Prophet Pearls #15 – Bo (Jeremiah 46:13-28)

Prophet Pearls #15 – Bo (Jeremiah 46:13-28)

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.

Nehemia: Shalom chaverim shelanu. Todah shehitz’taraftem eleinu batochnit, Pninim Mehanevi’im. Shalom, friends. Thank you for joining us on the Program Pearl – what’s the name of the program? Crap. Let me start over. Hold on.

Keith: You’ve got to be kidding me.

Nehemia: Wait. What’s the name of the program?

Keith: You’ve got to be kidding me.

Nehemia: Torah Pearls, sorry.

Keith: Are you – what?

Nehemia: No! Prophet Pearls. No, because I’m reading the Hebrew. In the Hebrew, it says, “Pninim Mehanevi’im.” But yes, okay.

Keith: We’re keeping this for the show. Are you kidding me?

Nehemia: No, no. I forgot. Let’s start over.

Keith: You’re opening us up, Nehemia. You’ve got your new…

Nehemia: Shalom chaverim shelanu. Todah shehitz’taraftem eleinu latochnit Pninim Mehanevi’im. Shalom, our chaverim, our friends. Thank you for joining us in the program Prophet Pearls. Keith, what does chaverim mean? Can you explain to the people? All right, let’s just start. It’s my first time starting.

Keith: Oh, boy.

Nehemia: Let’s do it. Jeremiah.

Keith: All right. Here we go.

Nehemia: Yes.

Keith: We’re in Jeremiah.

Nehemia: Yes, this is the 15th episode. It’s Jeremiah 46, 13 to 28, and it corresponds to the Torah portion of Bo, Exodus 10:1 through 13:16. This is a section about the plagues. The reason this is chosen, presumably, is because it’s about how Egypt is going to suffer another smiting, another plague, but this time at the hands of the Babylonians.

Keith: I was looking again, back to the Original Torah Pearls, it was really something when we went through that. For those that don’t know, we went through that from I think it was in 2000… Nehemia, give me the year, 2012?

Nehemia: Well, no. We started in 2011, we finished in 2012?

Keith: We finished in 2012.

Nehemia: Wait. Is that even right?

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: Yes. That’s right.

Keith: Whenever it was that we did that, what was really powerful about it is we were looking at a fresh look of the Torah portions. For those that don’t know, the Torah portions are parallel in here with the Prophets portions and parallel with the Torah portions. If you haven’t listened to that, you can listen to the Original Torah Pearls program on nehemiaswall.com, bfainternational.com. Both of those sites have access to the entire year of those Torah portions. What’s nice about that is you can listen to those every year. Of course, now Prophet Pearls we’re 15 in, hopefully, we’ll get to 52 or 54, and they will also be made available so that you can listen year after year.

But what was refreshing to me was to look at this parallel passage as it pertains to what’s happening with Egypt. I have to just tell you honestly, and I don’t know how to say this – I felt bad when I was looking at Exodus chapter 10 and 11 and 12, and I believe it is up until 13. Then I go here and I’m looking in Jeremiah and Egypt, boy, I mean, being used by the hand of God to do what Egypt did. I mean, boy, oh, boy, talk about stuff coming upon them. I was reading that from back then and then reading this.

Then, of course, last week’s portion that we did in the Prophet Pearls also speaking about Egypt, and we see it over and over again in Scripture. Of course, we could probably go the computer and see how many times we see Egypt being spoken about in its future. But it really is a central place, certainly as it pertains to the land of Israel, speaking about every time we talk about it, “Who brought you out of the land of Egypt?” Well, it’s not just that simple. Everything else that happened with Egypt just goes deeper and deeper each time.

Nehemia: Last year I was an English teacher in a Chinese high school, and one of the things I taught my students… I had to crystallize the message down to something really simple. One of the things I told them is my ancestors, the “you-tairen,” the Jews, they were slaves in Egypt. They were slaves that were liberated from Egypt by Yehoha, by Yehovah, and brought out into the desert, where He reveals himself to them and spoke to them. That was the key part of the story that they all understood. “Yes, your ancestors were slaves in Egypt. We got this.”

Keith: Yes, we got that part.

Nehemia: Yes. But it really is something I think in the Western world we take for granted because it’s just so known and so obvious. This was the first time they’d ever heard it. So it was a message I had to drive home.

Keith: Well, here’s the other thing about it, as we get into this, is when you speak of Egypt, again, the picture can be, yes, the movie The Ten Commandments for the westerners. The Ten Commandments, yep, they were there, they dealt with some bricks and this, that and the other. But they were brought out with a strong hand and this story starts there. But there was so much more, such a level of depth of what took place in the land of Egypt and then again, throughout history as we find. So it is pretty interesting.

Nehemia: Yes, absolutely.

Keith: Okay. Yes. So here we go.

Nehemia: Then there’s this phrase, why did Israel need to go down to Egypt for 400 years? It says in Deuteronomy 4:20, for example, it appears three times in the Tanakh. It says, “And you Yehovah took and He brought you out of mikur habarzel, mimitzrayim,” “from the iron furnace, from Egypt,” and the image there, actually, the more correct term probably is a crucible, which is this little device where you melt at really high temperatures, the iron, and then you can make it into whatever you want it to be. It says, “to be for Him a nation and an inheritance as this day.” So that was the crucible in which Israel was formed. They went in as a band of shepherds and they came out as a nation, and that also appears in Jeremiah 11:4 and 1 Kings 8:51.

Keith: You know something, when you’re reading this, as we’re starting in 46, I believe it’s 13. By the way, I have to say thank you to our Prophet Pearl Partners. It’s not often that we get to say the last name, but we have to say the last name here because it’s the family of some friends that we met some years ago. Nehemia, we were out on the road; I can’t remember when it was. Again, I’m really bad with dates. I think it was 2010 or something like that. We were in some place in Colorado – Johnstown or Johnsontown. I think it was my town. And we met these guys who were twins, and these twins, we took a picture, way back then, it’s the Mendez brothers, actually.

Nehemia: I think it was in Greeley, Colorado, actually, but yes.

Keith: Was it in Greeley? Yes.

Nehemia: Yes.

Keith: But the first time we met them… When we met them the first time, they actually came all the way to Johnstown to meet us. Then we met them in Greeley this last time when we were there for the tour that we did just this last year. But let me just say this – what was interesting about them is, it’s so cool when you meet a family or you meet someone from some years ago, and then, here it is all these years later – which would have been 2014 – they showed up for an event that we did in Colorado, in Greeley, with our friends, Sven and Tina, who really put the whole thing together, and they were there. So the Mendez family actually chose this section, and I’m going to ask them to actually write something we’ll put in our comments.

Again, everyone that’s listening, hopefully, they’ll use the comment section at nehemiaswall.com, bfainternational.com. Either way, wherever you post, post on the other one also because there’s just a mixture of people. So I want to say thank you to them for being our Prophet Pearls Partners. They’re the twins; we are the twins. They still look alike, and we don’t look alike at all.

Nehemia: You’re beginning to look more like me, especially your hair.

Keith: Yes. But anyway, so here’s one thing I wanted to bring up in 46:13. It says, “This is the message which Yehovah spoke unto Jeremiah the prophet about the coming of Nebuchadnezzar,” and again it’s that spelling, Nehemia, where there’s the resh instead of the dalet. We talked about it last week.

Nehemia: Nebucharnezzar, not Nebuchadnezzar. Yes.

Keith: Yes. But the king of Babylon… And you know what? When I read this, so we’re in our society now, where I could, like, for example, I’m a day ahead of you. So I get on an airplane, I come over here, and I call you up and I say, “I’ve heard from the Lord. The moon will not show up in the east.” Because I’m over here, and you don’t know I’m over here, and sure enough the next day it doesn’t show up. Well, here’s what’s so cool – Jeremiah didn’t get on an airplane and go and find out, “Now what’s the situation with Nebuchadnezzar? Now, is he going to be coming or not coming?”

Nehemia: Tracking him with a GPS.

Keith: Yes, no tracking on my GPS, no international travel. So he hears from the One who – I mean, so Jeremiah’s placed here in Israel. He hears from the Creator of the universe, this is what’s going to happen, and then he declares it. No sleight of hand, no smoke and mirrors, no “I’ve got people spying and telling” – No. I mean it’s an obvious thing, but he really has to hear from Him. There’s no technology that would allow him, or no internal communications where he can text real quick and, “What’s the situation?” I don’t know, it seems like something that we could take for granted, but it really is hearing from the One who knows all. And that’s exactly what happens, he receives this message from Yehovah, spoken to the prophet Jeremiah, about what’s going to happen, and very specifically with, by name, the King of Babylon to come and smite the land of Egypt.

Nehemia: Yes. So you have the word “smite” there, is that what you have?

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: In what translation is that?

Keith: That’s the NASB.

Nehemia: Okay. I like that word. So in the JPS, it has “to attack the land of Egypt.” What’s really significant moreso is the word in Hebrew which is “lehakot et eretz Mitzrayim,” which is, you could say to smite, to hit, “lehakot et eretz Mitzrayim.” The reason that’s important, at least for tying in with the story in Bo, in Exodus, is that we have that same verb, that same word used to describe the plagues of Egypt. We call them even today, to this very day, we call them the ten makot, the plagues. So the point is that there’s a word connection there between the plagues of Egypt and the smiting of Babylon. It’s the same word in Hebrew. The word that you have as smite and the JPS has as “attack,” and the King James has as “smite,” as well. So that’s the word that means plague, to hit with a plague, and that appears in Exodus.

Keith: You know what’s interesting. I was going to ask you, Nehemia, I don’t know if you… have you picked a Word of the Week? I’m always asking…

Nehemia: No, I haven’t.

Keith: Could it be this one? I mean, is this something that you’d feel comfortable with? Or would you prefer to look at something else?

Nehemia: Yes, I want to save mine for the end, because honestly, yes.

Keith: Okay, no problem.

Nehemia: Those are some really hot verses there. I don’t have one, but I could choose any word in verses 27 or 28 and be really happy.

Keith: Okay, well, let’s do that. We’re going to wait for that. But what was interesting about that, you brought that up, about lehakot. When you look at the word and you’re trying to find out where that word is used, and it’s so… I don’t know how to put this. I’m still amazed at the way the Hebrew language is used, because again, you can hear that word lehakot, and immediately, in your mind, when you hear that word, because you heard Bo read how many times, how often? And hearing this most amazing event that took place, to know that there is a connection between the words. Again, for those of us who are English speakers, who are reading the Bible year after year after year in English, it’s not something that’s always obvious. It’s not something that jumps off the page. Depending on what translation you’re reading, you wouldn’t make that connection. So again, I guess this is the advantage of being able to read it in the language in which it was written.

Nehemia: Yes, absolutely. I want to bring up something a little controversial about this passage. Can we do that? Or do you just want to jump into it and then the controversy will…

Keith: Let’s get right into it.

Nehemia: Yes and then the controversy will naturally come up. So go ahead.

Keith: Okay. So 46:14, “Declare in Egypt and proclaim in Migdol, proclaim also in Memphis and Tahpanhes; say, ‘Take your stand and get yourself ready, for the sword has devoured those around you.’” Let me just read one more verse here. Verse 15. “Why have your mighty ones become prostrate?” is what it says here. “They do not stand because Yehovah has thrust them down.”

So I’m reading this, and again, the thing that we have to remember is that he’s not speaking here of Israel. He’s speaking here of Egypt. Again, we’re looking at Egypt at this particular time and before, where Egypt could be seen as a strong and mighty nation. I know people can really get into this right now. You see different nations, even in our time, Nehemia, where you’ll see a nation that will look like it can never ever have a change and then see a change come just drastically. I’m looking at Russia right now, and it happens to be December, we’re actually recording this in mid-December, and in the last week in Russia, if you’d have gone 20 years ago, 15 years ago, and said the word “Russia” you would have seen this mighty, amazing, strong-armed nation that’s had so many radical changes over these last couple decades. And now, in the last week, with what’s happened with the ruble. It’s like, “Whoa, what’s going on here?” It’s an example in modern times where we can actually see change. How far it will go, we don’t know. But it’s definitely a teetering situation. And that’s what…

Nehemia: Wait. This is your chance, Johnson. You can make a prophecy.

Keith: No, I’m not going to make a prophecy.

Nehemia: If it’s wrong, you can say, “Well, they repented.” And if it’s right, you can say “I speak the word of the Lord.” You can speak about how Russia will be crushed with the iron rod. You know, come on give me some prophecy here.

Keith: No, no, I’m not going to play around. I’m not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet.

Nehemia: And you know, it’s really interesting I’ll hear, especially from certain types of Christian sayings, “Oh, I received the word from the Lord.” That’s a really serious statement. I don’t know if they realize that. So to receive a word from God, that means… Jeremiah talks about this, and that means you were standing in the throne room and you heard God speaking to the angels. And I noticed in verse 13, I know we’re past that, but you translated your verse 13 that he received… what was it that he received there according to…?

Keith: This is the message.

Nehemia: The message! Right! Oh, right. So in Hebrew, it’s davar. It’s the davar that Yehovah spoke to Jeremiah the prophet, and the davar is “word.” We talked about how there are the three sections. There are the Torah, the word and the wisdom. This word means prophecy in this context. So you’ve got to be really careful about saying, “I received a word from the Lord.” That means Yehovah spoke directly to you or you heard Him speaking to the angels. You heard His voice. Be careful about that.

Keith: Amen.

Nehemia: Yes.

Keith: But again, speaking here about what’s going to happen in Egypt and looking at the present time… again, it’s not just Russia there’s a whole bunch of things that are going on around the world.

Nehemia: Can I make a confession here about this entire passage up until the two verses that I’m going to, hopefully, get the chance to talk about, which is really the last you verses? How do I say this without being disrespectful to the word of Yehovah? Because every word is precious, every letter, every jot or tittle is holy, but at the same time, I’m hearing this and part of me is kind of like, “I really don’t care.” Is that a horrible thing to admit? Do we have to edit this out?

Keith: Folks, no, Nehemia has just made a confession. So he’s going to be quiet the entire time until the last verse.

Nehemia: Wait. No. Can I tell you what I mean by that?

Keith: And I’m going to take this…

Nehemia: So this is prophesying the destruction of Egypt, and I’m hearing this and I’m thinking, “Egypt being destroyed and going into exile and being brought from exile? I’m not Egyptian, what is this? This has nothing to do with me. There are so many prophecies, most of the prophecies are to Israel, but here we have this prophecy to Egypt, and it’s like, when do we get to the Israel stuff?” It actually gives me some empathy for… I’ve encountered Christians – and this is really controversial – but it’s true. I’ve encountered Christians who I’ll be speaking to about the ingathering of the exiles and the rebuilding of Israel, and they’ll be like, “Where’s Jesus in that? We just don’t even want to hear this. This has got nothing to do with us.” Because they’re literally yawning and bored. They can pretend they’re interested, but they’re not. But I think this is a really important context to get.

So I’m going to jump to Jeremiah chapter 1 verse 5. It says, “Before I created you in the womb, I selected you; Before you were born, I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet concerning the nations.” In Hebrew, it says, “to the nations.” So Jeremiah was kind of an unusual prophet. He actually spoke to the nations, and maybe the other prophets did too. But Jeremiah, I think, even more than the other prophets, was speaking to the gentiles.

Chapter 1 verse 10, “See, I appoint you this day over nations and kingdoms, to uproot and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.” In Hebrew the word there is “hagoyim,” “al hagoyim,” over the nations, over what we could call today, and in English terms, gentiles. So we have this theme that Jeremiah is a prophet for the nations, and we read here about… and it’s interesting, read the prophecy – and we don’t have time to do it -but read the prophecy of Egypt and the other nations and some of the other prophets, and it sounds to me like he’s speaking to Israel saying, “You guys, want to hear what’s going to happen to Egypt? It’s really bad. Aren’t you glad you worship Yehovah?”

Whereas Jeremiah speaking, I hear this in like… It sounds like he’s speaking to the nations, it really does, and not to Israel. There’s a really interesting thing, and we probably don’t have time to go into it. But there’s a whole bunch of other verses. But one of the verses talks about – one of the most important verses in the Bible – speaks about how he gathered in these… he was speaking his message to these ambassadors that would then be sent out throughout the entire world. Just like today we have ambassadors in Washington D.C., and if you wanted to communicate a message, before the internet, in the old days, one of the ways to do it was you would call in all the ambassadors and tell them, “Hey, guys, this is what’s going to happen.” That’s what Jeremiah does.

Because think about it, so he’s sending this message to the nations, like, did Jeremiah actually go to Egypt? Probably not. Well, he did at the end of his life. But at this stage in his life, he hasn’t gone to Egypt, but he’s spoken to the Egyptian ambassador, and he’s spoken to the other ambassadors and told them, “This is the word of Yehovah that came to me concerning Egypt. You need to pay attention to this.”

Keith: You know it’s interesting. When you say you read that and you say, it doesn’t… you’re like, “Well, I’m not Egyptian.” The actual thing that really does excite me is what I call this international hand, this hand that our Father has over everything. So when I read this and I’m hearing…

Nehemia: Yes. Absolutely.

Keith: The most important thing I think is in 13 when it says, “This is the word. This is the davar that He spoke.” And so he’s hearing this, so this is coming from the mouth of God. Immediately, whatever it is, and you’ve got to let me be the pastor for a second. It’s like whatever it is that’s coming from Him is somehow interconnected with everything. So I’m looking at this and I’m like, whoa, he’s talking now to this nation.

Nehemia: Right.

Keith: And again, what caught me in the very beginning was, I went back and read Exodus 10, 11, looking through those passages again, and again we did this Original Torah Pearls years ago, and yet it’s like it just jumps. It just comes right and grabs me, and I think, wow, this is this land that he’s speaking about. In other words, it’s not just a pass through. There’s something about it that, even as we talked about reciprocal justice and what happens later and how it’s all connected. I mean I just… wow.

Nehemia: Yes.

Keith: Well, you know…

Nehemia: Yes. Sorry, go ahead. So one of the things that strike me about… Like, I have this guilt. I’m telling you that I don’t care about this, and it’s not that I don’t care, but it’s literally boring to me. I’m reading about Noph, Tahpanhes, and Migdol, and all these places in Egypt. But I’m like, let’s get to the Israel part already.

Part of me feels really bad about that, feels guilty, and I’m reminded of this legend that the rabbis tell, which it not a historical event, but it makes a really good point, which I think is profound. It’s a story about when the Israelites saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore, they rejoiced. There’s a verse that says, “And Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore.” After the Red Sea when the Egyptians were drowned. The legend, the midrash, says that Israel was told, you shouldn’t rejoice over My people who died. All human beings are My people.

Where did they get this idea? Well, that actually comes from the book of Jonah, where God speaks at the end, there’s the issue of Nineveh. I’m going to read that passage, because this is like the guilty part of me saying I should care about the Egyptians. I want to care about the Egyptians. It says. “Then Yehovah said, ‘You cared about the plant,’” this is Jonah 4:10, “You cared about the plant, which you did not work for and which you did not grow, which appeared overnight and perished overnight.” Verse 11, “And should not I care about Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not yet know their right hand from their left hand, and many beasts as well?”

So the story there is that Jonah was upset that Nineveh didn’t get wiped out because he prophesied that it should be, and God’s saying, “Look, I care about Nineveh; I love every single human being.” So in that respect, when the Israelites saw the Egyptians dead on the sea, there’s definitely truth in it. Part of being faithful to Yehovah, the Creator of the universe is to remember those are human beings who are dead. Those are His creations, and that we are all created in the image of Yehovah. And so in that respect… like I said, I’m conflicted here. On the one hand…

Keith: While you’re conflicted, let me tell you what happened.

Nehemia: Yes.

Keith: Let me tell you what happened yesterday. So I’m here, folks, I made a mistake last week and said it was the most populous country. It’s the most populous city in the world.

Nehemia: And it’s called?

Keith: In a place called Shanghai, China. Yesterday, on the day which is Christmas Day here, which is like any other day in China as far as people being on the subway. After I did my recording with Nehemia, I decided I wanted to go to a specific spot in Shanghai and do a little checking about the Christmas time issue and see what other trouble I can get in. Anyway, I decided to travel, and this is kind of connected to what you said, so work with me here.

Nehemia: Yes.

Keith: I decided to take the subway on a Christmas day down into Shanghai where all the people are very busy, and I kind of had this in my heart, I needed to do two things. I had a technological problem – I had a problem with my computer that keeps cutting off, and Nehemia has already threatened that if it keeps happening, he’s done with me. So I had to take my computer down to the Mac store…

Nehemia: It’s not a threat, it’s just an announcement. It’s how it is.

Keith: It’s just an announcement. It’s just the way it is. So I went down to this place, and sure enough, there are people who have red and white on and they have Christmas hats on, and they’re singing Merry Christmas, and it’s Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell. They don’t say “L,” it’s “Jingle Beh, Jingle Beh.” Anyway, they’re doing their thing.

But now, to this whole issue of the nations. So one of the struggles for me is, I have to just be honest, is that I’m more comfortable when I’m in a place like Israel, just because I love the land. I love the language. I love the people. And the language of the Bible, when I hear it spoken and when I’m able to interact with it, it really just lights me up and inspires me. So I’m in a place right now where I don’t ever hear that. All I ever hear is… Chinese and every other dialect that’s connected with Chinese. And so I mean I’m learning that language and I’m communicating with the people and trying to read the characters. There’s 2,000 or some that are actually used, and 10,000 that are written. I don’t know what it is, it’s some crazy number.

Nehemia: You’re going to need 4,000 to be able to read the newspaper.

Keith: 4,000. So anyway, as I’m doing this thing, Nehemia, let me get to this point. So I’m doing this thing, I go up on an elevator, it’s me and about 10,000 Chinese people that go to the top of this huge place called the Pearl Tower. I’m up there, I’m looking, I’m taking pictures, and it’s beautiful. I’m here by myself, by the way. Andrea is back in the United States. My son, Andrew, is actually here, he’s… it’s another story, I’ll get to that.

But anyway, long story short, I’m by myself, I’m coming down the elevator, Nehemia, and all the sudden I hear, “Shalom chaver. Ma shlomcha?” The guy’s talking like, “Metzuyan.”

Nehemia: What? No way.

Keith: Listen. True story. Listen. True story.

Nehemia: He was talking to you?

Keith: No, no. I look behind me and the guy’s talking on the phone. He’s speaking Hebrew.

Nehemia: Wow.

Keith: As we’re coming down the elevator, I turn over to him. I say, “Shalom chaver Ma shlomcha?” He gets off the phone, he says, “Who are you?” You know he’s got this thick Israeli accent. “Who are you?”

Nehemia: And you said?

Keith: “Harbeh chaverim garim beYerushalayim.” I have many friends who live in Jerusalem. “Bemet? Lamah?” So he starts talking to me, and we’re talking for just like about a minute or so in Hebrew, and it shocked him to the point that he looked at me and he just walked away.

Nehemia: Wow. That’s awesome.

Keith: Now, why am I telling this story? This is this thing. So here’s this guy. He’s amongst the nations. Here I am, I’m amongst the nations. And he was so shocked that I was… he couldn’t stop and say, “What is this goy? What is this – well, this guy is obviously not Israeli.” Clearly I’m not Israeli. He’s like, “Why does he know this language?” It was like an invitation to have a conversation, a further conversation. “Now, let’s talk,” I’m thinking, let’s discuss it. Here I am from the nations, and I’m speaking your language, and we’re in this place where we’re foreigners. And it so shocked him he just walked away. I wonder if he thinks to himself, “Now, wait a minute, what does he have to do with me?” In other words, what do I have to do with him? I find this a lot, if I’m speaking a language, and it happens in Chinese too, if I speak their language, they’re like, “Wait a minute, you don’t look like us, you don’t think… like what’s going on?” And again, back to your issue, isn’t it not sometimes a struggle to look at the bigness of God and how big He is and who He is awakening and what He is doing.

Nehemia: Amen. Right.

Keith: So again, just back to this issue of whether it’s Egypt or we’re talking about Assyria or whatever, and you brought it up last week and I thought it was beautiful, is that the possibility that those are references to the nations. So for me, I’m always a little put off when I don’t sense this sort of connection with the nations. I want the nations to be awakened because that’s where I come from. I’m not one who can say I’m King David’s relative. I don’t get to say that like you.

Nehemia: Well, on the flip side of what you’re pointing out, I think, without pointing it out, and I can’t speak about the Chinese, I can’t speak about other people. But there is definitely a certain amount of Judeo-centrism, which is Jews were this persecuted people, Jews were this persecuted people for 2,000 years and became sort of insular. And there’s definitely something in our culture about, “Wait a minute, there’s somebody from the outside. We don’t need to deal with that.” Look, I’ve struggled with that in my own life and have come to a place where I am now, after many, many years of being on a journey that Yehovah has taken me on. But the natural instinct is, “No, get out of here this isn’t for you. This is our treasure. We’re not sharing this with you gentiles.”

Keith: Hey, you know what? Nehemia, let me tell you something else that happened, and we’re going to venture in a little bit because we have some time. You don’t want to talk about these other verses. Let me just venture into something else.

Nehemia: Well, no, there’s a lot to talk about the verses.

Keith: No, no. One thing I want to point out.

Nehemia: Go ahead.

Keith: Let me tell you what I really sensed from this guy.

Nehemia: Yes.

Keith: I sensed from this guy a little bit of fear. Like, we were going down this elevator, and this shocked him so much because… for those who don’t know, if you’ve never seen a picture of me, I don’t actually look like Nehemia. I actually have the real brown skin and a bald-headed brown-skinned guy amongst a bunch of Chinese. So I don’t see me very much at all. This guy happened to be of some European descent or whatever, and so he was looking at me. So there’s the black-white issue. Then there’s the language issue. And around the world right now, isn’t it fair to say that there are many Jewish people around the world that have a certain level of heightened sensitivity to what’s going on in terms of anti-Semitism, the attacks that are taking place?

Nehemia: Oh, absolutely.

Keith: So when I communicated…

Nehemia: Yes. I actually met these… Go ahead, sorry.

Keith: When I communicated with this guy, the first thing I sensed was fear. He was like, “Why are you speaking to me in my… you don’t look anything like me. Why are you speaking to me in my language?” And then he calmed down, at about floor 16, until we got to the bottom. But then he thought, “Let me get out of here, this is too weird.”

Nehemia: Wait, you were following him? You were stalking him?

Keith: I followed him. I wanted to talk, “Shalom chaver! Speak to me.”

Nehemia: Well, no. There’s definitely some truth to what you’re saying. Meaning, I think of it, I was in Nepal and I met these two Israeli girls, and they actually said to me, “Do you tell people you’re Israeli?” I’m like, “Yes. Why wouldn’t I do that?” I think their generation has been trained, like, “You don’t tell people you’re Israeli. You pretend you’re from Monaco or someplace like that, or Malta, because there’s a lot of people out there who want to hurt us.” In my generation, that definitely was not the mentality. I remember I was in Changsha in China, and I met these two Syrians from Damascus, and I told them I was Israeli, and all of a sudden they got really cold on me and really unfriendly. But that’s okay. I’m okay with that because I’m proud of being Israeli.

Keith: Amen. Well, anyways. I just think you kind of led me into this. This just happened 24 hours ago. I’ve addressed this a lot, and still, I can understand. I guess my thought was that I could understand a little bit of this sensitivity from a little bit of just an issue of being in a foreign country and the way that there are so many things that are going on internationally right around with terrorism and attacks, and that this guy clearly was…

Nehemia: I’ll tell you, I was in a place in China and there was a Belgian guy there. The minute he heard I was Israeli he got nasty; he got really nasty and showed his ignorance about international affairs. There are people who do hate, especially Europeans – not only, but especially Europeans – and obviously, Muslims, who hate Jews and hate Israel. At the same time, of course, people don’t realize this, there are actually Muslims in the Israeli army who serve and fight for their country. So everybody’s different, but I understand why some people are afraid.

Keith: Okay. Well, there we go.

Nehemia: Yes.

Keith: Can I can I keep reading?

Nehemia: Yes, let’s do it.

Keith: So here it says… He’s talking about them, he says, “They have repeatedly stumbled.” Are you done with your confession? Can we move on? I’m just checking.

Nehemia: Yes. Let’s move on. Let’s do it.

Keith: I want to say…

Nehemia: Let’s get to verse 18. I’ve got something to say there.

Keith: Yes, I appreciate you saying that, actually, because it really is a bit of a sensitive issue, but it’s connected. “They have repeatedly stumbled; indeed, they have fallen one against another. They have said, ‘Get up! And let us go back to our own people and our native land away from the sword of the oppressor.’ They cried there, ‘Pharaoh king of Egypt is but a big noise; He has let,’” and here comes the verse 17, “He has let the appointed time pass by!” And again, that happens to be the word, and I don’t know, again, you’re…

Nehemia: Is that the Word of the Week? That was the Word of the Week like two weeks ago, wasn’t it?

Keith: That happens to be the mo’ed. It happens to be…

Nehemia: The appointed time.

Keith: The appointed time passed by. Now, verse 18, go at it, Nehemia.

Nehemia: Yes, we’re here. I love this. So it talks about Pharaoh, King of Egypt. Yes, he’s just a bunch of noise and then he says, “Chai ani neum hamelech Yehovah Tzvaot shemo,” “As I live, saith the King, Yehovah of hosts is His name.” So here, this is pretty cool. So Yehovah is proclaiming, “As I live,” which is an oath. “As Yehovah lives,” is what we say. But He Himself doesn’t say, “As Yehovah lives” because He is Yehovah. He says, “As I live, saith the King, whose name is Yehovah of hosts,” that’s pretty cool. Then He speaks about Tavor, and all of a sudden, my ears light up and I’m starting to pay attention because here’s Tavor and Carmel. These are places I’m familiar with in Israel. And as I was reading this, I was thinking – that’s why I shared my confession – because I’m like, “Wait a minute, why do I like this verse? And the other verses that talk about Memphis, or Noph in Hebrew, why do I not care about that?” That’s what made me realize, “Oh, wait a minute, this isn’t about me; it’s not about Israel. It’s Judeo-centrism.” Yes, but here what I think is cool is, “As I live, saith the King, Yehovah of hosts is His name.” That’s pretty cool. You’ve got a king who makes a lot of noise? We’ve got the real king.

Keith: Yes. And going further, when he says that, I was going to ask a question. So in different languages, you hear this sound…

Nehemia: Which one?

Keith: He says, “chai,” “chai ani,” you know, “life.”

Nehemia: Yes, chai, life, live.

Keith: Or “As I live.”

Nehemia: Literally, yes, it’s “life I.” That’s the literal translation.

Keith: Yes, “life I.” And so that’s… again, we get into the whole issue when He does these kinds of things when He says this, when He swears, “I swear by Myself.” It’s like you can take it to the bank. Meaning that’s something that when He gets involved like that… and again, I like the fact that he did he uses the word, “Declares the King,” because what did we just talk about?

Nehemia: The king of Egypt. Here’s a real king. Now, I don’t know if you remember this, but if I’m not mistaken, I believe that we talked about this verse in the book A Prayer to Our Father: Hebrew Origins of the Lord’s Prayer. Do you remember that? We were looking for the place where Yeshua taught what’s known as the Lord’s Prayer, or the Avinu, the Our Father prayer. There were I believe six places we went to. It was quite a number of years ago. But we went to six different locations that have been identified throughout history as the place for the Sermon on the Mount, where the Lord’s Prayer was taught, where the Sermon on the Mount took place. One of the explanations or one of the traditions in the Christian world is that that took place on Mount Tavor, or Mount Tabor, and the reason is because of this verse. You look around the Galilee, as far away as the Golan Heights, and you look up and you see Mount Tavor looming among the mountains. It’s just this really prominent beautiful mountain. In Nepal, it wouldn’t even be considered a hill, but in Israel, it’s a mountain. So there are people who said, “Oh, Sermon on the Mount, we don’t know the name of the mountain? It’s got to be Tavor. It’s the mountain, right?” Based on this verse. But in fact, that’s probably not the best candidate. It’s unlikely that was the place.

Keith: Actually, I have to say, I mean I love Israel, I think it’s a beautiful place. We’re going to be going there this spring. Anyone that’s interested, I think there are a couple more spots available if anyone’s interested. This is going to be the third trip to Israel. But one of the things that really is kind of cool, as you mentioned, we looked to those six different spots, and I remember when I was actually in Israel and we were talking about the mountain. I don’t know how many different mountains I’ve been to, but other than the fact that you were driving as if it was a mountain, it didn’t look like a mountain at all.

Nehemia: Are you insulting my driving?

Keith: No, on Mount Arbel, now that felt a little bit like a mountain. But…

Nehemia: What, Tavor didn’t feel like a mountain? I think because Tavor’s so big that you gradually get up to it.

Keith: Yes, when you get to Israel…

Nehemia: Whereas Arbel is sudden.

Keith: Yes. Exactly. Like I said, it felt like a mountain when you were driving on the way down. It definitely felt like a mountain. But on the way up, it was like…

Nehemia: Again, it’s so big it’s almost like this gradual… it’s kind of like this dome-shaped mountain.

Keith: It’s exactly like a dome-shaped mountain.

Nehemia: So as you go up, you don’t really feel like, “Oh, I’m going straight up.” Where’s at Arbel, you’re literally at one point going straight up. Or straight down.

Keith: So can we keep reading here?

Nehemia: Yes. Let’s do it.

Keith: “Make your baggage ready for exile,” it says here.

Nehemia: That’s cool.

Keith: Yes. “O daughter, dwelling in Egypt, for Memphis will become a desolation. It will even be burned down and bereft of inhabitants.” And then 46:20, “Egypt is a pretty heifer, but a horsefly is coming from the north—it is coming!”

Nehemia: Now we talked about this last week, about the 40-year exile of Egypt. Look, I’m sure there are a lot of people with a lot of theories. “Yes, that took place in 542 B.C.” I’m sure there are a lot of theories like that, but the bottom line is we don’t really know. Has this even taken place yet? I mean this sounds like it’s got to be taking place in the time of Nevuchadnezzar. It’s very possible he took part of the population exile and we just don’t have all of those details. I mean that’s what the Babylonians did when they conquered a place.

Keith: They’d take people.

Nehemia: They would take people into exile. They would especially take the elite, and then they’d install their own elite. The ruling class they would take, it and they’d install their own ruling class. The lower rungs of society often just do whatever the rulers say anyway. Whoever those rulers are. So yes, that may have been something. I mean, it sounds like that had to be something at the time of Nevuchadnezzar. Maybe it’s something that’s going to happen in the future. Yes.

Keith: Okay. It says here, “Also her mercenaries in her midst are like fattened calves, for even they too have turned back and have fled away together. They did not stand their ground. For the day of their calamity has come upon them, the time of their punishment.” Again, the idea, I guess, as I’m reading through this, it’s like it gets to be these images. This is what’s going to happen. This is what it’s going to be like. This is the picture, and I think one of the things that I do appreciate about these sorts of passages is it makes me, again, try to get to be reminded of context. And here’s an example. They’re like a fattened calf. Now, I could go and do a whole thing that they’re fat and calves, and then it breaks down at some point. You know here’s the image. Let’s take that image all the way until the end. I’ve got many examples of that. Many examples from my tradition where we’ll take one image and then try to take that image to the end and then it will break down, and once it breaks down, you keep pushing it, and then someone comes along and says, “Well, that can’t really be that because of this.” And then, all of a sudden, you get caught with your back against the wall. You’re not going to make me say what that is, right? Jeremiah 46:22…

Nehemia: I actually don’t know what you’re talking about.

Keith: Good. That’s good. Let’s move on. “Its sound moves along like a serpent for they move on like an army and come to her as woodcutters with axes.” Boy.

Nehemia: You know that is really mysterious. Could you read one more verse to finish the word woodcutter image?

Keith: Yes. “‘They have cut down her forest,’ declares Yehovah. ‘Surely it will no more be found, even though they are now more numerous than locusts and are without number.’”

Nehemia: So what do you have to say about that, about the woodcutter?

Keith: You’re saying this sounds mysterious, you say?

Nehemia: It’s mysterious because there are no forests in Egypt and there never were. So what is this talking about? “They have cut down her forest”? Now, the locusts, “they are more numerous than locusts,” that may have been one of the reasons that the tradition that chose this passage said, “Okay, well this will correspond to the Torah portion because we’ve got the plague of locusts.” Maybe that’s why. I’m assuming that’s why. Because there are a lot of prophecies about Egypt. Why this one?

So first of all, there was the smiting in verse 13, which is the word for “plague,” and now, we have locusts. This is a no brainer that this has to be the section. But what are these forests they’re cutting down? There are no forests in Egypt. Egypt is historically – I’m not talking about Egypt today – but historically, Egypt was the most narrow, longest country in the world, because basically, you have a few miles on either side of the Nile River, which goes for thousands of miles. But if you go 10 miles or 15 miles away from the Nile, you’re in the middle of the desert and there’s nothing there. So you can travel a thousand miles and still be in Egypt, but you could also travel 10 miles and be in the middle of nowhere, and it’s completely desolate, historically.

So it was considered one of the longest country and narrowest country in the world, and it was pretty much this continuous population. Meaning that if you went along the Nile, every inch of the Nile, the shore there pretty much was occupied by someone. It was actually different than, for example, India, in the Indus Valley and the Euphrates Valley, where there were cities that grew up very early. Egypt was more or less this continuous population all the way from what’s today Sudan to the delta. They had cities, but also, there were people living everywhere. But where are these forests? There are no forests in Egypt.

Keith: I have no idea.

Nehemia: I have a new theory.

Keith: Your new theory?

Nehemia: I have a new teaching.

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: I’m the only one who knows this. You’ve got to buy my book. It’s my secret. No, I’m going to share it. So what are the forests? I don’t know, but it’s possible the forests are the, what do you call that? The temples. They had these temples in Egypt, and there were these forests of stone pillars holding up the roof, holding up the top of the temple. They didn’t actually have… sometimes they would bring in – especially for the rafters – they’d bring in Cedar from Lebanon. But for the pillars to hold it up, for that they used stone, because stone was abundant; trees were very rare in Egypt. So maybe cutting down the forest is destroying the temples. It’s possible. The forest of pillars.

Keith: We’ll throw that in with the possibilities of theories.

Nehemia: Because otherwise, what’s it talking about? And of course, this opens up the possibility that Egypt here does not mean Egypt, it’s an allegory, it’s a symbol of Russia. Now, we finally have the revelation that this is going to refer to Russia in the 21st century and there are many forests in Russia. I don’t know. It could be.

Keith: So it’s interesting. This is one of those issues, too, where we have these people that are listening, and I want to say again, Nehemia, I’ve really been excited about the depth that people will go into when they are studying Scripture, and those that are listening that have their Bibles open, one or two translations, and making the comments and us interacting with those comments. There’s nothing wrong with reading ahead. If somebody is reading ahead and they find something really powerful – let’s just say that a passage like this that we’re about to get to – make a comment on our pages and we’ll see if we’re able to bring that. That’s the kind of thing that would be awesome.

But I want to ask the question in 46:24. And I’m asking this question sincerely. When you hear the words, “The daughter of Egypt has been put to shame,” what image do you have? When you hear, “the daughter of Egypt,” what does that mean to you?

Nehemia: So the image there, and we’ll often hear about the daughter of Zion, “bat tzion,” and the image there is the young women of that country. So yes, that’s what it…

Keith: That’s how you see it. So it’s saying, “The daughter of Egypt has been put to shame, given over to the power of the people…”

Nehemia: Do you want me to be explicit on a family program what it means?

Keith: No, I’m trying…

Nehemia: No. That’s what it means.

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: I’m not going to say what it means, but it’s clear what it means. It’s talking about when enemies invade, they do what armies do and they take the daughters and they put them to shame. That’s what happens.

Keith: Yes, that’s what happens. Actually, right now, in parts of Africa, certainly we’ve seen it in other places, in Syria and Iraq, all over. This is something that’s taking place right now.

Nehemia: Yes. It’s tragic. It really is a horrible thing.

Keith: It really is, and you can really pass over something like this and not know what it’s speaking of. But you can turn on the news right now and you can hear about whether it’s the terrorists that are going in, you know, bring back our daughters, what took it with Boko Haram. It really is a devastating thing. And the testimonies of what’s happening with different religious groups all over the world right now, this verse definitely comes to mind with what’s happened.

Nehemia: Right. Maybe the most famous example in modern times is when the Soviet army conquered Berlin, that there was – and I’ll just come out and say it; if you want to mute this and send the kids out of the room, go ahead – but when the Soviet army in 1945 captured Berlin there was mass rape on an industrial scale, maybe hundreds of thousands or millions of women, and that’s what this is talking about.

And I do find it interesting, from my Judeo-centric perspective, that in the entire history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, there’s never been a documented instance where an Israeli soldier actually committed that crime. Israel is actually very fastidious, very careful about investigating so-called or even actual war crimes. For example, if a soldier steals something from a house, even in the middle of a battle, if he picks it up, puts in his pocket, and that’s reported, then he’ll get in a lot of trouble. And that’s happened, that has happened. But what it’s talking about in this verse has never been perpetrated in the history of the State of Israel by an Israeli soldier. Which is actually unprecedented in history.

Keith: I will say this. You know, you’re kind of tiptoeing around the issue, and I understood your reasoning for that. But I guess when we’re reading Scripture and you see something, “The daughter of Egypt has been put to shame,” it’s easy not to know what that is. It’s easy to just think, “Oh, that must be some language issue.” Actually, here in China they just were looking at this terrible thing that took place with the Japanese over here, and they are finally acknowledging it. And one of the things that’s really interesting is the Japanese – some of the parts of the population will acknowledge what actually happened and others won’t. But over in China now, they’re beginning to build a museum and memorials, et cetera, which is tens of thousands of people where this happened, tens of thousands of women where this happened. And so it’s one of those things that, again, where Scripture from of old can be brought to the present time and you can actually see it happening. That’s what this verse is about.

Nehemia: Yes.

Keith: So verse 46:25. And let me stop, again, Nehemia. One of the things that’s really interesting, and I know this has been something that you’ve done for as long as I’ve known you. And sometimes you do it and I get frustrated because you’re, “It’s so obvious. This is obvious what this is. Clearly, this is what this is.” Like, no, that’s not clear. It’s not always clear, because people don’t always get context. And that’s one of the things about your ministry – is being able to bring language, history, and context to the most important book, certainly for those that are listening and many people around the world, the Bible being the most important book, the Hebrew Scriptures, where people don’t have access to that information, that’s one of the powers – that’s really a powerful thing about what you do. So I’m handing you an opportunity to talk about…

Nehemia: Oh, is the Ministry Minute? Okay.

Keith: You don’t have to actually say it every time you just do it. It’s just there.

Nehemia: Now, for the Ministry Minute with Nehemia Gordon. So yes, my ministry is called the Makor Hebrew Foundation. M-A-K-O-R. Makor is the source of the water, that’s from the verse in Jeremiah that Yehovah is the source of the living water. My website is nehemiaswall.com.

So one of the things I’m doing in the upcoming months is going to be working on the Aviv Search. The Aviv Search is when we go to Israel and we scour the land looking for the first ripening barley, first fields of Aviv barley, and the first new moon after the Aviv barley, that’s when the year begins. I’ll be talking a little bit more about that as time goes by. It’s really interesting, because there are these organizations in Israel, a specific organization, the Israeli New Moon Society, which is a Rabbinical organization, and they actually observe new moons every month. But they don’t use those new moons for observing the feast. They say this is practice and preparation for when the Messiah comes. My approach as a Karaite Jew is that when the Messiah comes, I want to be able to tell him I was doing the best that I could while I was waiting for you. So for me, when I do this, this isn’t practice, this is real life, as real as life gets.

One of the other things going on of my ministry is that I’ll be traveling around speaking in the next few months, and I want to invite people to invite me. People write to me all the time and say, “How can we come and hear you,” or,“how can we get you to come to our town to speak?” Contact me. Write to me through nehemiaswall.com and we’ll set something up. I’ll do venues big and small. I really just want to share the Word of God.