant from above,
And God’s peace and perfect justice
Kissed a guilty world in love.

Dr Clifford Denton

Founder and Director

Tishrei Bible School

www.tishrei.org

Bereshit (In the beginning): Genesis 1:1-6:8

Weekly Torah Studies for 2025/26 (5786).

On the road to Emmaus, Yeshua met with two of His disciples and, beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. (Luke 24:27). For our Torah studies this year, therefore, week by week we will seek to discover how all of Torah prepared the way for the coming Messiah.

18 October 2025 ( 26 Tishrei)

Bereshit (In the beginning): Genesis 1:1-6:8

In just over five chapters, this week’s Bible reading takes us from the beginning of Creation to the Great Flood. According to the years given concerning the lives of the patriarchs from Adam to Methuselah, this can be calculated as the first 1656 years of mankind on the earth. During those years mankind descended from the wonderful fellowship with God to the depth of depravity of a world now washed away, which caused God to say, I am sorry that I have made them (Genesis 6:7).

No-one, except Adam and Eve has experienced life in the Garden of Eden. No-one since the Great Flood except, as we shall see, Noah and his family, witnessed the depravity to which mankind fell. Yet in a few short chapters, we have sufficient to understand the nature and need of all men and women.

Year by year we can review the first chapter of Genesis, look at the created universe around us, still speaking to us (Psalm 19) of our Creator, and learn new things. The magnificent created order was an expression of the nature and heart of God and came about through the strength of His spoken Word. How sad that the nature of created mankind, with the ability to either trust and obey God or to disobey Him, inevitably led to separation from their Creator. Since then, there have been people like us who long to be redeemed to that blissful existence of Eden, but without the ability in ourselves to find a way back. Indeed, the sin that heaped on sin over a few hundred years echoes our own inability to resist the snake-like power that tempted Adam and Eve, or the natural tendency to go one’s own way, away from a close relationship with our Creator.

Truly, Torah is a mirror to our own nature and the problem of mankind is expressed in the very first chapters of the Bible.

Nevertheless, right at the beginning, we find hints at a way back by studying these chapters. Abel’s offering to God of the firstborn of his flock was accepted, while Cain’s offering of the fruit of the ground was not accepted. Here is our first clue to finding our way back to fellowship with God, which will be a subject of many future chapters of Torah. Cain gave of the work of his hands. Abel gave a life back to God in the form of a lamb. God looked on the heart of both of the brothers, just as He had looked on the hearts of Adam and Eve when they sinned. We see the first indications of sin being  a matter of the heart and the power of sin being a matter of life and death, but God planned a way back. Another hint that there is a way back to fellowship with God comes through the life of Enoch who walked with God. Chapter 5:22-24 is a brief description of a man who achieved what many of us would like to achieve, restoring the close relationship with God. That which was once lost can surely be regained.

It is with hindsight that we, in later generations, are able to build up a more detailed picture through all Scripture. Expectation grew to fulfilment, anticipating the one who would be the Redeemer of His people. The themes of Genesis develop and the thread of truth weaves its way consistently through all Scripture. It is sometimes more plainly stated, such as in Isaiah 9 – the promise of a child being born to the Nation of Israel who would become Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace – or in Isaiah 53, where the Saviour of mankind is likened to a sacrificial lamb, bearing our sins for us. No wonder it was important for us to be taught, right at the beginning of time, that redemption to fellowship with God is likened to the sacrifice of a lamb, such as Abel made. Yet, we now understand that the lamb points to a human being – one who was to be born and die for us.

So in these first few chapters of Genesis we discover the nature of fallen mankind and our need of redemption. The hints are there to be fulfilled in the coming years of the One who would be our redeemer.

John the Apostle walked with Yeshua during His earthly ministry and was able to realise, after Yeshua’s sacrificial death, that this was the one to whom the Scriptures pointed, confirming also what Yeshua taught to the disciples on the Road to Emmaus. But Yeshua was not just any man. John realised that the one whom God sent to be our sacrifice and our redeemer existed as part of God Himself before creation. God surely looked ahead to the time when He would come in the form of a man, and that man is Yeshua HaMashiach.

John put it this way, blending the imagery of created light with the spiritual light that was in Yeshua even before He was manifested as a man:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. (John 1:1-5)

That Yeshua the Son of God was also Son of Man is shown in the genealogy given by Luke, in Chapter 3 of his Gospel account, which is traced right back to Creation down to Seth and his father Adam. Each of the patriarchs in Luke’s list, including the genealogy given in Genesis 5, were chosen by God who foresaw the day when Yeshua would be born as a man, conceived of the Holy Spirit to be both God and man.

Did Yeshua have Enoch in mind as one who learned to walk with God in close relationship, when He prayed for us all before His sacrificial death?

Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You, as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him. And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. (John 17:1-4)

The fulfilment that is Yeshua, begins in our Torah portion this week and continues throughout all Scripture. We must have eyes to see and ears to hear, reading our Bible with expectation.

Dr Clifford Denton

Founder and Director

Tishrei Bible School

www.tishrei.org