Joy in the Messiah

בֹּא
Bo / Come
Exodus 10:1-13:16
HafTorah Portion Jeremiah 46:13-28
Brit Chadasha 1Corinthians 11:20-34

     Bo begins with God instructing Moshe to ‘Go to (Come to) Pharaoh.’ This begins the debate between Pharaoh and Moshe, leading up to the plague of the locusts. In Exodus 10:3 Moshe again tells Pharaoh to let ‘His/God’s people go’, otherwise God will release a plague of locusts. Pharaoh asks Moshe who will be going? At which point Moshe informs him; all of us.
     God tells Moshe “Bo! Come to Pharaoh. Not go, but come – with Me.  We, like Moshe must face our Pharaohs but we will not do it alone, as God tells us: ‘Come with Me and even the mightiest seas can split.’ The Zohar. 
     There is a truth so profound, yet many miss it.  It is in this Parsha, it is in Scripture, it is in the Words that Yeshua speaks. It is the truth of the light. 
     In Bo, there was a darkness that was felt. But even more miraculous, there was Divine Light. Exodus 10:21-23 ‘Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, darkness which may even be felt.” ²² So Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven, and there was thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days. ²³ They did not see one another; nor did anyone rise from his place for three days. But all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings.’
     This light, followed by the 10^th and final plague, gave the Israelites hope and a renewed vigilance. They had light and could see. They were entering into their freedom. Without the light of the life of God, they too would have been wandering in the chaos of the darkness that was felt.
     The light of freedom is the Torah, which is Yeshua, John 8:12 ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’
     God tells us ‘Come to our Pharaohs, come with Him, in the light, in the way and truth.’ 
Psalm 119:105 ‘Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.’ 
   But there is an IF to gain the access of the Light, and the Freedom: ‘Then Yeshua said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. ³² And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’ John 8:31-32.  IF.  IF you abide in my word…IF you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples…IF you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
    Come to your Pharaohs, God tells us; Come with Me, into the Light, into the truth. Our battles with the Pharaoh’s in our lives are battles that He fights with us. We might not see the results right away or even realize what the results will be. But they will always give glory to God. 

Bo / Come
Exodus 10:1-13:16
HafTorah Portion Jeremiah 46:13-28
Brit Chadasha 1Corinthians 11:20-34

      Bo begins with another episode of Pharaoh’s hardened heart, the eighth and ninth plague, and continues with the tenth and final plague; the death of the firstborn. Although these acts are most often referred to as “plagues,” the biblical text more commonly uses the words “signs” (otot), “marvels” (mof’tim), and “wonders” (nifla’ot) to describe these Divine acts of God’s power and sovereignty.  As their exodus from Egypt draws near, the Israelites receive instructions for the Passover sacrifice and the Feast of Unleavened Bread thus forever preserving God’s redemption for the Israelites.  God reveals that the plagues were not only against Pharoah but also against the gods of Egypt. ‘For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord. Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.’ Exodus 12:12-13.  
     Bo is often translated as ‘Come’, however in the first sentence it reads as ‘Go in to Pharaoh.’ ‘Now the Lord said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh; for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his servants, that I may show these signs of Mine before him…’ Exodus 10:1.  
    This command to Moses is not the same as “Lech l’cha”, “Go forth,” the command given to his ancestor, Abraham. Lech Lecha was more of a command to ‘go for yourself’. Since this word, ‘bo’ can represent either come or go, it signifies that it would be a joint effort between God and Moshe, that God will not abandon Moshe in this conquest. 
     Another interesting concept is the word ‘hardened’. The Hebrew root word of ‘hardened’ is k-v-d, which can also be translated as “weighted,” as in ‘Weighting the heart’.  God weighted Pharaoh’s calloused heart, making him heavy-hearted.   
     It is taught that the plague of darkness, ‘no man could see his brother nor could anyone rise from his place.’ Why could the Egyptians not move just because it was dark? Because the darkness was tangible and physical. 
    It wasn’t darkness as in the night; it wasn’t void of light as in the nighttime, which a light could still penetrate. It was “thick darkness” meaning that a very thick mist came down from the sky. This is why God told Moses: “Stretch forth your hand to the heavens” - Moses had to bring down this darkness.  It removed the normal darkness called “night”. This was necessary because the night consists of air-ready and capable of absorbing light in the morning. The darkness that would occur now was something unable to interact with light at all. The reason for this inability to interact with light was the density of the texture of this darkness. As a result of this totally different kind of darkness even a lit-up flare would not be able to make a light in the darkness.
     The Egyptians worshiped the sun as the source of their life and as creation.  The Egyptian King was venerated as the son of Rah, the living incarnation of the sun.  So, it is not a coincidence that darkness connects the final three plagues that God brought against Egypt. In Exodus 10:5 the locusts darken the face of the earth, if not the sky itself. In Exodus 10:21-22 the darkness that follows is so thick that one could touch it, and the killing of the firstborn occurs in the depths of the night. Darkness in this case equaled devastation, and so we read about it in the time of Messiah. 
     Mark 15:33 ‘Now when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.’
       Was a spiritual darkness felt for those three days before Yeshua rose? ‘For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.’ Matthew 12:40. There must have been great concern and confusion at that time concerning the events. 
    Today the darkness that engulfs us is an influence, a chaos, and a spiritual realm.  It is the light and dark, both created by God as stated by Isaiah 45:7 ‘The One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the Lord who does all these.’
    Exodus 10:23 states, ‘They did not see one another; nor did anyone rise from his place for three days. But all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings.’  Light in their dwellings in Hebrew is: Or Bemoshevotham, better translated as ‘Light from the Dweller.’
     Light has a very special place in our tradition, as in the history of creation. It is the means of fulfilling the Mitzvah of the Menorah of the Temple, Shabbat, the Eternal Candle, and Hanukkah lights that brighten our homes. Our spirit longs for light, for order. King Solomon likened the Torah to light, “For The Mitzvah is a lamp and Torah is light” Proverbs 6:23.
     Light has a unique quality in that it cannot be contained or restricted in a single space. When a candle is lit, it brightens up the entire room for everyone there, not just for the person who lit it, and similarly, when one lights up a room for another, he also benefits from that light.  The sentence ‘They did not see one another, nor did anyone arise from his place’ regarding the plague of darkness can be a metaphor that if one sees only oneself, not noticing those around him, then one does not rise himself. This type of darkness is described as a thick fog that extinguishes any source of light because the attitude of selfishness can erase any positive character trait that a person might have. This was Pharoah, who wasn’t concerned about the suffering of his people but only in the protection of his ego.
     The Torah is the antithesis of darkness, it lights up the world by teaching lovingkindness, as the sages teach, “The Torah begins and ends with lovingkindness” which gives us an opportunity to share this light.
     Yeshua, being the Living Torah, the Living light is what our soul seeks. The Light in our dwellings brings the faith that circumcises our hearts to obey the Word of God, which increases our faith in His faithfulness. Faith brings the birthright; obedience brings the blessing.
     Yeshua declares more than once that He is the Light; of men, of the world and life; John 8:12, John 9:4-5, and Matthew 4:14-16, quoting Isaiah 60:1: ‘… that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying:  “The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali,  by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles: The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death Light has dawned.”
     The Pesach is instituted and instructions explained in detail in Exodus 12. God also reveals that the plagues were not only against Pharoah but also against the gods of Egypt. It is also shown to His people that within the blood is life. When He sees the blood, He passes over.  ‘For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord. Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.’  Exodus 12:12-13.
      Bo ends with the consecration of the firstborn the importance of why we do the Passover, including how important the Passover traditions are. ‘In days to come, when your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ say to him, ‘With a mighty hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. ¹⁵ When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord killed the firstborn of both people and animals in Egypt. This is why I sacrifice to the Lord the first male offspring of every womb and redeem each of my firstborn sons.’ ¹⁶ And it will be like a sign on your hand and a symbol on your forehead that the Lord brought us out of Egypt with his mighty hand.’ Exodus 13:14-16.