Prophet Pearls #31 – Emor (Ezekiel 44:15-31)

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. This is Nehemia Gordon and Keith Johnson, coming to you recorded live from Jerusalem, the city of the prophets, the eternal capital of Israel, discussing biblical prophecy for yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

Keith: I like that, Nehemia. How do you say that again, the eternal city?

Nehemia: The eternal capital of Israel.

Keith: Ah, the eternal capital of Israel.

Nehemia: The city of the prophets.

Keith: Now, is that the official eternal capital of Israel and then half of it’s going to be someone else’s capital, or how does that work? Can it be more than one…. Can one city be a capital for two groups, or can it only be one?

Nehemia: About that… [laughing]

Keith: I’m asking the question because…

Nehemia: You know, it amazes me when in history we look back at the Berlin Wall, and universally everybody looks upon that as this horrible thing that happened, this horrible persecution, this destruction of the national soul of Germany, which kind of deserved it. And then they want to turn around and do the same thing to Israel, the eternal capital of the Jewish people. Like, wait a minute, why do you want to put the Berlin Wall down the center of Jerusalem?

Keith: For those that don’t understand… so would you do something? We’ve been talking about this. I’ve really been enjoying conversations we’ve been having when we’re not here recording, and some of these are really, really significant conversations. But in terms of the international community’s thought that somehow Jerusalem can be split, and it can be the capital for one and the capital for… Is that the idea, that they think part of Jerusalem that can be the capital of one group of people, and then another part can be the capital of other people? I mean is there any part… Is that what they’re saying? That’s what I want to know.

Nehemia: I’m not so sure that’s what they’re saying. I think they want it to be the capital of Palestine, which is… there’s never been…

Keith: Oh, no part of it can be…?

Nehemia: In the entire history of the world, there’s ever been a country called Palestine. Jerusalem was never the capital of… it wasn’t even the capital of an Arab province. In fact, there was an Arab province here called Philistine and its capital was Ramla, which is a city about an hour from here – it wasn’t Jerusalem – by car.

Keith: Okay. I just thought I’d ask you.

Nehemia: So they ruled Jerusalem, but it was not their capital, it wasn’t their city; Ramla was.

Keith: You know it’s interesting, Nehemia, we’re going to be in Ezekiel again, and I would just let everyone know this is no small feat today, we’ve been working all day today, and it’s been with the Word of God. And so again, we’ve been impassioned to do it, but this is really an important passage for us to talk about. I hope that you got your computer charged up, because I’m really kind of excited about this. I really don’t know that I can talk much beyond the first verse.

The first verse for me is Ezekiel 44. Before we get to that, I just want to say that we really have been adding another dimension, and the dimension is to be able to discuss some of these things. We didn’t get to discuss this, Nehemia, and I feel kind of bad about it because I did some searching in the Bible and there are some questions that I have, and hopefully, we’ll be able to answer those questions. So let’s go ahead and get started right off in the beginning. It says…

Nehemia: Before that, let’s just give the background here. So we’re reading… it’s the 31st episode, we’re doing the 31st Prophets portion, corresponding this time with the portion of Emor, which is Leviticus 21 verse 1 through 24 verse 23, and what we’re reading today is Ezekiel 44 verses 15 to 31.

Keith: And I also want to say to our Prophet Pearl partners, Mark and Chris, thank you so much, Mark and Chris.

Nehemia: Todah rabah.

Keith: Yes, for being our Prophet Pearls partners for this. It’s so funny – when we actually decided that we wanted to do this, we obviously didn’t have this trip as a part of what it was going to cost for us to do this.

Nehemia: No. [laughing]

Keith: We had our editor and we had the issues that surround it. So this has been something that’s actually above and beyond what we expected, but we always like to say this – whenever God gives the vision, He always gives provision. So when we talk about our ministries, let me just be real clear with people. When Nehemia does his thing, and he says, “Stand with me on the wall,” and I talk, “Go to the BFA website,” it’s an opportunity for you, if you’re enjoying Prophet Pearls, by you supporting us in that you’re also helping us be able to continue to do what we do and to get caught up for what it cost us to get here. [laughing]

Nehemia: Yes, there definitely have been expenses that nobody… I mean, the original plan was that you’d be sitting in Shanghai and I would be somewhere in the US, and we would record this, and there would be certain expenses. But we didn’t expect that we would have to both fly to Israel, rent this safe house, and a bunch of other expenses that weren’t anticipated. And so, yes, we’re doing it.

Keith: But it’s for the right purpose.

Nehemia: It’s for the right purpose, as we said, we’re committed to doing it, so we’ll do whatever it takes.

Keith: Whatever it takes.

Nehemia: He even made me ride on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

Keith: You didn’t tell them that. [laughing]

Nehemia: Scared the heck out of me.

Keith: “But the Levitical priests,” and then it says, Nehemia, in 44 verse 15 of the Book of Ezekiel, the prophet that I have raised, you know, this guy is just my guy. It says, “But the Levitical priests,” and if it would have stopped there, I guess, I would just move on, but it says, “the Levitical priests, the sons of Zadok.” Okay, now when I read that, I ask myself a simple question – why do we have the definition of the sons? And specifically in this situation, how can I do this unless I take a look and say, who is this person? Who are the sons of Zadok?

Nehemia: Yes, well, let’s read the verse and then we’ll talk about that.

Keith: Okay. And then, “‘who kept charge of My sanctuary when the sons of Israel went astray from Me, shall come near to Me to minister to Me; and they shall stand near before Me to offer Me the fat and the blood,’ declares the Lord GOD.” It says in English, and I would challenge you to say something, because there’s not another verse in the entire Tanakh that has “Me” as many times as it’s here. [laughing] In the English, it’s really interesting…

Nehemia: Is it true?

Keith: I don’t know. But it’s really interesting, they capitalized “Me” and “My.” So I want to read it real quick. “‘But the Levitical priests… who kept charge of My sanctuary when the sons of Israel went astray from Me, shall come near to Me to minister to Me; and they shall stand before Me to offer Me the fat and the blood,’ declares the Lord GOD.” Six times in one verse.

Nehemia: Yes. I don’t know. We have to, now we’ve got to…

Keith: I don’t know if we can check it.

Nehemia: It won’t be something we check now, because that really is a little complicated.

Keith: But isn’t it amazing?

Nehemia: But, yes, we’ve got six Me’s, and yes, that’s interesting.

Keith: Me’s or My’s. Yes.

Nehemia: Me’s or My’s.

Keith: Anyway. But again, the sons of Zadok, and I don’t know if Zadok is what…

Nehemia: Bnei Zadok.

Keith: Bnei Zadok. And I want to do something if I can…

Nehemia: Yes.

Keith: If it would be all right. I usually ask you what’s the Word of the Week. I want to say what the Word of the Week is today.

Nehemia: Sure.

Keith: I want to explain it, because it caused me to kind of do a little bit of, if I could say, a little bit of checking myself. And so many times people talk about this three-letter root, which is Tzadik-Dalet-Kuf. Now that’s the three-letter root of a word, which is “Zadok.” Now, it’s a noun, and we’re talking about a person, it’s a proper noun, and so that three-letter root is used for a lot of different words. And I want to just, off the top of your head, how many words do you think, just off the top of your head, Nehemia, would you say are based on that three-letter root? Just in English, just some words that you think off the top of your head.

Nehemia: Can I do it in Hebrew?

Keith: Of course, you can. But I’m saying the translation in English.

Nehemia: We have “Tzedek,” “Tzdakah,” “Tzadik.”

Keith: “Tzadokim.”

Nehemia: “Tzdukim” is not in the Tanakh.

Keith: Okay.

Nehemia: We have the name Zadok. We have King Zedekiah, Tzidkiyahu.

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: I think we have Yehotzadak, but I’m not sure, so we’ll leave that one off. Yes. I don’t know. That’s five.

Keith: And that’s a lot.

Nehemia: What do you have?

Keith: Oh, no. I’m just saying if I were to say this, if I just said, “Okay, I want to just look for how many times we have, say, the root of that word”? 605 times.

Nehemia: Right. But how many, I guess, lexical…

Keith: Yes. That’s a different question. [laughing]

Nehemia: Well, that’s the question I’m asking.

Keith: Okay.

Nehemia: But okay.

Keith: Yes. But I would say this – when I’m looking at this, and I’m asking, “So who is this person, and where do we see this person?” And the thing that was kind of interesting to me is that I went and asked myself, where do we see this person, the name, that specific name, operating as a priest? And there’s a really big gap between the last time that we see this name and then by the time we get to Ezekiel.

Nehemia: Right.

Keith: I don’t know what you thought about that. I mean, it was helpful for me just to go back and take a look, and I bet you even have it here, the list. Are you ready with your list?

Nehemia: I’m ready to talk about who Zadok was.

Keith: Okay. Give the list. Awesome. Yes.

Nehemia: So first of all, Zadok was the high priest at the time of Solomon in the First Temple. He’s the first high priest in the First Temple. And Zadok had been alongside, in Samuel, this guy named Eviatar during the time of David, but Eviatar rebelled by backing Adoniyahu. I think we read that section.

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: Eviatar was banished from the priesthood and sent to Anathoth in fulfillment of Samuel’s prophecy about Eli…

Keith: We did talk about that.

Nehemia: …In Samuel 3:11 to 14, and then it was applied to Eli’s descendant, Eviatar, in 1 Kings 2:27. And of course, Jeremiah is probably a descendant of Eviatar, because he also came from Anathoth. So Zadok basically is this priest from the High Temple, and all the high priests who come after Zadok are descendants of Zadok. So when we hear about “Bnei Zadok,” the sons of Zadok, we’re talking about these descendants of the line of the high priest. Now, maybe not every Bnei Zadok is a high priest, but they’re descended from this first high priest. That will actually be really important as we read the passage – that we’re dealing with this family of the high priests. Now, the other question, did you have…?

Keith: Go ahead.

Nehemia: So the question I ask in verse 15 is he’s referring to this historical event, and in the Hebrew it’s not entirely clear if it happened or didn’t happen, because we have this idea in Hebrew of what we call a prophetic past.

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: Sometimes you’ll say something in the past tense, which hasn’t happened yet because what it’s going to happen imminently, it’s definitely going to happen; it’s a certainty it’s going to happen. And in fact, we encountered that this past week. I don’t know if you remember. We were going to return the rental car that we had for a few days, and I went in to return it, and they’ve got to do this thing where they check over the rental car, something they don’t do in America, I don’t know why. But in Israel, they’re very fastidious about checking for scratches. And so the guy was on the phone and he turns to me and he says, “Ani kvar ba,” which literally means, “I have already come.”

Keith: Yes. [laughing] And I remember talking about that.

Nehemia: And you said to me, you said, “What did he say?” I said, “He said he has already come.” And it was prophetic past, meaning, the guy’s still sitting there on the phone.

Keith: He’s not there. [laughing]

Nehemia: What do you mean you’ve already come? I’m waiting. I’m sitting here waiting. But what he means is “I’m definitely going to come, it’s imminent, I’m for sure going to come.” He might have been lying, but that’s what he meant. And that’s actually a modern-day example of this concept in Hebrew, the prophetic past.

Keith: By the way, before you go any further, Nehemia, just as a matter of a little bit of housekeeping here. So you say you had the car for a few days. Now, I’ve actually only been in that car with you for one day, and since then, you’ve had me on the bus. So we don’t have that car anymore, and we’re taking a bus back and forth for six shekels at night.

Nehemia: This is a classy operation. [laughing]

Keith: [laughing] He’s got me in the basement, folks, and I’m taking a bus. I’m sick and you’ve got me on the bus. What happened to the car? We couldn’t afford to keep the car.

Nehemia: I couldn’t afford to have the Toyota. We weren’t expecting to come here. Right.

Keith: Go ahead.

Nehemia: Anyway, so the question is, is this something that happened already? In other words, Ezekiel…

Keith: When you say something had happened, you’re speaking of which aspect?

Nehemia: So here’s the point: Ezekiel is writing this, or preaching this and then it’s written down, sometime in the 500s BCE, if it’s the 590s or 580s – I don’t know, we could look at the passage – but it’s sometime in the 500s BCE. Did this already take place by the time Ezekiel comes along? Or is he saying, “This is going to happen, and then when it happens, there’ll be this group of people who are loyal to me so I will then…”

Keith: When you say “this”, you mean this first verse, this idea of them doing these…

Nehemia: Oh yes, these Levitical priests.

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: Here’s the thing, “who guarded the treasure of My sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from Me.” When did they guard the treasure or the ritual sanctuary? When did they keep the sanctuary? When the children of Israel went astray. Was that in the time of King Menashe?

Keith: Okay. I see.

Nehemia: Or was it in the time of King Josiah? Or was this something that happened in a later period of history? And I can tell you my view of it, but the real answer is we don’t know. It’s really not clear. He may be referring to something that in his time was already a fact – that the rest of the Israelites had gone astray except this one family of high priests.

Keith: I see.

Nehemia: And because that family of high priests was loyal, in the future they’ll be chosen to be the priests in the Temple once again and they’ll have this special status. Or maybe this is something that he knew would happen in the future, at a time when the Israelites would go astray, and because of that, in the final Temple, because that’s we’re dealing with here in Ezekiel 44 to 48…

Keith: An important piece of information, by the way.

Nehemia: Yes. In this final Third Temple, they will then be the family of high priests because they were loyal in this other period of history, which hadn’t happened yet in the time of Ezekiel. And maybe it hasn’t even happened today. In other words, maybe we’re going to have a situation where there’s a future Temple built, and all of Israel will go astray after something – maybe after some false Messiah, I don’t know, or some false one-world government or something – and there’ll be this one family of high priests who will be loyal to the Creator of the universe in keeping the sanctuary, and because of that, in the final Temple, or in the final period of the Temple, they will then be the priests. In other words, it’s not entirely clear from this passage.

Keith: I was going to say. It just seems… and again, I appreciate the fact you’re saying it’s not entirely clear. It’s just that from all the things that we’ve read and different situations where we’ve seen, and especially when you read through Kings and you hear about the kings doing this, and then the remnant of people that will either continue to do what is right or won’t bow their knee or whatever, it’s hard for me not to think that this isn’t the past but, again, I can’t tell you exactly where that would be. I couldn’t give you a specific example that says that definitely when the people went astray, the priest continued to take charge of the sanctuary.

Nehemia: So can I make a suggestion?

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: Okay. Look, we don’t know, here’s the bottom line. But there is something that I look at in history, and I say, “Wait a minute, this sounds awfully like it.” And specifically, there was a group in Second Temple times called the Sadducees. Now, I’m not talking about the Sadducees in the New Testament, because those were actually a subgroup called the Boethusians, or the Herodians in some sources. I’m talking about the Sadducees who actually pre-date the time of Herod, who came along and kind of usurped that group. The original Sadducees were Jews who followed only the written Scripture. Now, what does Sadducee mean? Now, I know in the Christian tradition they say, “They were sad, you see.” But actually, Sadducee in Hebrew is Tzadokim, which is another way of saying, “the children of Zadok.”

Keith: So I tried to slip that in earlier, and you said it wasn’t in the Tanakh, it’s a historical issue.

Nehemia: Well, no, it’s not biblical Hebrew. It’s Second Temple Hebrew.

Keith: Okay. Got you.

Nehemia: And this is Tanakh Hebrew. Yes. So the Tzadokim, or the Bnei Zadok, the sons of Zadok, they were actually a historical group that we know about, who up until… As I said, there was this thing with Herod where he married the daughter of this priest from Alexandria called Boethus. And then Boethus basically hijacked the Sadducees and established these Herodian or Boethusian Sadducees. But the earlier ones were people who were loyal to the Torah at a time when the children of Israel went astray.

And I’ll admit here I’m a Karaite Jew, and if you want to say this is a Karaite bias, I completely accept it. But I would say it the other way around – I’m a Karaite because of this, not, because I’m a Karaite I say this. And that’s how did the Israelites go astray? What’s he talking about? Well, this is exactly the time when we have the rise of the rabbis. The rabbis show up around 150 B.C. and start to gradually get a greater and greater stranglehold over the Jewish people, and by around 30 B.C. you have the House of Shammai and the House of Hillel, who are these two dominant Pharisee groups, and at this time, you have exactly what he talks about here. You have these Levitical priests, sons of Zadok, who keep the sanctuary when the children of Israel are going astray from Me [whispering] after the rabbis. That’s my Karaite reading of this verse, and I’m sticking with it.

Keith: Okay. So be it. But here’s what it says that they did, “They shall enter My sanctuary and they shall come near to My table to minister to Me and keep My charge.” And when I read that I just think about what was going on in a really practical way, what kind of work they did. Now, a few sessions ago, you said you won the contest at school about all the different things that happened. When you read that verse…

Nehemia: Right. The minutiae of the sacrifices.

Keith: Do you think about what exactly they did? Obviously, I’m talking about “coming near to My table to minister to Me…”

Nehemia: Well, verse 16 is clearly in the future. Meaning, because they were loyal at some point in history, whether it was before Ezekiel or after Ezekiel, because those were the ones who were loyal, the Bnei Zadok…

Keith: This is what they will do.

Nehemia: They will come into My sanctuary and they will approach My table to serve Me, and they will keep My charge,” or “My treasure.” In other words, they’re going to be the ones who serve in the Temple because they were loyal at that point in history. Yes.

Keith: So then, this is where I was just asking more of a practical question, and actually, I think… Did we talk about what the parallel was here, what the Torah…?

Nehemia: Yes. It’s the portion of Emor. And, oh boy, are we going to talk about it.

Keith: Exactly. [laughing]

Nehemia: Because we can’t read this passage without reading the passages in Leviticus that are parallel to it, particularly, these chapters 21 through 24, but other passages, as well. We’ll talk about that as we read through it.

Keith: Okay. So it says here, “It shall be that when they enter at the gates of the inner court, they shall be clothed,” and it says here, “with linen garments; and wool shall not be on them while they are ministering in the gates of the inner court and in the house.”

Nehemia: Okay. So here is the first contradiction that we have. And this is a famous passage. This entire section is famous in Jewish tradition because it appears over and over to be contradicting Leviticus. And we’ll talk about some of the instances. I want to read you a passage from the Talmud, the tractate of Sabbath 13B. It says, “Rav Yehuda said in the name of Rav: ‘Surely, remember that man for good, Hananya the son of Hizkiya is his name, for without him the Book of Ezekiel would have been banned.” And the word there is “ganaz,” and it means to be put in a genizah. It means to be stuck in the room where nobody can read it.

Keith: Right.

Nehemia: So the rabbis would have banned the Book of Ezekiel were it not for this one rabbi, Hananya, son of Hizkiya. And they go on, “For its words contradict the words of the Torah. What did the rabbi do? They brought up three hundred garubs of oil for him, and he sat in his upper room and explained them away.” In other words, he interpreted them contrary to the language and context to force them to fit the Torah.

Keith: When you say “them,” when you said he…

Nehemia: Somebody brought him lots of oil, remember they didn’t have electricity, he stayed up day and night until he figured out how to explain… He figured out how to fit Ezekiel to fit what it says in the Torah, because to him there were these contradictions. This is an important point – you’ll go to these websites and they’ll be called like, “Contradictions in Scripture,” and they’ll be tearing down Scripture, ripping it apart. And here’s how I look at it – apparent or real contradictions in Scripture are vital to get what I call a 3D understanding, focusing on the contradiction without trying to explain them results in a fuzzy picture. And I had this experience recently, where I went to see a movie, this might be controversial because…

Keith: Don’t tell me you’re going to…

Nehemia: No, it wasn’t Harry Potter. It was The Hobbit, the latest Hobbit movie. Is that pagan?

Keith: Okay. Go ahead.

Nehemia: No, there was definitely some magic going on in there. But I went with my nephew and my brother-in-law, who wears a kippah, an Orthodox Jew. Anyway, I went to see The Hobbit, and they didn’t tell me it was going to be a 3D movie. [Keith laughing] And so I’m wearing my glasses instead of my contact lenses; I’m trying to force those 3D glasses over my regular glasses, and they didn’t really fit, because I have a really big head. What I noticed is that when you take off the 3D glasses everything is fuzzy.

Keith: Exactly.

Nehemia: When you wear the 3D glasses it kind of pops out at you. It’s really cool. And here’s how I look at it. If you take off the glasses, that’s like focusing on the details of two halves of a contradiction. In Scripture, if something appears to be a contradiction focusing on those two things, whereas if you put on the 3D glasses then you get this new perspective, and what was fuzzy before now actually helps you get a better view, a better vision. Does that make any sense?

Keith: It does, especially if you tell me how this all works.

Nehemia: Yes. When you put on the glasses, trying to understand Scripture from a place of faith, the image pops out; apparent contradictions are not a nuisance in Jewish tradition. On the contrary, contradictions are the fuel that drives Scriptural interpretation in the Jewish tradition. Now, I want to talk about the rabbis a little. They say we need the Oral Law to solve the contradictions in the Bible. I hear this all the time, “You can’t read Scripture…”

Keith: “You can’t understand this.”

Nehemia: “Because otherwise, you’ll be stuck by the contradictions.” This is what they say. The Oral Law provides the solutions made up by rabbis. They may be correct with their solutions, but they’re no better than anybody else’s solution. Meaning, you could come up with the same thing. You sit in the attic with 300 garubs of oil, you’ll figure it out too, right? Now, the atheists claim that the contradictions undermine Scripture. For me, they give me a better understanding of Scripture and they provide humility for me.

Keith: Okay.

Nehemia: Sometimes we need to have humility and accept that the answer is “I don’t know.” And I think we’re going to have that in this passage.

Keith: Uh-oh.

Nehemia: This passage in Ezekiel provides us with examples of “I don’t know.” At least for me. And I have electrical lights, I don’t even need the garubs of oil. Meaning I could sit for days straight with coffee. My approach is always to look for an explanation based on the interpretation of language, history, and context. That’s number one.

Scribal errors are the last resort. Scribal change, that the scribe changed it intentionally, that’s what I call the nuclear option. Meaning, you really have to bring strong proof for that to be the case. An example where there’s a scribal change is you have this word in the Torah, which is “yishgalena,” and in the margin, it says, “Read it Ishkavena.” That’s a whole discussion, we don’t have to go into it. But actually, clearly, the scribes are telling you, “We’ve changed this.” In this case, the scribes tell us what they were doing.

Keith: Now, maybe this sounds too simplistic, and I know we’ve always tried to do this, and I know you’re telling me here’s what the challenges are and there are issues with it. What I kind of did is I took it a little bit different. I said, okay, first I want to just know – I’m kind of reading it a little bit in a vacuum. I’m saying, “So what is it that Ezekiel is saying here? Talking about the future, what are these guys going to do?” And so, when we get to this issue of clothing, my first question I ask is, “Is this issue of linen garments something that’s significant in the Torah? What’s the reason for it?” And I’m just thinking practical.

Nehemia: Yes.

Keith: I’m thinking, “Okay, well, he’s going to have linen garments so that they don’t sweat.” Or you know what I mean? [laughing] There’s all kinds of like practical questions I’m trying to…

Nehemia: And that might be. But the point is that there’s no way I can read this – and definitely the rabbis couldn’t read this – without comparing it to Leviticus. And basically, we have this idea, it says in the Torah twice, Deuteronomy 4:2, “Do not add to the Torah and do not take away from it.”

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: The same thing in Deuteronomy 12:32 and then Proverbs 30 verse 6, “Don’t add to the Torah.” So there can’t be a commandment in Ezekiel… maybe this needs to be stated first; Ezekiel can’t come along and change the rules. He can’t come along and say, “Okay, in the Torah it told you to only marry… not, for a kohen not to marry a divorced woman or a prostitute, but he can marry a widow, and then come along and say no, the Kohanim can’t marry widows, either.” Can’t do that! And so we’ve got to deal with it. I want to preempt it. And that is exactly what happens. We’ll see that.

Keith: Okay.

Nehemia: That’s a huge problem. Now, here the first contradiction we came across is almost trivial, at least for me.

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: What’s the contradiction? Exodus 39 verse 1 says, “And of the blue and purple and scarlet they made clothes of service, to do service in the holy place, and made the holy garments for Aaron, as Yehovah commanded Moses.” What’s the contradiction? Well, there is no contradiction, except in the Oral Law, whenever it says blue it means blue dyed wool. And so wait a minute, [laughing] blue dyed wool according to the rabbis in the Oral Law, specifically “tchelet,” is blue dye wool according to them. And then Ezekiel 44:17, what we just read, says that it’s to be made of linen, and it won’t be wool. So that’s a contradiction for the rabbis. To be honest, for me, that’s not a contradiction. But then there are other things that are clearly contradictions.

Keith: Okay. So let’s get to a clearer contradiction. Tell me where we are here.

Nehemia: All right. Read verse 18.

Keith: Okay. “Linen turbans shall be on their heads and linen undergarments shall be on their loins, and they shall not gird themselves with anything which makes them,” it says, “sweat.”

Nehemia: Yes. That’s what it says. No sweaty clothes. I’m down with that.

Keith: You’re all right with?

Nehemia: Yes, there’s no problem with that. Let’s go on.

Keith: Okay. “When they go out into the outer court, into the outer court to the people, they shall put off their garments in which they have been ministering, and lay them in the holy chambers; then they shall put on other garments so that they will not transmit holiness to the people with their garments.”

Nehemia: Yes. I’ve got nothing on that. [laughing]

Keith: You’ve got nothing on that? [laughing]

Nehemia: No. I don’t even know what’s going on!

Keith: I thought that was kind of cool on me. Basically, there’s something inherent to what they’re doing and what they’re wearing.

Nehemia: Well, there’s something contagious about holiness. That’s what it’s saying.

Keith: Yes. I just thought that was kind of cool.

Nehemia: That’s interesting. Yes.

Keith: “Also they shall not shave their heads, yet they shall not let their locks grow long.” This is your thing. I mean, are you going to talk about this? “They shall not trim the hair of their heads.”

Nehemia: Yes. So we’ve got to look here at Leviticus 21 verse 5. Can we read that?

Keith: Yes, please.

Nehemia: It says, “They will not make baldness on their head, and the corner of their beard they shall not shave, and in their flesh they shall not cut cuts.” And here’s an important point in Leviticus – I’m sure we talked about this in the Original Torah Pearls – there are two types of Kohanim. There’s the “hediot,” the regular priest, and there’s the “Kohen gadol,” the high priest. There are different laws, different commandments, in Leviticus for the regular priest and the high priest.

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: So Leviticus 21 verse 5 was the regular priest. Leviticus 21, whatever this verse is, a few verses later, is the high priest. I have the verse here, I don’t remember which verse it was. It says, “And the high priest from his brother upon whose head shall be poured the oil of anointing and his hand will be filled to wear the garments. His head he will not make wild and his clothes will not be tattered,” is the word, “yifrom.” So here’s where the confusion is. In Leviticus 21 wild hair only applies to the high priest, not the regular priests. But in Ezekiel 44 it applies to the sons of Zadok. Well, wait a minute. There’s only one high priest, so these sons of Zadok seem to be like a special in-between class category. They’re this family of high priests? Like, what’s that?

And so that’s where the confusion enters. And maybe this isn’t the biggest contradiction in the world, because, okay, whatever. But definitely at this point people start, definitely in the Jewish tradition, to get really nervous. And where the problem really comes up is verse 22.

Keith: Okay. So 21 says, “Nor shall any of the priests drink wine when they enter the inner court.”

Nehemia: And that’s not a problem, just read Leviticus chapter 10 verse 9.

Keith: Yes. Then it says, here comes…

Nehemia: This is the problem here.

Keith: Okay. “Also they shall not shave their heads, yet they…”

Nehemia: No, 22.

Keith: I’m sorry, 22. I’m sorry. Going to 22, and it says, “And they shall not marry a widow or a divorced woman but shall take virgins from the offspring of the house of Israel, or a widow who is the widow of a priest.”

Nehemia: What?

Keith: That’s what it says.

Nehemia: So there’s nothing like that… In Leviticus 21 it says about the regular priest, “A prostitute and a defiled woman they shall not take, and a woman who is divorced from her husband they shall not marry, for he is holy to his God.” So the regular priest is not allowed to marry a prostitute, a defiled woman, whatever that is, this is a whole discussion or a divorced woman. He can marry a widow, the regular priest.

Leviticus 21, let’s see, it’s verses 13 to 14, it says about the high priest, “He shall take a woman who is a virgin,” betulah, and then it says, “a widow, a divorced woman, a defiled woman who is a prostitute, these he shall not take, but only a betulah, a virgin, from his people he shall take as a wife.”

So this is kind of confusing. We’ve got these Bnei Zadok, these sons of Zadok, who are not allowed to marry… So first of all, the category of divorced woman isn’t a problem. Meaning, no Kohen is allowed to marry a divorced woman. Everyone agrees on that. There’s no question. No difference between Ezekiel and Leviticus. But then it says these Bnei Zadok can’t marry a widow unless the widow is the widow of a Kohen. That is a completely… So first of all, the widow, that applies to the high priest in Leviticus, not the regular priest. And now it’s applying to all the sons of Zadok? And this idea of a widow from a Kohen, where’s that? I mean, do you understand the problem here?

Keith: Sure.

Nehemia: This is why the guy went up into his attic with 300 garubs of oil. He said, “Wait, Ezekiel’s contradicting Leviticus, and it’s a problem.” And I don’t know, the answer is I don’t know. But this is definitely what we call an apparent contradiction. And there are probably lots of different solutions to it. To me, the question is more important than… meaning, where there’s this contradiction is more important than coming up with a different convoluted answer, quite frankly.

Keith: Exactly.

Nehemia: All right. Now, can we talk about contradictions a little bit?

Keith: Sure.

Nehemia: You know, one of the things I’ll see is if there’s… and people accuse me of this, they say, “Oh, Nehemia, you’re Jewish and you’re talking to Christians, to Messianics, you must be doing it to convince them to give up Jesus. You must be a counter-missionary.” Have you heard that?

Keith: Of course.

Nehemia: And that’s not what I do.

Keith: And by the way, if that was the case, and let me just be really clear…

Nehemia: Yes.

Keith: If it was the case, Nehemia, that your mission was as a counter-missionary, we wouldn’t be doing this program.

Nehemia: You mean you wouldn’t be doing a program with a counter-missionary.

Keith: I wouldn’t be doing the program with you if that was what your focus was. Because that’s not…

Nehemia: Yes. If I was a counter-missionary, I wouldn’t be doing the program with you. What would be the point? [laughing]

Keith: Yes. Or you might. [laughing] Exactly. You wouldn’t be doing a very good job.

Nehemia: Yes, right. So the counter-missionaries use the contradictions in the New Testament to destroy people’s faith. And the truth is, let’s be honest, the New Testament has apparent contradictions that make the issues in Ezekiel look relatively minor. But to me, it’s hypocritical to always look to solve the contradiction in your text. Meaning, the rabbis will say, “When it comes to the Tanakh we’ve got to solve the contradictions. We’ve got to explain them away. But when it comes to somebody else’s text, we want to emphasize that contradiction to undermine their faith.” Wait a minute. Isn’t that hypocritical?

Keith: Wow.

Nehemia: It seems hypocritical to me. I don’t know. What’s your view on that?

Keith: Well, no. I just think that’s really interesting, because we wouldn’t have had to address this. We could have just kind of said, “Hey, you know what, let’s go and talk about what’s going to happen in the Third Temple time, and this is what the deal is, it sounds… and this is the reason.” To be honest with you, that’s an approach that that’s a whole lot easier than what you’re talking, and certainly a lot more comfortable than what you’re talking about. Because what you’re talking about is that in this passage here, there are some things that clearly don’t fit.

Nehemia: I mean, look, let me back up. The rabbis wanted to take every copy of the Book of Ezekiel and put them in the back room of the synagogue so nobody could read them. This is a really big deal for Jews, that Leviticus says one thing and Ezekiel comes along and says something else. How can that be? And I don’t have the answer.

Keith: So I’m going to ask you this. When I’m reading this, maybe I’m just being naïve, I’m thinking, as we’re talking about the future, here’s what’s going to happen in the future. Here’s what going to happen in the distant…

Nehemia: Right. But the Torah’s forever!

Keith: And I understand 100 percent, I completely understand that. I guess I wasn’t looking so much at the contradictions, I was saying, “This is what’s going to happen, this is what I’m going to have happen with the sons of Zadok,” and I guess you’re right, I really wasn’t thinking about, “Okay, this…”

Nehemia: I mean, here’s from the Jewish perspective, it’s as if Ezekiel came along and said, “Up until now we’ve sacrificed sheep and bulls. Now we’re going to be sacrificing pigs.”

Keith: But can I say… but here’s the problem.

Nehemia: What? No! So you’re a false prophet.

Keith: No, no. And again, I guess the point has to do with these simple little words here, and I want to give you these simple words. In Ezekiel 44:15 at the end of the verse it says, “‘And they shall stand before Me to offer Me the fat and the blood,’ declares the Lord GOD.” In English is what it says. This is Ezekiel saying if the word of the Lord came.

Nehemia: Yes.

Keith: I guess I’m not putting it on Ezekiel, I’m putting it on him. [laughing]

Nehemia: Well, God who wouldn’t contradict Himself.

Keith: “He is not man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and not act? Promise and not fulfill?”

Nehemia: Amen. So let’s understand what he’s saying.

Keith: So that’s what I was saying. I was getting to it, and I was saying, “Okay, so there’s this future thing that’s going to happen, and in this future thing, this is what it’s going to look like.” And maybe that’s where I’m being a little bit naïve. I was just thinking, “Okay, hey, this is something that’s going to happen. He’s going to do this with these priests.”

Nehemia: You’re saying let’s gloss over the details. Who cares if they contradict themselves in Leviticus?

Keith: No, not gloss over the details. No, no! Not at all. I was just looking at it and saying, “Okay, so this is what he’s saying is going to happen.” Now, it would be one thing if he said, “Back at this time, this happened, and they did this and this was according to My word. And then back at this time, this happened.” And again, maybe it’s just a different approach. But what I appreciate about what you’re saying is how big a deal this is.

Nehemia: It is a big deal. They wanted to ban this book.

Keith: You hear the Torah read, and you’re hearing the Torah… And as it pertains to the Leviticus section, we then have the Torah being read and the Prophets section being read, and why not run away from it? Instead, it’s read…

Nehemia: And they could have done that. They could have said, “We’re never going to read this section because this is embarrassing.”

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: Instead, they said, “Let’s get in front of this. Let’s not deny the contradictions. Let’s not hide the contradictions. Let’s read the contradictory passage and say, look, we need a struggle for this. We need to get up in our upper room, in the attic, or down in the safe house with 300 garubs of oil and figure this out. And we might not get the definitive answer, but at least we’ll be wrestling and struggling with the word of God.”

Keith: So I guess, and again, I also want to say I appreciate it. I especially appreciate you bringing up the example of what happens in other texts. That basically, “Here’s the contradiction, here’s the contradiction, and here’s the contradiction.” And there’s all these things.

Nehemia: I’ll have people say this all the time. They’ll say like, “Oh, who is the first one to see Jesus after he rose? One Gospel it says this, and the other gospel it says that, and they contradict each other. And so why do you even talk to those Christians?” And I say, wait a minute, so there are contradictions in the gospels. What about the contradictions in our book? You know, we embrace those contradictions, so why do you reject their book because it has the same sort of contradiction? We say in our book… I mean, look, the entire Talmud is about the contradictions. It is. They love it. They’re the bread and butter of Scriptural interpretation. They are. They’re not some minor thing that we sweep under the rug. I mean, the Christians do that.

But in the Jewish tradition, we embrace those contradictions because they give us a better understanding of Scripture. The image we have, or the description is, there’s the thesis and the antithesis, and when you put them together you have synthesis. And so the contradictions are actually vital. They give us this three-dimensional understanding, and my point is it’s hypocritical to point to the other people’s contradictions and say that undermines their doctrine, whereas for us it’s actually a core part of our doctrine. We need it.

And I want to say this – the truth or falsehood of Judaism or the Tanakh, it’s not dependent on contradictions, and neither should the truth or falsehood of somebody else’s faith be. Faith is based on, I think, on personal experience and a relationship with God. And for the Jews, the national experience and relationship with God as a nation, our faith is not based on the minutia of this text or that text. And that’s really important. I’m not going to throw out my faith because there’s something in Ezekiel that seems to contradict Leviticus, and maybe even does contradict Leviticus. The minutiae of the text, they’re important, they allow us to grow in faith and get a deeper understanding of our relationship and understanding of God. But that relationship needs to be there in the first place. [laughing]

Keith: You know what’s interesting…

Nehemia: This is why many Jewish sages said that the first statement in the Ten Commandments, “Anochi Yehovah,” is not a commandment. Meaning, some people have counted the Ten Commandments, they say the first commandment is “I am Yehovah.” And then other rabbis came along, other Jewish sources, and they said, “No, that’s not a commandment. If you don’t already embrace that Yehovah is God, then there’s no discussion. It’s game over.”

Keith: There’s no reason to be in a discussion. Exactly.

Nehemia: Yes.

Keith: Yes. Well, I will tell you something. When I went on… and as the contradictions are there, when verse 23… 44:23 comes up and he says… can I read it?

Nehemia: Well, hold on.

Keith: Okay.

Nehemia: I want to make one more statement here. Because some people will read some of my… you know, they’ll read, let’s say, nehemiaswall.com or karaite-korner.org, some of the things I’ve written, or even my book The Hebrew Yeshua Vs. the Greek Jesus, and they’ll say, “Wait a minute, so when it comes to contradictions in the Tanakh, you say that doesn’t undermine your faith, but you reject the Oral Law because it contradicts the Torah, or contradicts the Tanakh.” And that’s a misunderstanding of what I’ve been saying, a misreading of my approach, at least.

For me, it’s not that there is this specific contradiction between the Oral Law and Scripture, or that specific… But really, for me, it’s a fundamental departure of values between the Oral Law and the written Scriptures. I talk about in The Hebrew Yeshua Vs. the Greek Jesus, the story of Rabbi Eliezer, where the rabbis declare that they’ve defeated God. To me, that’s not about a contradiction of one verse or another verse or some minutiae, that’s a fundamental departure of values of what it’s all about. I could argue with rabbis all day long about this verse or that verse. I believe I would always win. [laughing] However, the big issue isn’t a given verse, but the rabbis’ open rebellion against the Creator of the universe. And there I’m done.

Keith: Okay. So this is what you’re…? This is your thing?

Nehemia: This is what my ministry is about – empowering people with information and building up faith. And you may have a different faith, that’s okay. But I think it’s important that you struggle with it and engage it and get up in that upper room with the 300 garubs of oil to understand the word of God, whatever you believe the Word of God speaks.

Keith: It’s so interesting, Nehemia. I’m just completely… we had some conversations today, you and me and your mother. And the whole historical, contextual situation you guys come from, where you bring up something and she says, “Did you check the commentary…?”

Nehemia: The medieval rabbi commentaries.

Keith: The medieval rabbis. And I’m thinking to myself, that’s not even in my head. And to be honest with you, I’ll just say this on the radio, I’ll say this – sometimes I get a little nervous because you’ll say, “And the rabbis and the rabbis and…” But this is your experience; this is where you come from. And so for me, I have to kind of take that in. But you know, I’ve had a completely different experience. I haven’t had the exposure to all of those sorts of issues in the Oral Law. There are some wonderful rabbis that I met and that I know and I absolutely love them, and not because they have some hidden knowledge of some Oral Law or anything like that, more because of their devotion in their heart and who they are as people. So I don’t have the same experience.

But I have to tell you, you do cause me to slow down and to have to listen to what that experience is, and I’m sure that if I were to talk more about where I’ve come from in some of those places where there’s been an abuse of authority, a misinterpretation of the Word of God – I can go on and on and on with all that, even in my own denomination – you might get a little nervous too, like, “Well, Keith you’re being so hard on them.” But you know, you said something to me. [laughing] You said, “If it’s my brother, I can beat up my brother. You just can’t beat my brother up.”

 

Nehemia: Well, it’s not so much beating up my brother. This is the cultural background and context I come from.

Keith: Right.

Nehemia: And as I come to Scripture and I try to understand it, I need to struggle with that background.

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: And I could just say, “Oh, well this is what the rabbis say, so that’s the end of the story.”

Keith: And many people do say that.

Nehemia: They do. Or I could say, “I’m not going to even look at what they say.” But I think there’s a lot of power for me to engage that history and look at it and consider it, but then ultimately say, “What does the Word of God say?”

Keith: Now, one thing I do want to say. I just want to say this, and we can move on, is that one thing I really do appreciate about my experience with the differences, and this rabbi says this and this rabbi says that. In the end, after all the arguments, they don’t say, “Now, because you disagree with me, you’re no longer a part,” you know…

Nehemia: Right. “You’re going to hell.”

Keith: I mean, yes, well, whatever. But the point is, I wish there was more of that on the other side, where I’m at, where there could be more creative tension, disagreement, we agree to disagree.

Nehemia: And that’s exactly what there is, there’s creative tension.

Keith: Yes. I wish there was more willingness to have an agreement to disagree. What I find, especially in some of the places that I’ve been moving, is people say, “Oh, you don’t agree with such and such, therefore I can have no fellowship with you.” [laughing] We can’t even have a conversation. We can’t even engage one another. So that’s kind of sad.

Nehemia: Right. And just to just wrap it up for Ezekiel 44:22, the issue here is that this idea of a priestly widow is an entirely new innovation, and that’s probably the biggest contradiction, or apparent contradiction, in the entire Book of Ezekiel with the Book of Leviticus. All the other ones, I think, are pretty minor; they can be explained. This one, I say, “I don’t know.”

Keith: Okay.

Nehemia: Yes.

Keith: All right. Now, can I go to 23?

Nehemia: Sure.

Keith: “Moreover,” in fact, folks, we really do want, and again, we said this before, Nehemia. We want people to read, we won’t read every single verse, but I do think this verse…

Nehemia: It sure seems like we are, but okay. [laughing]

Keith: No, no. This is a really important verse. It says, “They shall teach My people,” and I think in English they use the word “the difference,” but it just says, “They shall teach My people between the holy and the profane,” is what is in English, “and cause them to discern,” he uses the word here, “to discern between the unclean and the clean.” And I think that if just that was something that was being done, I would be really encouraged. But I find that there’s less and less of that. There’s less and less of the teaching, “Here’s what is holy. Here’s what is not.” It’s like I talk about loving what God loves and hating what He hates. There aren’t as many messages about what God hates. Many people don’t even know. We talked about the abominations. We talk about those things that are outside of His word. Those things that are outside of His commandments, His judgments, His statutes. And I have to say, many people that I interact with, many people, they don’t even know. They don’t even have a clue about those things. And that’s why this is important to me – giving people a chance to at least know the difference, to understand that there’s a difference between the holy and the profane, as it says here, “and to discern between the unclean and the clean.”

Nehemia: Right. And by the way, the parallel here, or this is based on Deuteronomy 24 verse 8. There it actually says, “Beware of the plague of leprosy, to guard it and to do according to all that the Levitical priests teach you. As I commanded them, you shall diligently do.” And it’s really interesting, because we have in both verses, both in Ezekiel 44:23 and Deuteronomy 24:8, we have this word “yoru,” they will teach. Maybe that should be the Word of the Week… or you wanted to do the Word of the Week, didn’t you?

Keith: No, I already did it. We talked about Zadok.

Nehemia: Okay. So “yoru” is Yud-Vav-Resh-Vav and it means, literally, “they will teach,” but it’s from the same root as Torah. The root of the word Torah is actually – remember every word has a three-letter root – the root of the word Torah is Yud-Resh-Hei.

Keith: Yud-Resh-Hei. Yes.

Nehemia: Right. And interestingly, in the word Torah the Yud is not visible, it’s not there, and you might think, well, it is in “yoru,” but not really. In fact, in the word “yoru,” the Yud there is not the Yud of the root, it’s the Yud of the prefix, which expresses “they,” together with the suffix. So “yoru,” Yud-Vav-Resh-Vav is “they will teach,” “they will Torah.”

Keith: “They will Torah.”

Nehemia: And there’s a great verse that has this, it’s one of our passages that we talk about all the time, it’s Isaiah chapter 2. Let’s see, Isaiah chapter 2 verse 3, “And many nations shall go and they shall say, ‘Let us go up to the Mountain of Yehovah, to the House of the God of Jacob; veyorenu midrachav, and He will yoreh, He will Torah us, from His ways.’” It’s from the same root, Yud–Resh–Hei, “yoru.” And there it’s “yoreh,” “he will,” “they will”. That’s the Word of the Week.

Keith: Amen. Well, I want to say this, Nehemia, when I read, and again, this is another example of a verse that I just think is really important. They all are really important. But it says, “In a dispute,” and I just think this is interesting, it says, “In a dispute, they shall take their stand to judge.” In 44:24. Who will? These priests, who actually, not only minister before Him and serve Him and be at the table and do all of these things, but they will also, in a dispute, take their stand to judge. I have to tell you that when I think about that, I think, “Wow, in integrity, wouldn’t those be the people you would want to be the ones that would judge?” Now, in our system, in the United States, of course, over here… no, listen, I’m over here, in Israel.

Nehemia: In Israel, do you know how the judicial system works?

Keith: No. But let me just tell you about what’s…

Nehemia: It’s a disaster.

Keith: [laughing] I was hearing about it, by the way. In the United States, I would that we’d have righteous judges, that we’d have judges that would say, “Here’s what the Word of God says. We understand it. We’re teaching it, the holy and the profane. We’re teaching people between good and evil. And now it’s time to address the dispute, and we addressed that dispute from the perspective of God’s Word.” I mean, can you imagine? And that’s what the case is going to be.

Nehemia: This is what we’re going to have in the end time, these Levitical priests.

Keith: We’re going to have that. So there’s not going to the kind of systems in the court systems now, where all the politicians get involved, and the finances get involved, and who voted for who, and whatever, whatever. I have to tell you, even over here in Israel, I was really shocked as I’ve been learning a little bit about the legal system here, and the court system and how it works. It was really discouraging to me to hear some of the issues and some of the ways that it works. And yet, I read this, and I think, “Wow, what will it be like when there’s a dispute and you could have righteous judges that would stand up and judge?”

Nehemia: Right. Well, to me, what’s significant about this is this is reiterating Deuteronomy 17 verse 8 and on, where it talks about the exact same thing, when there comes some kind of dispute, there’s something you don’t know, something you don’t understand, you go to the Levitical priests who will be at the Temple. And this is reiterating that and saying not only will it be the Levitical priests, it’ll be specifically the Bnei Zadok, the Sadducees, the sons of Zadok.

Keith: I’ve got to say something that’s this kind of hilarious.

Nehemia: Yes.

Keith: What’s funny to me is how people will take some aspects of this and say, “Okay, so now we have to set up a new group of people that are going to be that, and they’re going to be the judge and the…”

Nehemia: And then we’ll call ourselves the Sons of Zadok. [laughing]

Keith: I mean I just… Aah. Shall we continue?

Nehemia: Let’s read.

Keith: Why don’t you tell me what is the next verse?

Nehemia: Yes.

Keith: You decide the next verse.

Nehemia: The next verse is verse 25. And let me just… how are we doing? Let’s assign this as homework for people. Can we do that?

Keith: Yes, let’s do that.

Nehemia: So Ezekiel 44 verse 25 speaks about going to the funeral of somebody who died, and the parallel for that is two passages. One is Leviticus 21 verses 1 to 3, and then again, in Leviticus 21 verse 15. Verses 1 to 3 in Leviticus 21 are speaking about the regular priest, and verse 15 about the high priest. Please, compare these in detail, and you’ll see there are some issues here about whose funeral the regular priest can go to versus the high priest. And the sons of Zadok are kind of like, yes, we have a problem… like this hybrid between the high priest and the regular Kohanim. Check it out for yourself. Let’s go on, verse 20… or read on in verse 26.

Keith: Can I just… I want to do one thing and then I’m actually done.

Nehemia: Okay.

Keith: What I mean by done, I mean I’ve only got one thing. I really want to say to folks, I told you today, Nehemia, how appreciative I was of the last study that we did when we were dealing with the issue of the “nachal,” and it was in a different form. But when we get to 44:28 it says, “And it shall be with regard to an inheritance for them,” And I want to use this as an example, “that I am their inheritance; and you shall give them no possession in Israel—I am their possession.” And what’s the word that they use for “inheritance”? It is “nachalah.”

Nehemia: Right.

Keith: I just have to tell you. [laughing] I told Nehemia, I’m probably going to bring this up as we go throughout Prophet Pearls. I think the number one pearl that you brought up was this issue of this word that was used in a different form, that wasn’t speaking in the negative, but rather the positive. And then when I see this, different situation, different word, but it reminded me again of this idea of an inheritance. And I read this and I think, wow.

Nehemia: Just so people know what we’re talking about, what verse was that?

Keith: 44:28.

Nehemia: 40… No, it was, no.

Keith: I’m sorry. Now?

Nehemia: It was Ezekiel 22:16.

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: About Israel either being desecrated in the eyes of the nations or dividing up the land that God gave them in the eyes of the nation. And what I explained is that the way I read it is the “piel” verb it means, “And they divided up the land.”

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: And in modern terms, you would actually say they were settlers.

Keith: They were settlers.

Nehemia: Yes, and here it’s the same word that got… and the word literally means “an inherited portion.”

Keith: And it’s so funny, we’re using a different word completely now. We’re talking about a noun, this inheritance.

Nehemia: And that was a verb.

Keith: Yes. And that was a verb.

Nehemia: And here what God is saying is that He is going to be the inherited portion of the Bnei Zadok, of these Zadokite priests.

Keith: Yes. Amen. “And you shall give them no possession in Israel—I am their possession.” That goes back to the idea of the Levites.

Nehemia: The Levites, the Kohanim.

Keith: Yes, not having land, but having Him be the possession, Him being their inheritance. So there are two more verses. Feel free. Knock yourself out.

Nehemia: There are three more verses, but yes, that’s homework for people. Go read those verses.

Keith: Okay. Awesome. Now, let’s just say this, Nehemia. I do want to say something. I asked you a question. I said to you, “Let me ask this. These priests that are ministering before God, in what ways are those of us that are trying to be His ministers, how do we also do this?” Now, I’m not talking about being the Levitical line. I completely, let me be really clear, completely disagree when people take the real casual thing and say, “Well, I’m the Levitical priest,” and “I’m the high priest, and I’ve got the benefits of the high priest.” But as terms of trying to help people understand the profane, the good, the holy, the statutes, the judgments, the Word of God, helping people understand what the Word of God says, in some ways, can I say, in some ways, it’s a humbling thing to know that you’re ministering. And so we have ministry that is ministering really before Him. So let’s take a moment to just let people know about what the ministries are.

Nehemia: Yes, go ahead.

Keith: Well, for me, it’s real clear. We have BFAinternational.com, that has become the flagship for what we’re doing, and I am more and more and more excited about how many people are interacting with us. I challenge you, if you haven’t gotten a chance to go to the site, please go to the site, take a look at everything that’s there. I’m going to be really simple about it. There’s more that is coming really soon. I don’t know what the date is today, in terms of where we are. We’re here…

Nehemia: About when it’s being broadcast.

Keith: Yes, this is being broadcast sometime at the end of April.

Nehemia: It is going to be on May 2.

Keith: May 2. Let me say it right now, by faith, though I’m not feeling so well, and I’ve kind of been stopped in my tracks, it is my goal that, by the time of Shavuot, we will have something really special for everyone that’s listening right now on Prophet Pearls and BFAinternational.com. Hopefully, within the next 24 hours, I’ll be able to explain a little bit more, but please check out our site. And then there’s just so many things that you can learn. Inspiring people around the world to build a biblical foundation for their faith.

Nehemia: Yes. And my ministry is Makor Hebrew Foundation, and what I’m trying to do is empower people with information. I want to build the wall of faith. The image I always go back to is Nehemiah standing on the wall, and they have the building implement in one hand and the defensive implement in one hand, and I think it’s really important for people to be empowered.

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: Otherwise, you end up with the situation of, “Well, that guy went up into the room, and he figured it out, so I don’t need to think about this.”

Keith: [laughing] Yes, he went up for 300 years. That’s a good one.

Nehemia: Okay, great. He did that. Good for him. Now, I need to struggle with these verses and understand them. What that is is me interacting with the Word of God. Isn’t that a beautiful thing?

Keith: Amen.

Nehemia: Even if in the end I don’t understand it, I’ve engaged with the Word of God. For me, this is ministry, and sharing this with people is ministry. This is my interaction with God, and for me, this is experiencing God.

Keith: Amen.

Nehemia: Ultimately the goal is to know God, which in biblical Hebrew is an intimate thing; it’s to have that intimate experience. When you do that, the contradictions are going to destroy your faith. The contradictions are only going to destroy your faith if you don’t have that solid foundation, if you don’t have that wall built up. If the wall’s built up and you’ve built on a solid foundation, then those contradictions are things that you’ll take the thesis and the antithesis and you’ll end up with the synthesis, and then you’ll have a true deeper, three-dimensional understanding.

Keith: Amen. Well, for that we want to just say to everyone thanks for listening. We’re going to end in prayer and continue in this process. Keep your ear to the ground. There’s a lot still going on. Let’s pray. Father, thank you for the opportunity, and what an amazing testimony of what it would be like to be under the righteous priest that would stand before You and minister before You, and then also be able to stand before the people with a clean heart, and good conscience, and the Word of God as a light onto their feet. That would be able to share and to teach the nations what it means to follow Your statutes, Your judgments, and Your Torah, that gives us the ability to understand Your will and Your way. Bless us, protect us, and keep us and send us forth until we are here again in Your 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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