God Already Knows, but He’s Waiting to Hear from Us

Parashat Vayechi, Genesis 47:28–50:26

 Rabbi Russ Resnik

In the next-to-last scene of the old Star Wars movie, The Empire Strikes Back, the hero, Han Solo, is frozen solid in carbonite by his imperial captors. As he is lowered into a vault, a frosty mist swirls about him and the music fades away. All you can think is, “sequel coming.” It seems like a moment of defeat, but it signals the victory that is sure to come.

Like The Empire Strikes Back, Genesis concludes with an image of seeming defeat—in this case a coffin—that conveys the promise of victory to come. The last two verses read,

Then Yosef took an oath from the sons of Israel: “God will surely remember you, and you are to carry my bones up from here.” So Yosef died at the age of 110, and they embalmed him and put him in a coffin in Egypt. (Gen 50:25–26)

At first glance this seems like a negative ending for the magnificent first book of the Torah. The rabbinic commentators do not say a great deal about it, perhaps reflecting some embarrassment at the fact that Joseph is embalmed, in contradiction to later Jewish law. Christian commentators often see the conclusion of Genesis as negative, suggesting the hopelessness of the human condition apart from divine redemption.

The book of Hebrews however, provides a key to understanding this conclusion: “By trusting, Yosef, near the end of his life, remembered about the Exodus of the people of Israel and gave instructions about what to do with his bones” (11:22).

The coffin in Egypt becomes an emblem of hope, a sure sign that this story is not over yet. Joseph “remembered about the Exodus of the children of Israel” assuring them that God would “surely remember” them and bring them up out of Egypt. God promises redemption, and Joseph believes that promise.

As Genesis concludes, then, we may believe that we have only to wait for the sequel, when the promise will surely be fulfilled. In the Book of Exodus, however, we learn that something else must happen first:

  It was, many years later,

the king of Egypt died.

The children of Israel groaned from the servitude,

and they cried out;

and their plea-for-help went up to God from the servitude.

God hearkened to their moaning,

God called-to-mind his covenant with Avraham, with Yitzchak, and with Yaakov,

God saw the Children of Israel,

God knew. (Exodus 2:23–25, Schocken Bible)

The simple language of Torah describes God as taking four actions. The children of Israel groan, and the Lord hears, remembers, looks, and knows. Of course, God knows everything all the time. Hence, numerous translations supplement this final phrase, with words like, “God took notice of them” (JPS, 1967 ed.), or “God acknowledged them” (CJB). But the Hebrew is clear enough: “God knew,” period.

Indeed, God knows all things, but he has assigned to human beings, and therefore to us, a priestly responsibility. Even though our ancestors were groaning under heavy bondage, they still represented God and had the authority to call upon him to intervene on the earthly plane. This is the most basic sense of intercessory prayer. In Exodus, furthermore, we learn that the intervention they called for would involve a struggle against the demonic powers upholding Pharaoh’s dynasty, and holding the Israelites in bondage. As the Lord says, “I will execute judgment against all the gods of Egypt; I am Adonai” (Exod 12:12).

Beyond this basic intercession, we can see a second level, reflected in the traditional prayers that we recite every week. Even after our redemption from Egypt, we remain in exile and bondage, but we can go beyond simple groaning. We have the promise of victory and redemption revealed in Scripture, and can invoke that promise and call upon the Lord to intervene. It’s not clear whether our ancestors in Egypt even remembered the promise of redemption, until Moses came to deliver them, but God heard their anguished groaning. Now, however, we have the assurance of redemption revealed in Scripture, and call upon God on that basis.

Our liturgy is filled with examples of this intercessory outcry. The final line of the Kaddish, also repeated at the end of the Amidah, says, “He who makes peace in the heavenly realms, may he make peace for us and for all Israel.” Peace, the shalom that prevails already in the heavenly court, is central to the prophetic vision of the Age to Come. In the daily prayers, we call on Hashem to establish that shalom in our midst even now. When we sing this prayer, we repeat the refrain, ya’aseh shalom, ya’aseh shalom, shalom alenu v’al kal Yisrael, literally, “He will make peace upon us and upon all Israel,” a prophetic and intercessory cry for the Lord to do what he has promised.

Likewise, before we take the Torah out of the ark, we recite the words, “And it came to pass, whenever the ark went forward, Moses would say, ‘Arise O Lord, and let your enemies be scattered. Let those who hate you flee before you.’” As the word of God goes forth, we pray that the spiritual forces that oppose God and Israel—“the gods of Egypt”—will be defeated and driven back. In this weekly enactment, we are interceding for all Israel, and ultimately for the whole human race, looking forward to the day when “The Torah will go forth from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”

With such prayers Israel has taken on its priestly responsibility throughout the centuries, and they remain most valuable in the sight of God. We do well to participate in them, especially as we do so in union with Messiah, who is the true high priest and intercessor. Through him these prayers will be fulfilled in the end, and through him we come to a third level of intercession.

The first level is what we see in the parasha, the simple groaning of Israel, crying out to God for relief. A second level of prayer comes in response to the promises revealed in Scripture. We cry out in the language of divine revelation to remind God to act as he has said he would. The third level is a response to the fulfillment of the promise in Messiah Yeshua. We still await the Age-to-Come, but in Messiah there is a present-day reality, the victory over demonic forces through his death and resurrection, which brings redemption in this age.

God already knows all things, but he’s waiting to hear from us. It is our priestly responsibility to remind him of his promise, and to proclaim the fulfillment of that promise in Messiah Yeshua. 

  Adapted from Creation to Completion: A Guide to Life’s Journey from the Five Books of Moses, Messianic Jewish Publishers, 2006.

Scripture references, unless noted, are from Complete Jewish Bible (CJB).