Prophet Pearls #30 – Kedoshim (Amos 9:7-15)

Prophet Pearls Kedoshim, Amos 9:7-15, Kedoshim, Amos, cushites, caphtor, fruit, haftarah, Ingathering, israel, Keith Johnson, nehemia gordon, parashah, Parsha, Yehovah, Tanakh, Leviticus, torahIn this episode of Prophet Pearls, Nehemia Gordon and Keith Johnson discuss the Prophets portion of Kedoshim covering Amos 9:7-15. The nine verses of Kedoshim yield riveting questions for Gordon and Johnson to explore: Why were the Philistines brought from Caphtor? Where is Caphtor? Who is the sinful kingdom? What is David’s fallen booth? What other nations bear the name of Yehovah? And why would God tell his chosen they are the “same to me” as the Cushites? To get closer to understanding this jarring rebuke (or was it a loving affirmation?), Gordon provides biblical references for Cush—from the Tanakh and the New Testament—as well as statements of medieval commentators.

After a deep exploration of language, history and context, there are still hypothetical and abstract arguments that could be made. But Gordon and Johnson end with questions more easily answered: Is there a kingdom outside his dominion? Is there a prophecy more clear than the ingathering? Is there fruit more beautiful than the fruit of Israel?

"In that day, I will set up again the fallen booth of David ...I will build it firm as in the days of old." Amos 9:11

I look forward to reading your comments! Download Prophet Pearls Kedoshim Transcript

Prophet Pearls #30 - Kedoshim (Amos 9:7-15)

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

Keith: Welcome back to Prophet Pearls. This is Keith Johnson along with Nehemia Gordon face-to-face, doing whatever it takes to bring you the good news - the prophets, the information, inspiration, and revelation. And our Prophet Pearls partner is Mona from Mexico! That’s right. We’ve got someone all the way from Mexico who is sponsoring Prophet Pearls. Mona, thank you so much for your stepping in for us. We’re actually in the Book of Amos, Nehemia, and we’re not far from where Amos prophesied, and we’ve got a really short section in terms of the amount of verses. I want to know if it’s short in terms of the amount of time. That’s the question. [laughing]

Nehemia: I don’t think so. [laughing] I think we’ll just talk more about the different verses. There’s so much to talk about.

Keith: Absolutely. Amos chapter 9, 7 through 15, Kedoshim is the Torah Pearls section.

Nehemia: Yes, it’s Leviticus 19:1 to 20:27, which is one of my favorite passages in the Bible.

Keith: Really?

Nehemia: It’s where we have, “Ve’ahavta lere’echa kamocha”, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.”

Keith: Which I had no idea was in Leviticus until I talked to you. [laughing]

Nehemia: “Lo tisna et amitecha belebavecha”, “Don’t hate your brother in your heart.” “Lo telech rachil be’amecha”, “Don’t go about it as a talebearer among your people.” Some beautiful verses there. Leviticus 19 is one of my favorite passages.

Keith: So we’re going 9 verse 7…

Nehemia: Amos chapter 9, verse 7 to 15.

Keith: Yes. And one of the things that is a little bit hard is that there’s this end of the section at the end of 7, before we even get to 8 in the middle that says, “declares the LORD” in English. We talked about this before - you’ll have a section where it’ll say, “declares Yehovah.” Then there’ll be a section, “declares Yehovah.” And in this situation, it actually splits the verse.

So, “Are not you Israelites the same to me as the Kushites?” And I will say this - I’m looking at one of the notes here in the NIV, and I love to check notes because even if it’s right or wrong or whatever, it’s another dimension. They actually speak of this being a people from the Upper Nile region. So I don’t know, I mean, we’re dealing with the issue of the Kushites. We hear about other examples of the Kushites. The question becomes…

Nehemia: Where do we hear about the Kushites?

Keith: Moses married one.

Nehemia: That’s right. That’s in Numbers chapter 12 verse 1. It says, “Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because,” and this is the New King James, “because of the Ethiopian woman.” If you say that to an Ethiopian, they’d be very upset, because Kush and Ethiopia aren’t exactly the same thing.

JPS has “Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Kushite woman he had married.” He married a Kushite woman. Then we have a Kushite in 2 Samuel chapter 18, verses 21 and on, we’ve got this Kushite figure.

And let’s see where else do we have the Kushite... Then we have this interesting statement, which we’ve got to bring, which is Jeremiah 13:23. It says, “Can a Kushite change his skin or the leopard his spots?” I know it’s not politically correct to say, but one of the things that Kushites were known for was the color of their skin, back in ancient Israel. That’s what Jeremiah is talking about.

Keith: Theirs was the same as the Europeans, or…?

Nehemia: No, the Kushites… they were black folks.

Keith: Are you sure? [laughing]

Nehemia: As far as I know, yes. I mean, the people who live in Kush today look more like you than they do like me.

Keith: Absolutely.

Nehemia: So yes, we’ve got a number of Kushites - there’s this righteous man in Jeremiah 38:7, Eved-Melech, the servant of the king, is his name, who’s the Kushite eunuch who was in the king’s palace. People can look at these verses themselves. Jeremiah 38 has a Kushite.

Let’s see, what else do we have here? Now in the New Testament, you’ve got an Ethiopian Kushite character. Can you talk to the people about that?

Keith: He was a Kushite, he was from Ethiopia.

Nehemia: That’s all you got.

Keith: That’s all I got. Okay.

Nehemia: [laughing] All right. There are a few other passages. Zephaniah 2:12, Daniel 11:43, 2 Chronicles 12:3, 2 Chronicles 14:8 and a bunch of places in Chronicles. 2 Chronicles 21:6.

But here God is saying… Let me read you what it literally says in Amos 9:7. It says, “‘Are you not like the sons of the Kushites to me, O children of Israel?’ says Yehovah? ‘Did I not bring up Israel from the land of Egypt and the Philistines from Caphtor and Aram from Kir?’”

Keith: And this is what’s interesting.

Nehemia: That’s interesting.

Keith: That is really interesting.

Nehemia: Isn’t it?

Keith: He says “I brought up…” I mean, when you talk about someone bringing up of people from a land, Israel from Egypt. That’s the end of the conversation. No, He says, “I also brought the Philistines from Caphtor and the Aramaeans from Kir.”

Nehemia: Right. And should we talk about that first, or the whole Kushite thing?

Keith: No, Let’s talk about this.

Nehemia: You want to get out of talking about the Kushite thing.

Keith: Oh no, we can talk about the Kushites.

Nehemia: Well, let’s talk about the Philistines first. All right, so we actually had a previous discussion. So what is Caphtor? Do you have Caphtor?

Keith: Yeah, it says Caphtor.

Nehemia: Okay. So it’s not clear what Caphtor is. So some people say it’s Crete, and that’s because we have the island of Caphtor in some passages. But then the Septuagint translates it as Cappadocia, which is an area in southern Turkey today, or in Asia Minor back then. But it’s somewhere out there in the Mediterranean that the Philistines came from, and we actually know that from modern archeology, and the archeologists discovered sources that… especially in Egypt. Egyptologists discovered descriptions and in Hittite sources about something called the “Sea Peoples.” The Sea Peoples came from the Aegean area, which today is in Greece, and they invaded the entire eastern Mediterranean basin. But particularly the Philistines, the Philistines that we know about from the time of David, aren’t the same Philistines at the time of Abraham. They’re there in Philistia, so they’re called Philistines, but these Philistines come from Crete or somewhere in the Aegean basin, the Aegean area.

We actually have a reference to that. 2 Samuel chapter 8 verse 18. We read this in a previous section. It’s talking about David’s different forces, and it mentions the Creti and the Pleti, the Cretins and the Pletins, who are these bands of Philistines who fought with David. And there it’s actually called Creti; it’s the word Crete, which makes you think that Caphtor isn’t Crete. Maybe Caphtor is Cyprus, according to another explanation. But yes, so this is interesting. We know the Philistines came from Crete, but God took them up out of Crete?

Keith: That’s what it says.

Nehemia: And Aram from Kir? We actually don’t know that story; where is Kir and how did the Arameans come from Kir?

Keith: But this is an example, Nehemia, where we hear something like this, and we could search diligently, we can search in extra-biblical sources. We can search, and maybe we don’t find the answer. The only answer is here. It’s possible that the only answer is here, that He’s the one that brought them up.

Nehemia: Right. Well, in other words, this is referring to something that was well known. It was a known fact in ancient times, and we don’t know it; we only know it from here. We’ve talked about other things like that. Look, this opens up the opportunity where we can make something up and we can have an entire doctrine and theology about how the Arameans from Kir, Kir was actually a planet in a very distant galaxy, and these were Nephilim that were brought here. We could have the entire… we could go and tell people, I figured it out. I’ve got the doctrine here. Who can argue with it, because it’s all made up?

I just say, “Look, whoever these people were” - we know who Arameans were but where Kir is, I don’t know. But what’s the significance of comparing Israel, saying, “You’re like the sons of the Kushites to Me,” and then mentioning, “I brought up Israel from Egypt, but I also brought up the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir”?

Keith: Yeah. And I think that’s… Then in the middle of it, the middle of verse 7 has this statement in English, it says here, “declares the LORD.” Why is it in the middle of the verse?

Nehemia: By the way, one other verse, Deuteronomy chapter 2, verses 22 to 23, mentions this issue of the Caphtorim coming from Caphtor. It mentions how the original inhabitants of Aza, or Gaza today, are these people called the Avim, and they were wiped out by the Caphtorim. So the Philistines in the time of Abraham aren’t the same as the Philistines in the time of Moses - they’d been displaced by these Caphtorites, these Cretins.

Then Jeremiah 47:40 mentions the island, “the remnant of the Philistines, the island of Caphtor.” Apparently, they fled from this island, although “island” can also mean coast of Caphtor, so maybe it’s Cappadocia. Anyway, I don’t know. I have no idea what this verse means, I’ll say it right up front. Can I share some of the things I found?

Keith: Sure.

Nehemia: All right, and this is a sensitive topic. Can we just put that out there?

Keith: Absolutely. As long as you let me respond.

Nehemia: Okay. So the reason it’s a sensitive topic is we read that verse from Jeremiah that said that the Kushite is known for his skin and he can’t change his skin, just like a leopard can’t change its spots. So one of the things that they were known in ancient Israel for was for being black. The medieval Jewish commentators kind of jumped upon this, but then they combined that with the culture in which they lived, and many of these Jews lived in Muslim countries and Arab countries, which were extremely racist.

In Arabic in fact, the word for slave is “abd”, which means slave, but it also means black person. It literally means slave, but if you want to say someone’s a black person, you call them abd, and which is the Hebrew eved.

So here’s the problem - you have these Jews who are living in this culture and they’re looking around themselves and they’re white. Maybe they’re not white like me, but they’re brown and they’re looking around and they’re seeing people from Africa with frizzy hair, and they’re being kept as slaves by the Arabs, and the word for black person is slave, so then they read this verse and they interpret it through that lens.

So I just want to read… I found five interpretations in the medieval sources, and let me just run through them. Number one is a medieval Jewish source who says that, “What does God mean when He says that you are like the sons of the Kushites? He’s saying that Israel is alienated from their father, God, like the children of the Kushites, who don’t know their father.”

I’ll be honest, I read that and I was shocked. I thought, what on earth is that talking about? Probably the reality he’s referring to is, you had these African slaves being kept as slaves by the Arabs, and they’d have a child and the father would then be sold to the next village or sold down the river, and so you have this little slave boy growing up and he literally doesn’t know who his father is. To them, that’s what it meant to be the sons of a Kushite. In the time of Amos it’s really inconceivable that’s what it meant. That reality did not exist. There were slaves, but it had nothing to do with race in the time of Amos.

The second one is, he says “You are like the children of the Kushites,” this is a medieval Jewish commentator. I liked this one, even though it’s probably not correct. [laughing] Maybe it is. “You are like the children of the Kushites, distinguishable and always recognizable as My children, even when you are mixed among the nations.” Here’s the exact quote he says, “You are special to Me like the sons of Kushites who are always recognizable and distinctly belonging to their fathers by the color of their skin. So you children of Israel, all who see them will recognize them as the sons of the living God.”

In other words, can I just say this? If a white woman marries, has a child with a Kushite man, then the child, very probably will be dark and everyone will know that that’s his son. He’s saying, “You Israel are just like the sons of the Kushites to Me because everyone knows you’re My children.” I think it’s kind of beautiful. It involves race, but not in a bad… I mean, what do you think?

Keith: Well actually this is something for a long time I’ve always dealt with, because one of the things that I think we get confused about is presently today, as you just mentioned, you just gave the example - I thought it was beautiful example - you said that the Philistines of Abraham were not the Philistines of Moses, that basically you have a different group of people. And as far as the migration of people in colors of skin, shades of skin, I can go into the Old Testament and I can say, “Okay, so how did Joseph end up in Africa?” And it’s so funny - I was in graduate school and I said to the lady, “Isn’t it interesting, Joseph was in Africa.” She said, “What do you mean, Joseph was in Africa? When was Joseph in Africa?”

Nehemia: Really? [laughing]

Keith: And I said to her, “You know, he was in Egypt.” She says, “That’s not Africa.” [laughing]

Nehemia: Last time I checked it was, yeah. [laughing]

Keith: Geographically it is. And so Joseph’s in Africa and he’s growing up, and what; did he put on some makeup so that they didn’t know who he was…

Nehemia: No, but they knew he was a foreigner.

Keith: Absolutely, they did. And his brothers didn’t know who he was. Or, another example is that you have the people… Moses himself. So Moses is brought up in Pharaoh’s house and no one knew that Moses was a Hebrew?

Nehemia: That was in the movie “Gods and Kings,” right? Or “The Prince of Egypt”.

Keith: No, no, no. [laughing]

Nehemia: In the real story, I’m sure they knew exactly who he was. She immediately looks at the baby and says, “Oh, it’s a Hebrew baby.”

Keith: Yes. But I’m just saying is that presently when we… New Testament also has this, they said they called Paul an Egyptian. Paul, aren't you an Egyptian? What does that mean? What, what did people look like…?

Nehemia: Well that’s a different period of history.

Keith: Yes, of course.

Nehemia: By that time, the Greeks had infiltrated Egypt and northern Egypt, especially Alexandria and that area, that was a heavily Greek area. So Paul could pass as an Egyptian.

Keith: So let me bring it till today. This is one of the most beautiful things I think about being in Israel. One of the most beautiful things. In fact, two or three days ago, I was on my way to go see Netanyahu, and he was on his way to the United States, and I went to the official residence where Netanyahu is, and I was greeted by an Ethiopian woman who was darker than me with a big AK-47, she’s protecting...

Nehemia: Was it an AK, or an M-16?

Keith: Let me tell you, it was a big gun. One of the things that’s been so amazing to me about being in Israel is that the nations had been brought from north, south, east, and west. And here’s the part that’s so beautiful. So here’s this group of people from Ethiopia that are Jews, the Sephardic Jews, and here are this group of people from Argentina, and here’s this group of people from Europe. And it’s like this rainbow of colors. I mean…

Nehemia: Well, I was in China, and I met Jews who had been in China for a thousand years, and they looked like Chinese people.

Keith: Exactly! I guess this is the part that I wanted to say that’s so beautiful, is that you have all of these different colors of skin of people, but when they’re here, and Netanyahu said this, at one point, he said, “Come back home.” And he’s talking to people, you know… “Come back home,” wherever they’re from. And when they get here, they’re Jews. And so when I’m walking down the street, they don’t know, unless I open my mouth [laughing] initially. Maybe they don’t know. Maybe they do, some people think I look Ethiopian. I don’t know what I look like. But the point is, I’ve seen such a beautiful example of the array of colors, a diverse array of colors, of people here that are, as you talked about there, whatever the possibility is, that are actually from the people of Israel, which I just think it’s amazing.

Nehemia: Look, there’s no question that Jews lived in different countries and they intermingled with the local populations - not to mention a mixed multitude came out of Egypt.

Keith: Say that brother. So what they look like is my point.

Nehemia: Look, I’ve got blonde hair and blue eyes.

Keith: You don’t have any hair. What are you talking about? [laughing]

Nehemia: When I had hair, [laughing] it was blonde, or it was gingy as they say in Hebrew - It was auburn. Did the ancient Israelites have blue eyes? I don’t know. It’s not important to me. Probably they were kind of like brownish. But I don’t know. It’s not really important, because my ancestors, when they were in eastern Europe for a thousand years, yes, they intermingled with the local population, just like the Jews in China intermingled with local people, and the Jews in Ethiopia intermingled with local people, and the Jews in Morocco intermingled with local people.

And here’s where people get confused. They think Jew is a race, or they say, “Either Jew is a race or it’s a religion,” and it’s not, it’s neither of those. It’s something that defies western definitions, where to be a Jew is to be a nation that has a covenant with God. So there’s a faith aspect of it, but there’s also what you might call an ethnic aspect of it, and that really defies Western definitions. It definitely is something that the ancients would have understood. We have the passage of Jephthah, where he’s talking to the Ammonites and he says, “Look, you’ve got Kamosh, and he’s your god, and we’ve got Yehovah and he’s our God.” And even with that, there was an opportunity to leave Kamosh and become part of the people of Israel, which Ruth the Moabite did. But definitely there was this concept - we are a covenant people, and that’s a better definition. It’s not a race. It’s not a religion. It’s a covenant people.

Keith: Yeah. I like that. And that’s why I say, there’s been long and hard arguments about color of skin and race and that sort of thing, and certainly that can be people’s thing. I just think what’s so beautiful about today is that when you’re here - and people don’t know this, if they haven’t visited Israel - it’s shocking when I come here.

Nehemia: Oh, you see people of every color, every hue, speaking dozens of languages.

Keith: Every hue, and if you ask them, they’ll say “I’m Jewish.”

Nehemia: Absolutely.

Keith: And the people acknowledge them as Jewish.

Nehemia: Right. Look, I mean, there are certain nuances, absolutely. But they’re not about race. They are about culture. In other words, you’ll have tensions between the Iraqi Jews and the Kurdish Jews, even though me as not coming from that part of the world, my answer is like, wait a minute, where’s Kurdistan? [laughing] And how is that different from Iraq? Isn’t that in Iraq? Actually now people know about that a little bit better because of what’s going on northern… but if you would have said 20 years ago, “Oh no, he’s not an Iraqi Jew. He’s a Kurdish Jew. You know, they look the same, their prayers sound the same to me.” There are definitely some subtleties, but absolutely if you asked somebody, they’ll say, “First I’m a Jew and then I’m Ethiopian,” “First I’m a Jew, and then I’m an eastern European and Ashkenazi,” “First I’m a Jew, and then I’m a Sephardic Jew.”

But I want to understand this verse in the context of Amos, and then how it was understood by Jews later on, or maybe even misunderstood. I like this explanation. He’s saying that the descendant of a Kushite is known because of the color of his skin, just like you’re known as My children. Here’s the question I ask for those out there who are racist based on people’s skin color: Moses married a Kushite woman. What color do you think their baby was? Do you think he had blonde hair and blue eyes, or did he have frizzy hair? We don’t know because we haven’t seen the baby, but presumably he had the DNA of both parents, and I don’t think anybody looked at that child and said, “Oh no, he’s not part of us.” No. They completely accepted him as a son of Moses.

The third explanation of “You are like the sons of the Kushites to Me” from the medieval Jewish sources is that “You are no different to Me than the other nations that I love,” which is really interesting. In other words, I love the Kushites. I love the Philistines. I love the Aramaeans and I love you too. You’re no different. Don’t think you’re anything special.

Explanation number four is the exact opposite. You are no different to Me than other nations that are irrelevant to Me. You think you’re important. You’re just as irrelevant to Me as the Philistines and the Kushites.

The fifth explanation says, “By all rights you should be slaves like the Kushites, but I took you out of slavery.” Now I think that’s an anachronism, because at the time of Amos, the Kushites weren’t known as slaves. That’s something that came later from the Muslim culture, from the Arabic culture.

And just to give you one example, we talked about this, we talked about the Assyrians, how the Assyrians were camped against… There was the war where they were trying to conquer Israel, and they heard the rumor that Tirhaka, King of Kush was coming. This was a kingdom… It’s 2 Kings 19:9. It says, “For the King of Assyria learned that King Tirhaka of Nubia,” it says in the JPS, but in Hebrew it’s Kush, “had come out to fight him. So he again… “ blah, blah, blah, et cetera. [laughing] So the point is that Kush was something that put fear in the hearts of Israelites and even of Assyrians. The Assyrian Empire is running out of fear because there’s this army coming from Kush. And here’s my point: When a Jew in the Middle Ages looked at Kushite and heard this, he said, “Oh, those are slaves,” because we see the Arabs keeping them as slaves, because the Arabs are inherently racist in their culture, at least towards black people. To the point, like I said, that even the word for black person, it means slave. But that’s an anachronism, that did not exist in the time of Amos. In biblical times, Kush was a mighty kingdom in what today is probably more like Sudan, it was in the Upper Nile, basically, the Kingdom of Kush.

So we have to understand it within its cultural context, and within its cultural context, I really like the second explanation - that I can recognize my children, just like anybody can recognize the son of a Kushite. But I don’t know what it means, that’s the bottom line.

Keith: Yes. And when it’s all said and done, we don’t know.

Nehemia: It’s kind of a mysterious statement, this whole thing with Kir and the Philistines. Like what? What are you talking about?

Keith: The only thing I say that I like about the statement is there’s the part that we don’t know. And again, we talked about this a few weeks ago in terms of Yehovah’s bigness regarding delivering, bringing salvation through Aram, or whatever it was that was going on that we don’t know why, when, where, why, or how, but just an amazing part of the fact that He’s the ruler of the entire earth. And so there isn’t a kingdom that He doesn’t have or isn’t a part of doing what He does.

Nehemia: That’s an important point, that I’ll often refer to Him… And Scripture will refer to Him as the god of Israel, but only in the sense that God has a covenant relationship with Israel, and through Israel, the entire world knows that He is God.

Keith: Halleluyah!

Nehemia: That “Yehovah hu ha'Elohim”, Yehovah, He is God. The one and only.

Keith: Amen. So it says, “Surely the eyes of the sovereign LORD are on the sinful kingdom. I will destroy it from the face of the earth, yet I will not totally destroy the house of Jacob,” ne’um Yehovah, “sayeth the LORD” in English.

Nehemia: That’s so beautiful. So, what is the sinful kingdom? I think a lot of people, especially those coming from your tradition - correct me if I’m wrong - hear “the sinful kingdom” and the first thing they would think is “Babylon the whore!” Am I right?

Keith: Mmm… It’s possible…

Nehemia: But in the context the sinful Kingdom is Israel, and I think the message here in verse 8 is God is going to destroy the Kingdom of Israel, but he will not completely destroy the house of Jacob. His covenant with Israel stands, even though the kingdom has been destroyed.

Keith: And that’s why whenever we see the word, and He talks about the remnant, or bringing the dross or bringing the silver back and all these things, it’s like, wow, this is again, but I use the word carefully, it’s the good news. It’s like yes, there’s going to be accountability, but there’s also grace, and His grace is going to be something that's going to make the world stand up and take notice.

Nehemia: In case you didn’t understand that, verse 9 explains. [both laughing] In case you missed the point of verse 8.

Keith: Go ahead, read verse 9, please.

Nehemia: No, no, go ahead. Alright let me read you this. Amos 9:9, “For surely I will command and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations as grain is sifted in a sieve, yet not the smallest grain shall fall to the ground.” Wow. So what does that mean, sifting them? First of all, this is a metaphor we’ve seen before, I believe, with sieve. And the point here is God’s saying…

Keith: Are you saying “sift”? Is that what it says in yours?

Nehemia: Yes. What do you have?

Keith: It says, “I will shake the House of Israel.”

Nehemia: Okay. What does that mean? What they would do is, people were farmers and they grew grain and they grew wheat, and you put it through the threshing floor and you’d be left with seed, but the seed is the grain that you eat. You’d be left with the grain, but there’s some chaff in there, and there’s some kind of pieces of the stalk in there. What you do then is you take it in a sieve and you shake the sieve, and what happens is the grain falls to the ground and what’s left behind is all the junk. He’s saying, “I'm going to sift Israel in a sieve.” The junk falls down and the seeds are left behind and you just make the sieve the right thickness, and you keep the seeds, but you lose the chaff or the junk.

The point here is that He’s saying nothing’s going to fall to the ground, not one of the kernels, because in reality, when you shake the sieve in ancient Israel, in ancient agriculture, some of it falls to the ground and then you pick those little pieces up, the ones that you lose. He’s saying nothing’s going to fall to the ground to get lost, and shake is right. But it’s shaking a sieve, that’s the image.

What He’s saying is, “I’m going to send Israel into exile, like grain in the sieve, but the good ones won’t be lost.”

Keith: Wow.

Nehemia: That’s beautiful. I mean to me, I look at the history… people say, “Why do you believe in the Torah?” They say to me, “why do you believe in the Scripture?” They’re looking for some kind of rational… some kind of rationalistic argument. And I say, “I don't need to bring that kind of argument because I look at the history of my people and I see them as a fulfillment of prophecy.” Here he is describing this in the time of Amos, which is before the first exile, meaning before the Babylonian exile.

Keith: That’s important to know, that it’s before the first.

Nehemia: Yes, Amos is writing this during the time of the first kingdom, during the Kingdom of Israel, and he’s saying, “Look, this kingdom’s going to be destroyed and they’re going to go into exile, but Israel won’t cease to be a people. The people will continue. The nation will continue.”

Isaiah 30, verse 28, is a great parallel. It says, “And His breath is an overflowing stream that reaches even unto the neck to sift the nations with the sieve of vanity.” I love that phrase, “And a bridle that causes to air, shall be in the jaws of the people.” So, we’ve got this image of nations being sifted.

Jeremiah 23:3. “And I will gather the remnant of My flock out of all the countries whither I have driven them and will bring them again to their folds and they shall be fruitful and increase.” This is the ingathering. So He’s saying, “Yes, there’s going to be the sifting, but the ones who need to come back, they’re going to come back.” For me that’s really significant, because I look at the exile and diaspora and I say, “Why do we have to suffer like this?” He’s telling us here what the whole point of the diaspora was - that He’s going to send us out into the sieve of the nations and the ones He brings back are going to be the good seeds, the one who He wants to bring back. And everyone who is supposed to come back will.

This is a little controversial, but can I bring you something from the New Testament? [laughing] Luke 22:31 to 32 has this image of the sieve. It says “Simon, Simon, behold Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat.” There it’s Satan who’s sifting, not Yehovah, but it’s a metaphor that would have made a lot of sense in ancient times. They were farmers, they knew these things. “But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail and when once you have turned again strengthen your brothers,” whatever, it’s the metaphor of the sieve there, it’s interesting. This was part of the daily life, seeing these things, the sieve.

Keith: Wow. Okay. So verse 10. Okay. “All the sinners among My people will die by the sword. All those who say disaster will not overtake us or meet us.” “All the sinners among My people will die by the sword. All those who say disaster will not overtake or meet us.” Hmm.

Well, I’m looking for verse 11, I’ll be honest with you.

Nehemia: Okay.

Keith: [laughing] “In that day,” in what day? “I will restore David’s fallen tent.” Wow. Again, being here probably makes it even more exciting. We’ve been to the City of David - not obviously on this one because I haven’t been allowed to leave the apartment for three days. You gave me a 30-minute break on a bus! [laughing]

Nehemia: Come on! Now tell people where you were yesterday, since you brought it up.

Keith: Where was I yesterday?

Nehemia: You went and you met with your... you had your secret meeting!

Keith: Oh! Yeah, yeah. No that’s another issue.

Nehemia: I wasn’t involved with that. You met with a famous international figure.

Keith: No, no. The reason I’m here is because of this. But I have to say, to just be aware of the fact that not far from here, what would it take us to take the bus to go and see where the City of David is?

Nehemia: If we got in a taxi, we’d be there in 15 minutes, 10 minutes without traffic. Maybe an hour with traffic. [laughing] No, I love this. So you said the tent of David…

Keith: It says, “the fallen tent”.

Nehemia: So it says, “the Sukkah of David”. Sukkah like the Feast of Sukkot, The feast of Booths. So what is the fallen booth of David? So let’s read the whole verse.

Keith: “‘And I will repair its broken places, restore its ruins, and build it as it used to be so that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations that bear My name,’ declares Yehovah, who will do these things.” Oh my goodness. Which part can we start in? [laughing]

Nehemia: Let’s start at 11, okay?

Keith: So He’s going to restore David’s fallen tent, repair its broken places, restore its ruins, and build it as it used to be. Now, can I just throw out what I think about when I think about that? The reason I brought up the issue of how being so close to the City of David, I can’t think of the City of David, Zion, without thinking about the mountain, and what presently is there. Like, I can go and look today, and 20, 30 years ago, could you even do this? I mean, where were they in the archeological process of digging up the City of David like 50 years ago?

Nehemia: So when I studied archeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, we had a test at the end of one of the courses, and it asked about the City of David, and I answered the questions perfectly. I got all the points on that answer on the test, and everything I said was correct at the time. Now, looking back, everything I said is all considered wrong. The reason is that leading up to the year 2000, they did these major excavations - and the test was before 2000 - they did these major excavations and they found out that all the things they thought before about the City of David were wrong. So anything you read about the City of David that’s more than a few years old, it’s probably going to be wrong.

Keith: Back up. So you’re telling me that before 2000, before they did the digging…

Nehemia: Right. And they had dug there before in the 60s.

Keith: But they gave you the questions and you answered the questions, you got them all right?

Nehemia: I answered the questions and I got all the points because I answered what I was taught and what everyone at the time believed. But then they did more excavations and found out what I was taught was wrong. It had to do with around the Gichon spring, and they found this fortress there, it’s amazing. You can go and see it today. It’s amazing. But none of that was known before the year 2000, 1999 around that time.

Keith: So think about that. So now it’s 2015, 15 years ago, 15 years ago! I mean before 15 years. And my point is, the reason I brought it up is it now you can actually look and you can see here’s where the City of David is. Then you look up and you see where the ruined tent of David. I’m talking about the Temple Mount.

Nehemia: So this is the question, when it says the sukkah of David, the booth of David that’s fallen, is it referring to the Temple or is it referring to the dynasty of David? The House of David? That’s not clear at all.

Keith: It’s not clear. I would think it’s the House of David.

Nehemia: And not the Temple, which was built by Solomon.

Keith: Right.

Nehemia: That’s the reason it could be the Temple is that David, before Solomon built the Temple, he took the Ark and put it in a tent. Yes. And so there’s that image that the Temple essentially is replacing this tent, and then the Temple falls. It’s not clear.

Keith: The only reason I think about it as fallen tent is I think about David and the legacy after that. David and his sons and his sons and the sons and the sons. And certainly when you look at the situation, definitely that legacy had quite a big shift. And still has had a big shift.

Nehemia: Right. Well in any event, so this may refer to the rebuilding of the Temple or the reestablishment of the Kingdom of David. Either way, we’re talking about what we refer to as the era of the Messiah in Judaism, “Yemei haMashiach,” “The Messiah will reign on the throne and the Temple will be rebuilt.” “Sukkah David hanofelet” the raising up of the fallen tent of David, or the fallen sukkah of David, is clearly referring to this messianic era. That excites me! Here we’ve got a messianic prophecy. Does anyone dispute this is a messianic prophecy? Do Christians?

Keith: I don’t know if anybody… I don’t know about if people dispute it or not, but in reading it and understanding it in its context, you’re talking about David, and that’s the promise. The promise comes through David.

Nehemia: Amen. Absolutely. And I just want to make a comment on the phrase, that you said something like repair its breaches or something like that. So literally, it’s to fence in the breaches, meaning the image here is there’s a wall, and when the city is captured they use a battering ram and they knock down the wall and there’s a big hole in the wall where all the soldiers run through. He’s saying, “I’m going to repair those breaches in the wall.” That’s beautiful. I love that, because my ministry is Makor Hebrew Foundation, and the image I have for me, Nehemia’s Wall is my website, Nehemiaswall.com, and the image I get always is of Nehemiah, the man I’m named after, the book that’s written in the Tanakh, and he’s standing up there with the trumpeters, and they’re blowing their shofars…

Keith: Why do you say Nehemia? Why don’t you ever say it the way it’s supposed to be?

Nehemia: It’s Nehemiah! Okay, the Book of Nehemiah. Okay. So Nehemia’s Wall, and I’m Nehemia, but English people know it as Nehemiah. Anyway, so through that image of them repairing the breaches in the wall, and here Yehovah is… that was prophetic. Imagine the time of Nehemiah, Nehemiah’s walking around the wall and there are places he can’t even go with his animal, with his horse or his donkey, because the wall has collapsed and there’s so much damage there. He’s got to get off and just kind of climb on the ruins of this wall of Jerusalem. And here, this is part of the image that the breaches of the wall are going to be repaired.

So for me, this is both a physical aspect and a spiritual aspect. What I’ve always wanted to do, this is what I’ve been called to do, I feel like, is to repair those breaches, the breaches in the wall, in order to glorify the city of Yehovah and the fallen tabernacle of David, the fallen sukkah of David.

Keith: And what is the date right now we’re in right now, Nehemia, as far as this particular…? Do we have two of these…?

Nehemia: Well, it’s going to be read in synagogues around the world on April 25th, 2015.

Keith: Okay. So we’re getting two.

Nehemia: And we’re now on… yeah, we’ve got a twofer this week. But then in years to come they’ll be on different weeks.

Keith: Isn’t that interesting? Wow, that’s amazing. The reason I’m bringing that up is I’m kind of counting the weeks also in terms of our ministry, BFAinternational.com. There are so many different things that have happened up to this point, and there’s so many things that are going to be happening in the future, but right now we’re in a bit of a transition because I’m here in the Land of Israel, during this time, really trying to do two things. One of them is really clear. We are addressing the issue of Prophet Pearls, which I have to say, Nehemia, from the time that you asked me until now, it’s fulfilling something for me that has just… it’s what we do - inspiring people around the world to build a biblical foundation for their faith. And I am now a part of something that will last for as long as we know, unless of course the prophecy comes in…

Nehemia: Until the internet melts down. [laughing]

Keith: … and say that it's over. But basically, people all the time can listen to that. So I always want to remind people to go to BFAinternational.com, there’s constantly things that are changing, new things that are on that front page. There’s three doors there, God’s time, God’s Torah, God’s Tetragrammaton, His name. You can go through any of those and you can experience things. No registration. If you register, you get access to more, and if you become a part of the Premium Content Library you get access to everything, including what hopefully in the next couple of weeks we’ll be able to announce that will be available, that’s going to help people in building their faith.

So I want to invite you to go to BFAinternational.com and look at the site. There are so many different things, and we’re getting so many different responses from people around the world. It’s just a fulfillment of what I’ve always wanted to see happen. And that’s for people to be engaged and to encounter the information, inspiration and revelation. So please take a moment to visit BFAinternational.com, and we only have a few more verses, but they’re the best.

Nehemia: So join Keith though, work on the foundations, and then come join me to fill in the breaches. [both laughing] We’re going to build a wall.

Keith: [laughing] Let’s build the wall.

Nehemia: He’s the stones at the bottom. All right. Verse 12.

Keith: “So that they may possess the remnant of Edom.” We already said that one.

Nehemia: Oh no, we have to talk about it.

Keith: I know. “‘And all the nations that bear My name,’ declares Yehovah.”

Nehemia: What? Who are all the nations who bear His name? Wait, I wasn’t taught that growing up, that there was more than one nation that bears the name of Yehovah.

Keith: If you go to the Septuagint it says, “So that the remnant of men and all the nations that bear My name may seek,” and it says, “the LORD.” Wow.

Nehemia: So, who are the nations?

Keith: All those that bear His name.

Nehemia: So there’s more than one nation?

Keith: There’s got to be.

Nehemia: Wow. You know what connects for me this verse is the prophecy in Malachi where it talks about, “My name is honored among all the nations,” it talks about how you, Israel despise it. So look, can I say something really controversial here?

Keith: Sure, of course.

Nehemia: So, if we have to look out in the world and ask, who are the nations that bear the name of Yehovah? Who are they?

Keith: Do you know where those nations are?

Nehemia: I think I do, and that’s my challenge for the people. Go out and find nations around the world that know the name Yehovah, and that’s what this is talking about.

Keith: Amen. [laughing] “‘The days are coming,’ declares Yehovah, ‘when the reaper will be overtaken by the plowman in the planter by the one treading grapes.’” And when I read this, the next phrase, “the new wine will drip from the mountains and flow from all the hills,” I immediately thought about Amos and where he’s at in Tekoa, because Tekoa, which is what, now, again, if we drive a car, we’re gonna be there in 25 minutes, something like that, maybe 30 minutes. But, think about this, put it in that context, and he’s talking about this where if you go to Tekoa to this day, you just see grapevines and where, where the oil, olive oil and grapes, and it’s like, man, I mean, it’s a beautiful place. And he’s saying here, it says “And the planter by the one who’s treading grapes, new wine will drip from the mountains and flow from all of the hills.” And I mean, that’s a picture of what’s happening. I mean, that’s a picture of what’s going to happen. Right.

Nehemia: Well and it’s an image of great… what do you call that? Fruitfulness. And it’s an image that evokes a memory of Leviticus 26:5, in the section there of the blessing and the curse, and in the blessing it says “Your threshing shall overtake the vintage,” which is grapes, “and the vintage will overtake the sowing. You shall eat your fill of bread and dwell securely in your land.” In other words, you’re going to be so successful that you’re not going to even have any break. You’re just going to have such a great blessing and bounty that it’s going to keep you busy, which is a really good thing, you know? If you have a really short harvest in ancient times, that means you’re probably going to starve next year. And here it’s saying, you're going to have so much harvest, it’s going to take you all the way to the time you’re dealing with the grapes, and your grape issues are going to take you all the time to the next harvest, the next planting of the grain. You’re going to be very busy, because God’s going to bless you so much.

Keith: And you know, it’s so funny, Nehemia, I know we’re almost to the last verse, but I wanted to say something. Again, just to remind people, we’re actually physically in the Land of Israel for a couple of weeks doing this, but you’re listening to this in the future. When we were actually here, just yesterday, we were watching, you were watching also, we were watching Netanyahu speak about the situation with Iran and all the controversy around that. But there were a couple of phrases that caught my attention, and one of them, just another reminder, is as he was speaking about the fact, he says that in a hundred generations we weren’t able to defend ourselves and now we can because we have been brought back to our land, we are a people that have come from north, south, east and west. And you know, when we talk about a prophecy being fulfilled, and Prophet Pearls, and looking at prophecy for yesterday, today and tomorrow, is there any prophecy that’s just any more clear than this prophecy? The fact that the people are going to be brought in. Like today, you and I can go out on a bus stop, as we did, and we can get on a bus, and I can see soldiers on that bus, and I can see children with their mothers, and I can see fathers, and I can see people from different parts of the world. And if you did a survey of those people and you asked them, where do you come from? What do you think they would say? Some would say, I’ve come as far as from South America. Some would say, I’ve come as far as Iraq, others would say I’ve come as far as Russia, others, I came from the United States and they’re all back in the land right now where God planted them. That to me is like… and I know we talk about it all the time, the Scripture talks about it all the time - but this is the remnant of people that have been brought back. It’s a prophecy that’s fulfilled in our lifetime. I mean, we’re watching this happen in real time. I mean, it's not like we’re hoping that eventually Israel will be able to get past the UN Security Council’s ability… Ah, those days are done. It’s a nation. It’s a nation that’s being brought back, and who brought them back? Yehovah brought them back.

Nehemia: Amen.

Keith: That’s amazing to me.

Nehemia: Amen. It is amazing. To me, like I said, I look at this and I don’t need to come up with some kind of hypothetical theoretical abstract argument. To me the very history of the people of Israel is proof that “Yehovah hu ha'Elohim,” “Yehovah is God.” And it actually says that in Scripture, that the whole world will look and they’ll see this and they’ll say, “Oh, we know that He’s God,” and to me it’s so deeply part of my spirit and my heart, that I look at Israel and it’s just clear - this is a fulfillment of prophecy.

Keith: Some people get very angry about this. I mean, they just… [laughing]

Nehemia: Why do they get angry?

Keith: I think this is also a part of it - that the nations, they try to pull their hair out and say, “What are we gonna do about these people that are connected with this God?” I mean, I just think that that’s...

Nehemia: Can I read verse 14?

Keith: Sure. Absolutely.

Nehemia: It says, “And I will return the captivity of My people, Israel, and they will build desolate cities and they will dwell,” literally, they will sit, “they will dwell, and they will plant vineyards and they will drink their wine, they will make gardens and they will eat their fruits.” Well, I read this and I think about… was it in this episode we talked about the West Bank settlers? Or was that in the last one?

Keith: That was the last one.

Nehemia: In the last one. [laughing] We’re doing so many episodes. And I read this, and this is what I see. I see people in Tekoa, which is a so-called “West Bank settlement”. Imagine that - Tekoa is the city of Amos. And Jews lived there before 1948. It was captured by the Jordanians and held prisoner for 19 years. Jews then return to that area, and some of the same Jews who were actually taken captive by the Jordanians and handed over to the Red Cross, and they returned to that area, which is called Gush Etzion, which includes Tekoa. And today they’re called the evil settlers. What? On what planet are they evil settlers? This is the land Yehovah gave us. We were there before 1948. We were there after 1967. So, because during 19 years it was occupied by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the people who live there are evil West Bank settlers? They are a fulfillment of this prophecy. Yehovah has returned the captivity of Israel. They built cities in places that were desolate. They literally did that. They’ve literally planted vineyards and they've literally raised up orchards and they’re eating the fruit. And the world looks at this, and instead of seeing this happen, instead of saying, “Yehovah is amazing, in the time of Amos before the first exile, He already prophesied that 2000, I don’t know, five, six, 700 years later, that this thing would happen.” Now it’s finally been fulfilled and the world looks at it and says, “Oh, they’re evil settlers there. You know, this is some foreign western colony, they should go back to Russia.” Russia? We were there for a little bit of time. Maybe it was a couple thousand years, but this is where we came from! We’re reading the book of Amos about Tekoa, and that same Tekoa is where there are Jews living today, planting vineyards.

Keith: I got to tell you, you know, one of the things I really enjoy doing is going to the grocery store. [Nehemia laughing] And I'll tell you why I love going to the grocery store. I don’t go to the grocery store because I hate to shop. I hate… can I say, hate? And every time I’m with you, you always want to go to stores. We go to stores. Okay. But going to the grocery store…

Nehemia: You mean in Israel.

Keith: In Israel. [laughing]

Nehemia: Everywhere.

Keith: Everywhere we go you want to stop…

Nehemia: No, but you love the grocery store in Israel. You don’t love Walmart.

Keith: I don’t love Walmart. But let me tell you why I love this grocery store in Israel. It’s really amazing to me, Nehemia, we’re in this little teeny small land, little teeny small land. And we go in a grocery store and in the produce section, yesterday, for example, you’re like, “Well, can you grab a few of those peppers?” “Which color?” “Ah, take your pick.” “Yeah. Can you grab some of those oranges over there?” “Which ones?” “Get the mediums.” “Could you grab some grapefruits?” “Which ones?” “The bigger ones over there.” “Can you grab…?” And there’s just this color and color and color, and these beautiful fruit and vegetables…

Nehemia: And it all grows in Israel. Isn’t that amazing?

Keith: And this is my point. And it all grows in Israel, and how it grew in Israel is the thing that excites me. The technology that Israel has been able to come into a wasteland, and you talk about the history of what this place was described as, it was a wasteland, and now it's filled with these beautiful streams and water and vegetables and fruit. And you go into the grocery store, and you read a verse like this, that says, “They will plant vineyards and drink their wine. They will make gardens and eat their fruit.” And I think we saw from the time we came out of that grocery store until the time we got back to the apartment, I saw five different places, open areas where I could look in, and all I saw was beautiful colored fruit, yellow and green and red and orange and purple! I mean, there’s purple fruit here! I mean there’s all these like colors and colors. I talk about the skin color of people… it’s the colors of the fruit that just absolutely shock me! And it and the taste of the fruit. Can I just talk about the taste?

Nehemia: Please.

Keith: You know, we grab an orange, and I peel the orange, and it's succulent! You know, slopping down the side of my lips and I’m just thinking, “I read this verse, I go into the grocery store and the Bible verse comes alive. It’s actually happening.” Your mother, Bubby Deena says, “Nehemia make sure that you get…”, and she puts a list. Know what she did? She gave us a list.

Nehemia: Yeah, she gave us a shopping list.

Keith: 90% of everything on the list is a fruit or a vegetable.

Nehemia: Yes, grown in the land.

Keith: And boy, she makes it sing when she puts it together! [laughing] I had Bubby Deena’s chicken soup. You kidding me? It was filled with color!

Nehemia: It was amazing.

Keith: Anyway, this is an example of this being fulfilled, that people here, they make the gardens and they eat their fruit. Yehovah himself has planted Israel in this time, in this land, never again to be uprooted. Is that not exciting?

Nehemia: That is.

Keith: Wow. Even though the nations are gathering together, saying, “Well, maybe it’s okay.”

Nehemia: No, they say, “We need to uproot you. We need to send you to Russia, send the Jews back to Morocco and back to Iraq,” and we’re all like, “Wait a minute. We’re not colonists in a foreign land. We’re the returning captivity, it’s a fulfillment of prophecy. It’s in the Scriptures. It’s right here in the Book of Amos, and Yehovah promises he’s going to plant us in the land and we won’t be uprooted. It doesn’t matter what the United Nations says, wanting to uproot Israel. It doesn’t matter what Iran and the mullahs say, wanting to uproot Israel. It doesn't even matter what ISIS says. We're here. Yehovah is the real one, true God, and there’s nothing you can do to prevail against Him. Can I get an amen?

Keith: Amen. At the end of the phrase it says, “Amar Yehovah Eloheicha” “Says Yehovah your God.” Isn't that amazing? He said it. It does not matter if you said it, you can get up and preach all you want. Netanyahu can get in front of the UN and say all he wants. God said it. [laughing]

Nehemia: And He says, “they won’t be uprooted from the land, which I gave them.” That’s the bottom line. Wow. It’s His land He created it and he gave it to us, and maybe that’s the point of these nations in the beginning - He gave the land of Kush to the Kushites. He gave the land of Philistia to the Philistines, I guess, you know, to the Caphtorites. He gave the land of Kir, or He took them from Kir and gave the land of Aramea to the Arameans. And the point is, just like He gave all those things to those different nations, He gave Israel their land and no one can stand against that and challenge that.

Keith: Boy we could go so far on this.

Nehemia: We sure could.

Keith: But you know what, Nehemia, we've got so many more and we're going to be able to continue to do this. And I just have to say it is exciting to do this here, to do this here.

Nehemia: And one more thought is, we read about all the nations called by Yehovah’s name. I wonder if those Kushites and those Philistines and those Aramaeans aren’t also nations called by Yehovah’s name. So yeah. And I think again, that’s the homework for people.

Keith: We’re going to edit this part out. We’re going to get up in a big controversy here. You think it’s possible that God would do that?

Nehemia: Absolutely. Well, I mean, the one verse that comes to mind is in Isaiah, what is it, 14? Where it talks about three nations that Yehovah’s having this relationship with, Assyria and Egypt and Israel. They’re this triad together. I mean, so yes, absolutely.

Keith: Wow.

Nehemia: Hallelujah. But again, the homework is to go look at nations around the world who know Yehovah’s name, and those are the people that are being spoken about here.

Keith: Amen.

Nehemia: Wow. All right. I’m gonna end with some prayer. Oh, Yehovah, avinu shebashamayim, Yehovah our father in heaven, yitkadesh shimcha, may your name be sanctified. The name Yehovah that many nations around the world have known. And yes, Yehovah, they’ve gone off in different directions and maybe they don’t fully understand You. And maybe they have a confused message of Your word Yehovah, but they know Your name and they’re coming to know You and they’re growing in knowledge of You. Yehovah, I ask that when You shake us, when You put us in the sieve, You’ve promised that none will fall away. None will be lost to the ground. Yehovah, this may be a painful experience, Yehovah, when this happens and it has been painful, absolutely throughout history. Yehovah, I ask that You have mercy on us. And Yehovah, I ask that You let our blessing be so abundant that our threshing overtakes our vintage and our vintage our sowing. Yehovah, I ask You to sow into us Your holy spirit and bring back the remnant that… as You promised, and gather these nations who are called by Your name to You and let not one grain fall away to the earth, Yehovah. In Your holy name, Yehovah, Amen.

Keith: 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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  • donald murphy says:

    grace is a name of a goddess I believe. shouldn’t be use in speech.

  • michael HAROLD says:

    Nehemia,can you and Keith do a pearl program on MATTHEW 17 : 1 to 7 i would love to hear your teaching on this passage of YEHOVAHS WORD. thankvou… MICHAEL H,PHILADELPHIA ,PA. USA

  • Victor Eubank says:

    Who were the people of God prior to Abraham, Jacob, and Moses? What land did they occupy? Did God most High not create the entire world (universe), and did He not populate the whole earth with each people group? Solomon rightly expressed that the temple could not contain Yehovah. It is mankind who have corrupted every parcel of land, yet isn’t it God who knows the heart of all mankind? He is able to discern who are His. Those who are His, are they not His seed? The ark of God–as pointed out in this session–was housed in temporal places (tent), which implores us to consider the mobility of Yehovah, doesn’t it? A stone edifice limits mobility; therefore, places parameters and limitations which in turn breeds contempt towards others, doesn’t it? All of Scripture warns against man-made objects of worship. The sanctuary of God are the collected whole of all humanity who serve Him.

  • Russell Budlong says:

    Always interesting

  • Jacques says:

    How is it you have not made the reference to Cush as being slaves because of the curse of Noah on Canaan? Thank you for great teaching be lost in Torah without you guys.

  • Han Bosman says:

    What about You both; Jew and Gentile proclaiming the Name of Yehovah, fulfilling as is written. My take on the matter, anyone out off any nation willing to proclaiming the Name Yehovah will be the Nation were talking about.

    Shalom Shalom to all.

  • Dean Lindsey says:

    What other nations bear the name of Yehovah? I’m still not getting it…. please help me out 🙂 Bless Yehovah and bless you Nehemia!

    • Nicole Proffitt says:

      As was hinted by Nehemia in the last few minutes of the broadcast, would it be that as the diminutive name of YeHoVaH is Yah, the nations whose names begin or end with ‘ya’ or ‘yah’ are those that are meant?

  • Gail Wujcik says:

    Every time I listen to a Torah Pearls or Prophet Pearls teaching I learn something new! Thank you so much.

  • Janice says:

    Because of our culture, we think, the objection to Moses Cushite bride was the color of her skin, however, it could be the objection was to Cushite culture, customs, religion. The text does not give detain as to why the objection, except she was from Cush.

  • Diane Watson says:

    Would you say it is a prophecy fulfulling…ing…because where is Ephraim? Where is the house of Israel? The house of Judah is returning but what about the other tribes?
    Thanks for another great Prophet Pearl 🙂

  • I was just saying I am going to research all the food blessings in the bible. Well this is a good start. And I can’t wait to get to Israel

  • It is so good to have things in Hebrew explained from a person who knows the Hebrew language, its deeper meaning and who believes what the Bible says! Did you have a deeper explanation on the issue of not mixing wool and linen? Is it metaphoric also or just physical?
    Lars in Norway

  • SHMUEL PARZAL says:

    The Minoans completely abandoned what is now Crete between 1662-1450 BCE, as a result of constant earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The Egyptians called the Minoans ‘Kefdi’. There was a short period during which the island was abandoned, and then it was occupied by the Greek Myceaneans, who renamed it Kriti. Caphtor is Minoan Crete, and Kriti is Greek Crete. The Caphtor and the Creti are two completely different ethnicities who came from the same island (Crete) but from different time periods.There was a Minoan tribe called the Peleset. It’s possible that the Philistines are descended from this one Minoan tribe.

    • Elissa says:

      Very interesting, Shmuel. I’m glad you shared; I’ll look forward to looking at these potential connections. I find the history fascinating.

  • Carolyn Rudek says:

    Very inspiring, Gentlemen. I will be listening to this several times, I’m sure.

  • Betty says:

    Could the “fallen tent of David” have anything to do with the tabernacle, as Solomon’s Temple replaced the tabernacle? Did David set up a small tent for the Ark of the Covenant in his day… didn’t he mourn because it was in a tent while he lived in a palace? Did David’s tent have any relationship to the tabernacle or parts of it?