Jesus repeats the patterns in Israel’s history because Jesus is Israel’s divine head. In reliving Israel’s history, Jesus fulfilled the prophesy. Jesus is Israel’s divine representative, and the history that Israel went through comes to its head in Jesus.
In order for the disciples to understand what was in the Old Testament about the Messiah, they had to supernaturally have their minds opened.
We need to understand Messianic prophecy as being fulfilled in Jesus, because Jesus completes Israel’s history by living out the same patterns.
A prophet is a spokesman for God. Israel was ruled by the Kings, the Prophets (God’s spokesmen) and the Priests (mediators between Israel and God).
Matthew 2:13-15 Now when they had gone, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up! Take the Child and His mother and flee to Egypt and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is going to search for the Child to destroy Him.” So, Joseph got up and took the Child and His mother while it was still night and left for Egypt. He remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: “OUT OF EGYPT I CALLED MY SON.”
Luke 24:25-27, 45 And He said to them, “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?” Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures. Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and He said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day,” • Isaiah 6:1 In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple.
Additional Scriptures
• Daniel 12:4 • Acts 2:3 • Matthew 3:16 • Ezekiel 1:28
The Binding of Isaac in Hebrew is Akedah.
In the “Binding of Isaac”, we see the prophetic foretelling that resurrection was a part of God’s redemptive plan. The whole Tanakh is Messianic prophecy.
Joseph’s name in Hebrew is pronounced as “Yosef.”
Genesis 22:5, 7, 5 ”Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go over there; and we will worship and return to you”…he said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”
Hebrews 11:17-19 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son; it was he to whom it was said, “IN ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS SHALL BE CALLED.” He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type.
Genesis 42:8 But Joseph had recognized his brothers, although they did not recognize him.
Numbers 21:6-9 The LORD sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. So the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, because we have spoken against the LORD and you; intercede with the LORD, that He may remove the serpents from us.” And Moses interceded for the people. Then the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live.” And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived.
John 3:14-15 “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.”
Discussion Questions
Did Abraham fully intend to sacrifice Isaac? Why would he be willing to do such a horrendous thing? What was he confident of and how do we know this?
What does the Rabbinic understanding of Isaac’s age tell us about Isaac in this thing God tested them in?
How does Joseph typify Jesus the Savior of both Jew and Gentile?
How does this teaching strengthen your belief in the God the divine Orchestrator of these things? In the truthfulness of the Bible as a whole?