NOTE: Monday’s have been dedicating the Daily Jot to a commentary of the Torah portion from the week before and how it relates and is explained in the New Testament by Yeshua and the Apostles. If you would like to learn more about reading the Torah portions—reading through the first five books of the Bible—in a year, please go to www.ffoz.org Weekly Torah Portion.
For Christians, reading the first five books of the Bible (Torah) each year brings us new revelation of God’s plan and how we are to be his representatives on earth. God’s covenant, His character, and His redemptive plan guides us as fully realized in Yeshua (Jesus), whose mission fulfilled the Law and the Prophets. Last week marked a special moment in the biblical calendar as the annual Torah reading cycle both ends and begins. In his final moments, Moses blesses the tribes of Israel, then climbs Mount Nebo to view the Promised Land. The Torah closes with this tribute: “Since that time there has not arisen in Israel a prophet like Moshe, whom ADONAI knew face to face” (Deuteronomy 34:10). Then it starts again in Genesis.
The final portion, V’zot Haberakhah (This is the Blessing), found in Deuteronomy 33:1–34:12, is read on Simchat Torah, the last day of Sukkot. Then the scroll is rewound to B’reshit (Genesis 1:1–6:8) to start again. Genesis opens with: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” The Hebrew text shows that God brought order out of chaos—tohu v’vohu (without form and void). Day by day, He spoke creation into existence. On day six, God declares, “Let us make humankind in our image,” using the word tzelem, meaning image or likeness. This speaks not of physical traits but divine purpose. As Michael Heiser explains in The Unseen Realm, “We were created to image God, to be His imagers… The image is not the ability we have, but the status. We are God’s representatives on earth.”
From the very beginning, humanity was called to reflect God’s rule and character. God sets the seventh day apart as holy—a day of rest, the sabbath. In Genesis 2, He forms man and woman, giving them a garden to steward and each other for companionship. But a serpent (nachash in Hebrew) tempts them. They sin, are banished, and paradise is lost. Yet God immediately reveals His redemptive plan in Genesis 3:15, promising One who will crush the head of the serpent. What began with intimacy between God and His imagers now becomes a story of rebellion, consequences, and mercy. Cain murders Abel, violence multiplies, and by Genesis 6, God grieves over humanity’s wickedness and brings judgment with the flood. But woven through this brokenness is hope—the promise of redemption that echoes through every generation.
Each year when the Torah cycle begins anew, it reminds us that God’s story isn’t finished. He brings order to chaos, calls a people to reflect His image, and makes a way to redeem humanity—and where we fit in as believers in His son, Yeshua, our Messiah. Yeshua said in Matthew 5:17, “Do not think I came to abolish the Torah or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to complete…not so much as a yud or a stroke will pass from the Torah—not until everything that must happen has happened” From Moses to Messiah, the story unfolds with God’s faithfulness at its center. As believers, we are part of this ongoing narrative—called to be light-bearers, truth-tellers, and imagers of God in a chaotic world. The scroll rewinds, the story begins again, and so does our calling to walk faithfully in His Word.
