Tuesday of the Third Week of Advent (December 19, 2017)
Gospel (Luk 1:5-25)
The Birth of John the Baptist Foretold
5 In the days of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abijah; his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.
6 They were both righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commands and decrees of the Lord.
Gen 7:1
Then the Lord said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your family, for you alone I have seen to be righteous before me in this generation [as opposed to “a righteous man, blameless” (6:9), only part of a man’s praises being stated to his face].
Rashi’s Commentary
For you alone I have seen to be righteous before me—It does not say “a righteous man, blameless” (as it does in 6:9); hence we may infer that only a part of a man’s good qualities should be enumerated in his presence (since here God is speaking to Noah and calls him only “righteous”), but that in his absence the whole of his good qualities may be told (since when the law speaks about him in the earlier passage it calls him “a righteous man, blameless”) (Eruvin 18b).
Gen 17:1
When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; [therefore], walk before me [i.e., worship me] and be blameless [in the trials I shall set for you, and I shall be your Patron].
Rashi’s Commentary
I am God Almighty—I am he whose (שֶׁ) Godship suffices (דַּי) for every creature (Genesis Rabbah 46:3), therefore, ‘‘walk before me,” and I will be your God and Protector. Similarly, wherever in the Scriptures this divine name occurs, it signifies the idea of his sufficiency—but it all depends upon the context as to what the “sufficiency” refers to.
Walk before me—As the Targum takes it: worship before me—cleave to my service.
And be blameless—This, too, is a command following upon the previous command: be blameless in all the trials I impose upon you. According to the Midrash (Genesis Rabbah 46:4), however, it means: walk before me by observing the precept of circumcision and through this you will become blameless, for so long as you are uncircumcised I regard you as having a blemish. Another explanation of And be blameless—At present you lack the power of controlling morally five organs, viz., two eyes, two ears and the membrum. Therefore will I add a letter to your name so that the total of the letters of your name will become 248, corresponding to the number of limbs of your body (cf. Nedarim 32b).
7 But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they both were now advanced in years.
8 Now it happened that while he was serving as priest before God in the appointed order of his division,
9 according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense.
10 And the whole multitude of the worshipers were praying outside at the time of incense burning.
11 And an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing on the right side of the altar of incense.
12 When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and fear gripped him.
13 But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will call his name John.
14 You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth,
15 for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. And he will not take wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb.
16 And he will bring many of the people of Israel back to the Lord their God.
17 It is he who will go as a forerunner before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people
prepared for the Lord.”
Gen 41:40
You shall be appointed over my palace, and according to your word shall all my people be fed. Only with the throne [i.e., the name of “king”] will I be greater than you.”
This work, "Tuesday 3rd Week Advent," is a derivative of "The Rashi Chumash" and "The Rashi Ketuvim" by Rabbi Shraga Silverstein used under CC BY 3.0
Gen 15:2
But Abram said, “Lord God, what can you give me? I go wasted [without children], and the purveyor of my household [who would otherwise, be my son] is Eliezer of Damascus.”
Rashi’s Commentary
And the purveyor of my household—Explain it as the Targum has it, “the man of my household,” meaning the man by whose orders all my household is fed. Similarly, (Gen 41:40) “and by your orders they will be sustained (יִשַּׁק)”—so that it signifies my administrator.
18 Zechariah said to the angel, “How will I know this for certain? For I am an old man and my wife is advanced in years.
19 The angel answered and said to him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news.
20 And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day when these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their appointed time.”
21 The people were waiting for Zechariah, and they were wondering at his delay in in the temple.
22 But when he came out, he could not speak to them; and they realized that he had seen a vision in the temple; and he kept making signs to them, and remained mute.
23 When his time of service was completed, he went back home.
24 After these days his wife Elizabeth became pregnant, and for five months she kept herself in seclusion, saying,
25 “Thus the Lord has dealt with me, in the days when he looked with favor upon me, to take away my disgrace among people.”
Zechariah John by the LumoProject
Promise to Abraham by Free Bible Images is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0
Zechariah John by the LumoProject