Zechariah’s Prophecy
Our Torah portion this Shabbat begins with the word “vayeshev” (“and he dwelled”); Jacob dwelled in the land of his fathers, making us think that finally Jacob achieved peace in the land of his inheritance. That finally, he can rest and relax after a life full of intrigue and schemes.
As a result of a scheme, Jacob had to run away from his father’s house to a foreign country. There he met the love of his life, and then again intrigues and schemes came in the family. The wives were switched, which only added to strife between them.
Then Jacob is running again, this time back to his homeland. On the way, he fought with Laban and with an angel from Heaven. He made peace with his brother.
His daughter was raped, and his sons massacred the inhabitants of Shechem. When we look at the word “dwell”, or “settle” in Hebrew, we hope that now he will finally get the desired rest and peace.
However, this will not happen, and the family’s dysfunction will reach new levels. This week we will read about the brothers, who are planning to murder another brother, then compromise on selling him to be a slave in Egypt. They lied to their father that Joseph is dead, and watched their father fall in such a deep sorrow and depression, that nothing and no one could cheer him up.
The family stories in Genesis are incredibly complicated. Cain murder Abel, Lot’s daughters rape their father, Abraham is sending Ismael to die in the wilderness, until the very last moment Esau wanted to kill his brother Jacob. The sisters, Jacob’s wives, envy each other. And today we will read about Jacob’s children, and the story of Joseph and his brothers.
On the other hand, we all know the story, and we all know how it ends. We know where we will go and when and how we will come back. We know that this is part of God’s plan. But I am also thinking about the people who lived through these stories, and for them it was not easy…
Today we meet Joseph for the first time, and he will stay with us till the end of the book of Genesis. Till the day, when at the beginning of the book of Exodus, will rise up the new king of Egypt, who does not know Joseph.
But we know Joseph, we know that he is the prototype for the Messiah, and we know that Judaism speaks of Messiah the son of David and Messiah the son of Joseph. Messiah the son of Joseph is described in the commentary on the Bible verse from Zechariah 12:10:
“And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.” — Zechariah 12:10
According to some Jewish commentators, this verse describes how the nation of Israel is weeping over the death of their king and Messiah, “Mashiach ben Yosef”. T
he New Testament quotes this verse in John 19:
“Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water…” — John 19:34
This text is telling us about Yeshua’s crucifixion. John continues, and two verses later he quotes Zechariah: “…as another scripture says, “They will look on the one they have pierced.” — John 19:37
This text makes it clear that Yeshua is the fulfillment of Zechariah’s prophesy. Today I would like to share with you the messianic understanding of the 12th chapter of Zechariah, and how we see it.
Chapter 12 of Zechariah describes the war, maybe even the final war that takes place over Jerusalem and Israel. All the nations are coming to fight against us.
And then, in the time of great distress and emergency, when we cried and pleaded with God to help us, in that moment we will lift our eyes to the One we have pierced, lift our eyes to Messiah.
And then we will repent and will understand that all these years, for so many generations, we looked at Yeshua the Messiah and despised Him. We considered Him being punished by God, stricken and afflicted.
And then, as described by Zechariah, we will look at Him and see Him as our redeemer and savior. We will say a eulogy in His honor, we will weep over His death and will glorify Him.
This is actually the meaning of eulogy, to honor the person, to glorify him. And that’s what we will do, we will glorify the Messiah, we will glorify Yeshua.
And what will God do? The next chapter (Zechariah 13:1) begins with these words: “On that day a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity.” — Zechariah 13:1
On that day we will receive a national redemption. We will receive forgiveness of our sins, given by the Messiah. The New Testament often portrays Yeshua as the ultimate sacrifice, the Passover Lamb. During the Exodus, God commanded Israel to put blood of the sacrificial lamb on the doorposts of their houses before the plague of the firstborns, so that the angel of death will pass over and will not harm those inside, and they will be safe.
Later, in the same chapter of Exodus, God commanded all future generations of Israel to keep the Passover, and one of the rules forbade to break the Passover lamb bones, as it is written: “…Do not break any of the bones.” — Exodus 12:46
That is why John ties these two prophesies together. Yeshua’s crucifixion and the sacrifice of the Lamb happened on the Eve of Passover. This connects us to the command not to break the bone of the Lamb, and at the same time, we remember the prophesy of Zechariah, who promised that we will look upon the one we had pierced, and we will weep for Him and glorify Him.
This is the time when God will redeem us. We will receive physical salvation from all our enemies, from all nations that attacked us. He will also give us spiritual redemption for our sins, He will purify us and give us peace and tranquility.
John describes the crucifixion in these words:
“But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear… These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: ‘Not one of his bones will be broken,’ and, as another scripture says, ‘They will look on the one they have pierced.’” — John 19:32-34,36,37
John is talking, of course, about the Roman soldiers, and the quotations from Exodus and Zechariah clearly stand out here. As Messianic believers, we clearly see Joseph as the prototype of the Messiah. And although our Torah portion begins with Jacob dwelling in the Land, we very quickly move to the story of Joseph.
“Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan… Joseph, a young man of seventeen.” — Genesis 37:1,2
Joseph is Jacob’s favorite son, and the problem is that it is not only obvious to us as Torah students, but it is also clear to all his brothers. This problem grows bigger, because Joseph isn’t easy to deal with, he informs about (snitches on) his brothers, and he also shares with them his dreams of greatness.
As a result, the brothers began to hate him, as they understood that not only he is their father’s favorite, which is not his fault, but his behavior and dreams prove that Joseph feels superior to them. And here, in this, he is guilty for sure.
Listening to his dreams, the brothers understood that in Joseph’s eyes, he is a king and they are his servants, who bow down before him, that he is prideful and looks down at them. Joseph’s brothers hated him because of his dreams; who could’ve known, that these dreams are prophecies, and they will come true not long after that, in Egypt?
The problem is that we do not know what the future holds, and sharing these dreams got Joseph into trouble at the beginning of our Torah portion. But at the end, his dreams saved him and brought him to greatness.
We do not know what will happen in the future, nevertheless one of the basic teachings of Yeshua in the New Testament is: “how to change the world”. Yeshua is calling us to change the world, this calling comes against our natural feeling, that each of us is only one person, out of billions of others. We all feel that we are just a drop of water in the ocean, and how can one action change history?
The tension between Joseph and the rest of his brothers grows fast, and it becomes extreme and violent, up until the brothers plan to murder Joseph, to murder their flesh and blood, to murder their own family.
It is written: “When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands…” — Genesis 37:21. But we know that Reuben did not succeed to save Joseph, he wanted to, but failed. Let’s imagine that Reuben would read the next couple chapters of the Bible. If he would know what is going to happen, he would go and take Joseph by the hand and take him back to their father Jacob.
If Reuben and the rest of the brothers would know what we know today, they would do everything differently. But they didn’t know, and couldn’t know, how their thoughts and actions would alter the future and history.
We do not know it either, we do not know how much we can influence one another, and how much we can do for the future. This is what Yeshua requires from us, to actively influence our future — in a good way. To build, to add, to give, to encourage, to help others even if we do not know them.
Joseph and Jacob had much in common. At a very young age, both of them got to a foreign land, pushed there by the hatred of their own brothers, who seek to kill them, they both were shepherds.
There are also many similarities between Joseph and Yeshua, the Messiah. Joseph’s brothers hated him because of his dreams, where he was their king, and at the end these dreams proved to be true. It is written that “they hated him all the more”, meaning that they continued to hate him.
“His brothers said to him, ‘Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?’ And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said.” — Genesis 37:8
Similar to Joseph, Yeshua is also hated because of His words and the way He described His future Kingdom. “I tell you that something greater than the temple is here” (Mathew 12:6), says Yeshua.
He continues:
“But I say to all of you: From now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.” — Mathew 26:64
As a result of Yeshua’s words that He is the One to sit at the right hand of God in Heaven, people who heard Him wanted to kill Him. It is said about Joseph, that “his brothers envied him”, Yeshua was persecuted for the same reason.
For the same reason they gave Him up to Romans for crucifixion:
“For he knew that the chief priests had delivered him for envy…” — Mark 15:10 [NKJV]
In our Torah portion Jacob is sending Joseph to his brothers, to the children of Israel. Yeshua was also sent to the house of Israel. He answered that, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” (Mathew 15:24).
Similar to Joseph, Yeshua came to His brothers, but in both cases, the brothers wanted to hurt them. It is written that they saw Joseph approaching from afar and planned to kill him.
“Now when they saw him afar off, even before he came near them, they conspired against him to kill him. Then they said to one another, ‘Look, this dreamer is coming! Come therefore, let us now kill him and cast him into some pit…’” — Genesis 37:18-20
Then the brothers added to their sin by mocking him:
“We shall see what will become of his dreams!” — Genesis 37:20
In the same way, we, the nation of Israel, see Yeshua coming from afar. From a distance we can barely see Him, and we can’t tell what He represents.
We do not understand Yeshua and are afraid to get closer to Him. We judge him from afar. This will change as Yeshua will reveal Himself like Joseph, saying, “come close to me, brothers”.
People mocked Yeshua on the cross in the same way that the brothers mocked Joseph: “let Him come from the cross now, and we will believe Him. Savior, save Yourself now.”
As Joseph was stripped from his colored garment, Yeshua’s clothes were taken off Him near the cross. There are many more parallels between Joseph and Yeshua, and that’s why we as Messianic believers see Yeshua both as “Mashiach ben Joseph” and “Mashiach ben David”.
I do not want to end this lesson with the image of Joseph and Yeshua being hurt by their brothers, but rather to look into the heritage they left for us. From Jacob, Joseph, and Yeshua we learn about forgiveness. Even though the brothers wanted to hurt Joseph, he forgave them and took care of their needs, he helped them in spite of what they did.
Yeshua’s heritage is in forgiveness and in the improvement of the world. Even though each of us is only one person out of 7.5 billion people in the world…
Nevertheless, we have power to do good, we have the ability to help others and to influence our environment in a positive way. This is Yeshua’s command, to use this power for the good.
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