Prophet Pearls #51 – Nitzavim (Isaiah 61:10-63:9)

Prophet Pearls #51 - Nitzavim (Isaiah 61:10-63:9)

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

Keith: Welcome to Prophet Pearls. This is Keith Johnson with Nehemia Gordon. We’re in Jerusalem. We actually just came this morning from a very interesting trip to the Temple Mount, the place where God placed His name is forever, and now we are going to try our best to talk about Isaiah chapter 61. Nehemia, Isaiah chapter 61, and I suppose you want me to play by the rules and go with the verse that they have told us to go with.

Nehemia: That’s your call. After what you’ve been through this morning, I’m going to extend you some grace.

Keith: Well, I’ll tell you…

Nehemia: You need it.

Keith: We are going to try our best to talk about this, and really, I have to say something, folks… By the time you’re listening to this, it is approximately August sometime, maybe even September, when we get to Isaiah chapter 61. In fact, I think it’s September 12, but in real-time, it’s early March. [laughing] When is this? Is it early March, Nehemia?

Nehemia: When we’re recording, this is March. When it’s going to be broadcast is...

Keith: Yes, it’s going to be September 12 or so, but the thing is folks we intentionally - and I really appreciate this on Nehemia’s part; for 13 years, 12 years I’ve been asking him about going with me to the Temple Mount, and he’s always had pretty good excuses and legitimate excuses, and never was able to...

Nehemia: It wasn’t an excuse, it was a “no”. [laughing]

Keith: Okay. It was a “no”. Well, I went through Bubbie Dina. Bubbie Dina, his mother, and I thought about doing this when I was visiting before, it didn’t work out, so we decided we’re going to go this time, and of course it was kind of a blessing because Nehemia decided to come with us, so the three of us went to the Temple Mount today. It started out as the beautiful day, Nehemia moved into his mode, he started teaching his mother about the archaeological issues, it was really really beautiful, and as we were going about our business, can I say this? The chair broke, Nehemia.

Nehemia: My mother is in a wheelchair, has been most of her life.

Keith: Yes, the wheel broke.

Nehemia: And the wheel literally came off.

Keith: The wheel came off. And so, by God’s grace and, maybe I don’t know what we want to say, that she had brought two wheelchairs, so Nehemia rushed from the Temple Mount - this never happens, by the way, you do not leave the Temple Mount and come back up, especially in the same entrance/exit. He did this thing, he went to go get it, and as he’s there I was backing her up with this wheelchair, and she said she wanted to see some things, and we did, we saw some things, and we stopped and a beautiful thing happened. What I want to say, Nehemia, is that’s how the day started, I mean, it was beautiful, we had this issue, and then things, if I can say…

Nehemia: Let’s share what happened.

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: Can I tell you why it’s significant what happened?

Keith: Yes, please.

Nehemia: So as soon as the wheel came… I mean, this is the wheelchair my mother has had for years, and we were going, and I’m pushing her along there on the top of the Temple Mount, and all of a sudden, quite literally, the wheel comes off. I have never seen... I’ve seen my mother in the wheelchair my entire life. I’ve never seen the wheel come off a wheelchair. It maybe happens, but to my mother’s wheelchair, it never happened. As soon as it happened, what I’m thinking is Exodus 14:25, “And he removed the wheel of his chariots,” of Pharaoh’s chariots, “and he made him drive heavily.” And when that happened, it’s really interesting - so I went to get the other wheelchair, and my plan was, we’re going to continue going the way we were going as soon as we got the new wheelchair. And it’s a miracle, that in itself, that my mother happened to have two wheelchairs. The last minute just before we left the house, she said to us, “let’s take the second wheelchair”. So I go to get the wheelchair and you start going backwards, which I don’t know about, and I wonder if the wheel didn’t come off because Yehovah wanted us to go backwards, because what happens when you took her backwards, what did she see?

Keith: So it's amazing, so we’re there, and if you’ve never been to the Temple Mount, many people haven’t, some have. There are different places along the Temple Mount where you kind of move beyond the masked stone and you actually see some of the original stone, meaning….

Nehemia: The bedrock, the actual stone of the mountain. And just to give context, my mother is an orthodox Jewish woman. She first came to Israel in 1973, moved to Israel in 1990, living in Jerusalem, and in her entire life had never been to the Temple Mount before.

Keith: And I was really humbled that she would do it, and she did it, and we were there, and at first it was a bit of a crisis, because when this happened she was like, “Look, that’s it, I’m out of here. Go get my wheelchair, I’m out of here.” And then she moved into her mode, where we were just looking at the trees and all the stuff, and we see this original stone, which Nehemia had pointed out, and she stops and she looks at me and she said, “Look at me”, and I look at her, she doesn’t put her hand over her mouth or anything, she says the Shema. And she begins to well up, and she said “This is really a significant and important thing.” Now I didn’t understand the significance, the importance of it, until I got back with Nehemia and he talked about it. Tell them what happened. I mean, I say coincidence, and you say it’s not a coincidence at all. If you’re Jewish, this is what you would do.

Nehemia: So I was up there in the Temple Mount, separate from this whole situation, and I was moved and I said the Shema as well. And you could say, “Wow, it’s the miracle, they both said the Shema,” but actually it is kind of a natural thing for a Jew up on the Temple Mount. You see, this is the place Yehovah put His name forever, this is the central prayer in the Torah. It’s a prayer that we’re taught - the last words you speak before you die are supposed to be this prayer. “Shema Israel,” - “Hear O Israel,” “Yehovah, Eloheynu, Yehovah ehad.” “Yehovah is our God, Yehovah is one.” So, I’m not surprised, that she sees an actual piece… And what’s the significance of her seeing a piece of the bedrock, of the actual mountain is you look all around you on the Temple Mount, what you see is there’s this Mosque and there’s that Mosque and there’s this Muslim structure and that Muslim structure, and all of a sudden you see an authentic piece of the very stone of the mountain where Yehovah put His name forever…

Keith: Come on with that.

Nehemia: And how could a Jew see that and not say the Shema?

Keith: Yes, so that was really amazing, and so what we ended up doing is going backwards, and as a result of that we wanted to get over to the spot where there’s a traditional spot, I shouldn’t say traditional, it’s where if Orthodox Jews go up on the Temple Mount, they have like a route that they take, and I’ve been up there many times with my friend, Yehuda Glick, and I’ve watched them go on this route. And I said, “Oh, we are going to go in that route,” and even Nehemia, we were heading to take this route, that way around the other way. But as a result of this wheel falling off, we had to go backwards. And so we’re going backwards, turned around, this happens, we get over to this spot, and as we get there, the head of the Temple Mount - can I say this, is the Temple Institute, I guess. They call it the Temple Institute, don’t they?

Nehemia: Yes. Chaim Richman, the head of the Temple Institute.

Keith: Yes, Temple Institute.

Nehemia: In the old city of Jerusalem.

Keith: Is actually there was a group of Jewish people.

Nehemia: He’s a Rabbi.

Keith: And so he’s going, they’ve got six or seven, who knows how many security guards, et cetera. So, we’re waiting for them, because I wanted to introduce him to Bubbie Dina, to have him also acknowledge that she was there. And so anyway, so they came around, and as they come around I say to him, “Rabbi Richman, this is Bubbie Dina, her husband who’s passed away, is Rabbi Gordon.” I didn’t say Bubbie Dina, I said, “Dina Gordon, and her husband, and she has a couple of questions.” And so, he was talking to her back and forth. Well, this sort of started a bit of a problem, because the people that are up there, they have their guards, and then they have what we call...

Nehemia: You mean the Muslims have their guard. There’s the Israeli Police…

Keith: There’s Israeli police and then there’s the Waqf...

Nehemia: And there’s the Muslim guards.

Keith: Yes, the Jordanian Waqf, so they go with him to make sure that none of those Jews pray and there are no issues, the police are protecting them. You’ve heard this story many times, and as they got around sure enough the women start doing their thing and they’re doing their chanting.

Nehemia: What’s “the women doing their thing”?

Keith: They start saying “Allahhu Akbar”, and I got in a lot of trouble for doing this by the way, but anyway, so they start saying that...

Nehemia: So the Muslims are actually shouting at the Jews.

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: Using the name of their god and a proclamation about the Muslim god as a form of verbal violence. No question about it, you have a bunch of these women, who are shouting at the top of their lungs…

Keith: Covering up their faces.

Nehemia: And they are following the Jews wherever they go shouting, “Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!” It’s verbal violence. And it’s intentional directed verbal violence, no question about it.

Keith: So this was toward the end of our trip, and so things are a little tense because we’re not in the group that they’re yelling at, there are just three of us, but we’re there because I wanted her to meet Rabbi Richman, et cetera. Nehemia had a couple of questions, really important questions about where the people go and all these kinds of things. He was very nice about it, but clearly, he’s like the lightning rod that just happens to be there when we’re there. We’re up in that spot, we thought we were going to go do something else, and then this guy walks up to me, and he says something along the lines of, “Do you remember me?” And I’m like, “No”. “Do you remember me?” He gets very close to my face…

Nehemia: He’s in your face.

Keith: And there’s a guy behind them taking pictures and he says, “Good, you don’t remember me.”

Nehemia: But then he said, “I remember you.”

Keith: And he says, “But I remember you.” I’m like, “Okay”, like whatever. So I’m there, whatever, whatever, whatever, and then at this point Bubbe Dina finally says, “Look, okay, I’ve heard enough yelling, I’ve heard enough… and there’s something going on here, let’s go.” So we begin to go, and then another man walks up to me that I do remember, who was actually a part of the group that actually kicked me out off the Temple Mount about a year ago

Nehemia: The Muslim Waqf.

Keith: The Muslim Waqf, the Jordanian Waqf, and so, what, he does is he comes up to me and he says something along the lines of, “How is,” or “where is your friend Yehuda Glick?” Now, when he says this, luckily Nehemia is next to me, and he’s a Gordon, and as I told you a couple of weeks ago, Gordons don’t do well if they’re not in a conversation, so this guy is talking to me, and Nehemia looks at him and says, “What did you say?”

Nehemia: Well, because I didn’t hear, he said something to you, I wanted to know…

Keith: No, because he was talking to me, but I was actually glad that you asked him because he was, in effect, sort of coming up to me after they take the pictures and sending the sort of harassment, kind of thing going on, and, Nehemia, it really bothered me. It’s really bothering me today. You know, we were talking last week about the beauty of the sanctuary, we’ve talked about the beauty of His sanctuary, and it’s really hard to be up on the Temple Mount, and some people say, that’s why you don’t go, you don’t go there because it’s not the place it’s going to be. I tend to take a little bit of a different view, and you can maybe share your view, but Yehovah’s name is still there, and He said it would be there forever, and for me as a foreigner, there’s no other place I’d rather be than to come into Israel and to go to that place, to Mount Zion. You know, all these things, all these specific things we’re talking about in Prophet Pearls, we’re almost at the end of Prophet Pearls, and we’re not going to take a field trip to the Temple Mount?

Nehemia: Now I have to ask you a question. We’ve been here for two weeks doing these Prophet Pearls, and you chose today of all days for us to go up there. Was this a setup?

Keith: Yes. No, no.

Nehemia: Let me tell you why I am asking you if it’s a setup - because the section we’re about to do has the very verse that we opened up the entire Prophet Pearls series with.

Keith: You’re kidding me.

Nehemia: It’s the verse that Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, spoke at the United Nations.

Keith: Get out of here. No, we weren’t supposed to get there until August.

Nehemia: Did you know that?

Keith: I promise you I did not. And not only that, I knew we couldn’t take the field trip unless we got a lot done. And we had gotten a lot done.

Nehemia: Yes.

Keith: So, the field trip...

Nehemia: Was this planned, this timing?

Keith: No, so what section are we in, by the way?

Nehemia: So the entire section we’re doing, and maybe we’ll just focus on this, is Isaiah 61:10 through 63:9, which is parallel to… it’s actually the 7th in the series of the Isaiah comfort sections. It’s the last of the comfort sections.

Keith: You’ve got to be kidding me, Nehemia.

Nehemia: And it’s Deuteronomy 29:9 to 30:20, Nitzavim, but Isaiah 62:1, it says, “Lema’an Zion lo ikhasheh,” - “For the sake of Zion I will not be silent,” - “ulema’an Yerushalaim lo eshkot,” - “and for the sake of Jerusalem I will not be quiet,” - “Ad yetzeh khanoga zidkah,” - “until her righteousness comes forth like a shining light” - “vishuata k’lapid iv’ar”, - “and her salvation, her yeshua, shall burn like a torch.” This is the verse that we’re reading.

Keith: So, when we started Prophet Pearls...

Nehemia: “Vera’u goyim zidkekh” is the next verse, - “and the gentiles, the nations will see your righteousness,” - “vekhol melakhim kvodekh,” - “and all the kings your glory.”

Keith: Everything changes. Everything changes, everything….

Nehemia: And then verse 6, “Al khomotayikh Yerushalaim,” - “upon your walls, O Jerusalem”, - “hefkaditi k’shomrim kol hayom ve kol halayla”, - “I have placed…”

Keith: Preach, Brother.

Nehemia: “…appointed guards, watchers all day and all night,” “tamid,” - “always,” - “lo yakhashu,” - “they will not be quiet,” - “hamazkirim et Yehovah,” - “who mention Yehovah,” - “al domi lakhem,” - “you shall not be quiet.” Keith, are you one these watchers? Are you one of these...

Keith: No, wait, Nehemia, we just got… just got back from probably the most tense…

Nehemia: And I’ll tell the people, I had no clue what was in this portion, I prepared it two months ago, I’m pulling out my notes, and I’m looking at this as you’re telling the story and I am thinking, “Seriously? You planned this, didn’t you?”

Keith: I promise you. Nehemia, can you give your perspective of what happened? And in other words, they heard from me, and the reason I want to hear your perspective, is that you’ve told me in the past that there are issues, but you made a big decision. You decided to go there, and you went there…

Nehemia: Well, I wasn’t going to let my mother go by herself, and it’s a good thing, her wheelchair broke, and I had to go and run to the car and get another wheelchair, I mean, you know, look...

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: It was a good thing I was there. I needed to be there if she was going to insist on going there. And look, I lived in Israel for 20 years, and this is only the second time I’ve ever been to the Temple Mount. The first time I went by myself, and it was a very emotional experience, very emotional. I mean, the hardest thing for me, the most emotional part for me, was seeing the pile of stones on the Temple Mount.

Keith: Come on, brother.

Nehemia: I mentioned this to you, you said, “Nehemia, there’s no pile of stones up there.” Do you remember that? And we saw the pile of stones today, it was right there. I don’t know how you missed it. And maybe...

Keith: Do you know how I missed it, by the way? The only way you see the piles of stones… if you take the tour with the Orthodox Jews that go around the edge, you go past there and you go down in this little deal and you walk along the wall and the focus is the wall, you’re moving towards the wall. You’re like, “No, I know there’s a pile of stones,” and you took us right to it.

Nehemia: I didn’t even remember where it was, but I went right to it. So it’s Jeremiah, 26:18, I think we read this a few days ago, “Micah the Moreshtite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah, King of Judah, and spake to all the people of Judah, saying, ‘Thus saith Yehovah of Hosts, Zion shall be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps,’” and the word in Hebrew is “iyim”, - heaps of stones, - “and the mountains of the house,” and actually in Hebrew it says the mountain of the house, the “Har Habayit”, - that’s the Jewish Hebrew name for the Temple Mount. So you could really translate “Har Habayit ”, the Temple Mount, as “the high places of a forest”.

And I went up to the Temple Mount the first time a number of years ago, and I see the trees, there are trees growing up there, it’s like a forest, and there are kids playing soccer, little Muslim kids playing soccer like they’re in some kind of park, having no respect for the place, and I walk around the corner, and I see this pile of stones. It’s a garbage dump where they dump all the ruined stones, and there’s probably some structure under there in this pile of ruin stones, it’s exactly what’s described here.

Here in the JPS, it’s: “Thus said the LORD,” - you know, - Yehovah, “Thus said Yehovah of hosts, ‘Zion shall be plowed as a field, Jerusalem shall become heaps of ruins, and the Temple Mount, a shrine in the woods,’” and it’s exactly what you see up there - you see a shrine in the woods. And by the way, there’s this part of the idea that in the Tanakh you can’t have a tree next to the altar of Yehovah, so there were no trees on the Temple Mount, you go up there and they’ve planted all their sacred oaks and their sacred trees, and they’ve got their shrine in the woods, and you’ve got the heap of the stones, and it’s very emotional.

So here I am up there, and I see these women who are up there, these Muslim women in their burka, and they’re using their faith, their religion, as a form of violence against Jews. They’re following them, they’re dogging them, they’re persistently following wherever the Jews go, and they are shouting at the top of their lungs the name of their god, and they’re doing it clearly to harass. I don’t think anyone would dispute that’s what they are doing. And I’ll be honest, I don’t know if you remember this, but I said to you, “Are you sure… maybe they’re just praying? How do we know they’re actually doing it to harass?” And then I saw this band of Muslim women following the Jews, so it’s very clear what they’re doing, you know, I was trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, that maybe this is just their faith, you know, to shout their name of their god at the top of their lungs, but the way they’re doing this there’s no question in anybody’s minds this is why they are doing it. There was complete quiet there until these Jews came up, and then they started following them, harassing them.

And I see this situation where Jews… You know, this is our country, we’re a majority, we control the country, but up on the Temple Mount, we’re a minority. The Muslims control the Temple Mount for whatever historical reasons, and we go up there...

Keith: What are those historical reasons? Would you let people know? I don’t think people know. Could you, would you be willing...?

Nehemia: Okay, so in 1967 we captured the Old City of Jerusalem, and Moshe Dayan, who was a secular Jew, decided to turn the Temple Mount back over to the Muslims.

Keith: Yes. To the Jordanian Waqf specifically.

Nehemia: Yes. And, why did he do that? Look, he was a secular Jew, what did he care about the Temple Mount? And, his attitude was, “Look, I’ve already got a hundred million Arabs who want to kill me. I don’t want to have a war with a billion Muslims.” And so instead of trusting in Yehovah, he decided to trust in man, and we can see how that’s working out.

And so up there we’re a minority and you, certainly, as a foreigner, as a Christian, as a black man, you’re a minority, and we come up there wanting to serve our God, and pray in the place where Yehovah put His name forever according to our faith, and these people of another faith are saying, “No, you cannot come here and practice your faith. This is our place. If you even move your lips…” What my mother did, saying the Shema, if the Israeli police or the Muslim Waqf saw that, she would’ve been arrested. They didn’t see it, but if they would’ve seen it... and if they would’ve seen what I did, which is also saying the Shema, and I actually held my hand over my mouth as if I was scratching my nose as I said the Shema so they wouldn’t see my lips moving.

And I go up there, you know what I feel like? When I was talking to you about this before, so there’s the situation where the four African-American kids were accepted into the University of Mississippi, and the white people said, “You can’t come into our sanctuary.”

Keith: Now hold on, you’re...

Nehemia: “This is our holy place. We’re going to prevent you from going here, we’re going to beat you, we’re going to club you, we’re going to attack you, we’re going to yell at you, curse you, spit at you,” and finally they had to bring in the National Guard that stood up for their rights, and that the time, I am sure, there were a lot of black people who said, “Look guys, don’t go, go anywhere, don’t go to that university. You’re going to rock the boat, you’re going to cause trouble. We’re going to have a war with all these white people, just don’t do it.” And that’s how I feel going up there as a Jew on the Temple Mount. I’ve a lot of my people, saying, “Just don’t go, come on here, there are a billion Muslims, you don’t want a war with them, just don’t do it.” You know, whatever your faith is just keep it to yourself, go stand outside of the Western Wall, out in the street, don’t go up to the Temple Mount, the place Yehovah put His name forever.

And I’m looking at this and I’m thinking, “Come on, we’re in the 21st century where we have a world that talks about freedom of religion and the right to practice one’s faith, and if a Muslim were to come and pray at a Jewish site, they wouldn’t arrest him for praying.” I mean, it’s unbelievable… [hearing sirens in the background] oh, that’s the police, they’re coming for us. [laughing] They found out we prayed the prayer.

It breaks my heart that my own people can’t go up there without being harassed. They can’t go up there without getting arrested for praying, and not only that, but the fulfilment of the prophecies that we’ve read, we’ve talked about this time and again, about these gentiles who come to the place and they pray there and they pray towards there, which is a fulfilment of prophecy, that very fulfilment of prophecy is illegal, it’s against the law. And you going up there wanting to practice your faith as a Keith Johnson Methodist, is actually against the law, and will get you harassed, it will get you attacked, it gets you threatened. “How’s your friend Yehuda Glick, the one we shot?” Really?

Keith: Yes, and I’ve got to say, Nehemia, folks as you’re listening to this, like I said, we’re present time in September, and at the end of the show, I actually want to replay what Netanyahu did at United Nations, because, Nehemia, I think it’s amazing that he did this, he brought this verse in 62. We started Prophet Pearls out by bringing this verse, we had no idea that we’d be in the Land of Israel.

Nehemia: Just having come the second time in my life from the Temple Mount, first time with my mother.

Keith: From the Temple Mount, and you’re telling me… and the chances of this, we couldn’t have planned it. There’s no way we could’ve planned it. We didn’t even know how many we were going to get done and so, and so…

Nehemia: We didn’t know we were going to be reading this one this morning until late last night, and when we finished five yesterday. And the preparations to go to the Temple Mount was something we did several days ago, with faxes and phone calls….

Keith: And getting security clearance and all of that stuff. And you know what, I just have to say something, as I’m pushing the broken wheelchair and you’re pushing the wheelchair with your mother in it, and here I am there, not bothering anyone, not saying anything to anyone, I’m pushing a broken wheelchair, and this guy comes up and does his thing, and the second guy comes up and does his thing. And I have to be honest, if you hadn’t read that verse, I just was about at that place, was like, “You know, what is this all about?” I mean, I can’t go to the…? I wasn’t even praying, Nehemia, I wasn’t doing anything other than being there. And for him to mention the name of my friend, Yehuda Glick, who is my friend, and for him to mention that name in sort of a way of saying, “How’s he doing?” and knowing that the guy’s been for several months fighting to get back to his life and to be able to continue his work again and to be there.

I just have to be honest, I mean, I’m scratching my head, saying, “What do I do next? Do I go meet with the Israeli police? Do I meet with the Waqf? What do I need to do to let them know?” And then we get to this verse that says, “For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent,” and I’m going to say this on this date as people are listening - by the time this date comes, I’ll have not been silenced. There’s not going to be any silence about this, Nehemia. I’m going to continue to be who I am, love these places about my… Everything about that place has been about encountering God. And now, some henchmen, I’ll call them that, henchmen want to come up and harass and threaten and do that sort of thing - no, we’ve gone through Scriptures before talking about, “Don’t be afraid of them.” I’m not going to be afraid of them, but I will say something, it’s very discouraging to go by that place and to be at that place in this situation and to see that. It really is discouraging.

Nehemia: Can I tell you what I was thinking as they were proclaiming, as they were shouting at the top of their lungs using this phrase “Allahu Akbar” as a form of verbal violence? So, the women are standing there and here’s the image guys: there’s the Dome of the Rock, which is the place according to the Jewish understanding where the Holy of Holies stood of the Temple, the First Temple and the Second Temple. It’s a place where the angel stopped just before He was about to wipe out Jerusalem, and that was the place Yehovah put His name forever in 2 Samuel 24, go read it, that’s homework. It’s also in Chronicles. And so, we’re standing there and we’re looking up at the Dome, and there are these steps, and the women are standing on the steps, shouting “Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!” to shout out the Jews who are standing at the bottom of the steps.

Keith: They have to be quiet. They can’t say a word.

Nehemia: And they’re whispering… literally, this Rabbi from the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, Rabbi Richman, he’s whispering because he just wants to be there and to explain to people what’s going on and not to start a fight. And, I hear them shouting these words, and what I thought, I kept thinking this is, these are the words that the terrorists shouted on 9/11 as they flew their airplanes into the towers, and I’m thinking, “This is what they represent? This is what their faith is about? About using those words as verbal violence and using those words” – and I think I even mentioned this when I was up there – “and using it for literal violence, for physical violence?” This is a disgrace to… I think it’s a disgrace to their own heritage. It’s very shameful that someone would use the name of their god and proclaiming the greatness of their god, whatever their god is, for violence. That so disgusts me. It really makes me sad.

Keith: Well, I have to say this, you know, the dynamic up there changed. In the past, you’d have one or two what they call the Wafq watchers, and then you have one or two or three soldiers, but today as that group of whatever it was, seven or eight Jews were up there, there were about six or seven Waqf folks that were around them at least, and as many as soldiers and, you know, this is just because some people are up at that place, no intention for violence, no intention to do anything disrespectful, and they can’t even go up on that place, the holiest piece of real estate, not the third holiest like it is in Islam, the holiest piece of real estate for Jews, and they’re not even able to go on that place that… to have any sort of peace.

So, I give a shout out to my friend Yehuda, who told me… I was here in Jerusalem, I got a chance to spend some time with him, and he told me, “My life has been spared and I’m going to continue my mission,” and I certainly want to do whatever part that I am called to do including not being silent when it comes to these kinds of things, and Nehemia, it was really encouraging for me, because you were there, you moved into your mode and your mom loved it, she’s like, “Oh, man, you know, we’ve got to film this whole thing.” You were talking about the archaeological issues, and those are things people do not get a chance to hear, you know?

Nehemia: And I think calling archaeology, maybe… I know this isn’t your intention, but in a way belittles it, because really my mother’s question is “Where was the Temple? I see this Mosque, and that Mosque and this place where the Muslims wash their feet, and this place where they wash their hands, and this place where they take a drink. Where was the Temple?” that’s the only thing she wants to know. And that is why I was explaining archaeologically. This is from 711, and this is from 691, but here is where the actual Temple was.

You know, you’ve got the Temple Mount and the original Temple of Solomon and Zerubavel is just a subsection of the entire Temple Mount, and that’s what I was explaining. This was what was known back then, in the Second Temple times, as the court of the gentiles, that was the area that Herod expanded the Temple Mount, he doubled the size of it, so that gentiles could come and be in the area, but then there was the area where only circumcised were allowed to enter. And I was explaining all that archaeology to my mother, and then when she saw that… I guess when I was away and she saw the piece of the bedrock, I think it all became real at that moment, because it wasn’t “Underneath here somewhere is a mountain that we’ve heard about our entire lives.” There’s the mountain, there it is. That’s the place.

Keith: And I have to tell you, I’m really kind of frustrated because we were going to go to the area where they still have these stones that have not been covered over from the Temple, and having been on the tour with Yehuda, I’ve seen these places and I was pointing it out to her and we weren’t able to continue. When I say, “complete the tour”, for the reasons that you’ve just mentioned. They basically want to make it very uncomfortable for you, and they do everything they can. And they made it uncomfortable for me, personally, and I still don’t know what I’ll do. There are options, but I’m not going to be silent about it. So, I’m glad that we did this, that we went right to this section, the question really is: do we go backwards or do we continue? I mean, I don’t know if we go backwards…

Nehemia: Look, we’re not going to go through the whole section, we’re going to assign some homework, but there are some things we’ve got to talk about. There’s a lot to talk about in this section. Can we read the first verse?

Keith: Yes, please. Go ahead. Where are we?

Nehemia: Actually, before you read the first verse, and I think this is what you were trying to get at.

Keith: I was trying to get to it.

Nehemia: So, this starts in Isaiah 61:10. Isaiah 61:1 is very significant. 61, verses 1 and 2. And the reason it’s significant… I think for Christians it’s significant for a different reason than it’s significant for Jews. So, in the Gospel of Luke, we’ve got the story. Can we read that story from the Gospel of Luke?

Keith: Please. Can you do that? You know, I would really love this, because we have another one of those experiences that we had together. Many that we don’t remember, this was one that I don’t think you remember, and I didn’t remember what you brought up, and I have just to tell you it just really overwhelmed me, and it was how many years ago? I don’t even know how many years it was.

Nehemia: I don’t know, a few years back, quite a few years back. Where is this verse where Yeshua…

Keith: While he is looking for it, Yeshua is in the synagogue, and he goes to the front of the synagogue.

Nehemia: And he reads from the scroll.

Keith: And he unrolls the Isaiah scroll and begins to read in Isaiah chapter 61.

Nehemia: So, here in the Gospel of Luke there’s this great story, it says in Luke 4:16, “When he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up, he went to the Synagogue on the Sabbath day as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. Because He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of the sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour’” Verse 20, “And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him, then he began to say to them, ‘Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’ All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’”

So why is this important for Jews? I understand obviously why it’s important for people coming from the New Testament perspective, Yeshua goes to the synagogue on Shabbat, as was his custom, he was a Jew, he went to the synagogue, and they’re reading… he actually reads from the Book of Isaiah, chapters 61, verses 1 to 2.

Keith: I want to say something before you say something. I’ve got to tell you something, so all I thought was, it was time to read and he chose this passage, why… He chose the passage, and I’m like, “It makes sense. Let’s talk about the passage, what it is.” And that’s far as I went.

Nehemia: So, a few years back we were here in Jerusalem and we went to this event, which was, they were launching… and I forget exactly what it was called but it was something like a Jewish commentary on the New Testament or something like that.

Keith: And Jews were writing it, this is not Christians…

Nehemia: Right. No, it’s not Christian, it’s not Messianic, in fact, they made a point, they said no messianics were involved in this, they were Orthodox Jews, secular Jews, Jewish scholars, and I remember specifically, I believe it was Professor Shinan, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who got up and he said, “The reason that we need the Gospels as Jews is that it teaches us about our own history,” and he brought this verse as an example. He said, “We know from the Jewish sources that the Haftarah or the Prophets portion…”

Keith: Come on, brother.

Nehemia: “…began during the time, we’re told, of the persecution. Here’s where things get a little complicated,” Professor Shinan explained, “there are two persecutions referred to in Jewish sources that are difficult to distinguish, whether it was the persecution of Antiochus the 4th, 175 to 165 BCE, or whether it was the persecution of Hadrian, the Roman emperor. So the first one was a Seleucid Greek, the second one, Hadrian, was a Roman emperor, who had his persecutions in the 130s AD or CE. And so some scholars came along and said, “Yes, the Haftarah, the Prophets portion, only began during the time of the Hadrianic persecutions in the 130s AD.” And lo and behold, they opened up this passage in Luke and said, “No, they were already doing it in the 1st century, in the time of Yeshua”.

Keith: Come on, now.

Nehemia: And, Shinan explains, the professor from Hebrew U at this event, he said, “Look, we need this to fully explain our own history, we’ve got this reference, but we’re not sure which period, and this proves that it was during the Seleucid Greek persecution, because 150 years - 280 years later or something like that, 200 years later, Jesus of Nazareth is reading the Haftarah in the synagogue,” which is exactly what he was doing.

Keith: And I’m going to tell you something Nehemia, not to say it again, but for those who missed that, the idea is that he’s in...he’s there. They’re going through the portions, here’s the Torah portion, now it’s the Prophet section, maybe Yeshua’s like us, we’re sitting here saying, “Just by chance, today we go to the Temple Mount, and today we’re reading this section in the Haftarah.” Maybe it’s just by chance, or maybe he goes to the synagogue cause he knows what section they’re reading. Maybe, that’s exactly why he’s there. But the point is, I’m telling you...

Nehemia: No, you read the passage in Luke. Because in Luke 4:9, it says... I’m reading from the New Revised Standard Version, “Then the devil took him to Jerusalem and placed him on the pinnacle of the Temple, saying to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here,’” et cetera, and then the next scene is he comes into the synagogue and reads this passage. [laughing]

Keith: [laughing] So, all I’m saying is, he knows what the Haftarah section is.

Nehemia: Talks about being a watcher on the wall and not being silent for Jerusalem… he’s reading this section. Wow.

Keith: Yes. The reason I’m bringing that up, I think that’s amazing, Nehemia, that Jewish people were talking about the significance of finding out about their own history by looking in the Gospel. I think that, to me, it’s amazing, it’s amazing. And not only is it amazing, it relates exactly to what we’re talking about, that basically he was reading from the Prophet Portions and that was that section he used.

Nehemia: And I think, can I say? This is really controversial, but we were talking about this the other day. So David Stern, who wrote The Complete Jewish Bible, was at this event, and he got up, and he complained to all of these Jewish professors, and rabbis, he said, “You didn’t include me,” and they said “Yes, this wasn’t about you. You’ve got your Messianic agenda. We want to know about our history, and we’re going to use the New Testament as a Jewish document…”

Keith: He wasn’t having it, he wasn’t having it.

Nehemia: “You’re using it for a different agenda.” And he wasn’t happy about that, but really, to me that gives it more legitimacy. This is Jews trying to understand their own history and saying, “Look, these are Jewish sources. It’s time we took them back.”

Keith: Oh, my goodness.

Nehemia: Can I get an amen?

Keith: Wow.

Nehemia: And so, I think… Now here’s the question, of course we have to ask, this isn’t one of the sections of Haftarah.

Keith: Yes. Isn’t that funny?

Nehemia: So what happened?

Keith: So, I was going to protest the whole thing. Because when I first saw Isaiah 61, I’m like “Oh, this is great!” We get to talk about this. And again, not understanding what we had done a couple of years ago, not understanding how that related to the Prophet Portions, I confess that. But you ask yourself the question. So, again, we start in verse 10 and we miss the first part of it. Now, the question becomes this: Is this one of the sections that’s actually related, or are we still in the series that’s not related to the Torah portions?

Nehemia: Well so there are two statements to make, or two observations; one is that we’ve talked about how there’s a three-and-a-half year cycle, and there’s a yearly cycle. I don’t know what they did at the synagogue of Nazareth, meaning they might have had a three-and-a-half year cycle, and we don’t necessarily know what portions they read. And beyond that, it’s very possible that they opened up Isaiah and they said, “Okay, you the reader, chose something, whatever you feel led to read from Isaiah.” And there are some references in Rabbinical literature that seem to indicate that. That you could really choose whatever you wanted, as long as you read at least three verses. And that brings me to the other point, so we read in Luke, he only quotes two verses, right? But probably, in reality, he read a lot more than that. And it’s just bringing us the beginning, which is actually a Jewish style. When you quote the beginning of a section, it’s assumed that you are reading the entire section.

Keith: It’s funny, because as you were reading it in Luke, I was looking at it in Isaiah, and there was a phrase that we missed, that actually skipped over, that kind of sends the message that maybe that exactly what was going on. The phrase that he missed...

Nehemia: Now how far he read, I don’t know. But probably he read this entire prophecy, which in the Hebrew text, let me just double-check this so I get it right. But in the Hebrew text we have a space before 61:1, a samakh or a closed space, and the next space is after 61:9. So, probably he read verses 1 through 9, and what would support that is it actually is a unit, it makes a lot of sense, and we’re not going to read the whole thing. That’s the homework.

Keith: No, no, no, yes.

Nehemia: Go and read this and ask yourself, when Jesus of Nazareth, Yeshua HaNotzri, when he read this, what was the message he was trying to communicate in this context to the Jews in the synagogue, when he read verses 1 through 9, assuming that’s what he read? Yes, pretty cool.

Keith: Now, you know what we did do, so what I appreciate about you going to 62, obviously, is that’s the key, and I really do want, maybe we won’t edit this at the end, just go back and listen to the first Prophet Pearls because we give context to the whole statement from 62, “For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, for Jerusalem’s sake I will not remain quiet.” My question for you is, is there is a section here, like I like verse 6 when he starts talking about… “I actually have posted watchmen on your walls,” and I mean, come on, here’s the softball. [laughing]

Nehemia: Can we talk about 61:10 before we get to that? So, can you read 61:10 in your English?

Keith: Yes, 61:10 says, “I delight greatly in Yehovah, my soul rejoices in my God. For He has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with jewels. For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign Lord (in English) will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations".

Nehemia: Okay, and what I love here is this phrase, “clothes of salvation”, and I also love this phrase, it says kekhatan yekhahen pe’er, which literally is “He will wear a glorious hat” or some kind of hat.

Keith: Not like the hat that you’ve been wearing.

Nehemia: No, maybe, not. Like a khatan, like a groom, and what we can…The reasons I like this is here is an example where the word Kohen - “priest”, has a literal sense. And the literal sense of Kohen, we often will translate it as those who minister, those who serve, there’s another word for that in Hebrew: lesharet. And a Kohen, he does ministry, hu mesharet. But here yekhahen means to wear a hat, to wear a special hat that indicates you’re someone special, and that’s really interesting, because the kohanim, the priests in the Temple, wore a special hat. And it sounds almost ridiculous, like, so, kohen, a priest, the Temple, something to do with wearing a hat? But it actually does, and it explains some other verses, which, people go look up, homework, 2 Samuel 8:18 mentions that the sons of David were Kohanim, were priests, and probably it means they had some kind of service where they wore a special hat, not that they actually served in the Temple, because only the Levitical priests could serve in the Temple. And then this also explains probably about Melchizedek, in Genesis 14:18, it says “Melchizedek was the king of Salem, he brought out bread and wine, and he was a Kohen, a hat-wearer, to the Most High God.”

And then Psalm 110:4, “Nishba Yehovah velo yenakhem”, “Yehovah has sworn, and He will not repent”, He will not change His mind, “ata Kohen leolyam”, “you are a Kohen forever”, “al divrati Malchizedek”, “after the manner of Melchizedek”, and here, as many understand, he’s referring to the Messiah, or the king of Israel, and he is saying, “Look, King of Israel, you’re going to be a Kohen, not like the priests in the Temple, who bring sacrifices and slaughter sheep, you’re going to be a Kohen after the manner of Melchizedek, who stood before me wearing a special hat serving me as King of Jerusalem.”

Keith: Amen, amen, amen. It’s funny because it goes after the statement that you read it says, “You will be a crown of splendor.”

Nehemia: Amen.

Keith: “In Yehovah’s hand…”

Nehemia: And if you look throughout this passage, that’s homework too, look at the whole theme of wearing a hat...

Keith: Wearing a hat.

Nehemia: And covering the head, that’s something that repeats itself a few times.

Keith: Now, verse 6, Nehemia, we are going to read, there are beautiful things about going to the Old City of Jerusalem.

Nehemia: Before verse 6…

Keith: No, no, it was homework.

Nehemia: Verse 2, 62:2, future names of Jerusalem, look these up, we’re not going to read them all, Isaiah 1:26, Isaiah 62:4, Isaiah 62:12, Jeremiah 33:16. Go look up the future names of Jerusalem. Beautiful study...

Keith: Yes, that’s really cool because they actually looked at the names of Jerusalem before, not the names that are already being called, but the future names, that’s pretty cool.

Nehemia: So, verse 6.

Keith: I’m not going to talk about verse 6.

Nehemia: No, we’re talking about verse 6!

Keith: No, I want to move to verse 7. [laughing]

Nehemia: Stand with me on the wall! Nehemia’s wall! That’s my ministry, Makor Hebrew Foundation, empowering people with information.

Keith: What’s the verse say? What does it say?

Nehemia: “Al khomotayikh yerushalayim hifkaditi shomrim”, “upon your walls, Jerusalem, I have appointed watchers, guards, all day and all night, perpetually they will not be silent, those who mention Yehovah, do not be silent for yourselves.” People, come and stand with me on the wall and don’t be silent, mention the name of Yehovah, and join me on the wall. You need me on that wall! You want me on that wall! And I want you on that wall. If you feel that Yehovah has called you, appointed you, come stand with me on the wall.

Keith: Amen, amen, amen. Wow. I’m going to hold off on my Ministry Minute, you got that, I can’t follow after that, that’s good stuff, I love that phrase “you want me, you need me on the wall”. I mean, Nehemia, we really do need you on the wall. And we were actually on the wall today, we were very close to being on top of the wall. [laughing]

Nehemia: Yes.

Keith: “Yehovah has sworn by His right hand and His Mighty Arm, ‘Never again will I give your grain as food for your enemies, and never again will foreigners drink the new wine for which you have toiled; but these who harvest it will eat it and praise Yehovah, and those who gather the grapes will drink it in the courts of My sanctuary.’” There again, is this, you know… that’s where we were today.

Nehemia: We were in the courts of the sanctuary. Literally.

Keith: That’s where we were today. Amen. “Pass through, pass through the gates! Prepare the way for the people. Build up, build up the highway! Remove the stones.” Which stones are they talking about there?

Nehemia: The Waqf.

Keith: “Raise a banner for the nations. Yehovah has made proclamation to the ends of the earth: ‘Say to the Daughter of Zion, See your Savior comes! See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him.’” Now, I love this part. And I want you to read this. I want us to look at this verse 12, and I want us to slow down, because it says, “And they will call them,” what will they call them?

Nehemia: Am hakodesh.

Keith: Am hakodesh.

Nehemia: Ge’ulei Yehovah. The holy people, redeemed of Yehovah.

Keith: Wow. “They will be called the holy people, the redeemed of Yehovah, and then you will be called…” Now I think there’s got to be an issue here in verse 12.

Nehemia: In Jerusalem. Because it’s feminine, lakh.

Keith: “You will be called Sought After, the City No Longer Deserted.” Goodness gracious.

Nehemia: Wow.

Keith: May it be and may it be quickly.

Nehemia: Amen.

Keith: Alright, so we’ve got to decide what we’re going to do next.

Nehemia: Homework?

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: So, we’ve got the theme here, we’ve talked about it before, Yehovah coming from the mountains of the south, in order to get to Israel from Sinai, Yehovah must pass through Edom Seir, based on the geography, He also has to pass through Moav, Edom, Median, Sinai, that’s the route, north to south. Look up Deuteronomy 33:2, Judges chapter 5 verse 4, Habakkuk 3:3, and we’ve got in a bunch of other places as well this theme of Yehovah coming from the mountains of the south.

Keith: Awesome. So, Nehemia, we’re talking about that all the way up until when? What is the break here? So, we go to…?

Nehemia: It goes to verse 9. I love this verse 4, “Ki yom nakam belibi”, “a day of vengeance is in my heart”, “ushnat ge’ulai ba’a”, “and the year of my redemption is come.” “Va’abit ve’ein ozer”, verse 5, “and I looked, and there was no helper”, “ve’eshtomem ve’ein somekh”, “and I stared, and there was none to support me”, “vatosha li zro’ee”, “my arm was salvation for me”, “vekhamati hisemakhatni”, “and my wrath, it lifted me up, it supported me.” And so Yehovah is saying, “Look, I am going to carry out the great and terrible day of Yehovah, there’s going to be this vengeance, this punishment, and it’s just going to be Me. I don’t need anybody to help Me, I don’t need any assistance, any helpers, it’s just going to be Me, I’m going to do it.”

Keith: Well, folks, I do want to take a moment just to say something. Sometimes you get a chance to be in the future, like right now, we’re today, and I don’t know what is going to happen in September.

Nehemia: Right now we’re today? Makes sense.

Keith: Today we’re in March, as we’re talking, but as you are listening, you are actually in September. And it really is no small thing, I was trying to share with Nehemia. I came to Israel with a burden, and the burden really was what I do with the information that I have gathered of the last couple years, as it pertains to this important place, the Temple Mount, and all the issues around it, not only my friend Yehuda Glick, Nehemia and I did an amazing trip where went to the places, that the process of some of the places the ark went, and he was very helpful with that. My friend Renaldo, Edwardo Reccanati also helped me. I have to thank him for that.

But the thing I am saying right now is that right now if you go to bfainternational.com, there’s one thing I know for sure that is there, and that is this Biblical Hebrew audio course, which if you haven't gotten a chance to take a look at, I’m actually writing it while I’m here in Jerusalem, and have been doing some work before, and what I really was trying to do was trying to find a way that would be bite-sized for people to understand some of this. Because I don’t know what it does for you, but it really blesses me, Nehemia, when I’m hearing the Hebrew spoken, and then when I’m able to actually even understand some of it myself and see the words and understand the words, in their language, history and context. So, that definitely is there.

Hopefully, prayerfully, by the time you’re hearing this, there’s also going to be something that’s related to what’s happened over the last couple of years regarding the Temple Mount in video form, and I really hope that that happens, but as a result of what happened today, I just have to tell you, I want to tell my friends that are listening, I definitely am going to take the words of Isaiah very seriously. And I want to read them again, in 62, verses 1 and 2: “For Zion’s sake, I will not keep silent, for Jerusalem’s sake I will not remain quiet, till her righteousness shines out like the dawn and her salvation like a blazing torch.” Bfainternarional.com inspiring people around the world to build a biblical foundation for their faith, but it all started right here in the land of Jerusalem, and I’m just convinced that God is Maestro, as I told your mom this morning as we were waiting. Maestro was at work before we even were on the Temple Mount, and I have to say something, He created a beautiful symphony today. That’s all I have to say.

Nehemia: Keith, all right. Are you done?

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: All right. Can we talk about verse 9? I won’t be too long, but it really is an important verse. Can you read it, please?

Keith: Yes, “In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the angel of His presence saved them; In His love and in His mercy He redeemed them, and He lifted them and carried them all the days of old.”

Nehemia: So, this is really interesting, because this is the only place in the entire Tanakh that mentions this idea of an Angel of the Presence, and that immediately jumped off the page at me, because in the Jewish tradition, later on, the Angel of the Presence becomes this huge thing. In fact, there is more than one Angel of the Presence that I’ll talk about.

But, you know, this whole question of angels… You know, there’s this idea in history they call angelology, which is people who pray to angels, and they interact with angels and they worship angels, and they burn incense to angels, and definitely my understanding of the Tanakh is that’s not something we should being doing, we should be worshiping Yehovah directly, not an intermediary. You know, we looked at Judges 13:18, where He says, “Why do you ask My name? It is wonderfully hidden.” And we’ve talked about that. But angels with names - do you know there’s only two named angels in the Tanakh? Maybe we talked about that too.

Keith: Yep, we did.

Nehemia: And there are only five places in the Tanakh that angels’ names are mentioned. Gabriel’s mentioned twice, in Daniel 8:16 in 9:21, Michael or Mikhael is mentioned in three passages: Daniel 10:13, it says “Michael, one of the first angels,” Daniel 10:12, “this is Michael, your sar,” sar I guess is a high ranking angel, what Joshua saw in 5:14 and 15 was sar tzeva Yehovah, an officer in the army of Yehovah, so that word sar is there, and then in Daniel 12:1, Michael is the great sar. So, five times in the Tanakh angels' names and there are only two angels who are named.

So, this idea of the Angel of the Presence- what is that? And when we had the Original Torah Pearls, we talked about - I think it was in Genesis 49 – where it talked about the angel who redeems me, malakh hago’el oti, which as I mentioned back then, that’s in Genesis 48:16 actually. “The angel who redeems me from all evil, let him bless the youths,” et cetera, which is very unusual.

So, two places in the Tanakh, arguably also in the book of Daniel, we have this whole issue with angels, it’s very strange. In the New Testament, of course, in Jude, chapter 1 verse 9, the only chapter verse 9, Revelation 12:7 has an interesting statement about angels, that’s outside the Tanakh. So, if we’re already outside Tanakh, can I talk about the Rabbinical discussion about angels?

Keith: Yes, absolutely.

Nehemia: So, this is really interesting. So there is this whole big discussion in the Rabbinical literature about the Angel of the Presence. Do you know what the Angel of the Presence is called in some of the Rabbinical readings?

Keith: Yes, I do. His name is Metatron.

Nehemia: One of them is called Metatron, there are actually three. One of them is called Elijah, and the third one is called Yeshua. And there’s an entire literature in modern Jewish scholarship talking about Yeshua sar hapnim, Yeshua, the Angel of the Presence. [laughing] And this so much sounds like Yeshua of Nazareth that many Jewish scholars, and I’m talking about secular scholars at Hebrew University and other places, have said, “This was inserted into Rabbinical literature by Christians and this is a scam, it’s not really in there.” But there was this one scholar at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, his name was Yehuda Libs, he was a professor of Mysticism at Hebrew U, and he actually went and tracked this Yeshua sar hapnim, Yeshua the Angel of the Presence, all the way back to the 12th century, that’s the earliest that he found it, in a book called Sefer HaKheshek, The Book of Desire, it was written in Germany by a Rabbi named Nehemiah HaNavi, Nehemiah the Prophet, no, that is not me. The book is also called, interestingly, The Seventy Names of Metatron.

Now, Metatron, some people say, is Mithra; Professor Libs didn’t agree with that. He says Metatron is not Mithra, he argued that - it’s really interesting, he really shows, I think, quite convincingly, or he certainly fought very convincingly - he wrote a very long study about this explaining that there are three Angels of the Presence in this Jewish literature: Eliahu, Elijah, Hannah, Enoch, and Enoch according to some of the Jewish source is Metatron. In other words, whenever you see Metatron, that is a later name for Enoch, and the third one is Yeshua. And he says this has to be Yeshua of Nazareth. The first two we know are human beings who went up to heaven, and according to the rabbis became Angels of the Presence, and the third one, according to this Jewish literature, was this Yeshua of Nazareth who went up to heaven and became an angel. And imagine this, this is in Jewish sources. Now here what’s really interesting to me, this to me is absolutely fascinating...

Keith: Can you give us the exact place where that is so people can look it up?

Nehemia: So, there’s an article that actually is online, it’s the article by this professor Yehuda Libs from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Keith: Spell that.

Nehemia: It’s in Hebrew, Lamed-Yud-Bet-Samekh, and he’s quoting here, as I said, from the book Sefer HaKheshek, which is a manuscript, you can’t go look it up. What you’ll find on some of the Christian websites and the Messianic Missionary websites is that, “In the Jewish prayer book it mentions Yeshua the Angel of the Presence, and that’s now been taken out of the Jewish prayer book,” and all of that’s true, but that’s a very late prayer book from the 1800’s. The actual source is this 12th century book, which is “The Seventy Names of Metatron”, which alongside Metatron, or Enoch, possibly Mithra according to some people, mentions this Yeshua the Angel of the Presence.

And here is the interesting thing that Libs brings up: that in the entire history of Jewish-Christian debates and arguments and discussions, no one has ever brought - up until relatively modern times, meaning now you’ll find it on websites and in Christian literature and in Messianic literature - but until modern times, no one ever brought this in the Christian world as an argument, “You Jews should believe in Yeshua, he’s one of the angels.” And he says, “Why is that?” This is professor Libs, who said this.

He said, “Because for the Christian, this was heresy.” For the Christian, Yeshua is not an Angel of the Presence, and here is his hypothesis, this isn’t me saying this, this is the Professor Yehuda Libs, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He argues as follows, he says, “There were Jews, who believed in Yeshua, and they believed he was an angel who went up to heaven, in the 1st century they believe this, and became an Angel of the Presence just like Elijah and just like Enoch, and they were persecuted by the church because that was blasphemy, that was heresy according to the Catholic church and the Greek Orthodox church, and so, what do you do if you are a Jew who believes in Yeshua, and you’re being persecuted by the church? You go hide among the Jewish community. And according to him it was one of those Jews who believed in Yeshua who was hiding among the other Jews that wrote this book, this Nehemia HaNavi, Nehemia the Prophet, [laughing] again not me, in the 12th century.

Keith: Wait a minute, that’s too close for comfort. So, the Jew is hiding amongst the… I’m sorry, the Christian is hiding amongst the Jews.

Nehemia: The Jew who believes in Yeshua is hiding from the other Jews. Which is easy, because he keeps the Torah. So, it’s relatively easy. His only problem is when they say the prayer in the synagogue cursing the people who believe in Yeshua. That’s in the 18 Benedictions - the Birkat HaMinim. But other than that, it’s relatively easy for him to hide among the Jews and avoid the persecution of the Catholics. Now this isn’t me saying this, go and look up, it’s Yehuda Libs.

Keith: I mean, you’re bringing this and I’m looking at you kinda funny…

Nehemia: You’re looking at me funny?

Keith: Are you hiding… like what are you doing?

Nehemia: No. Look, I’ve been very straight forward, very clear.

Keith: Very clear, that’s what I appreciate.

Nehemia: I’m not saying Yeshua is an Angel of the Presence, that’s not what I am saying. Go read my study, my paper on this. It’s very clear and unequivocal, it’s called The Ass Speaks Out, it’s on Nehemiaswall.com. I state what my position is without a shadow of a doubt. What I am saying is look, I’m not coming here to debate and win the Jewish side, because if I was I’d never tell you about this. Because somebody might say, “This works in our favor.” Look, these are the facts. I just want to empower the people with information, know what the information is out there.

Keith: And that’s the testimony, Nehemia. That really is, that’s the testimony. That’s another example of that.

Nehemia: I’ll post the link to this study by Yehuda Libs on the website, if I remember.

Keith: Okay.

Nehemia: There I’m done.

Keith: You can close us.

Nehemia: You want me to close with prayer?

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: Yehovah, Avinu shebeshamayim, Yehovah, our Father in heaven, Yehovah You are the one who placed Your name forever upon that place, the place that daily is desecrated by those who hate Your people, and they use the name of their god as a form of violence against Your people. Yehovah, I ask you to turn their hearts to Your truth. They say they believe in the God of Abraham, Yehovah. They say they believe in the God of Moses, Yehovah. They say they believe in the God even of Yeshua, this is what they say. Yehovah, turn their hearts to You, as the one and only God, let them know that Yehovah hu HaElohim, Yehovah He is God, Yehovah is the greatest, the King of the Universe. There is no other.

Yehovah, I ask You to redeem Your people as You spoke here. Yehovah, put on us the hat of glory, that we may serve before You, minister before You, be Kohanim before You. Yehovah, have Your desire in us. Yehovah, break the shackles and set free the people, Yehovah. Yehovah, I ask more than anything, Yehovah, that You come and stand with us on the wall. You put us up on that wall. Yehovah, we need You on that wall. We do. We stand there and they’re firing arrows at us, and they’re throwing rocks at us, and shooting at us up on the wall. Yehovah, we need You up there, as we mention Your name up on the wall, Yehovah. Yehovah, may your salvation come, Yehovah, and I don't know what this is Yehovah here in Your word about the angel who redeems and the Angel of your Presence, Yehovah, but, Yehovah, whatever these angels are, whoever they are, whatever their names are, whether they’re names or whether it is too hidden for us and too wonderful for us, send Your messengers, Yehovah, to help us up on that wall and to do Your work and to proclaim Your name, and to redeem Your people. Amen.

Keith: Amen.

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

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