Messianic Education Trust
		Yom Teruah

B'resheet/Genesis 21:2   And Sarah conceived and bore to Avraham a son in his old age, at the appointed time of which G-d had spoken to him.

View whole verse and interlinear translation ...

Our text comes from the festival reading from the Torah appointed for the first day of Yom Teruah: B'resheet chapter 21, crossing the fourth, fifth and sixth aliyot of parashat Vayera. The reading as a whole covers the birth of Avraham's long-awaited son with his wife Sarah and the subsequent sending away of Sarah's maid-servant Hagar - who had, at Sarah's instruction, facilitated Avraham having a son through her - and her son Ishmael from Avraham's household.

First, let's consider the immediate miracle that is being described here. Avraham is one hundred years old and his wife Sarah is ninety; the Torah tells us bluntly that "the way of women had ceased to be for Sarah" (B'resheet 18:11). Yet, as the NJPS version "The L-RD פָּקַד  took note of Sarah as He had promised" (21:1, NJPS) coyly puts it - using the same root, פקד, that is used in the narrative after the prophet Samuel's birth: "For the L-RD פָקַד took note of Hannah; she conceived and bore three sons and two daughters" (1 Samuel 2:21, NJPS) - The Name ...

HaShem: literally, Hebrew for 'The Name' - an allusion used to avoid pronouncing the Tetragrammaton, the so-called 'ineffable' name of G–d
HaShem moved supernaturally to bring about conception, gestation and birth. Nahum Sarna says that this root "connotes the direct involvement or intervention of G-d in human affairs." More, the Who Is ...

Sforno: Rabbi Ovadiah Sforno (1470-1550 CE), Italian rabbi, philosopher and physician; born in Cesena, he went to Rome to study medicine; left in 1525 and after some years of travel, settled in Bologna where he founded a yeshiva which he conducted until his death
Sforno - who studied medicine in Rome and was a practicing physician - points out that this is "contrary to the usual occurrence when an older woman gives birth, for the majority [of such births] are females."

Walter Brueggemann and Gerhard von Rad explain just how outrageous this miracle was. Starting with Brueggemann, he insists that "this is no birth brought about by natural processes. Natural processes had all been found wanting. This is an unwarranted birth in every usual sense. It now comes only by the promise of G-d."¹ The Torah has gone out of its way to make sure we know that it is simply impossible that this conception and birth could have happen in the natural. Indeed, Brueggemann continues, "care must be taken that this promise is seen as fulfilled to none other and through none other than these the world regarded 'as good as dead' (Hebrews 11:12, ESV)."² von Rad chimes in to emphasise that "in its sober realism it shows how completely incomprehensible this act of G-d was for all human intellect."³ It made absolutely no sense to a human mind; it was, by all human understanding and experience, impossible. Moderns might even say how offensive the narrative is to suggest that G-d can or would interfere with our human knowledge of the obstetric and gynecological processes involved!

Next let's consider another miracle that is hidden in our text as the last phrase of the verse: "at the set time of which God had spoken" (NJPS), "at the time of which God had spoken to him" (ESV). Both of those English translations downgrade the Hebrew לַמּוֹעֵד, "at the appointed time." Coming from the root יעד, "to appoint, designate"⁴, the noun מוֹעֵד is the word that classifies the festivals of HaShem, מוֹעֲדֵי יהוה in Vayikra chapter 23; they are the appointed times, fixed times, appointed festivals throughout the year. As HaShem tells Moshe to teach the people: "These are the set times of the L-RD, the sacred occasions, which you shall celebrate each at its appointed time" (Vayikra 23:4, NJPS). They are moment of holiness, sacred times, when there is to be rejoicing and celebration, and each one is anchored to an exact day in the calendar, a set day in each month regulated by the fixed cycles of the moon. We can see something of this rejoicing in the name that is given to the child - Yitz'khak, derived from the root "to laugh" - Sarah's laughter when her son is born and the celebration when he is weaned: "Avraham held a great feast on the day that Yitz'khak was weaned" (B'resheet 21:8, NJPS).

But the thing is - as any parent will tell you - pregnancy doesn't work that way. Doctors may hum and haw, measure the circumference of the in-utero child's head on an ultrasound scan, and then predict an estimated delivery date. Mothers ask each other the all important question: when are you due? But, actually, unless a specific date is planned for medical reasons - and, pray G-d, only for necessary medical reasons - no-one actually knows when the delivery of a child will start and end. The initial contractions may go on for some weeks until they settle down to business, break the waters and bring the baby into the world. Even then, labour may be just a few hours or may go on for 24-36 hours or, occasionally, more.

Yet our text uses the word מוֹעֵד, appointed time: a set-apart, known to G-d and determined by Him, time. This echoes HaShem's original word when He told Avraham, "Is anything too wondrous for the L-RD? I will return to you לַמּוֹעֵד at the appointed time next year, and Sarah shall have a son" (18:14). Who Is ...

Rashi: Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (1040-1105 CE), French rabbi who wrote commentaries on the Torah, the Prophets and the Talmud, lived in Troyes where he founded a yeshiva in 1067; focuses on the plain meaning (p'shat) of the text, although sometimes quite cryptic in his brevity
Rashi comments that "He stated and fixed an appointed time when He said to Avraham, 'At the appointed time I will return to you.'" The Midrash perhaps allows its imagination to run away when it reports that "Zavday bar Levi said: The Holy One scratched for her a mark on the wall. He said to her: When the sun comes to here, you shall bear, as stated: And Sarah shall have a son" (Tanchuma Vayera 36). To clarify this for ancient audiences, What Is ...

Targum Onkelos: An early (1^st-2^nd Century CE) translation/paraphrase of the Torah into Aramaic; attributed to a Roman convert to Judaism, Onkelos; used in Babylonian synagogues during the Talmudic era
Targum Onkelos changes the Hebrew לַמּוֹעֵד to the Aramaic לִזְמַן, 'at the time', where זְמַן is a stated, agreed or appointed time. Gordon Wenham points out that "the phrase 'appointed time' here appears for the last time in Genesis to emphasise the literal fulfilment 'which G-d had promised him.'"⁵ As Laurence Turner observes, "the child born to a barren woman after long delay has been the truly significant one."⁶

In the same way, when Yeshua was born of Mary in Bethlehem, He took the world completely by surprise. Everyone in the Jewish world knew that Messiah was coming - soon, some time, may it be in our days - and Yeshua's immediate family knew that it would probably be within the next week or so. But He came at exactly the right time, the time appointed by the Father: "When the fullness of time had come, G-d sent forth His Son, born of woman" (Galatians 4:4, ESV). This was neither a day too soon or a day too late, but on the day organised, selected and chosen completely and explicitly by HaShem. The angelic host burst forth out of heaven to startle the living daylights out of the drowsy shepherds on the hills around Bethlehem to announce the birth: "This very day, in the town of David, there was born for you a Deliverer who is the Messiah, the Lord" (Luke 2:11, CJB) - "Glory to G-d in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom He is pleased!" (v. 14, ESV).

Leon Kass takes a step back from our text, grounding the principle for our time: "The circumstances surrounding the birth oblige both Avraham and Sarah to see the permanent truth about parenthood: children are not man's or woman's products or creatures, and thus the pride that human beings naturally take in their own children as their own children is vanity and self-delusion."⁷ So it is with the days of the autumn festivals! Although calendrically predicted and liturgically scripted by men - and yet they still in some ways always to take us by surprise - these are not man's products or creations, they are the appointed times of HaShem. Read again the designation for this day, Yom Teruah: "In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe complete rest, a sacred occasion commemorated with loud blasts" (Vayikra 23:24, NJPS). Easy, right? But in the ancient world, no-one knew exactly when that first day would be. They knew they were drawing towards the end of the sixth month, but they didn't know the seventh month had started until the new moon had been seen by witnesses in Jerusalem and reported to the Sanhedrin who proclaimed the first day of the month for the people. Then everyone had to scramble to make the festival happen on that day. They could be - indeed, had to be - ready, but they couldn't jump until the announcement came.

Now, here's the critical part for us. In exactly the same way, the return of Yeshua will be brought about entirely by HaShem, at the time the Father knows and has determined - and it too will take the world completely by surprise as Yeshua told His disciples, "concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only" (Matthew 24:36, ESV). In response to their questions about the signs of His coming and the close of the age, He had already told them: "you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet" (v. 6, ESV). That certainly sounds like today, doesn't it; but there is more: "nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places" (v. 7, ESV). Just think of what has been going on in the last few years, months, even days, as the physical earth responds to the imminence of HaShem; doesn't that sound like "the whole of creation groaning together in the pains of childbirth" (Romans 8:22)? Read on from Matthew 24:8 and you will see that there are still many things to come - some of which are already happening to us or around us at this very time - but what are we to do?

We live in the days of proleptic, that is, anticipated, eschatology. This is the time of the already but not yet. We are living in the sixth month; some would say, pretty much the end of the sixth, expecting the blast of the shofar at any moment to tell us that Yom Teruah, the day of blowing, has arrived. As we live in the already but not yet, we must always be ready for the not yet to be right here and right now!

1. - Walter Brueggemann, Genesis, Interpretation, (Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press, 1982), page 180.

2. - Brueggemann, page 181.

3. - Gerhard von Rad, Genesis Old Testament Library, (London, SCM Press, 1972), pages 231-232.

4. - David J. A. Clines (ed.) The Concise Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2009), page 157.

5. - Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1-15, Word Biblical Commentary I, (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1987), page 80.

6. - Laurence A. Turner, Genesis - Readings: A New Biblical Commentary, 2nd Ed., (Sheffield, Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2009), page 132.

7. - Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 2003), pages 256.

Further Study: Matthew 24:42-44; Luke 12:42-43; 1 Peter 3:14-16

Application: This Yom Teruah might - no promises now - be the last one in the current age. How can you be ready both to celebrate the blessings that we already have and to anticipate Yeshua's return at any moment with "a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the shofar of G-d" (1 Thessalonians 4:16)? Blow your shofar out loud or get to hear one, and cry out for Yeshua to come.

Comment - 03:29 06Sep26 Diana brown: To me, Yom Teruah and the sounding of the shofars is a battle cry on earth corresponding to festival sounding at set times in Heaven. Micah 6:8 living and, standing on the Written Word, and being a witness for Yeshua, the Living Word is how I examine myself at this time.

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© Jonathan Allen, 2026

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