Prophet Pearls #8 – Vayishlach (Obadiah 1:1-21)

The Edomite City of Petra, Prophet Pearls Vayishlach, Obadiah, day of the lord, edom, edomites, haftarah, Keith Johnson, measure for measure, mount zion, negev, nehemia gordon, obadiah, parashah, Parsha, parshas, parshat, petra, Temple Mount, Tetragrammaton, Vayishlach, yom YehovahIn this episode of Prophet Pearls, Vayishlach (Obadiah 1:1-21), the single-chapter vision of Obadiah, Nehemia Gordon and Keith Johnson bring volumes of insight. We learn how the eschatological views of preterism, historicism and futurism apply to this Portion. We also learn that Obadiah’s identity has been determined by a rabbinical method of interpretation known as “make-it-up.”  Word studies include:  “hamas,” “Sepharad,”  “yom Yehovah,” “Edom,” “measure for measure,” and “drinking from the cup.” While we are warned by the sins of Edom, we are encouraged by Gordon’s eye-witness account of prophecy fulfilled in the Negev. And we look forward to the day when saviors ascend Mount Zion and the kingdom is Yehovah’s.

"I will destroy the wise out of Edom... and you shall be cut off forever." (Obadiah 1:8, 10) Download Prophet Pearls Vayishlach Transcript

Prophet Pearls #8 - Vayishlach (Obadiah 1:1-21)

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: Shalom haverim shelanu. You all know what that means. Because if you don’t, that means you haven’t been listening. But if you have, you know that means “peace to you our friends” in Hebrew. This is Keith Johnson with Nehemia Gordon ready to take another peek into the Prophets to see if we can find even some more pearls to share with you. Shalom chaver sheli, ata muchan? Are you ready?

Nehemia: Ani muchan. Shalom Keith, good to be with you.

Keith: It’s good to be with you. Can you believe it? We’re still together.

Nehemia: Yes, we are physically, even though when this airs you’re going to be on the other side of the world and I’ll be wandering throughout the world.

Keith: Folks, you should know that. That’s true. Nehemia doesn’t know, literally right now…

Nehemia: I have no clue where I’m going to be when this is broadcast. Not even what state. I will probably be in the U.S.

Keith: Oh, that’s awesome. Well, we hope so. Because we’re going to need to be recording. But you know, the nice thing about technology today is that we’re able to record from anywhere in the world if we have access to internet, which isn’t always the case, as we found out.

Nehemia: Tell me about it.

Keith: So one of the reasons that we’re recording ahead is that because of our locations, which some are unknown and some are still to be determined, we want to get as many of these recorded. We’ve decided to do it in integrity, spend the time in research, spending time in prayer, spend the time in discussion and then get right into it. So that’s what we’re doing with this particular… And we have the shortest book in all of the Tanakh, Nehemia, we’re about to do.

Nehemia: This is the only time we’re going to do in Prophet Pearls, an entire book of the Tanakh.

Keith: We’re doing an entire book for those who don’t know.

Nehemia: And just to remind people, you have these traditional Prophet portions as we’ve said before, and they correspond to Torah portions. Now the Torah portions cover the entire Torah over a period of 54 weeks. The Prophet portions don’t cover the entire section of the Prophets. They only cover something like 12% of the Prophets. That’s simply because the idea in the synagogue was to read something that corresponded to the Torah portion during times of persecution when they couldn’t read the Torah. And here we are reading a section that corresponds to a Torah portion.

Keith: Okay. And so why don’t you do this? Since last week, you clearly… I mean, I tried my best to tell you what it said in the NIV and you pushed us on what the English translation is. What’s the Hebrew translation of the name of this book?

Nehemia: Ovadia.

Keith: Ovadia, yes. So it’s called Obadiah.

Nehemia: Obadiah!

Keith: Obadiah all you Texans out there.

Nehemia: Obadiah means “eved Yah”, the servant of Yah.

Keith: Amen. It’s really interesting, Nehemia, as I was reading, whenever I’m reminded of his name, reading from that context, that he’s basically a servant. And again, the first word that comes up that I actually like, that we talked about a few weeks ago if you remember, it’s the vision of Obadiah. Yeah. And so when we say the vision of Obadiah, Ovadia, it reminded me of the actual word, the khazon, which we did mention before. And we find that throughout the Tanakh. But it isn’t only the idea of the vision, meaning like I saw something if it’s fair to say. This, what would be a deeper, or maybe a wider definition of the word?

Nehemia: Vision is what we would call in English “prophecy”. And we get this image in Jeremiah where he’s speaking to the false prophets and challenging them. He says, “Who among you has stood in the council of Yehovah? Let him make known what he has heard.” And the idea there is that - and we see this with Michaihu or Micaya in Kings. What the prophets would do is, or many of the prophets, is they would have this experience where they would be standing in the throne room hearing Yehovah speaking to the angels, and that’s what they were reporting in their prophecies. When they were saying, “Thus says Yehovah”, that’s what they heard. They overheard these things being spoken by Yehovah to His… the host of heaven.

Keith: And it’s just amazing.

Nehemia: And so this vision - he saw it.

Keith: Yeah. And again, and what he saw is the next thing. I wanted to stop right here, right in the beginning, because this is something that’s connected to something that you and I’ve talked a lot about. It says this is what… And now, normally we’re going to… Let me just see... It says, “This is what the sovereign Lord says about...”

Nehemia: The sovereign Lord?

Keith: It says the sovereign Lord. So I want us to stop. What I appreciate about the phrase is it makes me stop and say, “Okay, so what does the word sovereign mean in English?” So when I go behind the word sovereign, I see the word Adonai. Now, here’s what threw me off when I first started looking at this information of God’s name and why is His name is oftentimes substituted with the title Adonai. There are times in the Tanakh where he is referred to as Adonai.

Nehemia: Yes, about 300.

Keith: 292 to be exact.

Nehemia: Is that what it is?

Keith: I think it’s 291 you can check for yourself. But what’s interesting about it is that the English says “sovereign Lord”, and of course of the next word in English is capital L-O-R-D. But when you look in the Hebrew, it is Adonai and then Yud-Hey-Vav-Hey. So what we have is sovereign Lord, and I’m still trying to figure out…

Nehemia: Now you’ve challenged me and told me to check… so it’s actually 444.

Keith: No, I mean exactly.

Nehemia: Yeah. 444 places where it says, Adonai referring to Yehovah, but then in 134 of those places it actually has the name Yehovah adjacent to Adonai. So Adonai by itself without Yud-Hey-Vav-Hey is 310 times. But we happen to know that one of those is a mistake in the Leningrad Codex, which is the basis of this computer program, so really, really it’s 309.

Keith: Well do me a favor, go back Nehemia and look at the exact connection: Adonai Yud-Hey-Vav-Hey those two within one word, not… obviously connected to others.

Nehemia: So there’s 301 where you have, Adonai Yehovah and then Yehovah Adonai you have a few times too, you have six times. So all together there are 307.

Keith: So very, very close. So we have this, but here’s my question. When they decided to say Adonai is sovereign, for you, imagine you’re on the...

Nehemia: So I take that back. There’s 134 times it has Adonai by itself. That’s what it is.

Keith: Right? Okay.

Nehemia: We got that backwards.

Keith: It’s no problem. We’re good.

Nehemia: So it’s in 291 verses, that’s what you’re...

Keith: That’s what I was saying. 291 verses.

Nehemia: But then sometimes it appears more than once in the same verse, that phrase Adonai Yehovah.

Keith: We work through it and we come to find out we’re alright. Anyway, but when they said… Now, it’s interesting...

Nehemia: So why does yours think it’s “sovereign Lord”?

Keith: I want to say something. What it says in the English, my English NASB, it says L-O-R-D and it’s not capital LORD. What they do is they say, “Thus sayeth Lord says the Lord” and then they say God with a little note. So then God, because it’s connected to Adonai, is the four-letter name Yud-Hey-Vav-Hey. So if you don’t actually know what’s going on, you could really get confused. I mean if you really are just reading it in the English it says, “Thus sayeth L-O-R-D, little o-r-d and then big G with capital O-D”. But again, looking at the Hebrew text we see Adonai is for the sovereign or Lord. And then Yehovah is...

Nehemia: So let me just make that really clear to people. Whenever it says Yud-Hey Vav-Hey Yehovah in the Hebrew text, 6,827 times, that is read in Jewish tradition as Adonai. Except in these approximately 307 places where the word Adonai already appears. And so what the tradition says is, “We’re not going to say Adonai Adonai twice. When one of those is an authentic Adonai and one is a Yud-Hey-Vav-Hey we’re going to say Adonai Elohim.” That’s where it gets a little confusing…

Keith: And Elohim, for those who don’t know…

Nehemia: …is God. That’s why they have in your NASB and in accordance with this Jewish tradition, Lord GOD, the God is in capital letters this time, not the Lord. Lord is regular, Adonai.

Keith: So it says, “Thus sayeth Yud-Hey-Vav-Hey, Adonai Yehovah concerting Edom.”

Nehemia: Wait, so we’ve got to talk about this character, Ovadia. Who is this guy? Mi zeh?

Keith: Ovadia. Mi zeh? He’s a servant of Yah.

Nehemia: Well so think about it. Many of the other prophets, and I can’t say all, but most of the other prophets, it will give some kind of little introduction, which tells you who he is. Let’s just really quick look at Isaiah chapter 1, and it says, “The vision of Isaiah, the son of Amotz, who saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah and Ahaz and Hezekiahu.” Then last, was it last week… last week we were talking about the northern prophet Hoshea, and it says “The word of Yehovah that was to Hoshea the son of Be’er in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and the days of Yerobam the son of Jehoash king of Israel.” So it’s telling us during the reign of which kings he’s speaking, but what about Ovadia? When did he live?

Keith: Off the top of my head or from reading?

Nehemia: From reading, what do you know?

Keith: Was it 850, 900?

Nehemia: Well, the answer is we don’t know.

Keith: Not 100 percent sure.

Nehemia: So Jewish tradition connects this Ovadia with a man in the book of Kings who’s referred to as Ovadia. Specifically, he’s mentioned in, for example, in 1 Kings chapter 18 verse 3, and it says, “And Ahab had summoned Obadiah, the steward of the palace. Obadiah revered Yehovah greatly.” And this is typical of Rabbinical literature, what they’ll try to do is they’ll try to connect a known character with an unknown character. For example, we have a very famous ancestor named Shem. He’s the founder of the Shemites, and what they’ll do is they’ll take a character who’s unknown, like Melkizedek, who is this Melkizedek? We never heard of this guy. And they’ll say, “Oh, Melkizedek is Shem.”

Keith: You’re making that up right, they don’t do that?

Nehemia: No, they do. They’ll take Sarah, the foremother of Israel, and they’ll take this woman named Yiska who we don’t know who that is - Jessica in English - and they’ll say, “Oh, Sarah’s Yiska,” even though it’s a different name and there’s no indication...

Keith: And you’re saying that this comes from the...?

Nehemia: This is actually a method of Rabbinical interpretation. What they’ll do is they’ll take the known character and the unknown character and they’ll combine them. That’s because they’re not comfortable admitting that there’s a character they don’t know something about. One of my almost ridiculous examples that I love is… people have asked me, “Where does this come from?” The answer is that they just make this stuff up. And one example is Deborah, who is the prophetess, and she has a general named Barak. Now it says, Deborah is the wife of a man named Lapidot. And the rabbis are really nervous about this. There’s this woman and she’s telling a man what to do? She has a husband who we don’t know who that is? So they say, “Oh, Lapidot is just Barak.” But wait a minute, he’s not called Barak, he’s called Lapidot.

Keith: Wait, are you telling me, Nehemia, there are times that even if you’re a rabbi, if you’ve got that rabbi title before your name, there are situations where there would be something that wouldn’t… I mean, I have to be honest with you there are some people who would say, “Well, because the rabbis say, or because of the version that the rabbis read that means that automatically, it’s legitimate.” You’re saying there are times that the rabbis are wrong?

Nehemia: Well, there are times they just make stuff up and it has no basis in reality. What I love about this example of Obadiah, is that this man who is a steward of the house - he’s some government official, which doesn’t really even fit our prophets’ profile. Let me read you the rest of the passage. Here’s the verse. Yes, it’s 1 Kings 18:3. It starts, “Ahab summoned Obadiah, the steward of the palace. Obadiah revered Yehovah greatly. When Jezebel was killing off the prophets of Yehovah, Obadiah had taken 100 prophets and hidden them 50 to a cave and provided them with food and drink. And Ahab had said to Obadiah, ‘Go through the land to all the springs of water and to all the wadis. Perhaps we shall find some grass to keep horses and mules alive so that we are not left without beasts.’” et cetera, et cetera. Verse 7, “Obadiah was on the road when Elijah suddenly confronted him. Obadiah recognized him and flung himself in his face, saying, ‘Is that you, my Lord Elijah?’ Obadiah went to find Ahab…”

So then they have this encounter and Elijah says, “You have to go tell your King that Elijah is here.” Obadiah responds, “What wrong have I done that you should hand your servant over to Ahab to be killed? As Yehovah, your God lives there is no nation or kingdom,” et cetera. Basically, he says, “Wait a minute, if I go tell Ahab that Elijah’s appeared to me, you’re going to disappear and Ahab is going to kill me.”

Now how could this possibly be the prophet? The prophet is… it doesn’t even make sense. This prophet is like, not knowing what Yehovah has planned with Elijah, and he’s hiding prophets. Well, why didn’t Jezabel kill him? That doesn’t even make sense if he was a prophet. Here’s the point, the rabbis just make stuff up.

Now, what I love about this example is Ibn Ezra, who was a Rabbi in the 13th century, and a lot of these traditions come from what we might call “early rabbis”, meaning the Rabbinical movement started around 200 BC and the Talmud was completed around 500 AD. So in that 700 year period, they make a lot of stuff up, and that’s considered the ancient period of the rabbis. Well, this later rabbi, Ibn Ezra, in around the 13th century, he comes along and he says, “You know, what that Rabbi said - come on, that’s ridiculous. They just, you know, that’s no basis for that.” He didn’t say “ridiculous’, he was more respectful than me, perhaps.

But he says, “Look, there’s no reason to think that the Obadiah in Kings has anything to do with Obadiah who was a prophet. They obviously didn’t even live in the same period because what Obadiah is talking about here is the destruction of the Temple and the end of Judea, which the Edomites were part of. So how could he be at the time of Ahab, in like 850 BC? That’s like 200 years, you know, or more before it happens. That doesn’t even make sense.” So this is the cute little thing they like to do, is take Melkizedek and say that’s Shem but that just distorts the text. It creates these anachronisms.

Keith: Is it fair to say, and I give respect to those that study the teachers - you know, the preachers, the pastors, they’re trying to find out how to teach the people. But I think the key to that for me, anyway, is study the Scriptures for yourself and be able to find out, as you’re able, to find out with the tools that you have, to find out what it means. And you can compare and contrast that with what someone in places of authority can say. Unfortunately, for me, one of the hard things was the first time that I realized that just because it said, my pastor said, and all of a sudden I found out that what my pastor said didn’t match with what the Scriptures said. And the list goes on. Same thing…

Nehemia: Well, for me… Well, let’s not spend too long. Well, yes, I’ll share the story that I remember when I was a little kid. When we were studying Rashi, who was this great 12th century rabbi. He’s considered the greatest commentator among the rabbis. He would say something. I’d say, “Wow, he’s so smart. I wish I could be that smart. I wish I could know enough to be able to read about this Obadiah and know that he’s the guy from the time of Ahab, even though he’s describing the destruction of the Temple. I’m just not smart enough.” And now with my master’s degree in Biblical Studies from Hebrew University of Jerusalem, I can look back and say, “Rashi was just making it up a lot of the time.”

Here’s what I want to encourage people. If somebody tells you something in the Bible and it doesn’t make sense to you and they can’t prove it, then you have permission to say, “Okay, maybe they’re wrong. Maybe they made it up. Maybe they just think that and there’s no proof for it.”

Keith: Okay. I was trying to get past that, folks, before he started talking about it, but I wasn’t able to, so now can I go to verse 1?

Nehemia: Sure. Let’s do it.

Keith: Absolutely. This is what my translation, but in the Hebrew says, “Adonai Yehovah says about Edom.” And we should let people know who Edom is or what Edom is and what’s connected, because if you read the Prophet portion, I mean, if you read the Torah portion, you hear the whole story about Jacob and Esau, the two brothers. And then, of course, we know that Edom comes from Esau and the list goes on.

Nehemia: People can listen to the original Torah Pearls on NehemiasWall.com and BFAinternational.com.

Keith: Absolutely.

Nehemia: Which we did about three or four years ago.

Keith: Three years ago, yeah. So it says, “We have heard a message from Yehovah. An envoy was sent to the nations to say, ‘Rise and let us go against her for battle.’” Now I stopped there Nehemia, because when I saw the words “rise and let us go against her” - and maybe this was just me being overly anal about it. But I was just wondering when I’m reading and it says, “rise and go against her”- when you read that, what hit you?

Nehemia: So… what’s the problem?

Keith: No, it’s not a matter of problem. When you read that, how did it hit you?

Nehemia: So here’s the thing. In Hebrew, when we have genders, male and female, they don’t necessarily correspond to the English genders, male and female.

Keith: Sometimes I’m trying to pitch this guy a softball and he just won’t realize I’m giving him a softball.

Nehemia: So here Edom is the “her”, I mean that’s obvious to me in Hebrew. It’s a nation, so it can be “her”. So there’s no problem with that.

Keith: It’s not a matter of a problem. It’s a matter of saying what it is. That’s what I’m saying. But it says here, “See, I will make you small among the nations. You will be utterly despised. The pride of your heart has deceived you. You who live in the clefts of the rocks and make your home in the heights. You who say to yourself, ‘Who can bring me down to the ground,’ though you soar like the eagle and make your nest among the stars. From there I will bring you down, declares Yehovah.” And I’ll be honest, when I read that passage, I wasn’t thinking back at the time... I know, first of all, you always want to find out what the context is. But I kind of jumped ahead and I almost felt like I was in present day, in my present generation, the many organizations, nations, governments that this could be referring to.

Nehemia: Yes. And here, the first thing I think of is the geography of Edom. The kingdom, and I guess you guys say Edom. So the geography of Edom is it’s in what is today the southwestern Kingdom of Jordan. It’s on the other side of the Arava Valley from the Negev Desert in Israel, and it’s an area of great mountains. The most famous thing in Edom today is of course Petra. Petra is actually a Nabataean city, which was in the third Indiana Jones movie, and it’s very famous…

Keith: You actually watched the third Indiana Jones movie? I never made it to the third Indiana Jones movie.

Nehemia: Oh really? So I actually went to Petra in Jordan, and every single night in Petra, they show that movie. Every night at every hotel, every guest house, every hostel, they show that movie. That’s actually where I saw it. But it’s a very famous place, and some people argue that Petra, that it’s mentioned in the Bible. Can we look at that real quick? Because that helps us understand this image of them dwelling in the rock. What is that about? And what it’s about it’s simply the geography. It’s this area where it’s very rocky, and if you want to build your house, you build it into the rocks, into the stone, into the cliffs of the mountains. 2 Kings chapter 14 verse 7 is speaking about this battle that took place, and it says, “He defeated 10,000 Edomites in the Valley of Salt.” Where’s the Valley of Salt, Keith? You’ve been to Israel.

Keith: The Valley of Salt.

Nehemia: Where’s the Valley of Salt? That’s the Dead Sea. In Hebrew, the Dead Sea is called Yam HaMelach, the Sea of Salt. So the Valley of Salt is the surrounding valley. So, “…10,000 Edomites in the Sea of Salt and he captured Selah in battle and renamed it Yokte’el,” as is still the case. So selah is the Hebrew word for rock. So he captured some city in Edom, in the land of the Edomites, called Selah, and selah is rock. And when does petra mean? Rock. So Petra is just the Greek name for Selah. So this is a city that goes back to the time of these events in 2 Kings during these battles between the Israelites and the Edomites. What’s interesting, of course, as we talked about this in the original Torah Pearls, is we hear about the eight kings who ruled over Edom before there was a king in Israel. But we’ll leave that for people to go listen to that.

Keith: Absolutely. So it says here, “If thieves come to you, if robbers in the night, oh, what a disaster awaits you. Would they not steal only as much as they wanted? If grape pickers came to you, would they not leave a few grapes? But how Esau will be ransacked.” Now there again, here’s the word Esau. So if we go into Genesis chapter, I believe it is 30, 28, no, 32…

Nehemia: 32 to 36.

Keith: 32 to 26, that’s where you can get more information about this. But again, here’s the connection – he’s talking about Edom and now he’s talking about Esau, “But how Esau will be ransacked, his hidden treasures pillaged, all your allies will force you to the border.” And I have to say again, last week, when we talked about here’s Jacob, here’s Israel, and then the next thing you know is you’re talking about Ephraim - I mean this connection between the words and switching back and forth between the name and what it’s called.

Nehemia: Right? So let’s ask this question. What does this mean, what we just read? What is he saying? If thieves came to you? What’s this about? And we don’t really know, but my understanding here is that he’s saying… so here’s what happened. Judah was destroyed, and they were destroyed by the Babylonians, but the Babylonians had many allies and one of those allies was Edom. And we’ll read about that in a few minutes. But apparently what this is referencing is that when they pillaged Judea, what was left of Judea after the Babylonians left, they picked everything clean even more than what they needed. And he’s saying, “Even if thieves were to come to you, marauders by night, they would steal no more than they needed, but you stole more than you needed.”

Keith: You stole more than you needed.

Nehemia: So it wasn’t just that they attacked Judah, they did it in a horrible way.

Keith: Yeah. And then he says, “Oh, what disaster awaits you. Would they not steal only as much as they wanted? If grape pickers came to you and not leave a few grapes. But how Esau will be ransacked, his hidden treasures pillaged, all of your allies will force you to the border. Your friends will deceive and overpower you. Those who eat your bread will set a trap for you, but you will not detect it.” It’s almost like, this is what’s going to happen, how it’s going to happen - not almost like, it’s exactly what it’s like. This is what’s going to happen. So before… let’s see here. It says in verse 8, where am I at now?

Nehemia: Let’s go to verse 9.

Keith: Verse 9, let me do 8 and 9. “‘In that day,’ declares Yehovah, ‘will I not destroy the wise men of Edom? Men of understanding in the mountains of Esau. Your Warriors, oh, Teman will be terrified, and everyone in Esau’s mountains will be cut down in the slaughter.’”

Nehemia: Now. All right. So what is this reference to the wise men of Edom? So the men of Edom were known to be very wise. And who’s the most famous wise man of Edom? The most famous Edomite sage is Job. The Book of Job. Can I read that opening here?

Keith: Well why don’t you read the whole book?

Nehemia: I don’t want to read the whole book. Job 1:1, “There was a man in the land of Utz named Iyov. That man was blameless and upright and feared God and shunned evil.” Okay, so why do we think he is an Edomite? So, Utz… all these figures that show up, like Elifaz the Temanite, and we know Teman is a place in Edom. Here’s the really interesting thing - the language of the middle portions of the book of Job, when people are actually speaking, it’s not the narrator, it’s Job and his three friends speaking, it is different than the entire rest of the Tanakh. I mean, we mentioned last week how Hosea, Hoshea, was different, the Hebrew was different than the rest of the Tanakh. But that was like the English we speak - where I come from Chicago - and the English people speak in Georgia or Texas. It wasn’t that different. There are little differences, but it wasn’t that… Whereas the Hebrew of Job is, some people have actually said it’s not Hebrew. Many people have argued that it’s actually a dialect of Hebrew called Edomite, that’s the Edomite dialect of Hebrew. That these were simply Edomites, Job and his three friends, who had this experience. That’s very possible. So the wise men of Edom… Edom was known for its wise men, for its sages. That’s what Job was all about. Wisdom. It’s a wisdom book. He’s saying that wisdom will be lost and you’re going to be destroyed. Here it even mentions Teman.

Keith: There it is. Yeah. And then, of course, verse 10 is…

Nehemia: Woah, before we get to Verse 10, can we talk about the structure of the book? This is the only time I think we’re going to have an opportunity to speak… oh no, in Isaiah we talked about the structure. Here there are three sections as well. Hebrew loves the number three, I guess - Haya-Hoveh-Yihiyeh, Was-Is-Will Be. Obadiah chapter 1, well it’s all chapter 1, so verses 1 through 9. It describes the destruction of Edom. Verses 10 through 14 is the rebuke of Edom for the mistreatment of Israel, and specifically Judah. Then 15 to 21 is the destruction of Edom, but in the context of the Day of Yehovah, and I can’t wait till we get to that one. Maybe we should skip right through.

Keith: No, no, no. We can’t, because we’ve got to stop at 10.

Nehemia: So let’s do 10 to 14.

Keith: Let me just… let me do this. When I came across this, one of the things that I always encourage people to do, obviously as you’re able, there are a lot of tools out there and you can use tools to get behind words and that sort of thing. And even in the simplest way, Nehemia, where you can click a word and see what that word means. I think sometimes people go too far and they begin to build theologies off of not really understanding the grammatical aspects of a sentence, and that sort of thing.

But when I see this, I’m sort of… we talk about this thing being yesterday, today and tomorrow. So when I get to verse 10, I think about today, and the reason I think about today is because of the words actually. And actually, I wanted if that was okay, I wanted this to be the Word of the Week in verse 10, because in verse 10 it says this…

The Word of the Week is the word “violence” in English, and it’s spelled in Hebrew chet-mem and samech. And that is for the word hamas. And the word hamas, we use it for violence. And this is obviously not the only time that it’s used. It’s actually used several times throughout the Tanakh. But the reason I want that to be the Word of the Week, and again, talking about now, when I think about what’s happening, and I want to switch for a second over to today, and Hamas, I wrote a lot about this in Breaking Israel News and just looking at the action. I don’t know if you know it or not Nehemia, they let me be a guest editor for Breaking Israel News. And I know...

Nehemia: Is that like part of BFA International?

Keith: No, absolutely not. No, it’s over in Israel. And they have these… What I love about this particular site, it’s called Breaking Israel News, news from a biblical perspective.

Nehemia: Now when you say biblical, are they Christians?

Keith: No, no, no. This is, these are people… And in fact, I got to tell you something. The owner of Breaking Israel News is an Orthodox rabbi.

Nehemia: Really?

Keith: Yeah. And many of the people...

Nehemia: And they have a Methodist pastor? Wow.

Keith: All of the people behind that site happen to be in Israel, Jewish people that are in Israel. But one of the things that’s amazing about the site is a lot of Christian people go to that site because they want to find out what’s going on in Israel from a biblical perspective. So they asked me to be one of these people that can be a guest opinion, you know, do op-ed’s. But one of the things that I was really struck by was Hamas and the philosophy behind Hamas.

Nehemia: Now you mean the Hebrew word for violence?

Keith: No, I’m talking about the group Hamas. Everyone knows about the group Hamas, which rules Gaza.

Nehemia: The terrorist organization.

Keith: And they had a 50-day war. That’s one of many. But when I think about them, I think about this word. I mean, they pick the word Hamas. And so they’re living out what their name is. And this is what is so baffling to me. So here we’re going to have a government that’s going to have an alliance with a terrorist organization whose name is Hamas.

Nehemia: You’ve got to be kidding me.

Keith: Yeah. I mean its name is Hamas, and no one stops and says, “Now wait a minute. What’s going on here?” So for me, when I see this word because of violence, again, the word itself is hamas, chet-mem-samech. And you can find this… look, I don’t know if you’re willing to do a real quick check. Maybe I’ll do it while you’re looking at that. Well, I’m going to look up how many times we see the word hamas, and then you go ahead and talk about what you have there.

Nehemia: Yeah, no. So, you want to know how many times hamas?

Keith: 64 I think?

Nehemia: Is that what you’ve got? So I’ve got 68.

Keith: 68. Let’s see here.

Nehemia: And the first time here is in Genesis 6:11. It’s speaking about the flood, that the land was filled with hamas, and God wanted to destroy it therefore.

Keith: Yeah. But I mean basically, I guess the reason I wanted to stop and slow down a little bit is that today we see a biblical word, a group that takes that biblical word, “violence”, and the Hamas government, the Hamas this, well why don’t we just what it is? I mean it’s the violence. Violence is what it is. So anyway, I wanted to stop and say that’s an example of an ancient Hebrew word being played out presently today. And it’s the meaning being the same.

Nehemia: And the context here is that Edom has this hamas against Israel, and that’s why God is rebuking. It says, “For the hamas against your brother Jacob disgrace shall engulf you and you shall perish forever.” Amen.

Keith: And may it be. Okay. Can I go to verse 11? “On that day you stood aloof. On that day the strangers carried off his wealth and foreigners entered his gate and cast lots for Jerusalem. You two were as one of them.” And when I read that, I think about the person who watches - and maybe we can get a Torah example of this - the person who he says stands aloof. I’m not sure how it reads there, but the idea is you’re watching while your brother is being pillaged, and then you might as well have done the same thing.

Nehemia: Well, and then he gets involved. That’s what we read in the next couple of verses.

Keith: “Do not gloat over your brother’s day, the day of his misfortune, and do not rejoice over the sons of Judah in the day of their destruction. Yes. Do not boast in the day of their distress. Do not enter the gates of my people in the day of their disaster.” And I don’t know Nehemia, it’s three different times. He’s saying the same thing. The phrase is, again, “do not rejoice.” “Do not boast.” “Do not enter in the day of the distressed,” in the day of the destruction, in the day of their disaster. It sounds like a Methodist preacher.

Nehemia: He’s an Israelite preacher. So Psalm 1:37 is what this brings to mind for me, which says, “Remember oh Yehovah against the Edomites the day of Jerusalem’s fall, how they cried, ‘Strip her! Strip her to her very foundations.’” And then we also have in Isaiah 34, we did that one real quick. Yes, tap, tap on my computer. And what this is referring to is… it says, “For my sword shall be drunk in the sky, lo it shall come down upon Edom, upon the people I have doomed to wreak judgment. Yehovah has a sword. It is sated with blood, it is gorged with fat, the blood of lambs, and he-goats, the kidney fat of rams. For Yehovah holds a sacrifice in Botzrah”, that was the capital of Edom. “A great slaughter in the land of Edom.” So there, Isaiah’s speaking in the future, as a prophecy, and here Obadiah, Ovadia, is looking at it in the past and saying, “This is what you did. This happened, you did these horrible things to your brother in the day that he was attacked by the Babylonians and taken into exile and the city is destroyed. You got involved and you’re the brother. You’re not some somebody from a thousand miles away. You’re the brother of Jacob. This is what you did to your brother.”

Keith: Well, then verse 15 comes, this is an exciting verse…

Nehemia: And one more thing here about this verse 12, “How you gaze with glee.” So, what this reminded me of is, again, Proverbs 24:17, and there we have in Proverbs 24:17… one second. Yes, so it says, “If your enemy falls, do not exalt.” What does exalt mean? In Hebrew, it says tismach, don’t be happy. “If he trips or stumbles, let your heart not rejoice,” which I think is a really powerful teaching there.

And then it goes on it says in verse 18, “Lest Yehovah’s see it and be displeased and avert His wrath from him.” So the natural reaction for many people - I think it’s human nature - is we see somebody, we see our enemy suffering and we had this big smile on our face. “Ha ha ha ha. That’s what happened to him, Ha Ha!” But Yehovah is saying to us, don’t do that. Don’t be happy when even your enemy suffers and stumbles and bad things happen to him. And this is exactly what Edom did. He says, “How could you gaze with glee on your brother that day, on this day of calamity? How could you gloat over the people of Judah on that day of ruin? How could you laugh and jeer in his day of anguish?” They saw Judah, who maybe was their enemy at that point, was definitely their enemy, and we can read in Kings how Edom was actually subjugated by David. He conquered it. He wiped out the cream of their nation, and then they eventually rebelled later. It’s actually the opening of 2 Kings, the rebellion of Edom against Judea. So they had an ax to grind. They had a reason to hate Judah, to hate Yehudah, but they should not have been happy at the fall of Edom, at the fall of Israel. The suffering of the Jews.

Keith: Exactly. Well, verse 15 says - now here’s the part that you were excited about, “For the day of the LORD.”

Nehemia: You skipped 14.

Keith: I thought you said go to 15. You read 14. Go ahead. Read 14.

Nehemia: No I’ll read in 15.

Keith: 14! I’ll wait till 15. Go ahead.

Nehemia: Okay. “Do not stand by the crossroads to cut off his refugees and do not turn over his remnant in the day of trouble.” What that meant is the Jews were fleeing from the Babylonians, and where would they flee? Into the desert. And what’s in the desert? In the desert is Edom, the home of the Edomites. And they would capture these Judeans who are running from Jerusalem during the fall of Jerusalem at the hand of the Babylonians, and they would turn them over to the Babylonians. They’d sell them to the Babylonians and they’d cut off the refugees.

Keith: Boy, that sounds like modern-day battles in different countries. So now verse 15. “For the day of the LORD draws near on all the nations, and of course, as you have done, it will be done to you. Your dealings will return on your own head.” And of course, both of us, I’m sure you, Nehemia, when you saw that phrase, it caught your attention. It certainly caught my attention when I saw “day of the LORD”, and I just did a simple little thing. I just went and asked myself the question, “Okay, when I’m looking at the word, ‘day of the LORD’, I wanted to know for myself, where does that show up?” Because for me and my background, one of the things that I think about is, “Well, ‘day of the LORD’ - that’s something that we only talk about in the New Testament, ‘the day of the Lord coming’, a ‘day of the Lord approaching’, really like the day of the Lord - in my whole upbringing, everything that I came about the day of the Lord is the last day, the day when you know everything’s going to change, God’s kingdom is going to come.

And what was really interesting for me when I started first looking into the Tanakh, I had this experience where I was offered two books. One was the skinny book and one was the big book. And the skinny book for me was the New Testament. I came from an unchurched background, didn’t have any background at all in the church, and when someone offered me, I wasn’t much of a reader, and they offered me, “You have two choices in this new spiritual life that you’re about to go into. You can either read the skinny book or you can read the big book.” And the skinny book for me was the book of John. They’d hand me the book of John. And so I’d read the book of John real quick, and then I went back to them. I said, “Okay, I read the book of John.” They said, “Okay, well here you can read another skinny book. Not as big as the big book. It’s the New Testament, but you’ve got to start in the beginning,” which was Matthew. And I kept coming across all these phrases. And you know, David, and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all of these names. And I would say, “what about these names?” They said, “Well, you’d have to read the big book to understand that.”

In understanding the big book, all of a sudden my eyes were open that I realized that, wait a minute. So these things that are coming from the… And you have to understand, for me... You say, “It’s obvious, this is an obvious issue!” Well, for me, I’m unchurched. Never saw a bible, never been in the church other than the church carnival ride, where I broke in with my friend and got chased by the preacher under the pews. For me, when I looked at the church, it seemed like this big huge old gothic building. It had nothing to do with God. I didn’t know anything about God.

So when you open this book and you’re reading in the back of the book, my conditioning of my mind is – “day of the Lord”? Oh, that means that’s just for us, whatever that means. And then coming and looking at this, not only here, but obviously earlier, seeing this day, the day yom, the Yom of Yud-Hey-Vav-Hey, I just did a simple thing. And the simple thing was I wanted to find how many times just that phrase was used. And so when I started looking at the phrase, I thought, “Well, where’s the first time the phrase is used? Just exactly like it would be in Hosea?” And it was in Isaiah.

And then as I was going through each of these verses, I would get so frustrated with you. When we first started doing our study together - you probably don’t remember this - I’d say, “Well Nehemia, here’s this issue.” And you’d say, one of the things you’d want to do is you’d want to look at every time the issue is used, and I’m like “What? Why would we do that? I’ve got my revelation right now. I’ve got the answer. I want to go preach this burst right now.” And you used to force me to do this. It was a blessing to say, “Well let’s see how the phrase is used in other places.”

So what was interesting to me about this, before we go any further, was to go through some of these verses, and I just want to read a few of them. In Isaiah 13:9 “behold the day of the LORD,” I’m reading an English for English speaking folks, but it’s the same phrase, Yom Yehovah. “The day of the LORD is coming cool with fury and burning anger.” Ezekiel 13:5, “And you have not gone up to the breaches, nor did you build the wall around the house to stand in the battle on the day of the LORD.” And then, of course, Joel 1:15, and I want you to check something - this is really interesting, “Alas for the day, for the day of the LORD is near and it will come as destruction from the Almighty.” Joel 2:1, very, very well known: “Blow a trumpet in Zion and sound an alarm on My holy mountain.” Can’t wait till we get to next verse. “Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble for the day of the LORD is coming.” Joel 2:11 “The LORD utters His voice before His army. Surely His camp is very great for strong is He who carries out his word. The day of the LORD is indeed great and very awesome.”

I’m reading these verses, and the verses are all talking about the idea that this day of the LORD wasn’t just put in without context. It’s the day of the LORD that is coming. Meaning, it’s something that’s going to happen, and so what does this mean that it’s going to happen? That’s actually what we’re going to talk about now. But it caught my attention because oftentimes, as I mentioned, my background says that’s something that’s if I can say a New Testament issue, day of the Lord, but rather that’s actually… And again…

Nehemia: You know, to me it was always a Tanakh issue. It appears 14 times in the Tanakh, you just read a few of them. Here’s one of the questions about this Yom Yehovah, the Day of Yehovah, and there are three options, as I see it. And this is kind of like parallel to what you have in the interpretation of other books. So you have this idea of preterist, historicist and futurists. Did you learn about that in theology?

Keith: I don’t think I learned it that way.

Nehemia: Okay. So people will often talk about this in the context… Actually, the Book of Revelation or in Judaism, the Book of Daniel. So the preterists say, “Everything happened in the past. This is already done. Whatever’s in the Book of Daniel are things that happened in the time of Daniel, otherwise it wouldn’t have been relevant for the people who heard the book. He was talking about things in his period.”

The historicists, I can’t say that word. Historicists. What they’ll do is they’ll say, and for me, it’s convenient to speak about Daniel from the Tanakh perspective. What they’ll say is, “No, the things in Daniel, those are things that I can look in the newspaper and I can say, ‘Oh, the 13 horns, that’s the European Union’ or things like that.” So they’re saying it wasn’t in the time of Daniel, it’s an our day today. Of course, that’s a little tricky because in every period they do that. I could say from the Jewish perspective that one of the things they’ve done is they’ve looked a thousand years ago and described, kingdoms that don’t even exist anymore as the fulfillment of these biblical prophecies.

Then there’s the futurists who say all of this is going to be the end times, it’s going to be this final end-time scenario. And, that’s what it’s referring to. And I think we could say the same thing about the entire book of Obadiah, not just this one book about the Day of Yehovah which, you know, brings up the issue. But is this entire book of Ovadia, is it about something that happened in the time of Ovadia? Is it something that happened in history, maybe in our current history? Or is it something that’s going to happen in the future? And really, in the 14 times that we have this phrase, Yom Yehovah, the Day of Yehovah, I think in each one of those cases, we individually need to ask that question.

Keith: Absolutely.

Nehemia: For example, in Isaiah, a lot of modern scholars look at this and they say, “Oh, Isaiah 13:6 and 9, the Day of Yehovah, that’s talking about the destruction of Babylon in 538 BC at the hand of the Persians”, which may be, or maybe not, or maybe it’s something that has a future application and maybe it was only meant to be in the future. All of these are possibilities that I think we can legitimately ask these three positions of, is it the preterist position, that all of it happened at the time of the prophet? Maybe it’s something that could happen in any period of history, the historicist position, or the futurist position that it’s going to be this end times thing that’s happening.

Keith: What I actually found it to be really interesting is times where you can look in the past and say, “Yeah, we saw it happen,” and then look in some present time in history and say, “Oh, we saw it happen again”. And then the idea of being, will we see it happen again?

Nehemia: Right. And when it comes to the Edomites, are those the literal Edomites? Or as in Jewish tradition, they’ve looked at this from a futurist perspective or a historicist perspective perhaps, you could say. And they say, “No, the Edomites are”, and I think we’ve talked about this in the original Torah Pearls, wherein Jewish tradition they look at Edom and they say, “Oh, Edom is Rome”, and for them Rome means Christianity, and they say, “Ishmael, that is Islam”. And so they look at these, the brother of Isaac, and they say, “that’s Islam.” And the brother of, Jacob, and they say, “that’s Christianity.”

Now, why did they say Edom was Rome, hence Christianity? Because in Hebrew, if you, the letter daled and letter resh look very, very similar. So “Edom”, “Rome” is almost identical in its appearance, in its visual appearance in Hebrew. And so, like I said, in Jewish tradition, they’ve said that Edom refers to the Christian kingdoms, and there are Jews to this day who read the book of Obadiah and it isn’t even a question for them that this is talking about Christendom, the kingdoms and the nations of Christianity. Whereas as I look at it and I say, “Okay, well Edom is the brother of Jacob. Isn’t that the Edomites of old?” But then what is the future application? There is no more Edom. I mean, the prophecy has been fulfilled. Edom doesn’t exist but the Day of Yehovah, the one we’re looking forward to in the future, that hasn’t happened yet.

Keith: I have to say something about that, Nehemia. One of the reasons that I was really excited about doing this with you is that I really wanted to hear another perspective. I talk a lot about where I come from - as I mentioned, I was an unchurched person and consider myself still an unchurched person really, because what I am more interested in than anything is trying to figure out how God’s word affects or applies to me in my life today apart from tradition.

But a lot of the historic interpretation of these different things like in Jewish tradition and Christian tradition, you know, you’ll pick a certain place, like, “Well, in our lifetime, Russia is this, and in our lifetime, North Korea is this, and in our lifetime…” and they’ll pick nations. I really struggle with that. I have to be honest with you, because it may be that there’s some aspects of a present-day nation that looks and acts and smells and feels and looks like what we’re reading here. But I think we have to be really careful.

So what do we want to do? We first want to find out, what did it mean? Historically, contextually, what did it mean? What could it mean now, and try to ask how that fits, and then also what might it mean in the future? Now about the phrase the Day of the Lord. Can you and I agree on this? Most of the times when I hear Yom Yehovah, there’s a word after like “it’s coming”, “it’s approaching”. It’s something that you’ll know when it comes. It’s like this thing is happening. It’s going to happen. And again, historically that showed itself up in Isaiah when the Babylonians came, and they say, “Okay, that was the Day of the Lord. That was the Day of Yehovah. That was Yom Yehovah. But the thing that both of us, I think, would agree, is that there’s going to be a time when Yom Yehovah comes, there won’t be any doubt that it is.

Nehemia: So the last time it appears in the Prophets is Malakai chapter 4 verse 5.

Keith: Exactly, I was just about to go to that.

Nehemia: So go ahead and bring it up.

Keith: 4:5, 3:23 in the Hebrew it says, “Behold, I’m going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible Day of the LORD.”

Nehemia: What is terrible? In Hebrew it’s norah, which means frightening, awesome, full of awe.

Keith: So when I see that, again looking just at the phrase “Day of the Lord”, we could spend the rest of our time on this, but I think where there’s common ground is that whether it’s Tanach understanding or even if I can say this - from people that come from the another perspective, from the New Testament, everyone would agree that there’s going to be a time where you know, when He does what He’s going to do, it’s not going to be something you read the newspaper and say, “Did that happen?”

Nehemia: Here’s the question though. Where it says in Obadiah verse 15. It says, “Ki karov yom Yehovah”, “The Day of Yehovah is close upon all the nations.” So that was written 2,500 years ago. Was it talking about the destruction of Edom in that historical period? It’s hard for me to believe it’s not, but then I read on, at the end, and the things at the end clearly haven’t happened yet. I’m trying to hold myself for verse 20.

Keith: Don’t do it. What are you talking about? You can’t go to verse 20. I’m going to slow you down because we’ve got to go to the next verse.

Nehemia: Wait, even in this verse there’s one more thing and I’ll refer people to the book A Prayer to Our Father: The Hebrew Origins of the Lord’s Prayer, that Keith and I wrote together. There we actually talk about this verse. I believe we quoted verse 15, we talk about this idea of “midah ke’negged midah” or reciprocal justice. In Hebrew it’s literally called “measure for measure”, and this is a key concept in what Christians refer to as the Lord’s Prayer, the Our Father prayer that Yeshua taught to the Jewish multitudes. There he taught “Forgive and you will be forgiven”. That was the concept there. You see that throughout his ministry. He says, “Judge not, lest you be judged”. This idea of what you do is the way you’ll be treated. And then in Luke 6:38, he says, “For with the same measure that you meet with all, it shall be measured to you again,” and many Christian commentaries comment on this that he’s talking about like measuring out grain… I mean, it’s almost hilarious to me to hear that, because in the Hebrew context there’s this phrase, “measure for measure”. It means exactly what Obadiah just said here in the Tanakh phraseology, it is, “Your conduct shall be requited.” That’s in the JPS. In other words, “As you did so, it should be done to you. Your conduct will be requited.” In other words, the way you behaved and treated others is how Yehovah will treat you. And that’s exactly what Yeshua is saying in what they called the Lord’s Prayer and in Luke 6:38 about measure for measure. So there in The Hebrew Origins of the Lord’s Prayer. It’s a great book that we wrote.

Keith: With that, I’d like to do something, if it’s okay, Nehemia. I’ve been thinking a lot about this. I don’t know if you know it or not, you get me into a lot of trouble.

Nehemia: I do.

Keith: There are people who just ask me, “Well, what are you doing spending any time with this guy? He doesn’t believe like you, doesn’t think like you, though he is starting to look like you. He’s living in your house. What’s going on with you two?” And clearly one of the things that I’ve known for a long time, from the time that I met you, is an opportunity to be able to really look at the text in its language, history, and context. For me, once I understand it in language, history, and context, I can then take a next step to say, “How does it address for me and my faith and how does my faith bring a legitimacy to… from my own faith, how Scripture comes along and does that for me.”

So I want to take a minute just to let people know that you and I, we have had a long journey. In 2007 we started studying this process of the Hebrew Origins of the Lord’s Prayer. We wrote the book together, a number of things happen and we ended up getting a chance to speak about that book in places that shocked us, even. Both the Jewish and Christian background, Messianic, Hebrew roots, Torah observant, different nations. But then we had a time, if I can say a period of time, where you went and did some things separate and I did some things separate, and you can talk a little bit about that yourself.

But you’ve talked a lot about being in China for a year. And for… what that did for me during that time is I just dug in and started working on both the Time Will Tell series and doing documentaries and writing and producing different things. But where we’re at right now, where I’m at right now, BFAinternational.com, is that we’re at a real crucial place, especially as this recording is taking place right now. We’re within a month of the end of a year that’s been probably the year that’s cost us the most.

This year has been a year where we’ve put everything into what we’ve done. People talk about Scripture Bites, which is just now coming to the end of a 10-part series. We’ve done a series on Right on Time. We started out the year - I was actually at Hebrew University working on research and filming some things that I haven’t gotten a chance to talk about that I really would love to produce. And so for me, why is this important, the next few weeks? Because I’m really looking for some people that will come alongside and enter with us at the BFAinternational.com site and become Premium Content Members.

And I want to be really clear about this. I need at least, Nehemia, between now and the end of year, 300 people to become Premium Content Members. If we can get 300 people that at minimum do $9.99 a month or more, we’re going to be able to go into 2015 and produce things that are going to be absolutely amazing. One thing you’ve learned as you’ve talked about it, is it just costs a lot of time and resources and money to do what we’ve done, and I think we’ve produced high-quality things, but there’s so much more that’s going to come. We need people that will come alongside, go to BFA international.com become a Premium Content Member at minimum $9.99 a month, and you’re going to have access to, I think the number is now 50-some things that are available, and a whole bunch more that are coming, and hopefully, people will consider that. I’m going to say that for the next weeks - we need 300 people. That’s just the bottom line.

Nehemia: Okay. Well, and of course Keith and I, we both have separate ministries. My ministry is called Makor Hebrew Foundation, and my website is Nehemiaswall.com. And what I need is trumpeters to stand with me on the wall by joining my support team. One of the things that we are giving to the support team is the Support Team Studies. And you know, actually, there’s a Support Team Study, one of the first ones I did, when this whole thing really started about six months ago, is I put out a teaching called Netanyahu Schools the Pope. It was a really powerful thing, I think. One of the things I talk about is this event that took place in ancient Israelite history, which had to do with the Edomites, which most people don’t even know about. Actually, the Edomites were forcibly converted to Judaism by the Hasmonean conquers along with the people of Galilee. It actually sheds a lot of interesting light on things that happened. For example, in the New Testament with Galileans and other things in Jewish history and Christian history having to do with the Galileans and the Edomites. So that’s over on Nehemiaswall.com. We need people to come join the support team.

The other thing I really want to call on people to do is, I’m getting all these emails from people and messages on Facebook and various other routes, people who are really appreciating the Prophet Pearls and the original Torah Pearls that we did together. What I want to ask people to do is to share those things through social media. That’s really not a small thing. We’re looking for 70 elders, for 70 people to step up and say, “Every week I’m going to share the link to Prophet Pearls on my Facebook page or on my Twitter account,” or whatever social media you’re using.

Finally, iTunes - Nehemiaswall.com now has an iTunes podcast, which includes Prophet Pearls. BFAinternational.com has an iTunes podcast. Well, what we need people to do is not just come and subscribe but to give ratings and reviews. The reason that’s important is that if you want people to see what you have on iTunes, other people have to come and give them ratings and reviews. Otherwise, people will come and they’ll be looking in these subjects and they’ll never find that these podcasts exist. So please help us get this message out by sharing on Facebook and iTunes ratings and reviews.

Keith: One thing I like about what we’re doing, both of us, in both ministries within Nehemiaswall.com and BFAInternational.com is how many things… We used to get these messages from people saying, “I can’t believe you’re charging us for a book.” And we’d give away books and we’d send books. But one of the things that I really like about right now, both at BFAinternational.com and Nehemiaswall.com, we’re doing Scripture Bites free, no cost. You actually challenged me on this with social media - when you get the message out and you start getting those shares and you start getting that interaction, it becomes what they call sort of viral, people and more and more people see it. I think the first time, the first week we did Scripture Bites, we did this thing on Facebook and it went through the roof. I don’t remember how many thousands of people saw it, but that’s an example of something right now that costs you nothing. If you’re not able to support Nehemia, whether it’s the Support Team or become a part of Premium Content Members, you still get a chance to get a whole lot of information, inspiration, and revelation at both places. So please visit BFA international.com and Nehemiaswall.com And we’re going to continue...

Nehemia: And as always, most of what we offer on both sites is free.

Keith: Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. I mean, that’s the bottom line. Now of course, for those who can, we definitely need you to help us. We’ve got… the next few weeks. So it’s a big deal. Can we go to my favorite verse?

Nehemia: What’s your... sure.

Keith: My favorite verse actually has to do a lot with what I’ve been dealing with personally on the process, and it says, “Because just as you drank on My holy mountain, all the nations will drink continually. They will drink and swallow and become as if they had never existed.” Let me read 17 and we can go back to it. “But on Mount Zion, there will be those who escape and it will be holy and the house of Jacob will possess their possessions.”

So for me, when I read that, this particular time in my life actually has been really difficult. I’ve built a relationship with my friend, Yehuda Glick, and at this point, at the time of the taping right now, he’s still fighting for his life. He’s getting better. Right now they’re saying that hopefully he’s only got one more surgery, but they’ve had him under anesthesia.

Nehemia: For those who don’t know, who is Yehuda Glick?

Keith: Yeah, I’m going to tell them now. Yehuda and I actually met each other this year, in 2014, by happenstance, actually. I was working on the Hanukkah project, which is coming out next week, I believe, based on this schedule, it’d be on the 18th. We had a chance to go… two friends came over and really looked at the historical Hanukkah. Well, the end of the Hanukkah project, by happenstance, we found ourselves on the Temple Mount, and I ran into this red-headed rabbi named Yehuda Glick.

I consider him a true Maccabee and I consider him like Judah the Maccabee. He’s a person who’s standing for what’s right, calling people to the Temple Mount to note that it is a holy mountain. It’s a place for people to fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah, that all nations might come, a place for prayer for all nations. And as I said, as of right now he’s presently still battling. He’s doing better. Hopefully, by the time you listen to this, he will be up and he’ll be around and be preparing to go back to God’s Holy Hill. When he does that - I want to continue - our ministry has actually raised resources for Yehuda Glick’s ministry, Haliba, which talks about the heart of Israel being the Temple Mount. And so for us, for me, when I read this verse and I see what they’re talking about, it says, “Just as you drank on My holy hill, all the nations will drink continually, they will drink and swallow and become as if they had never existed.”

So I read the first thing and I think about… I have to be honest, Nehemia, for me, I think about what’s happening in that place now. I really have to say - you have to hold me back on this - I am really, really struggling with the political game that’s being played in Israel around that place. Many people from my background say, “We don’t care anything about the Temple Mount. Our place is over at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre or the Garden Tomb. What do we care about the Temple Mount?”

And not understanding its historic biblical linguistic… I mean the list goes on. Practical place of the Temple Mount. It’s the only place that God says He placed His name forever and His eyes will be there perpetually, and yet we’ve disconnected it and said, “Okay, well we don’t want anything to do with that. We’ll just take the wall, my Jewish brothers and sisters, we’ll take the retaining wall.” And then many of the Christians are like, “Well, that’s not our fight. We’re on the other side of town.” And to be honest, biblically, I just don’t see how we can’t address it. It keeps coming up in Scripture and it’s right here for us in this passage.

Nehemia: So what does this verse mean though? These two verses? What do they mean? So we have this Hebrew expression here about drinking from the cup, and it’s a Hebrew idiom. And it appears in other places. For example, Jeremiah 25:15, it says, “For thus says Yehovah God of Israel unto me, ‘Take the wine cup of this fury at My hand and cause all the nations to whom I send thee to drink it, and they shall drink and be moved and be mad because of the sword that I will send among them.’” So drinking from the cup represents Yehovah’s wrath, Yehovah’s punishment.

It’s almost like a pun here, it says, “You drank on My holy mountain”, meaning they went up to the Temple Mount and they rejoiced for their victory of stripping Israel of every last kernel of grain and everything, and taking everyone as slaves. And it’s saying, “Just as you drank on My holy mountain”, all the nations are going to be drinking. It says their speech shall grow thick, meaning they’re going to be drunk, and they’re going to be drunk with this punishment from Yehovah, from the wrath of Yehovah. “And they become as though they had never been.”

So they’re going to be completely destroyed, all these nations that came against Israel. Except - and I love this - “But on Zion’s mount a remnant shall survive, and it shall be holy.” That remnant isn’t from Israel. Israel is a separate thing here. That’s in the second half of the verse. The House of Jacob shall dispossess those who dispossess them. But the first half of verse 17, “But on Zion’s mountain a remnant shall survive, and it shall be holy,” that is a remnant from those nations.

Keith: Amen.

Nehemia: The nations are going to be crushed by the cup of Yehovah, by drinking from the cup of Yehovah’s wrath, but from those nations there will be a holy remnant. Isn’t that exciting?

Keith: That is extremely exciting. And you know what? There are people… And again, this is where it’s hard for me. You know, we talked about yesterday, today and tomorrow. It’s been really hard for me. I’ve spent time studying this. In fact, I did an entire project that I haven’t even been able to address, just regarding not only the Temple Mount, but the Ark of the Covenant and the issues regarding that and the Temple Mount, and that’s where Yehuda helped me immensely. You’re also in that Nehemia.

Nehemia: Are you ever going to produce it?

Keith: Am I ever going to produce it? Need 300 people before the end of the year. No. I would love to have some people get a chance to see what we’ve done. In fact, I haven’t gotten a chance to show anyone that, but I want to stick on this issue of Mount Zion and this phrase “Mount Zion” over and over again. Even the Torah scroll that I get…

Nehemia: The Torah shall go forth from Zion.

Keith: From Zion. It’s a place, I mean, it’s there. And what’s so beautiful to me, Nehemia, is that I can actually look at it. When I think about it I get emotional. I can look at it and I can see it. It’s there, and it’s the place that God has placed His name, and it says His eyes are there, I believe even His ears there perpetually. Yet there’s this disconnect that’s happened both on the political side… I don’t want to get too political, but I’m extremely concerned about what I hear from the United States regarding this, and other places, that somehow leave that issue alone. Well, in the end it’s not going to be left alone. It’s going to be the center…

Nehemia: And just for people who don’t know - and if you’ve been to Israel, you’ll probably be even more confused - there’s the Temple Mount, what we call Har HaBait, the Temple Mount, and in the Tanakh that is Mount Zion. I remember when I studied archeology, there’s this other place that people call Mount Zion, and in Hebrew University, in the Archaeology Department, they used to call that “the place the tour guides call Mount Zion” as opposed to the real Mount Zion, which is the Temple Mount.

Keith: Which by the way, that’s where the Pope decided to go when he was there. He went over to the other Mount Zion.

Nehemia: To the fake Mount Zion.

Keith: Yeah, to the fake Mount Zion. The real Mount Zion is there where there’s this battle so...

Nehemia: Well, you know accept no imitations.

Keith: Accept no imitations. Got to take the real one. I’m not sure how much time we… oh my goodness, I can’t believe it. It’s already an hour. I’ve got to start shutting down here. We said this last week, Nehemia, and I thought it was really interesting. I really appreciated your approach to that, that we want people to help us. We want people to help us help them by studying in-depth these passages and then bringing their comments to our site.

I want to say something. I want to say something. There are some people that are probably like, “Well, how do you guys do this Ministry Minute thing?” Let me explain something. We can’t even do this show. We can’t even record it. We can’t have it edited. We can’t have the server. We can’t do anything without having those faithful people who have stood with you and have stood with us. And you know what? I think it’s an opportunity for people to understand what we’re doing, and not only what we’re doing from a financial standpoint, but entering in with us in terms of the study. Actually going to the passage, reading the passage, praying about the passage and comment on both pages because we’ve got different people. Some people don’t go to Nehemia’s Wall, some people don’t go to BFA International. But if you’re a person who would comment, go to both places and make your comment and let’s see if we can’t have started having some, what do we call it? Conversation back and forth.

Nehemia: Dialogue.

Keith: But I want you to give you an opportunity. You can go ahead and decide if the next verse you want to deal with… but we’re at an hour.

Nehemia: No, the best stuff is always at the end of these prophecies.

Keith: Go ahead.

Nehemia: So where are we, in verse 18? Okay, let’s skip ahead here because we, oh, verse 19, oh my gosh.

Keith: Yes, yes.

Nehemia: Let’s just go to verse 20. It says, “And the exiled force of Israelites,” this is the JPS, “shall possess what belongs to the Phoenicians as far as Tzarfat. While the Jerusalemite exile community of Sfarad shall possess the towns of the Negev.” And every time I go to the Negev… and you know, Sfarad it says here in the Hebrew - Sfarad has been understood in Jewish history to be Spain, and every time I go to the Negev and I see Jews whose ancestors were exiled in Spain and they are now living and have filled the cities of the Negev. Like, you go to Beer Sheva or Ofakim or Sderot, which is constantly being bombarded by Hamas, these are cities of Jews, mostly Spharadim, Jews who came originally from… meaning not originally, but in 1492 were expelled from Spain and originally came from Jerusalem, according to this verse. We can actually go around the Negev today and see the literal fulfillment of this. You know, my great-grandfather, who I’m named after, Nehemia Robinson, was a Rabbi in Chicago. If he had gone to the Negev and traveled through it, he wouldn’t have seen any of those places. He would’ve seen desolate, empty ruins. And now the Jerusalem exiled community of Spain, of Sfarad, has possessed the towns of the Negev. This verse has been fulfilled. That’s amazing to me.

Keith: That’s amazing.

Nehemia: Like, literally been fulfilled.

Keith: Well, I don’t know how we’re going to get through the word, the second word of 21. Can I tell you what it says in the English Bible? In the NASB it says, “The deliverers will ascend to Mount Zion, to judge the mountain of Esau and the kingdom will be the LORD’s.” What do you have, Nehemia?

Nehemia: It says, “And the moshi’im”, “the saviors”, that’s the same word we had... I think it was our first Word of the Week - moshia. And this is the plural moshi’im. “And the saviors shall ascend Mount Zion to judge Mount Esav and to Yehovah shall be the kingdom.”

Keith: It’s hard not to get excited about that. And you know, it’s interesting Nehemia, that’s 21 verses, and that’s the entire book of Obadiah, Ovadia, and I really want to challenge people to read it again, and we obviously didn’t address in depth a whole lot of stuff.

Nehemia: There’s a lot… I have all these pages of notes we didn’t get to.

Keith: Let’s quickly end this thing.

Nehemia: So can we end with a prayer?

Keith: Absolutely. We must.

Nehemia: Where was that verse that we were looking at before? About the remnant? Can I read that?

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: That’s going to be my prayer. Here it is. It’s Obadiah chapter 1, verse 17. And I want to read this other verse, in Zacharia, which has to do with the same theme of... It says, “To Yehovah will be the kingdom.” And there it says, in Zachariah 14 verse 9, one of my favorite verses in the Tanakh, it says, “And Yehovah shall be king over all the earth. In that day, Yehovah will be one and His name will be one,” is what it says in Hebrew.

Yehovah, avinu shebashamayim, Yehovah our father in heaven. Melech Ha’Olam, king of the universe. Yehovah, we look forward to your kingdom here on earth. I look forward to being in that kingdom, Yehovah, with the remnant, a remnant of the nations who You gathered together, Yehovah, and Yehovah, with the exiles from the different nations of Your people. The diaspora that You gather back and You plant back in the land of their forefathers, back in the land that You promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Yehovah please let this come soon. This era of world peace that we will have under the leadership of Your King Messiah. Let us be in that kingdom soon, Father. And until that time, Yehovah, let us have peace and let us be able to sit with brothers, Jew, and gentile, and meditate upon Your name day and night. 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: The Original Torah Pearls -  Vayishlach (Genesis 32:4-36:43) Torah and Prophet Pearls Hebrew Voices Episodes Support Team Studies Nehemia Gordon's Teachings on the Name of God
  • shell says:

    Around 15 minutes in, “you have permission to say maybe theyre wrong”: this is so important. If they lie to you about the small things, theyre almost guaranteed to be lying to you about the big things. Youre gonna lose friends over it and youll probably keep the sabbath alone from then on, but whats really more important? The word of God or the word of man?

    Isa 66: v2. … but to this [man] will I look, [even] to [him that is] poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.

    If you really tremble at His word, theres only one option, but its not the easy one

  • Rob says:

    So how do you confront a leader of a church when they are wrong about the bible

  • Talitha says:

    Although it’s kind of shocking to someone like me that Rabbinical authority just makes things up, it’s also reassuring to know it’s just guesswork when they say things like Abraham was Sarah’s uncle as well as her husband :/

  • Melinda Edwards says:

    Six years later and this is still gold. Thank you for all that you and Keith do.

  • Juan says:

    Neheimia

    My comment s is with regard the 6th word of Ovadiah verse 1, is YEHOVAH , on Chabad.org it is posted under YOD, a chataph segol instead of a qamats.

    I did not find a link were to look for it on Aleppo codex

    it is a error or is a singularity?

  • Tana Snowden says:

    Wonderful! I get blessed no matter what I listen to. Thank you

  • donald murphy says:

    y do u unequally yoke yourself to the religion of the Roman Empire?

  • Wanda S Ford says:

    I really enjoy your Podcasts. You are truly a blessing and have been blessed with the gift of bringing the TRUTH of the hidden treasures of the Word of Yehovah to those of us in need. During Torah Pearls for Vayishlach, these verses were not discussed. I know this question is late, but I still want to ask. In Genesis 33: 9 & 11. I read the KJV. In verse 9, Esau tells Jacob, “I have enough.” In verse 11, Jacob says to Esau, “…Yehovah has dealt graciously with me, and because I have enough”. I cannot read Hebrew yet. I would like to know if the word “enough” in Hebrew is the same word that both Esau and Jacob said, or does the word “enough” have a different meaning when Jacob said it as opposed to when Esau said it? I believe Esau had a lot, but Jacob had everything, because Yehovah had his hand on Jacob. I would really appreciate your expounding on this. Thank you, and Yehovah bless you!

  • Jeff says:

    May Yehovah continually bless you and your work as His will is being done in our lifetimes…??

  • Dawn says:

    I loved listening to this. Thank you for the 3 methods of analyzing prophecy. You really need to do another one on Obadiah so we can find out what is on your other pages of notes 🙂 Thanks

  • Victoria Loyd says:

    Very interesting I didn’t realize Job was from this area ,or that Caleb was a decendant from Esau. We know that Yehovah created everything to go in a cycle, so history repeats itself.So there is nothing new under the sun.

  • Kari B. says:

    Another great discussion! Did anyone else find it intriguing that there was a terrible oil pipeline spill in southern Israel this week that is impacting the Arava region as well as the part of Jordan that – if I understand correctly – is in or near the area spoken of in Ovadiah? Here is a link to Arutz 7 / INNews with more info and pics: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/188270#.VINp5mdshuo

    Also – Nehemia, what Bible program are you using to look up the ‘number of times x,y,z’ is found? I am always interested in learning about new resources.

    Praying your time in TN this weekend is a blessing to all!

    • kris says:

      Oh yes Kari! I had forgotten about TN! If Franklin were just a little closer then I’d be there. Hope all goes well for you.

  • kris says:

    Hosea 13:4
    Yet I (am) YHVH your God from the land of Egypt; and gods other than Me you shall not know, for a savior there is not besides Me.

    Isaiah 43:11
    I, I (am) YHVH; and there is not besides Me a savior.

    Obadiah 1:21
    And saviors shall go up into the mountain of Zion to judge the mountain of Esau; and the kingdom shall be to YHVH.

    verse 21 – plural
    comment:
    …saviors assisting the savior, saviors under the leadership of YHVH Himself

    The plurality of verse 21 of Obadiah is not in contradiction with Hosea 13:4 nor with Isaiah 43:11 – but merely a shared title (shared by YHVH) as those saviors are chosen by YHVH, and under the hierarchical rule of YHVH – willingly and lovingly executing His orders and will.

  • Gavriel says:

    “According to those who study these things”, the 6000 years of man or 120 Jubilee cycles of Genesis 6:3 equaling “1000 years as a day” [1] did not end on September 17, 2001.

    The fact that we have completed 6013 full years since then and are now almost 2 months into year 6014 [ 9-24-2014] is because the LORD turned back the ecliptic, the circuit the sun travels [2] so He could add 15 years to Hezekiah’s life and continue the line of the seed of Jesse who would come and “stand as a banner for the peoples”.

    We still have Hezekiah’s returning year 15 plus the three years of “sign” of Isaiah 37:30, that includes the returning Shimitah year 6016 and the final 120th Jubilee year 6017, an Omega year that will simultaneously end all things then the Alpha year, the third of the “sign” will begin ALL THINGS ANEW on September 9, 2018.

    Another witness to the returning 17 years is that Jacob lived with ALL his sons in exile in Egypt for 17 Years [4] who eventually returned to Israel, just as all Israel will on what i believe will be at the “great resurrection” [5] at the beginning of year 17 on September 30, 2017.

    All numbers in scripture are not without significance, pray for the peace of Jerusalem, the land of Israel and their people, an Ezekiel 33:6 watching one
    [1] Psalm 90:4
    [2] 2 Kings 20:11, Isaiah 38:8
    [3] Isaiah 11:10, Micah 5:2-5
    [4] Genesis 47:28
    [5] Isaiah 26:19, Ezekiel 37:12-14, Daniel 12:2

    • Dafydd says:

      That’s an interesting theory Gavriel. Other folk claim that we haven’t yet arrived at the completion of the 120th Jubilee cycle, see Joe Dummond for example….
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIxz01Eg2pU

      • Gavriel says:

        Dafydd,
        Thank you for replying, he was so close yet so far, he had the years 701 and 700 in front of him, then went back into the 49 year error.

        Whats so amazing is that he had the additional 15 years YHVH added to Hezekiah’s life by pushing the ecliptic back 15 years in Chapter 20, which btw can be found in Isaiah 37 and 38.

        The 15 years of Hezekiah and the “sign” of three years have been and are returning right on schedule. Amein, Gavriel

  • Ilse says:

    So excited this morning when during my study I came across a reference to Micah 4:2 – Many nations shall come and say, “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of Yahovah, To the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, And we shall walk in his paths.” For out of Zion the law shall go forth, And the word of Yehovah from Jerusalem. All of Micah 4:1-8 is thrilling!
    It tied together so well with Obadiah 21. Love it!!! thank you for your passion for speaking the truth in the spirit of love & cooperation.

  • Dafydd says:

    Thanks Guys, that was an interesting discussion. Some random thoughts about Edom…
    1. Edom is not to be hated (Deuteronomy 23:7). We also have the example of Caleb who most likely was an Edomite, who, along with Yahoshua (Joshua son of Nun) was one of the two good spies; and also his nephew (?) Othniel ben Kenaz who became one of the Judges of Israel following Yahoshua’s death. Edomites can and have become Israelites when they chose to live by Torah.
    2. Like the Israelites, Edom is also very numerous and they are not confined to their original homeland. Segments of Edom were taken into the Assyrian captivity alongside the northern and eastern Israelites and they were resettled in Persia. During the time of the Parthian Federation, they lived in the province of Carmania or Germania in Persia. They also left Persia when the Israelite Parthian Empire fell and followed them into Europe. They are primarily amongst the eastern Europeans in Germany and Austria. Other Edomites were amongst the Babylonians who were resettled by the Assyrians amongst the Chaldeans who were forced to resettle in northern Israel (the Samaritans). It is from the Samaritans that Simon Magus arose and became the chief Pontiff in Rome (Simon Paeter whom some Christians confuse with Simon Peter).
    3. Rome was an Edomite nation, the leading families of Rome were settlers from Sparta (Rome was originally a Spartan colony) and the Spartans identified themselves as descendants of Esau. It was to Rome that Herod (I refuse to call him Herod the Great) fled for shelter and assistance went when the Parthians drove him out of Judea and appointed their own King.
    4. The present number of Edomites would be roughly equivalent to the number of Israelites, both those from the House of Israel still in exile and those from the House of Judah. According to the prophecy of Moses, the Israelites will number around 1.2 to 1.4 Billion (that’s Billion with a “B”) immediately before “The Day of the LORD”. We can assume that Edom’s numbers would be equivalent. This prophecy reveals that that fateful day is, at least, a generation away. This ties in with the expected end of the 6000 years allocated to man, the 120 Jubilee Years, which appears to be a generation away according to those who study these things.
    5. Israelites and Edomites are “first cousins”. As such they would have much in common; both would be civilised, learned, industrious and inventive people. The major difference is that the Edomites tend to be more militaristic in outlook, probably due to Esau’s nature as a great hunter whereas Israel (Jacob) tended to his sheep. The other differences would be that exiled Israelites tend to belong to the R1B Y-DNA family whereas the Edomites tend to belong to the R1A Y-DNA family. The other major difference is that the Israelites tend to be dolichocephalic on the Cephalic index, whereas the Edomites tend to be brachycephalic.
    6. A whole encyclopaedia could be written on the history of the wars between the Edomites and the Israelites, both in the Land of Israel and in exile. According to the Jewish Sages, only the Tribes of Joseph can defeat Edom in battle. I am not sure why this belief exists but it is connected somehow to the birth of both Manasseh and Ephraim in Egypt, whereas the Patriarchs of the other Tribes were born in the Promised Land. History has shown that both Ephraim and Manasseh (primarily the USA and the British Commonwealth nowadays) have defeated Edom when necessary, and this has been the case from the time of the Parthian and Sacae Scythians (Saka Scythians to the Persians, Saxons to the Romans) wars against Rome to the two world wars of last century.
    7. The House of Israel shall suffer terrible defeats and humiliations at the end of our era. Only a remnant of their large number shall survive to return to the Promised Land at the time of Messiah ben David, although Edom shall suffer much more. Yahoshua ben Yosef ben David ben Elohim (or Jesus Christ if you prefer the Greek) made it clear that Lost Israel shall return (the story of the Prodigal Son), though most would be rejected and replaced by Gentiles (the story of the Wedding Feast) as they are covenant breakers. This will be a dreadful time, a time of “wailing and gnashing of teeth” as many Christians will be turned away, their religiosity counting for naught as they refused to abide by God’s Torah.

    • Jacques says:

      Hi Dafydd, I would really like to know the source of all this History you are quoting as fact. Please e-mail me a few references.
      Thanks and I won’t hold the Welsh victory against you.
      Well done

      • Dafydd says:

        Hi Jacques,
        I read from a variety of sources and I think that two teachers stand out, these are Yair Davidiy, an Orthodox Jewish teacher in Jerusalem, and Steven M. Collins, a Christian teacher in America. Both have written numerous books regarding the northern tribes and where they are these days, and both have interesting audio and video teachings on their web sites. Yair Davidiy’s web sites are:
        http://www.britam.org/
        http://hebrewnations.com/

        Steven Collins web site is at:
        http://stevenmcollins.com/homepage.php

        According to Yair Davidiy, the northern tribes are found mainly in Scandinavia and Atlantic Europe, and the places of migration from Europe (USA, Canada, Australia & New Zealand). Different clans from different Tribes live in a variety of nations, but some Tribes appear to be predominate, and this is where they are found:

        Issachar – Finland and Switzerland
        Gad (Gauth – English Goth) in Sweden
        Naphtali – the “Nephtalite Huns” in Norway
        Asher – Scotland
        Ephraim – England, Canada, Australia & New Zealand
        Manasseh – USA
        Dan – Denmark & Ireland
        Zebulon – Netherlands
        Reuben – The Gauls and Reubenite Franks in France
        Simeon – scattered, in southern Wales, eastern England and Ireland
        Judah – primarily the Jews in Israel and elsewhere
        Levi – primarily with the Jews in Israel and elsewhere
        Benjamin – around half with the Jews in Israel and elsewhere, and also the Belgae in Belgium and central England, and the Normans of Atlantic France.

        According to Yair Davidiy, the Israelites compose either the majority of those nations mentioned above, or a substantial and influential minority. The northern Tribes are also represented in Judah though according to the Jews, they represent less than 10% of the Jewish population. Likewise, there are minority elements of Judah and Levi amongst the northern Tribes, for example the Jutes from Denmark, now mainly in southern England, and elements of Levi are found in the Lombardi in northern Italy and amongst the northern Welsh (the Druidic Priesthood may have had a Levitical background). Elements are also present in India and Africa, though it is in the European nations where their specific Tribal blessings were made manifest.

    • kris says:

      I’m not saying that the following statement is true, or not true – I’m just adding that some Christians think that Edom is the red nation – Russia.

      • Diana says:

        Ditto Kris.

      • Dafydd says:

        Esau was “admoni”, which really means red through to golden coloured hair. If we associate admoni with communism, then the united Kingdom of Israel under King David must also have been a dreadful hotbed of Bolshevism as King David was also admoni.

      • Dafydd says:

        I should have added… (just a guess), I think you will find that the Russians have a Canaanite rather than an Edomite background. When Assyria captured northern Israel, not all of the Israelites were sent to the northern and eastern borders of the Assyrian Empire, some were transported by sea by the Canaanites (former allies and joint members of the Hebrew / Canaanite naval alliance – the Phoenicians) to the Baltic Sea to work on the amber trade. The Russians are the descendants of the Rus Vikings who departed Sweden and headed east, later creating the Russian state. I suspect that they were the former Canaanite task masters of the exiled Israelites who were overthrown and forced to flee. Most of the Canaanites left the Promised Land at the time of Yahoshua son of Nun and they migrated to northern Africa along the Mediterranean and we know them these days as the Berbers. It would be interesting to see if there are any DNA similarities between the Berbers and the Russians.

    • Aryanbrahminidiot says:

      Wrong Magog is Germany and Magogites are R1b and the R1a are from Jacob

    • donald murphy says:

      My My.

  • Mimi says:

    Enjoyed this podcast. Thank you for the validation that people in authority don’t always speak about what ‘is written’ but often enough talk about ‘what they think.’ It is great to be able to know the difference. Alongside reading GOD’s Word, listening to the podcasts really helps with that.

  • Nicholas Mansfield says:

    Wonderful analysis and answers to many questions. Strangely this is one Tanakh portion I always wished to revisit because I had neglected it. The only BIG disappointment was not paying any attention to v.18. Great commentary on the Sephardic aspect to this prophet. Relevant to me since there is a Sephardic Jew in my workplace. I often feel lazy when we listen to your shows, but there is so much to learn and so little time.

  • v says:

    several years ago i was looking @ the name yahshuah & its number value 444, which means “pure love” & now in this episode i hear you say tha adonai yhvh conbination is in the text 444 times—that’s interesting!!! halleluyah