Torah Pearls #46 – Eikev (Deuteronomy 7:12-11:25)

Torah Pearls - Eikev, 40 days, 40 nights, abominations, arrogance, awesome, bees, Birkat HaMazon, blessing, blot out, Circumcised heart, collective blessing, cows, curse, cursed thing, eikev, fasting, first person, God of gods, gods, golden calf, grace, grace after a meal, hornet, idolatry, Jesus quotes Torah, Karaism, karaite, Karaites, land flowing with milk and honey, meal, Moses intervened for Aaron, name, on the heels of, plagues, Prophecy, search scriptures, seven species, staple crops of Israel, tablets, tablets of stone, Ten Commandments, Tetragrammaton, Torah, Torah Pearls, walking the landIn this episode of The Original Torah PearlsEikev (Deuteronomy 7:12-11:25), using language, history, context and common sense, Nehemia Gordon provides insight into Hebrew slang as well as certain words from the portion, including “because,” “disease,”  and “hornet.” The question of when to say grace leads the trio to discuss the powerful implications of lifelong learning—“little by little.” Johnson relates how Jesus’ intimacy with the books of Moses draws him to the Torah. The trio answers: What Hebrew word describes both “God” and “desert?” Does God set time limits on wickedness? What things are abominable? What is the danger of arrogance? Who hewed? And who wrote? Gordon discusses the irony that scripture and Jewish tradition consider the blotting out of a name to be a curse. And in contrast to the practice of only using the Tetragrammaton, Gordon reads Deuteronomy 10:17 in Hebrew to reveal the alliterative beauty of the verse and the power unleashed when the great, mighty and awesome name is spoken.

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Torah Pearls #46 - Eikev (Deuteronomy 7:12-11:25)

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: G’day to Rose from New Mexico, Bryan from North Carolina, Anais from Illinois, Mike and Lynn from Georgia, Catherine from Michigan. It is time for Pearls from the Torah Portion with Keith Johnson and Nehemia Gordon. G’day, gentleman.

Nehemia: Gday, Jono! It’s great to be here in Jerusalem on this hot day.

Keith: And I want to give a shout out to Sarah Yah. Sarah, thanks for sending me a wonderful little note, and I hope you’re continuing to listen. It’s just a blessing to be doing this. This really is fun, you guys. I can’t believe that we’re already in the last section of the Five Books. We’re in the book of, in my tradition, Deuteronomy. So I’m excited.

Jono: We are on the homestretch, Keith. There’s absolutely no doubt about it. We’re on the homestretch, but before we get there, I just want to... there are a couple of announcements that I want to make Keith. Let me read some comments. I want to read some comments to you guys. Here it comes, I’ve got a few to read. This is from Charlotte, Charlotte wrote, “One of the things I appreciate most is the frequent clarification of Hebrew words. I took a Biblical Hebrew class, got an understanding of the grammar but now, I am increasing in the vocabulary, which is wonderful. I have resources like lexicons and etymological dictionaries, and none are as valuable as the input of a native speaker such as Nehemia. Thank you so much.” Well, thank you, Charlotte. And Rick; Rick wrote, “I would like to give a shout-out to Keith Johnson in Charlotte, Nehemia Gordon in Israel, and Jono Vandor somewhere in Australia. I appreciate all that you do.”

Keith: Corowa.

Jono: Corowa in New South Wales, Australia is where I am. And Darren - Darren said, “It is awesome that you guys are providing us with so much hope to observe all this diversity coming together because of one name, Yehovah, and one set of instructions, His Torah.

Nehemia: Amen.

Jono: And this one’s from South Africa, now Hanré, I hope I pronounced that right, Hanré. “Keith and Nehemia,” Hanré writes, “I heard you both when you were in South Africa, and it is wonderful to be able to just continue in what I learned in that one session. I am truly blessed by your interaction and the Light of Yehovah that you share weekly. Thank you so much and be blessed.” That’s wonderful from South Africa. Shelley, “Three shout-outs for the three Amigos! I don’t know how this show can ever be topped!!! Got to love it. Got to share it. Lovin’ Yah – and lovin’ ya’ll lovin’ Him and His Word, and each other – keep letting it shine, guys!” That’s Shelley. Thank you, Shelley.

Keith: Amen.

Jono: Miriam, “What a tremendous blessing to have my eyes open to the true understanding of the “Spirit of the Law”! How gracious of Yehovah to accept what we can do, although it is not exactly what the written Torah requires when we repent and pray that it be accepted.” She’s talking in reference to, Nehemia, the example that you gave in Hezekiah in the second Passover. So she wrote, “A second shout-out to Keith, Jono, & Nehemia. This was such a great Torah portion midrash. Thank you.” Benjamin, Benjamin wrote, “You all three get an AMEN and a shout-out... this portion was chock full of goodness and thank you three so much for pulling out and polishing the Pearls. Truly enjoyed it again. I have been listening to Torah Pearls now for several months and am truly getting meat from them. Blessings to you and Yah.” Chrissie, Chrissie wrote...

Keith: Can I go ahead and say something, Jono, before you continue?

Jono: Keith?

Keith: I’m going to steal what Ben said, “polishing the Pearls,” that’s what we’re doing. I love that.

Jono: “Polishing the Pearls,” thank you, Ben, for that.

Keith: Yes.

Jono: “Polishing the Pearls,” beautiful.

Nehemia: Now, does one actually polish pearls?

Jono: Sorry, what was that?

Nehemia: Well, I know you polish silver, but do you polish pearls?

Keith: Look Nehemia, are you kidding me?

Nehemia: I’m just asking.

Keith: The guy said, “polishing the Pearls,” leave him alone. I mean Jeez Louise.

Jono: Chrissie said, “This program has been a TREMENDOUS blessing. I have caught up with all the Torah Pearls in about a month,” She’s been listening to all of them in a space of a month, “and I LOVE all the viewpoints, it really helps.” Crystal said, “Such an AWESOME program. GREAT JOB!” Thank you, Crystal. And Myra, Myra has a question that, maybe, if it’s a quick one, maybe Nehemia you could deal with this before we start. She says, “My question is about the use of the final form of the Hebrew letter “nun” that appears twice in Numbers 10:35 and 11:1?” Are you familiar with what she’s talking about?

Nehemia: So, what she’s talking about is the... and didn’t we talk about this? The upside down “Nun”? Did we talk about that?

Jono: She says, “What does it signify to the Israelites then and now to us now?”

Nehemia: Okay. Well, I couldn’t tell you what it signified to the Israelites back then because I don’t have a time machine, unfortunately. But common understanding of the upside down “nun,” which is just before and just after verses 35 and 36 of Numbers 10; in the last two verses. That’s the passage that says, “And it would come to pass when the ark would travel and Moshe would say, ‘Arise Yehovah, scatter your enemies and let those who hate you flee from before you.’” When it would rest, he would say, “Return Yehovah of the myriads of the thousands of Israel.” In other words, these are things that Moses would say when the ark would move and when it would stop. Those two verses are marked off with an upside down “nun,” before and after them in the Hebrew manuscripts.

What does that upside down “nun” mean? The answer is that nobody really knows, but it’s commonly thought that that marks this off as a separate section. That, at one time, this was essentially like its own book maybe even, that’s the usual understanding of it. But then that doesn’t really fit because we have lots of sections that were obviously at one time a separate scroll. On top of that, you’ve got the upside down “nun” over in the book of Psalms, and it doesn’t really fit there either. So, the real answer is, nobody knows what the upside down “nun” is, and this is probably an invitation for everybody to come out with their pet theories and say that...

Keith: I’ve already got a book on it.

Jono: Keith’s...

Nehemia: “Nun” is a fish; “nun” is the Hebrew word for fish. And it represents the, you know, I don’t know, something about fish. Keith, you’re going to write a book about this right? This is a secret knowledge they need to...

Keith: No - I’ve got several things that are coming out as a result of this. I’m excited.

Jono: Okay. And anyway, she writes, “This Torah portion has blessed me so much!! Thank you, Jono, Nehemia, and Keith!!” Well, thank you very much, Myra. Sorry there’s no definitive answer to the question, but, you know, sometimes it’s just like that. But today we are in Eikev, which is Deuteronomy 7:12 to 11:25, and it begins like this, “Then it shall come to pass, because you listen to these judgments, and keep them and do them, that Yehovah your God will keep with you the covenant and the mercy which He swore to your fathers. And He will love you, He will bless you and multiply you; He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your land, the grain and your new wine and your oil, increase your cattle and the offspring of your flock, in the land which He swore to your fathers to give you. You shall be blessed above all peoples; there shall not be a male or female barren among you or among your livestock.” How about that? “And Yehovah will take away from you the sickness, and will afflict you with none of the terrible diseases of Egypt which you have known,” Stopping there because I want to ask Mr. Nehemia Gordon, who has a degree in archeology, right? Now, I want to know, what are the… do you know the terrible diseases of Egypt? Do we know what they are?

Nehemia: Oh, I think in this context, He’s talking about the plagues that He sent upon Egypt.

Jono: Oh, the plagues.

Nehemia: You know, there were the 10 plagues and presumably… He’s not referring to the frogs, but maybe the frogs too. I think He’s talking there about the pestilence and about the boils. Those were things that, I mean, back in old times… even today to some extent, we have pandemics that even as recently as 1917, there was a worldwide pandemic that actually killed more people than World War I.

Jono: Wow.

Nehemia: And it was the flu. You know, think about that. We’ve got the flu all the time, but this was a variation of the flu that, literally killed tens of millions of people, and this type of thing can happen at any time. I think that’s what He’s saying - that He struck Egypt with plagues, which we call today pandemics, and He’s going to protect us from that, that that won’t happen. Does that mean each individual won’t get sick? Maybe yes, maybe no. We read like, in Ezekiel, and in other books, maybe I think it’s Zechariah, about how there’ll be a river that will flow from the Temple. There’ll be plants growing along the river and you eat those plants and it will bring healing - they’re probably cultured plants.

So anyway, this is something that, in the end times we’ll definitely have this period of healing, but does that mean that everybody who keeps the commandments won’t be sick? I’m not sure it’s saying that exactly. I think this is more like a blessing collectively to the people. What is interesting is the statement, “There will not be among you any that is sterile.” I’m not sure how you translated that in verse 14… or barren, I guess.

Jono: Barren.

Nehemia: Barren male or female. That’s a significant promise. But again, I don’t think that this is something that operates… and I could be wrong, but the way I understand this is, this doesn’t operate necessarily on the individual level. He’s saying if you collectively, as a people, are righteous, then this is the collective blessing that you’re going to get. I think what backs that up is if you look at the curse it’s clearly a collective curse. It’s not necessarily just on the individual level. Hey, can I comment on verse 12?

Jono: Nehemia?

Nehemia: The second word of the Torah portion is the word, in Hebrew, “Eikev,” which means “because,” and what can we say about the word “because?” But this is actually a very unusual Hebrew word to express the concept of “because,” and it makes me wonder if he didn’t choose this word on purpose. This is a word that appears only 15 times in the Hebrew Bible, this word for “because.” Whereas other words for “because” appear… you know, I didn’t count them, but they’ve got to be in the thousands.

Jono: Sure.

Nehemia: Certainly in the many hundreds. What is this word “because”? The word “Eikev” is actually from the same root as Jacob; it’s from the same root as Yakov, the Hebrew for Jacob, or in Latin that became James. You can translate it literally as “on the heels of”, because “eikev” means a heel. And so, “eikev” is “on the heels of,” you know, as the result of such-and-such, and on the heels of such-and-such, this is what will happen. So, on the heels of you listening to these judgments and keeping them, et cetera, this is what’s going to happen. So, it’s pretty cool, I think.

Jono: It is.

Keith: Amen.

Jono: Beautiful connection. “Also you shall destroy all the peoples whom Yehovah your God delivers over to you; your eye shall have no pity on them; nor shall you serve their gods, that will be a snare to you. If you should say in your heart, ‘These nations are greater than I; how can I dispossess them?’— you shall not be afraid of them, but you shall remember well what Yehovah your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt: the great trials which your eyes saw, the signs and the wonders, the mighty hand, the outstretched arm, by which Yehovah your God brought you out. So shall Yehovah your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid. Moreover, Yehovah your God will send the hornet,” Keith, how about that?

Keith: Well, one thing I wanted to say, one thing I think it really is interesting, we talked about this last week, is this idea of what they saw. So you’re talking to generally this group of people that were children that have grown up. Now, one of the things that sort of blesses me about this is that when the statement comes out that “you saw with your own eyes.” So maybe that person that’s standing there, that’s listening, can say, “Okay, well, I was two, I was three, did I really see that?” Well, in the context of the community, it is like seeing it with your own eyes because this thing that happened, you know, that was taught from father to son or from mother to daughter or from parents to children, this was as real as if you were there. So one of the things that’s kind of just cool to me about the Jewish tradition of giving a message and that message going from generation to generation to generation, even the way that the Word of God has been preserved. We were talking earlier, the question about… what about this upside down “nun” and was this something that the Israelites… well, we don’t know how far back it went, but whenever it started, it continued. And I think there’s something really powerful about that, that these things that happened in the community are as real to the next generation as it was to those that were there because of the way it’s communicated, the way it was lived out, the way that they experienced it. And I just, I don’t know… there’s something about that that just kind of catches my attention that you know, okay, I was two when it happened, but my father and my mother, we talked about it every Shabbat, every week, every day as we walked along the road.

Jono: That’s right.

Keith: About the great things that Yehovah had done. And so, I don’t know, that’s just something that’s interesting.

Jono: It is, it is, absolutely. And the way that it’s reiterated or is supposed to be reiterated. And the way that they are reminded to tell their children. Nehemia?

Nehemia: Yeah, well, two things. One is about this hornet. So, the meaning of that word in Hebrew isn’t so clear. Actually, some Hebrew experts say that it means, “terror” or “fear”, meaning a gripping fear that makes the enemy run away and lose the will to fight. The reason they say that is it’s also mentioned in Exodus 23, verse 28, and the previous verse before he says, “I will send the tzira’a,” which they’re translating as “hornet.” He says, “I will send my terror before you.” So, it’s very possible that tzira’a is just another word for “terror” or “fear” and not ... because the hornet, like, what’s the hornet? How is the hornet going to drive away the enemies? Then it’s actually fulfilled, that particular statement in Joshua 24:12, he says, “And I sent before you the tzira’a, and it drove them out from before you, the two kings of the Amorites, not with your sword and not with your bow.” So, what is the hornet, like, what? It’s like killer bees or something? It doesn’t really make a lot of sense.

Jono: Yes. I think, okay, so there’s wasps or something, or maybe it’s not? So, it’s not necessarily literal, a literal hornet. Okay.

Nehemia: Well, no, I don’t think it’s hornet at all. I think they didn’t know what it meant and so, they cooked up this translation. But apparently, from the context in Exodus 28, it might also mean, “fear.” It means some kind of anxiety that would overtake the people. Then another thing is verse 16. Maybe we can get Keith to read the opening word to verse 16 in his translation?

Keith: You must destroy all the peoples the LORD your God gives over to you.”

Nehemia: Okay. Is that what you have, “destroy,” Jono?

Jono: I’ve got, “destroy.”

Nehemia: That’s really interesting because what it literally says in Hebrew, and this is a great example of the Torah... you know, there’s a principle that the Torah speaks in the language of men. Meaning, it speaks in the language that was used at that time. And it literally says, “And you will eat all the nations that Yehovah your God gives you. Your eyes shall not pity them.” Literally, it says, “you shall eat”.

Jono: Eat?

Nehemia: Now what does that mean “eat”? I mean, if you were to take this literally, and not understand the idiom, the usage of Hebrew, you would think okay, we’re commanded to be cannibals, which is probably why your translations completely just covered it over. I mean, they hid that because they were afraid somebody would read this and not understand the context. You know, somebody in some far of land might hear this and not understand what the Hebrew culture is and say, “Oh, God commanded the Hebrews to be cannibals, and they’re a barbaric people.” And of course, that’s not what it means. It means, “to consume.” Meaning, it’s a figure of speech, it’s an idiom. You’re going to devour those people, but not literally. It does mean destroy.

Jono: Chew them up.

Nehemia: Right. You’re going to chew them up and spit them out, right? So, this is an example of slang. Essentially, God is speaking, or Moses is speaking in the slang of that time. There are several examples of that.

Jono: So you actually, you pointed this out when we did Shelach, when they say, “For they are our bread,”

Nehemia: Exactly. There’s another example of that. That they’re our bread, which is slang. This is how people speak. I think that’s a really important principle, that Scripture speaks in the language of men. That’s actually a statement attributed to a rabbi 2000 years ago, not your rabbi, Keith, a rabbi named Rabbi Ishmael. This was controversial at that time because other people had said, “No, Scripture doesn’t speak in the language of men. It’s a divine code and every letter and every word is nuanced and has a hidden meaning. If God could say something in a more concise way and chose to say it in a more elaborate way, that’s because he’s encoding secret meaning.” For example, you had some rabbis who said, “every time the word ‘eth’ appears,” that’s the Hebrew word that marks a direct object, alef, tav, “eth.” They said, every time that the word “eth” appears it actually has a secret meaning. They would actually interpret commandments… they’d say, okay, this commandment has the word “eth,” and so the secret meaning here is that it doesn’t mean just what it says, it means something additional, as well. Other rabbis criticized that and said, well, what are you talking about? You’re requiring prior knowledge in order to derive your interpretation. In other words, no normal human being could read that and then come into the conclusion you came to. That can’t be what it means because God is speaking in the language of men, and the ancient Israelites, when they understood this, when they heard this read aloud, they had to understand it the way it was spoken. And hidden meanings, you know, they would have never figured out the hidden meaning. So that can’t be what God meant.

Jono: Of course. Amen.

Nehemia: So, this is an ancient debate going back 2000 years.

Jono: Wow. Excellent example. Now, can I jump to 22? “Yehovah your God will drive out those nations before you little by little; you will be unable to destroy them at once, lest the beasts of the field become too numerous for you.” Now, Keith, do you think—it seems to me as if Yehovah is saying, “You guys have got responsibility here. There are certain things that I expect from you.” I mean it’s not as if God couldn’t subdue the animals or even keep them down to a number, but obviously, there’s, I don’t know, responsibilities that He’s expecting.

Keith: Well, let me say this, I think of it a little bit different. I kind of go to the big picture, and I say, “Okay, I’m going to arm you for battle but you’re not ready to fight. I’m going to put you in this situation, but there’s a process that needs to take place before the land is fully prepared.” There’s like this, and I love to think of this because our Creator has this amazing big picture and view. So He looks at the people and He says, “Now, I’m not going to all of a sudden just wipe everything out and bring you in this. There’s a natural process that goes on here, and while that process is going on, you’re being built up, you’re being strengthened, you’re getting more confidence. You were able to handle this, and now you can move to that. You were able to handle this city, now you’ll move to that city. So, there’s really something about it that just seems kind of, if I say the process of the journey, the journey itself is, you know, they’re walking along.

Jono: Yes. There’s a process, and there’s a maturing, and there’s an expectation of them to be able to develop certain skills within a period of time. And it’s not as if... Keith, in my tradition we were so often made to believe that God will just do it for us as if we had no part to play. But when I read things like this I think there’s obviously a maturing and a skill development, and He knows what we can handle and He brings us through it because we have a part to play. He expects things from us, as well. So, it is, there’s a process. It’s interesting. “But Yehovah your God will deliver them over to you and will inflict defeat upon them until they are destroyed. And He will deliver the kings into your hand, and you will destroy their name from under heaven; no one shall be able to stand against you until you have destroyed them.”

Nehemia: Wait. Can we go back to verse 21? Can we do that?

Jono: Yes, let’s do that.

Nehemia: So, it says, “You will not fear them,” is what it says in Hebrew, “for Yehovah your God is in your midst.” And then it says, “El gadol ve’norah.” So how does yours translate that?

Keith: Mine says, “a great and awesome God.”

Nehemia: And what do you have, Jono?

Jono: I’ve got “a great and awesome God,” “the great and awesome God.”

Nehemia: So, he’s awesome, dude! Right? Is that what it means?

Jono: He’s awesome.

Nehemia: Like, no, really, what does it mean, “awesome”? The Hebrew word “norah” comes from the word “yareh,” which means, “to fear.” And it’s awesome, in a very literal sense, that He’s something that inspires awe, and awe really means fear. I think that’s interesting. He’s great and He’s awesome, and that exact phrase appears in the next chapter in verse 15. It says, “Who leads you in the great and awesome desert.” Now, how does yours translate that in the next chapter? That’s the question. Is it consistent?

Jono: That’s very interesting, I’ve got – no, it’s not consistent. I’ve got, “great and terrible.” Keith?

Nehemia: That’s the same exact word. And what does “terrible” mean? They mean terrifying, that’s really what they meant apparently, the translators.

Jono: Yes, and what have you got in the NIV, Keith, in 15?

Keith: Let’s see here. “He led you through the vast and dreadful desert.”

Jono: Dreadful?

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: “Dreadful.” So now, imagine if they were to translate it that way applying to God, “the great and terrible God,” “the great and dreadful God.”

Jono: “The terrible, dreadful God.”

Nehemia: The point is, in Hebrew it’s the same exact word and it means “awe-inspiring,” something that causes you to feel awe, to feel fear in a sense of respect. That’s how they felt about the desert. This was a massive desert where you look out at the desert, and it inspires awe, dread, terror, like, “Oh, my gosh! There’s no water here. There’s snakes and there’s scorpions.” And Yehovah is such a great God. He is so massive; it inspires awe.

Jono: Amen.

Nehemia: There it is.

Keith: Amen.

Jono: So let me start again from 25. “You shall burn the carved images of their gods with fire; you shall not covet the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it for yourselves, lest you be snared by it; for it is an abomination to Yehovah your God. Nor shall you bring an abomination into your house, lest you be doomed to destruction like it. You shall utterly detest it and utterly abhor it, for it is an accursed thing.” Now, to me, Keith, you know, after going to Sunday school all of my life and then going to two Christian schools and being brought up in the church, when I was about 30 years old and I actually started to get serious about my faith and I actually began to apply the things that are said in the Torah in my life, and I came across that verse, and I looked around my house, and I thought, “Oh, my goodness, how far do I take this? How do I understand it?” And in my zeal, in my zeal, boy, did we have a house cleansing. We went through the house and we got rid of everything that we thought was not in accordance with His Word. And there was a lot to go out into the trash. But how far do we take this? How do we understand this verse?

Keith: Well, one thing I think is this is really an important issue that you’re bringing up, and I know there are a lot of people that, if I can use this word carefully, that go through the swing. And the swing is far to the right and the swing is far to the left. They’re like these polar opposites: swing far to the right and everything that looks like, smells like, thinks like, that I act like, that I think is detestable. And then they swing to the left and say, “Oh, no, nothing matters.” I think this is where the Torah Pearls is so important.

Because one of the things we’d want to do in this situation is we want to ask a couple of simple questions. And the questions become this: What is abominable? What is detestable? And what are these things that He’s talking about? And then to ask the question, do those things apply to, for example, my friend Reggie White who’s passed on, and I do miss him, I’m sure Nehemia does also, but one of the things that Reggie struggled with was that he would read a verse, and his zeal was so great and so amazing.

I mean, he approached his new faith like he did football. I mean he was going to... “I’m going to knock that offensive lineman off…” And so as soon as he’d learn something, immediately there was application and sometimes the application would take place without the information. And then he told me several times; he’d come back and say, “Oh, man, I overreacted on that. I could’ve kept that.” So, for example, he’d read something like this and he had a room where he had some of the great awards that he had won as Defensive Player of the Year and these sorts of things. And he would look at that and say, “This means this is a detestable image, I’ve got to throw it away.” And so, one time he took some stuff and he went out and threw it out and his son and his daughter and his wife went out and said he doesn’t understand, and they went and got it back. The point is just that in his attempt to really want to respond, sometimes it would be an over-response, and then once he’d learn, he’d say, “Okay, I see what this actually means.”

So that would be the issue here. What was the thing that Jono threw out and how does that relate to the detestable or to things that are abominable that the people of Israel would have dealt with?

Jono: Amen. So, let me just pick an example. What about an ornamental Buddha in the garden?

Keith: A what?

Jono: An ornamental Buddha statue in the garden?

Nehemia: A Buddha.

Jono: Yes.

Keith: A Buddha? Oh, my gosh! What is he doing?

Jono: Nehemia?

Nehemia: You know to me the issue is - is it something that is an object of worship, even if you don’t worship it? I think the Buddha very clearly is, whoever made it, what he had in mind is that this is to be an idol that is to be revered, and so that’s an idol. Now, if it is something that’s totally ornamental, and I think we talked about this before, like, does that mean that your children can’t have toys that are like little dolls? I don’t think that’s the point when it talks about graven images. The point is, is this an object of worship? Even if you don’t worship it, if it’s an object of worship then you shouldn’t have it. That’s how I look at it. So, I wouldn’t feel comfortable with a Buddha in my house.

Jono: Sure. And then can that apply to the way that people might look at their television and their definition of worship, for example? Or perhaps a CD collection and what that might mean to them? I guess it’s different for different people. Would that be fair? I guess they have to search their own heart.

Nehemia: Yeah, I don’t know where you’re coming from. I’ve heard people say this, “Yeah, idolatry is to worship money.” A lot of people who do say that are people who come from - and I’m not trying to offend anybody - but some people who come from a culture of idolatry have to deflect. So, instead of actually identifying real idolatry, they start to hunt out idolatries while ignoring what literal idolatry is about. But I don’t see anywhere where... look, people could definitely worship money, there’s no question about that. But idolatry is idolatry. Let’s deal with the literal and then we can talk about applications.

Jono: So, what about… Keith, in America there’s the program, and it’s here as well, American Idol. Australian Idol, where people, literally, idolize an individual, whether it may be from that particular program or a rock star or whatever it may be. Does that fall into this category?

Keith: Yeah, I think, Jono, there are people who respond, and I mean I could give you a list; we could go on and on. [Car honking] Sorry for the—I’m in New York City, you guys. You’ll hear some honking, sirens, et cetera. There they are, beep! That means move on, beep!

Nehemia: Oh, boy.

Keith: So they’ll swing back and forth. I could come up with 15 different things that could be, but like I say, what was it? What is idol worship? What is a graven image? What is abominable? Those are the things I want to focus on, understand those things. And then in fact, if I see those things, that’s what I want to respond to. So literally you can uncover every rock, under every situation, and I mean the list is legion of what could be versus what is.

Jono: Amen. And so a shout-out to everyone out in New York in the streets, saying g’day to Keith there. So really the thing to do is to make a list of what the Torah says is an abomination, and what is an idol and all that sort of stuff, and to move on from there.

Chapter 8, “Every commandment which I command you today you must be careful to observe, that you may live and multiply, and go in…” and it just talks like this about how you’re going to be blessed and how you’re going to multiply and how you will live long in the land and so on and so forth. Now, here it explains why God led you all the way through the wilderness these forty years, “to humble you, to test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger,” Keith it says, “allowed you to hunger and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know…” now, Keith, this is such a familiar verse, “make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of Yehovah.”

Keith: I want to stop here for a second, and real sensitivity because, Jono, I really appreciate you bringing this up, and there are a lot of people that have been listening that come from different traditions. I know there’s a lot of what I call, “looking under the rock.” What does Nehemia believe? What does Keith believe? What does Jono believe in? And can we put them in a box? When we get to a verse like this, this is such an important thing for me - having come from a Christian background, when I find these kinds of verses that are in the middle of such important passages.

Now, again, regarding the box, the idea being, “Okay, well, I’ve got Jesus over here in the New Testament and I can’t let him spread over here into Deuteronomy. I can’t look at the context in which the verse is used.” One of the things that’s so powerful - and I know there are people, they’re listening to us and they’re trying to figure out who believes in what. But this is just one of those examples where it’s just a beautiful example of what Yeshua did. He’s looking at Deuteronomy chapter 8, and out of Deuteronomy chapter 8 he takes this verse and he puts it over in what he’s talking about.

So for me, I just look at that, and I’m like, Wow! Like, this is amazing to me! I mean, this came from Deuteronomy chapter 8 - he didn’t just pull this out of the air. This was something that, contextually, he understood from reading the Torah. And again, the box issue was that I want to be able to expand my horizons in understanding who Yeshua is from the Torah.

Meaning that when I look at this, because again, I’m just going to tell you, the way that I approached it, is I was locked in this box which just meant, “Okay, I’m looking at Matthew but I can’t look to the left over to Deuteronomy and I can’t look over to Leviticus.” You know, it was Leviticus… Nehemia and I are having this conversation about understanding, about loving your neighbor. I argued with him of where it came from. I said that came from Yeshua, he said, “Well, no. I read it in Leviticus.” I’m saying, “No, that came from Yeshua.” And sure enough, we open Leviticus 19:19, and correct me if I’m wrong Nehemia, but 19, I think it was chapter 19, and it blew me away to see the verse in Leviticus.

Now, why is this so important and why am I spending this card? Because I think people spend so much time trying to pigeonhole people. If we could just pigeonhole Jono, we could pigeonhole Nehemia, and pigeonhole Keith and we can make our declaration about them.

I just don’t think that’s what’s important. I think what’s important is that where we do see this kind of things, when I see this Jono, and you stopping here and saying, “This came from Yeshua,” from the rabbi that I look to as a great teacher, I just, I get on the box and I stand up and I want to preach and I want to say, “Look! Here it is in the Torah. What do you mean we got to take the Torah and get rid of it? This is where he got it from.”

Jono: And doesn’t that stand out? Because here it is, Yeshua says in Matthew 4 verse 4, he says, “It is written,” and I love those words, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’” And is this not another text that we can point to and we could say...

Keith: Exactly.

Jono: …that the verses just before this it says, “whether you would keep His commandments or not. So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger and fed you with manna,” And is this not just another pretext that says Yeshua expects the people of Israel to obey the Torah. Is that fair Nehemia?

Keith: Amen. And just before he answers, because I think this is really important…

Nehemia: What…

Keith: Again, Nehemia… no, this is really important because I’m telling you, Jono, and I’ve got to beat this drum one more time. People get so nervous - how could you possibly be on a program with a Jew, who doesn’t believe like you believe, and a Jono who doesn’t believe like Nehemia believes, and a Methodist who doesn’t believe like Jono believes. What are you guys doing? And I’m going to tell you what we’re doing.

What we’re trying to do, and we just talked about it the chapter before, and the reason I brought up the issue of the box is because I think that it’s the boxes that keep people away from trying to get to real meaning. If we get to the real meaning and the meaning is outside my box, then guess what? My box is too small. Would you agree?

Jono: Yes.

Keith: I mean in other words, if the meaning is outside of my box, then my box is too small. And that’s what I’m loving about being on this program with you guys, is that here’s an example where Nehemia’s not going to run off and get a cup of coffee now because we’re talking about Yeshua, or he’s not going to run to the bathroom because they’re talking about Matthew. No, he’s going to stay right here because he’s going to say, “Yeah, absolutely. This comes from the Torah.” And that’s where the common ground is.

Jono: Amen.

Keith: I’m so tired of people trying to find out how to separate us. Let’s find the common ground. That’s what we’re doing with this program and that’s why this is just a beautiful example to me, Jono. So I appreciate you doing that.

Jono: Okay. Nehemia?

Nehemia: Yes. I don’t really have anything to add.

Jono: Whoa! He doesn’t have anything to add. Oh, my goodness!

Keith: Since we keep talking about this, wait a minute; let me go back to it again.

Nehemia: No, I do think that this whole concept here is interesting in this context, which is what he’s saying, “Okay, the reason that you had all these troubles for 40 years in the desert,” and even early on, they’re complaining, there’s no water and there’s no food and we need something to eat. He’s saying, “Look, this wasn’t an accident. This was actually part of God’s grand plan, and the purpose was to teach you that man does not live by bread alone, but by everything that comes out of the mouth of Yehovah, man lives.” And that’s pretty profound.

Jono: There’s an incredible example of that just a little further on if I may jump a little bit.

Nehemia: Yes.

Jono: But of course, Moses goes on in chapter 9 to explain how he was up there on the mountain and reminds them again of 40 days and 40 nights. He says in verse 9 of chapter 9, “I neither ate bread nor drank water.” He came down and they were doing the golden calf thing and he smashed it before them, and then he went, if I read it correctly, he went back up there and did another 40 days and 40 nights. Is that right?

Nehemia: Yes.

Jono: Ordinarily, I mean –

Nehemia: Now, who else did a period of 40 days and 40 nights without eating or drinking?

Keith: There he goes, again, ladies and gentlemen.

Nehemia: No, I’m of course referring to the prophet Elijah who did...

Keith: Of course he is. That’s the point.

Nehemia: No, of course, in 1 Kings, for 40 days and 40 nights, he doesn’t eat, and then he ends up at Mount Horeb, on Mount Sinai. Then, of course, the story that you’re referring to, Jono, in the New Testament, the connection there is that Yeshua goes through this period of 40 days and 40 nights where he doesn’t eat or drink, and then right after that he quotes this verse. So that’s actually the context of him quoting this verse. “Okay, well, I haven’t eaten for 40 days and 40 nights, all right, well, I know the reason that Yehovah starves people is to teach them that it’s not just about bread. It’s about what comes out of the mouth of Yehovah, and that’s what’s important to him.”

In the context there of that situation it tells the story of how he’s having this debate with Satan, with the tempter, and that’s how he responds to him; he quotes from this verse. I think that’s really interesting that he has three interactions there and he quotes three verses. What’s the moral of that story? Forget about belief or not belief, what’s the moral of the story there? Isn’t that interesting? What’s the moral? The moral is the way that you combat somebody who’s coming to tempt you and draw you away from God, is with Scriptural verses. Quote them Scripture and that’ll strike them down right in his place.

Jono: Amen. Quote them from the Torah. Amen.

Keith: You know, it’s interesting Jono we did this series, and I tell you we’ve forgotten more about what we did just because we went from place to place. Nehemia and I started out Shavuot in Dallas, we did the Shavuot event, and then we went to Yom Teruah in New Mexico, and then we were in Florida for the Hanukkah event. “A Rood Awakening!” did this series, and we didn’t start out as a series, we didn’t know it was going to be a series. Literally, we were being led, opportunity came and as a result, we came up with this Open Door Series, and in that series… just one example was - I did a teaching coming out of Hebrew Matthew, regarding the issue of this temptation of Yeshua, and I’m not trying to get us off here, but it was such a powerful thing that Nehemia just said. Because those three words, “it is written,” “it is written,” and you said it earlier, Jono - that should drive us, I mean drive us to say how it is that we are to live. And he said, “it is written,” every single time he came back to the Torah, and I just, again, it’s hard for me to contain myself. It was hard for me to contain myself when I taught this because there’s just a passion and excitement to get back to the root of what it is that he was saying.

Jono: Amen.

Keith: And he’s coming out of the Torah and that was what he used to battle Satan, and I think we would do well to do the same thing. And that’s what we’re trying to do here is to get those wonderful, beautiful, amazing, powerful pearls and polish them so that we can help people do what they have to do in life, and there’s a lot of tests in life. That’s what we want to be able to do.

Jono: Amen.

Nehemia: Amen.

Jono: Therefore you shall keep the commandments of Yehovah your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him. For Yehovah your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs that flow out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey; a land in which...”

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: Wait, we’ve got to stop here. This is a key verse.

Jono: What? Okay.

Nehemia: Verse 8, Deuteronomy 8:8. This is essentially listing the ancient staple crops of Israel and they refer to this often as, “the Seven Species.” That is, the seven main crops that grew in ancient Israel. So, we’ve got wheat and barley, we’ve got the vine, which means grapes, we’ve got figs, we’ve got pomegranates, and you know, I read that, I’m like, pomegranates? Like, how often does somebody eat a pomegranate? But I guess that was very important in ancient times. We’ve got olive, which is a major source of protein, and a major source of just about everything, the olive, in this part of the world. And then the last one is honey. I don’t know if we’ve talked about this in the past, but a lot of scholars look at this and they say, “Honey? How many bees are there in Israel?” There’s definitely honey in Israel just like any other place. But there’s one crop that’s missing, and that’s the date. Date trees are native to the land of Israel. They actually found a date seed on Masada from 2000 years ago and they were able to plant it and grow a tree out of it.

Jono: You’re kidding, a 2000-year-old seed, is that what you’re saying?

Nehemia: No, absolutely. Yeah, it’s so dry there that it was preserved. So, dates are a main staple crop of ancient Israel. And so, what’s suggested by many scholars is that the honey here is actually referring to date honey.

Keith: Wow.

Nehemia: That’s not to say that honey doesn’t sometimes refer to, obviously, bee honey, but if you’re talking about honey in the context of different types of agricultural produce, that’s date honey. So, these are the seven species of Israel, and you see these crops growing everywhere in Israel. I mean, I walk around my neighborhood at different times of the year and I see every one of these things growing.

Jono: So it’s interesting to know that the phrase that we hear so often, “the land flowing with milk and honey,” and we picture to ourselves a land with a lot of cows and a lot of bees but...

Nehemia: No, it’s date honey.

Jono: It’s date honey.

Nehemia: Right.

Jono: But it’s probably also sheep milk over cow’s milk. Would that be correct? That’s what I’ve heard. Is that fair?

Nehemia: It very well could be sheep and goat milk; I don’t know if… do goats give a lot of milk? So, sheep and goat milk, and there were cows and there are still some cows today in Israel. But we definitely have a lot more space for – we’re a small country, so there’s a lot more space for – and it’s a rocky country, so goats and sheep do much better here, I think, than cows.

Jono: So it could possibly be more correct, “a land flowing with milk and honey, a lot of sheep, a lot of goats and a lot of dates.”

Nehemia: Yes. Amen.

Keith: That’s why I’m so excited to go with a farmer to Israel. I mean, Jono you’re going to have a blast.

Jono: Oh, I can’t wait.

Keith: Get a chance to understand the stuff. Like, I could see you looking at the goats, “Ah, those kind of goats are not the kind of goats we have over in Australia, but you know, the thing about them is, so I skin these goats, you know…”

Jono: Give me one of those goats, I’ll show you what I mean.

Keith: “Give me one of those goats.”

Nehemia: “I’ve skinned one of those goats on the barby.”

Keith: “On the barby,” yes, exactly.

Jono: I’m looking forward to it. “A land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing; a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper.”

Nehemia: This is really interesting because we do have copper in southern Israel. Keith has come with me to the ancient copper mines at Timna, and they’re actually still functional. There’s a modern version of it where they dug much deeper. But they’ve been mining copper there for thousands of years. There are actually Egyptian inscriptions from before the Israelites came.

Jono: Oh, wow.

Nehemia: The Egyptians operated those copper mines. But iron - you don’t really have major deposits of iron. It’s possible that when it says, “whose stones are iron,” “the land whose stones are iron,” that it means that they’re just like really hard stones in this country. Which is not that they’re literally iron, but they’re good building stones, because we’ve got nice hard stones. That’s probably what it means.

Jono: Ah, right.

Keith: That’s how I read it. It’s funny because...

Jono: It makes sense.

Keith: And maybe that’s just because of being in Israel, it’s like there’s rocks everywhere.

Jono: Sure.

Nehemia: Yes.

Jono: “And when you have eaten and are full,” now this is interesting, Keith… “When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless Yehovah your God for the good land which He has given you.” And it kind of reminds me, and at least in my tradition, before we would eat we would give thanks to God for the meal and for the preparation thereof. But am I correct in saying that in the Jewish tradition it is traditional to give thanks after a meal? Is it based on this verse?

Nehemia: Well, so first of all, Rabbinical Jews do it before and after. But what they’ll tell you is before that’s just a Rabbinical enactment, “takkanot”. Whereas, after is actually a Torah commandment and they’ll quote this verse. I used to think that, and I would make a blessing after each meal. I’m not so convinced anymore. I’m not really sure that what it’s saying here is that every time you eat a meal, that after that meal you recite a certain formula of thanks. I think the point here is, in general, that you eat and are satisfied, and you bless Yehovah for the land He has given you. Not necessarily after each meal, but in general. That’s what I take from it.

Keith: Let me stop here. I want to stop here.

Jono: Keith?

Keith: Nehemia just slipped in something that is a really interesting thing, and since I’ve known him for as long as I’ve known him, it really is a powerful thing he just said. So, he said, “I’m not so convinced anymore.” And one of the things I love about the process of discovery with the Torah, and I’m telling you, Jono, these programs will, until the redemption, hopefully, these programs will be made available for people to go back to. And I can guarantee you something: that somebody will listen to one portion in one year, and maybe, five years later, they’ll listen to that same portion and they’ll say, “You know, it’s interesting I kind of have a different view about that.” And that’s what I love, again, about what Nehemia said. He says, “I’m not so convinced anymore.” As a result of a process of discovery, and again, I’ve watched him do this, and I’ve done this myself. There are times when something will come to the forefront and you’ll say, “You know what? Maybe my response to that isn’t the way that I understand it as I’ve reread Scripture and as I put the pieces together and as I’ve lived my life.” And I think that again, what is the famous statement, Nehemia, for the approach to studying Scripture in the Karaite tradition?

Nehemia: Search well in the Scripture and do not blindly rely on anyone’s opinion.

Keith: Can you say that one more time, brother?

Nehemia: Search well in the Scripture and do not rely on anyone’s opinion, or blindly rely on anyone’s opinion. Meaning, don’t just blindly accept what people say, but discover it for yourself. That’s the Karaite motto. And when you do that sometimes...

Keith: Hey, and folks, as you’re listening right now...

Nehemia: Yes, when you do that you might... I mean look, the way I approach Scripture is, every time I read a passage, I try to say, “Okay, I want to leave behind my preconceptions here and let Yehovah speak to me through His word, and maybe I’ll understand something I never saw before. He’ll open my eyes and I’ll see wonderful, hidden things that I’d never known before and never understood before.”

Jono: Amen.

Keith: So let me just say, Jono, before we go any further, because again, this is really, really significant that people hear this. What we don’t want is for someone to listen to the Torah Pearls and say, “I heard Jono say this, and I’m going to go with that,” or “I heard Keith say this,” or “I heard Nehemia say this,” but that they get a chance to do this for themselves, to read it, to understand it. And again, there’s something very important, though - where I would say there’s been an issue is for the many people who don’t look at language, history, and context. They flip through the pages, they put their finger down, they see a verse, they pull it out of context, and say, “I heard from God on that matter.” What I hope they will do is they’ll take language, history, and context, and they’ll read the Scriptures and they’ll look as the best as they can. Search the scriptures, and they’ll seriously search the Scriptures to look for that truth. And then when they get it, they pray and they say, “Father, open my eyes that I might see. And in the end, to the best of my ability, here’s how I want to apply what I’ve learned.”

Jono: Amen. So the way that I, if I may - the way that I look at it and the way that I express it to people is that I often look back at what I used to think five years ago, for example, and I’ll look five years ago and I’ll go, “Oh, my goodness, you know what I used to think about this topic? And I used to hold to this conclusion, and as a result I used to such-and-such. And with this, I used to do that.” But you know, I’m not there anymore, and I praise God that I’m not there anymore, and I’ve moved on and I’ve learned, and I’ve matured in certain areas. And now I think this and now I do that.” And I hope that in five years to come, I can look back at where I am now and feel exactly the same way.

Keith: May it be.

Jono: Amen.

Keith: You got to pray Jono, it’s your turn. It’s your turn.

Nehemia: Wait, before we pray, I want to say something. What I’ve noticed with some people is they’ll say the first half of what Jono said. They’ll say, “Five years ago, or a year ago, or 6 months ago, I was so blind, how did I not see this? And now, I found the truth.” And what happens is they end up becoming extremely arrogant. You’ll especially see that with people who are relatively new to understanding the Torah. There’s this profound arrogance sometimes. What you just said, Jono, I think is a lesson, is an example for people to look to, rather than being arrogant about it. Then they look down upon others and they say, “How come those people are so blind? I saw it. What’s wrong with them?” And now, they think they have all the answers.

What I found is, somebody who thinks they have all the answers, somebody who thinks they know everything, probably doesn’t know that much. Because they don’t realize how much there is that they don’t know. True knowledge, profound knowledge, is to know that there’s a lot you don’t know, is to be aware of what you don’t know. So what it means is that those people who think they know everything, they’re so ignorant they don’t even realize that there are libraries full of information they don’t know. They don’t even know that they don’t know it. They don’t even know that stuff exists and that they’re unaware of it.

Keith: There it is.

Nehemia: So, I think on that note Jono, you’ve got to pray for us.

Jono: This is Psalm 119 verse 18, and before I pray that prayer, Yehovah Father, thank you. Thank you, Father, that you bring us through your Torah and You don’t give it to us all at once. You enable us to, sometimes You allow us to be hungry and You want us to hunger up to Your word and You give us pearls of wisdom, hidden things from Your Torah, one step at a time, and that You test us in Your Torah and that You test our hearts to see whether we will keep it or not, Father. And may it be that we will never be afraid to revisit the things that You brought us through and to search well in Your Torah, Father, as You continue to reveal the hidden things in Your word, the wonderful things of Your Torah that our eyes would be opened. Amen.

Nehemia: Amen.

Keith: Amen. I’m telling you. You know what? Listen, you guys. Listen, ladies and gentlemen. I’m sitting here, listening and Jono’s praying, and I’m thinking, man, we could have a prayer session the rest of this program. I feel so excited about that. And the fact that Nehemia said one thing, which was, “I’m not so sure,” but that this humility of saying that there can be shift and change and there can be a process and we can learn. And again, what I want to go back to is there’s so much time spent trying to figure out how to pigeonhole people, rather than let the people be in this process that even Israel was in. He didn’t give it all to them at once because they couldn’t handle it. And so let the process be what it is. It’s a lifelong process for me, and I expect that in 30 years, if I’m still alive and there’s no redemption taking place, that I’ll still be approaching these portions and asking myself, “What does it mean?” So may it be for all of us.

Jono: Amen.

Keith: Now I want to say something in the next section, if I can.

Jono: Please, Keith.

Keith: This gives me a great memory. I used to work with athletes, and the athletes that I worked with were in the National Football League and the National Basketball Association. And I remember even before I went to Israel, I found myself in Deuteronomy 8 because it was so applicable to a situation that I saw happen. I actually used this verse in a very, very interesting, very high-profile situation with a very well-known athlete. And it says this in verse, let’s see here, it says here, “Be careful that you do not forget Yehovah your God, failing to observe his commands, his Torah and his decrees for I am giving you this day. Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied,” and then it goes on to say, “when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and your flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget Yehovah your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. He led you through this vast and dreadful desert, and thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of the hard rock. He gave you manna to eat in the desert, something that your fathers had never known, to humble and to test you so that in the end it might go well with you.”

And I remember sitting down with this particular athlete, it’s not anyone that you guys know, it’s completely separate, but it says in 17, “You may say to yourself.” And I heard this, you guys, you would not imagine how many times I heard this, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” And I’m telling you, I’d see these young men that would be 18, 19, 20, 21 years old, all of a sudden, they get out of college and somebody comes along and says, “Here’s 10 million dollars,” and they’d sign that piece of paper of 10 million dollars. And then at 21, 22, 23 years of age, they would think, “Okay, I have done all of this for myself,” and then they become a god unto themselves. And until that humility comes or that situation then comes, it’s very difficult to minister to them. But this passage from the Torah, clearly lets them know that even in the situation where you’ve been given this, this, this and this, in the end it’s still His grace; it’s not from your own hands. So it was something that I used before I even knew what the Torah was.

Nehemia: Wow. Can we read that passage?

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: I don’t think we actually read the passage, 17 to 18.

Jono: Do you want me to read it, 17 to 18?

Nehemia: Yes.

Jono: So it says, “Then you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.’ And you shall remember Yehovah your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day.”

Nehemia: So, there are actually two living examples that we see of this in the Scripture, of people who were mighty emperors who looked at their empire and said, “I did this myself.” In both instances, they received... Yehovah responded to that not well. They suffered the consequences. One of them is, if you look in Isaiah 10, verses 13-14, it’s talking about the king of Assyria, Sancherev or Sennacherib, and it says, “For he thought, ‘by the might of my hand have I wrought it.’” It’s almost like he’s quoting Deuteronomy.

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: “By the might of my hand have I wrought it, by my skill, for I am clever, I have erased the borders of people. I have plundered their treasures and exiled their vast population. And I was able to seize like a nest the wealth of peoples as one gathers abandoned eggs. So I gathered all the earth, nothing so much as flapped a wing or opened a mouth to peep.” If you remember the story, he actually comes to King Hezekiah and says, “You’ve got to surrender. You’re saying you’re going to trust in your God but your God can’t defeat me. He’s the one who sent me, and I’m more powerful than your God. You’ve got to surrender to me.” What’s interesting is that Yehovah actually sends an angel who smites, I believe it’s a hundred and eighty-something-thousand of his men, of Sennacherib’s army. Basically, he wakes up in the morning and his army, they’re all dead.

Jono: They’re dead.

Nehemia: And it’s a dramatic story.

Jono: It’s incredible, yes.

Nehemia: There’s actually a ring of - I don’t know what the word is - authenticity to this description here in verse 14 of Isaiah. He talks about all the nations he’s conquering, and this is before the angel strikes his army dead. He says, “I was able to seize like a nest the wealth of the peoples as one gathered abandoned eggs. So I gathered all the earth, nothing so much as flapped a wing,” I think that’s really interesting because we’ve actually found in an archeological excavation, Sennacherib’s description of this war. One of the things he says is, he talks about how he conquered this nation and that kingdom and that fiefdom, and then he says, “And I shut up Hezekiah like a bird in a cage,” which means he failed to capture Jerusalem. But it’s the bird imagery that he’s still using, even after he’d been defeated.

Jono: Yes.

Nehemia: “I shut him up like a bird in a cage,” meaning, that’s his way of kind of diplomatically saying, “I failed to capture Jerusalem.” But I think that’s pretty cool, the bird imagery. But look, he said these exact words in Deuteronomy, “by the might of my hand have I wrought it, by my skill for I am clever,” it’s almost word for word from Deuteronomy, and his army was wiped out in response.

Jono: Wow.

Nehemia: And then the other example is Daniel, chapter 4, verses 27-28, and here it’s talking about King Nebuchadnezzar. He’s walking through his garden, and he looks around at his beautiful palace, and then it says, The king exclaimed, ‘there is great Babylon which I have built by my vast power to be a world resident for the glory of my majesty.’” Then verse 28 Daniel 4 says, “The word was still on the king’s lips when a voice fell from heaven, ‘It has been decreed for you O king Nebuchadnezzar, the kingdom is passed out of your hands.’”

Jono: Wow!

Nehemia: And so I think this should be a warning for us, you know. I think it’s wonderful when we accomplish things, but in the moment that we accomplish something we have to recognize that, yes, you have might and strength, that you’ve accomplished something, but Yehovah gave you that might and strength. You always need to recognize that it came from Him.

Keith: Come on.

Jono: Amen.

Keith: Amen.

Jono: And so it goes on to say, “And then you’re going to dispossess people who are even bigger than you.” There’s the “Anakim”, for example, the giants, and you guys are going to deal with them and it’s okay because I’m with you. But then it says, “Do not think in your heart, after Yehovah your God has cast them out before you, saying, ‘It is because of my righteousness Yehovah has brought me to possess the land.’ It’s because of the wickedness of these nations that Yehovah is driving them out from before you. It is not because of your righteousness nor the uprightness of your heart that you may go in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations that Yehovah your God drives them out from before you, and that He may fulfill the word which Yehovah swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Therefore understand that Yehovah your God is...”

Nehemia: Wait, so we’ve got to now look at, I believe it’s Genesis 15, where - and I’m sure we’ve talked about this when we did Genesis, but he actually said this - He said, they are going to be 400 years in a strange land, this is Genesis 15 verse 16, it says, “And the fourth generation shall return here,” and He says, “for the iniquity of the Amorite is not complete until then.” So back then He was saying, even to Abraham, okay, I’ve got this covenant with you, but I’m not giving you their land until they have completely lost all rights to it through their iniquity. There’s a dual thing here - there’s the iniquitousness, or the sinfulness of the people of the land, and there’s God’s covenant with the forefathers.

Keith: When I read this verse, and immediately, Nehemia, immediately, that’s the verse that I went to in Genesis, because I just get this concept in my mind, and you’ve got to bear with me. You know how right now we’re trying to raise resources to go to China, and we’re trying to raise resources for Israel, and there are all these things. And sometimes people have these pictures, like a temperature thing where it’ll go higher and higher and higher until you reach the final spot and then say, “Okay, we’ve met the goal.” It’s like I see this in heaven - Yehovah’s got this thing over here for the Amorites, it says, “okay, now, here’s where, at this point, guys, if it reaches this point then that’s it.” And we see this, something will happen, something will happen, and He’ll say, “Okay, you’ve reached this point,” and it happens. The wickedness in the land before Noah, it’s reached this point. We see this over and over again, and it makes me ask the question, and I don’t want to go too far, but it makes me ask the question, “I wonder where we are?” And I’m specifically speaking about the nation that I live in, regarding when the wickedness reaches that point.

Jono: Yes. Is there a use-by date coming soon?

Keith: I just think of the Father’s clock. I’m sorry, I just have to say it, it’s like He looks at it and He says, “Okay, here’s what’s happening.” And you know, Nehemia lives in a land, he lives in a land where there was a time when He said, “Okay. That’s it.” And I don’t know, there’s something sobering about this. It’s just sobering to me. Where are we at in relationship to how He looks at what we’re doing and what the time is and when there’s going to be a change? And I think the arrogance, at least for the country that I live in, there’s such independence from our Creator of the universe, they actually think that “Oh, no, we’re our own god, and we’re doing our own thing, and we’re on our own clock, and our own calendar, and our own time of accountability.” And that just isn’t the way it is, at least if you read Scripture.

Jono: Amen. No, it makes you think. Now, as I’ve mentioned before, it tells a story about how he went up to the mountain for 40 days, 40 nights. He received the Ten Commandments, he received the Torah, he went down, there was the golden calf and he smashed it on the ground. Now, you can see, and it seems to me like Moses is getting angrier and angrier as he’s telling this story; you can almost feel it. And then he says, and I think this might be new information - Nehemia, correct me if I’m wrong, but verse 20 of chapter 9 says, “And Yehovah was very angry with Aaron,” and this is just after he’s talking about the golden calf, “very angry with Aaron and would have destroyed him; so I prayed for Aaron also at that time.” Is that new information?

Nehemia: That’s an interesting question.

Keith: Yes, it is. You can ask me; ask the Methodist, I focused on this verse.

Jono: Yes, Keith?

Keith: I talked about it. Can I talk or not?

Jono: Go ahead, Keith.

Keith: This concept about intervening on behalf of Aaron – because, do you remember when we had the conversation about what happened when Miriam and Aaron… do you remember that conversation that we had?

Jono: Yes.

Keith: And I was like, “Oh, why isn’t there any discussion here about Aaron, and it’s on Miriam?” And then you come and read this verse and it jumps off the page, and this is a different situation, of course, but it jumps off the page that He says, “I had to intervene for Aaron.” And when you read the story that’s not what we see.

Jono: No, because we did, I remember asking the question, so obviously, Aaron didn’t die, we know that because he goes on in Scripture, but it’s interesting to note that after the golden calf incident he seems to get off scot-free. But here is the additional information that seems like he was in trouble and Moses intervened. So, that’s interesting. And it goes on...

Keith: I could do a whole teaching on this, you guys. I’m just telling you because you know how we talked about the sort of issue of accountability and what happens, and so here’s what’s happening with the father and then the son’s got to have his own accountability. But is it not interesting that here there’s intervention for Aaron regarding that which he had done? But then when his sons come, his sons, they were not able to get past it. That basically his sons for what happened to them...

Jono: With the strange fire.

Keith: Yes.

Jono: Indeed. And so He’s getting angrier and angrier, until verse 24 he says, “You have been rebellious against Yehovah from the day that I knew you.” It’s almost like it’s building up and building up, “And all of this that Yehovah has done,” and yet you people, oh, my goodness, you stiff-necked people, as he says in verse 6. But he goes on to talk about the second pair of tablets. And something that I found is interesting and I don’t know why but I had it in my mind that the second, I don’t know why I did but I had it in my mind that the Second Tablets Moses had to write, I thought he had put those together and that Yehovah narrated it to him. But it says here in 10:4, He wrote on the tablets according to the first writing, the Ten Commandments, which Yehovah had spoken to you in the mountain,” And so, I had to correct my thinking there.

Keith: Wait. So you got 10:4, you’re asking the question of whether it was Moses that chiseled it or whether it was Yehovah?

Jono: I don’t know why, but I thought that the second one was narrated to Moses and that he chiseled it. I don’t know where I got that idea from but that’s what I had in my mind. And when I read that, I thought I’d check.

Nehemia: Actually, so here in Exodus 34:1, and this is almost verbatim what we’re finding later, “and Yehovah said to Moses, hew for yourself two tablets of stone like the first ones and I will write upon the tablets...

Keith: There it is.

Nehemia: the words that were on the first tablets which you broke.” So, it’s almost word for word over in Exodus 34.

Jono: So he chisels out the…

Nehemia: Moses chisels them.

Jono: He chisels out the tablets of stone and Yehovah writes upon them. There it is.

Nehemia: And then in 34:28… oh, I see where the confusion’s coming from, okay. So, can you read Exodus 34:28 in your translation?

Jono: 34:28 says…

Nehemia: And this is a pronoun issue.

Jono: He was there… ”

Nehemia: Now, remember Hebrew doesn’t have any… yes, go ahead. Sorry. Read it.

Jono: So he was there with Yehovah forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water. And He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.” Aha!

Nehemia: So, who’s the “he”?

Jono: Who’s the “he”?

Nehemia: So, is it a big ‘H’ or a little ‘h’? And of course, Hebrew doesn’t have big ‘H’ and little ‘h’.

Keith: Only my NIV. My NIV made sure it’s little ‘h’.

Jono: Really?

Nehemia: Does it?

Jono: Does it, really?

Nehemia: Okay, all right. So, we have Moses do it.

Jono: That’s interesting because what I have here in the New King James, “he,” little ‘h,’ “neither ate bread nor drank water and He,” big ‘H’ in this particular translation, “wrote on the tablets of stones.” So, it does put two together.

Keith: You got it right. Way to go Australia!

Jono: One more for the New King James, all right!

Nehemia: So basically, if you make it a small ‘h’ you’re having verse 28 contradict verse 1 of Exodus 34, not to mention what was written in Deuteronomy.

Keith: Exactly.

Jono: Very interesting. Now, while we’re talking about the “he,” the big ‘H’ and the little ‘h’ and all that sort of stuff, we’re talking about pronouns. Can I just sort of jump a few, and maybe you’ll want to come back to previous verses, but can I just jump over to 11 verse 13 and on, let me just read this. It says, And it shall be that if you earnestly obey My commands which I command you this day, to love Yehovah,” this is Moses speaking, “to love Yehovah your God and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul.” Verse 14, “then I will give you the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in all your grain, your new wine, and your oil. And I,” in verse 15, “I will send the grass in your fields for your livestock, that you may eat and be filled.”16, “Take heed to yourselves lest your heart be deceived and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them,” 17, “lest Yehovah’s anger be aroused against you,” and so it goes. And then it says, “And He,” and so on and so forth. Now, Moses starts talking and he makes reference to Yehovah in 13, he makes reference to Yehovah in 17, but in verse 14 and in 15 there’s this “I” - “I will give you the rain,” “I will send the grass.”

Nehemia: I think you’ve got to establish a new theology, Jono. I think Moses is Yehovah. I think that’s what you’re really getting at, right?

Jono: Moses is sending the rain.

Nehemia: No, he proves it.

Jono: Well, explain it to me.

Nehemia: It’s blasphemy if you don’t accept. What you’re talking about?

Jono: What is going on in the Hebrew, Nehemia?

Nehemia: This is a type of thing that, and we could establish an entire theology around this, but really this is the type of thing that you see with prophets. They will switch back between themselves and Yehovah as “I,” in mid-verse; there are even examples where they do it in mid-verse. They’ll say, “Yehovah says,” or they’ll talk about Yehovah in the third-person, as “He,” and then the second half of the verse will be “I.” And that’s because the prophet is speaking the words of Yehovah. He’s almost like a conduit to convey the words of Yehovah. Here, obviously, verses 14 through 16, it’s Yehovah speaking as “I” because we know Moses isn’t going to be bringing the rain. We actually saw an example of that when we read the story of Balak. The messengers of Balak, who is the king of Moav, of Moab, they go to Balaam and they say “Thus says Balak,” and then they say “I,” you know, “I will reward you.” I’m paraphrasing, but they’re quoting the words of Balak as if they were Balak themselves. And that’s exactly what Moses is doing here in these verses where he says “I.”

Keith: Yes.

Jono: Very interesting. There it is. Okay. And we see that a lot with the angels as well, right?

Nehemia: Yes.

Jono: That they’re speaking and all of a sudden they’ll be speaking the authority of Yehovah as well, speaking as him. So, coming back to where... okay now, I just jumped a whole lot. Do you guys want to pick up anywhere before that?

Nehemia: Yes. What are you talking about? No, this is a lot.

Jono: There it is. Where are we going Nehemia? Where are we looking at?

Nehemia: First of all, we’ve quoted this verse a dozen times. I think in the last chapter, chapter 10, verse 16, “You shall circumcise the foreskin of your hearts and shall no longer stiffen your necks,” is what it literally says in Hebrew. That’s, like, the example I love to bring of a metaphor that is not to be taken literally because obviously, anybody with common sense knows God isn’t commanding us to cut open our hearts and commit suicide, that would be ridiculous.

There’s another example here that you skipped, I think it’s in chapter 10 – you’re really just burning through these - which is, if I could find it... oh, it’s in chapter 9 verse 3. It says “And you shall know today that Yehovah your God is passing before you. He is a consuming fire.” Okay, so obviously, he’s not literally a consuming fire, we brought that example before. This is an example where I think you are required not to interpret it literally. If you interpret this literally, you’re just being ridiculous. I mean, obviously, it’d be like interpreting literally where it is said, “you will consume the nations,” you know, you will eat them. Obviously, he doesn’t mean to eat them literally, cannibalism. The moral of the story is that the correct way to look at Scripture isn’t to always interpret it literally, it’s to understand it based on the language and the context, the history and the context, using common sense. And 90% of the time, the literal interpretation will be the true one, but there are instances where, if you interpret literally, you’re actually twisting Scripture and missing the point. So those are two really good examples.

Back in chapter 9, verse 14, we have another idiom, which God is saying about Israel. “I will blot out their name from under the heaven,” and “blot out” you could translate also as “to erase,” “I will erase their name from under the heaven.” What that means is, the way they used to erase something is they’d take water and dissolve the ink, that’s what it means, “to blot out.”

Then we had a similar expression, a similar figure of speech, earlier in the Torah portion, in chapter 7, verse 24 where he says, And you shall destroy their name from under the heaven.” So here, twice we have this idea of destroying a name, blotting out a name, causing a name to be forgotten and no longer mentioned. That’s actually, in Hebrew terms, a curse. To no longer speak a name, to forbid a name to be spoken, to blot it out is a curse. In fact, many Jews whenever they say the name, “Hitler,” they’ll add the words, “yemach shemo vezichro,” “May his name and memory be blotted out.” That’s understood to be a curse. I think that’s ironic that the leaders of my people have actually said that the name of God is so holy we’re going to blot it out from under the heaven; we’re going to no longer speak that name, no longer allow it to be mentioned. What they don’t realize is they’re actually cursing that name by forbidding us to speak His name.

Jono: That brings me back... I’ve got to read from 16, and then Keith, I want you to comment on this, and I know we commented on it before, but these verses are so awesome. Nehemia, as you mentioned, Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no longer. For Yehovah your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality nor takes a bribe. He administers justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing. Therefore love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall fear Yehovah your God; you shall serve Him, and to Him you shall hold fast, and take oaths in His name.”

Keith: Yeah. You know, it’s interesting, again, this is one of these passages that I’m sure that after the message was over, he went back to the tent and he thought, “Boy, I’ll tell you, when I said that phrase, it sure flowed.” Because in Hebrew when he speaks that phrase, you all, it sings, it’s this whole idea of being the God of gods and Lord of lords. It’s one of those things where I’m sure as Moses is there and he knows he’s in chapter 10, I mean he doesn’t know he’s in chapter 10, he’s in this section of his preaching now, and he comes back and he gets to that, boy, and I mean the “ru’ach” hits him and he just spits it out of his mouth. It’s just a really, really beautiful... and in fact, Nehemia, maybe you can go to that verse in chapter 10?

Nehemia: Which verse?

Keith: Let’s see.

Jono: From 17 on?

Keith: 17, just the verse of 17. To read the verse, verse 10:17 in Hebrew.

Nehemia: Okay. “Ki Yehovah Elohichem hu elohei ha’elohim va’adonei ha’adonim. Ha’el hagadol hagibor vehanorah asher lo isa phanim, velo ikach shochad.”

Keith: Can you do this one more time? I’m telling you, this is like Moses rapping, you guys. He’s rapping in the desert.

Nehemia: Yes, There’s definitely alliteration here.

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: “Ki Yehovah Elohichem hu elohei ha’elohim va’adonei ha’adonim. Ha’el hagadol hagibor vehanorah asher lo isa phanim, velo ikach shochad.” It’s beautiful.

Keith: And let me just say that this is one of the words I selected for the back of the book, where people get to learn this phrase. You know, where they can...

Nehemia: Which book is that?

Keith:His Hallowed Name Revealed Again,” in the back, there’s a CD and there’s music and then there’s also where you can learn it, but I picked this one because it just sings. It just sings.

Jono: Amen.

Keith: So anyway, thanks for that, Nehemia.

Nehemia: I’m going to I ask a controversial question about verse 17.

Jono: Go on.

Nehemia: So, it says He is “elohei ha’elohim va’adonei ha’adonim.” He is the God of gods and the Lord of lords. Does that mean there are other gods and other lords, and he just happens to be the greatest?

Keith: Oh boy, oh boy. So, “His Hallowed Name Revealed Again,” in the back, there’s a CD…

Nehemia: So I think there’s something really important to recognize here, which is that… first of all, when you say a statement like that, “He is the God of gods,” this is a Hebraic way of saying, “He is the greatest God.”

Keith: He is.

Nehemia: If you think about it, we have a book of the Bible called, “the Song of Songs.” Well, what does that mean, “the Song of Songs?” So, it means it’s the greatest song. That’s how you say, “greatest” in biblical Hebrew. You say, “Song of songs,” meaning the greatest song; “God of gods,” the greatest God. Now, that doesn’t mean there are other gods. It means there are people who believe there are other gods from the imagination of their heart. He is the greatest of all the gods because He’s the only one that’s real and we have statements… I guess if you only took this verse you could say “yeah, there’s lots of gods.” Like, if you’re Hindu you’d say there are lots of gods, and Yehovah happens to be the greatest of them. But there are other verses that very clearly talk about, in other parts of the Bible, that all the other gods are just the imagination of people’s hearts. They have mouths but they can’t speak. They have ears but they can’t hear.

Keith: Exactly. Amen.

Nehemia: What’s that?

Keith: Amen. I like that.

Jono: So, it’s in the Psalms I know, and I’m just trying to remember exactly where.

Nehemia: Actually, in my book, “Shattering the Conspiracy of Silence: The Hebrew Power of the Priestly Blessing Unleashed,” I actually talked about that exact point.

Jono: There it is.

Nehemia: They can get the book, actually, from my website, nehemiaswall.com, Nehemia is N-E-H-E-M-I-A, no H at the end, nehemiaswall.com.

Jono: Dot com.

Nehemia: There it is.

Keith: All right.

Jono: Yes. “Shattering the Conspiracy of…”

Nehemia: Look it up because I don’t remember. So, Isaiah 37:19, can you read that? Isaiah 37:19.

Jono: It says in Isaiah 37:19, I have cast their gods into the fire; for they were not gods, but the works of men’s hands—wood and stone. Therefore they destroyed them.”

Nehemia: Come on.

Keith: Yes. Amen.

Nehemia: Another passage is, and we don’t have to read the whole thing, but Jeremiah 10, verses 1-11 and Psalm… it’s 96:4, I think. For Yehovah is great and greatly to be praised. He is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the nations are idols, but Yehovah made the heavens.” And Psalm 115, verses 4-8.

Keith: There it is.

Nehemia: Deuteronomy 10:12-13, which is one of the most important passages in the Bible, which is echoed in Micah 6:8… so can we just really quickly talk about that? And now, Israel, what does...” it says literally, and now Israel, what does Yehovah ask of you?” That’s what it literally says,

Jono: I’ve got “require.” “What does He require of you but to fear...”

Nehemia: It says here, “What does He ask of you?”

Jono: Yes.

Nehemia: “…to fear Yehovah your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him and to serve Yehovah your God with all your heart and all your soul, to keep the commandments of Yehovah and His statutes, which I am commanding you today for your good.”

Jono: For your good.

Nehemia:For your benefit.” Then that, of course, is echoed in Micah, chapter 6, verse 8, He has told you O man, what is good and what Yehovah requires of you,” and there it actually says, “required,” but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God.” Beautiful passage.

Keith: Amen.

Jono: Amen. So, hang on. That then reminds me of another verse, which is in Ecclesiastes. Is it in Ecclesiastes 12, is that what I’m thinking of? Ecclesiastes 12:13, Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man’s all.”

Keith: Amen.

Nehemia: Amen. Hallelujah.

Jono: Hey, I’m going to jump back to 11, unless you guys want to highlight anything else.

Nehemia: Well, hold on a second, we’ve got to talk about in 11, we’ve got the second part of the Shema. So, the first part of the Shema is in Deuteronomy 6, we talked about that last week. Then traditionally, after they finished reading that passage, they then read this passage, Deuteronomy 11, verses 13 through 21. So, many Jews will recite this, and that’s because this is essentially a paraphrase and an expansion on what it talks about in Deuteronomy 6.

A lot of people don’t realize this. It says in verse 13, It shall come to pass if you surely listen to My commandments which I am commanding you today, to love Yehovah your God and to serve Him with all your heart and all your soul.” So that’s essentially what we read in Deuteronomy 6. Now, I have a question for Keith. Your rabbi, in the first century, they asked him what the most important commandment was, and he actually quoted two verses. One was Deuteronomy 6, the Shema, and the other was Leviticus 19, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself,” and “love Yehovah your God.” Why did he quote Deuteronomy 6, and not this verse in 9:13, or 11:13, rather?

Keith: Let’s read the verse, and the people will help us figure this out.

Jono: And it shall be that if you earnestly obey my commandments which I command you today, to love Yehovah your God and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, then I will give you...” and then it goes on to talk about the rain and the grain and so on and so forth.

Nehemia: It’s almost verbatim what we read in Deuteronomy 6. Meaning, there it says the same thing, “love Yehovah your God with all your heart, with all your soul and all your ‘meod’.” So why did he quote that passage and not this passage here? I think the answer is something that can only be found in the Hebrew.

In the Hebrew, verse 5 starts with the word “ve’ahavta,” “and you will love”. The other place that that word appears is in Leviticus 19:19, where it also says “ve’ahavta.” So, there’s “Ve’ahavta et re’acha kamocha,” and “love your neighbor as you love yourself,” and there’s “Ve’ahavta et Yehovah Elohecha,” “love Yehovah your God.” So, in the English, Deuteronomy 13, the verse there in Deuteronomy 13 looks very similar, but it doesn’t have the word “ve’ahavta,” it has “le’ahava,” “to love.” Here it has the exact same word in these two passages, Leviticus 19:19 and Deuteronomy 6:5, and that ties the two verses together, “ve’ahavta” “and you shall love.”

Keith: And this is the argument that Yeshua did not read the King James Version or not even the New King James version. He must have had the Torah in Hebrew. Can you believe it?

Jono: There it is.

Keith: Wow.

Jono: Makes perfect sense. Therefore you shall lay out these words of Mine in your heart and in your soul, and bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit down in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land which Yehovah swore to give your fathers, to give them, like the days of heaven above the earth.” Wow. “For if you carefully keep all these commandments which I command you to do—to love Yehovah your God and to walk by His ways, to hold fast to Him— then Yehovah will drive out these nations from before you, you will dispossess greater and mightier nations than yourselves. Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours: from the wilderness and Lebanon, and from the River Euphrates, even to the Western Sea, shall be your territory, and no man shall be able to stand against you; Yehovah your God will put the dread of you and the fear of you upon all the land where you tread, just as He has said to you.”

Nehemia: There’s a really profound concept here, which I think is very easy to skip over, which is that there’s actually a spiritual significance to walking through the land. Every place where you put your foot, where you step through the land, that is a prophetic act of receiving the gift that Yehovah has given to His people. So, I walk through the streets here, of Jerusalem, and through the mountains and the valleys that He talked about. I actually get to walk through those mountains and valleys, and it blows me away on a daily basis. I’m so blessed that I get to have a prophetic fulfillment of this verse by walking through the land. It’s an amazing thing. It’s profound.

Keith: It is.

Jono: Guys, it’s something that’s really exciting me because I’m so eager to get over there and march with you, Keith, and join up with you, Nehemia, and do some of that walking.

Keith: Yes.

Jono: And trekking through the land and touring through the land, I’m really looking forward to it.

Nehemia: If you guys tour with me, there will be a lot of walking.

Jono: I’m up for it.

Keith: That’s what’s up.

Nehemia: Bring the walking stick.

Jono: I will do so. And that brings us to the end of the Torah portion. There we are. My goodness. Boy, we’re getting through Deuteronomy, and it won’t be long before it’s finished. But thank you, Keith Johnson and Nehemia Gordon. You’ve been listening to Torah Pearls. Next week we are in Re'eh, is that correct?

Nehemia: Re'eh, yes.

Jono: Re'eh, Deuteronomy 11:26 to 16:17. Until then, 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!

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  • Mark Maier says:

    Greetings Nehemia!
    I have a question that’s been on my mind for a long time.
    I have Hirsch’s Chumash, and the Name YeHoVaH has the full vowels everywhere it occurs. There are, however, certain places where Moshe addresses Yah with the form “אדני יהוה”, where the vowels for Elohim are with the proper name. The Stone Edition of the Chumash translates it as Adonai Hashem/Elohim. My question is: how is this form actually pronounced?
    Thank you, and shalom,
    Mark

  • Anonymous says:

    ‘Twas surreal to hear you talking about pandemics (Deu 7:15)! Keith, when does America’s wickedness reach that point of the Amorites? The time and change is here – 2020, the middle of the 70th week of Daniel from 1996 to 2044, which begins the 2,300 Days (Dan 8:14, 9:27).

  • ANITA K. FIELDS says:

    I don’t know if this is of any significance, but an upside down Nun in cursive Hebrew looks like an upside down J. More like a Vav in manual print. Could it be that all forms of the Hebrew letters, from the Temple era script up to modern day cursive Hebrew are significant in meaning and formani in relation to scripture? The cursive Gimmel and Zayin look like a sickle used for harvesting.
    My resources are:
    °The WISDOM in the Hebrew Alphabet by Michael L. Munk
    °Zola’s Introduction to Hebrew by John Parsons

  • paulettegray says:

    I really appreciate the transcript of this particular pearl. God reveals himself not as a kindly grandfather but as mighty and awsome and demands our allegiance.

    On a side issue the town in NSW is actually Cowra.

  • Peggy Sanders says:

    Pearls are polished as we wear them, by the oils on our skin and rubbing against our neck, ladies!!! So yes, regular use keeps them polished and us glowing as well!! 🙂

    • donald murphy says:

      are pearls even kosher to handle??? I wonder since they associated with an unclean creature.

      • Nick Strickland says:

        They are unclean to eat, there is no prohibition to not touch them, nor harvest the pearls. The only thing you could not even touch was a pig and camel carcass. Camels were unclean to eat but they were used as means of travel by Israel, if you touched a carcass of an animal other then a camel or pig, you were only unclean till evening after you mikved and washed.

      • Sonuahua Compton says:

        hmmm interesting question… now i am wondering if I should pump my own gas .. since it is created from dead matter…

  • Marietta lynch says:

    Wonderful as usual! Thank you!

  • MAIKA says:

    How brilliant that Nechemyahu brought up Yimach Shemu Uzichro “may his name be blotted out” @ 1:06:26. The messiah’s Name literally has been referred to as the short form Yeshu [Yod Shin Vav] by rabbinic & talmudic sources for over a thousand years. Call me a tinfoilhat wearing conspiracy theorist, but the acronym in Hebrew for Yimach Shemu Uzichro is literally the aramaic name the talmud refers to our Messiah as…

  • Songs says:

    I love how you guys dig into the Scriptures – and connect dots I never even knew existed 🙂 I’ve learned so much from the Karaites and their approach to Scripture. Thank you for the awesome journey you walk in the Truth of His word. Much Shalom!

  • Sara Lö says:

    I have a question about the ark Mose put the tablets in… Where ther 2? One made by Mose and another ark made by Besalel and Oholiab?

  • NanciAnne Bunch says:

    God entrusted humanity with free will – a freedom inextricably entwined with cause/effect natural order accountability and equitable justice that governs the cosmos. God neither violates freedom nor dictates choices; He spoke divine wisdom to impart truth and dispel ignorance.

    God’s spoken commands inform, correct, direct, perfect, protect, and clearly delineate the blessings of obedience and consequences (curses) of disobedience so we can make wise choices.

    His first recorded command to humanity also demonstrated love. God never withholds good from those who walk in truth; among the many trees in Eden, only the harmful tree was off-limits.

  • Edwin, Sao Paulo, Brazil says:

    Good job men! Keep it!

  • June Maison says:

    Nehemiah Keith and Jono, I do look forward to your weekly teachings. You have given me a greater thirst to understand the scriptures from a Hebrew point of view, after migrating about a year ago from being Mainstream Christian to a firm follower of Yeshua. Now I am in search of a good bible that has not been distorted during the translation process. I have downloaded your videos on “Open Door”. Listened to Part one and two already. I have bought Nehemiah’s book on Shattering the Conspiracy of Silence and The naming of Jesus in Hebrew Matthew, then went on to buy “Hebrew Matthew”. I have learned a lot since I started listening to you guys and I have such joy exploring the scriptures. Now my desire is to learn my Redeemer’s language. I love the way it sounds. Been practicing to say “The Our Father”. Just wish I can be as fortunate as you Keith to find a Nehemiah in my life to help me personally. But Yah knows my heart and I know He will provide.Thumbs up to you guys.

    ‘Y’varekh’kha ADONAI v’yishmerekha. [May ADONAI bless you and keep you.] Ya’er ADONAI panav eleikha vichunekka. [May ADONAI make his face shine on you and show you his favor.] Yissa ADONAI panav eleikha v’yasem l’kha shalom. [May ADONAI lift up his face toward you and give you peace.]’

    • You say you have left mainstream Christianity to becoming a follower of Yeshua. ‘Scuse me, but what are Christians but followers of Yeshua? And you make reference to your “Redeemer?” You are still a Christian, following a religion invented by Paul, enforced by the Romans throughout its empire to bring all to worship a man instead of YHVH God. Perhaps you are a descendant of one of the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel. If so, may you return to keeping the Covenant as is prophesied in the Last Days, per the prodigal son parable, one of the things attributed to the righteous Jew, Jesus, which I believe he actually said. Most of the things attributed to Jesus in the NT were made up to support Paul’s newly invented religion.

      • donald murphy says:

        u 3 guys should listen to this woman. she speaks wisdom. To Kitty Corbertt.

        • donald murphy says:

          To bad she had to add jc to the mix. I firmly believe he never existed.

          • Nick Strickland says:

            Well that’s your problem, but not for us Messianics who follow him as the great Rabbi, and prophet spoken by Moses to hear and obey.

  • June Maison says:

    Revelation 22: 1 Next the angel showed me the river of the water of life, sparkling like crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. 2 Between the main street and the river was the Tree of Life producing twelve kinds of fruit, a different kind every month; and the leaves of the tree were for healing the nations – 3 no longer will there be any curses.

  • Leaves Heal says:

    The idea of the healing plants by the waters coming from the temple as “cultured plants” is interesting. May we come to have more wisdom about what plants we choose to “culture” and how.
    I’m finding a blessing in the “thorns and thistles” that Yehowah told us in Bereshiyt would spring up “for you.” The high-sulphur “weeds” are valuable plants for healing, whether in substantive or microdoses.
    It fascinates me that MSM (organic sulphur) is a beautiful pain killer. When Yehovah brought the Israelites out of Egypt, He told them to eat “bitter herbs.” I’m guessing that the people were experiencing some pain from the hard life they’d been living. Yehovah gave them a dose of pain-killer before asking them to run.

  • Linda Sprague says:

    This was such a good ‘Pearl’. I appreciate everyone’s participation, Nehemia, Jono and Keith. So many wonderful revelations ……….