Text and notes

1:1 In the beginnin gº the Almĩght y¹ create dª the heaven s² and the eart h³.

(MISB, Gen. 1:1) http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation/BasicBooks/genesis.html#1:1a

(Link to MISB: http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation/bibleframe.html)

o. There are a lot of translators that want to put, When he began to create, or In the beginning of creating. This requires the repointing of bara to be a participle boræ, and the interpretation of berasheet in the construct. The construct is unlikely. And the Masoretes pointed bara the way they did because they thought it best. The argument, of course, is over whether time began in the absolute sense at this point. To say so is to impose a philosophical interpretation on the text. To separate Eternity from time is baggage of Greek Philosophy. Time involves change, which the Greeks considered imperfect. And further, the Gnostics did not like time either. Time goes with the Almighty of Israel who created the world, and they would have none of it. But there is no need to disagree with the Masoretic text here to get rid of the philosophy. Just get rid of the philosophy and leave the text alone.

1. The nearest English word to the Hebrew אלהים is Almighty. The singular Hebrew noun אלוה, and אל in most theories are derived from a root meaning strong, powerful, or mighty. The ים (-im) ending in Hebrew serves to make a word intensive and superlative, or plural. In the case of Genesis 1:1, it is superlative/intensive, hence “Al-”, meaning “most”, is the English equivalent of the Hebrew ending. Prefixed to mighty the word Almighty is formed. This then gives the meaning of the Hebrew. The /~/ is placed over the top of the /i/ to show that the word is a sacred title and indicate that Hebrew be substituted when reading aloud.

a. Contrary to those who want to impose a philosophical system on the Scripture, the Hebrew word bara does not mean “create out of nothing”. This is shown in the creation of man. Yahweh started with the dust of the earth and the breath of life, and then out of those two things he created man. Since he did not start with nothing, it is clear that bara does not mean “create out of nothing”. Now the word may mean that Yahweh did create out of nothing in this place, but the word itself does not say either way. We understand elsewhere that he created out of his Word, and that the Word is Messiah, by whom all things were made, and without which nothing was made that has been made—which means the Word himself is unmade (John 1:1).

2. The word השמים is derived from two Hebrew words שם (sham), “there”, and מים (mayim) “waters”. So the meaning is waters [are] there. Some have also suggested האש מים, “the fire waters”, but I find this a little dubious because an א must be assumed in the derivation. The ending “ayim” is a dual ending, and suggests “two”, two heavens. There is the heaven above, where the Almighty dwells in the sound of many waters, and the heaven below on earth where we dwell amist many waters. That is the picture, and of course we are told by Peter that everything was made out of water. Later, in Jewish understanding, there were three heavens, earth, space, and heaven of heavens.

3. Genesis 1:1 stands in its own paragraph because it is a summary statement of the whole of creation. The second verse goes back to a point at the beginning of creation when a solid earth did not exist, but only a formless mass of waters in the place the earth would be. Hence vs. 2 begins with “When”.

The word את, alef...tav stands in the text before “the heavens” and before “the earth”. Messiah said that he was alef and the tav (alpha and omega in Greek). His reference was not provably to Genesis 1:1 when he said this. But we can prove that it refers to Isaiah 41:4; 44:6; 48:12; Rev. 1:11, 1:17, 2:8, 22:13. Further, the את serves the grammatical function of marking the definite direct object, which in Gen. 1:1 is “the heavens” and “the earth”, and there may be no more to it than that. However, there is one other use of את! It can also mean together with (cf. BDB, pg. 85, def. 1, “Of companionship, together with”. So we have “Elohim created together with—the heavens, and together with—the earth”. Who then was the together of Elohim. It was the Father, Son, and Spirit. And on the force of John 1:1 we have to take it this way: והדבר היה את האלהים.

2 Whe n¹ the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep; and the Spĩrit of the Almĩghty was making a vibrating to be over the faces of the waters—

(MISB, Gen. 1:2): http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation/BasicBooks/genesis.html#1:2

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1. The conjunction takes us back to very near the beginning of creation when all that existed was the formless mass of waters.

4 And the Almĩghty saw that the light was good; then the Almĩghty was making the light to be dividin g¹ from the darkness.

(MISB, Gen. 1:4): http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation/BasicBooks/genesis.html#1:4

(Link to MISB: http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation/bibleframe.html)

1. The primordial darkness existed first, and then G-d said, “Let there be light”, and this light was separated from the primordial darkness. The day began as the dawn started to pierce this darkness until full brightness banished the dark altogether.

5 And the Almĩghty is calling the light dayº (and the darkness he called night¹). The n there was settin g; the n there was daybrea k.

Day One².

(MISB, Gen. 1:5): http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation/BasicBooks/genesis.html#1:5

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o. Here is the first definition of “day”, a period of time from dawn to dusk. Light was created mixed with darkness, and separated from the primordial darkness at the start of the first day. Light then dawned into full day until setting when the darkness returned. Thus the first definition of “day” is from dawn to dusk, from daybreak to setting.

1. The darkness referred to here is not the darkness to follow the setting in the next clause, but the darkness mentioned in vs. 2. This was the primordial darkness from which the light was separated at the dawning of the first day. This identification is made clearer in the Hebrew text by the use of the perfect verb: קָרָא. Elohim made the statement during the day referring to the darkness before he created light.

2. The tally for the days is stated at the end of each day. Each day begins with the light. In this case, the tally “day one” covers all the time from the creation of light in vs. 3 to the return of the light in vs. 5. While the original text had no formatting, no punctuation, and no vowel points, the reader had to use logic clues to understand the formatting. The biggest clue that this is correct, is that the text cannot be otherwise formatted and preserve the chronological sequence. The order of events is clear. 1. light, 2. setting, 3. daybreak: one day. Therefore, the second definition of day is a calendar day from daybreak to daybreak.

14 Then the Almĩghty said, “Let there be lights¹ within the vault of the heaven of heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years;

(MISB, Gen. 1:1): http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation/BasicBooks/genesis.html#1:14

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1. It is critically important that G-d calls the celestial signs “lights”. The day does not begin without dawn. There has to be visible light. Further, the month does not begin without the visible “light” of the moon. This is why the dark moon, or the day of the dark moon is never the actual new moon day. The new moon is seen during the night before the new moon day. Otherwise, the moon is not serving as a light for a sign. And a sign that is not seen is no sign at all.

14 And Yãhweh Almĩghty said to the Serpentª, “Because you have done this, cursed are you ‘more than all cattle’ⁿ, and ‘more than every living thing of the field’¹; on your belly shall you go², and dust shall you eat all the days of your life³;

(MISB, Gen. 3:14): http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation/BasicBooks/genesis.html#3:14

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a. א: The serpent is Satan. ב: The serpent (נָחָשׁ) is a common snake. | This unweaves into two interpretations, ranked in order of literalness. א is most literal because serpents do not talk or listen.

n. א: Satan is compared to a beast as deserved humiliation. ב: The snake is referred to. | The words מִכָּל־הַבְּהֵמָה teach that all creation was subjected to the curse too, and not just Satan and the snake, but the two were to be cursed the most. This is because all creation was affected by the fall. א is most literal because Satan is really responsible. The common snake is a victim of his crime—and the rest of creation; also the Almighty is a victim.

1. מִכֹּל חַיַּת הַשָּׂדֶה | The Hebrew חַיַּת is more general than the first statement. It means “living things”. The statement is repeated to emphasize that Satan and the serpent get the highest degree of curse, and that all creation receives some degree of the curse—and indeed, even the Almighty himself is, and will be adversely affected by the Serpent’s crime. The words הַשָּׂדֶה refer א: to the whole of creation, which is the “field” of the Almighty, his possession, that which he cultivates, ב: to the earth, ג: to the land. | These three fields are all affected by the Serpent’s crime.

2. א: Satan, ב: the common snake. | Just because we cannot see Satan does not mean this language is less literal as applied to him. A simple hypothesis: Satan is forced to take a serpent like form for part of every day, and crawl hidden to men’s eyes somewhere, licking dust from the earth—analogous to Nebuchadnezzar’s eating grass like an ox. It is also literal of the common snake: it is most parsimonious to posit that serpents had the ability to go upright before the fall of man. We can imagine a simple hypothesis to require their genetic and instinctual programming to use the bottom third of their length as a curved support base over which the other two thirds of the snake would be balanced, and then they could (with the appropriate genetic program for balance and coordination) move upright.

3. א: Satan, ב: the common snake. | Genetic programs were switched on, and others off at the fall of man, and it may have taken several reproductions for the seed of the snake to manifest the new programs and new genetic structure. What we know now is that snakes generally ingest some dirt and dust attacking their prey on the ground, and also that they flick their tongue out to gather dust particles from air and ground, which they then put into a sense organ in their mouth. This allows them to track scent trails. We may suppose that the method of detecting scent was different before the fall. As for a literal application to the Tempter, the phrase is equivalent to “eat crow” or being forced to “cow tow”. To lick the dust at a conquerers feet was most humiliating. Only the text says, “all the days of your life”; the devil is forced to eat defeat and humilations all the days of his life from the seed of the woman that remains faithful to the Almighty. The Serpent’s efforts to destroy the seed are continually thwarted, so that as each battle ends, the devil “eats crow”; or in another English idiom: left behind in the dust. Satan will tempt and try to seduce the seed into evil, but some of the seed will always get the victory at the end of every day. We should not rule out an even more literal sense that Satan has to eat literal dust for part of every day—a sentence akin to Nebuchadnezzar’s eating grass like an ox.

15 and I will put enmity between you¹ and the woman², and between your seed³ and her seedª; heⁿ shall crush you on the headº, but you shall bruise his heel¹.

(MISB, Gen. 3:15): http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation/BasicBooks/genesis.html#3:15

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1. א: Satan, ב: the common snake. | Again, application to Satan is more literal. The text is speaking of real enmity here, אֵיבָה; cf. Num. 35:21-22; Eze. 25:15; 35:5. It is a malevolent hatred, an implacable ill will. The Almighty says, “I will put”. This teaches that Satan will be compelled to hate man more than his natural inclination might lead. He will hate the seed of the woman unnaturally, to the extreme, and to his own hurt. He will be compelled to do this. It is his curse to hate the seed of the woman. He will hate the seed so much that he will die himself in order to kill it.

2. א: The woman (אִשָּׁה) is חַוָּה Chava ב: the woman is the righteous seed, the mother standing in for her seed ג: the woman is Israel, ד: the woman is Miryam, ה: women in general. | The first two are apparent from the context, and made plain in the following clause. The last three have to be decoded from present hindsight. The text says “woman” and emphasizes her, when it could have said “man”. The prophetic word is intelligently advancing the woman to the front here, when the norm is to advance the man. The woman was the first victim of Satan’s crime, and now Satan will find reason to hate her all the more.

3. א: the seed of Satan, ב: the progeny of the common snake. | ב, the less literal sense is that the common snake gained an instinctual fear of man and aggressiveness toward man. The other animals were not in fear of man until after the flood. א, the more literal sense is that Satan, and his spiritual seed would war against the seed of the woman. Satan’s seed includes as many fallen angelic beings that followed him, and as many humans as he can persuade to join his side. Seed is to be taken in both a collective and singular sense. In the end of days a singular man, the man of sin, possessed by Satan’s powers will rise up against the seed of the woman.

a. א: the genetic descendents of the woman, ב: her descendants who remain loyal to the Almighty, ג: Israel, ד: one special descendant, the Messiah. | The Messianic application is not clear until the next phrase.

n. א: one special male seed, the Messiah, ב: “it” referring to a collective sense of seed who are descendants loyal to Yahweh as opposed to Satan. | Modern Rabbis and faithless liberals are insistent that only ב is possible. They’ve even gone so far as to translate the Hebrew הוּא as “they” in the JPS (1917) and TNK (1985) versions, so as to make sure that א is prohibited. Catholics are equally faithless, changing to “she” in the Douay-Rheims (1899) and Latin Vulgate! The Stone Edition corrects the error. How may we know that one singular “seed” is the most literal sense? First Chava regards it so. Gen. 4:1, 25 make it clear she is seeking the one male seed. Second, deciphering the cryptogram in the names of the first 10 generations from creation shows this is the case: cf. 1Chron. 1:1. Third, the LXX so interprets Gen. 3:15 using a masculine pronoun in support of א instead of the neuter pronoun required by ב only. Fourth, making sense of subsequent Messianic Prophecy depends on one singular seed, and it is only the corruption of those prophecies that blinds the eye to this one.

o. Clearly, a dead snake does not attack one’s heel. The bruising of the heel comes first before the head smash. Yeshua’s heel was bruised when a nail was put through it on the cross at his first coming. Satan’s head will be crushed in the end of days, at the end of the thousand year reign (cf. Rev. 20:10); so there are 3000 years between the two events. However, it was 6000 years ago that Satan was sentenced to death.

1. א: the one special male seed, the Messiah will have his heel bruised by the serpent. This occured when Yeshua was crucified on the cross. A nail or nails were driven through his heels. In 1968 (cf. Tzaferis, V. 1970 Jewish Tombs at and near Giv’at ha-Mivtar. Israel Exploration Journal Vol.20 pp. 18-32) a crucified man’s heel bone was discovered with the nail still through it. See also Psalm 22:16. ב: again the faithless tampered with the text here. First, the Church of Rome translated it, “her heel” instead of “his heel” (cf. Douay-Rheims, Latin Vulgate), and second the JPS (1917), and TNK (1985) want to translate it “their heel”. Only as a secondary interpretation does the text mean “its heel” and refers to Israel. See preceding notes for proof of the literal interpretation (א). On the less literal sense here we can connect the Hebrew “heel” with “Jacob” whose name is formed on the same root: עקב.

6 And he put his suppor t¹ in Yãhwe hⁿ, then he counted² it to him as righteousness³.

(MISB, Gen. 15:6): http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation/BasicBooks/genesis.html#15:6

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1. If one wishes to walk in the faithfulness of Abraham, then one must do two things. He must put his support in Yahweh. He must first make Him his support, and then he must support him. That means to love, obey, and be loyal. For the Hebrew word here means to “support” and to “confirm”, not “believe”. One cannot support without obeying, and one cannot confirm without entering into trust with Him. So if one wishes to be supported by the Most High, then one must support the Most High. As it is written, “If you will not give your support to Yahweh, you surely shall not be supported” (Isa. 7:9).

n. If one put their support on Yahweh, then Yahweh becomes the support! Now Paul explained that the “righteous shall live by his faithfulness”. Whose faithfulness? Paul means first by “HIS” faithfulness (including the cross), and then by “his/our” faithful response to “His faithfulness” (Hab. 2:4). This is the secret of Paul, and reading the rest of these notes, you will see that it connects directly to Gen. 15:6.

2. The Hebrew word וַיַּחְשְׁבֶהָ = “then he counted it” can also mean “he planned it” or “he considered it”. The plain sense is that Yahweh counted Abraham’s support, אֱמוּנָה (faithfulness) as righteousness. But there are at least three more valid senses to get out of this text. The next valid sense is that he “made his support on Yahweh” which means he leaned on Yah; he made Yah his trust; he entered into trust with him. The third and fourth senses are Pauline, and require us to focus on the fact that Yahweh himself is the support: The third sense: “he planned it [Yahweh’s support] to him for righteousness”, which is to say Yahweh intended to take what was His and give to Abraham to make him righteous. And the fourth sense: “he planned it [Yahweh’s support] to him for justice”. In this last case, צְדָקָה must be understood as “justice”. Yahweh plans his support, which is the death of Messiah on the cross, for Abraham, as justice, that is to satisfy the penalty of sin.

3. A few extra details. First “righteousness” means “justice” in the 4th interpretation in the preceding note. This is Paul’s secret to this text. What was counted as justice, that is, the “it” turns out to be Yahweh’s support of Abraham. For if you make your support on someone, then they become your support. At the same time one has to make their support on Adonai Yeshua, and that implies more than mental assent to a promise. It implies loyalty and obedience, summed up in “faithfulness”. The Hebrew verb הֶאֱמִן actually does mean, “make support”, and the noun emunah = supportiveness. The doctrine of “believe only” in some promises or facts is a long way short of committing one’s total loyalty to Yahweh.

4 On the third day¹ Abraham raised his eyes and saw the place from a distance.

(MISB, Gen. 15:6): http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation/BasicBooks/genesis.html#15:6

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1. There are many third day passages in the Torah and Prophets, and almost all of them have to do with Yeshua’s death and resurrection. Abraham lifted his eyes up “on the third day” (בַּיּ֣וֹם־הַשְּׁלִישִׁ֗י). Both the sacrifice and the deliverance take place “on the third day”. This is easily understood of Yeshua’s resurrection. Most are not aware that it also applies to his death. That is because they pay no attention to the symbolism in Messianic prophecy. The connection with the third day for Yeshua’s death is made in Mat. 26:2, “You know that after two days . . .the Son of Man... is to be crucified”. Also see Mark 14:1. “After two days” is the same as the “third day”. Hosea 6:1-3 understands it exactly this way. So Matthew and Mark are showing us that Yeshua died on the third day and was raised on the third day.