Prophet Pearls #43 – Masei (Jeremiah 2:4-28; 3:4)

Prophet Pearls Masei ,anatot, cisterns in israel, E’evod, Ein Perat, haftarah, jeremiah, Jeremiah 2:4-28; 3:4, Keith Johnson, makor, makor hebrew foundation, masei, Masei – Jeremiah 2:4-28; 3:4, nehemia gordon, parashah, Parsha, parshas, parshat, Prophet Pearls, prophets, Qere Ketiv, Tetragrammaton, Yehovah, אעבדIn this episode of Prophet Pearls, Nehemia Gordon and Keith Johnson discuss the Prophets portion for Masei covering Jeremiah 2:4-28; 3:4. Gordon gives eyewitness accounts of the springs and cisterns of Israel—springs that are sources and fountains of living water and man-made cisterns that can be rendered worthless. We learn that the “makor” (mem, qoof, reish), the “spring” with which Jeremiah was most familiar, still exists today.

The word-of-the-week is "E'evod" (אעבד) which provides a play on words (via the aleph) when Israel calls to “my father”—the mighty one. Whether Jeremiah wrote “I will not serve” or “I will not transgress” is an issue for the “Qere/Ketiv”—an exacting system that compares margin notes left by scribes to determine if words should be read differently than they were written. While some scholars profess that reading Adonai instead of the written “yud-hei-vav-hei” is a Qere/Ketiv issue, Gordon maintains the meticulousness of a scribe.

Photo by Nehemia Gordon of Ein Perat, a spring of living water in the Judean Desert near Anatot, the ancient home town of the Prophet Jeremiah.

"For My people... They have forsaken Me, the Fount of living waters..." Jeremiah 2:13 I look forward to reading your comments! Download Prophet Pearls Masei Transcript
Prophet Pearls #43 - Masei (Jeremiah 2:4-28; 3:4)

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

Nehemia: Shalom, and welcome to Prophet Pearls, recorded live in the city of the prophets, Yerushalayim, Jerusalem, the eternal capital of Israel and the Jewish people. This is Nehemia Gordon, deep down in the basement of the safe house, with Keith Johnson. Now, I know, Keith, you don’t like my intro, you want me to do the special “Previously on Prophet Pearls.” You want me to do the TV introduction. I’m here in the city of the prophets! I’m just overwhelmed that we’re going to be talking about the words of Jeremiah in the very city, where 2,600 years ago he preached these words. And you want me to do something from Law and Order.

Keith: No, no. Listen, listen. You get your turn, I get my turn, let’s just keep doing this. It is fun. I do want to say that this is Part 2, I don’t care what you call it, I’m calling this it Part 2 because this is the first time in Prophet Pearls, the first time in Prophet Pearls where we actually started in a section and we get to continue in the section and in context, and so…

Nehemia: In other words, it’s two weeks, one after the other, and they’re contiguous. But that’s actually not true, because we did Episodes 22 and 23 as one episode. We did that as a double-header, and we could have done this as a double-header, there is so much in it.

Keith: It’s also a part two for the Maccabees, they’re actually two in a row. Thanks, you guys!

Together: Maccabees, whoo!

Keith: Whoo! [laughing] So, Nehemia, it starts out pretty cool. Do you want to start at 2:4?

Nehemia: Go for it.

Keith: “Hear the word of Yehovah, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel.” What’s the difference?

Nehemia: I don’t think there’s a difference. This is what we call biblical parallelism, where it actually says that same thing twice.

Keith: So, “The house of Jacob and the all the families of the house of Israel, hear the word of Yehovah.” And then what is the word? Here it comes: “Thus says Yehovah, ‘What injustice did your fathers find in Me, that they went far from Me and walked after emptiness and became empty?’” Is that it?

Nehemia: So the word is hevel, and that’s the same word as in Ecclesiastes, where it says “Havel, havalim ha-kol havel” – “Vanity, vanities, all is vain” – it’s the same word here. So they walked after vanity - which really does mean emptiness, or air, or breath in Hebrew. And they were, or they became hevel themselves. They walked after hevel and became hevel. So what does that mean to be walking after hevel?

Keith: Walking after something that doesn’t matter, something that can’t help you. Something that’s not…

Nehemia: Something that’s not real.

Keith: Yeah, that’s not real.

Nehemia: Yeah.

Keith: Yeah. But they went after it, and isn’t that the case? We keep talking about this over and over again, where people are worshipping gods that are not gods, et cetera, a list of all these things that happen, that basically someone’s going after this thing that isn’t anything, and they’re putting all their energy…

Nehemia: Has no real substance.

Keith: Yes. “They did not say, ‘Where is Yehovah,’” and I love whenever Yehovah quotes this, “who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, who led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought and of deep darkness, through a land that no one crossed, and where no man dwelt?” Come on, tap-tap: “Who brought us up out of the land of Egypt.” Maybe you can give us three of those words - “land of Egypt” or “Who brought us up.” How many times do we see that?

Nehemia: Oh, a ton. That’s all over the place. I wouldn’t even attempt to tap-tap for that.

Keith: You wouldn’t?

Nehemia: There are so many. But I do think that it’s interesting, this statement, and really, we should read the next two verses and then I’ll talk about it.

Keith: Okay. “I brought you into the fruitful land to eat its fruit and its good things, but you came and you defiled My land, and My inheritance,” wow – there’s that word again – “you made an abomination. The priests did not say, ‘Where is Yehovah?’ And those who handle the law did not know Me,” those who handle the Torah, I think that is, “the rulers also transgressed against Me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal and walked after things that did not profit.” End, break. There it is, come on!

Nehemia: Yeah, so this is interesting - He’s rebuking them for not saying, “Where is God? Where is Yehovah?” I think that’s really interesting, because there’s this idea we have, or I’ve had, I grew up with – that you’re not supposed to say, “Where’s God?” You know? God’s always there. So if something goes wrong, you shouldn’t be saying “Where’s God? Why has He abandoned me?”

But they’re actually being rebuked for not saying “Ayeh Yehovah? Where is Yehovah in this? Bad things are happening, we should be saying, where is Yehovah?” It reminds me of the Psalm, Psalm chapter 10, let me read that to you. It says, “Why, o Yehovah do You stand aloof, heedless in times of trouble?” In plain old English - where are you? “Who has made my legs like a deer and let me stand…” et cetera. So He’s saying here… “Why, o Lord, do you stand aloof, heedless in times of trouble? The wicked in his arrogance hounds the lowly – may they be caught in the schemes they devise!”

Keith: Where is that?

Nehemia: This is Psalms, chapter 10, verses 1-2. “The wicked crows about his unbridled lusts; the grasping man reviles and scorns Yehovah. The wicked, arrogant as he is, in all his scheming. Thinks, ‘He does not call to account; God does not care.’ His ways prosper at all times; Your judgements are far beyond him; he snorts at his foes.”

So what he’s saying here is, “Bad things are happening. Where are You? Why are You standing away, why are You hiding Your face?” Which is really interesting. And here, in Jeremiah, they’re being rebuked for not saying, “Where is Yehovah?” If something bad happens, you should be asking, “Okay, Yehovah is our God, He’s the one who saves us, protects us.” If something bad’s happening, we should be thinking about why He isn’t protecting us, what did we do wrong?

Keith: Yeah, exactly. So, in this verse, He goes through this and says in 2:8: “The rulers also transgressed against Me, and the prophets prophesied…”

Nehemia: You have “the rulers?” In the Hebrew it says “ha-roim,” “the pastors”, literally “the shepherds.” “The shepherds transgressed against Me and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and after that which had no benefit they walked.”

Keith: So then comes the switch.

Nehemia: The switch?

Keith: Yes. So this is where I was going to say a “tap-tap”, and I was just looking at this while you were talking about the other... It says, “‘Therefore I will yet contend with you,’ declares the LORD.” Would you be willing to tap-tap about that? What does it mean “to contend”? “I will contend with you.”

Nehemia: I think we had a passage like this, wasn’t it Zechariah, where God was calling them into judgment? And He used that same word, riv? I’m pretty sure, and I think in one part of the verse, or in one verse there in Zechariah it translated it in your translation as “indictment” or something like that? The word was riv? Where was that?

Keith: Well, it’s funny because in Jeremiah 12:1 in the English in the NASB it says, “Righteous are You, O Yehovah, that I would plead my case with You.”

Nehemia: Yeah, so it’s Micha 6:2: “Hear, you mountains the case of Yehovah, you firm foundations of the earth, for Yehovah has a case – riv, the same word – against His people, He has a suit against Israel.” “A suit”, like, these are all these legal terms. Yeah, so it was the first few verses of Micha 6 that had this legal terminology.

Keith: So come up with a translation that would be using it that way. “So therefore I will yet bring a case against you?”

Nehemia: No, “enter into an argument with you.”

Keith: A-ha!

Nehemia: And it’s a legal argument. And the verse that comes to mind for this word, riv, is Deuteronomy 17 verse 8. It says… let me read it from King James. “If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment, between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within your gates…” And the word “controversy” there is “riv.” So if you’ve got a riv with somebody, there’s some argument you have with somebody, and the judges in your local city can’t deal with it, then you bring it to the Temple. That’s the word “riv” - I have a fight with someone, an argument of some kind. And it’s a legal contention - we’ve got a legitimate beef between us, and we need to go to court over it. So God has a riv with us, He’s got a legal argument against us.

Keith: It’s interesting, I don’t want to go too far on this, because I haven’t tap-tapped enough, but it’s funny - when He says “I will riv”, I think He’s the only one who uses that in the Tanach.

Nehemia: God saying, “I will riv?”

Keith: Yeah, I’m actually looking at it right now, in Isaiah 49:25, Isaiah 57:16, Jeremiah 2:9, Jeremiah 12:1, Nehemiah 5:7.

Nehemia: That’s my book, you can’t have that one.

Keith: No, wait, Nehemiah does do that twice.

Nehemia: He says ariv?

Keith: Yes, yes, I will do that.

Nehemia: I got “ariv” five times - Isaiah 49:25, Isaiah 57:16, Jeremiah 2:9, Jeremiah 12:1, both of the have “ariv,” twice in Jeremiah 2:9. And I actually don’t have Nehemiah. Which verse is that in Nehemiah?

Keith: Yeah, and you actually know why? Because that’s actually a different form.

Nehemia: “Arivah,” that’s the cohortative.

Keith: Anyway, this is what He’s saying, that this is what He’s going to do with them. “For cross to the coastlands of Kittim and see, and send to Kedar and observe closely and see if there has been such a thing as this!” As what? Here it comes!

I think this verse is so cool. And actually, am I wrong? Isn’t this verse quoted somewhere else? Or something like it? “Has a nation changed gods when they were…”

Nehemia: Didn’t we have this verse recently?

Keith: I thought we did, I’ve been trying to figure what’s…

Nehemia: Where He asked that as a rhetorical question?

Keith: He says, “Do you not follow the gods that are not gods?”

Nehemia: And here it’s, “Did a nation change its gods for those are not gods?” There they started from scratch.

Keith: Yes. [laughing] They started from scratch.

Nehemia: In other words, they had no god to begin with, they made themselves gods that were not gods. Here it’s saying they had a god, and they got rid of him and got not god.

Keith: They changed it and then they had no gods. So, first He says, “Has a nation changed gods…”

Nehemia: Or “god”, you can’t know in Hebrew.

Keith: It is part of Elohim.

Nehemia: Oh no, it’s Elohim, because it’s vehem…

Keith: “…when they were not gods? But My people have changed their kavod – the glory – for that…”

Nehemia: I have to translate this from Hebrew, because I don’t know what you’re doing.

Keith: OK, go ahead.

Nehemia: So, it says, “Hahemir goy Elohim, ve-hemmah lo Elohim.Hemir,” that word means to switch out. “Has a nation switched out Elohim for that which is not Elohim?” And they are not Elohim. So they’ve taken on themselves a new god that wasn’t… They had some deity or deities and they said, “we don’t want to Baal anymore, we’re going to take some other god” – which isn’t a god – although maybe their first god wasn’t a god.

And it says, “But My people have switched out His glory for that which cannot help (or cannot benefit).” So the glory is the glory of Yehovah. But this is really a strange statement to me, because the answer is, well, yes. So recently – well, almost six months ago – I was in Cambodia, and they have there this temple called Angkor Wat, which is the largest temple complex in the world to this day.

Keith: Get out of here!

Nehemia: Yeah. I mean, this thing is many, many square miles. Angkor Wat. It was built in the 12th century, and it was built as a Hindu Temple, and at some point they stopped being Hindus in Cambodia, and replaced the Hindu gods with the Buddhist gods, and now there are statues of Buddha there, different types of Buddha, and they burn incense to Buddha, and they pray to Buddha, and literally bow down to Buddha.

So I read this and I said, “Well, a nation replaced gods with those that are not gods, and well, I mean the answer is yes.” [laughing] So I don’t understand what His point is, can you help me?

Keith: [laughing] You don’t understand His point.

Nehemia: What’s He trying to say? Because they do do it. And it does remind me of the other verse, where we had this rhetorical question, and the answer was yes, they…

Keith: But isn’t the connection with the next verse? In other words, like, in this situation, I always start with the end in mind. So, “But My people have changed their glory for that which does not profit.”

Nehemia: Right.

Keith: So now, backing into it… It’s still not working.

Nehemia: And here’s the other verse, I just found it. The other verse that we were talking about is Jeremiah 16. Maybe it’s a Jeremiah thing? Jeremiah 16, verse 20 says, “Haya’aseh lo adam Elohim ve-hemmah lo Elohim?” “Shall a man make himself Elohim and they’re not Elohim?” The answer is yes, they do do that. They do that all the time. That’s the point of the prophet.

And I think where the confusion is – if there is confusion – is that normally in Biblical Hebrew when you ask a rhetorical question, the answer is “No, they don’t do that.” It says, “Mi kamoha ba’elim Yehovah?” “Who is like Yehovah among the gods?” The answer is “nobody.” They’re all fake and He’s real. But here the answer is, “Well, yeah, they do do that.”

Keith: Okay. [laughing]

Nehemia: And maybe that’s part of Jeremiah’s style. What?

Keith: [laughing] Okay. It’s funny, I’m getting a little slap-happy. We’re actually going to skip verse 13.

Nehemia: Mah pitom?

Keith: [laughing] Why do I say we’re going to skip verse 13?

Nehemia: That’s my favorite… That’s my ministry verse. That’s the verse that inspired me for the Makor Hebrew Foundation.

Keith: Can I read it English before they do it? Because I think it’s really cool when we do this. We were never going to skip 13. It says, “‘Be appalled, O heavens, at this, and shudder, be very desolate,’ declares Yehovah, ‘for My people have committed two evils - they have forsaken Me the fountain…’” Boy, that’s a great word. Maybe this should be the Word of the Week.

Nehemia: This should be the Word of the Week! But let’s finish the verse. I think it was Word of the Week, though.

Keith: “…of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”

Nehemia: So it says, “For two evils My people have done, they have abandoned Me, makor mayim hayim – the source of living water.” And that word, “makor,” means both a “source” but also a “spring”, because the water is a source that comes from a spring of water. It’s water that oozes out of the ground through a crack in the aquifer. “… the source of living water, to dig for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns which cannot hold water.”

And the image there is that a cistern is basically a hole in the ground, and in Israel the rock is made out of limestone, which is very porous, so when you dig yourself a cistern, you hollow out that limestone, but then you have to cover the walls in plaster, and these things are used year in, year out, for many years. In fact, I learned in archeology that before 1948 there was no water piped into Jerusalem, and if you had a house without a cistern – you could have a mansion – if you didn’t have a functional cistern, that mansion was worthless. It had no value whatsoever on the market, because that means you didn’t have water that year. And there’s very little water in Jerusalem. There is a spring called the Gihon Spring, but that’s not enough water to sustain even the Old City of Jerusalem. So basically if you didn’t have a good cistern, you were out of luck.

And it’s really interesting - we’ve done this together, and separately as well - gone through the Western Wall Tunnels, which are these tunnels… You know we’ve got the Western Wall, which is the remains of Herod’s Temple, the outer wall outside of Herod’s Temple, the retaining wall of this platform, and you can actually continue along that wall, and that’s what the archeologists did, they dug underneath people’s houses. And as you walk along there, you actually realize you’re walking through cisterns. You see the plaster on the walls, and you see the hole in the roof where people used to drop down the bucket, which is now covered with cement.

But before 1948 when Israel became a state and established a central water system, before that if you didn’t have a cistern, your house had no value whatsoever, because in Israel you need to have a cistern. What’s better than a cistern is if you have access to a spring. And why is that? Israel is on a fault line, in what’s called the Syro-African Rift Valley. There are these two massive plates of the earth, the plate of Asia and the plate of Africa, and they come together. In fact, some people have said that Israel is technically part of Africa based on that, which is actually true, I suppose, in that respect. So the Jordan Valley and the Arava Valley are actually part of what’s called the Syro-African Rift Valley. And there are major earthquakes in Israel about once every hundred years. The last major one was in 1929, so we’re due for one. [laughing]

Keith: You heard it here first!

Nehemia: So the point is, if you have a cistern, and there’s a major earthquake, that cistern can crack. And if there’s a crack in your cistern, all the water leaks out. It doesn’t matter how much rain there is, there’s no way to last you throughout the summer. So what did Israel do, what was their sin? They abandoned the source of eternal water, the source of living water, the makor, the spring, and instead they dug for themselves cisterns. And really the image here is, “Look, I don’t need God, I can do it myself. I can make my own god, that I’ll trust in my own power, that I created.” That’s the cistern.

And He’s saying, “Look, that’s not going to help you, that cistern. You need Me, I’m the source of living water.” Isn’t that a beautiful image? Especially in a desert country like Israel, where water is such a crucial thing. And what really inspired me to connect into this verse is two things. One is: my sister, Professor Ariela Gordon-Shaag – I mentioned her in the last episode – she’s a professor at Hadassah College, and she lives out in the desert, and you look out from her house, and everything around 360 degrees is as dry as you can imagine. And then you go down into the valley – a five-minute walk from her house, and there is a spring, a makor.

Keith: A beautiful spring.

Nehemia: And the water bubbles up out of the ground and flows into this creek. And all around the creek is life. For about ten feet. Past that, the water doesn’t reach, and everything is dead. And boy, does that bring home to life this phrase “the source of living water!” If you’re in the desert, and Jeremiah was from there – and I don’t know if you know this, but Jeremiah was a neighbor of my sister. You do know that, okay. So Anatot…

Keith: We can actually see, like, a hill or something.

Nehemia: Yes. Well, he was from Anathoth, and she’s from Alon, which is not far from Anatot, but it’s all in that same area. Oh, and the point is that just outside of Anatot there is a spring, and the spring runs into the valley, and it’s the same creek we’re talking about. There are three springs that feed that creek, and he was from near the upper one, she lives next to the middle one. So that creek we’re talking about that’s fed by this makor, this spring of water, that is the same spring as Jeremiah would’ve seen if he was going out for a prayer walk, if he was going out to get spiritual with God. He would have gone out and he would have seen that spring. He actually mentions that spring by name in one passage, but that’s a different story.

So I was really inspired by seeing that, and that’s the name of my ministry, Makor Hebrew Foundation, because makor means both “spring of water,” but also “the source.” And what also ties into that was a statement by Martin Luther. Martin Luther was an anti-Semite, but he actually started out – at least nominally – by loving the Jews. And he famously said, “The Hebrew language” – this is Martin Luther, and the fact that this is coming from a man who later became an anti-Semite just proves it even more, because he doesn’t have some interest of, “I’m saying this because I’m a Judeophile,” he’s saying it because it’s true. “The Hebrew language is the best language of all, with the richest vocabulary,” said Martin Luther. “If I were younger I would want to learn this language because no one can really understand the Scriptures without it. For although the New Testament…” Imagine that - he’s saying you can’t really understand the New Testament without knowing Hebrew. This is a man who translated the New Testament into German, and all later translations were based on his German translation. Even in English translations, they’re based partly on Luther’s translation. He says, “because no one can really understand Scriptures without it. For although the New Testament is written in Greek, it is full of Hebraisms and Hebrew expressions. It has therefore aptly been said that the Hebrews drink from the makor – the spring the Greeks drink from the stream that flows from it, and the Latins from a downstream puddle.”

So I read this thing from Martin Luther, and put it together with this verse here in Jeremiah, chapter 2 verse 13, and I said “Wow! This is what we need to do,” and this is kind of what I’d been doing for years, but I realized this encapsulates exactly what I’ve been trying to do. To empower people with information, to get back to that makor, that spring of living water. I don’t want people drinking from the puddle! I don’t want to feed people from the downstream, that stream that flows from it. I want people to get back to the makor, the source of the living water, the Hebrew words spoken by the source Himself, the Creator of the Universe, that source of living water, and empower people with that information.

And I love the parallel – we’ve read this, but I’ll read it again – Jeremiah 17:13, “Mikveh Yisrael Yehovah.” “Yehovah is the hope of Israel,” and that’s a pun, because mikveh... People like to say, “I went to the mikveh, I was mikveh’d,” we’ve talked about that. Mikveh is a pool of water, and its original meaning was a pool that’s filled up by the spring. You know, the water oozes from the ground, but if it doesn’t fill into that pool then it just kind of dissipates and gets all muddy.

So “Mikveh Yisrael”, the pool of water or the hope of Israel, it’s a play on words. Yehovah is the “Mikveh Yisrael,” the hope, the springpool of water. “Kol ozvekha yevoshu” – “All who leave you will be dried up”, but also, “will be ashamed,” it’s a play on words. “Vesuray ba-aretz yikkatevu… ki azvu mekor mayim-hayim et-Yehovah” – “For they have left the source of living water, Yehovah.”

So this is my ministry at Makor Hebrew Foundation, to empower people with information, to get them back to those Hebrew sources, and I invite you to come stand with me on the wall. I’m Nehemia, my website is nehemiaswall.com. Come stand with me on the wall, get back to those sources of water, and as you pointed out, Keith, you want me on that wall! You need me on that wall!

Keith: [laughing] Look, I need to get this thing done. I’m telling you that’s golden. I need something like that for the BFA, that’s so impressive. You got to get someone to do that, “You want me on that wall!” I’ll tell you something, I read that verse, I read that phrase of Martin Luther’s, like you said, “For although the New Testament is written in Greek, it’s full of Hebraisms.” It says, “It has therefore been aptly said that the Hebrews drink from the spring, the Greeks from the stream that flows from it, the Latins from a downstream puddle.” I’m thinking, “In English we have bottled water.” [laughing] That’s the best we can do right now. So I think we have to get away from bottled water and go through all the process.

I have to tell you something - sometimes I’m overwhelmed by the opportunities that have been presented to be able to get to that source, and certainly, one of the things I’m very excited about is for people being able to now learn some of that for themselves. I’m really excited that even now – I think we’re in July – at some point, maybe in the third week in July or so. So if you haven’t gotten a chance to go through Lesson 1, you haven’t missed it. We’re putting out about one per week, but the thing is that it gives you chance to take your time, on your own time, to learn what I call step-by-step, bite-by-bite, little bit of Hebrew, just so you can learn it, and as we progress we’ll get into some of the tools.

But right now, I would invite people to go BFAInternational.com, there’s so much that’s there. There are new teachings that we constantly have going up. Fifty-some high quality, HD quality presentations, some of them have been on prime time and Christian television and other places. Of course, you can be a registered member and you get access to a whole bunch. And of course, you can also go the site with nothing and be blessed with over a hundred different resources there.

So go to BFAInternational.com. We really, really appreciate those of you who are in the Premium Content Library, because you’re helping us develop this Hebrew course. We’ve gotten input from people for the last couple of years, but this is really a special time during the summer, when we can get your input, and we’re going to present this so that by time we get done with Prophet Pearls – you know, this is what I’m hoping, Nehemia – by the time we get done with this cycle of Prophet Pearls, when you go through it again, you may be able to go to a next step.

And you know, Nehemia does a really powerful thing, because we’ll be going to Prophet Pearls, and I’ve got my NIB, and my NASB, and my Hebrew Bible, and all that stuff. That’s just to make sure he doesn’t throw a curveball at us and try to put something over us. No, he doesn’t do that! He gives us the opportunity to get to the makor, to the source. But how wonderful it would be for people to also be able to track them later, and when there is an issue that’s brought up, a Word of the Week or something like that, there actually could be the ability for them to look and see that information for themselves.

Hey, and one more thing, Nehemia, that I really do appreciate - folks, if you haven’t gotten a chance to do this, it really would be a blessing to you. Go to nehemiaswall.com and BFAInternational.com and on the post of Prophet Pearls, just below, there’s a post where you can actually hear the passage itself, the entire passage in Hebrew. Nehemia does that, and we appreciate you for that. So, again, BFAInternational.com, inspiring people around the world to…say it - Build a Biblical foundation for their faith.

Let’s continue, Nehemia!

Nehemia: There’s so much to talk about here…

Keith: Just one thing before you say we’re going to skip, just one thing I want to ask. It’s a tap-tap, it’s a quick tap-tap. Okay. Jeremiah 2:14 says in the English, “Is Israel a slave? Or is he a home-born servant?” That completely confuses me when I hear that in English, and I want to ask the question: do you see that as a question, that first phrase?

Nehemia: Well, it definitely is a question because it has what’s called the interrogative Hei. Hei means “the” in Hebrew, but there’s also a Hei that doesn’t mean “the”, that’s a question.

Keith: So that’s what we have before the eved.

Nehemia: Yes.

Nehemia: So then there’s the question mark. But then it says in English, “Or is he a home-born servant?” And I see the word “yelid”. Child of the house? Or child? Or how would you say…?

Nehemia: It’s not clear that that necessarily means a servant, but it could be a servant who was born at home.

Keith: All right, you’re not excited about that. So, anyway, why has he become a prey now? You said we maybe skip ahead. What do you see? Talk to me.

Nehemia: Oh, there’s so much to talk about here, but I want to talk about verse 18. There’s a bunch of other verses, and if don’t skip we won’t get to my stuff.

Keith: Here’s the deal. The way we’re going to do that is we tell people: homework. Make sure you got to read it.

Nehemia: So can you read verse 18?

Keith: Yes. “But now what are you doing on the road to Egypt, to drink the waters of the Nile? Or what are you doing on the road to Assyria, to drink the waters of the Euphrates?”

Nehemia: And isn’t that great? He says “I’m the source of living water, I’m the spring, and you want to go to these rivers and drink? Don’t go drinking from some other stream, some other river - I’m the source of living water.” Isn’t that awesome? Isn’t that a powerful image?

Nehemia: We’re continuing that metaphor of Yehovah as the water, and again, we’re here in Israel which is a desert country, and that’s such a powerful image. And you might think, “Oh, I don’t need a cistern because the Nile, an unusual type of river – I mean unusual for this part of the world – in that it never stops flowing.” Most of the rivers we have in Israel are seasonal creeks. And the Nile is just this never-ending source of water, the Euphrates is the same sort of thing. But Yehovah is saying, “Don’t go there, I’m your source of water.”

Keith: Amen.

Nehemia: That’s beautiful. Next thing I want to talk about is in verse 20, unless you’ve got something.

Keith: Verse 20 is good, I like that one. “For long ago I broke your yoke and tore off your bonds; but you said, ‘I will not serve!’ For on every hill and under every green tree you have lain down as a harlot.” But that’s controversy.

Nehemia: Ooh, yeah. So, “I will not serve!” is what you have in verse 20. What does it say in the Hebrew?

Keith: Let’s see, in 2:20. Hold on.

Nehemia: Jeremiah 2:20, that’s interesting. That’s very interesting. Okay. JPS says, “I will not work!” King James says, “I will not transgress!” What does it actually say? So, “I will not transgress!” is what it actually says in the Hebrew… kind of. [laughing]

Keith: That’s an interesting little thing going on here.

Nehemia: So this is what we call in Hebrew qere-ketiv. Now, I’m just going to give people a little taste of that.

Keith: This is important.

Nehemia: This is a huge topic, it is a very important topic. There are certain words in the Hebrew manuscript, and in the margin of the manuscript it says to read differently from the way they are written. Sometimes this has to do with what we call euphemisms, that is, a word that they felt couldn’t be read in the synagogue because it was maybe a dirty word or a frightening word. But most of them aren’t that. Most of them aren’t issues of euphemisms; most of them are corrections.

What happened is, we’re told that in the Second Temple times there were three manuscripts of Scripture in the Temple courtyard. They were called Temple Courtyard Manuscripts, or the Sifre Ha-Azarah. What they would do is line up the three manuscripts, side-by-side, and compare them. And when there was a difference, they would say “We’re going to take two out of three.” And there was actually an entire guild of scribes, who were called the Temple Courtyard Proofreaders. And there’s a whole discussion in the early writings of the rabbis, about these Temple Courtyard Proofreaders. Who paid their salaries? Maybe it came out of certain sacrifices because they worked for the Temple; there’s a whole discussion about that.

But we can actually see some of the things they did here. In the body of the Hebrew text it says, “lo e’evod” – “I will not work” – and in the margin it says “Read it not e’evod – work – but e’evor – I will transgress, or literally, pass over, but that means transgress. And certainly Jewish sources have accepted that the marginal reading is the way we’re supposed to understand it, because that was apparently based on the majority reading or it was a correction sometimes of an error, and sometimes you get to a place where the reading in the body of the text makes no sense whatsoever and it’s corrected in the margin. In this case, actually both readings make sense.

And we call this the qere-ketiv. Qere is spelled kind of weird, it’s spelled Q-E-R-E in English, in Hebrew it’s easy: Kuf-Resh-Yud, and the ketiv is K-E-T-I-V. That’s homework! Go look up qere-ketiv, Q-E-R-E and K-E-T-I-V. It’s actually a whole huge topic, the qere-ketiv. Where it becomes important – I mean, it’s always important – but where it becomes particularly interesting for me – is when we get to the name Yud-Hei-Vav-Hei, where many scholars would come along and say, “Oh, that’s a qere-ketiv, too.” And the marginal reading is Adonai and the body of the text is Yehovah. Except there it’s a little different, because the marginal reading never says Adonai. So, there they’re inserting something in the margin based on their own speculation. Here it’s actually in the margin of the Hebrew manuscript that says, “read it transgressed, not work.”

Keith: You know it’s interesting, I just did something real quick while you were waxing on… [laughing]

Nehemia: [laughing] By the way, just so people understand, the King James has the marginal reading, but most other translations have the...

Keith: No, no, no, hold on, you can’t steal that. Here’s what I did: I took three translations… And this is really what I appreciate about you bringing this up, Nehemia. Here’s an example when someone can actually do this with no Hebrew. All you’ve got is the NASB, the JPS, and the KJV. The NASB says, “I will not serve,” in the JPS it says, “I will not work,” and in the KJV it says, “I will not transgress.” If we were like those guys back with those three manuscripts, we’d say what? “Two win and one goes?” It’s funny, they don’t take the textual criticism approach is, the more difficult reading, sometimes you would say…

Nehemia: And I think there’s some truth to that. But here the issue is something very straightforward; the body of the text has a Dalet and the margin has a Resh. And what’s the difference between the Dalet and the Resh? A tiny little bump. And that’s both in Second Temple script and in the original Paleo script. Really, only a little bump between Dalet and Resh, and here clearly in one of the manuscripts it had Dalet, and another one had Resh, and the third one…that’s a question, but probably the third one had the Resh, and so they wrote it on the margin, Resh, read it like this. But they didn’t dare change it completely. They said – and this is actually something you see in some of the writings, they say, “When Elijah comes and says ‘Why did you change it?’ we’ll be able to say ‘There, we didn’t change it. The text still reads the way that it reads, but for the purposes of interpretation we believe this is how it should read based on the majority reading. But we dare not change it.’” Isn’t that amazing?

Keith: Man. Again, folks, this is a chance for you to get a chance to see this, just to see it with your own two eyes, it really is kind of phenomenal. And you know, when it comes to the word of God, why not go through the process of having to dig, and search, and check, and go back and forth? It really is exciting to do that.

Nehemia: And here’s what’s really exciting to me: to see the subtle difference, which in Hebrew is a difference between a little bump. And then I’ll encounter people who go like, “Jewish scribes, they falsified the text, they changed it, originally it said this…” and this is always their pet doctrine. And I say: “Wait a minute, when the scribes did something, they told us exactly what they did.”

Keith: When they did do it...

Nehemia: They showed their work. They showed their homework. They indicated what they were doing. I mean, they left no doubt whatsoever about what they were doing. So to come along and say, “Oh, there’s this Jewish conspiracy by the scribes to falsify something in Scripture, well, no - they were obsessing about whether there was a little bump on this letter or not. And they were so meticulous that they left the traces. They said, “Look, it says this in these manuscripts, but this in this manuscript – we’re going to give you both.”

Keith: You know, I’ve got to tell you something, folks, as you’re listening to this. One of the things that I did initially, I always go back to history, just because you know you and I were sitting across from the wall, the Western Wall, a few days ago, and I said, let’s go back to the spot where I asked you this question about the name. But beyond that, I asked you something else, and that was that when I first came and said, “Nehemia, listen, I need you to help me have access. We’re going to be friends, you’re going to teach me how to read my Torah scroll, which has no vowels” – well I should say there are no vowel markers, but there are vowels in it. But I asked you that, and you said, “No, I won’t!” and we went back and forth.

But when we finally agreed to do this, I said I wanted to know four things. I said I wanted to know something about consonants, vowels, accents, and Masoretic notes. And I’ve got to give you some credit, because as we were going through that – you know, there was a whole course, Nehemia, it was a whole course, folks! But the really cool thing about it is getting the access to that information and then going and seeing if this is the Bible that I believe is the word of God. It’s like going back in history. It’s like you’re sitting down with a scribe who says, “Here, we saw this, and we changed it to that, and here’s why.” That’s the part to me that’s just so amazing, that you can actually go through and feel like you’re a 1,000 years or 2,000 years or whatever it was ago, when that actually took place. That’s all I have to say about that.

Nehemia: Probably about 2,000 years ago. Temple Courtyard Manuscripts. Can we talk about the phrase “I broke your yoke, I snapped your cords?”

Keith: Absolutely!

Nehemia: Do you have that?

Keith: No, let’s see here… “I tore off your bonds.”

Nehemia: Ooooh.

Keith: “I broke your yoke” is there.

Nehemia: Oh, okay. It says, “I broke your yoke, I snapped your cords”, it’s a literal translation. I love that image! Because some people would say, “Oh, the Torah, it’s this burden.” In fact, there’s a phrase in Jewish tradition that refers to the “yoke of the Torah.” Literally, they’ll use that word “the yoke”. And here is the image - there’s an ox and he has this yoke around his neck and there are little cords that you attach the plow to, it’s very heavy burden. And here Yehovah is saying to Israel, “I broke your yoke, I snapped your cords.” The Torah is not a burden, it’s freedom. God removed the yoke and ropes, but we refused to move forward in the freedom of Torah, that’s what’s happening here in this prophecy. We stayed in the bondage of superstition and tradition, offering sacrifices at the High Place. That’s what it’s talking about in this passage.

Keith: I’d like you to let everybody off the hook, if you can, because you love to do this. So, when it says, “And these people were on every high hill and under every green tree.” When you see this word, “every tree… that is green”, for somebody that reads that and says they were worshipping under the tree, and they were on the high hill – we talked about all these other issues. But as it pertains to the green tree – what’s your image? You’re in Israel…

Nehemia: I don’t even need to imagine what it is. [laughing]

Keith: You don’t?

Nehemia: Here’s the beauty: see, you go around Israel, and Israel doesn’t have a lot of trees. I was recently in North Carolina… in fact, I have a really good friend in Tennessee – hey Eddy! – and he has a job cutting down trees, and the trees grow back so fast that there’s no end to his work cutting down trees. He remarked to me once, “Everyone’s talking about deforestation, how it’s this global problem, and I’ve got more trees than I can cut!” It’s actually specifically in certain safety situations, like if you have a gas pipeline and there are trees growing, the roots are there, people could die, it can explode and blow up if you don’t get rid of those trees within a certain proximity of the gas pipeline. Or, for example, at an airport.

Israel’s not like that. [laughing] In Israel we don’t have a lot of trees. And you travel around and you see these trees that are ancient trees. We actually saw one together, an ancient tree. You’ll often find the ancient trees, to this very day – and I’m talking about trees that are easily 1,000, sometimes 2,000 years old, maybe more. There are these giant trees that spread out and they’re leafy green trees. And they will often have a tomb of a Muslim sheikh next to them, a Muslim holy man. What happened is that the Muslims, the Arabs, would cut down every tree they could except for those sacred trees. Some of those sacred trees may be thousands of years old. Why do I say that? Because if you read about the Muslim tradition, the Arab tradition about those trees, they believed the trees were inhabited with goddesses – they called them spirits - and they called those spirits “the daughters of Israel” or “the daughters of Jacob”. What that shows you is that these are ancient traditions probably going back to the Israelites who worshipped goddesses they believed lived in these trees. So you actually see these trees all over the country, they’re still around, and they’re still worshipped by some of the local inhabitants.

Keith: Isn’t that something? You can read the verse, and in my mind, of course…

Nehemia: And you can go to a hillside not far from here and I can see it...

Keith: And you can see it!

Nehemia: Here’s the really tragic thing to me. Some of these sacred trees were worshipped by the ancient Israelites, the Arabs came along, drove out the Jews and continued to worship the same trees, and today there are Jews who have gone back and worship at these trees again. They call them the tombs of great rabbis – kivrei ha-tzadikim – the tombs of the righteous saints, referring to dead rabbis. And now they say that tomb that was supposed to be of a Muslim sheikh, they say, no, that’s actually such and such a rabbi. Actually, some of the same rituals surrounding those trees continue to be practiced - certain kinds of offerings. It’s unbelievable! 2,000 years later!

Keith: It’s funny, you say that, we’ve actually been to places where you can see – now, the Muslims will say, “No, that’s Sheikh so-and-so,” and then someone else will say, “No, that’s Rabbi so-and-so.”

Nehemia: Right. There’s actually one spot not far from here, where the Christians, the Jews and the Muslims all say that there’s a woman buried in the tomb. The Jews say it’s Hulda the prophetess, who’s mentioned in the Book of Kings, the Muslims say it’s some Muslim saint who I’ve never heard of, but a woman, and the Christians say it’s some woman who was martyred by the Romans and she’s a saint. Isn’t it interesting? All three of them know there’s a woman buried there, but they disagree about what woman, and all three of them will come and pray there at that grave.

Keith: Isn’t that something?

Nehemia: The point is that worshipping at these leafy trees, that was a practice before the Torah was written, and they continue to do it. Nothing’s changed. So how I’m letting people of the hook with that?

Keith: No, no, no. It’s fine, we’re good. “Yet I planted you a choice vine, a completely faithful seed. How then have you turned yourself before Me into the degenerate shoots of…” Okay, so here’s the point, Nehemia: some of these people who sometimes take the worship of… and you don’t believe that this is the case because it was not in your background. But there are some people who get around at a time of the winter…

Nehemia: Oh, you’re going to tie this to the Christmas tree! Go ahead.

Keith: And they get around this time of winter, and it ends up being this focus for worship. Literally, there are some people, that as it pertains to their tree, their actual tree that they bring into their house, and they set up, and they dangle it with all that stuff on there, it’s like for some people – and I know there are people here that are listening that understand this, because I actually have a connection to this – where the people would say: “Don’t touch the tree, the tree is holy. It’s kadosh, kadosh, kadosh!

Nehemia: Christmas tree?

Keith: No, I’m telling you…

Nehemia: They would say, “This Christmas tree is holy, don’t touch it.”

Keith: And I’m telling you that in some ways… You always want to let people off the hook, “No, it’s not the…”

Nehemia: I’m not letting them off the hook! I’m trying to understand its original language and context.

Nehemia: Look, everybody listening to this right now, on December 24, meet Keith Johnson with your axe at Rockefeller Center.

Keith: [laughing] Let’s cut it down!

Nehemia: Hashtag #letscutitdown.

Keith: Let’s cut it down! No, I’ve gotten in trouble about this, and I certainly know that’s not the case for everyone, and there are people listening for whom that’s not the case. They don’t treat it that way. But there are people, honestly, Nehemia, that actually... I’m not saying this tree is that tree, but I’m saying what’s under it, what’s behind it, how people treat it, it’s not far from my mind to be able to look on a hill and see what people do and to see what I see in many places. It really is scary.

Nehemia: Hashtag #letscutitdown.

Keith: Let’s cut it down! You would want me on that wall!

Nehemia: You need me on that wall!

Keith: Anyway, how far do you want to go here…?

Nehemia: Look, we’ve got to skip to the end, because we’re running out of time, can we go to verse 27 please? If you’ve have something else, let’s talk about it, but otherwise I’m waiting for you at verse 27. Go ahead. Say what you need to say.

Keith: Folks, do me a favor, look at verse 22 and think about what it was like when you had to wash your mouth out with soap. Let’s move on. Go ahead, 27.

Nehemia: “Those who say to the tree ‘You are my father,’ and to the stone, ‘You gave birth to me,’ for they have turned the back of their neck to Me, and not their face. In the time of their trouble they say ‘Arise, and save us!’” Which means that when things are good, they’re going and worshipping trees and stones, and saying “Oh, that’s my Father in heaven, oh, our heavenly Father” – speaking to some wood or some stone. But when things go bad, then all of a sudden it’s, “Arise and save us!” I love that – that’s the word, “save us”. Hoshi’enu.

Keith: “But where are your gods which you made for yourself? Let them arise, if they can save you in the time of your trouble.” God really…

Nehemia: There’s irony in that.

Keith: God really lays it out there. “Have you not just now called to Me, ‘My Father, You are the friend of my youth?’” Now, hold on, you guys, here’s another problem, I’ve got a big problem.

Nehemia: Friend of your youth?

Keith: No, let me tell you what happens; 2:28, it ends, and then it’s my understanding that we’re supposed to go to one verse, 3:4. I’m going to protest. I’m not going to the verse.

Nehemia: Okay, we’re skipping that one. Let me just end verse 28: “Ki mispar arekha hayu elohekha Yehudah” – “for the numbers of your cities were your gods, o Judah.” In other words, every city had its own deity. As many cities as they had, that’s how many gods they had. And I’ll tell you, for me this was a really important verse when I was studying archeology, because the professors presented us with some information to destroy our faith. Do you know they do that in university?

Keith: Absolutely!

Nehemia: And they said, “We’ve got this image that in Biblical times they were monotheists, but they weren’t. They worshipped many gods, look at the archeological remains!” And they would show us photographs, and we actually went to see the actual artifacts, countless little figurines, little gods and goddesses that were found in the City of David in the archeological excavations. Their point was – forget your Jewish fantasy that our ancestors were monotheists; they were polytheists, they had many gods and worshipped statues.

When I first heard this, I said “Whoa, wait a minute!” I was a little nervous, and then I remembered this verse, and I said “Wait a minute, that proves what Jeremiah said!” [laughing] “The number of your cities was the number of your gods, o Judah.” So wait a minute, how does this undermine my faith? This actually proves that what Jeremiah was talking… And this is from the period of Jeremiah, in these archeological excavations in the City of David. So I’m like “Wait a minute, so Jeremiah knew what he was talking about!”

Keith: Read the Book, read the Book, read the Book, read the Book, read the Book!

Nehemia: Keep reading.

Keith: Okay, my friend. Here’s what we’re going to do: we’re going to say a prayer. Boy, there really is a challenge, you guys, we skipped a lot of verses, I feel bad about it, but we just can’t, we can’t go verse by verse by verse. Boy, wait until you see what’s coming.

Nehemia: I’ve got to talk about 3:4, it’s just too important, I’ll just read it real quick: “He-lo me-ata karata li avi?” “From now will you not call Me ‘my Father’?” “Aluf neuray atah” “You are the mighty one, the captain, the chief of my youth.” I love that there, because the word “aluf” which means “mighty one” is connected to the word “avi, av” “father.” That’s the Word of the Week, avi, Aleph-Bet-Yud, look it up. That’s the Word of the Week - Aleph-bet, or Aleph-Bet-Yud, “my father.” And I know there are some people who will say, “Oh, Aleph-Bet, a father.” It’s the aluf, the Aleph, which means the “bowl” and the Bet, “the house.” But actually, you don’t need the word pictures to connect father and aluf, “mighty one,” it’s right there, Jeremiah 3:4, look it up for yourselves.

Keith: Well, he snuck that one in, folks.

Nehemia: Now for your prayers.

Keith: Now for the prayer. Father, thank you that You are our real Father, You are the one who was, is, and shall be. Man, being a father, knowing how much I love my sons and then thinking about how much You love all creation, I just can’t even fathom how amazing You are. Give us perspective, and give us wisdom, and give us desire, and hope, and all the things that we need to continue to put all the pieces together to figure out what Your word says for us and Your will, and how to walk in Your way. In Your name, amen.

Nehemia: Amen.

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  • Lynn says:

    And…to add to your point. A lactating mother is reminded of her baby several times a day when her milk lets down. Making it impossible to Forget her suckling babe!!

  • Louis Korkames says:

    I looked up the word from Jer 3:4 for mighty one, aluf, champion. A piel form means trainer, coach. it seemed to me that could be appropriate too.

  • JW Brakebill says:

    I had to pause just a minute and 41 seconds in, because Keith asked about difference between house of Jacob and house of Israel. Nehemia did not think any difference. Nehemia, are you sure? Have you considered that “maybe” Yehovah was neither stuttering or repeating Himself? But rather giving a means to identify prophecies meant for Judah, from prophecies meant for the lost tribes of Israel?

    Isa 48:1 (JPS) “…house of Jacob,…are come forth out of the fountain of Judah…

    Then what was skipped in-between, who are called (by the world) by the name of Israel. Is it possible that in PROPHECY, (prophecy ONLY,) Jacob is Judah and companions, while Ephraim, and “house of Israel, are prophecies for the lost 10 tribes?

    I could quote many, many more scriptures, that point to this possible conclusion, but for the sake of brevity, I’ll leave it to you and Keith to investigate.

  • Jorge M. Oviedo says:

    Started reading Jeremiah and will follow with all the podcast you have done of the book.

  • Barbara Jayne says:

    A beautiful, descriptive explanation of your ministry and the meaning of makor.

  • Janice says:

    1960’s the Feminist movement was teaching women (younger) that marriage was a man’s idea of slavery and that they need to leave their husbands and go find who they really are and Be somebody. Many females did leave their husbands and children, some infants. This was begnning of breaking up family system; which is the strength of any nation. I was very unnatural, that’s the degree of how it was so evil.

  • Elissa says:

    Re. the comment on rhetorical questions and expected no answers in the bible, I just wanted to point out that the expected answer may still be ‘no’ in this instance — I may be wrong, but even when nations switched out their gods for others, they tended to keep the old ones. They just added to their collection, so to speak, and over time the roles played by different ones (or the names they chose to give them) altered. Even in China, don’t they still have mini shrines to the ancestors and local deities before they get to the more ‘major’ deities in their temples? I’m not trying to fit all examples of this into the one interpretive box, but that’s my understanding in this particular instance.

    • Elissa says:

      Reconsidering this

      • Elissa says:

        Reconsidering this, I see that the point really isn’t that relevant since the Israelites did still sacrifice to God in His temple (and elsewhere), they just added in a tonne of other gods and blended their worship with the worship of the one true God. It’s funny what you don’t notice sometimes!

  • bells says:

    Concerning minutes 12:00-13:22, There are other parts in the biblical Hebrew where God asks a rhetorical question and the answer is yes e.g
    Isaiah 49:15.
    Can a woman forget her sucking child,
    That she should not have compassion on the son of her womb?
    Yea, these may forget,
    Yet will not I forget thee
    This indicates that when God ask a rhetorical question in the bible, we shouldn’t assume that the correct answer is no. it is just that, a question; and not necessarily an answer posed as a question. Which implies that rhetorical questions from God don’t necessarily suggest that a response with “no” is the right answer.

    • bells, I understand your point, but I think the point of the particular verse you cited is that a woman could be expected to never forget her suckling child, it’s wired into her to be compassionate and to be aware of her child’s needs. It reads to me as just an added point of emphasis, a reminder of his eternal, complete compassion, mercy and determination to have relationship. Even if a woman forgets her child (definitely an unlikely and certainly an unnatural occurrence), God never will forge His people. So, it’s still kind of an expected ‘no’, but then he challenges that expected answer to reinforce God’s surpassing love for His people.