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Eden to Babel
Contributed by Benjamin Hytner

  • TOP HAGGADAHS FOR 2023

Isa 45:18-19 For this is what the Lord says --- he who created the heavens, he is God; he who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it; he did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited --- he says: "I am the Lord and there is no other. I have not spoken in secret, from somewhere in a land of darkness; I have not said to Jacob's descendants, 'Seek me in vain.' I, the Lord, speak the truth; I declare what is right."

  • God completed His creation with the formation of Adam and Eve. He placed them in paradise to live and care for His creation. He made them special, in His image, to be the managers of the earth and He gave them the freedom to choose how they would manage; through the fruit of a life connected to God which is named Life, or through the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil according to their own understanding which is named Death. They chose the later, Death, and separated from God and paradise to make their own creations in the wilderness. In their own wisdom, they covered themselves with leaves from their provision for protection. God, in His wisdom, covered them with animal skins, containers of life, for protection. An animal had to die as a sacrifice but that is what Adam and Eve chose - death.
  • Adam and Eve were fruitful and they multiplied. Cain followed the ways of his parents and naturally birthed a series of increasingly deadly and prideful generations. Able followed the ways of God and supernaturally birthed a series of generations who called on the Name of the Lord and walked with God until Noah (Rest) found grace and survived death to live in a restored paradise.
  • Through Noah, the whole earth was repopulated but one son dishonored his father. That son fathered the generations that struck out into the wilderness and built Babylon, drew all the inhabitants of the earth to it, and through pride, started building a tower to lift men up equal to God and make a name in heaven for themselves. The Creator disrupted their plan by confusing their speech. This language barrier divided mankind into the nations of the earth.
  • God then took one man out of Babylon and made him a friend of God to eventually reconcile the scattered nations back to God. Abraham's descendants through Isaac and Jacob, the nation Israel, would be God's chosen people to be that vehicle of reconciliation for the nations.
  • Gen 15:12-21 As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep and a thick a dreadful darkness came over him. Then the Lord said to him, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterwards they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the forth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure." When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, "To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates  --"​
  • God is defining the place where He will establish His tower - His Name - His sovereignty. This is where He will draw all nations to come and humble themselves and be reconciled back to Him as managers in His kingdom - His creation.Then the confusion that divides the peoples of the earth can be removed and paradise can be restored.

ALL:    Jehovah, Creator and Father of mankind, sets His people in place as planned and delivers them just as He had promised            Abraham. Pharaoh, with all his power, was unable to prevent it. Let us remember and never forget this memorial to our            God's sovereignty and power.
haggadah Section: Introduction

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