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Shared Symbolism...

4/18/2022

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​As Christians celebrate Easter Sunday today, we take notice that Good Friday and the start of Passover occurred simultaneously this year and as such, we should not ignore the shared symbolism.  Just as Jesus's resurrection from the dead on Easter Sunday led to the start of Christianity, the Israelite's liberation from Egypt led to the beginning of Judaism.  Both Easter and Passover represent cultural freedom and rebirth - two principles needed to unite our county.

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Who was Isaiah?

3/20/2022

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“Who was Isaiah?”

Excavations in Jerusalem have unearthed what may be the first extra-Biblical evidence of the prophet Isaiah. Just south of the Temple Mount, in the Ophel excavations, archaeologist Eilat Mazar and her team have discovered a small seal impression that reads “[belonging] to Isaiah nvy.” The upper portion of the impression is missing, and its left side is damaged. Reconstructing a few Hebrew letters in this damaged area would cause the impression to read, “[belonging] to Isaiah the prophet.”

If the reconstruction stands, this may be the signature of the Biblical prophet Isaiah—the figure we encounter in the Books of 2 Kings, 2 Chronicles, and Isaiah. Eilat Mazar of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem announced this exciting discovery in her article “Is This the Prophet Isaiah’s Signature?” published in the special March/April/May/June 2018 double issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

Mazar’s team found the seal impression in an undisturbed area of Iron Age debris (dated to the eighth–seventh centuries B.C.E.) right outside the southeastern wall of the royal bakery, a structure that had been integrated into the city’s fortifications and had operated until the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C.E. All of the excavated dirt from this area of the Ophel was wet-sifted, meaning that it was placed on a sifting screen and washed with water. This process revealed multiple finds—including Isaiah’s seal impression and an impression of the Judahite king Hezekiah—which had been missed during traditional excavation methods. Since each of these impressions has a diameter of about half an inch and is the same color as the dirt, it is easy to understand why they were not spotted in the field.

Isaiah’s seal impression—called a bulla—was created by first placing a soft piece of clay on top of a ligature tied around a linen bag. Isaiah’s seal was then pressed into the clay, thereby sealing the parcel with his personal signature. The clay hardened and survived through the centuries, thereby preserving Isaiah’s signature.

Although most of the upper half of Isaiah’s bulla is now missing and its left side is damaged, archaeologists have been able to identify its imagery and inscription from what remains. The bulla is divided into three registers. The remains of a grazing doe, a symbol of blessing, can be seen in the top register. Written in ancient Hebrew, the name Yesha‘yah[u] (the Hebrew form of Isaiah) appears in the middle register, and the letters nvy are visible in the lower register. If the Hebrew letter aleph were added to the end of the word nvy, it would then become the word nvy’ (“navy’”), which means “prophet” in Hebrew. It is likely that the Hebrew letter vav appeared at the end of the middle register, representing the final letter of “Isaiah” (the “u” of “Yesha‘yahu”). Further, if the definite article heh (“the”) were added to the end of the name Isaiah (after the vav), the seal impression would read “[belonging] to Isaiah the prophet.”

“Because the bulla has been slightly damaged at end of the word nvy, it is not known if it originally ended with the Hebrew letter aleph,” explains Mazar, “which would have resulted in the Hebrew word for ‘prophet’ and would have definitively identified the seal as the signature of the prophet Isaiah. The absence of this final letter, however, requires that we leave open the possibility that it could just be the name Navi. The name of Isaiah, however, is clear.”
The close relationship between the prophet Isaiah and King Hezekiah is reflected in the Hebrew Bible. Hezekiah, who ruled from c. 727–698 B.C.E., relied on Isaiah’s counsel throughout his reign—and especially when Jerusalem was besieged by Assyria.

When Hezekiah assumed the throne at age 25, Judah was a vassal-state of the Assyrian empire and paid tribute to Assyria regularly. Hezekiah stuck with this program for many years, but eventually he rebelled and stopped sending tribute. Anticipating an Assyrian attack, Hezekiah refortified Jerusalem. He strengthened its walls and, memorably, carved a 1,750-foot-long water tunnel from solid rock that ensured the inhabitants of Jerusalem would not be without water during a siege (2 Chronicles 32:2–4).

The Assyrian king Sennacherib responded to Hezekiah’s rebellion with force. He campaigned against Judah—destroying many Judahite cities, such as Lachish (depicted on the Lachish reliefs, panels from Sennacherib’s palace in Nineveh, now on display at the British Museum in London), and ultimately besieging the capital city of Jerusalem in 701 B.C.E.

The prophet Isaiah said that Jerusalem would not fall to the Assyrians, and it did not—despite the Assyrians’ military might. This victory helped solidify the idea of the city’s invincibility. Even on the Sennacherib Prisms, where King Sennacherib recorded his victories, he never claims to have conquered Jerusalem—only to have besieged it, received tribute, and locked up Hezekiah “like a bird in a cage.” 2 Kings 18:13–19:36 records that the Assyrians continue to assault Jerusalem even after Hezekiah pays them tribute; they do not withdraw until God sends a plague among them. The Sennacherib Prisms make no mention of a plague.

The seal impressions of Isaiah and King Hezekiah were found less than 10 feet apart in the Ophel excavations. If the recently identified bulla does indeed bear the prophet Isaiah’s signature, it seems fitting that it should be found so close to Hezekiah’s personal seal impression. Their legacy—together—continues even after death.

The 17th century Jewish historian, Raphael Levi, admitted that long ago the rabbis used to read Isaiah 53 in synagogues, but after the chapter caused “arguments and great confusion” the rabbis decided that the simplest thing would be to just take that prophecy out of the Haftarah readings in synagogues. That’s why today when we read Isaiah 52, we stop in the middle of the chapter and the week after we jump straight to Isaiah 54.

What happened to Isaiah 53, you might be wondering? That is exactly what this article is about.

In the Bible, in the book of Isaiah, chapter 53 the prophet prophesies about the Messiah that he would be rejected by his people suffer and die in agony and that God would see his suffering and death as an atonement for the sins of humanity. Isaiah lived and prophesied about 700 BCE. According to his prophecy in chapter 53 the leaders of Israel would recognize they had made a mistake at the end of days when they rejected the Messiah, so Isaiah put the prophecy in past tense and because he saw himself as part of the people of Israel he used third person plural (we).

AT THE END OF CHAPTER 52 ISAIAH WRITES AN INTRODUCTION TO CHAPTER 53:

“Behold, my servant shall prosper…” 

The term “servant” is supposed to connect back to sections earlier in the book that speak of “the Servant of the Lord” (for example, in chapters 42, 49 and 50, where the Messiah is described as a servant that suffers).

“He will be high and lifted up and greatly exalted.”

This is to emphasize the eminence of the Messiah who would in fact rise from the dead, and ascend to the heavens and sit next to the Father.  His actions would give him a higher status that every human king or ruler. 

“Just as many were appalled at You—His appearance was disfigured more than any man, His form more than the sons of men.”

Before the Messiah is exalted he would suffer and be humiliated. His body would be abused and tortured so badly that he would be completely disfigured and unrecognizable.

“So He will sprinkle many nations. Kings will shut their mouths because of Him, for what had not been told them they will see, and what they had not heard they will perceive.”

Despite the horrific suffering the day would come when even kings would come to look to him with reverence.

AND NOW, LET’S DIVE INTO CHAPTER 53 ITSELF…

“Who has believed our report?”

This is describing the lack of faith among the people of Israel who don’t believe what they’ve heard.

“To whom is the arm of Adonai revealed?”

Isaiah calls the Messiah the “Arm of the Lord”. Earlier, in chapter 40 Isaiah declares that the “Arm of the Lord” would rule for him. In chapter 51 the gentiles put their hope in the “Arm of the Lord”, and the “Arm of the Lord” would redeem. In chapter 52 the “Arm of the Lord” brings salvation. Now, in 53, Isaiah reveals to us that the “Arm of the Lord” is in fact the Messiah. The Messiah is very much part of God himself.

For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot,
   like a root out of dry ground.
He had no form or majesty that we should look at Him,
nor beauty that we should desire Him.

He was a shoot in spiritually dry ground – there had been no word from God for 400 years. 

“He had no beauty that we should desire Him”.

He was not appealing to us. We didn’t want him. His appearance wasn’t particularly glorious or impressive, and the way he showed up didn’t cause people to desire him. In contrast to what rabbinic Halacha teaches today, according to this prophecy, the Messiah would not be born to a prestigious rabbinic family or grow up in the grand residences of wealthy rabbis. We can say with near certainty that the external appearance of the Messiah was nothing extraordinary at all.

He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief,
One from whom people hide their faces.
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

The life of the Messiah was characterized by pain, rejection and suffering. He didn’t get the honor due to the Messiah, but was despised and rejected by the leaders of his people. We considered him some kind of social misfit – someone we might hide our faces from when we pass someone on the street that we are embarrassed to see.
We didn’t think he was the Messiah. We didn’t even register it could be him.

Surely He has borne our griefs
   and carried our pains.
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
   struck by God, and afflicted.

The Messiah suffered in our place – he carried our sicknesses, our suffering, our pain… and the sins we committed, while our people – while we – thought he was being punished, and that his suffering was God’s punishment for sins that he himself had committed. We didn’t understand that it was for OUR sin.

But He was pierced because of our transgressions,
crushed because of our iniquities.
The chastisement for our shalom was upon Him,
and by His stripes we are healed.

The Hebrew says wounded, pierced. He died. Like someone who has fallen wounded, or someone perforated with bullets – not for any fault of his own, but it was our wrongdoing. He was crushed because of our inequities, our sins – the punishment and discipline we deserved went to him. The “stripes” are hard blows that leave marks, and by his scars we are healed. In exactly this way, hundreds of years later, the prophecy was fulfilled. Yeshua was went to the cross in order to take the death we deserved.

We all like sheep have gone astray.
Each of us turned to his own way.
So Adonai has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

The Hebrew talks of going astray like sheep wander off and get lost. We all, people of Israel, ignored him and went on our way, but despite this, God put all our sin and iniquity on him – on the Messiah.

He was oppressed and He was afflicted
yet He did not open His mouth.
Like a lamb led to the slaughter,
like a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so He did not open His mouth.

The Hebrew says he was exploited, abused… his dignity and right to a fair trial were taken from him. The Hebrew says he was afflicted – tortured – but he didn’t open his mouth. This shows that he did not resist his unjust sentence. He didn’t try to rebel or escape, and he didn’t take legal representation in spite of the fact he was facing a death sentence, but he was led like a sheep to the slaughter, or to be sheared without resisting the injustices being done to him.

Because of oppression and judgment He was taken away.
As for His generation, who considered?
For He was cut off from the land of the living,
for the transgression of my people--
the stroke was theirs.

They arrested him and took his to trial. As a result of the trial he was “cut off from the land of the living”. A death sentence. Not for his own crimes, but those of his people. In the Scriptures, “My people” always means the people of Israel. The Messiah would die not for his own sin but for the sin of his people – the people who should be taking the punishment for their own sins – but the Messiah took it upon himself. He is the one who died.

His generation wouldn’t care to bring him up in conversation, but would rather sweep his existence under the carpet. So for the last 2000 years, Yeshua the Messiah has been the best kept secret in Judaism, and this is precisely why he was labelled “Yeshu” in Judaism, which stands for “May his name and memory be blotted out”.

His grave was given with the wicked,
and by a rich man in His death,
though He had done no violence,
nor was there any deceit in His mouth.

Even though he was taken out to be executed like a criminal, even though he did nothing wrong, and never lied, in his death he was to be buried in the fancy tomb of a rich man. Yeshua really was killed on the cross and was buried in the grave of a rich man a member of the Sanhedrin, Joseph of Arimathea. It’s a clear symbol of the ironic situation in which the Messiah receives honor for the noblest deed of them all – taking the death sentence we deserve on himself.

Yet it pleased Adonai to bruise Him.
He caused Him to suffer.
If He makes His soul a guilt offering,
He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days,
and the will of Adonai will succeed by His hand.

So who is responsible for the death of the Messiah? “The Jews”? As so many Catholics have accused us of in the past? Maybe the Romans? They were the ones who actually crucified him? No. 
“God was pleased to bruise him”. God is the only one able to forgive and bring salvation to the world and he turned himself into a sacrifice. What kind of sacrifice? A guilt offering. The death of the Messiah was no accident – God used his own stiff-necked people as priests in order to bring about the forgiveness of sins not only for his people Israel, but for the whole of humanity. In contrast to the Yom Kippur sacrifice which was only valid until the following year and just ‘covered over’ sin, the atonement of the Messiah took away our sin once and for all! None of us as human beings are perfect – we are not able to be that perfect sacrifice. Only God himself could do that.
After that comes a very interesting statement:

“He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days,”

In spite of the fact he would be killed, he would also prolong his days. He would rise again from the dead and would see the “fruit of his seed”, planted in his resurrection. By the way, we also have a video on the resurrection of Yeshua.

As a result of the anguish of His soul
He will see it and be satisfied by His knowledge.
The Righteous One, My Servant will make many righteous
   and He will bear their iniquities.

The Messiah would see and be satisfied by his labor, because many would be made righteous by the suffering he endured, as a righteous man when he took on himself the sins and iniquities of many. All who recognize him as the Messiah will be his “seed” in a spiritual sense.

Therefore I will give Him a portion with the great,
and He will divide the spoil with the mighty--
because He poured out His soul to death,
   and was counted with transgressors.
For He bore the sin of many,
   and interceded for the transgressors.

The Messiah was the one interceding for us an advocate for us as sinners before a holy God. The Messiah took on his shoulders the sin of all who believe in him. It’s an encouraging prophecy of hope and a future. God is not just interested in forgiveness expressed in words but also demonstrated in actions. That’s why he took on the appearance of a servant and took the punishment that we deserve on himself.

THE JEWISH SAGES THOUGHT ISAIAH 53 WAS ABOUT THE MESSIAH

It’s important to understand we’re not just talking about a Christian interpretation here – the Jewish Sages of ancient times also always interpreted Isaiah 53 to be about the Messiah. In fact, the well-known term “Messiah ben Yosef” is actually from this very text. 
In the ancient Jewish translation of Yonatan ben Uzziel (Targum Jonathan) from the first century opened the section with the words “The Anointed Servant” that is to say Ben Uzziel connected the chapter to the Messiah, the Anointed One. 
Rabbi Yitzhak Abravanel who lived centuries ago admitted that “Yonatan ben Uzziel’s interpretation that it was about the coming Messiah was also the opinion of the Sages (of blessed memory) as can be seen in much of their commentary.”

The Book of the Zohar recognizes the principle of substitution that the suffering of the Messiah would come to take the suffering that others deserved for their sins. On the verse “Surely He has borne our griefs”, the Book of the Zohar says, “There is in the Garden of Eden a palace named the Palace of the Sons of Sickness. This palace the Messiah enters, and He summons every pain and every chastisement of Israel: All of these come and rest upon Him. And were it not that he had thus lightened them off Israel and taken them upon himself, there had been no man able to bear Israel’s chastisements for the transgression of the law.”

Midrash Konen in discussing Isaiah 53 puts the following words in the mouth of Elijah the prophet: “Thus says the Messiah: Endure the sufferings and the sentence your Master who makes you suffer because of the sin of Yisroel. Thus it is written, “He was wounded because of our transgressions, he was crushed because of our iniquities”, until the time the end comes.”
Tractate Sanhedrin in the Babylonian Talmud (98b), writes about the name of the Messiah
“His name is ‘the leper scholar,’ as it is written, “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows yet we did esteem him a leper, smitten of God, and afflicted”.
In Midrash Tanhuma it says, “Rabbi Nachman says, it speaks of no one but the Messiah, the Son of David of whom it is said, here a man called “the plant”, and Jonathan translated it to mean the Messiah and it is rightly said, “man of sorrows, acquainted with grief”.
Midrash Shumel says this about Isaiah 53: “The suffering was divided into three parts: One for the generation of the Patriarchs, one for the generation of Shmad, and one for the King Messiah”.
The prayers for Yom Kippur, the ones we all know also relates Isaiah 53 to the Messiah. The prayer added for Yom Kippur by Rabbi Eliezer around the time of the seventh century: “Our righteous Messiah has turned away from us we have acted foolishly and there is no one to justify us. Our iniquities and the yoke of our transgressions he bears and he is pierced for our transgressions. He carries our sins on his shoulder, to find forgiveness for our iniquities. By his wounds we are healed.”

The deeper we go into this prayer for Yom Kippur the more significant it gets. The prayer brings the sense that the Messiah left his people. “The righteous Messiah turned [away]”. That is to say, the Messiah has already come and left. Also, the Messiah suffered in the place of the people, and the sins of people were put on him then after the Messiah suffered, he left them that was the reason for their concern and so the people are praying for his return. A large part of this prayer is taken straight out of Isaiah 53, so from this we can prove that up to the 7th century the Jewish perception – also among the rabbis – was still that Isaiah 53 was about the Messiah.
In Genesis Rabbah, Rabbi Moshe haDarshan says that God enabled the Messiah to save souls but that together with that, he would suffer greatly. Also Maimonides relates Isaiah 53 to the Messiah in his Epistle to Yemen. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai wrote, “And Messiah of Ephraim died there and Israel mourns for him as it is written: ‘He is despised and rejected of men’, and he goes back into hiding, for it says: ‘and we hid, as it were, our faces from him’.”

Also in Tractate Sotah 14, Midrash Rabbah Parasha 5, Midrash Tanhuma, Midrash Konen, Yalkut Shimoni and actually the whole Talmud always related the chapter to the Messiah, as did all the rabbis until about a thousand years ago. Everyone agreed that Isaiah 53 prophesies about the Messiah.

RASHI’S REVISION IN THE MIDDLE AGES

Rashi lived, as we know, in Spain, at a time when Jews and Christians lived together and so naturally, arguments arose between them. Christian friends and neighbors of Rashi tried to convince him that Biblical prophecy pointed to Yeshua. Among other prophecies, they of course showed him Isaiah 53. Because the prophecy in Isaiah 53 is so sharp and clear, Rashi had no choice. He obviously didn’t want to admit that Yeshua was the Messiah, so he had to try to reinterpret the prophecy so that it was no longer about the Messiah but instead about the people of Israel. Rashi’s claim was that the suffering servant is a metaphor of the people of Israel who suffered at the hands of the gentiles.

Many different rabbis – Gaon Rabbi Saadia, Rabbi Naphtali ben Asher, and Rabbi Moshe Alshich adamantly opposed Rashi’s new interpretation, and demanded that the Sages of Israel should ignore him and return to the original interpretation, the most famous of among them was Mamonides, who categorically declared that Rashi was completely mistaken.

But today, it is Rashi’s interpretation that is accepted among the rabbis who also are not interested in admitting that Yeshua could have been the Messiah who was rejected, suffered and died exactly as Isaiah prophesied. 
A good example comes from Rabbi Haim Rettig, who writes, “Is it possible that any Christian anywhere in the world could fit the description of the Servant of the Lord that is led like a sheep to the slaughter? It cannot be that Isaiah the prophet could prophesy about a Christian event rather than a Jewish one. The prophecy of Isaiah is talking about the people of Israel throughout the generations, the Israel has given itself to be the innocent lamb”. What irony! Despite the fact that rabbis twisted Yeshua’s name into “Yeshu the Christian”, changing his name didn’t turn him into a Christian. The official religion of Christianity was only established in the third century. Yeshua was in fact Jewish, from the line of David, who lived here in Israel. 
Also, when Rabbi Rettig claims that the prophecy of Isaiah 53 is not about the Messiah but about Israel, that gave itself up as an innocent lamb, can we really say that the people of Israel could be described as “an innocent lamb”? Innocent lamb is a Biblical definition for one without sin, who is blameless, spotless, never does evil and would never sin, but is perfect, pure and clean from sin. Does the people of Israel really this description? It’s enough just to open the paper or listen to the news to get your answer.
And since we’re talking about Isaiah the prophet, we’ll let Isaiah answer this question as well. Notice the words to the people of Israel just six chapters after chapter 53:

“For your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity. Your lips have spoken lies, your tongue mutters wickedness. No one sues justly, and none pleads a case honestly. Their feet run after evil. They rush to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity. Violence and ruin are on their highways. They do not know the path of peace, and there is no justice in their tracks. They have made their paths crooked. Whoever walks in them will not experience shalom.”

One thing’s for sure, as far as Isaiah’s concerned Israel was no “innocent lamb”! 

HERE ARE A FEW MORE REASONS THAT MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR THE CHAPTER TO BE ABOUT ISRAEL

The Suffering Servant is consistently presented as an individual and not as a plurality or collective noun, like a people group. Verse 8 says, “For the transgressions of My people He was stricken”. What people was Isaiah part of? The people of Israel, of course. So “my people” refers to the people of Israel. Therefore Israel cannot be the Suffering Servant of the Lord. If the people of Israel was the Servant of the Lord here, who would be “my people”? 
Moreover, the Servant of the Lord suffers willingly submissively and without objection. The people of Israel have never suffered willingly! According to the Torah, the suffering of Israel was a result of sin not because of their righteousness whereas the Servant of the Lord suffered as a righteous person not because he had sinned The Servant of the Lord was guiltless but according to the Torah the people of Israel were always punished and suffered because of their sin and the gentiles didn’t get healing from God because Jewish people were persecuted.
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The Servant of the Lord died in our place as a sacrifice for our sin. The people of Israel, on the other hand, didn’t suffer for the gentiles but because of their wickedness. 

The Servant rose from the dead, but the people of Israel were never “cut off” completely and so could not “rise from the dead”. If the Servant of the Lord is Israel and not the Messiah, the concept of “Messiah ben Yosef” suddenly disappears as if it never existed.
In summary, we did wrong, the Messiah was punished. We sinned, and he suffered. We deserve death, and he was crucified in our place. A perfect God took on the likeness of a Servant in order to reveal himself to us as one of us. He allowed us to humiliate him, reject him, and to torture him to death in order to take our sins upon himself. So it’s also up to us to suffer for the good of others who sin against us. If God who is perfect can forgive us, imperfect as we are, how much more should we forgive one another? This is the wonderful message of the Suffering Servant: The God who loves us has done for us what we could never do for ourselves!

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God had a BIG purpose for MOSES

3/12/2022

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God asked Moses to lead his people out of slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land. Moses was at first reluctant, thinking that the Israelites would not believe he had heard the word of God. God then gave Moses special powers and inspired by this, Moses returned to Egypt and demanded freedom for his people.

God had big plans and a big purpose for Moses- But WHY was Moses sent to the wilderness? What is the SYMBOLISM of this narrative?

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The Purpose of the Wilderness in the Lives of God’s People:

If you are at a wilderness place in your life, you may find it to be more puzzle than purpose. You might be overwhelmed and confused. You might find yourself questioning God’s wisdom—or maybe even your own.

I want you to think for a moment about being in the center of God’s will. What does that mean?  What would it look like?  Would it be a time of happiness and fulfillment? Is there ever a time that the center of God’s will might be a place of discouragement and difficulty? What about the children of Israel? God called Moses to bring them out of Egypt and into the center of His will.  The center of His will for them would eventually be Canaan, but for a time, the center of God’s will was a great and terrible wilderness.

Has God’s will for you included a period of time in the wilderness? Time in the wilderness means facing wilderness struggles, and wilderness hardships, and wilderness questions.  It can be a place of problems, and at the same time, a place of purpose.  The wilderness is a puzzle from our perspective, but from God’s perspective, it is His perfect plan for our lives.  

We have said enough about wilderness questions. What can we know for sure about the purpose of the wilderness in the lives of God’s people?

The Wilderness is a Place of Separation
God carried them into the wilderness so that they could be apart from the influences of Egypt.  The uncertainties of the wilderness create a need for God and a dependence upon God.  God lets you do without, so you can come to know Him as your provider. God lets you be lonely, so that you can come to know Him as your friend.  God lets you be frightened and worried, so that you can come to know Him as your peace. God lets you be weak, so that you can know His strength.

In the wilderness, God reveals Himself.  In the darkness of the wilderness, He is your light.  In the confusing maze of the wilderness, you learn to let Him be your guide. In the wilderness, He separates you from the influences of the world, as well as the things and people that you have learned to depend on, so that you will learn to depend on Him. God will be faithful to you in whatever wilderness you are facing, just as He was to the people He led out of Egypt. 

The Wilderness is a Place of Preparation.
Looking back on those years in the wilderness, this is what God said to His people as they came to the Promised Land.  5“I have led you forty years in the wilderness; your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandal has not worn out on your foot. 6“You have not eaten bread, nor have you drunk wine or strong drink, in order that you might know that I am the LORD your God.  Deuteronomy 29:5-6

What has been your God appointed wilderness?  Are you there right now?  What do you suppose God is trying to teach you? Are you learning the lessons that God wants you to learn?

When God takes you to the wilderness, He withholds that which you have come to depend on other than Him.  Maybe you came to depend on your job to provide.  God removes the job for a time, so that you will learn to depend on Him.  Maybe you came to depend on your own strength or stamina.  Then God brings weakness into your life, so that you will learn that your strength is in Him.  You see it as deprivation.  God sees it as preparation.  
“You shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. 3“He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD. 4“Your clothing did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years. 5“Thus you are to know in your heart that the LORD your God was disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son. 6“Therefore, you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him.  Deuteronomy 8:2-6
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The Wilderness is a Place of Revelation.
In the third month after the sons of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that very day they came into the wilderness of Sinai. When they set out from Rephidim, they came to the wilderness of Sinai and camped in the wilderness; and there Israel camped in front of the mountain. Moses went up to God, and the LORD called to him from the mountain, saying, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the sons of Israel: You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and howI bore you on eagles’ wings, and brought you to Myself. ‘Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.  Exodus 19:2-6

When the center of God’s will is the wilderness, what is God’s purpose? Did you see why God brought them to the wilderness? He brought them into the wilderness to bring them to Himself.Why do you suppose that God brings you to Himself?

I read again today about Jesus calling the disciples.  He called unto Him the twelve.  And why did He call them?  Did He call them to Him to give them an assignment? Yes?  But the preparation for that assignment came out of being with Him.  He called the twelve to Himself, that they might be with Him and that He might send them forth to preach. Mark 3:14
Part of the preparation for what God wants you to do will grow out of the revelation of Himself that He gives you.  For most of us, the only place we can be readied to receive that revelation is in some wilderness, where God separates us from what we have learned to lean on, in order that He can show us that we need to lean on Him alone.

Where are you right now? Do you find yourself in the midst of some God-Appointed wilderness struggling to know God’s will and God’s way?  Do you feel alone there?  Do you feel abandoned there?  I know how you feel.  I have been to the wilderness.  I have lived in the wilderness.  I felt alone. I felt discouraged.  But I came to understand that the wilderness was the place of God’s presence.

If you are in the wilderness, you might be angry at God.  You may have considered abandoning God.  In your discouragement, the wilderness can even become a place of sin.  Where is God then?  How will God respond to you when you have proved to yourself that you are not worthy of His love.
Sometimes God takes us to the wilderness not only to show us Himself—but to show us ourselves.  The truth about who we are and how we trust God surfaces in the wilderness.  There, we are proved to be worse sinners than we knew ourselves to be.  How does God respond then?

Consider this passage from Nehemiah. “You came down on Mount Sinai; you spoke to them from heaven. You gave them regulations and laws that are just and right, and decrees and commands that are good.  You made known to them your holy Sabbath and gave them commands, decrees and laws through your servant Moses.  In their hunger you gave them bread from heaven and in their thirst you brought them water from the rock; you told them to go in and take possession of the land you had sworn with uplifted hand to give them. “But they, our ancestors, became arrogant and stiff-necked, and they did not obey your commands. They refused to listen and failed to remember the miracles you performed among them. They became stiff-necked and in their rebellion appointed a leader in order to return to their slavery. But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. Therefore you did not desert them,  even when they cast for themselves an image of a calf and said, ‘This is your god, who brought you up out of Egypt,’ or when they committed awful blasphemies. “Because of your great compassion you did not abandon them in the wilderness. By day the pillar of cloud did not fail to guide them on their path, nor the pillar of fire by night to shine on the way they were to take.  You gave your good Spirit to instruct them. You did not withhold your manna from their mouths, and you gave them water for their thirst.  For forty years you sustained them in the wilderness; they lacked nothing, their clothes did not wear out nor did their feet become swollen. Nehemiah 9:13-21

The first few chapters of Exodus are a build up where we see Moses prepared for an impossible task: liberating the Hebrew slaves after 400 years in Egypt. He, of course, does not feel prepared at all. How could he? How could anyone? But he was. On the one hand, he was a fugitive on the run, encumbered with an embarrassing stutter. On the other, he had grown up in the royal palace. It’s true that the king he’d grown up with had died and another was in his stead (Ex 2:23), so a personal connection with the hard-hearted Pharaoh may not have been there, but still Moses, by God’s design, was part and parcel of Egyptian high society. He knew the lingo and the etiquette of Egyptian nobility and his way around the royal household. Like Esther, Moses was secretly Jewish, yet ended up providentially living in the palace of the king, for such a time as this.
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Moses was sent by God on one heck of a mission. His job—at least the first part of it—was to demand the immediate release of about a million Israelites from cruel bondage. To insist that Pharaoh should allow the Hebrew slaves, his free workforce, to just leave.

It seems like Moses didn’t feel like he had that authority though. With his brother Aaron at his side for emotional support, Moses ventured back to the place he grew up to face the tyrannical ruler, Pharaoh, no doubt with some trepidation:

Afterward Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.’” (Exodus 5:1)

But that wasn’t quite the message God had told him to say, was it? Moses and Aaron appear to be asking for a temporary excursion for the Hebrew slaves. A short trip, a picnic in the Egyptian outback. God was demanding total release.

“Come,” said God to Moses. “I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”
But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”

He said, “But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”
(Exodus 3:10-12)
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God’s plan was to bring them completely out of Egypt in a very real and permanent manner—there would be no going back. And that they would meet Him over at Mount Sinai in the land of Midian, where He’d appeared in the burning bush. There He would establish His covenant with the whole house of Israel and make them a holy people with a holy calling. Then He would lead them on to the Promised Land. But Moses tries to soften the blow and paints it as a one-off religious event out in the desert. It was no such thing. It was a categorical extraction. An exodus.

Fortunately, God was prepared for this, and knowing that it wouldn’t matter how nicely they asked Pharaoh would never agree, had a few tricks up His sleeve. With each plague, or blow, as it is in Hebrew, God’s demand intensified: “Let my people go!”  which in Hebrew means, "Send the people of Israel into their Destiny."

This throws interesting light on what was actually happening in the Exodus. God was killing multiple birds with one stone. He had waited for the sin of the Amorites to reach its full measure (Genesis 15:16) before executing justice on them and giving the land to the tribes of Israel. He rescued His covenant people from their living hell, and thew the Egyptians into the sea just as they had thrown countless Hebrew babies into the Nile. He was fulfilling His promises to the patriarchs to bring their descendants back to the Land of Promise, and establishing a faith community that would carry His word and His light to the whole world.
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They were not just being taken out of Egypt, they were being SENT out, with a mission: to be a light to the Gentiles.

God often does both-and rather than either-or. He operates on multiple levels all the time. We often have no idea how many facets there are to God’s actions and decisions, and can foolishly interpret them to be all about us… our own life, family, community or nation. But God has a very wide-angle lens. His ways are perfect and nothing is ever wasted in His economy. God brought deliverance and blessing to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in fulfillment of His promises to them. They would receive their inheritance from His hand, along with blessings of spiritual nourishment, revelation, and life, which they were to pass on to all the nations of the world.

The command to “Let my people go” forced Pharaoh to send Israel out of slavery and into their global calling, into their destiny.
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In a similar manner, we have been delivered from slavery and death by the blood of the sacrificial lamb, and brought through the waters of baptism. But God’s rescue mission wasn’t so we could sit around and eat cake—we are also sent into the world with a calling and a destiny! Whenever we thank God for His amazing salvation, His perfect plans, and the future He has prepared for us, let’s ask Him again: What is my part in Your plans and purposes? What are You sending me to do?
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Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
(Isaiah 6:8)
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Why do you suppose God takes you into the wilderness to show you yourself so that you can see what a sinner you are? God takes you to the wilderness and shows you what a sinner you are so that He can show you what a Savior He is! In spite of the rebellion of His people, He remained faithful.  He still gave them water for their thirst.  He still gave them their daily bread.  He still guided them on their journey.  He never left them.  
God will be faithful to you in whatever wilderness you are facing, just as He was to the people He led out of Egypt. “In the wilderness … you saw how the LORD God carried you, just as a man carries his son, in all the way which you have walked until you came to this place. Deuteronomy 1:31 
Do you suppose God might also be carrying you? I am sure you have asked God some of the same questions that I ask from time to time.  “God, am I a castaway?  Can you still use me?”  “Do you still want me?  Do you still love me?”


"The very words I write were born in one of those moments in my life. I will never forget the day I was in my office working on this message. I was preparing it for me, because I keenly felt everything I have shared with you. I had allowed a deadline to pass that seemed to me to be critical to my future. I let it pass because I had no word from God. God was silent. As a result of His silence, I saw my future slip away. My despair grew deeper by the day. It reached a zenith on a Wednesday in December of 2006. I was preparing this message for my church, but I was really describing what was going on in my own life. God must have been watching as I paced around in my office that day. I was a desperately discouraged man. As I typed away at this message on my computer, the phone rang. Within an hour of that phone call, all my questions were answered. My future seemed to be restored. I had been called by God to the assignment I thought I had missed.' When that day started, I was convinced I missed God completely.  I was lost in the wilderness.  I felt abandoned and forgotten, and I felt I deserved to be.  But that day, I met God in the wilderness, and it altered the direction of my life.  Six months later, I shared the same message with my church on a Sunday night. The next day, I would be stepping through the door God had opened. This is what I said in closing: “Tomorrow I set foot on the road that God called me to travel. It may not lead out of the wilderness—but I am convinced that it will lead me to Him.” That is, after all, the purpose of the wilderness in the lives of God’s people. He brings us into some great and terrible wilderness, so that He might bring us to Himself." (-Story by Eddie Eshtaigi)






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Wrestles with God

2/12/2022

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​John 7:38; “rivers of #living water will flow from within them.” The pineal(penuel,peniel) gland is located between our temples- (called *3rd eye). While the eyes perceive the physical world, the third eye sees the #true world—a #unified whole with an unyielding #connection to God. Pineal is a place of #meeting with God. Jacobs encounter with God at Peniel is very significant because it brought about a divine *shift in his life, thus, Peniel is a place of *divine shift.  One of the oldest *visual depictions of Jacobs wrestling is in the illustrated manuscript the Vienna Genesis. Many #artists have #depicted the scene, considering it as a #paradigm of artistic #creation. In sculpture Jacob Wrestling with the Angel is the subject of a 1940 sculpture by Sir Jacob Epstein on display at the Tate Britain. Jacob wrestling with the angel is described in Genesis (32:22–32; Hosea 12:3–5). The "angel" in question is referred to as "man" (אִישׁ) and "God" in Genesis, while Hosea references an "angel" (מַלְאָךְ).[1] The account includes the renaming of Jacob as Israel (etymologized as "contends-with-God"). In the Genesis narrative, Jacob spent the night alone on a riverside during his journey back to Canaan. He encounters a "man" who proceeds to wrestle with him until daybreak. In the end, Jacob is given the name "#Israel" and #blessed, while the "man" refuses to give his own name. Jacob then names the -place- where they -wrestled- Penuel (פְּנוּאֵל "face of God" or "facing God"- The account contains several plays on Hebrew names—Peniel (or Penuel), Israel—as well as similarity to the #root of Jacob's name (which sounds like the Hebrew for "heel") and its compound. The limping of Jacob (Yaʿaqob ), may mirror the name of the #river, Jabbok (Yabbok יַבֹּק , sounds like "crooked" river), and Nahmanides (Deut. 2:10 of Jeshurun) gives the etymology "one who walks crookedly" for the name Jacob. The Hebrew text states that it is a "man" (אִישׁ, LXX ἄνθρωπος, Vulgate vir) with whom Jacob *wrestles, but later this —“man" is #identified with #God—- (Elohim) by Jacob. In #symbolism, pineal represents the true #temple of god- which dwells #within us when we open our *eyes to him. 🙏
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Yeshua and the FALL Festivals;

1/31/2022

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YESHUA and the FALL Festivals: DIVINE Pictures of Things to COME! 👏🏻

FALL Festivals 2022 will be a significant time! 

Passover and Easter overlap in 2022. Here’s why they have more in common than you might expect. Easter 2022 brings two major religious holidays — Easter and Passover. As in many years past, they share calendar space in 2022. While dates for the observances change each year, the first night of Passover 2022 — Friday, April 15 — lands on Good Friday, which is an important part of Easter during the Holy Week preceding Easter Sunday (April 17). At the outset, Easter and Passover may seem far apart in purpose, ritual and imagery. But the common roots of the two holidays become overwhelmingly apparent when you discount any perceived chasm between chocolate rabbits and marshmallow chicks and matzo and gefilte fish.

The Passover-Easter connection

Passover marks the biblical story of Exodus, of the Jews and their leader, Moses, fleeing slavery in Egypt with the help of divine intervention.

Easter, widely considered the most important day of the Christian calendar, commemorates the resurrection of Jesus as told in the Gospels of the New Testament.

“Passover and Good Friday through Easter go together like a hand and a glove,” says David Kraemer, librarian and professor of Talmud and rabbinics at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. “They’re actually designed to go together.”

Still, if you think that simply means Jesus, a Jew, attended a Passover Seder just before he died, read on. The bond between the two springtime holidays manifests in a series of meaningful ways — from the names of the holidays to when, how and why we celebrate them.

It’s in the name

First, let’s take the names of the holidays. The actual origin of the name is unclear, but “Easter” has been associated with a pre-Christian Germanic goddess, Eostre (this is up for debate, as is the existence and origin of Eostre), or a word for “dawn” (that also contributed to the formation of the word “east”). But many other languages call the holiday some variation of Pasqua (Italian) or Pascua (Spanish).

“You’re actually hearing the closeness of the two holidays,” says Gary Rendsburg, professor of Jewish studies at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. “You’re hearing the Hebrew word ‘Pesach,’” he says, which is Passover in English.

Kraemer says there was no Latin word for Passover, so the name came from “Pesach.”

“Properly speaking, ‘Pascua’ is Christian Passover,” he says.

Why “Passover”? Because according to Exodus, the angel of death “passed over” the homes of Israelites during the plague in which the first-born male of each family was to be killed, because the Jews had marked their doorposts with lamb’s blood.

Why is Easter sometimes on Passover and sometimes not?

In 2022, Passover and Easter converge, as they commonly do. This year, Good Friday falls on the first night of Passover, April 15, and Easter falls on the second full day of Passover on April 17. (Jewish holidays start the night before the first day. Passover, which is commonly celebrated with Seders — ritual meals — on the first two nights, lasts a total of eight days and ends on Saturday, April 23.)

But in 2016, the holidays were nearly a month apart because of a “leap month” in the Jewish (lunar) calendar. And in other years, the holidays can be days or weeks apart. There’s a larger reason for that, one that speaks to Easter’s roots in the Jewish holiday.

“Originally, Passover and Easter would have been the same time every year,” says Douglas Estes, assistant professor of New Testament and practical theology at South University in Columbia, South Carolina.

From the second century through part of the fourth century, Easter was celebrated on the Sunday after Passover began (which is where it falls this year), says Bruce Morrill, a Jesuit priest and professor of theological studies at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.

“Christian churches around the Mediterranean only began celebrating Easter as a feast well into the second century,” Morrill says. It grew out of a desire to have a Passover associated with the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Passover is observed starting on the 15th of the month of Nisan on the Jewish calendar, during the full moon. But Morrill says that in the fourth century, it was determined that Easter should always fall on the Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox (March 20).

(Christians in the Eastern Orthodox Church celebrate Orthodox Easter on Sunday, April 24, just after the end of Passover week, because their observance is centered around the Julian calendar, not the Gregorian calendar.)

Jesus, Passover and the sacrificial lamb

Many who claim basic knowledge of Passover and Easter may know that Jesus was a Jew who died during the time of Passover. The question of exactly when he died is laden with enduring symbolism.

The period known as the “paschal triduum” (notice the “Pesach” reference) starts with the Thursday before Easter. Maundy Thursday, or Holy Thursday, commemorates the Last Supper, the night before the death of Jesus.

On Good Friday, the Gospel of John is read, in which Jesus is said to have been executed by the Roman authorities during the slaughter of the Passover lambs in the daytime, while the preparations for the holiday were underway.

The Gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke, which are read on Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Easter, differ in their account, putting the death of Jesus the day after the Passover meal with his disciples (as depicted in the Leonardo da Vinci painting “The Last Supper”), Morrill says. It follows that Gospel of John is the source of the image “Christ as the lamb who has been slain,” he says.

At that time, Jews would be going to the temple to get their Passover lambs after the animals were sacrificed. Today, the lamb shows up on the Passover Seder plate in the form of the zeroah, or shank bone (which is not eaten).

Was the Last Supper a Passover Seder?

It’s accepted that Jesus was executed around the time of Passover. But was Jesus really at a Passover Seder before his death?

That, of course, depends on whether you subscribe to the Gospel of John or the other version of the story that does put Jesus at the Last Supper on the night before his crucifixion. Even if you assume the latter to be true, there is some room for debate. Especially if you make a distinction between “Seder” and “Passover meal.”

“Many people think that the Last Supper was a Seder meal,” Rendsburg says. “I’m of that group that thinks not.”

That’s because the version of the Passover meal that we call the Seder wasn’t developed until later, he says, pointing to evidence from the Gospels and Jewish literature that talks about Jews going to the temple for sacrifices and to celebrate holidays. By contrast, the Passover Seder we know today is an in-home affair.

Kraemer disagrees.

“The Last Supper is obviously the Passover meal, later what we would call the Seder,” he says.

The Seder, which means means “order” and describes the procession of the ritual meal, with its plate of symbolic foods (matzo, bitter herbs, shank bone and more) and reading of the story of the Exodus in the Passover Haggadah (“telling”), evolved at a later time, after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 A.D. But that’s immaterial, Kraemer argues.

“Before the Seder developed, there was already the Passover eve meal,” he says. “It was clearly the Passover meal.”

Freedom, redemption and salvation

Regardless of when he actually died — during the run-up to the Passover meal or after — the image and symbol of Jesus as the lamb cuts to the heart of Easter.

In the New Testament — the Book of Revelation and the Epistle to the Hebrews — Jesus is referred to as “the paschal lamb,” Kraemer says. His sacrifice “through the crucifixion, like the slaughter of the lamb, is both what symbolizes and brings about deliverance — redemption,” he says.

Estes says that for Christians, the idea of the resurrected Jesus as the sacrificial Passover lamb is the fulfillment of the Passover story, starting with what God did through Moses “and then even more so, what God did through Jesus.”

Early Christians celebrated Passover, and Estes says he’s seen an increase in awareness about the holiday among Christians.

“Passover and Easter are really intended to go hand in hand,” he says. “The Israelites saw Passover as the symbol or the sign that they were freed from pharaoh (in Egypt). Christians see Easter as the freedom from corruption or sin. ... As Christians we are rescued and Jesus is the rescuer.”

As part of Saturday night Easter vigil and Holy Thursday, Christians read the story of the Exodus that is found in the Passover Haggadah, which is read during the Seder, says Kevin Ahern, assistant professor of religious studies at Manhattan College. The story of Easter is inextricably linked to Passover, but he also says the overarching themes are similar.

“Both of those stories say to me that God’s love is more powerful than any empire,” Ahern says, whether the pharaoh or the Romans. “Love wins.”

“Both are celebrations of hope,” he says. “Not of dour hope, but of joyful hope.”

Morrill says the messages of redemption and deliverance resound through both holidays: “These were life-changing and death-defeating events.”

The paschal candle, which is lit on the night before Easter Sunday, is about needing hope in the world, and light in the midst of darkness. This custom, carried out during the paschal vigil, may remind some of the Jewish custom of lighting candles at night during the Sabbath, Morrill says.

“The symbolism is that the candle represents the light that is Christ,” he says.

“The light and the fire thing took on a new sort of intensity because of St. Patrick of Ireland,” Morrill says.

The tradition of lighting a fire or bonfire during the Easter vigil on Saturday night is a custom originated by St. Patrick, who adapted the custom from the springtime bonfires of the Druids. It’s just one example of Easter’s Christianization of a popular local tradition. The eggs and rabbits we associate with the holiday are thought to be another.

Matzo, yeast and symbolism

In the unleavened bread used for the Christian Eucharist, some see a likeness to matzo, the unleavened bread that Jews eat during Passover to commemorate their exodus from Egypt. In the usual telling, the Jews did not have enough time for their dough to rise before they had to flee the pharaoh.

Another interpretation of the unleavened bread is that yeast is associated with haughtiness, or “puffiness,” Rendsburg says. Jews rid their homes of chametz, or leavened products, before Passover, removing both physical and spiritual yeast for the holiday, he says.

“That’s a good Jewish metaphor,” Rendsburg says. “It gets, like many things, layers of interpretation.”

From about 1200 B.C. to 586 B.C., which was when the First Temple was destroyed, Jews celebrated a spring agricultural festival that served as a precursor to Passover, he says. In this festival, they marked the start of the barley harvest, since it was the first crop to ripen. In order to celebrate properly, the Jews did not want to contaminate their new barley with the yeast that came from old grain.

“You don’t want to take some of your old leavening agent and include it,” Rendsburg says.

So they observed the celebration by eating unleavened bread made with that new barley — something that didn’t look anything like the boxed matzo we eat today, but probably more like a tortilla, or naan or pizza dough without yeast.

That perfect square of crunchy matzo? A reinterpretation of a reinterpretation.

“The core is unleavened bread for the celebration of the barley festival, which then gets written into the narrative,” Rendsburg says. “Religious symbols always get reimagined.”

“People celebrate harvests, that’s what they do,” he says, but Passover was different because it was the first time such a festival was used to commemorate a historical event. “The genius of ancient Israel was to give historical significance to the festival,” he says. “Some core element of Israelites came out of Egypt. That event took place at the time of the spring, so it was an easy association to make. 

While dates for the observances change each year, the first night of Passover 2022 — Friday, April 15 — lands on Good Friday, which is an important part of Easter during the Holy Week preceding Easter Sunday (April 17).

-Jewish Holidays-

Tu B’shevat - January 17
This holiday, the New Year of the Trees, marks the coming of spring. It is celebrated by having picnics, planting trees, and eating fruit

Purim — March 17
The Festival of Lots recalls the rescue of the Jews of Ancient Persia from annihilation at the hands of Haman, who cast lots to choose this day for his plot to kill the Jews. Queen Esther and her uncle, Mordechai, foiled his plan.  On Purim, the Megillah of Esther is read, and the holiday is celebrated with festivity, costumes, and noisemakers. Hamantashen are the traditional food, mishloach manot (gift packages) are exchanged, and money is given to the poor.

Pesach / Passover — April 16-23
The Exodus of the Jews from Egypt is celebrated with the eight-day festival of Passover. Ridding the home of chametz (leavened food) and eating only unleavened items commemorate the haste in which the former slaves fled Egypt, leaving them too little time for their bread dough to rise. Jews retell the story of the Exodus during their Passover Seders.
In 2021, the Jewish Federation of St. Louis celebrated by passing out Passover Kits to families with young children, attending a virtual Passover cooking class, and other virtual activities

Yom Hashoah - April 28
Also known as “Holocaust Remembrance Day,” Yom HaShoah is marked by memorials and dedications to those who perished in the Holocaust.
Each year, the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum hosts a commemoration to honor survivors and remember the victims of the Holocaust. St. Louis survivors share eyewitness accounts of the Shoah, followed by music, liturgical readings, and prayers.

Yom Hazikaron - May 4
Israel’s National Memorial Day honors veterans, fallen military personnel, and victims of terror. 

Yom Ha’atzmaut - May 5
Israel Independence Day is celebrated festively by Jews around the world, commemorating the Israeli Declaration of Independence in 1948.

Yom Yerushalayim - May 29
Jerusalem Day commemorates the liberation of the city of Jerusalem during the 1967 Six-Day War.

Yom Yerushalayim - May 29
Jerusalem Day commemorates the liberation of the city of Jerusalem during the 1967 Six-Day War.

Tisha B’av - August 7
This solemn day is a reminder of the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem, which occurred on the same Hebrew calendar date. It is traditional to fast. 

Rosh Hashanah — September 26-27
Literally meaning “Head of the Year,” Rosh Hashanah marks the beginning of the Jewish calendar. It begins a 10-day period of repentance and prayer which ends on Yom Kippur. We celebrate the holiday with services and apples dipped in honey to symbolize the hope for a sweet year to come. 

Yom Kippur — October 5
The Day of Atonement is the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, marking the end of the 10 days of repentance. It is spent in fasting and fervent prayer. Sounding the shofar signals the holiday’s end.

Sukkot — October 10-11
This harvest festival is named for the temporary dwellings, called Sukkot, decorated with fruit and vegetables, set up to recall the booths in which the Jews lived during their journey from Egypt. The holiday is marked by processions with the lulav (palm branch with myrtle and willow) and etrog (citron). 

Shemini Atzeret — October 17
The day after Sukkot is Shemini Atzeret, which is combined in Israel with Simchat Torah, nominally a separate holiday; thus, there is no partaking of meals in the sukkah, nor use of the lulav and etrog. The special prayer for rain is recited during the musaf service.

Simchat Torah — October 18
Outside of Israel, the day after Shemini Atzeret, Simchat Torah marks the end of the annual Torah reading and the beginning of the cycle for the coming year. It is celebrated with singing, dancing, and merry processions of people carrying Torahs and children waving flags.

Chanukah / Hanukkah — December 19-26
In 167 BCE, the Maccabees led a band of Jews in a successful battle against the occupying Syrian-Greeks, who had desecrated the Second Temple’s eternal light. Miraculously, one day’s supply of oil lasted eight days, until more could be found. The Chanukah menorah is lit for eight nights to celebrate that miracle. Among the many Hanukkah traditions, children play dreidel and foods fried in oil are customary.

*🎺The next religious holiday in Christianity is;
26th May, Thursday: Ascension of Jesus*🍎❤️

This day observes the departure of Jesus from earth after his resurrection. It is perhaps the earliest observed celebration in Christianity.  You will find the Biblical accounts of the Ascension in Matthew 28:16-20, Mark 16:19-20, Luke 24:50-53 and Acts 1:6-11. During the forty-day period before he ascended into heaven, it is believed that Jesus preached and intermingled with his apostles and disciples. According to tradition, Ascension Day was first celebrated in 68 AD, however the first written evidence of the Ascension Day Feast occurred in 385 AD.

**-2022-**christian holidays; 

Thu Jan 06 Epiphany;

Epiphany is one of the most important Christian festivals, as it shows how God comes to His people and reveals His salvation to the world. The word Epiphany comes from the Greek word "epiphaneia", which means "appearance" or "manifestation". Every year this day falls on 6th January or in some countries, on the Sunday that falls between 2nd January and 8th January. The Epiphany is an ancient Christian festival and is important in a number of ways. In some region, the Epiphany celebrates the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist in the River Jordan. In some other region, this day refers to the visit of the magi (wise men) to the infant Jesus when God revealed himself to the world through the manifestation of Jesus. This day also celebrates Jesus' birth. The traditional color for Epiphany is white, which signifies peace, purity and holiness.

Sun, Jan 09, The Baptism of Jesus

In Catholicism, a great deal of emphasis is placed on the rituals surrounding the events of the Lord Jesus's life from birth to resurrection to death. Every detail is minutely scrutinized and carefully celebrated in its own way. One such celebration is the Baptism of the Lord, which is celebrated in January every year. It was originally observed through the event known as the Epiphany, which marked three events from the Gospel. It denoted the visit of the three Magi to the baby Jesus in his crib, the baptism of Jesus by the river Jordan and the wedding at Cana where Jesus is said to have performed his first miracle, turning water to wine. The Magi became the most prominent celebration of the Epiphany, and in 1955 Pope Pius XII instituted a separate liturgical commemoration for the Baptism, as the 13th of January. This was changed by Pope John XXIII and subsequently by Pope Paul IV, to its current date of the first Sunday after 6th January (the Epiphany), or if in a particular country the Epiphany is celebrated on 7th or 8th January, the following Monday. The feast marks the end of the liturgical season of Christmastide and the beginning of Ordinary Time. The Baptism of Christ would seem to be a paradox, since in Catholicism baptism is meant for remission of past sins and Christ was said to be born without Original Sin. However, by humbling himself, the Son of God, to John the Baptist, Christ is seen to have been taking on the sins of others and giving his followers a model to replicate - it was necessary not for him, but for mankind. After the Epiphany, which is seen as the "first manifestation" of the Lord, the Baptism is the "second manifestation" which marks the beginning of Christ's public ministrations. The day is marked by feasting by Catholics, with a particular liturgy or set of prayers being read. Pope John Paul III began a tradition of christening babies at the Sistine Chapel on this day. Around the world, different water-centered traditions exist, such as in Ukraine, where craftsmen's fairs are held with traditional food, drinks and entertainment and devout Catholics bathe in ice-cold lake water. Across southern and eastern Europe, orthodox believers jump into frigid water to retrieve a wooden crucifix that is thrown in. In Bulgaria and Romania also, similar traditions are followed. From pulpits, through publications and all forms of outreach, the Catholic Church uses this day to affirm belief in Christ and the importance of the rituals of Catholicism even in the modern day context of multiple fractions in Christianity and growing atheism. Practicing Catholics take this day as an opportunity to remember their own baptisms, and reaffirm what they see as their baptismal calling - to announce the goodness of their lord.
The Feat of the Baptism of our Lord, as it is formally called, is one of the high feasts of the Catholic Church, and marks a solemn occasion in the life of Christ as their Lord and savior.

Wed, Feb 02, Candlemas

Candlemas is celebrated on the 2nd day of February of each year. The day is celebrated as a day of renewal, hope, and purification. According to an old Jewish custom, a woman who gives birth to a child will be unclean and homebound for a certain number of days after the birth.

Mon, Feb 14, St. Valentine's Day

Some believe that the day was celebrated to respect a Saint Valentine when he refused to obey the orders of Emperor Claudius II. Emperor Claudius II had ordered that young men should refrain from marrying, as he believed that after marriage, men no longer remain good soldiers. However, the Valentine in question did not obey this order and helped many young men marry secretly. The Valentine was thus killed by the Emperor and hence, the tradition of Valentine's Day was started.

Wed, Mar 02, Ash Wednesday

Each year, Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent and is always 46 days before Easter Sunday. Lent is a 40-day season (not counting Sundays) marked by repentance, fasting, reflection, and ultimately celebration. The 40-day period represents Christ’s time of temptation in the wilderness, where he fasted and where Satan tempted him. Lent asks believers to set aside a time each year for similar fasting, marking an intentional season of focus on Christ’s life, ministry, sacrifice, and resurrection.

Sun, Apr 10, Palm Sunday

In the Christian calendar, Palm Sunday is the Sunday before Easter and the final Sunday in Lent. Palm Sunday marks the first day of the Holy Week. The day commemorates the day Jesus arrived in Jerusalem riding on a donkey. It was only a few days before one of his disciples Judas Iscariot, would betray him, putting Jesus on trial and ultimately sentenced to death by crucifixion.
The Palm Sunday Meaning is derived from how the people of Jerusalem laid palm leaves on the path as Jesus passed. Today, Palm Sunday celebrations involve a procession of faithfuls carrying palms, willow or olive branches. Other names of this holiday are Branch Sunday, Passion Sunday, Flower Sunday and Willow Sunday.

What Is The History of Palm Sunday?
The Palm Sunday story narrates Jesus’ triumphant entry in Jerusalem where He would be crucified five days later. On that day, Jesus rode on a donkey as crowds called him Messiah and greeted him by waving and laying palm branches on the ground. Prophet Zachariah had predicted the event in the Old Testament that people would recognize the Messiah as he rode into the city.

How Is Palm Sunday Celebrated Today?
Every year, Christians across the globe observe the Palm Sunday. The priests are mandated to give Palm Sunday sermons that should deepen the worshippers’ faith. During the ceremony, the congregation moves in a procession carrying palms’ branches just like Jesus’ followers did to Him on His humble entry into the city of Jerusalem. When palms are not available, they use willow, olive or other branches. In most churches, the worshippers twist the branches into crosses and other religious symbols. At the end of the procession, some members of the congregation take the palms home to serve as sacred signs. However, in most Roman Catholic congregation, the branches are blessed, burned and the ash saved for use in the following year’s Ash Wednesday.

Why is Palm Sunday Important?
According to the Palm Sunday Scripture, Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem marked the last week of His earthly ministry. He was arrested a few days later, mocked and crucified on the cross. Christians believe that Jesus Christ’s sacrificial death and resurrection saved them the punishment they should be receiving up to date. For this reason, Palm Sunday is significant to all Christians as it reminds them of how Christ died for their sins.

What Happens To The Palms After The Palm Sunday?
During the ceremony, the palms are blessed and cannot, therefore, be thrown away like rubbish. The Palms usually are, collected, burned into ash and used the following year to mark the worshippers’ foreheads for Ash Wednesday Celebration. The Ash Wednesday is generally the start of the lent period.
What Is The Significance Of Palms And Donkey?
From time immemorial, Palms have been a sign of homage. Palm branches are a symbol of joy, peace, and victory. In the world of Christianity, it is a sign of victory over the flesh. In fact, Palms were often thrown before noble and people of great respect.
Back in the days, a king riding on a horse was a symbol of war. On the other hand, a King riding on a donkey signified peace and humility. Although Jesus did not consider himself a king, his followers saw Him as the King of Israel.

Thu, Apr 14, Maundy (Holy) Thursday

The day is celebrated to commemorate the occasion of Last Supper of Jesus Christ, as described in the Bible, whereby Jesus shared a meal with his disciples a day before his crucification. The word Maundy is believed to be derived from the word "mandatum" which literally means commands, and this refers to the commandments given by Jesus to his disciples on this day. Maundy Thursday is perhaps one of the oldest holy traditions in Christianity with evidence of the day being observed from medieval times itself. In olden days, the festival was better known as Shere Thursday, with Shere literally translating to "guilt free".

Fri, Apr 15, Good Friday

What Is The Good Friday History?
Good Friday accounts for the trial, torture, conviction, and the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Before this day of suffering, Jesus had been betrayed by Judas Iscariot on the day of Last Supper also called Holy Thursday. It is this betrayal that led to Christ's arrest at the Garden Of Gethsemane. The soldiers took Jesus to Caiaphas the High Priest and teachers of the law who convicted Jesus on blasphemy charges. Jesus was then forwarded to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, for execution. Upon learning the humiliation Jesus was going through, Judas was seized with remorse and returned the thirty silver coins he had earned for betraying Christ. Judas then hanged himself early on Friday morning.
Jesus stood in front of Pontius Pilate and he did not deny any of the charges leveled against him. Pontius Pilate opted to get the crowd's approval on whether to crucify Jesus or release him. Surprisingly, the crowd asked their governor to crucify Christ and release one of the notorious criminals at the time called Barnabas. With no option, Pilate handed Jesus over for crucifixion.
The soldiers took Jesus to the Roman courtyard, stripped him, set a crown of thorns on his head and proceeded to abuse him physically. He was then forced to carry the cross to Golgotha where they crucified him. Immediately he passed away; unusual events took place. Darkness came over for three straight hours, there was an earthquake and the curtains at the temple in Jerusalem tore into two. Jesus was then buried later in the day by a man called Joseph of Arimathea, who wrapped him in a clean linen cloth and placed his body in a tomb.

Why Do We Call It Good Friday?
It's difficult to understand the goodness of the Good Friday following the suffering Christ went through. Some religious personnel suggests that the day is a corruption of God's day.' Others argue the day is good because it is holy. Most Christians, however, believe that by Christ's death on this Friday, Jesus saved them from sins. Therefore, despite the dark events that took place on that day, they see it as a blessing to them and hence a Good Friday. Christians find it ideal for taking part in Good Friday Fasting, as this shows their appreciation for Christ's sacrificial deed.

Why Do We Celebrate Good Friday?
The day marks Jesus' crucifixion and death at Calvary. Through his death, Christians believe that all their sins were forgiven. Indeed, it is Christ's sacrifice for the welfare of humanity that saved them from punishment from God the father. Christians, therefore, celebrate this selfless sacrifice on Good Friday.

Sun, Apr 17, Easter

Easter is a festival celebrated by Christians to commemorate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The date of the festival is not fixed. It is celebrated on the first Sunday of a full moon day after March 21. It usually falls between March 21 and April 25.
The festival celebrates the resurrection of Jesus and is considered as a rebirth of Christianity. The earliest references of the celebration of this festival date back to the 2nd century. In ancient history, many controversies arose regarding the celebration of this festival. The first evidence of controversy surrounding the festival dates back to 2nd century, when Bishop Victor tried to punish bishops of Asia for celebration of the festival. The controversy was largely pertaining to the dates of the festival and the rights of celebrating the festival.

The second controversy arose in the 4th century, when a large majority was unhappy with following the Hebrew calendar for the festival. Many considered it an offence to consult the Jews for the appropriate time to celebrate this holy festival. This controversy was promptly resolved by the First Council when it was decided that the festival would be celebrated through independent computations. From then on, the day is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first moon after March 21. The festival marks the end of Lent, which is a 40 day fasting period of the Christians.

Easter is a holy festival which is celebrated by churches around the world. The traditional celebration of the festival involves a dimly lit church with special prayers sung in praise of Jesus Christ. It is then followed by an elaborate Sunday mass, with happy music being played in the background. In some cultures, such as the Polish, the celebrations are more pronounced with large processions being carried out in the church followed by an elaborate mass. People are often involved in charitable causes on this day and sing happy prayers in the church to commemorate the rising of Jesus Christ from dead. One more vital feature of Easter is egg. Egg is a symbol of resurrection for Christian community, so well decorated eggs and egg hunting have become very important in Easter.

Thu, May 26, Ascension of Jesus

Ascension Day also known as the Feast of Ascension is one of the important Christian festivals celebrated in all over the world. This day marks the last appearance of Lord Jesus Christ to his followers after His resurrection at Easter.
Ascension Day falls on the Thursday, exactly 40 days after the Easter. The name "Ascension" comes from the accounts in the Bible where it is mentioned that the Jesus was taken up into heaven - He ascended. On this day the Christians celebrate the kingship of the Jesus. It is believed that during the 40 days following his resurrection, the Jesus appeared to many of his disciples and told them that He would always be with them and promised them the gift of the Holy Spirit. After saying this, the Jesus was taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God.

Sun, Jun 05, Pentecost

If you were to read the Old Testament, you will discover that Pentecost started off as a Jewish celebration. Only, the Jews didn’t call it Pentecost —it was known as the Feast of Harvest or the Feast of Weeks. The day celebrated the beginning of the early weeks of the wheat harvest. This meant that Pentecost was always celebrated during the middle of the month of May or occasionally in early June. According to the Old Testament, the 50th day of Easter would be the Day of Pentecost. Since 50 days also equals seven weeks, Pentecost later came to be known as “week of weeks”. Therefore, some believers also celebrate the day as the Feast of Harvest or the Feast of Weeks. But we no longer celebrate Pentecost the way they did before. Today, the day is commemorated as the moment in history when Christ ascended to heaven. Catholics believe that, on this day, the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles and other disciples following the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of Christ. For Catholics, it is the day when Christ burst forth and promised his followers that God will forever protect them. Pentecost is also celebrated as the day to honor devout Catholics and their faith.

Sun, Jun 12, Trinity Sunday

Celebrated on the first Sunday after Pentecost, Trinity Sunday is a Feast Day celebrated by Christians all over the U.S and the world. The purpose of this holiday is to celebrate the symbolic nature of the Trinity – which is God, the father; Jesus, the son; and the Holy Spirit. All of which are all separate entities upon themselves but are also one and the same entity. This is also known as the Christian Godhead as God incarnate in one person.

Thu, Jun 16, Corpus Christi

Corpus Christi is a Christian festival that is celebrated annually on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, on June 16 this year. On this day, devout Christians gather together to honor the sacred body of Jesus Christ. The day is also known as Corpus Domini, which literally translates to ‘body and blood of Christ,’ while some also call it the Feast of Corpus Christi. Unlike other Christian festivals, Corpus Christi is celebrated uniquely in different cultures of the world. The most common way of celebrating the day is by consuming bread and wine — the symbols of the body and blood of Christ.

Wed, Jun 29, Saints Peter and Paul

This feast day is celebrated on June 29th. The day commemorates the martyrdom of two saints, the two great Apostles, Saint Peter and St. Paul, assigned by tradition to the same day of June in the year 67. Peter was the leader of the apostles and the first pope. Paul was born Saul, but converted to Christianity on the road to Damascus. They had been imprisoned in the infamous Mamertine Prison of Rome and both had foreseen their approaching death. It is said that they were martyred at the command of Emperor Nero.

Even though they were killed on the same day, their method of execution would have differed.

Saint Peter was crucified, whereas Saint Paul would have been beheaded with a sword as he was a Roman citizen and afforded a quicker execution.

It is said of Peter that he was crucified head downward as he didn't feel worthy of being crucified in the same way as Jesus.

On June 29th, coastal and island communities may decorate their boats and wharves to give praise to St. Peter, who was the patron saint of fishermen. St. Paul was known for his handcraft.

This is probably one of the oldest feast days celebrated in the Christian calendar. In 2010, images of Peter and Paul were found on the wall of catacombs dating back to the 4th Century AD.

The feast of St Peter and St Paul is known as a 'Solemnity'. For Catholics, this means they can eat meat on the day, even if it falls on Friday when normally fish would be eaten.

Mon, Aug 01, Lammas

Lammas Day, celebrated every August 1, is a wheat harvest festival that is also known as Loaf Mass Day. The holiday encourages celebrations and mass gatherings where individuals thank God for the first harvest of the season. According to tradition, a loaf of bread has to be taken to mass on Lammas Day, hence, it is not a surprise that it is famously recognized as ‘Loaf Mass Day.’ Though Lammas Day originated as a Christian holiday, it is also celebrated by others who want to offer thanks to spiritual entities for blessing the world with a fruitful wheat harvest for a particular year.

Mon, Aug 15, The Assumption of Mary

This feast commemorates two events - the departure of Mary from this life and the assumption of her body into heaven.

The Church's official doctrine of the Assumption says that at the end of her life on earth Mary was assumed, body and soul, into heaven.

The death or 'Dormition' of Mary is not recorded in the Christian canonical scriptures. Hippolytus of Thebes, a 7th- or 8th-century author, claims in his partially preserved chronology to the New Testament that Mary lived for 11 years after the death of Jesus.

The term Dormition expresses the belief that the Virgin died without suffering, in a state of spiritual peace. This belief does not rest on any scriptural basis but is affirmed by Orthodox Christian Holy Tradition. It is testified to in some old Apocryphal writings, but neither the Orthodox Church nor other Christians regard these as possessing scriptural authority.

Some mistakenly believe Mary "ascended" into heaven, which is incorrect according to the Bible. It was Jesus Christ who ascended into heaven, by his own power. But Mary was "assumed" or taken up into heaven by God.

Observed as a holy day of obligation by Catholics and as a public holiday in some countries, devotees consider the Feast of the Assumption as the Holy Mother’s "heavenly birthday" and this is not a day of mourning for her loss, but a celebration of joy for the union of the mother with her beloved son.

According to St. John of Damascus, the Roman Emperor Marcian requested the body of Mary, Mother of God at the Council of Chalcedon, in 451.

St. Juvenal, who was Bishop of Jerusalem told the emperor “that Mary died in the presence of all the Apostles, but that her tomb, when opened upon the request of St. Thomas, was found empty; the Apostles concluded that the body was taken up to heaven,” the saint recorded.

Pope Pius Xll, in 1950, defined that Mary "after the completion of her earthly life...was assumed body and soul into the glory of Heaven." Her body wasn't allowed to corrupt nor was it allowed to remain in a tomb. Though there are claims by some cities about possessing her temporary tomb.

In the early Christian centuries relics of saints and those who gave their lives for the faith were jealously guarded and highly prized. Many cities claim the mortal remains of saints, both famous and little-known. But there are no records of Mary's bodily remains being venerated anywhere.

Wed, Sep 14, Holy Cross Day

Holy Cross Day has been associated with the dedication of a group of buildings that were built by Emperor Constantine in Jerusalem on the sites of Christ’s crucifixion and his tomb. This dedication occurred on September 14, 335. During the excavation, a relic that was believed to be the cross was discovered by Constantine’s mother, Helena. From the fourth century on, the Church of Jerusalem claimed to have this relic in their possession and had a feast to celebrate its discovery. This feast also celebrates the exposition given at Jerusalem on the matter of the cross by Heraclius – the Byzantine Emperor. It is said he recovered the cross from the Persians who seized in from Jerusalem around the 7th century when they sacked the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The authenticity of these claims remains unproven. Holy Cross Day is celebrated with reflection on and the veneration of Jesus Christ and the sacrifice he made for his mankind’s salvation. It is usually celebrated with some form of religious service, prayer, and reflection but it can also be celebrated in other ways. Baked goods in the form of a cross can be made – this includes things such as Hot Cross Buns and cross-shaped cakes. Traditions state that sweet basil grew on the hill where the Holy Cross was found, so some people use basil to create a special dish for Holy Cross Day. This can include basil soups, breads or pesto dishes.

Thu, Sep 29, Michael and All Angels

Michaelmas is a feast day that is celebrated on September 29th every year in the Western Christian Church. This feast day – also known as the Feast of Saint Michael, Feast of the Archangels and the Feast of Saint Michael And All Angels – was a holy day of obligation in the Western church up until the 18th century, but that is no longer the case.

Tue, Nov 01: All Saints' Day

On the Solemnity of All Saints, November 1, the Church celebrates those Christians who achieved spiritual maturity.  All Saints' Day also called All Hallows, Hallowmas, and Feast of All Saints is held on November 1 each year and celebrates and honors all the Saints especially the Saints who are not honored on other days of the year. The day is preceded by All Saints’ Eve (Halloween) the night before and then the day after followed by All Souls Day. The 3 days together represent the Allhallowtide triduum (religious observance lasting 3 days) as a time to reflect and remember the saints, martyrs, and the faithful who have died.
Days to All Saints' Day 2022; Tuesday, November 1st is day number 305 of the 2022 calendar year with 5 months, 29 days until All Saints' Day 2022.

Wed, Nov 02, All Souls' Day

The Allhallowtide begins on the evening of October 31st as All Saints Eve and then November 1st as All Saints Day and lastly November 2nd as All Souls Day. These three days represent the Allhallowtide triduum which is a time to reflect on the past saints, martyrs, faithful, and our own relatives who have died.

Sun, Nov 20, Christ the King

Feast of Christ the King, also called Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, festival celebrated in the Roman Catholic Church in honour of Jesus Christ as lord over all creation. Essentially a magnification of the Feast of the Ascension.

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The Good News!

1/23/2022

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​The “good news”… Usually when people think of the term “sin,” they think of a list of wrong behaviors. But sin, at its core, is a decision on the part of #humanity to live -outside-of God’s #design; choosing to go your own way and in some sense be your “own god.” The #symbolism of Adam and Eve illustrates clearly- They lived in perfect harmony with God until they were tempted to go their own way by eating from the Tree of #Knowledge of Good and Evil. God placed that tree in the garden as a #symbol of -their need- to *trust His goodness and live according to his #design. The consequence of *choosing not to *follow God was that sin entered the *human *experience, and death came too as the inevitable consequence of living outside of God’s design. Everyone in human history, with the exception of Jesus, has sinned. If we were to be put on trial before God, we would all be found guilty. We are all guilty of the same core sin of rejecting God. The opposite of sin is what the Bible calls righteousness. Righteousness is doing and being right- without sin. We lack righteousness if we live apart from God. To be justified, we have to obtain that righteousness from somewhere or from someone. Without it, the death penalty of eternal separation from God awaits us; God, in His #grace, made a way for people to be #free of the penalty of sin. This comes through “justification.” If you trust him, Jesus will cover your sin with His righteousness. All your impurity will be made -perfect through #Christ- because He lived a sinless, blameless life. Jesus died a painful, humiliating death for the sin of -every- person [their separation from God]. We could never fully pay the penalty for our sin; No amount of effort on our part would ever clear the debt we owed to God. #Jesus #paid that debt Himself. Its crucial to understand that He did not just -cancel- the debt- He *paid* it. God allowed Jesus to die the death -we- deserve, clearing the debt owed, and paid the -ultimate- price by allowing His *only *Son to die -in our- place, then -return- to us in *his #spirit. Jesus satisfies the requirements of His #Holy-law. This is the #gospel message, the “#goodnews!!”
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Noah- Theme in Genesis;

4/9/2020

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​“Theme in genesis; Noah”

Noah, also spelled Noa, in the Hebrew Bible- the hero of the biblical Flood story in the Old Testament book of Genesis, the originator of vineyard cultivation, and, as the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the representative head of a “Semitic genealogical line.” A synthesis of at least three biblical source traditions, Noah is the image of the “righteous” man made party to a covenant with Yahweh, the God of Israel, in which nature’s future protection against “catastrophe” is assured. Scholars attend that anti-christian sentiment found living today can be traced from this storyline. 

Noah appears in Genesis 5:29 as the son of Lamech and ninth in descent from Adam. In the story of the Deluge (Genesis 6:11–9:19), he is represented as the patriarch who, because of his “blameless piety,” was chosen by God to perpetuate the human race after his wicked contemporaries had perished in the Flood. A righteous man, Noah “found favour in the eyes of the Lord” (Genesis 6:8). Thus, when God beheld the “corruption of the earth” and determined to destroy it, he gave Noah “divine warning of the impending disaster” and made a covenant with him, promising to “save him and his family.” 

Noah was instructed to build an ark, and in accordance with God’s instructions he took into the ark “male and female specimens” of all the world’s species of animals, from which the stocks might be replenished. Consequently, according to this narrative, the entire surviving human race descended from Noah’s three sons. Such a genealogy sets a universal frame within which the subsequent role of Abraham, as the father of Israel’s faith, could assume its proper dimensions.

The story of the Flood has close affinities with Babylonian traditions of apocalyptic floods in which Utnapishtim plays the part corresponding to that of Noah. These mythologies are the “source” of such features of the biblical Flood story as the “building and provisioning of the ark,” its flotation, and the subsidence of the waters, as well as the part played by the human protagonist. Tablet “XI” of the Gilgamesh epic introduces Utnapishtim, who, like Noah, survived -cosmic destruction- by heeding “divine instruction” to build an ark.

The religious meaning of the Flood is conveyed after Noah’s heroic survival. He then built an “altar on which he offered burnt sacrifices” to God, who then bound himself to a pact -never again- to curse the earth on “man’s account.” God then set a rainbow in the sky as a visible guarantee of his promise in this covenant. 🌈 God also -renewed- his commands given at creation but with two changes: man could now kill animals and eat meat, and the murder of a man would be punished by men.

Despite the tangible similarities of the Mesopotamian and biblical myths of the flood, the biblical story has a unique Hebraic perspective. In the Babylonian story the destruction of the flood was the result of a disagreement among the gods; in Genesis it resulted from the “moral corruption of human history.” 

The primitive polytheism of the Mesopotamian versions is “transformed” in the -biblical story- into an -affirmation- of the “omnipotence and benevolence of the one righteous God.” Again, following their survival, Utnapishtim and his wife are admitted to the circle of the immortal gods; but Noah and his family are commanded to undertake the -renewal- of history.

The narrative concerning Noah in Genesis 9:20–27 belongs to a different cycle, which seems to be unrelated to the Flood story. In the latter, Noah’s sons are married and their wives accompany them in the ark; but in this narrative they would seem to be unmarried, nor does the shameless drunkenness of Noah accord well with the character of the pious hero of the Flood story. Three different themes may be traced in Genesis 9:20–27: first, the passage attributes the -beginnings- of agriculture, and in particular the “cultivation of the vine,” to Noah; second, it attempts to provide, in the persons of Noah’s “three sons,” Shem, Ham, and Japheth, ancestors for “three of the races” of mankind and to account in some degree for their historic relations; and third, by its censure of Canaan, it offers a -veiled justification- for the later Israelite conquest and subjugation of the Canaanites. Noah’s drunkenness and the disrespect it provokes in his son Ham result in Noah’s laying of a curse on Ham’s son Canaan. 

This incident may -symbolize- the “ethnic and social division” of Palestine: the “Israelites” (from the line of Shem) will “separate from the pre-Israelite” population of Canaan (which is depicted as licentious), who will live in subjection to the Hebrews. The symbolic figure of Noah was known in ancient Israel, before the compilation of the Pentateuch. Ezekiel (14:14, 20) speaks of him as a prototype of the righteous man who, alone among the Israelites, would be spared God’s vengeance. 

In the “New Testament,” Noah is mentioned in the genealogy of the Gospel According to Luke (3:36) that delineates “Jesus’ descent from Adam.” Jesus also uses the story of the Flood that came on a “worldly generation” of men “in the days of Noah” as an example of Baptism, and “Noah is depicted as a preacher of repentance” to the men of his time, itself a “predominant theme” in Jewish “apocryphal and rabbinical writings.”

Hebrew Bible, also called Hebrew Scriptures, Old Testament, or Tanakh, collection of writings that was first compiled and preserved as the sacred books of the Jewish people. It also constitutes a large portion of the Christian Bible, known as the Old Testament. Except for a few passages in Aramaic, appearing mainly in the “apocalyptic Book of DANIEL,” these scriptures were written originally in Hebrew during the period from 1200 to 100 BCE. 

The Hebrew Bible probably reached its current form about the 2nd century CE.

In its general framework, the Hebrew Bible is the account of God’s dealing with the Jews as his chosen people, who collectively called themselves Israel. After an account of the world’s creation by God and the emergence of human civilization, the first six books narrate not only the “history but the genealogy” of the people of Israel to the conquest and “settlement of the Promised Land” under the terms of “God’s covenant with Abraham,” whom God promised to make the progenitor of a great nation. This covenant was subsequently “renewed by Abraham’s son Isaac and grandson Jacob” (whose byname Israel became the collective name of his descendants and whose -sons, according to legend, fathered the “13 Israelite tribes”) and centuries later by “Moses” (from the Israelite tribe of Levi). 

The following seven books continue their story in the Promised Land, describing the people’s constant “apostasy and breaking of the covenant,” the “establishment and development of the monarchy in order to counter this,” and the “warnings by the prophets both of impending divine punishment and exile and of Israel’s need to repent.” The last 11 books contain poetry, theology, and some additional history.

The Hebrew Bible is the literature of faith, not of scientific observation or historical demonstration. God’s existence as a “speculative problem” has no interest for the biblical writers. What is -problematical- for them is the “human condition and destiny before God.” 

The great biblical themes are about God, his “revealed works” of creation, provision, judgment, deliverance, his covenant, and his promises. The Hebrew Bible sees what happens to humankind in the light of God’s nature, righteousness, faithfulness, mercy, and love. The major themes about humankind relate to “humanity’s rebellion, estrangement, and perversion; humankind’s redemption, forgiveness, and reconciliation are all viewed as the gracious works of God.”

The Hebrew Bible’s profoundly monotheistic interpretation of human life and the universe as creations of God provides the basic structure of ideas that gave rise not only to Judaism and Christianity but also to Islam, which emerged from Jewish and Christian tradition and which views Abraham as a patriarch.

Utnapishtim, in the Babylonian Gilgamesh epic, survivor of a mythological flood whom Gilgamesh consults about the secret of immortality. Utnapishtim was the only man to escape death, since, having preserved human and animal life in the great boat he built, he and his wife were deified by the god Enlil. Utnapishtim directed Gilgamesh to a plant that would “renew” his youth, but the hero “failed to return with it to his home city.”

Flood myth, also called deluge myth, any of numerous mythologies in which a flood destroys a typically “disobedient” original population. Myths of a great flood (the Deluge) are widespread over Eurasia and America. The flood, with a few exceptions, is an expiation by the water, after which a new type of world is created. 🛳🌊

Mount Ararat, Turkish Ağrı Dağı, volcanic massif in extreme eastern Turkey, overlooking the point at which the frontiers of “Turkey, Iran, and Armenia” converge. Its northern and eastern slopes rise from the broad alluvial plain of the Aras River, about 3,300 feet (1,000 metres) above sea level; its southwestern slopes rise from a plain about 5,000 feet (1,500 metres) above sea level; and on the west a low pass “separates it from a long range of other volcanic ridges extending westward toward the eastern Taurus ranges.” The Ararat Massif is about 25 miles (40 km) in diameter.

Ararat consists of two peaks, their summits about 7 miles (11 km) apart. Great Ararat, or Büyük Ağrı Dağı, which reaches an elevation of 16,945 feet (5,165 metres) above sea level, is the highest peak in Turkey. Little Ararat, or Küçük Ağrı Dağı, rises in a smooth, steep, nearly “perfect cone” to 12,782 feet (3,896 metres). Both Great and Little Ararat are the product of eruptive volcanic activity. Neither retains any evidence of a crater, but well-formed cones and fissures exist on their flanks. Towering some 14,000 feet (4,300 metres) above the adjoining plains, the snowcapped conical peak of the Great Ararat offers a majestic sight. The snowline varies with the season, retreating to 14,000 feet above sea level by the end of the summer. The “only true” glacier is “found” on the northern side of the Great Ararat, near its summit. The middle zone of Ararat, measuring from 5,000 to 11,500 feet (1,500 to 3,500 metres), is covered with “good pasture grass and some juniper; there the local Kurdish population graze their sheep.” Most of the Great Ararat is treeless, but Little Ararat has a few birch groves. Despite the abundant cover of snow, the Ararat area “suffers from scarcity of water.”

Ararat traditionally is associated with the mountain on which Noah’s Ark came to rest at the end of the Flood. The name Ararat, as it appears in the Bible, is the Hebrew equivalent of Urardhu, or Urartu, the Assyro-Babylonian name of a “kingdom that flourished between the Aras and the Upper Tigris rivers from the 9th to the 7th century BCE.”  Ararat is “sacred to the Armenians,” who believe themselves to be the “first -race- of humans to appear in the world after the Deluge.” A Persian legend refers to the Ararat as the “cradle of the human race.” There was formerly a village on the slopes of the Ararat -high above- the Aras plain, at the spot where, according to local tradition, Noah built an -altar- and planted the first vineyard. Above the village Armenians built a monastery to commemorate St. Jacob, who is said to have “tried repeatedly but failed to reach the summit of Great Ararat in search of the Ark.” In 1840 an eruption and landslide destroyed the village, the monastery of St. Jacob, and a nearby chapel of St. James, and it also killed hundreds of villagers.

Local tradition maintained that the Ark still lay on the summit but that God had declared that “no one should see it.” In September 1829, Johann Jacob von Parrot, a German, made the first recorded successful ascent. Since then Ararat has been scaled by several explorers, some of whom claim to have “sighted” the remains of the Ark.

Turkey, country that occupies a unique geographic position, lying partly in Asia and partly in Europe. Throughout its history it has acted as both a “barrier and a bridge between the two continents.”

A -long succession- of “political entities existed in Asia Minor” over the centuries. Turkmen tribes invaded Anatolia in the 11th century CE, founding the Seljuq empire; during the 14th century the Ottoman Empire began a long expansion, reaching its peak during the 17th century. The modern Turkish republic, founded in 1923 after the “collapse” of the Ottoman Empire, is a “nationalist, secular, parliamentary democracy.” 

After a period of one-party rule under its founder, Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk), and his successor, Turkish governments since the 1950s have been produced by multiparty “elections based on universal adult suffrage.”

The mountain “system falls into two main parts.” West of Antalya a complex series of ridges with a north-south trend reaches 6,500 to 8,200 feet (2,000 to 2,500 metres), but the most prominent feature is the massive “Taurus (Toros) mountain” system, running -parallel- to the Mediterranean coast and extending along the southern border. There crest lines are often above 8,000 feet (2,400 metres), and several peaks exceed 11,000 feet (3,400 metres). In the eastern third of the country, the northern and southern fold systems converge to produce an extensive area of predominantly mountainous terrain, with pockets of relatively level land confined to valleys and enclosed basins, as are found around Malatya, Elazığ, and Muş.

The central massif is located in the western half of the country, between the Pontic and Taurus systems (Taurus-the bull is the fixed modality of the three earth signs, the others being Virgo- this symbolic form of the virgin mary birth giver of jesus; incarnation and indwelling of the divine god without genetic seed, and Capricorn- the birth of jesus, star of David). This “elevated zone” is often referred to as the Anatolian plateau, although its relief is much more varied than this term suggests. At least “four subdivisions” of the central massif can be “identified.” Inland from the Aegean as far as a line from Bursa to Denizli, a series of faulted blocks gives a north-south alternation of steep-sided plateaus rising 5,000–6,500 feet (1,500–2,000 metres) and low-lying valley floors. Alluvial plains along the larger rivers, such as the Gediz, Küçükmenderes, and Büyükmenderes, are among the largest in Turkey and are of special agricultural value. East of this section, roughly to a line from Eskişehir to Burdur, is a complex upland zone. The general surface level rises to the east from 1,500 to 3,000 feet (460 to 900 metres); set into the upland are several downfaulted basins, and above it short mountain ranges rise to 6,500 feet.

The most distinctive part of the central massif is the area bounded on the south by the Taurus Mountains and on the northeast by a line from Ankara through Lake Tuz to Niğde. There the term “plateau” is most applicable, with large expanses of flat or gently sloping land at elevations of about 3,000 feet separated by low upswellings in the surface. Measuring some 150 by 200 miles (240 by 320 km), these are by far the most extensive plains in Turkey; however, their agricultural value is reduced by the effects of altitude and location on their climate.

The geologic structure of Turkey—where recent “faulting and folding are widespread” and mountain building is still in progress—is particularly conducive to “earthquakes, of which there have been many of varying intensity in modern times.” A number of serious events have been centred in the east, near Erzurum in 1959 and 1966, Bingöl in 1971 and 2003, and Erzincan in 1939 and 1992. In 1999 the country’s northwest was struck by a powerful earthquake near İzmit (Kocaeli) that killed more than 17,000 people and evoked “strong criticism of state institutions for their delayed response to the disaster.”

Meaning of the Twelve Stars of Revelation

Q: Do the twelve stars in Rev. 12.1 refer to the twelve apostles?
A: The Marian interpretation of Rev. 12.1 indeed allows for the suggested interpretation (see: Laurentin, Lyonnet, Deiss, Koehler, Feuillet relating this passage to the Daughter of Zion). Mary is the archetypal symbol of the Woman who is Israel (original) and the Church (developed). As archetype of the Church she is a sign that the Church is surrounded by God's power and protection ("Clothed with the Sun"). She is in continuity with the original people of God but stands also for the renewed people of God, the Church. Here is where the star symbol applies. The twelve stars above her head apply to both the twelve patriarchs of the tribes of Israel (original people of God), and the twelve apostles (renewed people of God). Of course, this symbolism has been interpreted in different and more subjective ways, especially for various devotional forms. For example, the devotion of the twelve stars (Baroque period) where each one of the stars symbolizes a special charism or privilege of Mary. It is legitimate to go a step further and read this image of Rev. 12.1 as Queen of Heaven, since Mary is (for example, according to the Litany of Loreto) Queen of both Patriarchs and Apostles. She is also in Rev. 12.1 the image of the eschatological Church or heavenly Jerusalem. She was related to the star sign Virgo (not surprisingly) – the Queen of Heaven and Queen of the angels.

The archaelogical record suggests that Asherah was the Mother Goddess of Israel, the Wife of God, according to William Dever, who has unearthed many clues to her identity. She was worshiped, apparently throughout the time Israel stood as a nation.  In many homes, images like the one above decorated household shrines. She no doubt aided in the concerns of mothers, including “conception and childbirth,” but was probably also the mother of all, a comforter and protector in an uncertain world. Inscriptions from ancient Israel tell us that Yahweh and “his Asherah” were invoked together for personal protection. Her identification with trees suggests that Asherah was, in effect, also Mother Nature — a figure we “remember in our language,” but unfortunately have “lost as a part of our mainstream religions.” She was, in other words, everything you would expect from the feminine half of the divine creative duo, a Great Mother. Asherah’s image was lost to us not by chance, but by deliberate action of fundamentalist monotheists.  First Her “images were torn down, then Her stories were rewritten, then Her name was forgotten.” In fact, Her name appears -40 times- in modern translations of the Bible, but not at all in the first English translation, the King James Bible.  Since no one knew who Asherah was anymore in the 17th century when the King James Version (KJV) was being created, Her name was translated as “groves of trees or trees or images in groves,” without understanding that those trees and groves of trees “represented a mother goddess.”

When archaeologists unearthed a treasure trove of Canaanite stories and other writings in Ugarit, in modern day Syria, they discovered that the mysterious “Asherah” was not an object, but a Goddess: the mother goddess of the Canaanites. When archaeologists discovered Her in Israel as well, a “whole new picture of early Hebrew religion began to emerge.” The argument is straightforward: Asherah was a known Canaanite Goddess, the Mother Goddess and wife of the Father God. She was worshiped, according to the Bible, in the woods with Baal AND in Yahweh’s temple. The common sense interpretation is that Israelites worshiped the mother goddess Asherah. And that She was the wife of whichever male God had the upper hand at the time: El, or Baal, or Yahweh.  Israelite religion was not much different from Canaanite religion. The gods vied for supremacy, but the goddess remained.

Since archaeologists in the Holy Land tended to be religious and to enter the field of biblical archaeology in order to unearth evidence substantiating the Bible’s story, it has taken awhile for the “plain truth to become clear.” Gradually, however, more objective archaeologists, such as Dever, are making headway in proving Asherah’s case.  The Bible says Hebrews kept worshiping Asherah; the archaeological record confirms it. What the Bible doesn’t say, and the archaeological record shows, is that Asherah was a mother goddess.

In Ugarit, She was known as Athiratu Yammi, She who “Treads on the Sea.” This suggests She was responsible for “ending a time of chaos represented by the primordial sea and beginning the process of creation.” The Sea God, or Sea Serpent Yam is the entity upon which She trod.  In a particularly bizarre and suggestive passage in the Bible, 2 Kings 18:4, one monotheistic reformer, pursuing the typical course of “smashing sacred stones and cutting down Asherahs records” this additional fact: He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan.)

Here are the serpent and the tree being worshiped together. (Garden of Eden anyone?) So, what exactly were people doing out there in the woods? They were worshiping idols, of course, burning incense, we are told.  This passage from Hosea is instructive: Hosea 4:12,13 condemns those who “inquire of a thing of wood,” suggesting they were asking questions of an oracle,  and who sacrifice under oak, poplar and terebinth “because their shade is good.” They are accused also of playing the harlot, which could be a reference to sexual activity, or simply an analogy in that the monotheists are claiming the people sold out to the “false” Canaanite gods.  Israel was considered the bride of Yahweh in monotheistic thought, so worshiping other gods was whoring after them.

These passages make sense when you understand that this tree symbolism is closely connected with Asherah.  Now we know She was worshiped in the wood, with an image made of wood and that people “sought knowledge and made sacrifices there.”

Many of us learned about the tree of knowledge of good and evil from an early age. Even if we didn’t have a church background, our pop culture seems full of references of Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit and dooming the world to plunge into a sinful state. As a refresher, we’ll include a passage below from Genesis about this tree found smack dab in the middle of the Garden of Eden.
Genesis 2:15-17: “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

As the story goes, the devil, shaped like a serpent tempts Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, to have knowledge like God. They do and earn eternal separation because of their sin. What all do we know about this tree? Why in the world would God create a conifer doomsday device in the middle of paradise? Although God allows for Adam and Eve to partake in the fruit of any tree in the Garden of Eden, he forbids them from eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He gives this with a warning that they will die if they do so. Supposedly, the tree could give them the knowledge of good and evil, but doing so would come at a cost. Another tree in the Garden was the tree of life (Genesis 2). Adam and Eve, as long as they lived in the Garden, had access to its life-giving fruit. But once they ate of the forbidden tree, they had to leave this place of paradise. What does the tree of knowledge symbolize in the Garden of Eden? As pointed out in this article, perhaps the tree of knowledge represented the law (which brings death, 2 Corinthians 3:6) and the tree of life represented a right relationship with God. Adam and Eve, when they disobeyed and ate the fruit, decided they’d rather abide by the rules than by a relationship. Other theologians have posited it had knowledge that only God was meant to possess. 

Suffice to say, we don’t know the precise nature of the knowledge they received. But we do know that this tree also later represents the fall of man. The tree itself wasn’t evil. But because God had given explicit instructions not to eat of its fruit, and Adam and Eve disobeyed, sin polluted both them and the tree. The ground, human nature, everything ends up cursed because of what happens in Genesis 3.

What happened to the tree of knowledge? After all, the tree of life does make another appearance in Revelation 2 and Revelation 22:2. Does the tree of knowledge show up anywhere else in the Bible or in history?

After the fall (Genesis 3), Adam and Eve are disbanded from the Garden of Eden, never to enter again. Considering the tree of knowledge was in the middle of the Garden, and since trees don’t have a tendency to walk apart from Tolkien stories, we can assume it stayed put.

Symbolically the tree of knowledge lives on in the hearts of every man. We choose, every one of us, to place something else in the throne of our lives instead of Jesus. Thankfully, because of Jesus’ sacrifice, we can come back to the relationship with God and experience the tree of life. The tree of life represents a rightful relationship with God and the tree of knowledge symbolizes the death that comes through the law. Every human being, ever since the Garden of Eden, intuitively knows about God (Romans 1:20). Many of us have also received specific revelation through Scripture or other means. Because of this knowledge, we have no excuse when we stand in the presence of God and have to explain our deeds on Earth. 

In Revelation, after the apostle John describes the river of life, he mentions another striking feature: “On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations” (Revelation 22:2). The tree of life is mentioned three times in Genesis 2, in Eden, and again four times in Revelation, three of those in the final chapter. These instances seem to refer to Eden’s literal tree of life. We’re told the tree of life is presently in Paradise, the intermediate Heaven (Revelation 2:7). The New Jerusalem itself, also in the present Heaven, will be brought down, the tree of life and all, and placed on the New Earth (Revelation 21:2). Just as the tree was apparently relocated from Eden to the present Heaven, it will be relocated again to the New Earth. In Eden, the tree of life appears to have been a source of ongoing physical life. The presence of the tree of life suggests a supernatural provision of life as Adam and Eve ate the fruit their Creator provided. Adam and Eve were designed to live forever, but to do so they likely needed to eat from the tree of life. Once they sinned, they were banned from the Garden, separated from the tree, and subject to physical death, just as they had experienced spiritual death. Since Eden, death has reigned throughout history. But on the New Earth, our access to the tree of life is forever restored. In the New Earth, we will freely eat the fruit of the same tree that nourished Adam and Eve: “To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God” (Revelation 2:7). Once more human beings will draw their strength and vitality from this tree. The tree will produce not one crop but twelve. The newness and freshness of Heaven are demonstrated in the monthly yield of fruit. The fruit is not merely to be admired but consumed. The description of the tree of life in Revelation 22 mirrors precisely what’s prophesied in the Old Testament: “Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing” (Ezekiel 47:12).

Interestingly, the word Elat is translated in the Bible as terebinth, a large shade tree found in Israel. A great deal of the time, God is a translation not of Yahweh, his particular name given to Moses, but of the Hebrew name Elohim, which is plural, gender neutral, meaning “gods.”  This word is also related to the word for oak tree.  What did it really mean to the ancients to worship in a grove of trees? To see the gods as like the oaks? The goddess as a green tree spreading Her leaves over the worshiper, providing shade in a hot country? Hebrews were not alone in worshiping gods of the forest, of course.  Celtic, Greek, and Germanic peoples also worshiped in groves.  Their gods were gods of nature.  Were the Israelites really so different? In the Bible, Elohim created a man and woman.

Genesis 1:26:

“Then Elohim said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’ So Elohim created man in his own image, in the image of Elohim he created them; male and female he created them.” Takes on a whole new meaning, doesn’t it, when you become aware of the Mother Goddess being worshiped next to God in every home and under every green tree in the forest groves?  Who is this “US” doing the creating? Well, evidently, the creator(s) is/are male and female, like the creatures he/She/they created. Now move on to a later passage, in 1 Kings 18: 19 , which makes it clear that  Asherah was served by “400 prophets.” This is no “minor religion.” Maybe when the prophets complained She was worshiped under every tree, they meant it. Every tree, every home, and also, sometimes, in the temple.

In Exodus, we are told that God warned the people to get rid of Asherah’s emblems when they conquered the land of Canaan; in the periods of the books of the “Judges and the Kings,” we are told that the “good” prophets, kings and reformers “continually had to burn and smash the idols of Asherah;” finally, in Jeremiah, we are told that worship of Asherah has resulted in the fanatical monotheistic God’s decision to wipe out Israel and Judah (the southern portion of the formerly united kingdom) via the “invasion of outside peoples.” The thing is, we are told most of these things by a single author, or group of authors: “the Deuteronomist.” 

This is a character (or possibly group of characters) writing and rewriting portions of the Bible in later days, around the 7th century BC, either just before or during the exile of the Jews to Babylon. According to the Deuteronomist, the priest Hilkiah claims in 2 Kings, chapter 22, to have “discovered” the “ancient laws of Moses during temple renovations.” These writings, “The Book of the Law” were mysteriously mislaid leading Israel to get its religion all wrong, apparently.

The works of the Deuteronomist conveyed a story that the Israelites had a covenant with Yahweh to worship him and only him. He claimed the Israelites had taken Canaan “by force through a holy war” in which they massacred the original inhabitants, putting to death (by God’s command) men, women and children in Jericho.  (This claim is not supported by the archaelogical record.) And he claimed that God was a jealous God, one who demanded to be worshiped alone and who would punish the unfaithful by bringing other nations to conquer them if they worshiped others.

Was this really the religion of Israel? Apparently not.  The “common folk kept right on putting up their Asherahs in the woods and the temple and the little votive Asherahs in their home shrines.” 

Only after Israel was conquered and the people of Judah -returned from exile- in Babylon did the “fundamentalist fanatics with their violent, patriarchal, monotheistic God win the argument.” The Deuteronomist’s work, along with the works of two other primary authors, the Yahwist and the Elohist, were compiled by a fourth source, called the Priestly source, to become the Bible we have today.

Asherah, tree goddess, mother of life, was lost.  “Truly, we were cast out of the Garden of Eden by Yahweh, or at least, his supporters.” Separated from the Tree of Life, our mother, we flounder like orphans.  America’s religiosity is more comparable to Iran’s than to that of Western Europe, where Yahweh’s religion is in decline.  Is it coincidence that we, the worshipers of a male warrior, spend our money on war while children are allowed to live in poverty without health care? Worshipers of a sky god, we are so alienated from our earthly mother that we endanger all of human life by our activities. And the hard edge of the fundamentalist who claims to have found the one true law and believes those who think otherwise are worthy of death (or eternal damnation) is still with us today.

Still, I think it has only ever been a relatively small percentage of people who hold to the hardest edge of monotheism.  We are surrounded by Mother Nature and she seeps into our traditions.  The Shekinah,  Mary, the Mother of God, the Christmas Tree and the Easter Egg, the bumper sticker imploring us to Honor Thy Mother with an image of the earth as seen from above, the fairies and elves and lost brides of our children’s tales are all ways in which the Mother Goddess seeps back into our lopsided psyche.  

The Goddess is lost, officially, but remembered deep within. Archaeology’s gift of restoring Asherah to our consciousness reminds us of what we already know: God does indeed have a wife. He must.  For if we are his children, then we must have a mother. Mary Magdalene, sometimes called Mary of Magdala, or simply the Magdalene or the Madeleine, was a woman who, according to the four canonical gospels, traveled with Jesus as one of his followers and was a witness to his crucifixion and resurrection. Virgo (♍︎) (Greek: Παρθένος, Parthenos) is the sixth astrological sign in the Zodiac. Under the tropical zodiac, the Sun transits this area, on average, between August 23 and September 22. The symbol of the maiden is based on Astraea. In Greek mythology, she was the last immortal to abandon Earth at the end of the Silver Age when the gods fled to Olympus – hence the sign's association with Earth. Mercury (Mercury symbol is the ruling planet of Gemini and Virgo and is exalted in Virgo). In classical Roman mythology, Mercury is the messenger of the gods, noted for his speed and swiftness. Echoing this, the scorching, airless world Mercury circles the Sun on the fastest orbit of any planet. Mercury takes only 88 days to orbit the Sun, spending about 7.33 days in each sign of the zodiac. Mercury is so close to the Sun that only a brief period exists after the Sun has set where it can be seen with the naked eye, before following the Sun beyond the horizon. In modern astrology, Mercury is regarded as the ruler of the third house; traditionally, it had the joy in the first house. Mercury is the messenger of the gods in mythology. It is the planet of day-to-day expression and relationships. Mercury's action is to take things apart and put them back together again.

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HOPE

1/4/2020

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​"If the heavens ever did speak, she's the last true mouth piece." 🎶 #ophelia #hoozier #liturgy #40daysoflent 

The gospel is a universal message of attaining UNDYING hope & Peace. There are many pathways to experience Gods PEACE. In christianity, Yahweh-Christ was the living way and example of service, acceptance, inclusion and unconditional love demonstrated by his teachings and #miracles. God(father)- In the manifested Jesus(son)- died and rose on Easter Sunday(7). The #7Th day represents perfect wholeness, completion, and fulfilled OT messaic prophecy🦋. God Yahweh is manifestation of flesh and spirit. The cross symbolizes #freedom of the Promise🌈land (place of peace 🕊️), the liberation from Metaphorical ⛓️ bondage of human 💔SUFFERAGE (darkness/separation). The Cross symbolizes hope in -New beginings- for everyone through the physical rise resurrection of the spirit. Let the church -spirit of humanity- always be a place of mercy and Hope where EVERYONE is welcomed, Loved and #forgiven. Gods LOVE is unbounded, it has NO limits and exceeds ALL human-understanding. For WE are ALL God’s masterpiece. He has created Us anew in CHRIST, so WE can do the good he planned for us. During #LENT, the Spirit drives us too, like Jesus, into the desert (40) Mk 1:12-15). Here, it is not a physical place but rather an existential dimension -spiritual realm. ..To bring us to the Light, peace, and hope. Christians recognize Christ in each human being, to see him crucified in the sufferings of the abandoned, lost and forgotten of our world, & metaphorically RISEN in Each who makes a New start. Salvation is not an ascent to glory, but a descent in a Reedemable Love that can't be earned, it's BEEN GIVEN and reconciled to ALL -through- the sacraficial saving grace of God #testified through his eyewhitness disciples. (Matt27:62; 28:1; Mark15:42; Luke23:54; John19:31, 42). TRUTH is eternal, everlasting, and for all! #Romans5:8 #Colossians1:12 #ephesians2:8 #Peter4:8 #popefrancis #symbolismrevealed
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40

9/1/2018

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​The Bible was written by forty different authors- Mentioning 146 times, the number 40 generally symbolizes a period of -testing, trial or *probation. During Moses' life he lived forty years in Egypt and forty years in the desert before GOD-selected- him to lead his people -out- of slavery. Moses was also on Mount Sinai for 40 days/nights, on two separate occasions (Exodus 24:18, 34:1 - 28), receiving God's laws. He also sent spies, for forty days, to investigate the land God promised the Israelites as an inheritance (Numbers 13:25, 14:34). The prophet Jonah powerfully warned ancient Nineveh, for forty days, that its -destruction- would come because of its many sins. The prophet Ezekiel laid on His right side for 40 days to symbolize Judah's sins (Ezekiel 4:6). Elijah went 40 days without food or water at Mount Horeb. Jesus was tempted by the devil not just three times, but many times during the 40 days and nights he fasted just before his #ministry began. He also #appeared to his disciples and others for 40 days after his resurrection from the dead. The number forty can also represent a generation of man. Because of their sins after leaving Egypt, God swore that the generation of Israelites who left Egyptian -bondage- would not enter their inheritance in Canaan (Deuteronomy 1). The children of Israel were punished by -wandering the wilderness- for 40 years before a new generation was allowed to possess the promised land. Jesus, just days before his crucifixion, #prophesied the -total destruction- of Jerusalem (Matthew 24:1 - 2, Mark 13:1 - 2). Forty years after his *crucifixion in 30 A.D., the mighty Roman Empire destroyed the city and burned its beloved *temple to the ground. The book of Exodus, with its 40 chapters and 1,213 verses, is the seventh longest book. The first three human kings over the children of Israel, Saul, David and Solomon, each ruled for forty years (1050 to 930 B.C.). Abraham tried to bargain with God to not -destroy Sodom and Gomorrah- if forty righteous people were found (Genesis 18:29). God -flooded- the earth by having it rain for forty days and nights (Genesis 7:12). The gestation of human -life- is 40 weeks in the #womb.
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Living Water;

3/2/2018

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Jesus uses the phrase “LIVING water” in two instances in the Bible. The first instance is FOUND in John chapter 4. Jesus was tired and sat at a well while His disciples went into town to buy food. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus asked her for a drink. The Samaritan woman was quite shocked because Jesus was a Jew, and Jews simply hated the Samaritans. Of course, she had no idea who Jesus was and asked Him how He could ask her for water since He was a Jew. ❤️☺️

Jesus ignored the question and went right to the POINT, “If you -knew the GIFT of God- and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you LIVING water” (John 4:10). Notice that He does not say that He is the living water, but that He would “give living” water to her, and when she received it, she would never thirst again. Of course, that does not tell us what the living water is! For that, we must go to another passage of Scripture. In this case, Jesus is in the temple surrounded by a throng of worshipers. He suddenly cried out, “If ANYONE IS THIRSTY, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in ME, as the Scriptures said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of LIVING water.’ But this He spoke of the SPIRIT, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet GLORIFIED” (John 7:37–39, emphasis added).

Here Jesus refers to the “Holy SPIRIT”✨ as the LIVING water. External influence of the Spirit had always been given in the conversion and SANCTIFICATION of the Old Testament saints and PROPHETS, but the gift of the Spirit who would “INDWELL believers” had not yet been received (ACTS 10:44–45). So, though many people say that Jesus is the living water, Jesus Himself intended the phrase to mean the “HOLY SPIRIT” who “DWELLS in believers and SEALS them for salvation” (Ephesians 1:13–14). It is the -ministry- of the Spirit, flowing out of a heart “REDEEMED by GOD,” that BLESSES believers and, -through- them, brings LIFE and LIGHT to the WORLD.☀️❤️🌈

Proverbs 18:24; All translations agree that there is a friend that STICKS closer that a brother - there is a friend who displays such loyalty towards us that no matter what we say or do they will remain loyal to us. They will SUPPORT and ENCOURAGE us, help and COUNSEL us, comfort and WARN us and they will love us no matter what happens.

Most branches of Judaism consider Jews to be the "chosen people", in the sense that they have a special role to "preserve God's revelations" (revelations come from the jewish new testament but the jewish people have their unique and special gifts and callings) or to "affirm our common humanity". This attitude is reflected, for example, in the policy statement of Reform Judaism, which holds that Jews have a responsibility to "cooperate with all men in the establishment of the kingdom of God, of universal brotherhood, Justice, truth, and peace on earth". (Well- ultimately, Identity politics and identity ideology opposes peaceful existance) Some secular and critics affiliated with other religions claim (christianity is non secular, and its not a claim) the concept implies favoritism or racial superiority, as have some Jewish critics, such as Baruch Spinoza. Some Jews find the concept of "chosenness" problematic or outdated, and such concerns led to the formation of Reconstructionist Judaism, whose founder, Mordecai Kaplan, rejected the concept of the Jews as the chosen people and decried it as being ethnocentric. (Very well could be the chosen people, but that is the definition of ethnocentric and racial superiority which was what was “claimed trump supporters” (christian Americans to be- which is -completely- backwards. If thats not definition of double standard, i dont know what is). 

Our culture has embraced the idea of -suffering- for a CAUSE, but it has cheapened the CONCEPT of martyrdom in the process. Terms like social change martyr, digital martyr, work martyr, and political martyr have expanded the meaning of martyr to include “any inconvenience resulting from expressing an opinion.” But in order to UNDERSTAND just how bad the TRIBULATION will be, we need to know what WORDS like martyr MEAN in their biblical CONTEXT.

Revelation 6:9 makes the meaning clear: "When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the WORD of GOD and for the TESTIMONY which they held." Slain is a sacrificial term that means

 "slaughter, butcher, murder." 

God's people have always experienced PERSECUTION in parts of the world, and many have sacrificed their lives for the GOSPEL throughout the centuries. As the world's END draws NEAR, persecution will rise to unprecedented levels, and many will be martyred—murdered—for their FAITH.

The Tribulation martyrs will weigh their earthly suffering against the “greater SPIRITUAL SUFFERING” of denying CHRIST, and they will arrive at the same conclusion as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor who was hanged during World War II:

[Messengers of the GOSPEL] must not fear men. Men can do them no harm, for the power of men ceases with the death of the body. But they must overcome the fear of death with the fear of God. The danger lies NOT in the judgement of men, but in the judgement of GOD, not in the death of the body but in the eternal destruction of body and soul. Those who are still afraid of men have no fear of God, and those who have fear of God have ceased to be afraid of men.

The APOSTLE John says the Tribulation martyrs will be killed "for THE WORD of God and for the TESTIMONY which they HELD" (Revelation 6:9). Armed with the TRUTH of God's Word, the martyrs will preach REPENTANCE and “warn of the judgment to come.” In 2 Corinthians 2, Paul describes the Christian life as a fragrance that smells like a sweet perfume to God and other Christians. But to "those who are perishing," the aroma smells like decay and death (verses 14–16).

During the Tribulation, there will be few believers around to appreciate the fragrance of righteousness. Most people will have hardened their hearts and will “reject the message” of salvation. With the -Antichrist firmly in control- of world politics and religion, society will react violently to any trace of Christianity. Many will be CALLED upon during the Tribulation to love God more than their very lives (Revelation 12:11; see also Psalm 44:22).

A story from the Old Testament helps us understand how humans, who were created in God's IMAGE (the individual, free speach, equal platform, ideological diversity), could hate someone for serving Him. Two kings, Ahab of Israel and Jehoshaphat of Judah, were “preparing for war.”

Jehoshaphat insisted on consulting one of God's PROPHETS. Ahab, who worshiped false gods, summoned four hundred prophets who readily “agreed with the kings' battle plan” (hmmmmm) Jehoshaphat -wasn't fooled- (NOPE) and again asked for a prophet of the Lord. Ahab finally admitted there was one godly prophet, Micaiah, who could be consulted. 

Before calling the prophet, Ahab explained his disregard this way: "I hate him, because he does not prophesy good concerning me, but evil" (1 Kings 22:8).

Ahab rejected TRUTH because it did not CONFORM to his expectations (correct). He preferred the “flattery of pagan prophets” to the SINCERITY of “God's prophet” (unfortunately correct). In 2 Timothy 4:3–4, the apostle Paul warned Timothy that a time would come when mankind "will not endure sound DOCTRINE, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will “turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to FABLES” (media rumors) ." Ahab's attitude is typical of what happens in a heart that has turned away from God.

The DIGITAL AGE (amazing accomplishment!) has made it possible for people to “select which news” they hear and “how it is reported.” Universities have created “safe spaces” where students can insulate themselves from “unwelcome ideas.” (What else could be a safe space from unwelcoming ideas?) 

Recent court cases have threatened the civil LIBERTIES of Christian business owners who try to conduct their businesses according to biblical standards. When Christianity in practice arouses the “DORMANT conscience of a non–Christian,” the response is to "KILL THE MESSENGER." That is why Christians have been persecuted throughout history and will be increasingly PERSECUTED as the Day of the LORD draws NEAR.

The apostle John describes the martyrs as crying out from under an altar contained inside the fifth of seven seals on a scroll (Revelation 6:9–10). Each of these seals represents a separate “judgment” upon the earth. This means the world will be “judged, among other things, for the -blood- of the martyrs.”

The PRAYERS of the saints CRYING out for justice become the “punishment of the sinners.”

The third bowl judgment, turning freshwater to blood, declares God's retribution against those who have martyred HIS people. Here are the words of the angel who pours out this judgment.

In the words of 2 Peter 3:9, "The Lord isn't really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for YOUR SAKE. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to REPENT" 

In Revelation 6, the martyrs' CRIES FOR JUSTICE were answered with white robes and encouragement to "rest a little while longer, until both the number of their fellow servants and their brethren, who would be killed as they were, was completed" (verse 11). 

As in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah, God will delay His judgment until every “WILLING soul” is preserved (Genesis 18:32). Now in Revelation 16, the cries are answered with the Lord's vengeance.

As Christians CELEBRATE Easter Sunday 2022, we take notice that Good Friday and the start of Passover occurred simultaneously (law and prophets FULFILL the law- star of bethlaham leads to jesus, two stars merge) this year and as such, we should not ignore the “shared symbolism.” Just as Jesus's RESURRECTION from the dead on Easter Sunday led to the start of Christianity, the Israelite's LIBERATION from Egypt led to the beginning of Judaism.  Both Easter and Passover represent “cultural freedom and rebirth” - two principles NEEDED to UNITE our Country (UNITY comes through true UNDERSTANDING). 

An Israeli Rabbi has claimed that the biblical prophecy of Balaam, which says that the appearance of a new star will precede the coming of the Messiah, matches an astronomical event that scientists predict will occur in 2022 (TRUE). Although the Jewish faith does not believe that Jesus is the Messiah, some Christians have interpreted the Rabbi’s prediction as proof that Jesus’ second coming will occur in 2022 (body of messiah through christians falls in this timeframe- the actual appearance no one knows). 

Rabbi Yosef Berger of King David’s Tomb on Mount Zion claimed that biblical prophecy of Balaam and “Jewish esoteric sources” show that the astronomical event predicted for 2022, the collision of two stars to form a brand NEW STAR in the night sky, will herald the ARRIVAL of the MESSIAH. The astronomical event FULFILLS an ancient prophetic SIGN (law and prophets) of the coming of the Messiah, the Rabbi claimed, according to Breaking Israel News.

Rabbi Berger claimed that Balaam’s prophecy and other Jewish mystical sources say that the coming of the Messiah will be preceded by HEAVENLY SIGNS involving multiple stars (the SIGNS are truly EVERYWHERE right now). 

The ancient prophecy of the arrival of the Messiah matches recent predictions by astronomers that a dazzling display from a red nova explosion will appear in the sky in 2022, following the collision of two faint stars in the constellation of Cygnus, according to the Rabbi.

The new star, expected to appear in 2022 in a blaze of LIGHT called a nova, will be the brightest heavenly body visible in the nighttime sky for six months. It will be the “first time in recorded history” that a celestial event of this kind will be WITNESSED by the naked eye.

Beyond its scientific uniqueness, the appearance of the new star could have much bigger implications for the earth-bound, one prominent rabbi told Breaking Israel News, pointing to a Biblical prophecy of Balaam which hails the appearance of a new star as the precursor to Messiah (CORRECT).

I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not nigh; there shall step forth a star out of Yakov, and a scepter shall rise out of Yisrael, and shall smite through the corners of Moab, and break down all the sons of Seth. Numbers 24:17

Rabbi Yosef Berger, rabbi of King David’s Tomb on Mount Zion, cited Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, known by the acronym Rambam, the foremost Torah authority of the 12th century, whose rulings are still used as the basis for much of Jewish law.

“The Rambam brings this verse about a star appearing as PROOF that the Messiah will come one day,” Rabbi Berger told Breaking Israel News. “But he says it will come from Jacob, and not from Esau. More specifically, from the TRIBE of JUDAH.”

According to the Hebrew Bible, the tribe of Judah was one of the twelve Tribes of Israel, named after Judah, the son of Jacob. Judah was the first tribe to take its place in the Land of Israel, occupying the southern part of the territory. Jesse and his sons, including King David, belonged to this tribe.

The tribe of Judah settled in the region south of Jerusalem and in time became the most powerful and most important tribe. Not only did it produce the great kings David and Solomon but also, it was prophesied, the Messiah would come from among its members. (They were Asher, Dan, Ephraim, Gad, Issachar, Manasseh, Naphtali, Reuben, Simeon, Zebulun, Judah and Benjamin. Of these 12, only the tribes of Judah and Benjamin survived). 

The new star, announced last week by Larry Molnar, a professor of astronomy at Calvin College in Michigan, will certainly be unusual. It is a binary star, or two stars orbiting a central point. Molnar described it as “two peanuts sharing a single shell.”

In his observations, Molnar noted that the orbital period was decreasing at an accelerating rate, leading him to understand that the two stars were moving closer to each other. Based on a previous case of binary stars, Molnar predicted the two stars stars would collide in 2022, resulting in a massive explosion.

“[The collision] will release as much energy as the sun releases in its entire lifetime,” Molar said in a video about the discovery.

When the two finally collide, it will create a new star, a red nova. The star’s brightness will increase ten-thousandfold, making it one of the brightest points in the heavens for six months, after which it will fade and remain as a smaller dot in the sky. It will be the first time in history that the creation of a new star will be visible with the naked eye.

“It’s a one-in-a-million chance that you can predict an explosion,” Molnar said. “It’s never been done before.”

Machefsky quoted the Talmud (Sukkoth 29a).
“Thus saith HaShem, ‘Learn not the way of the nations, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven, for the nations are dismayed at them, the idolaters will be dismayed, but Israel will not be dismayed.’” (The talmud is similar to the new testament, but it is historically and disorganized, more repeating a lot of what the nt says except written by religious men, not godly authority or divibe spirit and paints a very inaccurate picture of christianity because christianity is true. So this was Gods plan all along- to keep the two separate). 

“According to Hasidic philosophy, the wellsprings of knowledge (spirit of truth, holy spirit, jesus is the living water, the way, the truth, and the life) will be opened up in the times of the Moshiach (Messiah),” Machefsky said. “It is truly amazing that astronomers can predict this when just a few years ago we wouldn’t have known about this until the star suddenly appeared. Science has enabled us to share in God’s natural processes (internet- technology- oneforisrael- apple iphone).”

Machefsky quoted the Talmud (Sukkoth 29a).
“Thus saith HaShem, ‘Learn not the way of the nations, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven, for the nations are dismayed at them, the idolaters will be dismayed, but Israel (christianity or messianic Judaism) will not be dismayed.’”

“According to Hasidic philosophy, the wellsprings of knowledge will be opened up in the times of the Moshiach (Messiah),” Machefsky said. “It is truly amazing that astronomers can predict this when just a few years ago we wouldn’t have known about this until the star suddenly appeared. Science has enabled us to share in God’s natural processes.”

The history of the tribe of Judah, which eventually became a nation, begins in the book of Genesis. Judah was the fourth son of the patriarch Jacob by his first wife, Leah (Genesis 29:35). He grew up with his brothers, working in the family business tending cattle and sheep.

In time Judah and his brothers grew jealous and envious of their younger brother Joseph. Joseph was favored by his father, who gave him a special coat (Genesis 37:3). But it was when Joseph told his brothers about his dreams, which indicated he would be greater than them, that their hatred of him intensified (verses 5-11).

The hatred grew to the point that the brothers wanted to actually kill Joseph; but Reuben, the firstborn, stepped in to stop them. Joseph was placed in a pit; and while Reuben was absent, Judah came up with the idea of selling Joseph to Midianite traders for 20 shekels of silver (verses 18-22, 26-29). The brothers killed a goat and covered Joseph’s coat with blood to deceive their father into believing a wild animal had killed him. Jacob could never get over his grief for the loss of his son (Genesis 37:35).

Judah suffers with family problems
Judah and his brothers thought they had taken care of the problem of their younger brother, but God did not let that be the end of the story. God preserved Joseph and blessed him in Egypt, where he had been sold as a slave. Meanwhile, Judah’s family suffered many trials over the next 20 years or more. Judah married a Canaanite woman, the daughter of Shua. They had three sons, Er, Onan and Shelah.

Judah took a wife, Tamar, for his firstborn son, Er, but he was so evil that God took his life (Genesis 38:6-7). Judah commanded his second-born son, Onan, to marry Tamar and produce an heir for his deceased brother as God’s laws commanded in such circumstances. Onan would not carry through with this act because it would not be his heir. God then took Onan’s life for his refusal to give his brother an heir (Genesis 38:8-10).

A strange event in Judah’s life
Following Onan’s death, Judah asked Tamar to not remarry, but to wait in her father’s house until Judah’s youngest son, Shelah, was old enough to marry. Tamar complied with Judah’s wishes. But quite a number of years went by, and Judah’s wife died. Tamar realized that she was not going to be given in marriage to Shelah, who was now grown (Genesis 38:11-14).

One day Tamar heard that her father-in-law was heading out to shear his sheep. She removed her widow’s garments and dressed to appear as a harlot as she sat along the road where Judah would pass by. Judah did not recognize her and propositioned her; and she demanded his signet, cord and staff for collateral. When it was later discovered that she was pregnant, Judah threatened her with death for harlotry. To save her life, she presented the items belonging to Judah and said, “By the man to whom these belong, I am with child” (Genesis 38:18, 24-26).

Tamar had twins. At delivery, one twin put out his hand first and the midwife tied a scarlet thread on it and said, “This one came out first.” But the other twin, Perez, came out unexpectedly followed by Zerah with the scarlet thread tied on his hand (Genesis 38:27-30).

God would use the unusual birth of these twins to establish two lines of genealogy in the tribe of Judah.

The second great promise God gave to Abraham stated, “And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3). This promise would come through the line of Perez. King David and the kings of Judah would descend through the line of Perez. But most importantly, Jesus Christ would come through this line so “all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Matthew 1:3, 16).

As the apostle Paul wrote, “Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, ‘And to seeds,’ as of many, but as of one, ‘And to your Seed,’ who is Christ” (Galatians 3:16).

Why the tribe of Judah?
In looking at the life of Judah and his character, it is hard to see why the tribe of Judah should become so prominent among the tribes of Israel. On the one hand, Joseph lived a righteous life and was blessed with the birthright in place of Reuben, the firstborn. The name of “Israel” was passed on to Joseph’s two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh.

Yet God also chose Judah and his descendants for a special place in His plan through the ages. The prophecy God gave to Jacob at the end of his life concerning his sons’ descendants “in the latter days” reveals a special blessing for the tribe of Judah (Genesis 49:1, 8-10).

In speaking of the tribe of Judah, Jacob said, “Judah, you are he whom your brothers shall praise; your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; your father’s children shall bow down before you. Judah is a lion’s whelp; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He bows down, he lies down as a lion; and as a lion, who shall rouse him? The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh comes; and to Him shall be the obedience of the people” (Genesis 49:8-10).

In this passage God looked at Judah as a strong warrior and likened him to a young lion sleeping in its den after devouring its prey. Perhaps it was this strength of character and determination that God foresaw in this tribe that influenced Him to choose Judah to be His lawgiver and the tribe from which His Son would later be born (Hebrews 7:14). Jesus Christ is called “the Lion of the tribe of Judah” (Revelation 5:5).

Regarding Genesis 49:10, Expositor’s Bible Commentary says, “The word ‘Shiloh,’ found in some English versions, is simply an untranslated form of the Hebrew expression meaning ‘one to whom it belongs.’” Jesus Christ is the “one to whom it belongs” (Frank E. Gaebelein, ed.).

Judah is also described as a lawgiver in the Psalms. God inspired David to twice say that “Judah is My [God’s] lawgiver” (Psalms 60:7; 108:8).

The tribe of Judah has not only been a lawgiver, but a preserver of God’s written laws. The apostle Paul said, “What advantage then has the Jew? … Much in every way! Chiefly because to them were committed the oracles [that which was spoken or commanded] of God” (Romans 3:1-2).

Through the centuries, the Jews have faithfully preserved the books of the Old Testament and the Hebrew calendar.

Judah prevails over his brothers
The postexilic writer of 1 Chronicles, probably Ezra, wrote, “Yet Judah prevailed over his brothers, and from him came a ruler, although the birthright was Joseph’s” (1 Chronicles 5:2).

How did Judah prevail?

During the time of Moses, the tribe of Judah became the stronger tribe and “prevailed over his brothers.” The census in Numbers 1 shows that Judah was the leading tribe in population and in men who could go to war (Numbers 1:2-3, 27).

After the death of Joshua, God chose the tribe of Judah to take the lead in conquering the nations who were living in the land promised to the 12 tribes (Judges 1:2). The first chapter of Judges shows that the tribe of Judah was aggressive and strong in driving out the Canaanites in the southern half of the land of Canaan.

Redeemer.An even more important way that Judah prevailed over his brothers took place during the time of one of Judah’s most famous descendants, King David. The tabernacle of God had long been in Shiloh in the territory of Joseph. But David set the stage for the temple to be built on Mount Zion, “which He [God] loved,” and which David made his capital (Psalm 78:67-70).

God chose David to be His shepherd and Jerusalem (Mount Zion) for His place to dwell. God also chose David to hold the “scepter,” a symbol of kingship that would always remain in the tribe of Judah (Genesis 49:10; Psalm 89:34-37).

The tribe of Judah suffers national captivity
After the death of Solomon, the nation of Israel became divided. Solomon’s son Rehoboam refused to lighten the burden of taxes that had been imposed by his father. In fact, Rehoboam threatened to make life far worse for the people than what his father had done.

This resulted in 10 tribes separating and becoming the northern kingdom of Israel with its capital city in Samaria (1 Kings 12:12-14). The tribes of Judah, Benjamin and a part of Levi stayed with Rehoboam and became the southern kingdom of Judah, with Jerusalem as its capital.

The northern kingdom of Israel immediately went into idolatry and turned away from worshipping God. After 200 years, they went into national captivity at the hands of the Assyrian Empire. The southern kingdom of Judah lasted more than a hundred years after the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel. Judah also turned away from the God of their fathers and went after idols several times, and several times righteous kings instituted reforms.

God sent prophets to warn them of their slide into idolatry, but eventually they would no longer listen. The Jewish nation was taken into national captivity by the Babylonians in several waves of deportations culminating in 586 B.C.

End-time nationhood of the tribe of Judah
After 70 years of captivity in Babylon, some of the Jews returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple, but they didn’t fully return to the status of a sovereign nation until the 20th century.

Jesus—the Messiah, the Savior of mankind, the Lion of the tribe of Judah—would come through the tribe of Judah, but He would be rejected by His own people. The Church Jesus established initially sprang out of the tribe of Judah. But since the middle of the first century, the Church of God has become largely non-Jewish in membership.

Approaching the 20th century, many Jewish groups and Christian churches were advocating a homeland in Palestine for the tribe of Judah. Jewish groups wanted to return to Judea because it was their ancient homeland. Christian groups saw the establishment of a Jewish state as a sign of end-time prophecy being fulfilled that would lead to the imminent return of Jesus Christ.

One such prophecy can be found in Daniel 12:11, which indicates that the Jews will resume animal sacrifices before the return of Christ. Presumably, they would need their own homeland to do this.

In 1917 the Balfour Declaration made public Great Britain’s support of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. But it would not become a reality until May 14, 1948. Today, the nation called Israel is a major power in the Middle East, but will it remain such a power until the second coming of Jesus Christ?

Tribulation and restoration of the tribe of Judah
Jesus in His Olivet Prophecy said, “For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Matthew 24:21). The tribe of Judah and the State of Israel will not be spared from this traumatic time. In Luke’s account of the same prophecy, Jesus said, “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is near” (Luke 21:20).

The prophet Zechariah also spoke of this same time, “For I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem; the city shall be taken, the houses rifled, and the women ravished. Half of the city shall go into captivity, but the remnant of the people shall not be cut off from the city” (Zechariah 14:2). Invasion and war will come to Jerusalem and to the tribe of Judah.

Following the prophecy of the invasion of Israel and Jerusalem, Zechariah announced the good news of the coming of Christ: “And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives. … And the LORD shall be King over all the earth” (Zechariah 14:4, 9).

Jeremiah spoke of this same time when he said, “In His days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell safely; now this is His name by which He will be called: THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS” (Jeremiah 23:6).

The good news for the tribe of Judah and this world is that the “Lion of the tribe of Judah,” Jesus Christ (Revelation 5:5), will return to establish the Kingdom of God, and the tribe of Judah will finally accept its Redeemer (Romans 11:26).

Read more about this wonderful promised future in the section on the “Kingdom of God.” You can also find related articles in this section about the “12 Tribes of Israel” and the section about the “Middle East in Bible Prophecy.”

In John 7:38, Jesus makes a seemingly odd metaphorical statement: “Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of LIVING water will flow from WITHIN them.” Yet, as it turns out, the statement isn’t so odd, because Jesus actually had much to say about the idea of water and ✨NEW LIFE.✨

Earlier, Jesus had told Nicodemus that one had to be born of “water and the Spirit” in order to enter the kingdom of God (John 3:5). Most likely, Jesus’ reference to water here was simply to physical birth, in contrast to “spiritual birth” (John 3:6). In John 4:10Jesus tells the Samaritan woman that He could give her “living water.” 

This was in -contrast- to the “physical-water” (physical realm/humanistic view verses spiritual realm/GOD) that the Samaritan woman came to the well to retrieve. That physical water would run out, and she would need to continually return to get more. But Jesus offered the woman water that would never run out—water that would become within the believer “a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14). 

Jesus later would return to this theme when He STOOD UP in PUBLIC and said, “If ANYONE is thirsty let him COME TO ME and drink” (John 7:37). In this way, He was again OFFERING Himself as the water of LIFE and telling ALL they could come to Him and receive that never-ending life! 

After making the offer of life-giving water, Jesus adds that rivers of living water would flow from the heart of the believer (John 7:38). Jesus alludes to Isaiah 55:1and Isaiah 58:11—passages that similarly present the Messianic HOPE in terms of life-giving water (cf. Exodus 17:1–6; Psalm 78:15–16; 105:40–41; Proverbs 18:4; Isaiah 12:3; Ezekiel 47:1–11; and Zechariah 14:8). 

Jesus was not simply using metaphor to liken His own life-giving ministry to that of water. He was actually claiming to be the FULFILLMENT of Scripture’s water allusions and prophecies. Because He was the Life-giver, those who believed in Him would have eternal life within them and would no longer need to seek for life from external sources. 

Later, it is revealed that God would put His Spirit within each believer (Romans 8:9), and each believer would have eternal life (John 6:47) and the EVIDENCE of life (in the Holy Spirit) within. It is in that sense that “rivers of living water” would FLOW from the HEARTS of believers. 

Later, Paul would describe that in LOVE Christ SANCTIFIES His church, washing her with the water of His WORD (Ephesians 5:25–26). The writer of HEBREWS continues the theme, noting that our hearts are sprinkled and “our bodies washed with pure water” (Hebrews 10:22). 

PETER adds that believers are cleansed as if by water (1 Peter 3:20–21). (Baptism theme) Finally, in a beautiful portrayal of Jesus’ MINISTRY, John says that the 

“Lamb would be the Shepherd, -leading His people- to the water of life (Revelation 7:17)”

This is reminiscent of David’s song of Psalm 23 in which the Shepherd leads David beside quiet waters (Psalm 23:2) and RESTORES his SOUL. Just as each of these writers recognized, we need to -understand that Jesus is the One- who freely gives eternal life.

The phrase the law and the prophets refers to the entire Hebrew Bible, what we call the Old Testament. Jesus spoke of “the law and the prophets” multiple times, such as when He listed the two greatest commandments (Matthew 22:40). In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus pointed to His absolute perfection, saying, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to FULFILL them” (Matthew *5:17).

On the Emmaus Road, Jesus -taught two- disciples “everything written about himself in the Scriptures, beginning with the Law of Moses and the Books of the Prophets” (Luke 24:27, CEV). Clearly, all Scripture, indicated by “the law and the prophets,” pointed to Jesus. 

The same passage also contains a three-fold division of the Old Testament: “the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms” (verse 44), but the two-fold division of “the law and the prophets” was also customary (Matthew 7:12; Acts 13:15; 24:14; Romans 3:21).

The books of the law, properly speaking, would comprise the Pentateuch: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The prophets, in the two-fold division, would include the rest of the Old Testament. Although it may seem strange that poetic books such as “Job or Proverbs” would be included in the “prophets” category, it was common for the Jews to see any writer of Scripture as a PROPHET. Further, many of the psalms are clear messianic prophecies.

When Philip invited his friend Nathanael to meet Jesus, he referred to the whole of Hebrew Scripture in its two-fold division: “We have FOUND the one Moses wrote about in the law, and the prophets also wrote about—Jesus of Nazareth” (John 1:45, NET). Philip was right that all of Scripture has a common theme: the Messiah, the Son of God, who is Jesus.

In the Book of Revelation, the apocalyptic hopes of the early Christian community find their clearest and most complete expression. Apocalypticism was not a new phenomenon among Christians; it was a well-established belief among Jews, who held that the coming of the kingdom of God would not be brought about by a gradual transformation but by a sudden INTERVENTION, when God would end the present age and establish his kingdom in the world made new. 

This conception of COMING events is associated with the belief that prior to this future time, “the STRUGGLE BETWEEN the forces of good and evil will become more intense.” As the evil powers grow stronger, they will INFLICT PERSECUTION and in some instances even death upon those who follow a -course- of righteousness. The struggle will eventually reach a climax, at which time God will intervene, destroy the forces of evil, and set up a “new order” in which the righteous will live for all time to come. The APPEARANCE of the Messiah will coincide with the coming of these events.

When the members of the Christian community AFFIRMED their BELIEF that the crucified Jesus was the long-awaited MESIAH, they necessarily revised their understanding concerning the work Jesus was to do and especially the way in which his work would be completed. 

Because they were convinced that the work of the Messiah must end in triumph and glory, they believed that this end could be accomplished only by a return of Jesus back to this earth from the heaven to which he had ascended. This second coming, occurring at the time when all the events connected with the apocalyptic program will take place, will inaugurate the coming of the NEW AGE, as well as the final destruction of all the forces of evil.

Revelation 1

The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave(A) him to show his servants what must soon take place.(B) He made it KNOWN by sending his angel(C) to his servant John,(D) who TESTIFIES to everything HE SAW that is, the WORD of GOD(E) and the TESTIMONY of JESUS CHRIST. 

Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it,(G) because the time is near.

Greetings and Doxology

John,

To the seven churches(I) in the province of Asia:

Grace and peace to you(J) from him who is, and who was, and who is to come,(K) and from the seven spirits[a](L) before his throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness,(M) the firstborn from the dead,(N) and the ruler of the kings of the earth.(O)

To him who loves us(P) and has freed us from our sins by his blood,(Q) 6 and has made us to be a kingdom and priests(R) to serve his God and Father(S)—to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.(T)

7 “Look, he is coming with the clouds,”[b](U)
    and “every eye will see him,
even those who pierced him”;(V)
    and all peoples on earth “will mourn(W) because of him.”[c]
So shall it be! Amen.
8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,”(X) says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come,(Y) the Almighty.”(Z)

John’s Vision of Christ
9 I, John,(AA) your brother and companion in the suffering(AB) and kingdom(AC) and patient endurance(AD) that are ours in Jesus, was on the island of Patmos because of the word of God(AE) and the testimony of Jesus.(AF) 10 On the Lord’s Day(AG) I was in the Spirit,(AH) and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet,(AI) 11 which said: “Write on a scroll what you see(AJ) and send it to the seven churches:(AK) to Ephesus,(AL) Smyrna,(AM) Pergamum,(AN) Thyatira,(AO) Sardis,(AP) Philadelphia(AQ) and Laodicea.”(AR)

12 I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands,(AS) 13 and among the lampstands(AT) was someone like a son of man,[d](AU) dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet(AV) and with a golden sash around his chest.(AW) 14 The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire.(AX) 15 His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace,(AY) and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters.(AZ) 16 In his right hand he held seven stars,(BA) and coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword.(BB) His face was like the sun(BC) shining in all its brilliance.

17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet(BD) as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me(BE) and said: “Do not be afraid.(BF) I am the First and the Last.(BG) 18 I am the Living One; I was dead,(BH) and now look, I am alive for ever and ever!(BI) And I hold the keys of death and Hades.(BJ)

19 “Write, therefore, what you have seen,(BK) what is now and what will take place later. 20 The mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand(BL) and of the seven golden lampstands(BM) is this: The seven stars are the angels[e] of the seven churches,(BN) and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.(BO)

Cross references

Revelation 1:1 : Jn 12:49; 17:8
Revelation 1:1 : ver 19; Da 2:28, 29; Rev 22:6
Revelation 1:1 : Rev 22:16
Revelation 1:1 : ver 4, 9; Rev 22:8
Revelation 1:2 : ver 9; S Heb 4:12
Revelation 1:2 : ver 9; 1Co 1:6; Rev 6:9; 12:17; 19:10
Revelation 1:3 : Lk 11:28; Rev 22:7
Revelation 1:3 : S Ro 13:11
Revelation 1:4 : ver 11, 20
Revelation 1:4 : S Ro 1:7
Revelation 1:4 : ver 8; Rev 4:8; 11:17; 16:5
Revelation 1:4 : Isa 11:2; Rev 3:1; 4:5; 5:6
Revelation 1:5 : Isa 55:4; Jn 18:37; Rev 3:14
Revelation 1:5 : Ps 89:27; Col 1:18
Revelation 1:5 : S 1Ti 6:15
Revelation 1:5 : S Ro 8:37
Revelation 1:5 : S Ro 3:25
Revelation 1:6 : S 1Pe 2:5; Rev 5:10; 20:6
Revelation 1:6 : Ro 15:6
Revelation 1:6 : S Ro 11:36
Revelation 1:7 : Da 7:13; S Mt 16:27; 24:30; 26:64; S Lk 17:30; S 1Co 1:7; S 1Th 2:19; 4:16, 17
Revelation 1:7 : Jn 19:34, 37
Revelation 1:7 : Zec 12:10; Mt 24:30
Revelation 1:8 : S ver 17; Rev 21:6; 22:13
Revelation 1:8 : S ver 4
Revelation 1:8 : Rev 4:8; 15:3; 19:6
Revelation 1:9 : ver 1
Revelation 1:9 : S Ac 14:22; 2Co 1:7; Php 4:14
Revelation 1:9 : ver 6
Revelation 1:9 : 2Ti 2:12
Revelation 1:9 : ver 2; S Heb 4:12
Revelation 1:9 : S ver 2
Revelation 1:10 : Ac 20:7
Revelation 1:10 : Rev 4:2; 17:3; 21:10
Revelation 1:10 : Ex 20:18; Rev 4:1
Revelation 1:11 : ver 19
Revelation 1:11 : ver 4, 20
Revelation 1:11 : S Ac 18:19
Revelation 1:11 : Rev 2:8
Revelation 1:11 : Rev 2:12
Revelation 1:11 : Ac 16:14; Rev 2:18, 24
Revelation 1:11 : Rev 3:1
Revelation 1:11 : Rev 3:7
Revelation 1:11 : S Col 2:1; Rev 3:14
Revelation 1:12 : ver 20; Ex 25:31-40; Zec 4:2; Rev 2:1
Revelation 1:13 : Rev 2:1
Revelation 1:13 : Eze 1:26; Da 7:13; 10:16; Rev 14:14
Revelation 1:13 : Isa 6:1
Revelation 1:13 : Da 10:5; Rev 15:6
Revelation 1:14 : Da 7:9; 10:6; Rev 2:18; 19:12
Revelation 1:15 : Eze 1:7; Da 10:6; Rev 2:18
Revelation 1:15 : Eze 43:2; Rev 14:2; 19:6
Revelation 1:16 : ver 20; Rev 2:1; 3:1
Revelation 1:16 : Isa 1:20; 49:2; Heb 4:12; Rev 2:12, 16; 19:15, 21
Revelation 1:16 : Jdg 5:31; Mt 17:2
Revelation 1:17 : Eze 1:28; Da 8:17, 18
Revelation 1:17 : Da 8:18
Revelation 1:17 : S Mt 14:27
Revelation 1:17 : Isa 41:4; 44:6; 48:12; Rev 2:8; 22:13
Revelation 1:18 : Ro 6:9; Rev 2:8
Revelation 1:18 : Dt 32:40; Da 4:34; 12:7; Rev 4:9, 10; 10:6; 15:7
Revelation 1:18 : Rev 9:1; 20:1
Revelation 1:19 : ver 11; Hab 2:2
Revelation 1:20 : S ver 16
Revelation 1:20 : S ver 12
Revelation 1:20 : ver 4, 11
Revelation 1:20 : Mt 5:14, 15

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    Anew Light Ministries

    CREATING environments through the vehicles of Visual and Expressive ARTS to help plug people into their CREATOR by fostering Spiritual Growth. By combining Therapeutic Art, Christ-Centered CBT techniques, and Integrated Arts in Scriptural Education, I seek to Heal human brokenness and Redeem Fullness through the Transformative Healing Power of The Holy Spirit. 

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