Banah Torah

Exodus Chapter 5 - Pharaoh's New Cruelty: No Straw, Same quota

Exodus chapter 5 is read: Moses and Aaron confront Pharaoh demanding the people be freed to worship Yahweh, but Pharaoh refuses and asks, “Who is Yahweh?” He increases the Israelites’ burdens by stopping straw supplies and forcing them to meet the same brick quota, leading to harsh beatings and distress.

The people and their foremen cry out in suffering, and the foremen blame Moses and Aaron for bringing worse hardship upon them.

Exodus Chapter 4 - Signs and Reluctance: Moses' Challenge

Exodus chapter 4 recounts God empowering Moses with miraculous signs — a staff turned into a snake, a leprous hand, and water turning to blood — to prove His commission. Moses hesitates, pleading that he is not eloquent, so God appoints Aaron to help and promises to guide them.

Moses returns to Egypt with his family and the staff of God, confronts the danger on the way addressed by Zipporah’s circumcision of their son, and, together with Aaron, presents the signs to the elders of Israel, who believe and bow down in acknowledgment of God’s remembrance.

Exodus Chapter 3 - The Burning Bush: Moses Meets the God of His Fathers

Exodus chapter 3 recounts Moses tending sheep on Mount Horeb when he encounters a bush that burns without being consumed. God speaks to him from the bush, reveals His name as Yahweh ("I AM"), and explains His plan to rescue the Israelites from Egypt.

God commissions Moses to confront Pharaoh, promises divine presence and signs, and assures that the Israelites will leave Egypt with wealth taken from the Egyptians.

Exodus Chapter 2 - The Basket in the Reeds: Moses Rescued at the Nile

Exodus chapter 2 tells how a Levite woman hides her newborn son Moses and places him in a clay‑sealed wicker basket by the Nile, where Pharaoh’s daughter finds and raises him.

Moses grows up, kills an Egyptian to defend a Hebrew, flees to Midian where he marries Zipporah, and the Israelites’ groaning in Egypt reaches God, who remembers his covenant.

Exodus Chapter 1 - From Seventy Souls to a Nation

Exodus Chapter 1 recounts how the seventy members of Jacob’s family grew into a multitude in Egypt, prospering despite a new Pharaoh who feared their numbers.

As the Israelites multiplied, Pharaoh enslaved them with harsh labor and ordered the drowning of newborn Hebrew boys, a command resisted by the midwives Shiphrah and Puah, who feared God and saved many lives.

Genesis Chapter 50 - Joseph's Farewell: Burial and Forgiveness

Genesis chapter 50 recounts Joseph's mourning for his father Jacob, the embalming and elaborate Egyptian funeral rites, and the journey to bury Jacob in the cave of Machpelah in Canaan. Following the burial, Joseph reassures his fearful brothers, forgiving them and recognizing God's providence in turning their harm into salvation. The chapter concludes with Joseph's later life in Egypt, his death at age 110, and his request that his bones be carried to the promised land when God delivers Israel.

Genesis Chapter 49 - Jacob's Last Words: Prophecies Over the Twelve Tribes

Genesis 49, Jacob called for his sons and said, Assemble yourselves, and I will tell you what will befall you in the end of days. Gather yourselves and listen, O sons of Jacob, and listen to Israel your father.

Reuben, you are my firstborn, my strength and my initial vigor, foremost in rank and foremost in power. Water like impetuosity, you cannot be foremost because you mounted your father's bed. Then you desecrated him who ascended my couch.

Simon and Levites are comrades. Their weaponry is a stolen craft. Into their conspiracy my soul may not enter. With their congregation do not join, O my honor. For in their rage they murdered people, and at their whim they hamstrung an ox. A curse is their rage, for it is intense, and their wrath, for it is harsh. I will separate them within Jacob, and I will disperse them in Israel.

Judah you your brother shall acknowledge your hand will be at your enemy's nape your father's sons will prostrate themselves to you a lion cub is Judah from the prey my son you elevated yourself he crouches lies down like a lion and like an awesome lion who dares rouse him the scepter shall not depart from Judah nor a scholar from among its descendants until Shiloh arrives and he will be an assemblage of nations.

He will tie his donkey to the vine, to the vine branch his donkey's foal. He will launder his garments in wine and his robe in the blood of grapes. Red-eyed from wine and white tooth from milk. Zebulun shall settle by seashores. He shall be at the ship's harbor and his last border will be Zidon.

Issachar is a strong-boned donkey. He rests between the boundaries. He saw tranquility that it was good and the land that it was pleasant yet he bent his shoulder to bear and he became an indentured laborer. Dan will avenge his people the tribes of Israel will be united as one Dan will be a serpent on the highway a viper by the path that bites a horse's heel so its rider falls backward for your salvation do I long O Yahweh.

Gad will recruit a regiment and it will retreat on its heel. From Asher his bread will have richness. He will provide kingly delicacies. Naphtali is a hindlet loose who delivers beautiful sayings. A charming son is Joseph, a charming son to the eye. Each of the daughters climb heights to gaze.

They embittered him and became antagonists. The arrow-tongued men hated him, but his bow was firmly in place and his arms were gilded. From the hands of the mighty power of Jacob, from there he shepherded the stone of Israel. That was from god of your father and he will help you and with shaddai and he will bless you with blessings of heaven from above blessings of the deep crouching below blessings of the bosom and womb the blessings of your father surpass the blessings of my parents to the endless bounds of the world's hills let them be upon joseph's head and upon the head of the exile from his brothers.

Benjamin is a predatory wolf in the morning he will devour prey and in the evening he will distribute spoils. All these are the tribes of Israel 12 and this is what their father spoke to them and he blessed them he blessed them each according to his appropriate blessing then he instructed them and he said to them i shall be gathered to my people bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the land of ephron the hittite in the cave that is in the field of machpelah which faces mammary in the land of camen which abraham brought with the field from ephron the hittite as a beryllium state there they buried abraham and sarah his wife and there they buried isaac and rebecca his wife and there i buried leah purchase of the field and the cave within it was from the sons of heth when jacob finished instructing his sons he drew his feet onto the bed he expired and was gathered to his people.

Genesis Chapter 48 - Jacob's Blessing of Ephraim and Manasseh

Genesis 48 shows Jacob on his deathbed calling Joseph and blessing his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, adopting them as his own and intentionally placing his right hand on the younger, Ephraim, to confer the greater blessing.

Jacob recalls God’s covenant, prophesies the future growth of their descendants, reassures Joseph of a return to Canaan, and grants Joseph a special portion in Shechem.

Genesis Chapter 47 - Goshen: A Refuge in the Famine

Joseph brings his father Jacob and his family to live in the region of Goshen, where Pharaoh grants them the best land and positions to care for the livestock. As famine devastates the region, Joseph manages Egypt's food supply, exchanging grain for livestock and eventually acquiring the land for Pharaoh, instituting a system where a fifth of the harvest goes to the king.

Jacob spends his final years in Egypt, blesses Pharaoh, and makes Joseph swear to carry him back to Canaan for burial.

Genesis Chapter 46 - Jacob's Journey to Egypt

Genesis 46 recounts God reassuring Jacob in a night vision, Jacob's family journeying from Canaan to Egypt, and the listing of Jacob's descendants who accompany him. It highlights the fulfillment of God's promise as the family grows to seventy and settles in the land of Goshen.

The chapter ends with a moving reunion between Jacob and Joseph, and Joseph preparing the way for his family's settlement in Egypt.