Prophet Pearls #50 – Ki Tavo (Isaiah 60:1-22)

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

Nehemia: G’day and welcome to Prophet Pearls down under in the safe house in Jerusalem, exploring Biblical prophecy for yesterday, today, and tomorrow with Keith Johnson and the Caffeinated Karaite himself, Nehemia Gordon!

Keith: G’day, mate!

Nehemia: G’day, Keith. How are you?

Keith: Where do you come up with that? That was golden. You’re back, you’re back and you’re in the zone. Listen, I have to tell you something… Look, folks, I didn’t know if we were going to get to this one, we’ve really been working off… He’s had a couple of cups of coffee, now and I don’t know if I’m going to be able to slow him down.

Nehemia: I’m the Caffeinated Karaite!

Keith: Hey, Nehemia, something’s really interesting. Well, first of all, we have to say again, to our friends, Bonny and Olly, they are actually…

Nehemia: Bonny and Olly over in Oregon.

Keith: Yes. They sponsored three of these. Thank you so much, Bonny and Olly.

Nehemia: Todah rabah.

Keith: Again, folks, if you can be in Canby, Oregon or that area, you have to get there during Sukkot. I am hoping they have it again. It was amazing.

Nehemia: Yes.

Keith: But I was waiting for this from before.

Nehemia: Yes.

Keith: And I couldn’t… And actually it has to do with… It’s a long story. Anyway, so in Isaiah 60, verse 1.

Nehemia: Amen.

Keith: We’re in Isaiah 60, verse 1. Before, you said, “Oh, yes, it said ‘arise, arise,’” and this one is “kumi.” Now, what is the difference between “arise” in Isaiah, where it was a different Hebrew word, and this “arise”? In other words, in Isaiah 61, it’s a different word than we used for “arise.” It’s the same English word “arise,” but it’s a different Hebrew word.

Nehemia: Is it the same English word?

Keith: Absolutely.

Nehemia: Because I have no idea what it says in the English. [laughing]

Keith: No, we looked at it before.

Nehemia: So, in the Hebrew it’s “uri,” which is “awake, awake”, and this is “kumi u’ori.”

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: Which is “get up and be lighted.”

Keith: From “or”?

Nehemia: From “or”, right. And the other is “uri” with an “Ayin” – “Ouri”, which means “to wake up.”

Keith: Yes. You know, folks… look, I don’t know.

Nehemia: Wake up, drink your coffee. Arise.

Keith: All I can say is that I don’t have to say that to you. [laughing] You’re definitely awake. So, listen, before we get started, folks, I want you to remember something. We’re looking for the double schnitzel.

[laughing]

Keith: Okay? I am riding this horse till the end of this series…. In all seriousness, if you haven’t gotten a chance to respond to our challenge, to our call, to our ask, I want you to turn off the radio right now, turn off the internet right now. Go to Nehemiaswall.com.

Nehemia: [laughing] Wait if they turn off the internet, how do they go to Nehemaiswall.com? Do not turn off the internet!

Keith: You don’t have to turn off the internet, just stop the recording. Maybe you just forgot about it because you got caught up in the Isaiah 53 thing, which was the bonus verse. No, Nehemia, last week you did something really, really cool.

Nehemia: Yes.

Keith: You went to a clearly controversial passage, and I say controversial – any good debate between, say, the anti-missionary, whether it be an apologist or whatever back and forth about Isaiah 53, and I thought you did something really interesting, because you went to the end. And I was really tempted to want to say something.

Nehemia: Why didn’t you?

Keith: The reason I didn’t is because I really try to keep… Personally for me, I probably don’t have the same target on my back. I have the target on my back for different reasons than you. But one of the interesting things about Isaiah 53 is that you brought up that passage, you brought up that section, and I just really have to say that it was comforting for me that you didn’t do it with the traditional response that I often would hear with Isaiah 53, that basically there’s no way, it’s impossible there could be any reference to anything other than… and you brought up, I think it was four or five different…

Nehemia: Four historical Jewish interpretations.

Keith: Yes, so if you haven’t had a chance to listen to that, Isaiah 53, for those of us who look at Isaiah 53 and it’s hard for us not to imagine that’s not dealing with the person, historical, what will be future Messianic, I mean, it’s just hard for me to read that passage and not think that way. But what I appreciated about what you did is that you didn’t just take what I would say is maybe the expected route, in fact, you said that you had a meeting with a Messianic rabbi, and he was even probably a little surprised at some of what you did.

Nehemia: Well, I didn’t tell you the whole story. So, in the meeting with this Messianic rabbi, or the interaction, we were reading Isaiah 53 together, and at a certain point, he said “Well, this can’t be Yeshua,” and I was convincing him why it could be – not that it is, because that’s a matter of faith – but I was actually showing him from the original Hebrew, “Well, actually it could be if you read it this way, but if you read this other thing then you get those other interpretations.”

My point was, “I don’t need to prove to you whether it is Yeshua or not Yeshua, whether it’s all of Israel, or Jeremiah. For me, whether that’s talking about Yeshua or not, that’s a question of faith that you need to work out for yourself in fear and trembling in prayer and studying before the Creator of the universe. I want to understand what it says in the Hebrew, and, yes, you could read those two different ways and really four different ways.”

Keith: Well, it’s clear, the kavod of Yehovah is upon you, there’s no question. The glory has fallen upon you. [laughing] I was reading the verse!

Nehemia: Oh, I see, you’re actually reading from the verse. I’m like, “Where is he getting the glory of Yehovah? Is there light shining from my face?”

Keith: No, Isaiah 60:1, it says “and the glory of Yehovah has risen upon you.”

Nehemia: It’s the caffeine.

Keith: It uses the word “kavod.” And one of the things I also liked is we were talking about the glory leaving and the glory coming back and this issue of returning. And folks, what we’re going to do in Isaiah 60 here, we’re going to do what we’ve been doing the last few times, we’re going to give you some homework here and there for you to look at, and we really want you to look at it. We don’t just want you to look at it and move on, but to look at it, maybe write a couple of things, make a comment. Go to Nehemiaswall.com. Go to BFAInternational.com and go right to the comments section and share those comments so that people can get a chance to… And I actually want to challenge them also – Isaiah 53 with what you did last week.

Nehemia: Yes.

Keith: Feel free, it doesn’t have to be that week, it could be anytime, you can make comments, et cetera.

All right, now I have an issue.

Nehemia: There’s a lot in this chapter. Are we going to read every verse?

Keith: No, I want to bring something up in Isaiah 60, verse 3.

Nehemia: Sure.

Keith: And it says, “And nations will come to your light.” Okay, there’s this same word – the word “or”.

Nehemia: Yes.

Keith: “… and kings to the brightness of your rising.” Now, if I say this to you, Nehemia, if I say to you that Israel was to be a light to the nations…

Nehemia: Amen.

Keith: … what does that mean to you?

Nehemia: So what that means to me… First of all that’s a phrase that appears twice in Isaiah, and the theme appears in other places in Isaiah, like here, for example. And what that means to me is that Yehovah has a plan for the entire world, for every human being, and it’s through Israel that He presents His plan to the world, and what we see in Deuteronomy is that we’re going to be an example – a good example or a bad example. If we obey Yehovah, the entire world will look at us and see this is what happens to the people who have such a wise law, such a wise Torah, and who obey Yehovah. If we disobey Him, we’ll be a bad example, we’ll be a, you know, “masha lushnina”, it says in Hebrew, “a proverb and a byword”, and isn’t that the case, that Israel has become a proverb and the byword because of our disobedience. This is what happens to those who disobey Yehovah.

But if you think about it, this has actually been fulfilled – Israel being this light unto to the nations, whether for good or for bad. You can go to every country in the world – I don’t know, I haven’t been to every country, I’ve been to a lot of countries – and in every country in the world there are people who have heard about the God of Israel, and if you’d have done that, I don’t know, two thousand years ago, and you’d go to India and you’d tell them, “I worship the God of Israel,” they’d have no clue what you were talking about. But if you go today, they’ll say, “Oh, yes, we know who that is.” I was actually in China as an English teacher, as you know, and my students, I would talk to them about the week and they’d say, “Oh, we learned about that in our school, that we have a seven day week because the Jews believe – the Jews and the Christians believe – that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh.” So the whole world knows about this!

Keith: Amen.

Nehemia: The message of Israel in some form or another, sometimes it’s been corrupted, sometimes it’s been changed. But the message that there is a Creator of the universe who is active in history, who took the Israelites out of Egypt, the whole world knows about that. It’s amazing.

Keith: You know, it’s funny I’ve got this feeling in my heart. I think about what it must have been like back in 1947. I think about what it must have been like in 1965, or ‘67, and 1973. You have these big wars that took place, and conflicts that took place, that obviously sent the message that something is special, that basically being outnumbered, being able to win, and people sometimes listen to it from that perspective as far as seeing victory in a battle.

But you know, I have to tell you something now, what’s so interesting is, right now, I could do this every single day. I bet you for the next ten days I could go to Google, and just put in the word “Israel”, and an article will come out. Now when I say an article, I mean, a major article. Like if you can go to newspapers around the world, I thought that’s what you were going to say, you can go to newspapers around the world, and I challenge you, just about any day there is going to be something significant in that newspaper – good or bad, usually bad – about Israel. If we go in front of the Security Council, they say 85% of what they talk about… [laughing]

Nehemia: Is Israel.

Keith: Is somehow connected to Israel.

Nehemia: Seriously? I didn’t know that.

Keith: And listen, look, let me just confess right now I’ve heard that, I’ve not done the specific research, but I do know something…

Nehemia: They definitely do seem obsessed with Israel.

Keith: There is an obsession with Israel, especially amongst the nations that are…you know…

Nehemia: Well, when you talk about the news, one of the things that have been pointed out is that there are more foreign correspondents in Israel than in any comparable sized region in the world.

Keith: Are you kidding?

Nehemia: No, I am not kidding, and so you’ll get these stories, they’ll show up on CNN or BBC, and it’s things like in all of China if that happened they would never report that, a country of a billion-and-a-half people, but you know, someone trips and breaks their leg or something, and all of a sudden it’s on CNN.

Keith: Are you considered a correspondent now that you’ve got this podcast thing? Like, the “chutzpah” you had, we went into the middle of terrorist… and you like asked the guy for an interview. Are you officially a correspondent, Nehemia? What are you?

Nehemia: I’m officially… No, I don’t have a journalist…

Keith: No, because I’m a one-man-one-camera guy, but you’ve got this audio thing that really is dangerous [laughing]… it’s impressive.

Nehemia: I’m what do they call that? Alternative media. [laughing]

Keith: So if somebody asked you the question right now…

Nehemia: Which means I don’t actually have like a license to be a journalist, I’m not a journalist. I’m a…

Keith: When you went to the guy to asked him for the interview, if he would have said to you, “So who do you represent?” What would you say?

Nehemia: He asked me that, and I said, “Independent Online Radio.”

Keith: I love that. That’s impressive. And, by the way, you haven’t tooted your horn, I’m going to toot your horn real quick. This is not the Ministry Minute, the actual…

Nehemia: Double schnitzel.

Keith: The actual audio blog, the actual podcast for categories, you said from some time ago was really moving up the list as far as it being well-listened to by people.

Nehemia: Yes.

Keith: So what category is it under?

Nehemia: So if you go to the Judaism category in iTunes, you’ll find this podcast, including the Prophet Pearls and the Original Torah Pearls and some of the other material in the podcast, it’s very high up on the list.

Keith: Wow. That’s amazing.

Nehemia: Judaism category.

Keith: Bringing good news.

Nehemia: That’s because of you guys, we could not have done this… It’s not because of me. It has nothing to do with me, it’s everyone out there who has gone to iTunes and subscribed, gone to their favorite podcast program and subscribed; that information gets relayed back, and that’s how you get up higher on the list. Also, those who have posted their reviews, that really helps.

Keith: Amazing. “Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising. Lift up your eyes roundabout and see.” It kind of reminds me of that other thing that says, “go up and look up, and look at the circle of Earth.” “They all gather together, they come to you. Your sons will come from afar, and your daughters will be carried in their arms, then you will see and be radiant,” is what it says here. “You’ll be radiant, you’ll shine, and your heart will…” You know, I love it when they do these kinds of things, the NASB says, “and your heart will thrill and it will rejoice because the abundance of the sea will be turned to you, the wealth of the nations will come to you.”

Now we’re not going to go each verse, but I do want to stop…

Nehemia: Which is what you’re doing. [laughing]

Keith: I know. Because when I start reading…

Nehemia: You just can’t stop. [laughing]

Keith: I can’t stop, you know. It’s really funny, you opened up the show before, and we kind of had this shtick that we did during the Original Torah Pearls where you and I, we had the third leg of the table, we three stools there, and he would read most of the time, and then you and I would have these conversations back in… Now for Prophet Pearls, I’ve kind of enjoyed being able to read, and the reason I like being able to read it… because you’ll say to me “Read it,” and I’ll say “Oh no, I can’t cause I’m about to cough.” The reason I do like reading it, Nehemia, is because I’m sitting here and I have one, two, three, four, five Bibles.

Nehemia: Wow. I just have one, and it’s in Hebrew.

Keith: So, when I am reading it, I quickly will glance over and look at the other one, and I’ll think, “This will be a ball that I am gonna give to Nehemia,” and then you’ll say, “Hold on, wait a minute, what does it say there?” [laughing] You like doing that, don’t you? I mean that’s your shtick, isn’t it?

Nehemia. Is it my shtick? I’m just responding, I don’t know. I never thought about it.

Keith: I think it is, I think, it is. Anyway, but we’re going to give people…

Nehemia: I want to get to the end of verse 6. Can we do that?

Keith: Yes, we’re going to do that. That’s exactly where I am right now. Hold on, I’m actually at 7. Go ahead, go ahead, 6.

Nehemia: “Gold and frankincense they will bear, they will carry,” “utehilot Yehovah ivaseru,” “and they will announce the good news.”

Keith: There it is again, that good news.

Nehemia: “Yehovah’s glory.” Same words.

Keith: Wow.

Nehemia: Good news. These would be the evangelists proclaiming the praise of Yehovah. Yes, go on.

Keith: Okay. Now, it says in 7, and the part that I wanted to get to, it’s the second half of the verse, I just want to say something. “They will go up with acceptance on My altar, and I shall glorify My…”, now, are we talking about going up here? Are we talking about ascending here? When He talks about this, “they’ll go up on My altar, and I shall glorify My glorious house,” is He speaking about, you know, like…?

Nehemia: Well, He tells you in verse 9 who He’s speaking about, so why don’t we skip to verse 9? [laughing]

Keith: Okay. Okay.

Nehemia: In verse 8, He says “Who are these? They fly like a cloud,” et cetera, and so now read verse 9, because that’s the answer to who…

Keith: “Surely, the coastlands will wait for Me and the ships of Tarshish will come first to bring your sons from afar their silver and their gold with them for the name Yehovah your God, and for the Holy One of Israel, because He has glorified you.” Wow.

Nehemia: Wow, I love that. By the way, you read there, how did you read? “They will wait for Me”? So, in the Hebrew, it’s “yekavu” which is “they will hope.”

Keith: They will hope.

Nehemia: From the word “tikva”, we’ve had that as our Word of the Week, I think. It also is a pun, because if you change it from the kal to the niphal, it means “they will gather”, so it doesn’t mean “gather”, but it looks very similar to the word “gather”, which is one of the themes that’s going on here.

Keith: So, they will build-up – who will?

Nehemia: Now, what’s going on here? What’s this talking about?

Keith: Yes, yes. So, when it says here, “to bring your sons from afar, their silver and their gold with them for the name of Yehovah, your God,” so, speaking of the name, are they speaking of the name, meaning really His name and the place of His name…?

Nehemia: What are they bringing? They’re bringing your sons from afar, which is really interesting, this is a theme that appears a number of times in the Tanakh, especially in Isaiah, of the nations, the gentile nations bringing Israel as offerings to Yehovah. Isaiah 66:20, “‘And out of all the nations,’ said Yehovah, ‘they shall bring all your brothers on horses and chariots and drays (I don’t know what drays are), on mules and dromedaries, to Jerusalem, My Holy mountain, as an offering to Yehovah, just as the Israelites bring an offering in a pure vessel to the house of Yehovah.’”

Keith: Yes. Yes.

Nehemia: So this is actually really interesting – we have this theme of the ingathering of the exiles, and here the ingathering of the exiles isn’t just the Jews saying, “I’m going to get on the plane and make aliyah to Israel.” They’re actually being brought back to Israel as an offering to Yehovah. Pretty cool.

Keith: Goodness gracious. And you know, we can look at history and I think we could do a great history lesson right now, just from 60 verse 10, because Isaiah, remember folks, he’s prophesying as they say, all the time from 39 to 66, it’s the second Isaiah. The Deutero-Isaiah, people keep talking about that.

But it says, “foreigners will build up your walls.” Isn’t it interesting that even today, we can be in Jerusalem and we can actually see where foreigners built up the walls? I mean, talking about today, I’m talking about physically the walls.

Nehemia: Well I’ve got to have my Ministry Minute right now.

Keith: Here we go.

Nehemia: I want to invite people to come with me and build the wall with me. Come with me and stand on the wall. My website is nehemiaswall.com. I want to empower people with information to get back to those ancient Hebrew sources, and so come with me and stand on the wall. Go to nehemiaswall.com. Sign up for the free newsletter and become part of the Support Team and get involved so that I can share this with other people and we can get this message out there.

I love this image of the wall, because Nehemia built the wall. Here it’s talking about foreigners coming and building the wall for Israel, “and even kings are going to serve you.” I love this image; this is an image that appears in a few passages. It’s really interesting. Isaiah 14:1-2, and I think we kind of tiptoed around this. “But Yehovah will pardon Jacob and will again choose Israel and will settle them on their own soil, and the strangers shall join them and cleave to the house of Jacob.” No problem, we talked about that before.

We kind of skipped verse 2 because we were waiting for this passage. Verse 2 of Isaiah 14, “For people shall take them and bring them to their homeland,” people, so bring them to their home land “and the house of Israel shall possess them, as slaves and handmaids in the soil of Yehovah, they shall be captors of their captors and masters of the taskmasters.”

And this really poses a question: What’s going on here? We’ve got this image in Isaiah 56, which we’ll talk about in a couple of weeks, and in other places we’ve seen, Yehovah is going to gather Israel and others to Israel, and we’ll all be one in Yehovah, there will be no distinction, those who join themselves to Yehovah will be part of God’s people. But here we’re seeing about the gentiles will actually have a different status, they’re going to be servants of Israel. What on earth is this talking about? Isaiah 61:5-6, and I know this is next week’s, I’m sorry. No, I have to bring it.

Keith: Next week.

Nehemia: “Strangers shall stand and pasture,” so we don’t have to talk about it next week. “Strangers shall stand and pasture your flocks.”

Keith: [laughing] Go ahead.

Nehemia: “Aliens shall be your plowmen and vine trimmers, while you shall be called priests of Yehovah and termed servants of our God. You shall enjoy the wealth of nations and revel in the riches.” What is going on here?

And there are some other verses for homework, Isaiah 45:14, 49:23. I think we talked about 49:23. We have this strange image that it’s not that everybody is the same and equal, there is Israel and there are gentiles, those nations serving Israel.

I’m going to bring one more verse which isn’t from the Tanakh, it’s from Revelation 3:9. It says, “Behold I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and they are not, but do lie. Behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet,” which is clearly referring to this passage in Isaiah, “and to know that I have loved thee.”

So, I have a question for people. First of all, how do Jews understand, obviously not Revelation 3:9, but how do Jews understand these different passages?

So, I’ll give one explanation from the Jewish sources. For example, there’s a rabbi named The Malbim, and he explains that the gentiles who join Israel during the exile will be one hundred percent part of Israel, they’ll inherit land, they’ll be no different than the rest of Israel. The gentiles who join after the Messiah comes will be subservient to Israel. Now I don’t know if that is correct. This is one explanation, trying to understand what is going on here.

Even in Revelation, but certainly in the Tanakh, Revelation seems to me to be referencing back to this passage in Isaiah, and as we’ll read on, it seems like it’s really echoing verse 14 of this section. So, what is Revelation talking about though? Because that’s over in your book… It’s speaking… and I wonder, I’m thinking here out loud, this is me, you know, and I’ve said here in the past, look, this is my drash, this is me stepping off the reservation, I could be wrong. Pray about it, work it out for yourself.

I’m wondering if what Revelation isn’t speaking about is those who advocate replacement theology. They say they’re the new Israel, and they’re the people who say the prophecies of Isaiah apply to them, but really they are the Synagogue of Satan in the words of Revelation 3:9. So instead of being Israel and the gentiles who join themselves to Israel, they claim to have replaced Israel with a new Torah. And maybe, just, maybe, this is me off the reservation, maybe that’s what Isaiah is talking about too. Meaning, these are people who instead of joining themselves… because that’s the image that we had in Isaiah 14:2, “those who join themselves to the House of Israel, to Jacob,” but then there are these other people, and maybe these are the replacement people who end up as subservient to Israel, I don’t know. Just me off the reservation. I better shut up now. [laughing]

Keith: “For the nation and the kingdom which will not serve you will perish, and the nations will be utterly ruined.” That’s what it says about them. “The glory of Lebanon will come to you, the juniper, the box tree and the cypress together,” here’s the part that I love, “to beautify the place of My sanctuary.”

Nehemia: Amen

Keith: “And I shall make the place of My feet glorious.” I’ve got to stop. Because, folks, we kind of have an unspoken deal going here, and the unspoken deal is that we set out and said we had a whole bunch of these that we needed to do, and we prepared for them, we came here prepared. I mean, it’s like a football game, you know – we practice, practice, practice, and we come in, and then it’s time, you know, the lights are on, the ball is kicked off. And we kind of had a situation where, how can I say it? We kind of had a situation, where it was like, “Look, we’ve got to get this done, and we really can’t do anything else until we get it done.” And so, Nehemia, you know, I’d heard some comments that you’d made before I came about how it was going to be very difficult, and “Keith can’t go out and do his little projects and things until he gets his work done,” you know, I have to get my work done.

And so one of the things that you have done, and I want to say this to folks because this is connected to this, speaking of His sanctuary, one of the things that I’ve talked to you about for years and you’ve always been very hesitant, and I will confess in front of the people, I’ve been looking for every way I could to try to get you to consider what I asked you to do. And what I asked Nehemia to do was to go with me to the place of His sanctuary, the place that He’s ultimately going to make His “feet glorious”, and that’s the Temple Mount.

Nehemia: Amen.

Keith: And so this is a very controversial issue, and I thought that you did a really phenomenal job of sharing with me what the issues were. So, I decided to go to Bubbie Dina.

Nehemia: That’s my mother.

Keith: Bubbie Dina is Nehemia’s mother, and this is no small thing, because over the last, I would say… this is connected to my friend also, Yehuda Glick, who has been encouraging Jewish people to go back to the Temple Mount, to make that the place beyond the Western Wall where there is prayer, but actually up to the Temple Mount. And anyone who knows anything about the Temple Mount knows about the controversy, et cetera. So I’ve talked to Nehemia about it, and he usually says this to me, “Good luck with that.”

Well, folks, I am here to say that today, I’ve done my homework. I’ve come in here and done everything I could do to see if I could get a break for a field trip tomorrow morning, and the field trip is that Bubbie Dina has agreed to go to the Temple Mount, and so she said, “Keith, I’ll go with you.” You know, we’re talking back and forth and Nehemia would be out the other room and we’ve been talking back and forth, [laughing] trying to figure out how we could get Nehemia to agree, and Bubbie Dina said, “Well, Keith, you know, I’ll be going, it’ll just be us, but how we will get the wheelchair up?” And then we just both looked at Nehemia, and Nehemia, can you tell the people what you decided to do tomorrow morning? I mean, just by faith, it’s before we go…

Nehemia: I’m not going to let my mother go up to Temple Mount by herself and get attacked by Arabs…

Keith: No, no, no, come on, Nehemia, it’s not just that! We’re going to the Temple Mount! And has your mother ever been to the Temple Mount?

Nehemia: My mother first started coming to Israel, my guess would be just after the Six Day War.

Keith: Wow. Just after they…

Nehemia: I think her first time coming to Israel, if I’m not mistaken…

Keith: You’re kidding.

Nehemia: We’ll ask her, but I’m pretty sure it was in ’68 or thereabout, that’s the earliest photo I’ve ever seen of her and my father in Israel. She’s lived actually in Jerusalem for 25 years, and she’s never been to the Temple Mount. I, in 20 years living in Jerusalem, went to the Temple Mount once.

Keith: And this is no small thing, and I want to say in humility, it’s no small thing, but I think what’s going to be really amazing to me is to go with you, Nehemia, knowing that was across from the place where we first talked about His name being there, and His name being there now. And there would be some people, certainly, there are signs that say, “Look, it’s illegal for Jews to…”

Nehemia: Not illegal, but…

Keith: I’m sorry.

Nehemia: Forbidden according to the rabbis for Jews to go there.

Keith: Illegal by the spiritual police and the Border Patrol, it’s illegal for them to go, and what my friend Yehuda Glick has done, and many people with him, they’ve really opened up the doors and had conversations, communication, and found common ground with many rabbis who have now changed their position. It went from being that there were a few to a few hundred to the last couple of years, there have been thousands, literally, thousands, of Jews who now have gone back and ascended to the Temple Mount, and they do it in a way that is respectful, that is very clear about where they go and what they don’t do, and what they will do.

But I just want folks to know that tomorrow morning, I don’t take it is a small thing, Nehemia, that we’re going to go to this place that prophetically, in the end, is ultimately going to be a place of His sanctuary, and He shall make the place of His feet glorious. It’s not going to be the way it looks now. You know, what is it, 37 acres up there? 37 acres on top of the Temple Mount, and for me it’s hard for me to actually see the way things are now, and Jeremiah talked about that – that people would go by and look, and say, “Oh, my goodness, what’s going on?” But actually I look at it as a blessing, cause I believe that we talk about Prophet Pearls yesterday, today and tomorrow. And tomorrow, guess what? It’s going to be a place of glory.

Nehemia: I think the issue with the Temple Mount, just so people understand, and I know I speak for myself, I can’t speak for rabbis, but for me the issue, it’s actually really similar to God’s holy name, and I shared this before that there was a time when I knew that it was permissible to speak God’s holy name, but I was raised with the idea that you never speak that name, it’s frightening. And so I actually went through this period where I know I’m allowed to do it – I was actually supposed to do it – but I’m afraid to do it, and honestly, the Temple Mount is that way in a sense, that… Can I show you a verse that says it’s forbidden to go up there? No. What would be forbidden would be for me in a state of a ritual impurity from having touched a dead body or a grave, to then go to the actual place of the sanctuary, but the Temple Mount is a really big place, and the area where the actual Temple stood, which is the Holy and the Holy of Holies, that’s a very small area that… I’m not going to go there. But to actually go to the Temple Mount, which is the outer courtyard… I could never have said, “Yes, it’s forbidden to go there.” That was never the point. The point was, it’s scary is to go there. You know, you’ll hear in the news, they’ll say that is the third holiest site in Islam. In Judaism this is the only holy site. There’s only one holy site in the Tanakh, and that is the place where Yehovah put His name forever.

Keith: And in Methodism? It’s the holiest piece of real estate in the entire Earth, at least for this Methodist, absolutely.

Nehemia: Is it? And he speaks for the entire Methodist church.

Keith: Absolutely. And I speak for the entire Methodist church, which, by the way, doesn’t want anything to do with me, I wonder why that is. Look, it says here, “And I shall make the place of My feet glorious, the sons of those who afflicted you will come bowing to you and all those who despise you will bow themselves at the soles of your feet.”

Nehemia: That’s Revelations 3:9.

Keith: “And they will call you the city of Yehovah,” wow, “the Zion of the Holy One of Israel.” Oh, man. That’s what’s going to happen, there’s not going to be any doubt about it. Now, I’ll tell you something, Nehemia, I actually, I did a little bit of research, and they have this thing called status quo here. And Netanyahu, by now we know whether he’s prime minister or not, or if they’ve have had another vote since then, who knows. [laughing]

But one of the things that I get frustrated about is that when it’s convenient, people throw out that word status quo, keeping the status quo the same, until you go and read what the status quo actually was, and the status quo was that there would be honor and respect and protection for people to have the freedom to worship – for Jews, Christians and even Muslims. That’s what the original… I read it, I read the Jordanian treaty with Israel, I read the whole thing, word by word, and I was on Israel National radio one time, and the guy was talking to me about this blah blah blah, I said, “Did you know what was actually written?” He said “No,” and I read it, and he said “What?” In other words, the status quo has evolved, it’s evolved now to the point where the status quo is you can’t…

Nehemia: So the status quo has changed, which means it’s not the status quo by definition. [laughing]

Keith: [laughing] Thank you, brother. Anyway, that’s a little sideline, by the way.

Nehemia: So the status quo, that’s what they used to say.

Keith: Shout-out to my friend, Yehuda Glick…

Nehemia: Amen. Shalom Yehuda.

Keith: …who has raised up from literally, they said he had a 5% chance of being alive now, he was 70% when we were taping this. Hopefully, he’s a lot better, and by now, hopefully, he’s back up on the Temple Mount doing what he does, and it’s encouraging Jewish people around all of Israel and the world to make that place a place that they can take back. Not to take back to kick somebody out, but as a place that’s central to their faith.

Nehemia: Amen.

Keith: Thank you also, Nehemia. Hopefully, tomorrow morning we’ll be talking about a very non-dramatic… [laughing]

Nehemia: Uneventful.

Keith: Uneventful

Nehemia: Oh, maybe, we’ll talk about how it didn’t happen. Okay. “Takhat hei’otech azuva,” in place of you being abandoned, “usnu’a”, and hated, “ve’ein over”, and none passing over you, none going through – is that the Temple Mount? “Vesamtikh li’ge’on olam,”– “and I will place you,” and here we are talking about Jerusalem, about Zion, “I will place you, as eternal glory, eternal greatness,” “missos dor vador,” “the rejoicing of generation to generation.” Wow.

Keith: And it says, “You will also suck the milk of nations and suck the breast of kings; then you will know, that I, Yehovah, am your…” and here comes the word…

Nehemia: Savior.

Keith: Aha. And you what’s interesting… and wow.

Nehemia: Abir Yakov. The mighty one of Jacob. Yes.

Keith: Did we ever do…? Yes, okay, we did.

Nehemia: What did we do?

Keith: Now, I want to ask you a question, did we ever do the issue of redeemer?

Nehemia: I think we did. Go’el. Gimmel-Aleph-Lamed, I’m sure we did.

Keith: Yes, the mighty one of Jacob, which we had actually seen before.

Nehemia: Abir Yakov.

Keith: Now. I don’t know, Nehemia, maybe 17 could be homework and 18 could be homework?

Nehemia: Sure.

Keith: Because it says…

Nehemia: No, 18 we’ve got to read.

Keith: No, we got to read 18. [laughing]

Nehemia: “Lo yishama od khamas be’artzekh.”

Keith: No more Hamas.

Nehemia: Hamas will no longer be heard in your land.

Keith: Folks, I want this to be the Word of the Week.

Nehemia: Hamas?

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: Khet-Mem-Samakh. It means violence or corruption. When the world was actually destroyed in the flood, it was because the world was full of hamas. That is in… I will tell you the verse, that is in Genesis 6:11, 6:13, 16:5, we hear about hamas again. Hamas appears 68 times in the Tanakh, and it means violence and corruption and perversion, “and hamas will no longer be heard in your land” “shod bashever begvulayik.”

Keith: Can I beat the drum again?

Nehemia: Sure.

Keith: Can I tell you one of the things that really broke my heart, was that when Hamas was in the 50 Day War, the 50 Day War they call it now, in the 50th episode we are dealing with…

Nehemia: This is the jubilee episode.

Keith: No, that’s next week. So, that’s 61. So, okay?

Nehemia: No, this is the 50th episode. That’s the 51st episode.

Keith: Oh, okay. Alright 51st.

Nehemia: This is the 50th episode. The Shavuot episode.

Keith: Okay, anyway, let me just say this, the thing that probably was the… Let me just say why I said 61 was the jubilee, because it says “he’s talking about…” So anyway, Hamas, one of the things that was probably one of the hardest things during that whole time, that the 50-day war came, is that they began to expand more and more and more and more, inch by inch by inch by inch, in terms of what their agenda was, and you started seeing more and more images of the green Hamas flag up on the Temple Mount. They actually went into the police department, the police offices on the Temple Mount, and they trashed it, took the Israeli flag down, went in and took things out and threw them around the Temple Mount. It was absolutely out of control to see the violence, but it was a picture of just what their name was. They were walking in their name, they were walking in violence. You know, and this is what I don’t understand about this whole deal where you can have a government that’s supposed to…. negotiate with a government, who then says we’re in covenant with a terrorist organization named Hamas, and somehow Israel’s supposed to like… how do you even have conversation with Hamas, how do even have…?

Nehemia: Your President of the United States is negotiating with the greatest terrorist entity in the world, the Iranian Revolutionary Government.

Keith: Are you not a United States citizen?

Nehemia: I am.

Keith: So it’s also your president. [laughing]

Nehemia: That’s a different discussion. Anyway, I don’t understand this. So let’s just step back for a minute. You’re a Palestinian and you want to set up an organization to represent your people, and you know Hebrew, because allegedly you’ve been under Israeli occupation for all these years, and you decide, “I’m going to call my organization Hamas which I know in Hebrew means violence.” Are you telling me that’s by accident?

Keith: Of course not!

Nehemia: Of course it’s not by accident. They knew exactly what it meant when they called it Hamas.

Keith: Yes. Okay.

Nehemia: He says, “Vekarat yeshuah khomotayikh usha’arayikh tehila.” “And you will call your walls yeshuah, and your gates tehila, yeshuah,” we had that…

Keith: Salvation.

Nehemia: “And tehila.”

Keith: Praise

Nehemia: Praise. So, the gates we call “praise” and the walls will be called “salvation.”

Keith: “No longer will you have the sun for light by day nor will the brightness of the moon give you light. But you will have,” and this has got to be one of the most amazing verses. This has got to be… let me slow down, let me slow down. Check me, check me on this, Nehemia.

It says, “No longer shall you need the sun for light by day,” that’s the JPS. “No longer will you have the sun for light by day” that’s the NASB. “Nor”, it says, “nor the shining of the moon for radiance by night.” Back to NASB, same thing, “nor for brightness will the moon give you the light; but you will have Yehovah for an everlasting light, and your God for your glory.” This feels to me like the little images I used to get a long, long time ago, about heaven. That there was no darkness in heaven, that heaven would be light all the time, and He’s saying, “You don’t need the sun, you don’t need the moon, you got Me.” I mean, it’s like His presence is just everlasting light.

Nehemia: Amen.

Keith: Woah. That’s pretty amazing. I love that verse. Okay. “Your sun will no longer set, nor will your moon wane,” now that refers back again, we’ve got a couple more verses, “for you will have Yehovah for an everlasting light.” It says it again!

Nehemia: Then it says “veshalmu yemei avlekh”, “and the days of your mourning will be complete.”

Keith: And somebody needs to get past the days of mourning! And I’m going to telling you something – when He comes in as a light, isn’t it interesting how mourning just can’t stay there? It’s like His presence is just going to make it so that there’s not going to be any… it’s just not going to happen.

Okay, folks, there are only two more verses. Really, can I read the last two verses? Because this one here’s going to be… I don’t know if you want to say something about it.

Nehemia: I do.

Keith: All right. “Then all your people will be righteous; they will possess the land forever, the branch of My planting, the work of My hands, that I may be glorified.”

Nehemia: Can you say something about that word “branch”?

Keith: Is that the “netzer”?

Nehemia: That’s the word “netzer”.

Keith: Oh, boy, the “netzer”.

Nehemia: Yes, tell people that is significant, for those who don’t know.

Keith: [laughing] It’s significant, because it sounds like…

Nehemia: Well, Isaiah 11:1, speaks about the Messiah.

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: It says a “netzer” will come out of the branch of Jesse, and of course… give the connection.

Keith: From Jesse?

Nehemia: Well, Jesse is the father of David, so this is the Davidic Messiah described as a netzer which will come out of David, and I guess, in the New Testament – not “I guess” – this is in the New Testament understood as referring to Yeshua as the “netzer”, and that’s connected to him being from Nazareth, which is Natzeret. It’s a connection there, notzri.

Yes, but here definitely, the “netzer” is, or it seems like, is this Messiah, the work of Yehovah’s hands, to be glorified, and I love this, “and all your people will be righteous, they will forever inherit the Earth,” is the word, “aretz”, the land, the earth.

Keith: Come on with that.

Nehemia: And actually you talked about heaven, but in the Tanakh the idea of eternal life is here on Earth, it’s eternal life living here on Earth.

Keith: Exactly, and that’s the part that I said I had this image about heaven, it says but it always seemed that there was light, and then it says, “He will be the light.” There won’t be any darkness.

Nehemia: Isn’t there a song about “Heaven is a place on Earth, na, na, na”? You know what I’m talking about?

Keith: Did they sing that in the synagogue, Nehemia?

Nehemia: No! This is from the radio, from the ‘70s or ‘80s. You have no clue what I’m talking about. [laughing]

Keith: I have no idea. No, no, no. But the netzer, “the work of my hands, that I may be glorified.”

Nehemia: Post on nehemiawalls.com the name of that song.

Keith: Here is what is interesting about this, Nehemia. He says, “The branch of my planting, the work of My hands.” And I think it’s interesting, so, let’s go with our traditional understanding of the netzer, the branch.

Nehemia: Your traditional understanding. Or no, even the Jewish one, that it’s referring to a Messiah.

Keith: Absolutely, I said ours, common ground.

Nehemia: Beseder!

Keith: Yes, but, in all of that, “that I may be glorified,” so that, that the Messiah, Messiach that would come, it’s still all about his Father, all about Yehovah being glorified in the ultimate…

Nehemia: Amen. Halleluyah.

Keith: “The smallest one will become a clan and the least one a mighty nation, I, Yehovah, will hasten it in its time.” Let me tell you something,

Nehemia: In His time… [laughing]

Keith: There is a hastening going on right now, folks! [laughing] There is a hastening going on. I am excited, I really am excited. I really want you to do me a favor, if you would. If you would do me a favor, folks – we are right now, I think the date this is happening, it’s happening right now on September 5th.

Nehemia: This is read in the synagogues around the world on September 5th, 2015.

Keith: Yes, on September, 5. We are so close, more than likely we’re probably just about the end of this beginning Hebrew course, which has been made available, from Shavuot this year until just about the end of the cycle, the end of Prophet Pearls, and what we’ve asked people to do is to go to sign up to be a part of it, to go through the beginning Hebrew course, and to get as many people as possible in the Premium Content Library that can go through it and make comments, so that when we do start the end of this year, whatever it is that comes for the next cycle, whether that’s a repeat of Prophet Pearls or Torah Pearls or whatever it is that’s going on then, that basically we would have that beginning course made available to the world, and you will help us to do that. And what I love about the BFA is that really… and I want to say something kind of radical…

Nehemia: You say something radical? I’m shocked!

Keith: Is that the whole point of this whole deal, this whole BFA thing, and making it a foundation for your faith, is that you would get to the point where you’d say, “I don’t need that anymore, I’ve got the access to all the information.”

Nehemia: “I’m going to climb up on the wall with Nehemia.” [laughing]

Keith: “I’m going to get up on the wall with Nehemia.” I’m ready to move to step two. No, but that basically, people would be able to say… and by the way, as soon as we get that double schnitzel, spend all your time with Nehemia, just make sure to give me that double schnitzel. [laughing]

Let me say this, in all seriousness, is that what I love about what we’re doing this summer is that we’re really helping people, so that the information is already on the site, you will have the ability to kind of take it apart, and that’s what I really love. I love what we’ve done for production, the things that are in the hands right now, that hopefully, can I just say this, that hopefully, because enough of you have responded, we’re taping this in March, which means we need a whole lot of people to respond between now and this fall, that we’ll be putting something together that will really be connected to this section that we just talked about, getting a chance for people to understand what’s really going on, not only on the Temple Mount, but regarding the past, the present, the future, and Yehovah’s name, and how that fits in with geographical biblical information. So – BFAinternational.com, thank you so much.

Nehemia: Amen. My ministry’s Nehemiawalls.com, Makor Hebrew Foundation. This week I’m going to go for the big push. And the big push is right now, as this is being broadcasted it’s September 5th, and I am in the process of making a really big decision. As this prerecorded, this is just something that’s been tossed around, but the big decision is going to be made in September, and so the big push I’m asking for is for prayer. I need prayer. I need you, wherever you are, stop what you’re doing, click pause, and pray for me and my ministry to decide how we’re going to go forward, if we’re going to tackle this next issue, or if we’re going to just play it safe [laughing] and or do something else. So really, I ask you to be with me, to stand with me in prayer.

Keith: Amen.

Nehemia: That’s my request this week.

Keith: Well, folks, I’m going to get a chance to be the one to pray, but I really do want you to open your bibles, go through… and you guys are becoming pros, you guys are Prophet Pearl pros. You know what we do, how we do it, I think it’s been an amazing experience, we only have a few more left, but let’s go out strong, you know, let’s have people commenting, let’s have them giving us their opinion. Those of you who that have gone through the Biblical Hebrew Course, you can already go and look at some of the stuff that’s been said and done, and maybe bring some other revelation about that that’s based on the biblical information. So, I want to pray if that’s okay and we will move on.

Father, thank you so much for the good news that we do hear about what’s going to happen in the end -we win, because we’re going to be under Your authority and there’s not going to be any question of politics and presidents and prime ministers. It’s all going to be all about You. You will be king who reigns forever. Thank you that Your Messiah, Your Mashiach, that will be reigning, there won’t be an issue of coups or any kind of confusion. It will be Your chosen one, it will be the one that You select, and I just thank You so much for what we’ve learned already, and the way that we’ve been able to interact with Your word in language, history and context.

And whether we’re reading the New Testament or whether we’re reading the Tanakh, we can look and ask the question, does it fit? And if it fits, we need to run with it, we need to be able to understand it and live it and live it out and be a light to the nations. So I give You praise and glory for this opportunity and for the fun, that this has been, to be able to open Your word and just interact with it. Help us this next, last few, that we just really able to lift it up, then let it be the light to the nations. In Your holy name, Nehemia and I say, together, Amen.

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