Torah Pearls #39 – Chukat (Numbers 19:1-22:1)

You are listening to The Original Torah Pearls with Nehemia Gordon, Keith Johnson, and Jono Vandor. Thank you for supporting Nehemia Gordon's Makor Hebrew Foundation. Learn more at NehemiasWall.com.

Jono: Yehovah, we pray that you would open our eyes that we may see the wondrous things of your Torah. Amen.

Keith: Amen.

Nehemia: Amen.

Keith: Amen.

Jono: G’day to Abraham and Elisabeth and their children Abraham, Ana, Ava, and Chasya, who commented saying, “Thank you so much for these Torah portions that you put on for free download. We are very thankful to be able to listen here in Mexico.” So g’day to you. And wherever you may be around the world, thank you for company. It is time for Pearls from the Torah Portion with Keith Johnson and Nehemia Gordon. G’day, fellows.

Keith: Hey.

Nehemia: G’day.

Keith: How are you?

Nehemia: Great to be here. I want to do a shout-out to Eddie in Palm Beach, Florida, who’s been listening from the beginning. Thank you for sharing it now with people on Facebook. And also, a shout-out to Oloyede, and I may be mispronouncing that name, Oloyede in Costa Rica.

Jono: Costa Rica?

Nehemia: Jacó, Costa Rica. Thank you for listening and keep sharing.

Keith: Let me say this – you know, I can’t get over this, guys. I can’t get over this, for those that are listening that are in different parts of the world, I want to tell you, I just get so… I’m humbled that you’ve taken the time to do this. This is such fulfillment to see the Torah going forth around the world. I’m just really, really blessed. A special shout-out to everyone.

Jono: Keith, let me read it to you once again because I love doing this, everybody listening in the States, of course, Canada, Australia, Mexico, Israel, South Africa, United Kingdom, Columbia, Argentina, Philippines, Venezuela, Brazil, Costa Rica, Chile, Spain, Netherlands, Germany, Serbia, India, and New Zealand, and everywhere else. There you go.

Keith: That’s almost 20 countries, are you kidding me?

Nehemia: It’s ridiculous.

Jono: Hey, listen, it’s wonderful to have everybody listening, and I pray that it continues to be a blessing. Now, today we are in Chukat. Have I pronounced that right? Chukat?

Nehemia: Chukat, you got it.

Jono: Beautiful. Numbers 19, verse 1, to 22 verse 1. And it begins like this, you ready?

Keith: Yes.

Jono: “Now Yehovah spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, ‘This is the ordinance of the law which Yehovah has commanded, saying: Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring you a red heifer without blemish, in which there is no defect and on which a yoke has never come.’” Now, I know this discussion could go on and on… Nehemia?

Nehemia: Yeah.

Jono: Is there a red heifer in Israel?

Nehemia: Well, that’s an interesting question. So, it says here that there’s no blemish in it, and the Rabbis take that to mean that it’s all red and it doesn’t have two hairs that aren’t red. In other words, every single hair is red with maybe the exception of one hair, and so that’s a very rare thing. But I don’t think the Torah is actually saying it has to be 100% red; if it has a white spot here-and-there I don’t think that’s the issue. So, a red heifer – that’s probably a pretty common thing. There are entire species of cows that are red.

Jono: Sure.

Nehemia: So, there’s got to be lots of red heifers.

Keith: I want to say this, I found a red heifer and I was going to bring it to the Rabbis when I was in Israel, and I heard all this about the perfection of the red heifer. But if they’re waiting for that, they ain’t finding that. That exists in Israel, I’ve seen it. Nehemia showed me the red heifer.

Jono: You’ve seen the red heifer in Israel? Okay.

Nehemia: Well, look, so the issue isn’t the red heifer, it’s what we read later on in the section where it talks about, we need a priest who is clean. Actually, through the ritual of the red heifer, he becomes ritually unclean; he starts out ritually clean, and we don’t have that. The challenge is to get someone who is a legitimate priest, who we can prove is a legitimate priest, who we know is ritually clean. It becomes a catch-22 because once you ever touch a dead body, even touch a grave, as we’ll see, you become ritually unclean forever until you’re sprinkled with the waters of the red heifer, this solution of the red heifer. And if you don’t have the solution of the red heifer, how do you get clean in the first place?

Jono: That’s right.

Nehemia: So, it creates a catch-22. There are lots of red heifers in Israel today, but these waters of the red heifer we don’t have today, that hasn’t been created.

Keith: And let me tell you guys this – this is what’s so exciting, and I want to just… I don’t want to leave the farm, but I want to say something. This is what’s so exciting to me when I read Torah and I hear about these things, and I hear about these requirements, and I hear about these regulations. And then I think about the author. The one who came up with them, and would there ever be a requirement or a regulation which could not be fulfilled? And I would say no, there is no such requirement or such regulation that could not be fulfilled.

And this is why I’m going to shout. What excites me is that He already knows. He already knows who that high priest, who that one that comes in the line of Aaron is. He already knows when He decides to set up his kingdom and the redemption is here that this is not going to be an issue of, “what are we going to do now? Well, we don’t know what to do, who’s it going to be?”

It’s just like, you guys, I don’t even want to get into theology. I just want to talk about the practical side of our Creator in heaven who put these things in place, who knew then that there would be the requirement that would be met. And when we read, we find out that this is exactly what happens, and He knows in the future that that requirement will be met. I mean, doesn’t that excite you guys? I mean it just is amazing to me. I mean it’s not like He’s up there thinking, “Oh, geez, I can’t find a red heifer…”

Jono: No, that’s…

Keith: “Who am I going to have?”

Jono: It’s all over…

Keith: “What am I going to do?”

Jono: …it’s finished.

Keith: I mean, you know, there’s no – are you kidding me?

Jono: I had a great plan but it’s over now.

Keith: Yeah.

Jono: Actually, you know what…

Keith: “Retzonha ihiye asui,” His will shall be done. This is not some far off thing that’ll never be done. No, He’s going to do it.

Jono: Amen.

Keith: That’s just amazing. I’m just starting off the portion a little excited; I better come down a little bit here.

Jono: Okay. Listen, it’s got me thinking, so Nehemia, when did the priest… I mean we understand that the priesthood obviously comes from Aaron and then through, as we’re going to see, through Eleazar, right?

Nehemia: Eleazar. There are two names in ancient Hebrew: Eliezer…

Jono: And Eleazar.

Nehemia: …who is the servant of Abraham, Eliezer, and there’s Eleazar…

Jono: Yes. Eleazar.

Nehemia: …who is the son of Aaron.

Jono: Thank you for that. When did the high priesthood become corrupt? When did the waters of purification no longer count?

Nehemia: Those are two separate questions. They must’ve had the waters of purification in the Second Temple. I guess after that, it ceased to exist. And we’ve really all been in the state of ritual impurity, collectively, since then.

Jono: Well, my question is: was the Second Temple… did it have a high priesthood? Did it have a priesthood that came from the line of Eleazar?

Nehemia: They may have come from the line of Eleazar but they definitely… in addition to that, you’ve got the line of Tzadok, or Zadok, who is the high priest in the Temple at the time of Solomon. What happened is that we had this king of Judea appointed by the Romans, whose name was Herod. Herod was actually the descendant of Edomites who had been forcibly converted to Judaism, and so to give himself more legitimacy he married into the family of these respectable priests. He deposed the legitimate high priest, who was a direct descendant of Zadok, and installed his father-in-law, whose name was Boethus, or in Hebrew, Bithus, and that’s where we get the Boethusians. Actually, in the New Testament you’ll have references to the Herodian priests, and that was a derogatory name for the Boethusians, who were these usurper priests who were installed by Herod. So really from the time of Herod you no longer have anything even resembling a legitimate priesthood.

Jono: So, the Herodian dynasty corrupted the priesthood; that’s what you’re saying in a nutshell?

Nehemia: Absolutely. They deposed the line of high priests that were legitimate high priests going directly back to Zadok. Those legitimate priests are actually mentioned in the Book of Ezekiel – they’re foretold as the sons of Zadok who remained loyal to Me when the rest of the people went astray. Then Herod deposed them and installed his own, literally, his father-in-law. After that, almost every year there was a different high priest that was installed by the Romans, or installed through some other corrupt means.

So basically, throughout the entire, I’d say, last hundred years or so of the Temple, you had people who are Kohanim – they were direct descendants from Aaron but they weren’t descended from Zadok, from Tzadok, and they were Boethusians, they were illegitimate priests.

Can I actually mention this story? I want to play a card. I’ve mentioned this story before and I actually looked it up and translated it. It’s a story that takes place… it’s actually in the first century, and it takes place when a Rabbi named Yohanan ben Zakkai, who was a leading Rabbi at the end of the first century, when he’s approached by a certain idolater, and actually it literally says, “a worshipper of stars.”

Anyway, this story takes place when this idolater asks Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai, “What about this red heifer thing? What is this about?” And it gives some interesting perspective, so I’m going to read this story. It appears in some ancient rabbinical sources, one of them is in the Midrash Tanhuma on this section, commenting on the Book of Numbers, chapter 19.

So it says, as follows, “a certain idolater asks Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai, “these things that you do seem like a type of magic: you bring the heifer, you burn it, you grind it up, and you take its ashes; you then sprinkle two or three drops on one of you who is unclean from touching the dead and you proclaim him clean.” Rabbi Yohanan asked: “Have you ever seen someone possessed by an epileptic spirit?” “Yes,” the idolater replied. “And what do you do for him?” The idolater answered, “We bring roots and make them smoke underneath him, we then sprinkle water on the spirit, and it flees.” Rabbi Yohanan said, “Let your ears hear what your mouth speaks. This spirit is a spirit of uncleanness, as it is written.” And then he quotes a verse from Zechariah chapter 13, verse 2, which says, “And also the prophets and the spirit of uncleanness will I remove from the earth.” Then Rabbi Yohanan goes on to explain, “We sprinkle the waters of purification upon the spirit and it flees.” When the idolater left, Rabbi Yohanan’s disciples asked him, “you drove him away with a reed,” meaning you got rid of him, “but what will you say to us?” Rabbi Yohanan replied, “I swear by your lives that the dead do not make unclean and the water does not make clean. Rather, it is a decree of the King of Kings, the holy one, blessed be He, said…”

Keith: Hold on. Hold on. Come on, now.

Nehemia: “…I have established a statute for you, decreed a decree, and you are not permitted to violate my decree as it is written,” and in quotes this verse, “This is the statute of the instruction.” That’s actually the literal translation here in Numbers 19:2.

Keith: Amen.

Nehemia: The point is, when he’s talking to the idolater, he’s got to explain it in the idolater’s terms.

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: The idolater’s looking at what he’s doing and he’s saying this looks like magic, so the Rabbi says, well, look, in our world today everyone knows that there are epileptic spirits, and what do you do for an epileptic spirit? You go through some kind of ritual and you sprinkle water and it runs away. That’s what our red heifer is – it’s getting rid of an epileptic spirit. The disciples hear this and they’re shocked because they’re like, “well, that’s not what we do for an epileptic spirit, that’s the thing that sounds like magic.”

And so, when the idolater leaves, then Rabbi Yohanan explains what the story really is, which is that Yehovah commanded these things, we do them. Is there anything inherently about a dead person that makes us unclean? Of course not. It’s not that there’s some spirit that transfers from the dead person to us, some mystical force. This is what the Creator commanded, and so we follow these commandments in order to preserve His instructions.

Keith: Amen.

Nehemia: To live according to His word. And it’s all about Him, it’s not about some spirits that we’re trying to drive out or anything like that.

Keith: Amen.

Jono: There it is. “Then a man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer, and store them outside the camp in a clean place; and they shall be kept for the congregation of the children of Israel for the water of purification…”

Keith: Yes, sir.

Jono: “…it is for purifying from sin.”

Nehemia: Whoa. We’ve got to stop there. What do you have there, Keith, at the end of verse 9, “it is for purification from sin”? Are you kidding me?

Keith: Let’s see here, I’m sorry, “…ceremonially clean place outside the camp. They are to be kept by the Israelite community for use in the water of cleansing; it is for the purification from sin.”

Nehemia: Wow. Alright. This just…

Jono: Okay. Alright. Now, Nehemia, before you…

Nehemia: But it doesn’t say that.

Jono: I know it doesn’t say – you know what I’ve got?

Nehemia: What have you got?

Jono: Keith?

Nehemia: You’ve got an asterisk?

Jono: I’ve got an asterisk here.

Keith: Oh-oh, here comes the New King James version.

Jono: And of course, it says at the bottom, “literally, impurity”. How do you go from purity to impurity? Nehemia, what do you have?

Nehemia: So first of all, it’s called, “mei niddah,” and “niddah” is… that’s the word that we read about in Leviticus 15. I guess you could actually translate this as “waters of menstruation,” if you really want to be literal here.

Jono: Wow.

Nehemia: There’s kind of a paradox in this water. It’s the ashes of the red heifer, we mix it with water, we mix it with all kinds of things. In verse 6 one of the ingredients, literally, it’s called crimson worm; it’s a dye. So, the water would’ve actually been red, even though the heifer is burnt, and even though it was red, it’s not red anymore; it’s ash color. But the water would’ve been red because of the crimson worm. So, the paradox here is that the people who are sprinkled with the water of the red heifer or touch it, even during the preparation of it, they become ritually unclean.

Keith: Right.

Nehemia: At the same time, it makes clean, but also makes unclean. So, it’s a paradox. And this is an example where something is so holy that it actually conveys uncleanness. Again, I think the story of Rabbi Yohanan says it all – “this is what Yehovah said.” I don’t think there’s anything inherently unclean about this water; it’s a heifer, it’s an animal and you did this ritual. These are the instructions that God commanded, but its status is so holy that it actually conveys uncleanness before it then makes clean.

Literally it says, “the waters of menstruation, it is a hatat”. Now “hatath” can mean a sin offering, but in this context “hatath” can also mean the removal of sin, with the pi-el conjugation, it’s the removal of sin, and therefore, cleansing. I would say that’s a more accurate translation here because, throughout the passage we have this phrase “lehateh,” “lehithatah,” which is to sprinkle with the water and hence, purify through the water; to make clean with the water.

So, I would translate this, “the waters of uncleanness,” or literally, menstruation; it is a purification. And just to pull up here, the Jewish Publication Society, JPS, has “a man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the cow, and deposit them outside the camp in a clean place to be shall be kept for water of lustration.” Water of lustration? See, they use a big word there, which who knows what that means, “water of lustration for the Israelite community; it is cleansing.” So “it is cleansing” is, essentially…that’s a more accurate translation, I would say.

Jono: How about that?

Keith: That’s amazing.

Nehemia: Okay. So…

Jono: Nehemia?

Nehemia: Okay. So, we’ve got in the JPS “the water of lustration.” I looked up “lustration” and it just means to purify the means of religious ritual or ceremony.” So, lustration is just a fancy word for purification. I don’t know what they accomplished by using the phrase “waters of lustration,” as opposed to “waters of purification”.

Jono: But think of it, we learned a new word and…

Nehemia: But literally… yeah, learned a new word, although according to Wikipedia, the great source of knowledge – people, you can’t trust Wikipedia because literally anybody can go into Wikipedia and change it. But according to Wikipedia, lustration is the government process regulating the participation of former communists, especially of informants of the communist secret police.”

Jono: What?

Nehemia: Pretty sure that’s not what the Book of Numbers is talking about, though.

Jono: No probably not. Okay. Shall we? “Whoever touches the body of anyone who has died, and does not purify himself, defiles the Tabernacle of Yehovah. That person shall be cut off from Israel. He shall be unclean, because the water of purification was not sprinkled on him; his uncleanness is still on him.”

Nehemia: Now based on what you just read, I’m cut off and you’re cut off and Keith is never connected, so he’s… no, I’m just kidding. Keith’s cut off…

Keith: What?

Nehemia: No, you’ve got the whole Isaiah 56 thing going on, but you weren’t sprinkled with the waters of purification, right? I mean…

Keith: Right.

Nehemia: Is that not what it says?

Jono: That’s what it says.

Nehemia: If you become ritually unclean from the dead and you don’t get sprinkled with the waters of purification, you’re cut off. Now, what does your translation have, Keith?

Keith: “Whoever touches the dead body and anyone who fails to purify himself defiles the LORD’s Tabernacle that person must be cut off from Israel; because the water of cleansing has not been sprinkled on him, he is unclean. His uncleanness remains on him.”

Nehemia: Okay, that’s one way of reading the verse, and it’s a legitimate way of reading the verse. But what it means is that the very act of not purifying yourself is a desecration of God’s Tabernacle. Is that how it sounds to you? I mean, are you with me guys?

I looked up in every Jewish commentator I could find to see what the opinions were, and they all agreed that that’s a misreading of the verse. The more accurate way to read the verse would be “anyone who touches a dead body from the soul of a man,” that’s literally what it says, “he shall die and will not be sprinkled, having made unclean the Tabernacle of Yehovah, that soul is cut off from Israel.” In other words, if you don’t walk into the Tabernacle in that state of uncleanness then you’re not cut off. You see the difference between what you read and what I read?

Jono: Sure. It’s incredible.

Nehemia: It’s actually a significant difference. In Hebrew, it’s a very slight difference of interpretation here. To me it’s obvious that this has to be that; it doesn’t make sense to me that a person would be cut off simply for not being able to… I mean, let’s say we have somebody up in the Galilee who’s a day’s walk from Jerusalem, maybe two days walk, depending on the season. And you’re telling me he’s got to bury his father and then get down to Jerusalem to be sprinkled with the waters of the red heifer? Does that even make any sense? It doesn’t to me. There’s an interesting story – extend me a little bit of grace here, and let me go over into your realm for a minute, can we do that?

Keith: Wait, wait, no, no, just a second…

Jono: You want to go back into the New Testament?

Keith: If you want to go into the New Testament, I’m going to have to take a coffee break, ladies and gentlemen.

Nehemia: So, yeah, let’s pop over…I believe it’s Acts chapter 21, and the reason I’m bringing this is…you know, look, everybody knows who listens to this program, I’m not Messianic, I’m not Christian; New Testament isn’t my Scripture. I’m looking at this as a historical source of what Jews did in the first century. And there we actually have…

Keith: Can I get an Amen?

Jono: Amen.

Nehemia: Amen. There we have an example where somebody goes through a process of purification, and that’s Paul of Tarsus, who’s a disciple of a Rabbi named Gamliel or Gamaliel. Where is this, I believe it’s like verse 26, “Then Paul took the men and the next day, purifying himself…”. Say, purifying himself…

Jono: Purifying himself.

Nehemia: “…with them, entered into the temple to signify the accomplishment of the days of purification until an offering should be offered for every one of them.” So, what are the days of purification? We know there are seven days. “And when the seven days were almost ended, the Jews, which were of Asia, when they saw him in the Temple, stirred up all the people and laid hands on him.” So, he’s going through this seven-day process of purification, he’s being sprinkled on the third day, and then he’s going to the Temple to be sprinkled on the seventh day, and that’s when the whole ruckus happens, on the seventh day. But he’s going through this exact process described in Numbers 19. So, you asked, when did they stop doing this? Here we have a historical source telling us they were still doing this sometime around 40 CE or AD, which is when Paul would’ve been here in Jerusalem being purified through this seven-day process.

Jono: Okay. So, look, now… let me get this straight.

Keith: Wait, no, no, not again. No, no, sorry, I’m not letting him off the hook. So Nehemia?

Nehemia: Yes.

Keith: So, you’re telling me that Paul – this was what, how many years after the death of Yeshua?

Nehemia: I thought Paul was like around 40 or 50. Am I wrong about that?

Keith: Exactly. Yeah, no, you’re right. You’re right.

Jono: Okay.

Nehemia: I know it’s 10-15 years. I mean we don’t know exactly, but something like 10-15 years.

Keith: So, 10-15 years, and he’s already had his road to Damascus, and I’m not trying to have a New Testament study, he’s had his experience on the road, and yet he went through his process of purification in the Temple.

Nehemia: Right, he did.

Keith: Okay.

Jono: But, Keith, let just say…

Nehemia: I mean it’s in your book.

Jono: If the waters of purification…Nehemia, it has to be applied by the high priest, right?

Nehemia: No, it doesn’t say that.

Jono: It doesn’t?

Nehemia: No. Where does it say that? Look, every time somebody became ritually impure they didn’t take another red heifer; they might’ve done this once a century…

Jono: Sure.

Nehemia: …and just kept adding water. The high priest would’ve been involved in preparing it. But every time they sprinkled it, I don’t think it would’ve been the high priest; it would’ve been any priest, I think, probably.

Jono: Okay. But the high priest would’ve been involved in preparing it, right? Is that what you said?

Nehemia: Well, look, it says Eleazar the priest and so…

Jono: It does.

Nehemia: …at this time, he’s actually the deputy high priest; he’s not the higher priest.

Jono: Okay. So…

Nehemia: Because Aaron dies later in the chapter, if we ever get to that.

Jono: That’s true.

Nehemia: Or later in the Torah portion.

Jono: Okay. So, it doesn’t even necessarily have to be prepared by the high priest. My point is that if, as we established before, the high priesthood was corrupt, that just raises some questions that’s all. But it’s not necessarily, it doesn’t have to be the case. Okay.

Nehemia: Well, even if the high priest is corrupt, it doesn’t mean that all the rituals he’s doing are invalid; it just means he’s a bad person. There’s actually a story that I was taught – and I don’t know if this is historical or not, but it’s certainly taught in legend – that in the last 80 years or so of the Temple, every single year when the priest would go in on Yom Kippur into the Holy of Holies, he would die. They actually got to the point where they had a problem; no one else can go in. So, if he dies, what do you do? They started tying a rope to him, and he would leave the rope outside the Holy of Holies. It would be tied to him and every single year, for 80 years or so, he would die, and they would pull his dead body out.

Jono: Drag him out.

Nehemia: They would drag him out.

Jono: Man.

Nehemia: Now I don’t know if that really happened, that might be a little bit of what we call Eastern hyperbole, Middle-Eastern hyperbole, exaggeration, but it may have been roughly something like that.

Keith: So, okay, so I know, Jono, that I’m really, really stretching on this, and Nehemia who’s gone to the New Testament, I simply want to just ask him a question: So, Nehemia, what’s the application of this for you? So, you’ve been in the midst of a dead body, is there some part of the world where you’d say you wouldn’t go because of your state of uncleanness?

Nehemia: Well, so Yehovah says that He places his name forever. Say forever.

Jono: Forever.

Keith: Forever.

Nehemia: On the place of the Temple. There’s no Temple today, but that place is still holy. I’ve lived in Jerusalem for 19 years, and I’ve never been on the spot of the Temple; that’s because I’m ritually unclean. If I would go to that spot, I would then be fulfilling, in a bad way, that verse that we read, verse 13 – I would be desecrating, making unclean, the Tabernacle of Yehovah, and my soul would be cut off from Israel.

So, I’ve never been to the holy…of the spot of the Temple itself. I’ve been to the Temple Mount, but I’ve never been up beyond what’s called “the sorag,” which was the area that delineated what… on the Temple Mount itself there was a sub-area that was the actual sanctified area that only somebody who is ritually clean could go. I’ve never been past that point where only a ritually clean person would be allowed to go. Essentially, that was the original Temple of Zerubbabel, and then what Herod added on was never really considered sanctified and anybody could go into that area. So, I’ve been into that area because, like you said, I’ve been in the presence of a dead body. I’ve touched a dead body, unfortunately, so I’ve never been up there in 19 years. I hope I’ll be able to go soon when the Messiah comes…

Jono: Amen.

Nehemia: …and reestablishes the ritual of the red heifer.

Keith: So, then you’re saying there’s a spot up there where you physically wouldn’t go. Is that when I said to you, “Nehemia, I need you to come up with me because I’m going to go up and proclaim the name from the Temple Mount,” you said, “hey, good luck.”

Nehemia: “I wish you success.”

Keith: Well, ladies and gentlemen, I just want you to know that I actually did go up there, with Muslims, and stood at the Temple Mount and made a proclamation. As Nehemia said, his name that’s been there, and he’s placed his name there. And I don’t know exactly, the exact dimensions of where I was, but I did do that, and that’s been something that I was very, what I call, motivated by, especially as I look at the Temple Mount now, and I see what’s going up there. And if you’ve ever been up in that area, it really does break your heart because you’ve got this massive area and you got Herod doing what he does, but you know that you can look across and see where the Dome of the Rock is and you know that under there there’s the spot where there’s supposedly the Rock, and actually some 20-some years ago, 1980s, I actually saw that Rock. But now there’s a Mosque and you don’t get a chance to go in because it’s under the control of Islam right now; it’s a heartbreaking experience to be there and to know that this is not what it was intended to be, and yet it’s also a very exhilarating place to be because you know that this will be the spot where He will restore all of that. So, it really is pretty amazing, and that’s going to be… somehow, I’m going to put that up, I don’t know when. Anyway.

Nehemia: Can I share something about my experience up on the Temple Mount? I went up there, and I didn’t go into the place that was the sanctified area – I stayed outside – but what I did see there, it was really one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen; one of the most moving experiences in a good way and a bad way.

I saw there a literal fulfillment of a prophecy that appears in the Book of Jeremiah, chapter 26, verse 18, and it says as follows… actually, a prophecy that he’s quoting from Micah, Mikhah HaMorashti, let’s see, “Thus says Yehovah of hosts, ‘Zion shall be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem will be heaps of stones, and the Temple mount shall be,” you could translate this as, “a high place of a forest, a forest hill-top.’”

I went up there and this is literally true today – there’s literally, I’m not making this up, there’s literally heaps of rubble and stone on the Temple Mount. The Muslims say that this is their holy place, that this is the third holiest place in Islam. But if you actually go up there, a large part of the Temple Mount today is a garbage dump. That’s what the Muslims have done to it, they’ve turned it into a garbage dump. That’s a fulfillment of this prophecy, it talks about the “heaps of stones,” I went up there and I saw the heaps of stones. I actually have pictures of them that I took on my iPhone, and I was shocked. I didn’t expect that, to be honest with you, because I know that the Muslims talk day and night about how this is their holy place and they’ll die to defend it. And I go up there and it’s a garbage dump, a significant portion of it is literally a garbage dump, with heaps of stones and rubble and garbage up on the holiest…and you know, they say it’s their third holiest place. This is THE holiest place in the Biblical mindset…

Jono: Amen.

Nehemia: …in the Biblical world.

Jono: Amen.

Nehemia: This isn’t number 3, this is number 1. It’s the place Yehovah put His name forever, and they’ve literally, in the fulfillment of this prophecy, turned it into a garbage dump and turned it into a forest. There are trees growing there, there were kids up there playing soccer, and there was no respect whatsoever for this place which the Creator of the universe has established as the holiest spot on planet earth.

Jono: Amen. So what I’ve got here, it says in my New King James, “Thus says Yehovah of hosts: ‘Zion shall be plowed like a field, Jerusalem shall become heaps of ruin, and the mountain of the Temple like the bare hills of the forest.’” And that’s what it’s saying it resembles. Shall we kick off with chapter 20?

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: Let’s do it.

Jono: Let’s do that. “Then the children of Israel, the whole congregation, came to the Wilderness of Zin in the first month, and the people stayed in Kadesh; and Miriam died there and was buried there.”

Keith: I think it’s really interesting, and this happens a lot in the Torah, and you know how you have different things that you’re focusing on? For me, it’s always the three T’s: Time, Torah, Tetragrammaton. God’s name, God’s clock and God’s word, His word. And so, depending on which thing I’m focusing on, I’ll be reading through the Torah, like I’ll do my reading when I’m thinking about Torah and I’ll see the words Torah, and I’m reading through and I’m talking about time, or about His name. But this is just interesting to me that here we have – and I don’t know exactly, I guess we’ve dealt with this issue of chronology back and forth – but in verse 20 it says, “in the first month.” So, they’re still counting time from when it was that they left Egypt and it was the first month and what year this is. In other words, whenever I see those words “and in the first month,” there wasn’t any confusion there about what time it was – they look up, they saw, they kept time.

Nehemia: We don’t know what year it was.

Keith: And you know, it’s just kind of… we don’t know what year it was. We don’t know what year it was, and that’s the point. In this situation, they’re saying, “okay, but we know that it was the first month.”

Jono: Amen.

Keith: So that, to me is just an example where whatever year it was, they’re still counting based on looking and saying, here’s when the month is. The fact that that’s even in the verse, sort of, is like, wow!

Jono: There it is. And so, unfortunately, Miriam, Moses and Aaron’s sister, she died there and was buried there. I actually want to come back to that in a minute, but it goes on to say… now here’s is the beginning of an incredible story, Keith, oh my goodness. Here is an amazing story: “Now there was no water for the congregation; so they gathered together against Moses and Aaron. And the people contended…”, listen, they gathered together against Moses and Aaron yet again, after everything we’ve been reading, my goodness. “And the people contended with Moses and spoke, saying: ‘If only we had died when our brethren had died before Yehovah! Why have you brought up the assembly of Yehovah into this wilderness, that we and our animals should die here? And why have you made us come up out of Egypt, to bring us to this evil place? It is not a place of grain or figs or vines or pomegranates; nor is there any water to drink.’ So Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the door of the Tabernacle of Meeting, and they fell on their faces. And…” once again, it says, “…and the glory of Yehovah appeared to them. And then Yehovah spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Take the rod; you and your brother Aaron gather the congregation together. Speak to the rock…’” Speak to the rock, Keith, “‘before their eyes, and it will yield its water; thus you shall bring water for them out of the rock, and give drink to the congregation and their animals.’ So Moses took the rod from before Yehovah as He commanded him.”

And this is what happens, “And Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock; and he said to them, ‘Hear now, you rebels! Must we bring water for you out of this rock?’ Then Moses lifted his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod; and water came out abundantly, before the congregation and their animals, and they all drank.” Now, first of all, Keith, what do you make of this story?

Keith: Well, I want to say this, I want to start just at this first section. And this is before we get to real important… well, I think it’s all important, but just if you’ve ever been in the desert without water, I’ve had an experience with Nehemia that I’d like to tell the story…

Nehemia: You wanted my water.

Keith: That really, and it was really, really amazing, we decided that we wanted to not only teach the prayer, we wanted to go to the places where this prayer made sense, it’s a prayer that Yeshua taught, Jesus, you know, “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, and lead us not into temptation,” you know, in the English.

So Nehemia’s bright idea was, “look, we’ve got to go to the actual spot, we’ve got to go to the place where he spent 40 days and 40 nights.” And you know, I’m thinking, “okay, fine, we’ll do that, we’ll go to that spot.” And Nehemia says, “now, you have to bring plenty of water.” I’m like, “right, I’ll take one,” and he’s got like three, and I’m talking about liters of water. I mean, he’s got like three liters of water. Well, we were in the desert for what would be the equivalent of about three hours, my water was gone, after about four hours, I started looking at him, and after five, I started figuring out how I was going to steal it from him. And the reason…

Jono: Are you going to strike him with the stick and steal his water?

Keith: No, are you kidding me? When he’s not looking…

Nehemia: Bury me in the sand.

Keith: No, I was going to ask for forgiveness after the fact. My reason is, and I wanted to bring this up was, during that situation, I was thirsty, and already… they say that if you’re in the desert and you start feeling thirst, that means you already passed the fact that there’s some dehydration that’s taking place. So I’m imagining that for me. And I want to say Nehemia was extremely nice, this is where we had our covenant of salt, we drank from the same water; we’ve been friends ever since.

Nehemia: Yes.

Keith: But let me just say this, that I experienced that in just half a day. So imagine that this is going on for a full day, or two days, who knows. Well there’s a lot of things you can go without – you can go without food for a while, but when you start dealing with the issue of water, there really are effects that can start. So these people may not just be grumbling because they’re impatient Israelites, these are people that are in the desert that don’t have water. I mean and look, I’m serious, I mean it could’ve gotten ugly out there in the desert with myself and Nehemia, you know, the project would’ve ended right then, but he was willing to share. Well, in this situation there was no water to share. So I just want to contextually bring that up before we get into this, that this is not just a matter of convenience – “hey, we want meat to eat.” No, this is a matter of life and death. These people are thirsty.

Jono: Yeah, they get a little bit desperate, right?

Keith: Yeah.

Jono: I mean, we just…

Keith: Yeah, I just want…

Jono: I mean you have just come out of drought, about ten years of drought.

Keith: Exactly.

Jono: But I can tell you there were a few times when we, when our house, ran out of water because we’re on tank water, and you start to sort of think about that. I mean, it wasn’t that much of a dilemma, there were certain things we could do. But when the ground is that parched and you look out at the poor sheep in the… I was going to say in the desert, it’s just in the field.

Keith: Yeah.

Jono: But it’s dry and it’s got dust forms and all sorts of things.

Keith: So then after you have this matter of being thirsty, you know, there’s this issue, and I find this a really interesting twist here. So Yehovah says to Moses and Aaron, “now here’s what you’re going to do.” There’s not even a dialogue, it’s not them begging – you know, they fell face down, He heard their prayer, He says, “okay, here’s what I want you to do.” And He doesn’t say, “those darn Israelites, they’re complaining about water…” No, He just says, “okay, fine, you’ve asked, here’s what I want you to do. Take the staff,” now this is a little, small thing. “Take the staff.” What He could’ve said to Moses and Aaron is, “hey Moses and Aaron, just go out and speak to the rock.” But what He does is He says, “Take the staff, don’t use the staff, simply speak to the rock.”

Now, be Moses, Moses is thinking, “okay, I need to do my thing, I’m about to raise my staff, and I’m going to do my thing, and they’re going to know that Yehovah is holy.” But this little twist changes the game for Moses because He tells him, “Take the staff but speak to the rock.” You know, sometimes – and let me be a Methodist – sometimes you know, you kind of get these, “this is how Yehovah has dealt with me in the past, this is how he is dealing with me in the future.” No, in that situation it was very specific: Take the staff but speak to the rock. So what does Moses do? He takes the staff and then he puts on a show. In other words…

Jono: He does.

Keith: Yeah. I mean, just from reading it… Moses is like, “okay, doggonit, I’ve had enough too,” and instead of speaking to the rock – and this goes back to the whole thing about Leviticus and the different parts and all the different instructions, because it’s not like Moses is exempt from the specific statutes and regulations that are required, and that to me… this is not favoritism, that to me is a huge thing that takes place. It’s a small thing in terms of, “Take the staff but speak,” but it’s a big thing because he speaks, he has dialogue with the Creator of the universe and he tells him specifically… imagine Jono, or Nehemia, that you meet in the middle of the night, “Uh, Nehemia? This is what I want you to do.” And He gives it to you clear, and the next day you don’t do it. That’s what we’re talking about here, this is not confusion, this was very clear. And how do we know that? Because he says this, “But Yehovah said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust in Me enough to honor Me as holy in the sight of the Israelites…”

Jono: That’s interesting.

Keith: “…you will not bring this community,” That to me, you guys, I’m telling you.

Jono: Now, I’ve got something.

Keith: It’s huge.

Jono: I’ve got something different in mine, Keith. It says…

Keith: Oh.

Jono: Because it goes on to say, “Then Yehovah spoke,” in verse 12, “spoke to Moses and Aaron, ‘because you did not believe Me, to hallow Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore…’”

Keith: Oh, we’re going to have to ask Nehemia. We’re going to have to ask him to read it.

Jono: What’s your take on this story, my friend?

Nehemia: “Yehovah said to Moses and Aaron, ‘Because you didn’t believe me, to sanctify Me before the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore, you shall not bring this congregation to the land which I give to them.’” I think one of the things about this story is… I’m confused by this story, and so I can understand how Moses was confused, too. And I think the reason he’s confused, and why I’m confused, is there are two places, two different stories, that are almost identical, and there’s one subtle difference between them. Even the names are almost identical.

So we’ve got… the first story appears in Exodus 17, beginning of the chapter there, and that takes place at a place called Rephidim, and Rephidim then gets renamed when the people test God and complain, it’s then called Massah u-Merivah, which means test and strife. In the story of Rephidim, or Massah u-Merivah, there God commanded Moses to hit the rock. That’s distinct from what’s happening here – here God tells Moses to talk to the rock, and this is…after that it’s called Mei Merivah. So, we had Massah u-Merivah, and Mei Merivah, and those sound very, very similar. Then Massah u-Merivah, to complicate matters, is sometimes just called “Massah,” without the “Merivah” part.

Some verses mention both of these incidents. So, in the first incident he’s told to hit the rock and in the second incident he’s told to talk to the rock. He hits it because he’s like, “I did this before, I know how this works.” And then that becomes the test that he has failed and that Yehovah then says, “because you didn’t sanctify Me before Israel, therefore, you’re not going to go into the land.” Could we maybe really quickly read Deuteronomy, chapter 33, verse 8? Can you read that, Keith? Or Jono?

Keith: Go ahead, Jono.

Nehemia: Yeah, because that mentions both “Massah” and “Merivah”.

Jono: “And of Levi he said: ‘Let Your Thummim and Your Urim be with Your holy one, Whom You tested at Massah, and with whom You contended at the waters of Meribah.”

Nehemia: So, the reason this is confusing is that the full name of “Massah” is Massah u-Merivah, “u” means “and,” Massah and Merivah. Then we also have the place which is “Mei Merivah,” the waters of Merivah. And then this verse, Deuteronomy 33:8, refers to Massah and the waters of Merivah, and those are two different places, so it’s extremely confusing.

They’re also both mentioned in Psalm 95, verse 8. There it also rehashes; it mentions both of these incidents. If you didn’t know better, you’d say, “well, wait a minute, this is the same story just being told a little bit differently.” I think that’s exactly what confused Moses. He’s like, “I’ve been to this rodeo before, I know God last time told me to hit the rock. I’m just going to hit it. I’m not going to talk to the rock.”

Keith: No, I disagree. I’ve never had a disagreement on Torah Pearls, but this is my first one. I’m going to have a complete and utter disagreement with my friend, Nehemia Gordon.

Nehemia: Come on.

Keith: Because I don’t think that Moses was confused at all. I think that Moses knows the language, I think that Moses is the one that penned it, I think that Moses knows that in Exodus 17:7 he was dealing with the place Massah, he knew that that was from the word, what is the word Nehemia? Nassah? He knew that was a test. And when that test came, he passed that test.

And I don’t think he was confused at all, Exodus 17:7, I don’t think he was confused at all about the two different places. And I think that’s why, more than anything, Yehovah held him accountable. I don’t think this was in a matter of ignorance or confusion.

Nehemia: Well, I don’t think it was ignorance or confusion.

Keith: Well, let me finish, I’m in the middle of an argument with you. Are you kidding me? So I think that Moses absolutely knew that in Exodus 17 it was Massah from the word Nissah, test, that’s why when we go to Abraham, it says he tested him, Yeshua himself when he was tested, I think that Moses knew and he passed that test with flying colors. And this is why I brought the example of being met, and my heart’s beating on this, and you meet in the middle of the night and you get that word from Yehovah, and it’s clear, and He tells you clearly. And you and I don’t have to – like, Nehemia and I often do this, ladies and gentlemen, we’ll be talking about something really important, and I’ve always appreciated this about Nehemia, he’ll say, “we need to pray about that, okay?” And so in the period of time of discernment, you pray about it.

But let’s go back to what we taught the people here. Moses was not like others. He didn’t need to pray about it, he had dialogue with Yehovah, it was as clear as me talking to Jono, and Jono talking to us and the people around the world listening. He had the instruction as clear as the priests get the instruction when it was clear from Yehovah, and I don’t think this was a matter of confusion. I think this was a matter of disobedience.

When he went to the rock, Yehovah told him, “Moses, speak to the rock.” He knew it was a different rock, it was different, it was a different place, and he didn’t speak to the rock, he showboated in front of the people, and he stood up and said, “how long will you people ask for us to do this?” And this is what’s so amazing about the Bible, it tells us what he said, they, like, don’t have to guess. He got up and he hit it not one time, because if he was confused he should’ve hit it one time, he hit it twice; once for heaven and earth to let Yehovah know, “look, I’ll take it from here, I’m going to showboat in front of these people,” and Yehovah said, “hey, Moses, come over here for a second, if I’m going to kill people with a plague… if I’m going to keep priests, if the sons of Aaron are going to die for not treating me holy, you’re going to be held accountable.” And I really think this was an example where, when we read this story, we’re supposed to say Moses is not exempt. And if anything, it shows the justice of Yehovah and His righteousness and He will be treated holy. And this is my big argument – I don’t think Moses was confused, and that’s why he was held accountable.

Jono: Because there…

Nehemia: I don’t think he…

Jono: Because there is a higher level of accountability, right?

Keith: Yeah. Right.

Jono: There is a much higher level of accountability for Aaron and for Moses, and it’s interesting…

Keith: Moses spoke to him face to face.

Jono: Because I mean should he have said… Nehemia, I mean, seriously, should he have said, “Hear now house of Israel, Yehovah will bring water out of the rock?” But instead, we have, “Must we?”

Keith: “Must we?”

Jono: “Must we bring water for you out of this rock?” And it’s interesting that it does make the point that it doesn’t just say that Moses hit the rock…

Nehemia: So why doesn’t he talk to the rock? I guess what I’m trying to do is psychoanalyze Moses and understand what his reason was, because you’re saying he knew that he was supposed to talk to it, and he hit it. So, what was the reason that he did that? And I still maintain that he had the previous experience where hitting it worked.

Jono: Sure.

Nehemia: And let’s be honest, he’s not a man of words. So, he’s holding that staff, he’s performed the miracles with the staff, he split the sea, he turned the sea into the blood…

Keith: That’s exactly why he’s held accountable.

Nehemia: …and now he’s thinking, “What, what, what? Am I going to have to talk to it? Heck, no.” Boom, boom, and the water comes out. And he thinks, “Thank God, I didn’t have to speak.” And Yehovah…

Jono: But he does speak, he says, “Hear now, you rebels! Must we bring water out of this rock for you?”

Keith: He’s speaking as clear as day here. And I’m just saying this, and listen, this is a matter, like you say, you can try to analyze it, my point is, why did He hold him accountable? He says…

Nehemia: Yehovah says…

Keith: Hear these words, it says this.

Nehemia: Yes.

Keith: He says this, “But Yehovah said unto Moses, ‘Because you did not trust in Me enough to honor Me as holy.’” This wasn’t a matter of because… He doesn’t say, “because you waved your hand,” it’s because Yehovah is holy.

Jono: Okay.

Keith: He will be treated as holy. And if it’s a matter of trust, if He says to him, this is what you do, and he doesn’t do it? Look, the story would’ve been over at the Red Sea, or when he was meeting with Pharaoh. Moses knew exactly what Yehovah instructed him.

Nehemia: No, with Pharaoh, Aaron was the one speaking on his behalf.

Keith: But he did, but I’m saying. But what I’m saying is…

Nehemia: And here he speaks, he’s actually… this is what you might call an excited utterance; he’s upset, he’s yelling at the…

Jono: He’s ticked off.

Nehemia: He’s ticked off.

Jono: Yeah.

Nehemia: And one of the things that you find with people who stutter is that actually, when they’re excited, when they’re saying something in a moment of anger or rage or excitement, they actually don’t stutter, and no one knows why. But then when it comes time, “okay, well, God told me I need to speak to this,” now, there’s dead-silence across, you know, there’s three million people, they’re in dead-silence. Everyone’s looking to him, and now it’s time to speak and there’s no excitement; there’s trepidation. And he’s like, “heck, there’s no way, I’m just going to take the staff and I’m going to hit it.” Now, that’s my psychoanalyzing him; I could be wrong.

Jono: So, can I ask, Nehemia, can I ask you then…?

Nehemia: Based on what we know about Moses it makes a lot of sense. I understand Moses’s heart. When you’re standing in front of a group of people, and the groups of people I’m standing in front of are usually several hundreds, not three million, and when there’s that dead-silence when you walk out there, that can be intimidating.

Jono: Sure.

Nehemia: And if you’re a man who stutters, I can’t even imagine how intimidating that is.

Jono: So, verse 12, where it says, “Because,” now, Keith has got “Because you did not trust me,” and I’ve got, “Because you did not believe Me,” and that’s the way you translate it.

Nehemia: Well, literally…

Jono: Now, why did Moses not believe Yehovah here?

Nehemia: Okay. So in Hebrew, to believe and to trust is essentially pretty much the same thing, because the word “emunah” in Hebrew, which you could translate literally as belief, isn’t just something that… in the Western world we come from the Greek culture, or you guys come from the Greek culture, and the Greek culture is a culture of thought. They invented philosophy, which is the love of knowledge, of thoughts, of ideas. Hebrew is an action-oriented language. That’s the real big difference between Hebrew and Greek thought; they’re thought-oriented and we’re action-oriented. So, belief isn’t just about thoughts, in Hebrew belief is about action. He may have said, “oh, yeah, I believe God,” but his actions showed differently. His actions showed a lack of belief.

Keith: And this is what I would say, and I’m going to stay with the Scripture here, but this is what I would say regarding this whole thing, and why this was so important, and this is what I was waiting to say – I believe that one of the reasons that Yehovah told him to take the staff but yet He told him to speak to the rock is that even Moses had become a little bit depended on his staff, or maybe even Moses started saying, “yes, I’ve got the magic stick, here’s what it does.” And Yehovah’s, “bring your staff but don’t use it.”

Jono: Sure.

Keith: “Speak to the rock.”

Jono: Perhaps I mean, both of them…

Keith: I’m just saying, and my point is this happens in history – you know what, here’s the snake, the bronze snake?

Jono: Yeah, we’ll go into that.

Keith: Look to the snake…

Nehemia: Look at the head.

Keith: And the next thing you know, what do we find out some years later? No, no, my point is…

Jono: Yeah.

Keith: …that they’re bringing… that thing that was used to show God’s glory ends up being its glory itself. And this happens in Christianity and everywhere else.

Jono: Yeah.

Keith: The only thing I’m saying is, I think it’s phenomenal that He said, “bring the staff but don’t use it,” and I think the fact that Moses did use the staff was an example of not trusting Yehovah, and the fact that he didn’t do what He told him to do is why there’s accountability and I don’t think he was confused at all, I think he was showboating, but that’s my opinion.

Jono: That’s compelling.

Keith: Let’s move on.

Jono: Moving on, Edom… now, correct me if I’m wrong, but is not Edom descendants of Esau, is that right?

Nehemia: That’s correct. Edom is the son of Esau, the brother of Jacob.

Jono: Okay. And they wouldn’t let the Israelites pass through, they pleaded with him, “let us, we’ll stay on the King’s Highway; we won’t do any… and if we drink any water, we’ll pay for it.” And he insisted, “no”. And the interesting thing is that they don’t say, “Well, I’ll tell you what – how about this, we’ll just wipe you out instead.”

Nehemia: Okay. They were commanded not to do that. That God had given the land of Edom to the descendants of Esau and later on in Deuteronomy, we’ll hear there’s a specific commandment not to conquer Edom, Moab, and Ammon – the Ammonites, the Moabites, and the Edomites. Those are our cousins through Esau and through Lot. And they’ve got their land, we’re supposed to leave them alone. We’ve got our land; we’re supposed to liberate it.

Jono: Amen.

Keith: There it is.

Jono: There it is. And so, Israel, they turned away from Edom, is what happened. But in verse 22, “The children of Israel, the whole congregation, journeyed from Kadesh and came to Mount Hor. And Yehovah spoke to Moses and Aaron at Mount Hor by the border of the land of Edom, saying: ‘Aaron shall be gathered to his people,’” and there’s some news you don’t want to hear, “Aaron shall be gathered to his people, for he shall not enter the land which I have given to the children of Israel, because you rebelled against My word,” Keith, is what it says, “because you rebelled against My word at the waters of Meribah.” Okay.

Keith: And I think, one thing I was going to say about this – can you imagine us right now, us, the three of us, we don’t know when our day will come. We don’t know when we’re going to die, we don’t know, Yehovah has not said, at least that I know of, “Keith is about to be gathered to his people,” you know. But be Aaron. Can you imagine that? I mean…

Jono: I know.

Keith: …just hearing that? Like, I mean, like, okay, you’re not…

Nehemia: That’s got to suck.

Jono: Yeah. I know. It’s like, “okay, now, listen, you know, you’re going to go up on a hill and you’re not going to come down.”

Keith: Yeah. Right. That’s it.

Jono: Okay. So that’s what happens.

Nehemia: One thing to point out here, and this is me jumping ahead into a different Torah portion in Deuteronomy, which is that we’ve got this story, and it’s like one thing after another. They’re in Kadesh, in the Wilderness of Zin, and the next thing we know they’re at Mount Hor and Aaron is dying. It’s very misleading because, in Deuteronomy we find out that they spent years at Kadesh. And between the time they left Kadesh to when they essentially reached the end of this Torah portion was 38 years. From when they arrived at Kadesh until the end of… really, chapters 20 through 21 of Numbers is a span of 38 years, and we find that out from the Book of Deuteronomy. But from here it’s like one event after another, and it’s a little bit misleading. So that’s something important to bear in mind.

Jono: Let me just jump back to the beginning of this chapter. Is there a tomb of Miriam?

Nehemia: I’m sure somewhere there’s a tomb of Miriam, but we don’t know where Miriam’s real tomb is, let’s put it that way. I don’t think Jewish tradition has a tomb of Miriam, but I wouldn’t be surprised if other traditions have a tomb of Miriam. There is a Muslim sight, which is identified as the tomb of Aaron. I don’t think anybody in the Jewish world takes that really seriously as Aaron’s actual tomb. But we pretty much know which mountain… or the mountain that he’s identified as having died on, is called in the Tanach Hor Hahar, or Mount Hor, and is identified as a mountain next to Petra, which is in the kingdom of Jordan in the south.

Jono: Sure.

Nehemia: And that’s the area that was historically part of Edom. And in fact, Petra was the capital of Edom, the capital of the Edomites.

Jono: So the high priesthood is transferred to Eleazar, his son, and it says, “Aaron was gathered to his people. He died there, they stripped him of his garments and put them on Eleazar his son; and Aaron died there on the top of the mountain. Then Moses and Eleazar came down from the mountain. Now when all the congregation saw that Aaron was dead, all the house of Israel mourned for Aaron thirty days.”

Keith: Thirty days.

Jono: Yeah.

Keith: Thirty days. Yes.

Jono: There it is.

Keith: Okay.

Jono: And now there’s an attack, right? The Canaanites, “The king of Arad, the Canaanite, who dwelt in the South, heard that Israel was coming along the road. And he fought with them, he took some of them prisoners.” How about that? “So Israel made a vow to Yehovah, and said, ‘If You will indeed deliver this people into my hand, then I will utterly destroy their cities.’ And Yehovah listened to the voice of Israel and delivered up the Canaanites, and they utterly destroyed them and their cities. So the name of that place was called Hormah.”

Nehemia: Hormah is from the word “haram.” It says here, “va-yiharem,” and he utterly destroyed; so Hormah is utter destruction.

Jono: Utter destruction.

Keith: Can I read this part?

Jono: I was just about to say, Keith; will you take us through The Bronze Serpent?

Keith: Look, this is the Methodist section, so this is great.

Jono: Yeah.

Keith: “So they traveled from Mount Hor along the route,” what are you talking about, “the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, ‘Have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread, there is no water and we detest this miserable food!’” Three things: no bread, no water, and that which you’ve given us we don’t even like. “And the LORD sent venomous snakes among them, and they bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, ‘We sinned when we spoke against Yehovah and against you. Pray that Yehovah will make the snakes go away from us.’ So Moses prayed for the people. The LORD said to Moses, ‘Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.’ So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.” Can I get an Amen?

Jono: Well, that’s what it says. Amen. But I mean, Keith, it’s one of the strangest, and the first thing that comes…

Keith: What are you talking about?

Jono: Well, the first thing that comes to my mind is the Second Commandment, right? But keep going.

Keith: What do you mean it’s strange? Here we have, again… this is just a chapter later when it happened, how long it happened, here it’s a chapter later and he says, “Okay, look, I sent the snakes – okay, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. Go and take this bronze snake, put it on a pole, life it up and then whoever looks at the snake is healed.”

Nehemia: Can I ask what might sound like a stupid question? Why was it a bronze, or actually copper, why was it a bronze or copper snake? Why wasn’t it an iron snake, or a gold snake? I mean, gold is much more venerable than copper.

Jono: Sure.

Keith: Oh, that’s a great question.

Jono: I don’t have an answer to that.

Nehemia: So, in Hebrew it’s a play on words, because the word for snake is “nahash,” and the word for copper, or bronze, is nehoshet, and together that becomes nahash-nehoshet, a copper snake. So, it’s a play on words.

Jono: Right. So, what Keith has, Keith’s got “venomous snakes.” What I have in the New King James is “fiery serpents,” it’s fiery and copper. Is that in the Hebrew? Are they…

Nehemia: No. So “saraf” is a type of snake, and that’s what they’re translating in yours as “fiery serpents.” Presumably, they say that was a snake that, when it bit you, you felt a burning. If you’ve ever been stung by a bee or a wasp you know what that’s about.

Jono: Sure. Yeah. Sure.

Nehemia: I’ve never been bitten by a snake, but I have been stung by a wasp, and it burns like, oh my gosh. So that’s “saraf,” that word in verse 8. But then in verse 9 it says, “And Moses made nahash-nehoshet,” a copper snake. So, snake is the broader term, “saraf” is a specific type of snake. So, it’s a play on words, and later on…I’m going to let Keith bring this. Later on, it’s called “Nehushtan,” which means… I don’t know, you could translate that as “coppery snake,” or you know, basically it’s a combination of the word “copper” and “snake,” Nehushtan, but it’s from the word nehoshet, which means copper.

Jono: So, Keith, it says this in Exodus 20, verse 4, “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water underneath it; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them.” Now I understand, of course, they’re not bowing down – at least not yet – to the snake.

Keith: Yeah, right.

Nehemia: I think this actually shows that the purpose there of that commandment, it’s dealing with things that are then to be worshipped. Meaning, “don’t make yourself an idol to worship,” is what I think it’s saying in the Second Commandment.

Jono: Amen.

Keith: Amen.

Nehemia: So, if you think about it, like…so little children, 3000 years ago…is God telling the Israelites, “don’t make for them little toy horses and little toy…”, is that really what it means? They actually did have toys back then, if anybody’s laughing and saying they didn’t; they did; they had them made out of pottery, little earthenware horses, we find in excavations, that were used as toys. I don’t think that that was a prohibition to not let your children have toys. I think the point there is, don’t make things that… don’t give an idol to worship. Now, the problem here, I’ll let Keith talk about this, is what happens afterward.

Keith: No, that’s okay. No, no I just want to say this, though – I think that one of the things I want to look at again, and I think what Nehemia just brought up is a great example. No, the point that he’s saying here is that there’s this bronze snake that’s been made for this purpose, how he actually wants to have that bronze snake, in terms of bringing healing. He’s not saying, “make this bronze snake and bow down to it.” In other words, I don’t think this has anything personally to do with that command of creating an image and then bowing down to it. I think it has to do with the instruction of Yehovah, “and this is how I want you to do it, and this is how the healing’s going to take place.” So imagine someone saying, “okay, I was bitten but I’m not going to look at the snake.” Guess what? You die.

Jono: Yeah.

Keith: It’s that clear.

Jono: Alright.

Keith: Okay.

Jono: So I have a question, Nehemia, I have a question that’s…

Nehemia: Wait, wait, are we not going to bring 2 Kings 18:4?

Keith: Sure we are. Of course, we are.

Jono: Alright.

Nehemia: I mean, we’re talking about this Nechushtan.

Keith: Wait, no, no. No, you continue.

Jono: 2nd Kings, chapter 18, verse 4.

Keith: Yeah.

Jono: Okay. “He removed the high places and broke the sacred pillars, cut down the wooden images and broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made; for until those days the children of Israel burned incense to it, and called it,” and now I’ve got, “Nechushtan.”

Nehemia: Nechushtan.

Keith: It’s Nechushtan.

Nehemia: This is such an amazing story to me because this is the time of King Hezekiah and he’s finally getting rid of the high places and all the illegitimate worship that’s going on. And there’s this relic there – it’s a relic that Moses himself made by the direct command of Yehovah. It’s a relic that, if you look on it, can actually bring healing, but the problem is that the people are worshipping it. Yehovah says, “look upon that copper serpent and you’ll be healed from snakebites.” And what do they do? They start to forget what’s going on; they say, “oh, the copper serpent up on that stick is giving the healing? I’m going to worship it,” and they burn incense to it. Hezekiah realizes it needs to be destroyed. It needs to be ground into dust, which is what it says, “kitat,” he ground up into mortar. He completely turned it into dust because, even though Moses made it by the direct commandment of Yehovah, it had become a stumbling block for the people and it needed to be destroyed.

Keith: Amen. Amen. And that’s, again, connected to the idea you brought up, Jono, regarding the command of… the very thing you said, well, isn’t this something that, when he created and it’s a purpose of what it was created for, it fulfills a purpose.

Jono: Amen.

Keith: What they did it is they took that further and said, “oh, this is a great thing. Let’s take a good thing a make it a great thing and let’s franchise this thing. Hey, let’s make this the thing that we, you know…”

Jono: Sure.

Keith: I mean, so.

Jono: There’s a lot of that. And just before we move on then, Nehemia, how many years are we talking between the event in Numbers and King Hezekiah? Just some round figures.

Nehemia: So, I’d say roughly something like 750 years – 800 years.

Jono: Sure. Okay. That’s how long they had it, and it makes you wonder how long they were…

Nehemia: Well they, you know…

Jono: It had reached the sort…

Keith: Hundreds of years, people they recreated the bronze snake.

Nehemia: Yeah. It was an ancient thing, and it was directly tied to Moses, legitimately so. And they said, “okay, we’ve got healing in this, we’re going to burn incense and worship it.”

Jono: There it is. Picking up the pace a little bit, guys, in Numbers, chapter 21, verse 14, “Therefore it is said, the Book of the Wars of Yehovah.” Where is that book?

Nehemia: That’s a good question.

Keith: I’ll tell you what.

Nehemia: No one knows.

Jono: Keith?

Keith: No one knows but one thing that’s amazing, it’s like the Book of Chronicles, the Kings of Israel and we see these witnesses in Scripture that there are these other sources that were definitely in existence at the time that these things were written, so I know that we could go off the trail here and talk about the many things that have been found, and that’s why we’ve got to go to the Book of Jubilees, or the Book of Enoch, or the book of whatever that’s been found and whatever. But I think one of the things that we can acknowledge is that these were sources that existed but they didn’t make it into the…

Jono: They weren’t preserved, at least, or they didn’t make it into the…

Nehemia: Well, maybe they actually were, and let me point something out.

Keith: Yeah.

Nehemia: The word “book,” in ancient Hebrew, the word “sefer”, “book”, refers to any written document. In fact, when it talks about a divorce and it says the man will give the woman a certificate of separation, it actually is “sefer kritut,” which you could translate as “a book of separation.” So “sefer” is any written thing. There are ancient inscriptions which are ten lines long, and inscription refers to, you know, it’s written on stone in ancient Hebrew, and it refers to itself as a “sefer,” as a book. So “sefer” could be a very short document. It’s very possible that, “the Book of the Wars of Yehovah,” is simply verses 14 through 15, or this small passage here. That might be the extent – possibly even through verse 20 – that might be the entire extent of “the Book of the Wars of Yehovah,” that might be it. It’s not a very big book in that case. But we don’t know, maybe there was a bigger book and it just doesn’t exist. Who knows?

Jono: Sure.

Keith: Alright.

Jono: Okay. So it goes on now, there is the defeat of the King Sihon, there is the defeat of King Og. And is there anything, just picking up the pace, Keith, is there anything you want to highlight in the end of chapter 22 here? Chapter 21, rather.

Keith: No, no, I’m fine.

Nehemia: Woah.

Jono: Nehemia?

Nehemia: Verse 29, can we read this?

Keith: Absolutely.

Nehemia: This is a song that they sang at some point. It’s actually a proverb, in verse 27 it’s described, it says, “Therefore those who speak the proverbs will say,” and then they have this proverb. It’s not clear who those proverb speakers are; maybe they’re not even Israelites, because in verse 29, it says, “Woe onto you, Moab! The people of Chemosh are destroyed.” Chemosh is the God of Moab, the God of the Moabites, which leads me to think that this is not a Hebrew – or excuse me, I should say, not an Israelite, at least I hope it’s not an Israelite, poem or proverb, but that this may have actually been a Moabite or an Edomite, or something from the area, a proverb from that region.

That actually brings up a really interesting thing, which is that the archeologists have found ancient writing, ancient inscriptions, in several languages, and those include Moabite, Ammonite, and Edomite. Now, remember the Moabites, the Ammonites, and the Edomites are the cousins of Israel. And guess what? Their language is almost identical to Hebrew; so much so that, if you put vowel markers in it, I would say that just about any literate person in Israel would be able to read those ancient Hebrew inscriptions. Now, there are some words that are different and some grammatical forms that are different, but basically… that’s the type of difference you can have within any given language. Even between American English and Australian, you’ve got some differences. So, these differences are a little bit bigger, but basically, Moabite, Ammonite, and Edomite are dialects of Hebrew. They’re almost identical to the language of the Bible. So, this proverb here is probably not a Hebrew proverb, it’s probably an Edomite, or a Moabite, or an Ammonite proverb. That’s why it’s mentioning Chemosh in verse 29.

Jono: There we go. Thank you for that. Alright, I’m going to jump right to the end. Are you ready? Because we’re pretty much run out of time.

Keith: Okay.

Jono: This is the first… and you know what, I’m really excited, this is the first verse, chapter 22, it says, “Then the children of Israel moved and camped in the plains of Moab on the side of the Jordan across from Jericho.” Now, the reason why I’m excited, oh, my goodness, the next Torah portion is…

Keith: Yes

Jono: …Balak, Numbers 22, verse 2, to 25:9. This has got to be one of my favorite Torah portions, I think.

Keith: Okay.

Jono: And I’m really looking forward to that one, so…

Nehemia: I’m just so excited they finally made it to the border of the land. They’re in the plains of Moab, just across from Jericho, and that excites me because I can actually go outside, walk for two or three minutes to the top of the hill from where I live and see the plains of Moab. So that excites me.

Jono: Wow.

Nehemia: This is something I can actually see. Halleluyah. They reached the…I mean, imagine, that means they look back and they can see Jerusalem, the heart of the land of Canaan, the heart of Israel. That’s got to be exciting.

Keith: Amen.

Nehemia: They’ve been wandering for 40 years.

Jono: 40 years.

Nehemia: And they’re finally there. Whoo!

Keith: Amen.

Jono: We’re going to get there in the next Torah portion. Thank you, Keith Johnson and Nehemia Gordon. You’ve been listening to Torah Pearls. Until next time, dear listeners, be blessed and be set apart by the truth of our Father’s word. Shalom.

You have been listening to The Original Torah Pearls with Nehemia Gordon, Keith Johnson and Jono Vandor. 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!