Genesis 22:7-13 And Isaac spoke to Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. Then he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together. And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and placed the wood in order, and he bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched out his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. And He said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me. Then Abraham lifted up 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.
One of the major themes of Yom Teruah (Feast of Trumpets) is called Akedat Yitzchak, which means the Binding of Isaac. According to Jewish tradition, God told Abraham that the ram’s horn – otherwise known as a shofar – should be blown on Feast of Trumpets to remind people of the sacrifice that God provided Himself when Abraham was about to offer Isaac on Mount Moriah. It’s abundantly clear that this event in the life of Abraham and Isaac foreshadowed God the Father’s offering of His Son, providing Yeshua (Jesus) as a sacrifice for all men.
As we now are in the midst of the “Days of Awe” – traditionally, a time of repentance between Yom Teruah and Yom Kippur – let us take the time to examine ourselves, turning from sin again, toward our loving Creator, as we celebrate the fact that our names are written in the Lamb’s book of life. Through His perfect sacrifice, the Lamb of God, Yeshua, God’s forgiveness is eternal and His love, everlasting.
Copyright 1999-2024 Worthy Devotions. This devotional was originally published on Worthy Devotions and was reproduced with permission.
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An interesting parallel exists between these two passages of scripture: Isaiah 53:9 and Acts 3:15. Isaiah renders the “death” of the messiah in the plural form, “deaths” (“motav”). Acts renders the life of the Prince of Life as “lives” (“chaim”). Some scholars suggest that the plurality of the word death indicates a violent death this servant would suffer, and that making the noun plural is a way of emphasizing the terrible intensity of his experience. Jewish counter-missionaries suggest that the “death” in plural shows that the suffering servant is not an individual man, but a group of people, specifically the nation of Israel, thus denying that the passage refers to an individual messianic figure.
Proverbs says the “highway of the upright is to depart from evil”. It’s a highway — a way of life so to speak. And this proverb coincides with the central teaching of Yeshua (Jesus) — “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.” What does it mean to repent? The Greek Word is “metanoia” which simply means to change your mind about sin or to depart from evil.
A large group of European pastors came to one of D. L. Moody’s Northfield Bible Conferences in Massachusetts in the late 1800s. Following the European custom of the time, each guest put his shoes outside his room to be cleaned by the hall servants overnight. But of course this was America and there were no hall servants.
D.L. Moody has been influential in my personal life as I study and read about his life and ministry in the 1800’s. I remember reading a story about how D.L. Moody was preparing to lead a revival throughout England to which an elderly pastor protested and said, “Why do we need this ‘Mr. Moody’? He’s uneducated, inexperienced, etc. Who does he think he is anyway? Does he think he has a monopoly on the Holy Spirit?”
If these really are the “Days of Noah,” we would expect to see a world filled with increasing violence. The Hebrew for “violence” is , by coincidence, the name of the terrorist organization Israel has been fighting for decades. And simply perusing my news briefs in recent years gives abundant evidence for the conclusion that this terrible season is well underway. Noah’s day was filled with violence and also false witness, which is a second meaning for the word “Hamas” [e.g., ; ]; violence and lies, then and now…
As Israel braces for retaliation from Iran, Hezbollah, and its terrorist proxies following the assassinations of two terrorist leaders in Tehran and Beirut last week, many are praying through these tense times as Tisha B’Av begins tonight (Monday night).
Tonight, Jewish people around the world will mourn through Tisha B’Av, the ninth day of the fifth month on the Hebrew calendar. This day has been marked by numerous tragic events throughout history. It began with the spies returned with an evil report of Canaan, the Promised Land, as recounted in Numbers 13 and 14. This day marks the destruction of both the First and Second Temples, which occurred on the same date, separated by hundreds of years. The Crusades were launched on Tisha B’Av in 1095. In 1290, Jews were expelled from England, and in 1492, they were expelled again from Spain and Portugal on this very day. In the modern era, World War I began on the 9th of Av, and the call for the “Final Solution,” which led to the Holocaust, was announced on this date. To say that Tisha B’Av commemorates a series of horrific events is an understatement.
The Bible tells us that the last days would be like the days of Noah. As the mass of humanity witnesses the signs of increasing violence and evil manifesting in ways that seemed incomprehensible even just a decade ago, we are focusing on the peace that faith brings through the present storm. Though the ark he built for the flood was perhaps not the most luxurious boat ever made, Noah and his family were able to abide in God’s rest through the most terrible weather in human history.