The Shadow

Weekly Torah Lesson

Parasha: Va Yegash – and he drew near
Torah: Bereishit 44:18 – 47:27

The beginning of this week’s Torah portion is referred to as a “shadow of things to come”.  Yosef has set up a situation where he is demanding that the brothers give him Benyamin to be his slave. 

This is similar to a situation that occurred approximately twelve years earlier when Yosef’s brothers sold him into slavery. Now he is waiting to see if they are willing to repeat the same sin with his younger brother.    

The room is tense as the brothers discuss the situation under the glare of Yosef. Then Yehudah left the brothers and “drew near” to Yosef. The Scriptures record his supplication:

18 Then Yehudah came near to him, and said, Oh my master, let your servant, I pray you, speak a word in my master’s ears, and let not your anger burn against your servant: for you are even as Paro. 19  My master asked his servants, saying, Have you a father, or a brother? 20  And we said to my master, We have a father, an old man, and a child of his old age, a little one; and his brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother, and his father loves him. 21  And you said to your servants, Bring him down to me, that I may set my eyes on him. 22  And we said to my master, The lad cannot leave his father: for if he should leave his father, his father would die. 23  And you said to your servants, Except your youngest brother come down with you, you shall see my face no more. 24  And it came to pass when we came up to your servant my father, we told him the words of my master. 25  And our father said, Go again, and buy us a little food. 26  And we said, We cannot go down: if our youngest brother be with us, then will we go down: for we may not see the man’s face, except our youngest brother be with us. 27  And your servant my father said to us, You know that my wife bore me two sons: 28  And the one went out from me, and I said, Surely he is torn in pieces; and I saw him not since: 29  And if you take this also from me, and mischief befall him, you shall bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. 30  Now therefore when I come to your servant my father, and the lad be not with us; seeing that his life is bound up in the lad’s life; 31  It shall come to pass, when he sees that the lad is not with us, that he will die: and your servants shall bring down the gray hairs of your servant our father with sorrow to the grave. 32  For your servant became surety for the lad to my father, saying, If I bring him not to you, then I shall bear the blame to my father for ever. 33  Now therefore, I pray you, let your servant abide instead of the lad a slave to my master; and let the lad go up with his brothers. 34  For how shall I go up to my father, and the lad be not with me? lest peradventure I see the evil that shall come on my father. (Bereishit 44:18-34)

The two brothers stood face to face. Yehudah was willing to give up his life for his younger brother. Tears flowed freely as Yosef witnessed the change that repentance had brought to his brothers.   

Yosef spoke, “I am Yosef, your brother..”

Some, including myself, believe that this event “pictures” the time when Yeshua reveals Himself to His brothers, Israel. 

The Scriptures also record the time when the “Great Salvation” comes to Israel. Here is what it says:

15 The word of Avinu came again to me, saying, 16  Moreover, you son of man, take you one stick, and write on it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write on it, For Yosef, the stick of Ephraim and for all the house of Israel his companions: 17  And join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in your hand. 18  And when the children of your people shall speak to you, saying, Will you not show us what you mean by these? 19  Say to them, Thus said Avinu ELOHIM; Behold, I will take the stick of Yosef, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in my hand. 20  And the sticks where on you write shall be in your hand before their eyes. 21  And say to them, Thus said Avinu ELOHIM; Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, where they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land: 22  And I will make them one nation in the land on the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all. 23  Neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions: but I will save them out of all their dwelling places, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them: so shall they be my people, and I will be their Elohim. 24  And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them. 25  And they shall dwell in the land that I have given to Ya’akov my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelled; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, and their children’s children for ever: and my servant David shall be their prince for ever. 26  Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the middle of them for ever more. 27  My tabernacle also shall be with them: yes, I will be their Elohim, and they shall be my people. 28  And the heathen shall know that I Avinu, do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the middle of them for ever more. (Eze 37:15-28)