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This week’s Parasha is entitled Lech L’cha and means You Go. It covers Genesis 12:1–17:27. It recounts Abraham’s first encounter with God, his journey to Canaan, the birth of his son Ishmael, the covenant between Abraham, his descendants, and God, and God’s commandment to circumcise the males of his household. Abraham is referred to here as Abram.

Abram and his family were introduced at the end of Parashat Noach. Parashat Lech L’cha opens with Adonai telling Abram to leave his home for another land, yet to be specified. He’s accompanied by his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot.

Abram is also given a seven-fold blessing from Adonai. Adonai promises to make Abram into a great nation, that He would bless Abram, that He would make Abram’s name great, that Abram would be a blessing to others, that Adonai would bless those who blessed Abram, and that He would curse whoever cursed Abram. And through Abram, all the families of the earth would be blessed.

Eventually, a famine takes them to Egypt, where Abram identifies Sarai as his sister for fear of being killed. A plague prevents the Egyptian king from touching her and convinces him to return her to Abram and to compensate the brother-revealed-as-husband with gold, silver, and cattle.

Sometime later in the land of Canaan, Lot and Abram separate and Lot settles in the city of Sodom, where he is taken captive when the city is conquered. Abram sets out with a small band to rescue his nephew, defeats the four kings, and is blessed by Malkee-Tzedek, the king of Salem.

In chapter 15, Adonai seals a Covenant Between the Parts with Abram, in which the exile and persecution of the people of Israel is foretold, and the Holy Land is promised to Abram and his descendants as an inheritance forever.

After 11 years living in this new land, Abram and Sarai are still childless. So, Sarai tells Abram to conceive with her maidservant Hagar, which he does. But contention develops between Hagar and Sarai and Hagar decides to flee.

An angel appears to her and convinces her to return and tells her that her son will father a populous nation. Ishmael is born in Abram’s eighty-sixth year.

Thirteen years later, Adonai would change Abram’s name to Abraham (“father of multitudes”) and Sarai’s to Sarah (“princess”), and promises that a son will be born to them. The text ends with Abraham being commanded to circumcise himself and his descendants as a “sign of the covenant” between Adonai and Abraham. A covenant is an agreement between two parties.

The Covenant Between the Parts mentioned in Genesis 15 is an ancient ritual where a covenant was sealed by cutting animals in half and having both of the parties walk between the pieces. The two parties would sacrifice the animal so that they could enter the covenant without sin. In verse 9 of chapter 15, Abram only had to prepare the sacrifice and bring it to God. Adonai was the one who enacted the sign by solely passing through the animal parts, which speaks of the unilateral and unconditional nature of this covenant.

In this covenant with Abraham, God promised many things. He promised that He would make Abraham’s name great, that Abraham would have numerous physical descendants, and that he would be the father of a multitude of nations. God also made promises regarding a nation we currently call Israel. In fact, the geographical boundaries of the Abrahamic Covenant are laid out on more than one occasion in the book of Genesis.

The important element of this covenant, however, demands a future fulfillment with Messiah’s kingdom rule: Israel as a nation will possess the land in the future.

Numerous Old Testament passages anticipate the future blessing of Israel and her possession of the land as promised to Abraham. Israel as a nation will repent, be forgiven, and restored. Part of this was already fulfilled in 1948 when Israel became a nation again after centuries of being scattered.

The Abrahamic Covenant finds its ultimate fulfillment in connection with the return of Messiah to rescue and bless His people Israel. It’s through the nation Israel that God promised in Genesis 12:1–3 to bless the nations of the world. That ultimate blessing will issue in the forgiveness of sins and Messiah’s glorious kingdom reign on earth.

The covenant that God had established with His people required obedience to the Old Testament Mosaic Law. Because the wages of sin is death, the Law required that people perform rituals and sacrifices in order to temporarily have their sins removed. The prophet Jeremiah predicted that there would be a time when God would make a new covenant with the nation of Israel.

Yeshua HaMashiach came to fulfill the Law and create a new covenant between God and His people. The old covenant was written in stone, but the new covenant is written on our hearts, made possible only by faith in Yeshua, who shed His own blood to atone for the sins of the world. Now that we are under this new covenant, we are not under the penalty of the Law. We are now given the opportunity to receive salvation as a free gift.

Through the life-giving Holy Spirit, who lives in all believers, we can now share in the inheritance of Yeshua and enjoy a permanent, unbroken relationship with Adonai.

Hebrews 9:15 declares, “For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance – now that He has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.” May we all cherish and be thankful for this new covenant ushered in by Yeshua.