Prophet Pearls #34 – Bamidbar (Hosea 1:10-2:20[2:1-22])

You are listening to Prophet Pearls with Nehemia Gordon and Keith Johnson. Thank you for supporting Nehemia Gordon's Makor Hebrew Foundation. Learn more at NehemiasWall.com.

Keith: Here we are again. This is Keith Johnson along with Nehemia Gordon, face-to-face, doing whatever it takes from the Land of Israel, the place of the prophets, the spot where the prophets walked, talked, and spoke and shared the good news of the Word of God. We are excited to be able to do this session. We’re actually in the Book of Hosea, Nehemia. We have been in Israel for the last few days, and I’ll just tell you something, I’ve got a big announcement today as a result of being here. I have fought you about being here.

Nehemia: What’s your announcement? What do you got?

Keith: I have fought you about being here… and it’s not the Ministry Minute yet, so I’m going to take a second, but I want to say something. The reason I fought you is because I was like, “Well, look, you know, how’s this gonna work? Where are we going to stay?” And you actually found us a spot in the side of a mountain in the city of Jerusalem, where it’s down in the basement – two levels down in the basement.

And the only part that’s been difficult is you left me here by myself. Okay? And actually, that’s been a blessing because as a result, I’ve been thinking a lot about not only what we have been doing, what we are doing and what we’re going to do. And so if you hang on folks, during the Ministry Minute, I want to share something that I came to really just a few weeks before coming here, and it’s been confirmed. I’m kind of like Jeremiah, you kind of get a sense of something and then you see things happen and you say, “I now know it’s of God.” [laughing] There’s no “Aha”.

Nehemia: Aha! Alas…

Keith: No, Hosea, and Nehemia, we can’t start the section until we give a little background on Hosea. I think it’s one of the most compelling pictures for a prophet that exists in the Bible. But what’s the Torah portion?

Nehemia: Yes, the Torah portion here … we’re actually done with Leviticus. Can you believe it? This is the first portion in Numbers, Bamidbar. It’s Numbers chapter 1 verse 1 through chapter 4 verse 20.

Keith: Now, why did you say Bamidbar?

Nehemia: Because it’s the Hebrew name of the portion.

Keith: So what does that mean?

Nehemia: “In the desert.”

Keith: In the desert. But isn’t it funny? We call it Numbers in English. So what’s the connection? Why do you think it’s Numbers versus “in the desert”?

Nehemia: Well, because one of the themes throughout the Book of Bamidbar is that there’s counting – Israel is counted. So they called it Numbers. In Hebrew, they just choose one of the first words of the book. I think the first word of the book is, “And he said,” if I’m not mistaken. And so you can’t have a book called And He Said, because lots of things open “And he said”, it’s actually, “And he spoke,” “Vayedaber Yehovah el Moshe”, and “Yehovah spoke to Moshe”, “bemidbar Sinai”, “in the desert of Sinai.” So basically it’s the first word that is not unique, but is… “And Yehovah spoke to Moses,” that’s many, many verses, but “in the desert”, Bamidbar, is the opening word.

Keith: And it’s funny, how does it open in Hosea? Folks, before we get started, there might be a little confusion because in the Hebrew Bible we’re starting in Hosea chapter 2 verse 1, in the English Bible we starting in Hosea chapter 1, verse 10, both of them actually end up with a word…

Nehemia: It’s the same verse. It’s the same verse just counted differently.

Keith: But it says, “Yet the number of the sons of Israel will be like the sand of the sea.” So when I see that, I think about Numbers.

Nehemia: Well, definitely one of the themes of this portion of Numbers is that Israel is being counted, and that’s presumably this association of back then in the desert, you counted them; in the future, the number won’t be countable.

Keith: Isn’t that something? Wow. “So yet the number of the sons of Israel will be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And in the place where it is said to them,” and here’s what’s interesting, a little section here in the NASB, it says “‘You are not My people,’ will be said to them, ‘You are the sons of the living God.’”

Nehemia: We’ve got to finish out the background, and maybe we’ve talked about this, I don’t know, but Hosea is a prophet of the northern kingdom. We did talk about that. It’s during the days of Jeroboam II, and he does something really controversial and unusual, but God tells him to do it, so he does it. He marries a prostitute and her name is Gomer. Which, I think of Gomer Pyle and to be honest with you, even in Hebrew that’s an unusual name for a woman, but maybe not in the northern kingdom.

Her name is Gomer and they have a son named Lo Ami, which means “not my people”. They have a daughter named Lo Ruchama, which means “there is not mercy upon her”. And in that context, he says, “In place of it being said, Lo Ami about the people of Israel, it will be said about them, they are the sons of the living God.”

Keith: Instead of, again, in Hebrew, they’re saying Lo Ami, “not my people”. It will be said to them, “you are the sons of the living God”.

Nehemia: Bnei El-Chai. Now when I hear “sons of the living God”, the first thing that comes to mind for me is Deuteronomy 14, verse 1. And there it says “Ye are children of the LORD, your God,” that’s in the King James. In the Hebrew, it’s “Banim atem LaYehovah Eloheichem”, “you are sons of Yehovah your God.” So that actually comes from Deuteronomy, that concept, or it’s in Deuteronomy as well, and here He’s saying, “Look, you were sent out into exile. You were banished from being My people, but I’m going to take you back once again.”

Keith: Wow. You know it’s something, because when you’re reading this based on the fact that we know about the son and the daughter and what their names are, and again, if you just started at the beginning, at 1 verse 10 or 2 verse 1, you wouldn’t know that. You see that. But then the next verse, and I’m not going to try to skip to the verse, but I want to say the next verse actually addresses that.

Nehemia: Let’s talk about the next verse.

Keith: “And the sons of Judah and the sons of Israel will be gathered together,” and that’s this…

Nehemia: Kibbutz, they’ll be kibbutzed together.

Keith: “And they will appoint for themselves,” now, here’s what it says here, “They will appoint for themselves, one leader,” in English, and I think it’s one head.

Nehemia: One head.

Keith: Yup. So “one head, and they will go up from the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel.” Wow.

Nehemia: And Jezreel, of course, is the valley in northern Israel, the most important valley in northern Israel. It also is the name of a city, which was at one time the capital of the northern kingdom. So when we hear Jezreel here, we really should think northern kingdom, because that’s the capital. It’s like what you might say in English speaking about Russia, and you’ll say, “The news for Moscow is,” or, “Washington has decided,” and by Washington you mean the United States. So here Jezreel is the capital of the Kingdom of Israel.

Keith: Wow. By the way, isn’t it interesting – and this is just an Israel question again; so in terms of how things work, so the Knesset is right around the corner, we see the Knesset that is there, but how is Tel Aviv representative in the Land of Israel as a city? In other words, when you think of Israel… like, I think of Jerusalem being, you know, when we talk about the Old City, but then Tel Aviv sort of has this other feeling. Like in a lot of states you’ll have one city where the capital is, and then another city where the action is. In Israel, how does it work? In other words, what’s the capital?

Nehemia: The capital of Israel is Jerusalem.

Keith: But in Tel Aviv, so much is there, what happens…?

Nehemia: Tel Aviv is not just an important city culturally and economically. Arguably, Israel is moving in the direction of one day possibly being a city-state. We have both been in Hong Kong, where you have this one city that’s almost an entire country, and then you go to Singapore and it’s literally one city that’s an entire country. Israel has this megacity, which is Tel Aviv, where, if you take the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, certainly that’s the largest concentration of Israelis anywhere. I don’t know the exact statistic, but if it’s not currently, it will be soon – the majority of the population living in the Tel Aviv metropolitan area.

I think the analogy might be if we look at California, you have the capital, which is Sacramento, and then you have, Los Angeles, which is a megacity. Maybe the better analogy there is San Francisco, which is like the cultural center of California, I think. I’m not Californian. That’s my understanding. Then you have Los Angeles, which is the population capital, and it’s a megacity.

Keith: It’s interesting though, the culture difference between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Nehemia: It’s big. [laughing]

Keith: It’s huge. I can’t believe how big it is. Anyway, I actually enjoy Jerusalem a whole lot better than Tel Aviv. That’s just me.

Nehemia: Me too. I’m a Jerusalemite through and through. I actually have a card that says… I’m a card-carrying Jerusalemite.

Keith: Really?

Nehemia: Yes, it expired though. I have to renew it.

Keith: Okay. By the way, you have a bus card, Nehemia.

Nehemia: I do have a bus card.

Keith: This bus card, you just put money on it and you can get on the bus and just put it in and go.

Nehemia: It’s got my picture, and it’s a really cool thing – if you lose it then you can call them up and say, here’s my identification number, and they’ll actually cancel it and transfer whatever money is on it to a new card.

Keith: I need one of those cards, because I’m having problems. We get on the bus and you have six shekels, 5.90, and I’ve run out of change and you won’t give me any more change…

Nehemia: What do you mean? All the money you have is from me.

Keith: [laughing] Yesterday you put me on your card. I want to tell you that I appreciate it, but it’s really interesting, because when you’re in Israel, it’s such a small place. When I say small, comparatively, what is it? Like New Jersey, would you say?

Nehemia: They say it’s the size of New Jersey, yes.

Keith: But in this situation, you talk about the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom, and I’m getting back to this…

Nehemia: I want to back up and talk about the buses. So I understand like your ministry is on television and you’ve got like jets that are fueling. You telling me we’re riding the bus?

Keith: [laughing] We’re riding the bus.

Nehemia: Yes, people, we’re riding the bus.

Keith: We’re riding the bus and actually it’s humble, but it’s also a way about being with the people here, because people travel here… not everybody has a car in Israel. It’s like the apartment situation. You know, in Israel it’s apartments. That’s basically… I’m going up to Netanyahu’s house. Okay, I’m going to go to Netanyahu’s house. It’s like going to the White House, I’m thinking. And you say, “And that’s where he lives.” And I’m like, “No, no, no. That can’t be where he lives.”

Nehemia: It’s in an apartment building.

Keith: No, because that looks exactly like the place next to it, and the place next to it. He has an apartment. [laughing]

Nehemia: Well, he does live in a posh neighborhood, but he’s got a duplex apartment.

Keith: Posh compared to the other places. I’d be honest with you.

Nehemia: Yes, it’s little, he’s not living in a villa somewhere.

Keith: But anyway, 2 verse 1 says, “Now say to your brothers,” if we can read this, “say to your brothers, Ami, and to your sisters Rahama…”

Nehemia: Wait, wait. wait. How did you go past verse 2?

Keith: No, I thought I said verse 2. No. So you’re confused. I read 1:11. Oh, I see what happened.

Nehemia: You’re confused.

Keith: Yeah, I’m confused.

Nehemia: So 2:2 in the Hebrew is counted as chapter 1, verse 11 in the English, so let’s talk about 1:11, 2:2 in the Hebrew.

Keith: Okay, go ahead.

Nehemia: All right, so first of all, we’ve got Judah and Israel being kibbutzed together, “And they shall place for themselves one head and they shall go out of the land.” We actually, I think, read something like this in Ezekiel if I’m not mistaken. Ezekiel 34, I think, this concept of having one head… First of all, they will come up out of the land – that’s this image of the second exodus. Because Israel came up out of the land of Egypt, so now they’re going to come up out of the land of the diaspora, of exile, or something like that. That’s pretty cool.

So, Jeremiah – I want to read you Jeremiah 16… Oh, we just did that, didn’t we? Jeremiah 16. Oh, but we didn’t do these verses because they weren’t in the section. Am I right? I believe so. So Jeremiah 16, I keep coming back to Jeremiah 16.

Keith: He loves Jeremiah 16. This is the third time… [laughing]

Nehemia: Jeremiah 16:14 to 15. “‘Therefore, behold, the days come,’ sayeth the LORD.” I’m reading from the King James – I can’t stand that. I’m gonna bring you the JPS. “‘Surely a time is coming,’ declares Yehovah, ‘when it shall no longer be said, as Yehovah lives, you brought the Israelites out of the land of Egypt, but rather, as Yehovah lives you brought the Israelites out of the northland and out of all the lands to which He had banished them, for I will bring them back to the land which I gave to their fathers.’”

So that’s probably the clearest passage speaking about a second exodus. So much so where it’s saying you won’t even refer to God anymore as the God who brought you out of Egypt, you’re gonna refer to God as the God who brought you out of exile. That’s what it’s referring to here – going up from the land, this second exodus image, that rosh echad, that one head, that one leader. Who is that? What is that one head?

Keith: It’s gotta be the one that’s gonna lead them. It’s gotta be the Messiah.

Nehemia: It’s the Messiah.

Keith: Absolutely.

Nehemia: I think here’s where we are on complete common ground. It will be the Messiah. Ezekiel 34:23, can I read that? Or do you have something you want to say?

Keith: I do want to say something but go ahead.

Nehemia: Go ahead while I bring it up.

Keith: Here’s what’s interesting. When I actually see this now, maybe I’m being too, I say esoteric here, but when I hear about the fact that it’ll come to a place where it’s no longer talking about the God who brought them out of Egypt, but rather the God who brought them from the north, and all those kinds of places in our lifetime, and I know we talk a lot about this, but I want to go beyond saying our lifetime.

Now when we talk about what God has done, isn’t it interesting, even in our conversation, we will say, and we’ve said it – go through our Prophet Pearls. You’ll get all excited, Nehemia, and you’ll say, “Right here in my own eyes, I’m watching prophecy fulfilled. And I’ve seen… And I’ve gotta tell you…”

Nehemia: Is that what I sound like? [laughing]

Keith: Look, you should see him with his little hat on. I’m telling you… When you’re doing this, you’re talking about it. And I’ve got to say something – as excited as you are, imagine the people before. This is the God who brought us out of Egypt. This is the God who brought us out of Egypt, and we’re now seeing the shift! It’s actually happening. We’re talking about the God – and this sounds, maybe I’m being a little radical here – taking a people out of Egypt, out of slavery. That is huge. It’s amazing. Whoa. All these people come out. Getting people from all parts of the world, back to a country that wasn’t a country – like we’re seeing this in our lifetime.

Nehemia: It’s amazing. It really is incredible. And particularly, I’ve said this before, but the Jews coming out of the Soviet Union… When I was a kid, every synagogue used to have a big sign in front, and it was a Jewish star, the Star of David, wrapped in chains, and that represented the Jews who were prisoners in the Soviet Union – over a million Jews. Now, there are over a million Jews who came from the former Soviet Union that now live in Israel, and now it’s the second generation already growing up from those people. And that’s the north land, isn’t it? Isn’t that incredible?

Keith: I guess the thing that, the part of it that, again, I get to go outside, we’ll go outside today after we take a break. You’ll give me, what 10 minutes, do I get a 10-minute break? No, 10-15 minute break. But literally when we get on that bus, we get on that bus and we look around, and every time I look around and I see all these different people, and I see, this what they’re saying, “This is the God who brought us from all of these places back to the land.” I mean, it’s like no longer will it be…

Nehemia: Amen. We’re living prophecy here.

Keith: Yeah, but I mean, we’re seeing the shift. I mean, even Netanyahu, a couple months ago, based on the timing here, a couple months ago, what did he say? He said, “Look, in a hundred generations we weren’t able to protect ourselves. Now we are people and we have our own land and we’re protecting ourselves.” He’s saying that as prime minister, he’s fulfilled… It’s being fulfilled, what’s happening here. That’s what he’s talking about. He’s not saying, “Hey, we’re the people that were brought out of the land of Egypt. No. We’re the people that were brought from all of these lands, and now we’re back and we’re here.”

Nehemia: I’m vexed in a way, because of that, because the world looks upon us and they said, “Oh, you’re colonists from Europe. You’re a foreign colony.”

Keith: Have they not been to Israel and seen all the different people and all the different nations and all the…?

Nehemia: No, they haven’t. But even the Jews who came from Europe, who returned from Europe, we’re not colonists – we’ve been gathered. We’ve been kibbutzed back into this land just like He promised. Imagine – imagine if we went back 3,500 years ago and we were watching on CNN or the BBC back then, and they would talk about “the imperialist power of Joshua and his people who have colonized Canaan. And those foreigners, they should go back to Egypt!”

Excuse me! God gave us this land. It’s His, He created it. And look, we were in exile and we’re back now. It’s not like we’re some foreign people. This is our country; this is our land.

I want to read you Ezekiel 34:23, 25. “Then I will appoint a single shepherd over them to tend them.” Again, we have here ‘roeh echad’ and there it’s ‘rosh echad’ which is really interesting. Roeh is shepherd and rosh is head, I love that word “one”, there’s going to be one messiah. “I will appoint a single shepherd” and that’s really significant here, especially in Hosea because he lives at a time when there are two kings, there are two heads, one over Israel and one over Judah. He’s saying, “No, there’s going to be one head, there’s going to be one shepherd. There aren’t going to be two kings, it says, “I’ll put a single shepherd over them, to tend them,” and that one is really one. “My servant David, he shall tend them. He shall be a shepherd to them. I Yehovah will be their God and my servant David shall be a ruler among them. I Yehovah have spoken and I will grant them a covenant of friendship. I will banish vicious beasts,” et cetera, et cetera.

Okay. So there we have this idea of Yehovah is going to be our God, we will be his people and we will have the Messiah. I mean, look at that. That’s a lot…

Keith: That’s interesting, because you’re saying this, and I know a lot of people know that that is the case, there is common ground between people from different backgrounds in terms of their hope, their hope in terms of Messiah ruling, being appointed by God. Again, there’s a battle. I was talking to a very dear friend of mine, just real-time here. And he was talking about that. He said there are so many people that get on him about who he talks to and his connections and all that. And he says there are a lot of things where there is no connection, but then there are a lot of things where there is a connection. And what’s one of the major connections is that everybody, everyone is saying, “Boy, what will that be like – the day when He sets up His messiah, there’s not going to be any argument then.”

Nehemia: Amen. One more passage, and this is homework. We’re not going to read it because we want to move on. But Ezekiel 37 verses 24 through 28, and what are all the common elements of these different passages? We’ve got one leader, it’s the Davidic Messiah, the Messiah from the line of David. There’s this concept that we will be His people and He will be our God. We’ve got this covenant and dwelling in safety, I count those as five elements that are in all of these different prophecies. And that’s pretty cool. It’s not just, “Oh, there’s that one messiah thing.” No, there are a whole bunch of things in common there.

Keith: Amen. And I am confused now, because I’ve got my computer open, I’ve got an English on the left side, 2:1 and I’ve got Hebrew on the right side, and I have to be honest with you, I’m still trying to figure out when it is that they’re going to match, because eventually, they match. And I don’t know what verse it is when they match. [laughing]

Nehemia: I don’t know either. So chapter 2 verse 3 in the Hebrew is chapter 2 verse 1 in the English. Yup. If you’re in the English, look at 2:1, if you’re in the Hebrew, look at 2:3. What do we have?

Keith: “Say to your brothers,” we already said this. “Ami and to your sisters Rachama”, and again, that’s referring…

Nehemia: Ruchama. Which means what? My people, and how did they translate Ruchama? Ruchama is that which is there is mercy upon. It’s a passive word. Go on.

Keith: “Contend with your mother. Contend, for she is not my wife and I am not her husband. And let her put away her harlotry from her face and her adultery from between her breasts.” That’s what it says here in the English. And you know, when you’re reading this and you’re going backwards like we said historically, I’m sorry, from a context standpoint, what it was Hosea did.

Now I talked about Ezekiel being like this prophet of tragedy. And Jeremiah, I love Jeremiah. He just seems to be like… I don’t know how to say it. He seems the most regular guy. I don’t know why I say that. But Hosea is just… I cannot wrap my mind around what it was that he had to do, even though as we see… In other words, it’s not just imagery. It doesn’t say, “Now take this, take the stick, and this stick means this.” No, take this wife who was a prostitute, and that’s his wife, and I can’t…

Nehemia: Look, can we use this term? In many of the prophets of what we might call witnessing tools, and like, Jeremiah takes the yoke. He puts it on, the guy breaks it, he takes another yoke. All right. So that’s like something you’re doing during your day job, and then you go home and you’re done. This guy, his life is prophecy. His witnessing tool is his entire life! Who he marries, his children…

Keith: Anyway, so, it’s going to be a pick and choose here as we go through, because he’s talking about… in 2:3 he says, “Or I will strip her naked and expose her on the day when she was born. I will also make her like a wilderness, make her like desert land and slay her with thirst.” So who is he talking about? In other words, is this supposed to remind us as we’re reading this of Hosea and his situation? Is there a transition here?

Nehemia: So in this passage, I think Hoshea’s prostitute wife and his children are symbols of what’s going to happen between God and Israel. So here we’re really talking about Israel and the mother is the nation of Israel, the people of Israel, and saying, “Look, you’ve got to repent or you’re going to have problems.” [laughing]

Keith: Wow. Well it says “I will also have no compassion on her children, because they are children of harlotry, for their mother has played the harlot. She who conceived them…” And again, let’s be clear here. We’ve talked about, what does it look like for her to play the harlot? And what does it look like in terms of the false gods and the nations and all that sort of thing? So it doesn’t take a whole lot of creativity to figure out what’s going on here, for she said, “I will go after my lovers who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.” And these are the things that actually are representative of how you survive. I mean, bread and water – you’ve got to have bread and water “and my flax and my wool keep me warm, and the oil and my drink,” and basically that’s what she’s doing. And she’s saying, “It’s not God, it’s not Yehovah who is providing. I’m going after these false lovers, these idols.”

Nehemia: Well I think there are two types of false lovers. One is the foreign nations, particularly in this period, it would be Egypt and Assyria, or other nations around them. Then the other one is going to be like you said, idols. In other words, was it God who gave you what you have? Or was it some foreign nation? Or was it some foreign God?

And we’re prerecording this and just the other day we heard Netanyahu speak before the American Congress. I heard this interview with this… can I talk about this? I heard an interview with one of Obama’s advisors, and the guy is one of the most arrogant people I’ve ever seen. I don’t even remember the guy’s name. He was actually a Jew, and I think they probably chose him as the token Jew to speak against Netanyahu. He was saying how Netanyahu is the client state and he needs to seek our favor. Basically, that’s what he said.

And it was the context of, they said, “Well, Netanyahu disrespected Obama.” And the interviewer said, “Well, what about Obama disrespecting Netanyahu?” And the response of this token Jew was to say, “Well, the client state needs to make sure that the…” and he used the term “client state”, I believe. Or something like that – it “needs to make sure the relationship with the superpower is intact, and not the other way around,” and I’m thinking, “This guy is Babylon. This guy is the king of Egypt, and Israel needs to take a step back and say, ‘I trust in Yehovah and not in the United States of America.’”

And look, I could explain to you from a very practical point of view how that could be very advantageous, but certainly, from a perspective of faith, we need to trust in Yehovah, the Creator of the universe, and not in some foreign power.

Keith: Okay, okay, okay. And we got out of that one. “Therefore, behold, I will hedge up her way with thorns and I will build a wall against her though she cannot find her path.” And what are these paths? It says, “So she will pursue her lovers, but she will not overtake them.” That’s what it says here in the English. She won’t reach them, she won’t get to them, “and she will seek them.” And when I see phrases like this, I always think about seeking. They seek them and not find them, she will seek them but not find them. Then comes the verse, “Then she will say, ‘I will go back to my first husband for it was better for me then than now.’” Wow. [laughing] Who’s her first husband?

Nehemia: Yehovah.

Keith: Amen. Amen. It’s interesting, because when you look at the imagery – husband, wife, the lovers, the false gods, all these things – it isn’t hard to be able to understand why these images are the way that they are and what we’re talking about. So He’s speaking about the first husband being gone, “For she does not know,” and this is back to this issue earlier about saying, where is she going to get her oil or bread and water and oil and her flax? “She does not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the new wine, and the oil, and lavished on her silver and gold,” and then it says, “which they used for Baal,” who’s not a real God. It’s not a real God.

I’ve just got to ask you a question – sometimes I wonder when I’m reading Scripture, when does God’s patience just say, “You know what? This is enough, enough is enough.” [laughing] When does He just say, “Enough is enough?” When is that going to happen? Or does He ever say enough is enough? And just when I think He does say enough is enough, He has these words and phrases: “But I will not forget her. I will bring her back, I will do this.” And it’s like, what an amazing… oh man. Who is this God that has that kind of patience? That has that kind of mercy and that kind of love and that kind of care that would just say, yeah, you did all of this.

Nehemia: He sure is merciful, I’ll tell you that.

Keith: Man, oh man, oh man, oh man, oh man. Verse 9, can we say verse 9?

Nehemia: Which is verse 11 in the Hebrew. [laughing]

Keith: Okay, and you know what? You’ve got to read verse 9 in the English, 11 in the Hebrew, you probably have some other translation. What do you see there?

Nehemia: Okay, we’re in Jeremiah chapter 2, sorry, Hosea chapter 2 verse 9, 7 in the English. I’ll read you from the JPS, which in the JPS actually is the same as the Hebrew, “Pursue her lovers as she will, she shall not overtake them, and seek them as she may, she shall never find them. Then she will say, ‘I will go return to my first husband for then I fared better than now,’” next verse, verse 10 and in the Hebrew 10, “and she did not consider this…” I know we just read this.

Keith: It’s really interesting. We’re connected 2:10 and 2:10 are the same, are they not?

Nehemia: No, this is where the confusion is. So 2:9 in the English is 11 in the Hebrew, which is why I was two verses off.

Keith: Okay, got you.

Nehemia: Okay. Now 2:11, which is 2:9 in the English, “Assuredly I will take back My new grain this time and My new wine in its season and I will snatch away My wool and My linen that served to cover her nakedness. Now I will uncover her shame in the very sight of her lovers, and none shall save her from Me.” We’ve got to stop with that. Can we talk about that?

Keith: Please, yes.

Nehemia: All right. So first of all, we’ve got two words for salvation that we’ve talked about. There’s lehoshiya, from the verb Yud-Shin-Ayin, yeshua. And the other is lehatzil, from the root Nun-Tzadik-Lamed, which means to rescue. They’re both sometimes translated as to save, both sometime translated as to rescue.

This is a really interesting statement. So what man would try to save Israel from Yehovah’s hand? I mean, what human savior would purport to even try? So what’s your take on that? I mean, it says, “No man will save her from My hand,” so what does that even mean? Who would even try?

Can I tell you what comes to mind for me? So in Jewish history, you had these figures, people who claim to be the Messiah, and they were false messiahs, and I don’t know if you know that somebody actually wrote a really interesting book called 50 Jewish Messiahs.

Keith: I do know about that.

Nehemia: In the book, he says there are a lot more than 50, but it sounded like a good title for a book. One that comes to mind is, in the year 1172, there was this man in Yemen, and we actually don’t even know his name, but we know a lot about the story. He proclaimed that he was the Messiah and he was going to lead Israel out of Yemen, back to the Land of Israel. At one point in this whole story he appears before the Sultan of Yemen – it’s a Muslim Arab country and he appears before the king, who is called the Sultan, and the Sultan doesn’t know… He’s like, “What are you talking about? You’re some little Jewish tribe in my country. You want to leave and you want to defeat me? What?” And he said, I can prove that I’m the Messiah. How could he prove he’s the Messiah? He said, “Cut off my head and you’ll see I’ll still be alive. I’ll come back to life.” And so the Sultan cut his head off, and needless to say, he didn’t come back to life.

Keith: And his disciples, what…?

Nehemia: So his disciples then said, “Okay, this is not the Messiah.” [laughing] Although there are actually some who still apparently followed him and thought one day he would reappear.

But anyway, I hear this, and maybe I’m reading into it, but I think, “No man can save Israel from My hand,” and I think there’ve been people who thought they could, out of their own power, come and save Israel, and they couldn’t do it. Only the true Messiah will be able to do that.

Keith: Amen. May it be soon.

Nehemia: Verse 13, which is 11 in the English.

Keith: Now here’s where I want to stop a little bit, because it says here in English it says… and this is where I have to tell you, Nehemia, on a casual reading, there are people that would go to this verse and would connect this verse and say what He will put an end to and say that relates to present day.

“I will also put an end to all…” and the word that they use here in English, is “all of her gaiety”, but in Hebrew it’s…

Nehemia: ‘Masos’, which is a celebration. Happiness.

Keith: Yes, celebrations and her feast, which are her chags by the way, as we’re here today, it’s interesting. I’ve heard this probably 15 times in the last, well 20 times maybe, in the last 20 hours, where someone will say, chag sameach…

Nehemia: “Happy feast”.

Keith: Happy feast, and they’re talking about Purim. Now for those that don’t know, yesterday, which would have been the 14th, was for the unwalled cities where people began to celebrate Purim, and tonight, which is the 15th, the evening of the 15th, I guess you’d say, is Purim for the walled cities. So in Jerusalem tonight, after we’re done, we’re going to be actually going out, Nehemia and I, and we’re going to celebrate. We’re going to be with the people.

But what’s really, really interesting is that someone could read this verse and just take it out of context, read this verse and say, “I will put an end to all of her masos…”

Nehemia: All of her celebrations…

Keith: “…all of her chags, all of her chodesh…”

Nehemia: New moons?

Keith: “…and her sabbaths and all of her appointed times.” Now tell me, could this happen? Someone could go to this verse and say, “When we say it’s a great opportunity to celebrate God’s sabbaths or His moadim,” and they could take this verse and put it out and say, “God says He’s going to put an end to all of that,” and say that that’s exactly what He’s talking about here.

So the question that has to be asked is, what’s the difference? These are the same words – what’s the difference about what she was doing, that He’s going to put an end to, and what He called for people to actually follow? In other words, what do we know that would let us know how her new moons and her sabbaths and her chags and her moadim is the kind of thing that He puts an end to?

Nehemia: Yeah. Well, she was clearly sinning, and she’s worshiping idols and she is going after other nations, and so in that context, He’s saying, “Look, you want just the happy parts, the good parts, you know, the fun parts; I’m going to put an end to that.”

Keith: So do you think these are the same things? In other words, her heart’s wrong, her actions are wrong.

Nehemia: I think this is no different than we read about, you bring in the sacrifices, but then you’re sinning, so I don’t want your sacrifices if you’re going to sin. And I think that’s the context here. I don’t want these Shabbats new moons, moadim, chagim, if you’re going to be sinning. Don’t do this and sin at the same time.

Keith: We can’t put this on something else. These are actually the same things.

Nehemia: Oh, I think so. No question about it.

Keith: That’s a big deal. That’s a big deal.

Nehemia: I mean, what else could they be?

Keith: I’m just saying, you know, someone could say, “Well, maybe there’s some other, maybe she’s taking, so it’s…”

Nehemia: Is this the false feasts?

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. And I think there’s definitely a play on words here in the verse at the beginning of 13. The first word in Hebrew is Ve’hishbati. “I will put an end to,” in your English is actually, “I will Sabbath. I’m going to rest these things. Look, we’re not doing these now. We’re going to take a break. I’m going to put you in the corner. Take a break, and you’re not going to be allowed to celebrate Shabbat until you start behaving.”

Keith: I insist that this be the Word of the Week. Come on.

Nehemia: Okay. The word ve’hishbati, and the root of the word is Shabbat, which is Shin-Bet-Tav. We’ve got something here, a little complicated. We’re not gonna get into it, but basically, it’s “I will cause to rest.”

Keith: What do you mean we’re not going to get into it? We have to get into it. Tell them what it is. This is really cool. A cause – it’s the hipheel verb.

Nehemia: It’s the hipheel verb. I will cause to cease.

Keith: Amen.

Nehemia: Right. But then we have something else which is kind of cool – I don’t know if you noticed this. So, the suffix for I in Hebrew, and particularly for this form of the verb, is T. But then there’s T, there’s the Tav, which is part of the root. So it should have been ‘vehishbateti’, and instead, it’s ‘vehishbati’, and that’s called assimilation. That’s a very common thing that happens in language, where the two T’s coalesce as one and ‘vehishbateti’ becomes ‘hishbati’, even though ‘vehishbateti’ is perfectly good Hebrew. You can say that too. It’s pretty cool. That was a complicated thing. But the root is Shin-Bet-Tav, which is to cause to rest, to cease. It’s the same root as Shabbat.

And if we’re already talking about this, since you brought this up, can we talk about, just real quick, I want to bring a verse here in Exodus Chapter 12 verse 15, and it says “Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, on the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses.” And the word for remove is ‘tashbitu’ you will Sabbath the leaven from your houses. And that doesn’t mean it’s gonna end permanently, it just means during those seven days we’ve got to put a rest to the leaven. Put it outside, get rid of it, give it a rest, and that really is maybe how we can translate this, if we want, in a sort of loose way. Look, I’m going to give your Shabbats your chagim and your new moons and your moadim, I’m going to give them a rest.

Keith: We have some other issues we need to go over.

Nehemia: We have to deal with those other issues. We’re gonna put these on the side, we’re gonna give it a rest and we’re going to focus on these issues.

Keith: Okay. Yeah. So now I think we’re getting close to being on the same verse. Not really.

Nehemia: I don’t know. [laughing]

Keith: Where are we at in English, 2:12.

Nehemia: So in Hebrew, we’re in 2:14. English 2:12. Go ahead.

Keith: “I will destroy her vines and fig trees, of which she said, ‘These are my wages which my lover hath given me,’ and I will make them a forest and the beasts of the field will devour them. I will punish her for the days of the Baals, when she used to offer sacrifices to them and adorn herself with earrings and jewelry and follow her lovers so that she forgot me, declares Yehovah.” And some people would use this verse to say, and this is another example where they’d use this verse and some denominations would come along and say a woman must never wear earrings and jewelry and say this verse would be the reason for it.

Nehemia: Oh really?

Keith: Yeah. Take it completely out of context, saying here’s an example in Hosea 2:13, and again, the person wouldn’t look at the big picture, but they would say, “Here’s what she would do. She adorned herself with earrings and jewelry doing that, therefore you must never wear earrings.”

Nehemia: So now let’s talk about the context, the cultural context, the historical context. When it says “adorn herself with earrings and jewelry,” what was the sin? That those were pieces of jewelry that were dedicated to Baal. In other words, you’d wear a little earring and the earring would have, I don’t know, it might’ve even had a statue of Baal on it, a little image of Baal, in any event, it was something that was dedicated to Baal, and everyone would see her and say, “Oh, she went to the temple last week and dedicated her ear to Baal or dedicated that thing to Baal.” And that’s the context here.

Keith: So there’s nothing innately wrong with an earring or jewelry, and we actually see another example of when they would say, “Okay, I’m going to put an all in… who say I’m, you know, I belong to,” and that’s a representation in a picture.

Nehemia: Well, can I go out on a limb and suggest, and this isn’t as clear in the text…?

Keith: How big of a limb is it going to be?

Nehemia: It’s not that big of a limb. So it’s also possible that the earring and different jewelry here is not literal, but symbolic, in the sense that when you would marry somebody, the betrothal gift was to give them an earring or give them a nose ring. We see that, for example, in Genesis, where he gives her jewelry. And so maybe this is jewelry that symbolically, or perhaps even literally, represents a marriage with Baal, because baal also means husband, and that will tie into what we’re about to see. You’re proclaiming yourself to be married to Baal and you’ve forgotten me. I’m your real husband.

Keith: So if I give my wife a little earring for her nose – so that there’s nothing, nothing necessarily…

Nehemia: Not biblically, nothing wrong with that whatsoever.

Keith: Do you know where I can get such a thing?

Nehemia: I’m sure you can get right here in Jerusalem all over.

Keith: I don’t think she would do it. She’s tough on me when it comes to that sort of thing. But if I get her like a diamond ring, she’d probably wear it. [laughing]

Nehemia: Let’s move on. What verse are we in?

Keith: If only I could afford it. You got me on the bus. Verse 14, “Therefore, behold I will allure her, bring her into the wilderness and speak kindly to her.” This is really interesting. “Then I will give her her vineyards from there and the Valley of Achor as a door of hope.” You know, I have to stop for second, Nehemia. Sometimes this is where it really does get difficult when you’re going through the Prophets, because every phrase, every couple of words or every little section of a sentence has meaning.

So look, we can get through this really quick and say, and “I will give her vineyards from there and the Valley of Achor,” what is that? “As a door of hope.” What is that? You know, I mean just that line right there, we can stop and unpack that, and really it becomes an issue of how much time do we have? What can we do? How far do we want to go, how deep do we want to go? But what I really do want to challenge people to do, and I really mean this, is if we don’t address an issue, that doesn’t mean it’s not important. That just means we don’t have the time, but it really is something…

Nehemia: Here’s something where people could really easily go and look up what is Achor. Where is the valley of Achor? You’ll find it in Joshua and Chronicles. Go look that up.

Keith: “As a door of hope. And she will sing there as in the days of her youth, as in the day when she came up,” here it comes again, “from the land of Egypt.”

Nehemia: Just one more thing about the door of hope, which you won’t see in the English, is that in Hebrew, that phrase is petach tikva, and that’s the name of a town today in Israel called Petach Tikva, it was named after this verse – a door of hope.

Keith: Now I will say this – now you’re going to stick your chest out here and say, “Oh, I’ve got a teaching on this and I remember when I did this teaching, and we already talked about this,” but you know what? This next verse is a game changer. Don’t you think? Isn’t this verse a game changer?

Nehemia: You make fun of my teaching…

Keith: No, I’m not making fun of your teaching. [laughing] I know what you’re going to do. “I’ve got a teaching on this…”

Nehemia: All right. No. So I actually talk about these next couple of verses in my book Shattering the Conspiracy of Silence. Also there’s a teaching on it. Why are you making fun of me? It’s a great teaching. It’s one of the best teachings I’ve ever done.

Keith: It really is. But it’s a game changer, this verse.

Nehemia: It’s a key verse, and to fully contextualize it, go online to YouTube, and there’s a teaching there, I did it at, I think, El Shaddai in Tacoma, and it’s up there on my YouTube channel. So go look for Nehemia Gordon on YouTube and you could find the teaching. I think it’s called something like Spiritual Mixing of Seed, is the name of the topic. And this is one of the key verses, I think it’s a key verse in the entire Tanakh. So tell me why it’s a game changer? What’s your teaching?

Keith: I don’t have a teaching. No, no, no, this has been a verse for me that’s been really, really important. And the reason this verse has been so important to me is because the English does something really, really interesting. In Hebrew… normally we’d have this conversation back and forth and I’m like the Methodist, “So what does it say in the Hebrew?” And then you’d look and say… But even if you’re an English reader, this is what’s so cool to me about this verse. If you’re just an English reader, you don’t have any Hebrew background whatsoever, the English Bible does something really interesting. Now I don’t know if there are some verses or some translations that don’t do it. I would like to know if there are translations that don’t do it. But is it not interesting to you that the English, when it gets to the word that “you will call me ishii and will no longer call me baali,” that the English decides to actually bring the Hebrew. The English doesn’t bring the English, the English brings the Hebrew. So tell me, is it different? Is the Hebrew word ishii different? In other words, you read… I’m looking in an English Bible here, “that you will call me ishii.” What does it say in Hebrew?

Nehemia: Ishii.

Keith: There’s got to be a difference.

Nehemia: Nope.

Keith: Now this is really a big deal.

Nehemia: Can I read it in Hebrew?

Keith: No, I’d love for you to read it in Hebrew!

Nehemia: I’ll read it slowly and listen for the words ishii and baali. “Vehaya vayom hahu ne’um Yehovah tikre’i ishii velo tikre’i li od baali.”

Keith: Yes. Now I want you, Nehemia, to take a moment and talk about your teaching, and I’d like to say something.

Nehemia: Well, so let me translate it literally. “‘And it shall come to pass on that day,’ says Yehovah, ‘you will call my husband and you will not call me anymore my husband.”

Keith: You mis-translated it…

Nehemia: This is why it couldn’t translate it into English, because it makes no sense in English. And so instead…

Keith: It makes no sense. Say it again. I want you to say it in English again.

Nehemia: You will call me my husband and you will no longer call me my husband.

Keith: Crisis. Right. English translators have a crisis..

Nehemia: Right. Really what it has is two different words for husband. Exactly. Now that ‘ii’ ending in ishii and baali means my. So you will no longer call me my ish… sorry, you will no longer call me by baal, you will call me my ish. And what’s the difference? Both of those words mean husband, but what Israel was doing is they were calling Yehovah by the name Baal. They were saying, “Yes, we worship the Lord.”

Keith: You’re making that up, Nehemia, there is no such verse with it.

Nehemia: I’ve got lots of them. It’s in the teaching. [laughing] It’s okay, but we’re not going to go to all those right now. In fact, I’m specifically not going to bring those verses because I want people to go and listen to the teaching. It’s free on YouTube, you can listen to it. One of the best teachings I’ve ever done, Spiritual Mixing of Seed.

Anyway, “So it will come to pass in that day…” And we’ll post the link if we remember on the page along with this Prophet Pearls. So “You’ll no longer call me my husband, you will call me my husband.” What’s that about? So Israel was in this covenant relationship with the Creator of the universe, and Israel said about God, “He’s our husband and we’re married to him.” And the Hebrew word for husband is ish, but it’s also baal, which also means master, just like we say in English “mister.” And the point was they were saying, well if God’s our husband, well baal means husband and Baal is the god of the Canaanites. So Yehovah is Baal. And there are verses that talk about this. In fact, we’re going to go and have dinner today in a place called Emek Refaim, the Valley of Refaim, and one of the places we’re going to walk by and maybe we’ll even go to if we have time, it’s called Baal Pratzim, and go look at the teaching and you’ll see about that.

Anyway, and then He says, “And I will remove the names of the baals from her mouth and they will no longer mention them by name.” That means they were referring to Yehovah as Baal and mentioning the name of Baal. And so this is actually really different than what we saw with Elijah on Mount Carmel. Elijah on Mount Carmel is there were two different gods, Yehovah and Baal, and he says if you’re going to worship Yehovah, worship Yehovah. If you’re going to worship Baal choose him, but you can’t have both.

Here what they’ve done is something a lot more subtle, more nuanced, maybe more insidious – is that they’ve identified Yehovah as Baal, and that’s why I call it Spiritual Mixing of Seed. They’ve taken the counterfeit and superimposed it over the real to the point where they probably couldn’t even tell the difference. He’s saying, “In the end time I’m going to remove the name of the baals from their mouth.” We’ll no longer mention them by name. That is reminiscent of Exodus 23, verse 13, where it says, “All that I am telling you, you shall guard and the names of other gods you shall not mention nor shall it be heard upon your mouth.” And that’s what they were doing – they were calling on Yehovah and they were saying, “Look, we worship, we worship the Lord, we have got our husband relationship between Israel,” that’s Baal. What they were doing is called syncretism – they were mixing the two religions and creating this unholy hybrid, and in some ways that’s much more dangerous and more confusing than going and worshiping a completely different God.

Keith: You know it’s something, because you took this verse and you used it as it pertains to the spiritual mixing of seed. I actually use this verse a little bit different. In the book I wrote, His Hallowed Name Revealed Again, I had a goal, and the goal was to give people a chance to actually interact with the information, to see it for themselves. Many, many people said what they appreciated about it is sometimes it was a really complicated topic that was made a little bit more easy for people to understand because they would apply it. This verse is one that I think is the gold standard for when the English translators run up against some issues where they can’t deny the fact that it’s dealing with a different language.

The Hebrew Bible is the basis for the English, and sometimes, and this is unfortunate, many people that I’ve known over time didn’t even know that English wasn’t the original – they thought that the King James version was the original version of Scripture… in other words, if you ask them, and I’m not trying to make fun of them, because I really in my heart feel sad for them, they weren’t exposed to anything else. So when they heard the words, “I am the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt,” they believe that that’s exactly what God spoke in that language, until they learned it was a different language and then they had to take a further step to find out, so how do I have access to that language?

So I want to use this verse as a Ministry Minute, if I can. Because I’ve really been struggling with this, Nehemia, and I’ve talked to you about this a few times. I’m going to take my time through this. I’ve talked to you about this a few times, where I’ve really had a challenge with trying to help people have access to the actual information. What you did that I think is really powerful, and I’m not just saying this to say it, and how much I appreciate it, but you basically said, “Okay, if you’re willing to go through the work, you can have access to the information.”

What has shocked me, let me say it more clearly. What has really, really surprised me in the last seven to eight years, is how many people are teaching what they want to say, the Hebrew roots of their faith, but they weren’t interacting with the actual Hebrew language, and I want to say this shocked me. I would go to some of the teachers and I would say, “Okay, so what do you do about the fact that it’s in this particular grammatical structure?” And they’d say, “I don’t know because I don’t read it in that way.” And I’m like, “Okay, well that’s okay.” In other words, they don’t read it. And they’re not reading the Hebrew. They’re not actually looking at the actual original.

Nehemia: Are you telling me there are people who are teaching Hebrew and the secrets of Hebrew and they don’t even read Hebrew?

Keith: Not even Hebrew. I’m talking about teaching going further, and I want to be really sensitive, because this is really important what I’m about to say. So for all of these years, Nehemia, I’ve said I have been shocked when people were saying, “Well, the meaning of this word is,” as it pertains to God’s name or God’s feast or whatever, and they would begin to go on and on and on. And then when I would talk to them, I’d say, “So tell me, what do you do with the text on this?” And they say, “Well, I don’t know because I don’t read the Hebrew.”

Now one of the challenges has been they would say, “Well yeah, well Nehemia might read the Hebrew, but he’s not a believer. He can’t help us.” And there’s been arguments back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. So what have I been struggling with? I really want to take my time on this. I’ve been struggling with finding ways to give people access to the information in bite-sized portions. So in the first book, His Hallowed Name Revealed Again, there are 200 and some notes, all of that stuff, and a lot of it is based on the Hebrew, where people can actually check for themselves.

Then there was a next step, which was the whole Time Will Tell series and all of the videos that we did, that many times use the sources, but it was in an engaging fashion. It wasn’t that they would necessarily learn it, but they would see it. Then the next thing we did, which I think was huge, in 2014, is we did a series called Scripture Bites. We took the Ten Commandments series plus four other scriptural passages, one Isaiah 56, where people can actually learn what’s behind the English. And people were excited because they said, “Wow, I get to see, here’s what it says in Hebrew,” but it was a next step.

Now I’m making another decision, and this decision is really a big one, because they are listening to it this week, which is actually the week of Shavuot. It’s the week of Shavuot, and on this week, assuming we find Aviv, but even if the Aviv isn’t found, also in the church, Pentecost happens to fall at the same time as the rabbinic Shavuot, which I believe is around May 25, something like that. Here comes the big announcement. As a result…

Nehemia: May 24, and this is read in the synagogue on May 23.

Keith: Okay, awesome. Now Nehemia, I want you to be the first to hear this… Well now you’re not really the first, but you’re the first publicly to hear this. Is that what I’ve decided is that I want like a verse like this where it says that “You will call me ishii and no longer call me baali.” Many people will read that and they don’t have any idea what ish is, they don’t have any idea what the ‘ii’ is, they have no idea what the ‘ii’ at the end is. And you do a great job. “This is the suffix…” And you try your best to give it to them, but one of the things that I want to do is give people beginning level ability to interact with the Hebrew.

So on this weekend, people will be able to, and I want this first to be to the group of people that will test it. Now you remember, this is a funny story, this is one of my funniest stories. So I wrote my little book, my little study, remember this goes down in history. [laughing] And in the little study I would say to Nehemia, “Nehemia, you’ve got to read the study,” and he’d open it up for two pages and he’d shut it, and it would offend me. And he’d say, “Oh, your little study,” but over time you said something to me, and I really want to tell you how much I appreciate this. You said, “Keith, what you were able to do is to take the information, it’s very complicated, and make it simple.” I want to tell you how much I appreciate it.

Nehemia: Or explain it in a simple way.

Keith: Explain it in a simple way. So as of this weekend, we have an audio course for beginning Hebrew. A beginning Hebrew audio course, and it’s in the spirit of Scripture Bites. It’s Scripture Bites Biblical Hebrew for Beginners, is what I say. It’s a biblical Hebrew course, and what it is, it’s going to be a chance for people, and it’s going to be starting in the Premium Content Library. Why? Because we want a controlled group of people to go through the course and give us their input, put their comments. Does it make sense? Is it too complicated? Is it too easy? Is it too simple? And literally, it’s going to be launched this weekend.

Now, here’s the challenge. You’re listening to this this weekend. The challenge is, we’ve got a lot of work to do before that. Now I’ve already done a couple of them, had people look at it, but the general sense is that people want a chance to learn biblical Hebrew, but they don’t want to get overwhelmed. They want to take a bite at a time. And so this is a Scripture Bytes biblical Hebrew for beginners and the ability for people to understand it little by little. How many lessons there’ll be, I’m not sure, but this weekend you can go to BFA international.com, front page – you’re going to see the little banner and it’s going to say Scripture Bites Biblical Hebrew, and you’re going to click it, go in there, and for people that are in the Premium Content Library, you’re going to help us make this just like with my first book, input from all these different people, and then by the end of the Prophet Pearls section, we’ll make it public for everybody so that they’ve got it. So you’re going to help us develop it.

But I’m under pressure, and good pressure and I appreciate it, to basically bring what I’ve been saying for some years – how do you bring this information and put it in a palatable way? You make it bite-size. And so that’s what we’re going to do with biblical Hebrew. I don’t know if I’ll ever get you a chance to look at it, but hopefully the people that are listening that want to learn a little bit more and understand it for themselves, this is going to be an introductory way for them to have a practical way to understand the language. Actual biblical Hebrew where they can open their Hebrew Bible and read it. I’m very excited about it, but I will say if you’re hearing it this weekend, there’s been an amazing movement of God’s spirit between now, today, Purim, and the time that this happens. But I know it’s gonna happen. So thank you very much for letting me make the announcement. Now, every week you’re going to hear about this until the end of Prophet Pearls. That’s my announcement.

Nehemia: I can’t wait. [laughing]

Keith: [laughing] Oh boy. We must never let Nehemia read it. “No, that’s not the right suffix there. That’s wrong…” And we need that. We do need that. Because we want people to…

Nehemia: Wonderful. I love that you’re open to correction, and come before Yehovah in humility instead of, “I figured it out. I’ve got the secret.” So anyway, nehemiaswall.com is my website, and I love that this is the weekend of Shavuot. When this is being broadcast it will be exactly a year since I began a project, which was the Support Team Studies. I’ve had people who have supported my ministry in the past, and decided I’m going to start putting out these studies as a way of saying thank you for the Support Team, and it’s really taken a life of its own.

But the first one I did was on the topic of Shavuot. I called it the Feast of Oaths. I shared some things that I learned, really over the last… almost like a lifetime. It was one of the things I realized as I was doing this, at the time I was teaching high school in China and I had these 15-year-old students, and I realized 15 years old is a lifetime for those students. And that’s why I, in humility, came before God and said, “Okay, what have I learned in the last lifetime, in the last 15 years?” And I shared what some of the things I learned about Shavuot, and really some life-changing things. So you can get that, go to the nehemiaswall.com and sign up for the Support Team, and don’t forget to sign up for the free newsletter, which you can get on the side of the page there – you can click on a little thing and put in your email and get the free weekly newsletter.

Of course, don’t forget to subscribe to the weekly… to the podcast, whether they’re weekly or whatever they are, go to iTunes or your favorite podcast program and subscribe to the Nehemia’s Wall podcast.

Keith: I want to say something about both situations. You know, one of the things that’s really kind of interesting is that we’ve got levels of people that see everything you have. Like you say going to YouTube. That’s nothing – you don’t have to register, you just go there and you’ll see that. We have lots of things like that.

We have things that for people to register, whether it can be on the newsletters, either newsletter, and then you have the, you know, like the Support Team or Premium Content Library. What I really love about that is it gives people a chance to sort of enter in, taking steps in how far they want to go. And yet at the same time, there is this way of people saying, “I want a little bit more.” And again, that’s what we’re trying to do is to develop those kinds of things where for those who want more and that want to go to that deeper level, that can be there, but in integrity, where there can actually be some input.

So it is kind of exciting to know we’re coming to Shavuot. I can’t wait to talk… we’ll keep going in here. But Shavuot happened to be the time that I met you, Nehemia, and that’s when I came. So, for all those years later, that was 2002 and now it’s 2015. So how many years is that?

Nehemia: 13.

Keith: 13 years. You’ve got to be kidding me. We’ve known each other that long?

Nehemia: That’s a lifetime, isn’t it?

Keith: That’s almost 15 years!

Nehemia: This is our Bar Mitzvah.

Keith: [laughing] So what verse are we on here? Last verse. Okay. All right, hold on a second. No, it’s, no, it’s not the last one.

Nehemia: 2:21 and 22, which in English is… I don’t know what it is in English, oh it’s 2:19 and 2:20 in the English. Okay. So can you read that?

Keith: Yes. “I will betroth you to Me. I will betroth you to Me. Just for a little while,” no it says Le’olam. It says, “I want to betroth you to Me forever.” Yes, “I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and in justice.” And here comes that word again, “chesed”, “in loving kindness and in compassion.” Wow. Doesn’t that remind you, when you see compassion, doesn’t that remind you of what we just talked about?

Nehemia: Well it’s rachamim, which is related to the word Ruchama, lo Ruchama.

Keith: “And I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness. Then you will know Yehovah.” You know what’s really interesting, Nehemia, here’s that little ‘et’. It’s in Hosea 2:22 in the Hebrew and in Hosea 2:20 in the English, and I’m not going to go into any detail about it, but it’s just another example where, when you can note some little information, you either have to let that information be consistent. You can’t pick and choose. It’s either got to be a consistent concept that you apply, or are you… like I said, you can’t pick and choose. And here’s an example where it says, “I will know you.” And then right before the word Yehovah is two little letters, an Aleph and a Tav, which has got to do with the direct object, but sometimes is used and misused, mistranslated and I think you even have a study on that too.

Nehemia: I do? I don’t even know. So I want to ask a question on this. This is a really interesting… Can we like go out of the box here and read three more verses just real quick?

Keith: Yes, absolutely.

Nehemia: Can you read those verses? 23-25 in the Hebrew. I guess it’s the next three or whatever those are in the English. I’m looking right now, and in Hebrew it goes to verse 22 which is 20 in English. I know this is confusing, people.

Keith: And that’s the end of a section too, Nehemia. It’s the end of a paragraph. It’s a minor break right in there, at the end of 22.

Nehemia: Beseder, but it’s part of the whole… We’ve got to read verses 21 to 23 just to wrap up with the whole Jezreel thing, I feel like. “And it shall come to pass in that day, I will hear, sayeth Yehovah, I will hear the heavens and they shall hear the earth and the earth shall hear the corn and the wine and the oil and they shall hear Jezreel. And I will sow on her unto Me in the earth and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy. And I will say to them, which were not My people ‘Thou art My people,’ and they shall say, ‘Thou art my God.’”

Now, what does that have to do with what we just read? Because first of all, Jezreel is the name of the city, and here there’s a play on words. He says, ‘Zaratiha’, I will sow her, and yisra’el means God will sow, to sow seed. So I will sow her onto me means I’m going to plant the seed onto her, and that essentially is God saying, “Jezreel, which is this rebellious city, is going to become a symbol of My relationship with Israel.”

Then it goes on and it says, “And I will say concerning lo Ruchama,” that is the name of his daughter, or symbolically Israel, that I had mercy upon her. I had richamti, I had rachamim on her. “And I will say of lo Ami, ‘Ami atah’, you are my people.” So we can’t just skip this verse. I mean, it’s key for the whole first two chapters of Hosea. I love that passage.

But I do want to ask a question about this betrothal statement, it’s really interesting. He says “I will betroth you to Me.” Let me read it in Hebrew Verastichli le’olam, I will troth you to Me forever, verastichli betzedek uvemishpat ubechesed verachamim, and I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and judgment and chesed, difficult word to translate, and in mercy, verastichli be’emuna, and I will betroth you to me in faith, veyadat et Yehovah, and you will know Yehovah.

This is an interesting statement. All this betrothal, betrothal, betrothal. Three times. Why doesn’t He say, “I will marry you”? Why does He say, “I will betroth you?” Now if we have anybody listening in China, one of the things I learned when I was in China is they don’t have the concept of betrothal. In modern English we call betrothal to get engaged, you give the woman the ring, et cetera. So they actually don’t have that in China. I would meet these people and they would be talking… I actually knew this guy in China, he was an American, he was about to marry this Chinese woman, and they got wedding photos, which in China they do before the wedding. They dress up in their wedding outfit and she’s in the white dress and he’s in the tuxedo and they go to some park somewhere and they take… Do they do that in America? Before the wedding?

Keith: Some people do wedding photos the day of the wedding.

Nehemia: No, this is months before. And I said, “Wow, these are such nice pictures with your fiancé.” Actually, he said, “Let me show you the pictures with my girlfriend.” And I look at these pictures and I’m like, “What? Girlfriend? She’s your fiancé.” He explained – in China they don’t have that concept. There’s your girlfriend and you marry your girlfriend. In America you don’t marry your girlfriend. There’s an intermediary stage that we have in western culture. In biblical culture it’s actually closer to China perhaps, because you know, there was a woman who had no status whatsoever and then you would betroth her. You would become engaged to her, and that actually is a legal status in the Torah. In fact, if you have relations with a woman who is betrothed, and she’s not your fiancé, then that is adultery, and according to the Torah, you’re both worthy of death.

So that’s a very big deal, betrothal. It’s the stage before marriage that has a legal status, and we have that in western countries – you’ve got engagement. So why does He say… let me translate this into modern English. I’m going to be engaged to you forever. I’m going to be engaged to you in righteousness and in justice and in mercy and in righteousness, whatever, chesed, and in mercy, I’m going to be engaged you in faith, and you will know Yehovah. And at last you will know, that’s this intimacy, to know God, in an intimate sense. It’s strange – why is it betrothed and not marriage? Do you have any thoughts on that?

Keith: Wow. I really don’t. I mean, it’s funny, because when you say, “And I will betroth you,” my thought was… see, I was thinking a little bit different. I was thinking betrothal means we’re getting… I mean, there’s the actual ceremony, but basically, if I’m betrothed to you, that’s it.

Nehemia: But that’s not it.

Keith: No, I’m saying in my mind I’m thinking that this means, “Okay, you’re betrothed. That means as far as we’re concerned, we’re getting married.”

Nehemia: Maybe this is too personal for me, because I’ve been engaged and not married. Engagement doesn’t mean necessarily you will be married. Married – that is this covenant before God. Engagement is a step before that.

Keith: But in ancient times, so if someone was betrothed to them, that was pretty serious. Right?

Nehemia: It’s serious today. No question about it, and I’m saying biblically, you are bound to that person, and if they cheat on you, that’s adultery. The difference is, though, in marriage, in Deuteronomy 24, we’ve got the whole thing about divorce and there’s a whole thing with a certificate of divorce. With betrothal you don’t have that, meaning betrothal, you can break off the betrothal. I mean, it’s not a nice thing. It’s not a good thing. It’s a painful thing, believe me. But you don’t need that whole divorce process, which is a much bigger deal. Deuteronomy 24, and the point is, and I don’t have the answer.

Keith: See and then the actual section ended in 22 in the Hebrew…

Nehemia: Which is the 20 in the English, right.

Keith: …and again, we were talking about the issue of betrothal, but does the end help the matter, or not really?

Nehemia: Meaning, here’s one way of reading it – I’m going to betroth you to Me three times. Then it says, “and then you will know Yehovah.” In other words, that knowing Yehovah, that is the consummation of the betrothal ending in marriage. So arguably the verse does have a marriage in it.

But where I’m vexed about it and struggling with it is the statement, “I will betroth you to Me forever.” I don’t have an answer. I think it’s very interesting though, and this is definitely understood in later Jewish tradition as… What we’ve done today in Jewish tradition, by the way, is there is a formal betrothal process, which is actually the day of the wedding. I don’t know if you know that. In other words, when a Jewish man gives the woman the ring, according to the rabbis, they’re not technically betrothed, it’s almost like there’s a fourth stage – you’ve got the girlfriend, you’ve got the engagement, the betrothal, and the wedding, in Rabbinical tradition at least, but I don’t know, I don’t have an answer.

Keith: If this is so important, I think you should give this as the word. This word too.

Nehemia: Okay, let’s do it. So the word is aras, Aleph-Raysh-Sin, and He says, “ve’erastich,” ve is and, e is I will… I’m sorry scratch that. I’m tired, this is the third episode we’re doing today. Ve’erastich, it’s the inverted future.

Keith: No, no, say the whole word because I think it’s really interesting.

Nehemia: Ve’erastich. So the -ich part at the end, the ch part is “you” to a woman. The -ti part at the end is I will. Actually, it’s, I did, but the Vav at the beginning means both “and”, and it changes the I did to I will. And then the root is aras, Aleph-Raysh-Sin and that actually appears twice. Ve’erastich, ve’erastich, ve’erastich. Aleph-Raysh-Sin is the root.

And just a couple of places where you have that root. This betrothal, Exodus 22:15, verse 16 in the English, talks about a man who seduces a virgin who is not lo orasa, she is not engaged, she is betrothed. Deuteronomy 20 verse 7, Deuteronomy 22 in… 23 and on has a whole series of commandments related to betrothal. Then Deuteronomy 28:30 has actually a curse for those who violate the Torah. It says, “You will engage a woman and another man will lie with her.”

So, we’ve got this word betrothal, and here it has this obviously symbolic spiritual meaning, where God is going to betroth Israel. One last verse is 2 Samuel chapter 3, verse 14. Look that up. There it’s actually, today we give a ring, even in ancient times when you betrothed a woman, you gave something, and 2 Samuel 3:14 has a very interesting replacement for a ring, a very interesting betrothal gift. You can look it up for yourself.

Keith: Okay, so which verse are we officially going to end on?

Nehemia: 22. Okay. Verse 20 in English is the official ending. We skipped ahead, but, okay.

Keith: Okay. Well, is there anything else you want to say?

Nehemia: That’s it. I’m done.

Keith: Nothing else?

Nehemia: That’s what I got.

Keith: Wow. Well, and that you’re sticking to it.

Nehemia: I’m sticking to it.

Keith: That’s it. And you’re sticking to it. Okay. Awesome. Well, we are in a great place right now. This is really a great passage for people to look at. Go to those sections again, and hopefully, over the next few weeks you’re going to be able to learn a little bit more of the biblical Hebrew that we’re talking about. And I have to just say, Nehemia, we haven’t talked about this, but this has really been a gift. One of the things that you provide each week is the actual passage in Hebrew where people can actually listen to the actual passage in Hebrew. So in other words, when they go to Prophet Pearls on BFAinternational.com and Nehemiaswall.com they listen to the Prophet Pearls, but then the actual section itself has been recorded by ours truly, Nehemia Gordon.

And what I want to challenge people to do is that, you know, they might think, “Oh, I’ll never be able to do that,” but I like to say one letter, one vowel at a time, and pretty soon people can learn to at least be able to proclaim these words. It’s not something that’s an impossible language. It’s not an easy language, but I have to say it’s powerful.

Nehemia: I think it’s a very easy language.

Keith: It’s a beautiful language.

Keith: Go try to learn Chinese.

Keith: Oh my God. [speaking Chinese]. [laughing]

Nehemia: [speaking Chinese] We’re talking Chinese.

Keith: We’re talking Chinese. Whew. Well listen, this is it for right now. I’m really motivated and excited. You know, we’ve got a couple more today and then we’re going to be going out and being with the community here for Purim. I’d like to say a prayer if I can, and then we’ll move on. Father, thank you for the gift of this language that You selected. You selected the Hebrew language and we certainly have the ability because of it. You give us the ability to understand it, give us the focus and the excitement and the joy to be able to speak Your language, not to stick our chest out, but rather in humility, to realize that You’ve given us revelation in this language, and we actually can learn it. And I would ask that You would continue to give us motivation and revelation and inspiration and continue to give us the desire to want to know the information so that we can find out what it means for Your word yesterday, today, and tomorrow, and how we can live it in our lives. In Your holy name, Amen.

Nehemia: Amen.

You have been listening to Prophet Pearls with Nehemia Gordon and Keith Johnson. Thank you for supporting Nehemia Gordon’s Makor Hebrew Foundation. Learn more at NehemiasWall.com.

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