Prophet Pearls #22-23 – Vayakhel-Pekudei (1 Kings 7:40-8:21)

Prophet Pearls Vayakhel Pekudei, 1 Kings, arafel, thick darkness, araphel, Beit HaMikdash, haftarah, hiram, Parsha, prophets, portion, torah, solomon’s temple, Yehovah, Vayakhel, PekudeiIn this episode of Prophet Pearls, Vayakhel-Pekudei (1 Kings 7:40-8:21), Nehemia Gordon and Keith Johnson examine the major concepts in this week’s double-header portion - primarily what the Tanakh calls the “House of Yehovah” and how history, tradition, and cultures have clouded the world’s view of the place where God chose to put His name forever.

The parallel text in Chronicles is examined and we learn David’s role in the outfitting of the Temple. The two spellings of Hiram’s name provide a lesson on Hebrew vowel sounds and how they alter over time and continents. Gordon tracks the word of the week “araphel” (ayin-reish-pei-lamed) through the Tanakh to discover that Moses went to it—and that Yehovah was in it, on it, and surrounded by it.

In closing, Johnson is part of the fulfillment of Solomon’s 3,000-year-old prayer—as he, a gentile, grabs the sleeve of the Jew, recognizing the unsearchable greatness of he who sits upon the cherubs of the ark, and prays in the name of Yehovah for revelation to better understand and live out his word.

"There was nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone, which Moses put there at Horeb..." (1 Kings 8:9)

Looking forward to reading your comments!

Download Prophet Pearls Vayakhel Pekudei Transcript
Prophet Pearls #22-23 - Vayakhel Pekudei (1 Kings 7:40-8:21)

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

Keith: Welcome back to Prophet Pearls face-to-face, whatever it takes. This is Keith Johnson along with Nehemia Gordon at the safe house in Jerusalem, not far from the Knesset, not far from Netanyahu’s house. I don’t know what happened, Nehemia. We’re actually having to record this in advance, but Netanyahu was on his way to go and speak before the Congress of the United States. Purim took place last week. I don’t know all that happened, but I tell you, this is exciting to be in Jerusalem during these times. Would you agree?

Nehemia: Amen. It really is. Exciting and a little scary.

Keith: Yeah, it is. I should say that. Yeah, it is a little scary. But you know, when I think about something that we talked about last week, we talked about the name Israel. We didn’t talk about it in detail, but the phrase itself that was referred back to Jacob and being called Israel. There’s going to be contention with man and with God, and they’re going to prevail. So I’m believing that. You still with me on that?

Nehemia: Amen.

Keith: We’re actually going to be doing two sections. Nehemia, you've got to explain this. This kind of stuff just really frustrates me. I mean you have two sections, so can you explain what’s happening?

Nehemia: All right. So first of all, I just want to remind people this whole idea of reading a section, even of the Torah every week in the synagogue, that’s tradition. There are actually different traditions. There’s one tradition which is the more common one today, which reads the Torah over the course of a year, and the less common one, which may actually be more ancient, is that they read the Torah over the course of three-and-a-half years, which meant twice every seven years, meaning twice every Sabbatical cycle they read the Torah.

For the purposes of this program, we decided we’re going to discuss the portions based on this annual cycle, just because it’s very widespread. The idea was that somebody somewhere wants to go and look at some study, and this is very common in the Jewish world. They’ll say, “Okay, this week’s Torah portion is Vayakhel, let me go see what people are saying on Vayakhel,” and they’ll go to various websites and various resources.

Keith: And it’ll include our stuff. Our stuff will be shown.

Nehemia: We’ve had people who have no connection to anything that we’re doing whatsoever, they’re Jews, and just out of the blue they Google it and they say, “Oh, Vayakhel, what? A Methodist and a Karaite doing this? What? I want to hear what these guys have to say.” Some of them like it and some of them don’t.

But basically, where it gets a little confusing is you would think if there are 52 weeks in the year, then we should have 52 portions, right? Except in the Hebrew year there aren’t 52 weeks, and so there are actually 54 portions. The reason there are 54 portions is that in the Hebrew leap year you don’t have an extra day like you do in the English leap year, in the Gregorian leap year, in the Hebrew leap year you have an extra month, and the extra month is four to five extra sections. So what they did is they broke up the Torah into 54 sections and they had some sections that are combined in some years and broken apart in other years, based on whether it’s a leap year or not and based on other factors.

For example, if there’s a holiday that falls on Shabbat, then you read a special section for that holiday. Well, now you’ve just lost an opportunity to read a section from the regular Torah cycle. So then two sections would be combined and vice versa. It gets complicated that way. But basically, there are 54 sections, and this year, for example, in synagogues around the world on March 14th, 2015, they will be reading a double... there’ll be a doubleheader.

Keith: Is it doubleheader?

Nehemia: Don't you have that? Like in football, where you have a doubleheader?

Keith: That’s baseball.

Nehemia: Oh, is it baseball? That’s right. So in baseball you buy one ticket and you go to the ballpark, you go to Comiskey Park or Wrigley Field, and you see two baseball games. So what’s gonna happen on March 14th, 2015 is there’ll be a doubleheader. People come to the synagogue on Shabbat, synagogues around the world, and they’ll hear two Torah portions one after the other - Vayakhel and Pekudei. They’re actually combined this year. Hence the Prophet portions are also combined in this instance.

So the first portion, or really the Prophet portions for this week is 1 Kings chapter 7, verse 40 through chapter 8 verse 21. Now in some years, it’s 7 verses 40 to 50 the first week and the second week, with the second portion, it’s 1 Kings 7:51 through 8:21. Meaning they take it and they just break it apart into two. We’re going to do it as one; first of all, because we’re here for a short time in Jerusalem, and secondly, because on March 14th they’re doing it together.

Keith: That means folks, this is a doubleheader for you. You’re going to get a twofer. So let’s get right into it, Nehemia. We’re going to be talking in 1 Kings chapter 7 verse 40, and this is one of those situations where… I say this a lot, it’s sometimes hard if you don’t get context, but of course, the way the game works, and I use the word carefully. The game is that there are certain sections that were selected where they didn’t give context before or after. So we’re going to have people to check for themselves…

Nehemia: Well just to be clear, we didn’t choose these sections. What we’re doing is reading the traditional Prophet portions, and the Prophet portions are even more complicated. So in the Torah portion, you can read it over three-and-a-half years or one year, but you’re reading the same section, just over a different period of time. Or you’re reading the same... Ultimately you’re reading the five books of Moses for the Torah portions. For the Prophet portions actually, even for those who read it over the course of a year, there are different traditions between Ashkenazim and Sephardim and Italian Jews and Yemenite Jews. There are different Jewish communities that have different sections that they read. We just decided to use the most common one, which is the Ashkenazic one. They’re the largest group in the Jewish world. But there are other sections that people read…

Keith: And when I don’t like it, we’ll use the Methodist tradition. So here we go.

Nehemia: Is there a Methodist tradition? Reading the Prophet portions…

Keith: No, I will say this, folks, if you haven’t gotten a chance to listen to the Original Torah Pearls… Nehemia, you did something really cool last week. You talked about the motorcycle video we did. If you didn’t see that, folks, you didn’t miss it, it's still available. But we did the Torah portions - now three years ago? Was it three?

Nehemia: I don’t know. I think it was four years ago.

Keith: Yeah, we did that. And that still stands to this day, people are listening to those Torah portions, it was just phenomenal. Sometimes we spent as long as two-plus hours recording. We try not to do that, obviously, with the Prophet portions. But I think it’s really cool that that work stands. What we did with the Torah Pearls, it stands. It’s there, people can listen to it, and I actually encourage people to go to Nehemiaswall.com, BFAInternational.com, and listen to the Prophet portions, the Prophet Pearls, but also to go ahead and listen to the Torah portion.

Nehemia: And the Original Torah Pearls.

Keith: Yeah. You say the Original Torah Pearls as if...

Nehemia: Well there’s something out there which people are calling Torah Pearls, which really isn’t according to the same spirit of what we did three or four years ago. It’s with a different cast, can I tell you what I call it? Can I tell the people? I call them the Imposter Pearls. But there’s the real, authentic Original Torah Pearls that you can go to BFAinternational.com and Nehemiaswall.com to listen to.

Keith: Okay, awesome. Well, I’ll tell you something, sometimes I think that you’re so politically correct, and then other times you just leave the farm completely.

Nehemia: Look, I’ll tell you what I told the actual people who are doing that program. I said to them, “I think it’s great that you’re discussing the word of God. If only all of God’s people would discuss His word. But don’t pretend to be something you’re not. Don’t call it by the name that represents something completely different. Choose a different name and call it that, but don’t try to misrepresent yourself as Keith and Nehemia.

Keith: Okay. Well, I actually appreciate that, you know, one of the things I do…

Nehemia: I think it’s great. Everyone should talk about God’s word.

Keith: I think everyone really should, and I think what’s really, really been powerful, Nehemia, is that we really have gotten a chance to reach so many different people. I’m just shocked. I’m still surprised at the diversity of people that listen to not only Torah Pearls, the Original Torah Pearls program, but that are now listening to Prophet Pearls, and I have to get through a shout out to our sponsors. We call them the Maccabees. They’re actually sponsoring both of these sections, and so we appreciate them - Maccabees, those are out there and we really appreciate what you’ve done.

Again, we want to encourage people to leave comments on both sites, BFAinternational.com and NehemiasWall.com. Because people are interacting with this information, and really your perspective can be a real blessing to others. So please make sure that you leave some comments.

Let’s get right into this, Nehemia. We’re going to try not to read verse by verse. We talked about this, now that we’re here face-to-face, let’s have some fun. There are going to be some times where we can, obviously, go verse by verse, but other times we were talking about concept, and in this section - this is kind of exciting to me - we started out with verse 40, it says, “Now Harem” and of course, when I hear that word, I simply want to know who that person is. You can do the research on who he is and what he has in his skill set. But it says, “He made the basins in the shovels and the bowls. So Harem finished doing all the work which he had performed for King Solomon.” And then it says…

Nehemia: Whoa, whoa, whoa. Are you done with the verse?

Keith: No! No, no, no. “For King Solomon in the House of the LORD.” “Beit Yehovah” is what I see here in the Hebrew, but this has to do with the houses, we talked about it before - the place where He caused His name to dwell. This place is a physical place. It’s a place that we actually can walk to if we had the time and we weren’t recording all day.

Nehemia: Could we walk there? Let’s talk about that.

Keith: No, no, I want to talk about that. I want to get there, Nehemia. Folks, I’ve got to tell you something, he’s got me in this safe house. There’s nothing in the refrigerator. He locked the door on me. I’ve been here for about 20 hours or so. I’ve got to get out, Nehemia. I’ve got to get to the place where He caused His name to dwell. I mean, we can go over there…

Nehemia: Is it safe? Are you allowed to, legally?

Keith: Absolutely. You can go there. Okay. Yeah. In fact, there’s more we can talk about when we get into this. But we’re talking about this place, the house, the Beit Yehovah. Can you do me a favor? Just traditionally, what would be the traditional Jewish title for that place?

Nehemia: Beit HaMikdash. The House of the Sanctuary.

Keith: The House of the Sanctuary.

Nehemia: In fact, that was such a common phrase, that I’ll be honest with you - there was a time in my life, early on I studied Scripture in a certain way. We would read a verse, read the rabbinical commentary, read a verse, read the rabbinical commentary. I was told never read verses of Scripture without the running rabbinical commentary. At a certain point in my life, I said, “It’s time to cast off the crutches and walk, tear off the training wheels and actually read it for myself without the commentary. See what it actually says.”

One of the things that really shocked me is that the phrase Beit HaMikdash does not appear in the Tanakh. I couldn’t believe it, because it was a word that I heard from really, probably, when I was first able to speak. It was a word that… of course, in my pronunciation back in America, we call it the Beis HaMikdash or the Beit HaMikdash in the Israeli pronunciation. It’s funny, there was a time when I didn’t even know how to translate it into English. If I had met you when I was 10 years old and I said, “Beis HaMikdash,” and you said, “What’s that? What is that in English?” I’d say, “Well, what do you mean? That is English. That’s what it’s called, there is no word for it in English.” Now I know it was called the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, because I’ve read that in books. But it’s really a part of everyday speech in the Jewish experience - the Beit HaMikdash or Beis HaMikdash - and the phrase actually doesn’t appear in the Scripture, in the Tanakh, and it appears as Beit Yehovah or Beit Elohim or the House of Yehovah or the House of God.

Keith: Well, that’s what we’re talking about, and I have to tell you that it is central. Well, it’s central in a number of ways. It says here, “Which he performed for King Solomon in the house or the Beit Yehovah,” is what it says here. “The two pillars and the two bowls of the capitals, which were on the top of the two pillars and the two networks to cover the two bowls of capitals, which were on top of the pillars.” It goes on to talk about these pillars and then talk about the specific aspects of this, and I will say there’s sort of this idea, Nehemia, that you can get the big picture and then you can get the real detail. There are some things in this section, that I have to be honest, are going to be hard for me not to just want to spend all the time on, but it’s a big section, so we’re going to try and get the big picture. But one thing I want to make sure that people understand is that this house is significant not only in Jewish tradition. It’s significant in biblical understanding of what this is, this house, the Beit Yehovah. It’s… how can I say it? It’s a central concept. It’s a central theme throughout what Yehovah was doing, not only for then, today, but also for tomorrow.

Nehemia: Just to clarify, by the way, in 2 Chronicles 36:17, it has the phrase “Beit Mikdasham”, the House of Their Temple, referring to the Temple in Jerusalem, and that actually is Beit HaMikdash, it’s a variant of it. Meaning, the actual phrase Beit HaMikdash doesn’t appear, Beit Mikdasham does.

It’s interesting, because do you know what Jerusalem is called by the Arabs today?

Keith: What’s it called?

Nehemia: The Arabic name for Jerusalem is Al-Quds. If you look in the early Arab sources from 1,300 years ago or so, they don’t call it Al-Quds, they call it Beit El-Mukadis, which is just the Arabic “Beit HaMikdash.” Isn’t that interesting?

Keith: Do you know what terrorist group uses that word? The phrase Beit…

Nehemia: No, I actually don’t.

Keith: You do. They’re in the Sinai.

Nehemia: I don’t know. Remind me. There’s a terrorist group who calls themselves Beit HaMikdash?

Keith: No, they use a variant of that actual phrase.

Nehemia: Oh, the Al-Quds Brigade?

Keith: No, no, of the Mikdash.

Nehemia: I didn’t know that. Or maybe I did. I don’t remember. There’s so many terrorist groups, who can keep track of them all? But the point is that the irony here is that you’ll have Muslims who will come along and say, “Oh no, the Jews never had a temple in Jerusalem.”

Keith: Exactly.

Nehemia: Hey guys, what’s the Arabic name for Jerusalem in the early sources? Beit El-Mukadish, what do you think that is? It’s Beit HaMikdash, like, what are you talking about?

Keith: That’s why I wish I had off the top of my head the name of this group that’s in the Sinai, but they use this variant in the Arabic word for Maqdis.

Nehemia: Really? Should we Google it?

Keith: Look for that, the terrorist group that’s in the Sinai that uses the word Maqdis. While you’re doing that, can I read? It says here...

Nehemia: Oh, Ansar Bait al-Maqdis.

Keith: Al-Maqdis, do you see what I’m saying?

Nehemia: My Arabic isn't good enough to say if Al-Maqdis is the same as al-Mukadis.

Keith: It is! What are you talking about? I checked in the background.

Nehemia: Okay, beseder, I’m not an expert, but yeah, okay.

Keith: Neither am I.

Nehemia: So yes, it says here on Wikipedia, for whatever that’s worth, it says Ansar Bait al-Maqdis, or Ansar Jerusalem.

Keith: Exactly.

Nehemia: Meaning, they actually say Bait al-Maqdis is Jerusalem.

Keith: What’s so funny, I use that word carefully when I say it’s funny, is that last year I was in Israel with a madrik, a tour guide,

Nehemia: A who? Oh, a madrikh.

Keith: Anyway, so he was a tour guide, and we were talking, we were walking down in the old city of Jerusalem, and he was talking about that he’s used the word Beit HaMikdash. And there’s an Arab man who walked out and came out and yelled at him and he said, “You will not call it that! You will call it...”

Nehemia: Haram Al-Sharif. That’s the Temple Mount.

Keith: Haram Al-Sharif, the Temple Mount, and they had an argument back and forth, and this guy was the guy that actually told me this - he said to the Arab guys, he says, “Tell me the name of what it was called before you ever called it that?” The guy had no clue.

Nehemia: He really didn’t know?

Keith: He didn’t know, and he ran him down the list. And it was from a historical standpoint, and what I appreciated about it is that there’s this tension, Nehemia, when you’re on the Temple Mount, that I actually did an interview with one of the head honchos of the Al-Aqsa mosque. He actually met with the Pope. I saw him. He was walking across with him. I walked up to the guy, I got my camera on and I said, “Weren’t you the guy who met with the Pope?” And he stuck his chest out and then his security... no, listen, look, I told I’m filming, listen. He stuck his chest out and the guy says, “Absolutely.” He’s one of the… what do they call… the big sheikh, who… there were two of them that met with the Pope.

Nehemia: I don’t really know anything about this.

Keith: What do you mean, you don’t know?

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

Keith: So I go up to the guy…

Nehemia: Was this Pope Benedict?

Keith: Yeah, Pope Benedict went up there, and they went to that... But the whole point is to remove the history of this place, this is going to make significance. So there are different organizations, news organizations, even the Catholic Church decided not to call it the Temple Mount.

Nehemia: Really?

Keith: Oh, heck no. They used the phrase the Noble Sanctuary, is what they used to discuss it by. But anyway, so I go up to him and I say, “Aren’t you one of the head honchos for the Temple Mount?” And the guy goes nuts. The security guy says “It is not called the Temple Mount! You will take that off the tape! It is called Al-Aqsa!” I’ve got this on film, and I’m like, “Oh, I'm so sorry. It’s not called...?”

Nehemia: So you’re playing the guy.

Keith: Sorry, I’m not playing him. I didn’t realize that I pushed him...

Nehemia: You didn’t know it was sensitive, okay.

Keith: I didn’t know how much of a button I pushed, because I was trying to get in to engage him about what that place was. But again, back to the history of this place and the significance of it historically, grammatically, all of that, and how there’s an attempt to remove that history present day when go on the Temple Mount. I mean to the point that they won't even mention…

Nehemia: Oh, to the point where when they dig a trench like to put in pipes and things like that, and they actually come across remnants of the Temple, that’s happened, and it’s been photographed. They will, within minutes, come in with drills and drill down those remaining stones into powder. They do this all the time. There have been a few instances where it’s been caught on film, or at least in photographs, where they actually found some of the foundations of the Temple on the Temple Mount and they came as quickly as they could to destroy it. They want nothing to be left. Can I make a…?

Keith: Yeah, absolutely.

Nehemia: So I think it’s interesting. First of all, there’s a parallel for this passage that people could look at, which is 2 Chronicles chapter 5, and it’s always good when you’re reading Kings to look at the parallels in Chronicles. We don’t have time to go into all of that, but here within verse 40, that we’re reading, you read the name Hiram twice. What’s the Hebrew for Hiram? Do you know…?

Keith: Let’s see here, Chirom?

Nehemia: And the other time?

Keith: The second time it is… let me find here… let’s see…

Nehemia: So one time it’s Chirom and the other it’s Chiram. One time it’s “O” and the other it’s “A.” Chiram and Chirom. It’s clearly referring to the same person. So why that variant? And it’s a very interesting variant. I mean, there are two forms of the guy’s name.

Keith: Within two or three words.

Nehemia: Or within about five words. But imagine if sometimes I called you Keith and sometimes I called you, Koth. Whatever. Look, I go through that - my name is Nehemia and sometimes people call me Nehemiah and Neheemia, and all right, it is what it is. So Chiram or Chirom he has that name, but it’s interesting that one time it’s an “O” and one time it’s an “A”.

Now here I’ve got to tell people that Hebrew has gone through some changes over time, and some of these really aren’t disputed. One of the ones that’s not disputed is that the sound for “ah”, well there’s two different vowels for “ah”. One’s called a kamatz and one’s called a patach. The patach hasn’t really changed as far as we know. It always was like the “A” in father, always was “ah”.

But the kamatz in some dialects of Hebrew today retains its original sound, which in some instances is an “O”. Originally, they say it was something like an “aw”. It was somewhere between an “Ah” and “O”, which is “aw”, and that’s really interesting. This has to do with kamatz katan and kamatz gadol... I’m not going to get to that, people don’t know what that is.

But just for those who know Hebrew of the Hebrew Word “rosh”, which is head, but then the plural of “rosh” is “rashei”. So where’d you get that “Ah” if it’s “O”? That’s because the kamatz is actually related to the cholam, to the “O”.

What all that means is the original Hebrew, as far as we know, this sound kamatz probably was something like “aw”, like the A in “saw” or “awe”, like “awe of God”. So what that means is the name Yehovah in the original language was probably something like “Yehovaw”. It may have been an “aw” sound. In one dialect of Hebrew, it may have even been Yohovah.

I talked about in the past about the vowels in the Aleppo Codex and the Leningrad Codex. Those tell us what the vowels are, they don’t necessarily tell us how to pronounce those vowels. In other words, based on the very same vowels, I found in some dialects of Hebrew Yehovah would be pronounced Yehovaw. That’s 100% legitimate. It’s like the difference between American English and British English. Look, there are people who speak English differently than the way we speak it, and the people around them understand them perfectly and even today we can understand them.

I think that’s interesting. So that’s actually what’s going on here in the verse that we have here Chiram and Chirom. They’re so close they’re interchangeable.

Keith: Here’s what’s so funny, Nehemia, the way you just got through saying it. So like when I’m reading it, both times in English it’s Hiram. Okay. So this one which says here, Hiram, okay. There’s the Resh right there. When you pronounce this, you didn’t pronounce it with any, you pronounced it with the Resh.

Nehemia: No, we’re down here. Chirom…

Keith: Chirom or Chiram. Okay. Well, that’s good. Okay. That’s why. Okay, let’s move on.

Nehemia: Yeah, that’s pretty cool. All right.

Keith: Okay. So it says here, “The two pillars…” Okay, we’re talking about that in the verse. Verse 42, “The four hundred pomegranates for the two networks, the two rows of pomegranates for each network to cover the two bowls.”

Nehemia: Yada, yada, yada, yada, yada. Can we skip ahead? We can’t read every verse. Please skip to verse 47.

Keith: You want to go to 47?

Nehemia: Yes.

Keith: Okay, go ahead. “Solomon left all the utensils because they were too many. The weight of the bronze could not be ascertained.”

Nehemia: Right. That’s interesting that yours has bronze. The Hebrew word is “nechoshet”, which all things being equal, I would translate as copper, but you’re probably right, because bronze is simply... I think it’s 90% copper, 10% tin, and they added in that tin to make the copper harder, otherwise copper is very flexible, but basically, it’s copper with some tin added in.

I think that’s interesting. It’s giving us the amount of gold there is and et cetera, and these different materials, but there’s so much bronze or copper that we can’t even measure it. I think that’s interesting. It says “Lo nechkar”, “it was not investigated” is literally what it says. It reminds me of the description of Yehovah. It says “Ein kheker l'niflato”, “there is no investigation of His greatness.” Where is that verse?

There are a few verses actually. So the one I was thinking of is Psalm 145, verse 3, which says “Gadol Yehovah umehulal me’od” “Great is Yehovah and very much praised” “veligdolato ein kheker” “and to His greatness there is no investigation.” Let’s see what you have in your English. I don’t know how it’s translated. It says, “and great to be praised and His greatness is unsearchable.”

Really the image there is, look, we could try to make a tally of how great He is, but it’s beyond human computation. So what they’re saying here is there’s so much copper, we can’t even keep track of it all. That’s the point of Yehovah; it’s beyond our ability to even comprehend and to calculate how amazing He is. How totally awesome and wonderful and great and powerful.

Keith: So as we were going through this, you were just talking about these first 10 verses. So when you’re reading through these verses, you said, “yada, yada, yada.” Well, why do you say yada, yada, yada? I'm just a little confused here. What do you mean, yada, yada, yada? Is this not the Word of God, Nehemia?

Nehemia: No, it is the Word of God, absolutely. But look, we’ve got 33 verses, we can’t spend… if we spend 10 minutes on each one of the 33 verses, that’s a five-hour program. We’re not going to be able to do it.

Keith: I’m only going to get 15 minutes of those 5 hours.

Nehemia: Amen. Praise God.

Keith: Listen, I do want to bring something up in these first 10 verses, and this is really something that I’ve thought about. Oftentimes we hear Solomon - Solomon was the one who built this amazing place. But then there’s a simple little statement that I want to stop at, and I want you to check something on your computer, if you could. In verse 51, can I go to 51? It says, “Thus all the work…”

Nehemia: That’s passed my yada, yada, yada, though…

Keith: Is that passed your yada, yada, yada?

Nehemia: The yada, yada, yada was this list of “They made this and they made that and there were 10 of these and there was one of those…”

Keith: And when does your yada yada stop?

Nehemia: I just jumped to verse 47. So now we got through verse 47. There are a lot of interesting things – they’re casting things and the thickness of the ground. We can talk about every one of these things for... I could talk about them for hours.

Keith: Well I do think it’s really interesting, because we’re getting into the details of the lampstands, five on the right and five on the left in front of the inner sanctuary.

Nehemia: That’s this week’s image, that we had made by Lane Forest, a young artist.

Keith: Absolutely. Folks need to make sure they see that. That’s pretty amazing. So she reads it and then she draws it. Is that the idea?

Nehemia: Yes.

Keith: Wow. How old is she?

Nehemia: You got me on the spot here. She’s young.

Keith: Okay. Well anyway, it was talking about the cups and the snuffers of the bowls and the spoons, the fires prongs, the pure gold, etc. Then it says, “And the hinges, both of the doors of the inner house, the most holy place.” Now when you hear that, “the most holy place.”

Nehemia: In English, it’s what we call Holy of Holies.

Keith: The Holy of Holies. Okay. And for the doors of the house that is, it says “the nave of gold.” “Thus, all the work of King Solomon.” And here’s the verse I really wanted to talk about for a second. So oftentimes when I read about this, you hear about Solomon building the Temple, Solomon building the Temple, Solomon building the Temple. And there’s this little phrase that says, “And Solomon brought in the things dedicated by his father David.”

Nehemia: What verse are you in?

Keith: 51. Yeah, the silver and the gold and the utensils. One of the things that I wanted to have us check was this idea of David being given a pattern for what the Temple was. I mean, it’s something that...

Nehemia: It wasn’t just the pattern. The issue with David is he wanted to build the Temple - and I think we wanted to get to this one yet we didn’t have time. Basically, David had spilled blood, he killed, even though he killed justifiably in many instances. But because he had spilled all this blood, God said, “Look, you're not going to be the one to build it.” This went back to this idea of making the altar on hewn stones so that metal doesn’t touch it. And then Solomon built his temple - this is when we were getting cut off I think, so we didn’t get to it- it says, “There was no stone, no sword,” it says “that was heard in the sanctuary.”

The idea is that the Temple is a temple of peace and it can’t be involved in death and destruction. Our faith of Israel is a faith of life, not a faith of death. We don’t glorify death the way some faiths do who say that they love death more than we love life. It’s true - we do. We love life. When David wanted to build the temple, God said, “It’s not going to be you. Maybe it can be your son, but you've spilled too much blood to build My temple.” So God allowed David to then prepare some of the things for the temple, and that’s what David ended up doing, he prepared some of the rituals and some of the services, and a lot of this was talked about in more details in Chronicles and Kings. It’s just kind of glossed over like, “Yeah, that happened,” or in Samuel and Kings. But yes, so he prepared a bunch of the stuff for the temple. What do you have there, Keith?

Keith: Actually, when I was looking at 1 Chronicles 28, if you can do me a favor, would you look at this real quick? 1 Chronicles, I’m going a little bit of a struggle because my suitcase didn’t make it, folks, and in my suitcase I have a folder and I have my other Bible and I have some other things including my charger for my computer. So I’m limited on what I can do. Nehemia is going to have to help me here.

Nehemia: What do you have?

Keith: 1 Chronicles 28:11 through 12 and 18 and 19. What is this thing that David actually did see?

Nehemia: Yes, that’s a good question. So we got here, I’ll read you the JPS. It says, “David gave his son Solomon the plan of the porch in its houses, its storerooms and its upper chambers and inner chambers, and of the place of the ark cover and the plan of all that he had by the spirit. Of the courts of the house of Yehovah.” So can we talk about that? They had by the spirit. Wait, that’s only from the New Testament, where people get things by the spirit, right? Can Jews also have the spirit?

Keith: I guess they can.

Nehemia: “He had by the spirit of the courts of the house of Yehovah and all its surrounding chambers of the treasuries in the house of God and the treasures of the holy things,” et cetera. You want me to keep reading?

Keith: The idea is that David was getting this pattern. He was getting this by the spirit. So again, what I wanted to do, for me, that was important, was to step back and say, “Okay, so initially, as you mentioned, David wasn’t given the ability to actually build it. But he did do preparation.”

Nehemia: He prepared the materials, he prepared some of the rituals.

Keith: It was a pattern. It was given by the spirit, which I don’t know, as we go later, it becomes significant because Solomon isn’t just pulling this out of the air. Also, though he asked for wisdom, he also had his father’s... the work that was given to him by the spirit that was all then transferred to Solomon. So it’s not often something that you hear about when you’re hearing about the Temple being built. All right, so can we move on now?

Nehemia: Sure. By the way, starting in the next chapter, which is chapter 8, verse 1, now we’re going to jump for the parallel to 2 Chronicles chapter 6 verses 1 through 11.

Keith: Got you. So can you do this? When you’re looking at the parallel, you said you’ve got the 2 Chronicles 6?

Nehemia: I mean, that… I could open that up if you want. But can we first look at the actual verse?

Keith: Yes, absolutely.

Nehemia: And then we can talk about the parallels?

Keith: Yes. Yes. Okay. “Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes, the leaders of the father’s households with the sons of Israel to King Solomon in Jerusalem to bring up the Ark of the Covenant of Yehovah from the City of David, which is Zion.” They’re going to bring up the Ark of the Covenant of Yehovah.

Now, I know this is one of these deals, Nehemia, where you’re going to have to just keep me on track, because it’s hard for me to hear that phrase and not go historically about the significance of the Ark and its travels and getting where it is and where David had it and now this is going to be the thing that it’s sitting down here ready, the house is now ready. And what is the house ready for? The house is ready for the Ark. And why the Ark, Nehemia? What is this? It’s just a box. Why the Ark? The house for the Ark?

Nehemia: I don’t understand the question.

Keith: You do understand the question. What’s the significance of it being the Ark? I mean, what is that? So it’s a box, Nehemia.

Nehemia: It’s not just a box. I mean, the Ark is… Basically the image we have in the Tanakh is the Ark is sort of like the chariot of Yehovah, meaning it has the cherubs and His voice is heard from between the cherubs and He sits on it. He’s called “Yoshev HaKruvim”, “He who sits upon the cherubs”, which is the cherubs that covered the Ark. So there’s this image of the Ark as the chariot or even the footstool of Yehovah, and that’s actually an interesting verse in Jeremiah. I don’t think that’s one of our portions, is it? So let’s bring it. So there’s this image about the Ark being the footstool of Yehovah, and then Jeremiah, I think goes on to that, and I’ve got to find that verse. But, let’s see. Let’s pretend I know where this is.

Keith: While you’re looking, I’m setting you up. So the reason I was talking about this was...

Nehemia: It’s Jeremiah 3:16. “‘And when you increase and are fertile in the land in those days,’ declares Yehovah, ‘men shall no longer speak of the Ark of the Covenant of Yehovah, nor shall it come to mind. They shall not mention it or miss it or make another.’” A lot of people stop there and they say, “Oh, the Ark won’t be important anymore.” But then the next verse is really important. It says, “At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of Yehovah.” Okay, let’s see what that is in Hebrew. “Kiseh Yehovah” “the chair, the throne of Yehovah”, so not footstool, sorry.

Then it says, “Venikvu eileha kol hagoyim”, “and all the nations will be gathered to it” “leshem Yehovah Yerushalayim”, “to the name of Yehovah to Jerusalem”, “and they will no longer go after the rebelliousness of their evil heart.”

So I love this because this is one of these prophecies that’s a prophecy about the nations coming and embracing the God of Israel. It’s connected here to the Ark. There are people to this day who are saying… You know, we even had the movie, Indiana Jones, and he’s looking for the Ark of the Covenant because we got to have that Ark of the Covenant. No, we’re told there’ll be a time in the future, in this end time scenario, that we won’t be looking for the Ark because the Ark will be this chariot, this chair, this throne. It won’t be the Ark anymore. All of Jerusalem will be the Ark. Do you know how amazing this is, that we are sitting here in Jerusalem and in the city and the very place where He placed His name forever, and we’re talking about this at a time when the Ark is no longer really remembered by people and it’s no longer about the Ark? Then we’re starting to see the beginning of this prophecy being fulfilled. You sitting here next to me is a partial fulfillment of this prophecy, all the nations gathering to the name of Yehovah, to Jerusalem. What’s the significance of that? We’ve got the Ark, which is called by the name, you’ve got a whole teaching about that in the Open Door series…

Keith: 2 Samuel chapter 6 verse 2. 2 Samuel chapter 6 verse 2. Go ahead.

Nehemia: Where is that? It’s in 1 Samuel…?

Keith: 2 Samuel chapter 6 verse 2.

Nehemia: So in 2 Samuel 6:2, the Ark which is called by the name, and here we have it saying we won’t even need an ark. They’re going to come to the name of Yehovah in Jerusalem because the city of Jerusalem will be called by the name.

Keith: Amen. And I think that’s why when I say the significance of the Ark itself, the Ark being called by the name, of the house being built for the name. Yehovah calling the Ark. In other words, referring to Himself. Obviously, it is not Him, but the idea that it is His name, and what does it represent? His word of God inside, word of God outside. It’s like it isn’t something that we want to lose sight of the significance of. God’s word. Nehemia, other than the creation… when He created the entire world, give me something else that God created that’s in the earth. Something else other than Him creating the trees and the plants and animals. Give me something that God created.

Nehemia: I don’t understand the question.

Keith: Sure you do.

Nehemia: He spent six days creating the universe.

Keith: He created the entire universe. Anything else that he did after that? You know what else he did? He told Moses, “Listen, go out and put these two stones and I'm going to write on these two stones,” and then the second time Moses came back after he broke them, and He says, “And I'll write again.” And aren't those two stones, the stones that He put in that place…

Nehemia: In the Ark.

Keith: That place. It’s like God’s...

Nehemia: What are the first two words of the Ten Commandments on the stones? “Anochi Yehovah”, “I am Yehovah.”

Keith: Come on with that.

Nehemia: Here I have to - and this is maybe a side thing, but look, we’re excited about it. We’re talking about the Temple and we’re talking about how Jerusalem, the place of the Temple, will still be important even though the Ark won't be there. Jerusalem will be called by the name. It reminds me, recently I did this teaching, my ministry Makor Hebrew Foundation, and I was talking about the Samaritans, and how in the time of the Second Temple period there was the whole issue of the Maccabee wars, and they were being persecuted along with the Jews. They realized, “Look, we’re not Jews, we’re foreigners. Why are we going to be persecuted just because we keep the Sabbath?” They wrote to Antiochus, who was the Greek king, the Seleucid Greek king. And they said, “We’ve got this temple over here in Mount Grizim in Schem, and it’s an anonymous temple. It’s a temple which doesn’t have a name.” If you don’t understand the Hebrew context and culture, that’d be like, “What do you mean, temple doesn’t have a name? What does that mean?” Well, because the Temple in Jerusalem was called “Beit Yehovah” “the House of Yehovah”. The Temple in Jerusalem had a name. The Temple in Jerusalem was the place which is described in Scripture as the place where Yehovah caused His name to dwell, where Yehovah put His name forever. These Samaritans are writing to Antiochus and saying, “We have a temple that doesn’t have a name, and here’s an idea. You can give it a name.” They suggest that that temple be named after Jupiter, which is the pagan deity, or Zeus in the Greek. To the Romans it was Jupiter, and that’s a whole different discussion. It gets really fascinating, because then later the people who say Yahveh or Yahweh, that traces back to a Samaritan source, where we’re told the Samaritans call upon God as Yahweh, and we find out in about 165 or 168 BCE they’re saying their temple is Annaneumon. It’s an anonymous temple, and they want to give it a name and the name they give it isn’t the name Yehovah, Yud-Hey-Vav-Hey, it’s the name of a pagan deity. But that’s a different discussion.

Keith: Isn’t that something?

Nehemia: Yes, pretty interesting stuff. But the name for this temple and for this place in the city, this is a central concept of central theme in the Hebrew Scriptures.

Keith: Amen. And again, the idea that Yehovah says, “You have not built a house for Me,” speaking for Him, meaning for His representation of who He is. That ark becoming the thing that’s carrying His name, His word.

Nehemia: And going back to the Temple - because that’s what this whole passage is about - the very fact that I grew up calling it Beit HaMikdash, the House of the Sanctuary, and it used to be called biblically Beit Yehovah - I mean, there’s something going on there. There’s an agenda to stamp out His name, even from the place where He put His name forever. It’s called the House of Yehovah! So we in the Jewish world have now called it the House of the Sanctuary, which is wonderful and beautiful, but we’re missing part of the picture. What we’ve done is we’ve deemphasized that name.

Keith: Exactly.

Nehemia: To the point where you’ll talk to the average Jew and you’ll talk about Yehovah's name, and they’ll say, “Well, why are you obsessed with this name? What does this name have to do with the Temple?” What do you mean what does it have to do with the Temple? He put His name there forever!

Keith: Absolutely. Going on, it says that all these folks came, all these men, all the assemblers, the leaders, they came. 8:2, “They assembled before the king.” And then it says, and this is interesting, I want to throw this one to you. It says a different name of a month, it says “Eitanim”, which is the seventh month. So do you know… I know there are other examples where we get one name and then we also get the numerical?

Nehemia: There are three. I should say there are three for this particular set of names, and then there’s a bunch for the Babylonian names. In other words, in Judaism, what I grew up with is we refer to the names of the months as Nissan, Iyar, Sivan, Tamuz. When you get to Tamuz you’re like, “Wait a minute, Tamuz is the name of a pagan deity,” and no one disputes. The rabbis say the names of these months came from Babylon. They came up from Babylon. Now, the pre-Babylonian names, some people will say are in these passages in Kings. Here we have the month of Eitanim. It says, “In the feast, which is the seventh month,” except Eitanim never appears in the Torah as the name of a month. When you look in the Torah, what you find is the names of the months are first month, second month, third month, et cetera. They’re numbered. They’re given sequential numbers and so the Torah name for this month is “Hachodesh Hashvi’ee”, the seventh month.

So where does Eitanim come from? Eitanim is obviously a Hebrew word. Well, we’re dealing - and this is something other people have pointed out, there are three month names, Eitanim, Bool, and Ziv, and those each have numbers that correspond to them. Some people have said, “Oh, those are the original Hebrew names before Babylon.” No, not at all. Those are actually the Babylonian month names. I’m sorry, let me correct that. Not the Babylonian… those are actually the Canaanite month names. Why do I say that? Because they only appear in this passage where we’re dealing with the Canaanites. Hiram of Tyre was a Canaanite king in Sidon, sorry in Tyre. I’m thinking of Jezebel, whom we spoke about an hour ago, for those who don’t know that. So, Hiram of Tyre… I’m overtired. I’m over-tired.

Keith: Impressive!

Nehemia: Hiram was extremely tired. Oh my God. All right. So in this passage, and we’ve talked about this before, I think. In this passage, only in this passage, we have these three names - Eitanim, Ziv, and Bool, and we’re told, “which is the seventh month, which is the eighth month”. One of the explanations, which makes a lot of sense to me, is that whoever wrote this, the prophet or whoever, there were documents that described the different things that were made and the timeframe that it was done, and some of these documents were prepared by these Canaanite workmen. For example, we have another workman whose name is Hiram, himself, and he’s from the tribe of Naftali, but he grew up in Tyre. There’s some kind of whole thing there where he’s kind of in both cultures, and so he was able to work in both cultures. But if he came from that Tyrian culture, which was Canaanite, then he would have brought these names with him. So when they’re telling us this, and this holy prophetic history, they’re taking the source, which says, “In the month of Eitanim,” and then they explain for the Hebrew reader, for the Israelite reader, “which for you Israelites is the seventh month.” Because maybe the Israelites didn’t know what Eitanim was. Where it gets a little complicated, or a little hairy, is one of the months is called Bool, and Bool is the name of a Canaanite God.

Keith: Oh, okay.

Nehemia: Can we talk about in the feast “Bechag”?

Keith: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nehemia: So that’s pretty cool. So what’s the Chag in the seventh month? The feast? It’s Sukkot. It’s the feast of Sukkot. Here, it’s just called plain “the chag” without saying which chag. It’s just, we don’t even need to tell you which chag. It’d be like if I said to you, “We were having a barbecue during the holiday in July.” I don’t need to tell you it’s the 4th of July. What other holidays are in July? So it was a warm day in July and we were having a barbecue for the holiday. Well, but which holiday? Obviously, it’s the 4th of July. So here the feast is in the seventh month, and remember in Hebrew, and we hear the word chag, it’s not just a feast. There’s an implication there of pilgrimage feasts. There’s chag as a pilgrimage feast, and that’s significant because in the pilgrimage feasts you make a pilgrimage to the Temple, and now for the first time, they’re doing the pilgrimage, not to the Tabernacle, not just to the Ark in a tent, but to the actual Temple, the House of Yehovah.

Keith: It’s something, three phrases there, at the feast one, in the month of Eitanim, and in the seventh month. So there’s no question.

Nehemia: Is that what yours says, “In the seventh month”?

Keith: It says, “which is the seventh month.”

Nehemia: Oh, “which is.” Okay.

Keith: All right. “Then all the elders of Israel came and the priest took up the Ark. They brought up the Ark of Yehovah and the Tent of Meeting and all the holy utensils.” Now I think it’s interesting that it says they brought up the Ark and the Tent of Meeting. So, what do they do at the Tent of Meeting?

Nehemia: That’s a good question. That’s a very good question.

Keith: In other words, okay, so you’re going to bring up the tent. Where’s that in there? I don’t see that anywhere.

Nehemia: So I can tell you what tradition says, which is that they buried it under the Temple.

Keith: Yeah? Okay.

Nehemia: They hid it under the Temple, and some people will tell you, “To this very day, it’s hidden there under the Temple.” I don’t know, but we don’t know that for sure. It’s interesting though, like, wait a minute, back up here. According to one version of the story, when Shiloh, after the battle of Afek and the Philistines are coming, and Eli, he’s the high priest, he falls back and breaks his neck, and then it’s like fade to black. Then, later on, we hear about how God abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh, and it kind of implies – that’s in Jeremiah - that it was destroyed, that the tabernacle was destroyed. Then all of a sudden, wait a minute, there’s a tabernacle here, and wait... So it wasn’t destroyed, or maybe it was rebuilt? I don’t know. There’s something there that...

Keith: There’s a couple of times where you hear that showing up where this tent was, whether it was a different place or it was the same tent.

Nehemia: By the way, does yours say Tabernacle or does it say Tent of Meeting?

Keith: “In the tent.”

Nehemia: Well, it literally says, “Vaya’alu et aron Yehovah,” “and they brought up the Ark of Yehovah,” “ve’et ohel mo’ed,” “and the Tent of Meeting,” “ve’et kol klei hakodesh asher ba’ohel,” “and all the holy vessels which were in the tent,” and the priests of the Levites brought them up. So yes, they brought them up. Why did they bring them up? Why don’t they bring them down into the valley? There’s this new theory out there. Oh boy, really hot. The true temple was right above the Gichon spring, down in the city of David. Well, wait a minute. So why would they then bring it up? For those who don’t know the geography, we’ve got this kind of, we have the peak… Peak is a confusing word because you’ll think of like, the Rockies.

Keith: Are you going to really describe it? Because you’re going to make me want to go over there today.

Nehemia: We have the top of the mountain, and then it slopes down, and then down along the whole slope is the City of David. But at the top of that hill - hill is a better word - is what we call the Temple Mount, and some people have said, “Oh no, what you’re calling the Temple Mount, that was a Roman fortress, and the real temple was up above the Gichon spring, which is in the City of David.” I asked myself, “Wait a minute, why do we repeatedly hear about bringing it up, raising it up, bringing it from the City of David, bringing it from Zion, up?” Well, no, wait a minute. If it’s bringing it from Zion, then you’d bring it down if it’s where they say, but based on the geography that most people accept, the Temple Mount is geographically above… I mean you walk up that, and if you’re out of shape, you’re going to be panting. You’re walking up.

Keith: So they brought it up. And again 8:5 is interesting. It says, “They were before the Ark, sacrificing so many sheep and oxen that they could not be counted or numbered,” however many there were. I mean, tens of thousands. Who knows? It doesn’t say. “They brought the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD to its place.” And what’s its place in English? It says here, into the inner sanctuary, I believe the word is “dvir”.

Nehemia:Dvir” that’s the word we talked about related to the word “devorah”, meaning Bee. It’s the inner sanctuary. Should that be the Word of the Week? Dvir?

Keith: I like it.

Nehemia: Or do you have another word? I think that’s been the Word of the Week.

Keith: We’ve used that before?

Nehemia: Yes. I’m going to save it for something else. We have a lot.

Keith: Okay. Awesome. Yeah, “to the most holy place under the wings of the cherubim. They spread their wings over the place, the Ark and the cherubim and made a covering over the ark and its poles from above. But the poles were so long.” Now, this is a phrase I want to ask, it’s a different interpretation, but “the poles were so long.”

Nehemia: What verse are you in?

Keith: Verse 8, “but the poles were so long that the ends of the poles could be seen from the holy place before the inner sanctuary, but they could not be seen outside. They are there to this day.” I like that phrase, “they are there to this day.”

Nehemia: “Ad hayom hazeh”, “until this very day.”

Keith: Yeah. I mean, when this was being written, can you imagine though? I mean, that phrase just brings me back to the actual book being written. In other words, they’re writing about it, and they’re saying, and they’re there to this day.

Nehemia: Well, that’s really significant. One of the things that really, in Hebrew University, when I studied, that we talked about in scholarship is, we'd say, we’re not just going to look at the book, we’re going to look at the sources of the book as well. Sometimes they went too far and they made up sources. But here we clearly can see the sources of the book. Today we have a single book in Hebrew called the book of Kings. Now in English, there’s 1 Kings and 2 Kings, but in Hebrew, it’s a single book, which means that it was originally a single scroll, but even in the printed Bible it’s one book.

But what we’re getting here, a glimpse of, in verse 8, is a source, and in that source, because the final book ends after the destruction of the Temple in the time of King Jeconiah, Yehoyachin, when he’s raised up, I don’t remember, it was in… or something like that, of Jeconiah. He’s raised out of prison in Babylon and it’s like this mini happy ending. The king is still a prisoner in Babylon, but he’s not doing that badly in prison. He’s like, really... And that’s the end of the book, which is amazing to me, because then we pop over to Chronicles and we’ve got the whole situation where it ends with the decree of Cyrus, where the Israelites were allowed to come back, and you get the clear image - there’s no question, I think, in anybody’s mind, that the book of Kings was obviously written before the decree of Cyrus, because if that had happened, it would’ve been mentioned. In other words, that’s the happy ending of the story. In Hollywood you always have the happy ending. The happy ending of the story of the book of Chronicles is, well, they’re called to come back by Cyrus, and allowed to come back out of exile, and in Kings, the author of Kings doesn’t know that happened yet, because it hasn’t happened yet.

But anyway, we come here and we read, wait a minute, “until this very day”, but at the end of Kings, the Temple was destroyed. So it’s not until this very day when Kings was finalized, but it is to this very day for the source, and that’s really interesting. This may have even been the Canaanite source, that Canaanite source that described what the Temple looked like, which mentioned the month of Eitanim, and then the prophet comes along and says, “Okay, I’m going to take that source and tell you what's important and tell you the spiritual message of it.” And I think the spiritual message here is in verse 9.

Keith: Yes. Well, verse 9, I’ve always thought about this verse when I read it, and I always think there’s confusion. And the reason I say there’s confusion is I’m like, “Wait, there’s a different part where I heard something.” So let me read the verse. First of all, in English. “Then there was nothing in the Ark except the two tablets of stone, which Moses put there at Horeb, where the LORD made a covenant with the sons of Israel when they came on land.” Stop right there! What do you mean? What happened to the mana? Was the mana not in the Ark, or was beside the Ark?

Nehemia: It wasn’t in the Ark. It clearly says. So there are two verses, or two passages. One is Exodus 16:32 to 34, and that tells us that the mana was before Yehovah, and the other is Numbers 17:25, which tells us that Aaron's rod was before the testimony. Well, what’s the testimony? We have this full phrase, which is the Ark of the Testimony of Yehovah. Why is it called that? Because Moses actually heard the voice of Yehovah coming from between the cherubs, and so it’s called the testimony, because Yehovah is testifying to him. So we’ve got these two things that are in the presence of Yehovah, or in the presence of the Ark of Yehovah. So the mana being before Yehovah is understood, I think rightfully so, that it’s before the Ark, when the Ark is later made, or maybe it was even made at that time. So, yes, and your confusion comes from the book of Hebrews, is that right?

Keith: Well, no, my confusion is not only that I was in the desert with you, Nehemia.

Nehemia: Oh yes, that’s right.

Keith: We were in the desert and we went to Solomon’s copper mine...

Nehemia: I’ll post that photo, if I remember, on the page, we have a photo of it.

Keith: Thank you, that’d be awesome. So we were in the desert and we were at Solomon’s copper mine, which, by the way, we actually went into those places and saw the… just amazing. He could just pull up the picture.

Nehemia: I’m looking right here at the photo that I took when I was with you.

Keith: And we’re down there at Solomon’s copper mines for a couple of other reasons, but one of the things...

Nehemia: A place called Timna.

Keith: Yeah, Timna. We did go, there is a model of the Tabernacle. And so we went in there, and I was very thankful that you were willing to go with me. There’s a tour guide, and they tend to talk about it from the perspective, correct me if I’m wrong, as if you’re reading the Book of Hebrews.

Nehemia: Well, so it’s a very unusual thing because Timna is one of Israel’s national parks, but in the middle of the national park, there’s a separate place that you pay a separate entry fee to, and it’s run by Christian missionaries. That’s extremely unusual in Israel, that the State of Israel would give a platform for Christian missionaries. I don’t know of any other example of that anywhere in Israel, and the Christian missionary has set up this model of the Ark and they actually ask you a question when they’re going to give you the tour. They say, “Are you Jews or Christians?” And if you say you’re a Jew, they don’t, and I’ve done this actually, they don’t say a word about the New Testament or Jesus. That’s because they don’t want to… in Israel it is very sensitive missionizing to Jews. But if you say, “Oh, you know, I’m Christian or I’m Messianic” or something, and I know, because I’m not Christian and Messianic, but I’ve been with Christians and Messianics and then I hear the other side of the story, and then they present it and they’ll say, “here is the red in the Tabernacle, and that represents the blood of Christ, and here is the blue in the Tabernacle, and that represents the royal cloak of Jesus.” So, everything becomes a symbol for Jesus.

One of the things you see going into their model of the Tabernacle is they’ve got the Ark of the Covenant, obviously, it’s made of like styrofoam and gold paint, but whatever, it’s really nice. It’s got the two cherubim over it and you can slide it open and your face doesn’t melt like in the movie with Indiana Jones. You see inside are the two tablets of stone, and you see the rod of Aaron and the bowl of manna right there inside in the model of the Ark. You’ve got to wonder, do they even know this verse that we just read? Like we’ve just read a verse that says there was nothing in the Ark except the two tablets of stone, which Moses placed there at Horeb. They’re setting up a model and they’re basing it on Hebrews Chapter 9 verse 4, which says, “which had the golden censer and the Ark of the Covenant overlaid roundabout with gold wherein was the golden pot that had manna and Aaron’s rod that budded and the tables of the covenant, or the tablets of the covenant, the tablets of Stone.” So Hebrews 9:4, there are three things in there. At least according to the way it’s normally read. So yes, as opposed to the verse we just read in verse 9, which in 1 Kings 8:9, where there are only the two tablets of stone and not this rod of Aaron and the pot of manna, they have it “a golden pot…”

Keith: I think what’s interesting about it though is that, when you’re reading earlier and you hear about the budding staff of Aaron and the manna, you can quote unquote assume, when he says “before” they could just assume that that means that it was in.

Nehemia: So what you’re really saying - can we say it? If there’s someone who read the Torah and hadn’t read the Second Book of Kings, or sorry, the First Book of Kings, or the Book of Kings in Hebrew, they might think that the rod of Aaron and the bowl was in the Ark and not next to the Ark.

Keith: My confession is that before getting anywhere else and just reading through the first time, when I hear about that I’m thinking, is there an inconsistency? And I’m thinking during the moving there was a moving problem. Maybe when during Josiah, where they had confusion.

Nehemia: Seriously?

Keith: I’m telling you somebody lost the... somebody went in there and took it. Who knows what happened? So that was what was confusing for me was, what happened to it? At some point, it was physically next to the Ark, and then at some point...

Nehemia: They said, “Where do we put this? I’ll stick it in the box.” Is that what you’re trying to tell me? What? It could be. It’s possible that at the time that… And look, this is the type of explanation that apologists will come up with. They’ll say, “Yes, in the time that 1 Kings 8 was written, it was next to it, but later, when Josiah was renovating, they put it inside and Hebrews is referring to that later.” I’ve never heard that before, but it’s very clever.

I would offer a different explanation. Look, some people will take this and they’ll say, “All right, we’re going to use this. So we’re going to hit the Christians over the head with this and say the Book of Hebrews is full of lies.” This is what they’ll do. I want to offer another explanation, and it’s possible that the Book of Hebrews is wrong - as a Karaite Jew… if you want to say that, that’s fine, that’s entirely an acceptable explanation. For me it’s not Scripture, but I tend to think that the author of Hebrews wasn’t a complete idiot, and if that’s the case, I just want to… One of the things I always emphasize in reading Tanakh is to look at the context, and I think that it’s disingenuous to then when you talk to - I’m speaking to the Jews here - to go talk to a Christian and then ignore the context when looking at his book because it helps your argument. So let’s look, can we read Hebrews 9?

Keith: Please. Bevakasha.

Nehemia: Okay. Hebrews 9 verse 3. The other thing about Hebrews, just the overall context. This is my opinion. Don’t be offended by this, Christian people and Messianics. Hebrews presents itself as an allegory, and part of an allegory is not everything should be taken literally in an allegory. This is an allegory in the Torah - that Judah is a lion and he roars and he rips up his prey. I’m paraphrasing. I can’t then say, “Oh, well if Judah’s a lion, he’s actually a lion and he does everything a lion does. He goes and poops in the street like a lion.” Like, no, hold on. Let’s not push an allegory too far. Not every element fits in the allegory. Hebrews 9 verse 3 says, “After the second veil, the Tabernacle, which is called the holiest of all,” and it’s talking here about the Holy of Holies, the “Kodesh Kodashim.” Verse 4, “which had the golden censer and the Ark of the Covenant overlaid roundabout with gold, wherein was the golden pot that had manna and Aaron’s rod that budded and the tables of the Covenant, and over it the cherubims of gold shadowing the mercy seat of which we cannot now speak particularly.”

So in those three verses 9:3-4,5 in Hebrews there are two ways of reading it. One is that there was this Ark, and inside the Ark there were these three things, and that’s obviously how the Christian missionaries at Park Timnah in southern Israel set it up. Or, what I think probably they meant, is that there’s this thing, the Holiest of Holies, the “Dvir” and in the “Dvir” there are one, two, three, four, whatever, a bunch of things. There’s the golden censer - that’s a whole question about the golden censer. But anyway, inside this area is the Ark of the Covenant and the golden pot of mana and the rod of Aaron and the tables of the Covenant, the two tablets of stone. Not necessarily that they’re in the Ark, but that they’re in the holiest place in the Tabernacle.

Keith: What’s interesting about what you’re saying, Nehemia, is that the interpretation that I brought up as far as us seeing that inside the ark in Timnah, that’s them saying, “We’re going to take that further.” They’re not thinking of any other option. The option is, it’s got to be inside. It’s got to be inside the Ark.

Nehemia: Right. Yes. Anyway, and I don’t know which one it is. To me what’s important is verse 9, and what’s verse 9 about? Verse 9 is not about hitting Christians over the head. That’s not what it’s about. But actually, I think it is about hitting somebody over the head. Can I say that? And who is it about? When this was written by the prophet who wrote the book of Kings, what he wanted you to know is, that Ark of the Covenant, which we say is called by the name of Yehovah, it doesn’t have an idol in it, because they lived in a world of idolatry. The thought was, we’ve got this secret thing we’re not allowed to see. It’s inside, it’s in this secret hidden room. There must be a statue in there, because we can see this God has power, and we know that there’s power in statues and idols and images. The point was, guess what? There was no statue in there. The only thing in there were the two tablets of stone with the word of Yehovah on them and the commandments of Yehovah, and that’s the significance of it.

Keith: And I say what else do we need?

Nehemia: Amen!

Keith: In other words, I mean, I think that’s what’s so amazing, and I’ve been mesmerized by this for the last couple of years regarding the many theories that there have been about the Ark and all of that sort of thing. But what I think about when I read this verse is the power of the fact that God did create these two stones. What I mean by create, Moses cut them out. He put on there those 10 words, what you call the 10 matters and that word is still good today. I have no problem with it still having the Ark in that very same spot because of the testimony, and I think that even those other religions that argue, whether it’s Al-Aqsa or whatever, that many of them even know the significance of that place being a place where God has placed His name forever, and they understand forever being forever, and they’re fighting tooth and nail to make sure that no one else acknowledges that. So for me, it’s really been a long process, and it’s going to be a process that I’m going to stay in to try to help people understand the significance of this verse, Nehemia. Not only in this verse about what’s in the Ark, but the significance of a house being built for the Ark quote unquote for His name.

Nehemia: For the name of Yehovah.

Keith: For the name Yehovah. Yeah. So, and again, I think Scripture shows us that the Ark, which was called by the name, him saying, you know, being brought into the presence and what Solomon built and what it was built for. I have no problem with forever being forever that His name is still there. And as a result, you and I, whether we should I go there…

Nehemia: I would say, on the contrary, I have been a problem with forever not being forever. If forever isn’t forever, then what does it all mean?

Keith: I love it. All right, so it says here, it happened that when the priests came, basically this is what’s inside. It says, “It happened then when the priest came from the Dvir, or the holy place,” I’m sorry...

Nehemia: No this says “Min Hakodesh.”

Keith: The Min Hakodesh. I’m sorry.

Nehemia: So that’s the outer sanctuary. So we’ve got three sections. We’ve got the courtyard, the Holy and the Holy of Holies. The Dvir is the Holy of Holies. So this is the middle section, they came from the middle section. Why is that? Because only the high priest on Yom Kippur goes into the Holy of Holies.

Keith: “So that when he came from there, the cloud filled the House of Yehovah.”

Nehemia: Amen.

Keith: “So that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud.”

Nehemia: Wait a minute, wait a minute. Hold on. Were these priests Christians?

Keith: What are you talking about?

Nehemia: Because they’re in ministry. They’re ministering. No, we talked about that. I’ve had people say “Nehemia, you have a ministry, that means you're Christian.” Well, wait a minute. That’s actually the word in Hebrew. I explained that the Hebrew for ministry “lesharet bakodesh”, to serve, to minister in the holy, that’s exactly the word here in verse 11. “Lesharet”, to serve, to minister, that’s a correct translation, minister, and they’re ministering before the cloud; before Yehovah.

Keith: Yeah, before the glory of Yehovah filled the house. Then Solomon said these words, “Yehovah has said that He would dwell in the thick cloud.” Now I’m going to do something really quick here. When he says that Yehovah said that, I went through and I was just looking through, and I really apologize again to ask you to do this, Nehemia. I don’t have all my stuff with me. Half of it’s in my suitcase. But when he says, “Yehovah has said that He would dwell in the thick cloud.” I want to know if you’d be willing to let us know what that word is - thick cloud.

Nehemia: That could be the Word of the Week.

Keith: Awesome.

Nehemia: Yes. So the word there is “arafel.” Now, in modern Hebrew – this is important to know, we’ve got biblical Hebrew and modern Hebrew, and a lot of things changed, especially in the meaning of words and syntax and grammar. So in modern Hebrew, “arafel” means fog. Like regular fog, meteorological, like you’ll watch the weather report and it’ll say there’ll be “arafel”, fog. But in biblical Hebrew, “arafel” is roughly translated as thick darkness, and it’s a very unusual word.

So for example, Exodus 20 verse 21 is the Ten Commandments, and it says, “And the people stood from afar and Moses went forward to the arafel”. “Asher sham Elohim”, which there was God. So God was there in this arafel. What is this arafel? Deuteronomy chapter 4, verse 11, it says, “And you came close and you stood under the mountain and the mountain was burning with fire until the heart of heaven was dark and cloud and arafel”. So arafel is something specifically that we’re seeing in the context of the revelation at Sinai. Twice. Two witnesses with the revelation of Sinai.

Deuteronomy 5:22, “These things Yehovah spoke to all your congregation in the mountain from the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the arafel, a great voice,” et cetera. So we’ve got again, the Ten Commandments, arafel, and then it’s 2 Samuel 22:10, it says “And he stretched out heaven and he went down and there was arafel under his feet.” So here we’re having this - and I think we’ll get to that section too, 7:22. So we’ve got this vision of God and there’s arafel under His feet. He is standing on this arafel.

Then there’s David describing the appearance of God. And then again, we have it in Psalm 99 verse 2, where it says “Anan ve'arafel svivav”, “There’s cloud and arafel around Him.” It says, “Righteousness and judgment are the foundation of His throne.” So here it’s describing again, the vision of God sitting on a throne and He’s surrounded by a cloud and arafel. So much so that arafel in Jewish mystical writings has this mystical meaning. It’s like some supernatural, angelic force. I’m not saying that, but there’s definitely… this is a term that seems very closely tied in to describing this vision of God. There’s something up there in the heavenly court that has to do with arafel, and we’re seeing the glory of Yehovah, we’re seeing arafel, and that’s what happened here. Solomon sees the cloud and the cloud comes out and it covers everything. And he says, “Yehovah said to dwell on the arafel.”

Keith: Now tell us about the word. Why has it got four letters?

Nehemia: That’s a really good question. So one of the principles we said is that every word in the Hebrew language is based on three letters. There is a category of exceptions, and nobody really knows why. But the category of exceptions are words that end with Lamed. So we have a whole bunch of words. This is a complicated topic, but basically, it’s a root with four letters. We have carmel, we talked, I think last week, it was actually a couple hours ago guys. But last week in the program we talked about Mount Carmel, which is a four-letter word, Chaf-Resh-Mem-Lamed. Again, we’ve got that Lamed, which is almost like this extra letter, and in that case, we would have to say the root is Ayin-Resh-Pay. What does that mean? It actually means the back of the neck. Exactly. What happens when you add Lamed into the back of the neck? It means this thick darkness. Why that is, I couldn’t tell you. I don’t know that anybody could tell you, but we’ve got a bunch of words…

Keith: I’ve got a really deep explanation. I’m going to do a whole teaching on this.

Nehemia: Let’s hear it.

Keith: But you’ve got to pay for it.

Nehemia: Okay. Beseder.

Keith: I’m just kidding. When I was looking at this, Nehemia, one of the things that I was asking was I said, “There’s these four letters,” and I said, “Okay, so what’s the root? And looking at the issue of the neck,” and what kind of hit me was the placement also of where this Ark is. You know, some people talk about the parts of the body, talking about the parts of the body being representative of God’s heart. Not that God’s physical heart, God’s head, God’s neck, God’s shoulders, katef, where these things are.

It’s funny, I was doing some reading about that, and I thought, “Wow, what does it mean that this is dwelling in the place that’s like the name of the neck? What, what is physically there? The Ark is physically there. What does that physically represent? Like God’s word, God’s heart, God’s mind, what He's thinking about. You know, you can’t go too far, but I just thought about that and I thought, “I wonder what the connection is with the fact that there’s the neck and then, of course, this thick darkness.” So I don’t know what it is, but I did think that was kind of interesting.

Nehemia: I got no clue what you’re talking about. I’m too much of a literalist. Deeper teaching.

Keith: So anyway, it says this is where He’s going to dwell in the thick cloud. “I've surely built, for you a lofty,” and they use the word in English, “a lofty house, a place for your dwelling for just a couple thousand years.” No, it says, “for your dwelling forever.”

Nehemia: Until a new dispensation will come along. Forever?

Keith: Yeah, that’s what it says - forever.

Nehemia: So even now.

Keith: For even now. And that’s why I say, we talk about is His name being set there forever, physically, practically, spiritually, that His name is still there and people say, “Well, no, no, no, no. Because now you’ve got the foundation of that place with the Golden Temple,” and blah, blah, blah. You know, it's not there. I think, you know, we have to find out where it changed. Why is His name not there anymore? So...

Nehemia: Is there a verse for that?

Keith: There are many verses. If you could help me find it that would be great.

Nehemia: Yes right. I mean verses where it’s not forever.

Keith: No, the name is still there. So, it says here… and shall I continue to read here?

Nehemia: Please.

Keith: Okay. “Then the king faced about and blessed all the assembly of Israel while all of the assembly of Israel was standing. And he said, ‘Blessed be Yehovah the God of Israel who spoke with His mouth to my father, David, and has filled it with his hand, saying, Since the day that I brought my people, Israel from Egypt, I did not choose a city out of all the tribes of Israel in which to build a house that My name might be there. But I chose David to be over My people, Israel. Now it was in the heart of my father, David, to build a house for the name Yehovah the God of Israel.’” Again, connecting, building for the name. In other words, it’s not just like… how can I say it? It’s not like building a house and just putting physically Yud-Hey-Vav-Hey, the name there, but who He is, his essence of who He is, that this place would be built representing everything that He is, as we’re able to understand it. So yeah. Yup.

“You did not choose city halls for a house from it, but the LORD said to my father, ‘David, because it was in your heart to build a house for My name, you did well that it was in your heart. Nevertheless, you shall not build the house, but your son, who will be born to you, he will build the house for My name.’” Again, we see this over and over again, for My name, that’s being built for My name, the house for My name, the name.

Nehemia: Almost like the author of Kings is just, you know, he’s one of these sacred namers. He’s obsessed with the name. Why does he have to keep talking about this name? This is causing division.

Keith: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that’s what He says.

Nehemia: I mean it’s interested I counted here off the top of my head I have one, two, three, four, five, five different times or four times it talks about, “For My name to be there,” “To build a house for the name of Yehovah,” “He will build a house for My name,” “The House for the name of Yehovah.” I mean, it’s four times there. I mean, how many times is this? Over and over and over again…

In verse 20, it says, “He established His word, which He spoke and I rose up in place of David, my father, and I sat upon the throne of Israel, as Yehovah spoke, and I built a house for the name of Yehovah, the God of Israel. And I made there a place for the Ark,” “asher sham brit Yehovah”, “which there was the covenant to be Yehovah,” referring to the tablets of stone, which He made with our fathers when He took us out from the land of Egypt. And that is the end of the Prophets portion.

Keith: Before we continue, I want to do a Ministry Minute here. Because I’m sitting here, Nehemia, and I’m reading this passage, and it sits as a… kind of emotional for me because I remember all those years ago to be sitting across from the place where He caused His name to dwell. And me asking you the question about if you knew anything about the name Yehovah, and you asked if I had a piece of paper and pencil. As a result of that one question and that answer, led me on the entire journey also to below the Temple where I saw those huge stones. And that’s where the vision for BFA came. The idea of having a biblical foundation for your faith. So, as a result of that, we talk about sharing the information about God’s time, God’s Torah, God’s Tetragrammaton, His name. But again, when I think about the fact that He placed His name there and I’m sitting across… and I don’t even know this at the time, by the way, because my background says it’s not important what's happening with the Temple Mount, who cares about that? That’s where the Islam...

Nehemia: In other words, we’re sitting across from the Temple Mount, and to you that’s just some archaeological site.

Keith: What are you talking about? There’s some wall where some people are praying, I don’t know anything about it. I don’t know anything about what the significance of that is until I open the Bible and start reading it in its language, history, and context. Come to find out when I’m across from that place asking you that question, I’m literally across from the place where His name is placed. Since then it’s been mesmerizing to me, and so much of the ministry has been built around helping people encounter God’s time, God’s Torah and God’s name.

But all of these things give you a chance to really interact with Scripture. And again, from my perspective, I’m looking at this and I’m saying, what does that have to do with me? Come to find out, it’s got everything to do… Solomon, after he builds the Temple - I know we’re not talking about this section - he talked about me coming! The foreigner who would come and pray toward that place and that the Father would hear my prayer and answer it. I mean, I just have to tell you - for me I’m sitting here today, I’m humbled to be here today, but the fact is that we’re opening up the word of God and we’re talking about it, we're sharing it and it all came from this encounter, literally being across from that place.

Nehemia: Look you just brought that up. You can’t just throw that out there. So what we didn’t get to in the Prophets portion because it’s not in the portion is the Prayer of Solomon. The Prayer of Solomon is a few verses later. Verse 41, it says, “Vegam el anochi asher lo me’amcha Yisrael” “and also to the gentile,” that’s the word that specifically is gentile “who is not from your people Israel. And he shall come from a far-off land”, “Lama’an shemecha”, “for the sake of Your name. For they will hear Your great name and Your mighty hand and Your outstretched arm, and he will come to pray to this house.” You will hear, “ata tishma shamayim achon shiftecha” “you’ll hear from the heavens, the place of your dwelling,” et cetera, “and do all according to that which the gentile shall call to You in order that all the nations of the Earth will know Your name.” So according to Scripture, all the nations need to know Your name and You’ll answer their prayer when they pray in Your name. Wow.

Keith: And this is why my brother…

Nehemia: You wanted to skip this?

Keith: No, no, not skip it. This is why I’m talking about it. What I’m saying is this is why my friend…

Nehemia: And it says, “To fear you like your people Israel and to know that Your name is called upon this house, which I have built.” Can I get an amen, hallelujah?!

Keith: And that’s why my friend if I’m here in Jerusalem, I said while I’m working, there’s one guy I know I have to see. It’s my friend Yehuda Glick, who says that that place is still a place for prayer for all people, and it becomes the place where they say that’s the one thing you must not do. I must not pray there, he must not pray there, you must not pray there, no one can pray there except for the ones that are up there under the present authority of the Jordanian Waqf. Those are the only people that can pray. And I’m supposed to just sit by and not say anything about it? I’m going to say something about it.

Nehemia: Can’t you go there and just pray in the name of Allah? No, why do you have to use the name of this Hebrew God?

Keith: Here we go. I mean, so basically all I’m saying is this is really significant. I cannot keep quiet about it. His name is there today, and of course, you brought up a really touchy thing. You said, you know, we’ve changed the name - instead of it being Beit YehovahBeit HaMikdash.

Nehemia: It’s so holy we can’t even say what it’s holy about.

Keith: So for me, this is really a big deal. And again, I want to tell people I think that there’s an opportunity for us to peel open the word of God, like we’re doing, and find out what it says first. Understand what it says before we get to interpretation, whether it’s inside the Ark, outside the Ark, little gold plates or no gold plates. What does it say first?

Nehemia: Gold plates? That’s from Mormonism, what are you talking about?

Keith: No, no, the little gold thing that we saw in Timnah, they had the little gold censers.

Nehemia: It’s the stone plate and the gold bowl. Not gold plates!

Keith: Oh, okay. I’m sorry folks. Look, it’s been a long trip. But anyway, that’s all I have to say, is this is an amazing thing to have all these years later. We're still teaching the word of God and giving people a chance to interact with it for themselves.

Nehemia: This is really what reading verses like we just read here, and I know it’s not in the Prophets portion, but we just read these three verses – 1 Kings 8:41 to 43, where it’s talking about the gentile coming. And then, my ministry, Makor Hebrew Foundation, what I want to do is empower people with information. For me the image is the wall that Nehemiah built; I’m named after Nehemiah, and he came to build the wall and one person said to me, “Oh wow, that’s to create divisions between us.” No, on the contrary, you know, what I think of with the wall, and I think of the story of Nehemiah. It wasn’t to create division. It was so you could defend yourself and then you can stand up proud and interact with your fellow. But first you’ve got to have that wall, you’ve got to build the wall and have your structure. The image there is, they’re standing on the wall and they’ve got the guys with the shofars, because the enemies are coming, and they’re building with one hand and they’ve got the weapon in the other to defend themselves.

I want to empower the people with information, and one of the major criticisms I face on a regular basis, sometimes daily, is, “What are you doing with these gentiles? What are you doing with people who don’t think like you, who don’t believe like you, they're not in the box that we want to put you in?” What I say is I am walking out this fulfillment of scripture. It’s talking here about people who will come and they’ll grab hold of the Jew and they’ll say, “We’ve heard God’s with you.” Then it says, of course, in the prophet, “And he will push them away and say, ‘go and go through the process of conversion.’” No, it doesn’t say that. It doesn’t say that we’ve got to make them jump through these hoops. It’s not what it’s about.

What I’m dealing with are people who are having a walk with God and they need information, and they’ve heard that God is with us, and we’ve preserved the oracles of God and it’s our duty as Israel to share that information with them. That's what Makor Hebrew Foundation is about, getting people back to the sources, empowering them with that information so they can have that walk of God and own that information for themselves, and they can build the wall themselves.

So that’s what I do on my website, Nehemiaswall.com, I’ve got a weekly newsletter where I send out information of all kinds, information about the calendar, information about new teachings. I want to encourage people to go to Nehemiaswall.com and sign up for the free newsletter, and don’t forget to sign up for the Nehemia’s wall podcast. You can do that on iTunes or your favorite podcast app and get the teachings that are coming out and empower yourself with the information. That’s what it’s really about.

Keith: Awesome. Well, I’m actually going to pray at the end of this. But you know, it’s really interesting, Nehemia, we wrote a book together called A Prayer to Our Father: Hebrew Origins of the Lord's Prayer, and where we got a lot of controversy before we started writing that book, people said to me, “How can you write about such a significant prayer from such a significant person with a person who doesn't believe and think and act like you?” And you had people also come and say to you, “How can you be working with this guy?”

I think everybody would agree. I know that this has been for me - my appreciation for what I didn’t know, in terms of language, history, and context, has just gone to a completely different level. The fact that I can actually open up those words and think about that prayer in its original language, history and context, and how it’s connected to what we just wrote, what we’re studying in the Torah, studying in the Prophets. Like this stuff now is like, I don’t even know how to put it. It’s like multilevel dimensions of excitement that I have now, and I want people to have access to that information. And you know what? It’s a really sad thing. A lot of times the people that I’ve dealt with in the past, they have some of the inspiration, but they don’t want to deal with the information. The information isn’t as, how can I use the word?

Nehemia: Inspirational?

Keith: I caught up with it, but we’re going to do some things. I want to announce some things hopefully in the next couple of weeks, Nehemia, from Israel, that are going to be helpful for people in this. So I want to say a prayer. Is there anything else you’d like to say before we close?

Nehemia: Wonderful. I’m so excited, because you just got on a plane less than 24 hours ago… you just got off a plane less than 24 hours ago, landing here in the land of Israel. You are now in the city of Jerusalem, and you’re going to actually fulfill a prophecy that was spoken by Solomon in his prayer, what is it now? 3,000 years ago. You’re actually 3,000 years later going to pray in the name of Yehovah in this land, in this place, just like he spoke. I’ve got chills! I’m excited by this!

Keith: Amen. Father thank you so much for an opportunity. Yehovah, we give you praise, glory, and honor for the way that You’ve worked out circumstances, the way that You’ve been maestro, once again, that You brought us into this place. We didn’t have any idea that we would be in the land of the Prophets recording this. You knew before we even had any concept of it. Now we’re here. So in humility, thank You for the fact that we can look toward that place where You placed Your name. We can pray toward that place not to make it as something that’s not of You, but rather something that reminds us of just who You are. Yehovah, You were, You are, and You shall be in our life. Now as we lift our hands and our hearts towards You, we just ask that You would intervene on behalf of those that are listening, that all of us who desire to understand Your word better in its original language, history, and context so that we can know what it means to live Your word out, to love You with our entire heart, soul, and our mind, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. So bless us, protect us and keep us, and we’ll continue to give You all the praise, glory and honor Yehovah, in Your name, amen.

Nehemia: Amen.

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

We hope the above transcript has proven to be a helpful resource in your study. While much effort has been taken to provide you with this transcript, it should be noted that the text has not been reviewed by the speakers and its accuracy cannot be guaranteed. If you would like to support our efforts to transcribe the teachings on NehemiasWall.com, please visit our support page. All donations are tax-deductible (501c3) and help us empower people around the world with the Hebrew sources of their faith!

SUPPORT NEHEMIA'S RESEARCH AND TEACHINGS!
Makor Hebrew Foundation is a 501c3 tax-deductible not for profit organization.

Subscribe to "Nehemia Gordon" on your favorite podcast app!
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | 
Amazon Music
 | TuneIn
Pocket Casts | Podcast Addict | CastBox | iHeartRadio | Podchaser
 | Pandora

Share this Teaching on Social Media
Related Posts: Torah Pearls - Vayakhel (Exodus 35:1-38:20) Torah Pearls - Pekudei (Exodus 38:21-40:38) Torah and Prophet Pearls Hebrew Voices Episodes Support Team Studies Nehemia Gordon's Teachings on the Name of God

This original art was created by 12 year old Laine Forrest for this week's episode of Prophet Pearls.

Prophet Pearls Vayakhel Pekudei, 1 Kings, arafel, thick darkness, araphel, Beit HaMikdash, haftarah, hiram, Parsha, prophets, portion, torah, solomon’s temple, Yehovah, Vayakhel, Pekudei

  • David Pollina says:

    Dude… that PICTURE!!! Lolol. Straight out of the fake history Non Testament book of ‘Hebrews’. The rod and jar were NOT in the Ark, but in front of it!

  • donald murphy says:

    R we to keep Purim???

  • Miri says:

    Hebrews7:12. Paul, the liar, says the law has changed!

  • Ronn Lee DeLemos says:

    Jerusalem becoming the Arkof covenant ! What a wonderful picture as I gain a clearer understanding of “the new Jerusalem”
    Mentioned in revelation 3:7-13!

  • Zacariah Rosa says:

    Am so thankful for this lesson. Keep doing what you are doing. Am from Belize Central America. Thanks. Very much. Yehovah blessing on you both. Aman

  • Juan says:

    Sorry but I could not find “Arafel” on Psalm 99 . Could you tell what is the right Psalm ?

  • Alan Corrie says:

    Nehemiah, you keep dismissing the “so-called Temple Mount = Fortress Antonia proposal”. Have you taken the time to study the actual research of 1. Marilyn Sams; 2. Ernest Martin; 3. George Wesley Buchanan ? Some of it is free-to-read online. I’d be happy to provide a comprehensive list of “sources” (from books; academia.edu etc.). Alan

  • Mark Cimini says:

    1 Kings 7:51-8:21
    links to
    1 Kings 7:40-8:21

  • Mark Cimini says:

    Thought: “because you are a warrior and have shed blood” Strike one: warrior. Strike two: shed Uriah’s blood.

  • don murphy says:

    why equate the so called new testament with actual scripture the so called old testament?

  • Rob says:

    Hi my name is Rob, I’ve just discovered your wonderful work and site, I’m fascinated about the real yeshua and his real message and also how to worship our father Yahovah, I believe that the kjv gas the fathers hand all through it. I would like and I intend to learn ancient Hebrew, so that I can speak to Yahovah in his own language. I am a complete beginner and my eyes have been opened wide by your amazing work. Can you help me?
    Love and blessings to you in Yahovahs name!!

    • Reyes Nava says:

      Rob,
      Blessed be Yehovah, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who has lead you to this website. Here you are welcome to learn by having a civil discourse and exchange of ideas to promote growth and insight, regardless of the subject matter.

      And where there are disagreements you will find that the search for common ground is of upmost importance and of great benefit to this path that the Almighty God and our Heavenly Father has brought before you.

      You will discover that Nehemiah will help you on your journey by revealing things and places that you never new even existed.

  • Frank W. LeTullier says:

    I agree with you that the manna and rod were in the most holy place and not in the ark. Let’s be real how is an object say 6.1/2 feet long going to fit in the ark chest that is like 3 ft square.

  • auntganny says:

    Not sure if I am misunderstanding something, but Hebrews 9:1 doesn’t appear to be referring to Solomon’s Temple but to a tent which was first used in the wilderness. In fact, I can’t find the Greek word for ‘temple’ anywhere in Hebrews. So is not the writer of Hebrews entirely accurate in what he said?

    Hebrews 9:1 The Greek word for tabernacle is ‘skene’, which means a tent or cloth hut. The same word is used also in Hebrews 11:9 that speaks of what Isaac and Jacob lived in. We know that Isaac and Jacob did not live in a building of stone of such as Solomon’s temple was built.

    But in this tent in the wilderness, Ex 16:33, there was a jar with an omer of manna in it, placed before Yehovah / the testimony which was in the ark to be kept…in the most Holy place…and the author seems to be well versed in his understanding of the first tabernacle?

    Someone please correct me if I am not seeing something correctly. : ) Thanks!

    • auntganny says:

      Nehemia,
      Again, I am so blessed by the opening up of the scriptures, and by the perspectives that you lay out for us. But I have a problem with one thing….

      How can Hebrews be an allegory when there are no words in Hebrews that indicate that the book is an allegory? Generally when Yehovah/Yeshua or an apostle is writing, they make it clear that what they are saying is an allegory, a parable, or they use comparison terms such as the words “like,” etc. I love your teaching, but it is of great concern when we take something that is from Yehovah, and call it an allegory and that we can’t believe every word of it as written. That reasoning is to me as slippery a bit of ground as the Rabbincal laws are. If Yehovah presents it as a fact, we need to accept it as a fact.. and it is a fact,either in the realm of Heaven or the realm of Earth. Yehovah doesn’t play games with us. Every word He has spoken can be trusted.
      As for the Lion of Judah, is that not speaking of Messiah? I see where the context of the scriptures say that Judah is LIKE a lion or a Lion’s whelp/cub, but would like to see references where it says that Judah IS a Lion and doesn’t have a comparison term somewhere in the context. Every description of what this Lion is like will be in scripture, and we should not add to it to bring the term into question….don’t you think?
      But the strongest thought for me is…if we bring one part of the scriptures into question, then what can we trust? If the Canaanites named those months, they still were not the ones that wrote it into our scriptures. Instead, Yehovah used their term for a reason, and whatever He does, we can trust and try to understand why…but we cannot negate it. The Canaanites had nothing to do with writing our Scriptures. Proverbs 30:5-6

      Thanks again for all the hard work and study you are doing!

    • donald murphy says:

      Christianity.

  • Jonathan says:

    The subject in Hebrews is the Holy place….Nehemiah… your second explanation of Sauls writing is how I take it. Not that the items were in the Ark but in the Most Holy. Paul more than anyone alive knew better and knew
    2 Kings

  • Dagny Beck says:

    Thank you both so much for all your hard work. You two are so different and so similar you bring out the best in each other and I believe cause you each to think about things in ways you might not otherwise have thought and we listening are blessed by what you learn between you. I just can’t think of anywhere else this is possible. I am grateful to have found you guys.

  • Alex Dillon says:

    I was pushing past an Old Testament reading by end of March and just stopped here fascinated by how Solomon prayed so long ago for me and the whole world to come by and give a pray repenting and turning back to the face of Yehovah to receive his forgiveness and blessings. The prayer, the feast, the clouds and the offerings all so much, it’s beyond comprehension. the scene amazes me and really looks like a future to revisit when the Lord returns.

  • Ezracha Bat Ephrayim says:

    Nehemia,
    It was so nice to hear you mention Hebrews 9:3-5. I had been thinking on these the whole while, and was about to post those same verses here, then you mentioned it!

    I didn’t remember that this was previously mentioned many years prior in Jer. 3:1-17. Thank you for showing me that pearl.

  • Josh says:

    I’d love your perspective on this – Did God ever actually desire that a temple be built to replace the Tabernacle or did he just accept it as a concession?

    God decreed the building of the Tabernacle, but the idea to build a temple was David’s. In I Chronicles 17 (and I Sam 7) we hear the very words of God stopping David from building the temple and declaring “did I ever say to any of their leaders whom I commanded to shepherd my people, ‘Why have you not built me a house of cedar?’” and then he goes on to say that a Son of David would “build a house for me, and I will establish his throne forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son” which sounds pretty messianic (and not Solomon-istic). Then in I Chronicles 22:8-13 David says he was told by God that his Son should build a temple. Is this to be understood that God elaborated to David in an unrecorded conversation or that David misunderstood the message from Nathan?

    In either case, God obviously blessed the building of the temple and did dwell there and receive sacrifice – but its not clear that it was God’s intention to move out of the Tabernacle until the Messiah built a House for God to dwell in.

    Bonus Question:
    What are the implications that the “Very Words of God” are quoted differently in I Chronicles 17:3-15 and I Samuel 7:4-17?

    • MaryAnne says:

      I always thought 1 Chronicles 17:12-14 was talking about Solomon.. but it’s clear that He was talking about Christ aka Messiah. And I didn’t catch your drift on the quote comparisons you mentioned?

  • Erick Taylor says:

    Is there anyone who can recommend how to celebrate passover in TX? I know its off topic.

  • Ed says:

    Nehemiah, I’m not sure if You read these comments but just in case I do have a question:
    Is the word araphel ever found in Your study of Shem Tov’s Matthew Gospel?

  • Are there any surviving documents that go into more detail about David preparing temple ceremonies and rituals? Are the rituals known today at all likely the same ones that David prepared?

  • Jim says:

    Fantastic! I’ve always been drawn to the Tabernacle and the Temple for some reason……It’s been the center of many studies for me. I greatly appreciate the time that you and Keith are taking to do these for us who do not have access to this type of information in any other way.

    May y’all be blessed! (Yeah, I’m from the south Nehemiah! LOL!)

  • Eric says:

    Thank you NG for this we. Site it blesses my family every week! Shalom!

  • Karen Powell says:

    Paul is writing about and indicating to possibly an earlier time mentioning back to the time of the Sanctuary/Tabernacle. Most likely at the time of the real life Aaron. Not at the time of Solomon’s or the following Temple. Paul seems to be indicating multiple items to remind people of elements in the tabernacle of significance. Aaron was an Almond branch(a righteous branch(Abstraction)that bloomed.(lLt’s be honest where ever Aaron went he parked the physical rod somewhere in or near the tabernacle. It was a reminder to the people who YHVH had picked over everyone else.(It was his scepture of authority). Tables and censures would not be in the ark either that was carried. Paul is giving or mentioning these elements to remind people.