Have you ever wondered what the Gospel of Matthew was like before translators and theologians got hold of it? We now have documents that answer this question! And by the way, they are written in Hebrew—the language in which Matthew wrote his gospel!
For hundreds of years, 28 ancient Hebrew manuscripts of Matthew have been locked away in libraries around the world. Now, like prying open oysters and harvesting their treasures, our groundbreaking Hebrew Gospel Pearls studies are opening these manuscripts and bringing the pearls to the surface for all to see their value!
Studying these documents raises questions we didn’t even know we needed to ask and provides answers that have eluded readers for centuries. At last, we can set aside what translators and theologians want us to think and focus on what Matthew intended us to understand.
No one else is doing anything like this! Don’t miss this unique opportunity to encounter the Gospel of Matthew “B.T.T.” (before translators and theologians). We believe these ancient manuscripts have a message for us today!
Have you ever wondered what the Gospel of Matthew was like before translators and theologians got hold of it? We now have documents that answer this question! And by the way, they are written in Hebrew—the language in which Matthew wrote his gospel!
For hundreds of years, 28 ancient Hebrew manuscripts of Matthew have been locked away in libraries around the world. Now, like prying open oysters and harvesting their treasures, our groundbreaking Hebrew Gospel Pearls studies are opening these manuscripts and bringing the pearls to the surface for all to see their value!
Studying these documents raises questions we didn’t even know we needed to ask and provides answers that have eluded readers for centuries. At last, we can set aside what translators and theologians want us to think and focus on what Matthew intended us to understand.
No one else is doing anything like this! Don’t miss this unique opportunity to encounter the Gospel of Matthew “B.T.T.” (before translators and theologians). We believe these ancient manuscripts have a message for us today!
Nehemia (00:00):
I had a friend who was in China and, and this fiancé of his would always say to him in Chinese, he didn't speak a word of English. She would just blurt out, um, uh, play piano, cow, play piano cow. And he's like, I don't know what you're saying. And then months later, I think after he married her, he found out that this is a Chinese idiom that means I'm wasting my time talking to you. It's like playing piano to a cow that doesn't appreciate it. So (Hebrew) is a Hebrew idiom. And if we don't get into how it's used in ancient Hebrew sources, we'll never understand what it means and its historical context. Amen. Amen.
Narrator (00:36):
You are listening to Hebrew Gospel Pearls with Nehemia Gordon and Keith Johnson, exploring Hebrew New Testament manuscripts for yesterday, today and tomorrow.
Nehemia (00:50):
Shalom and welcome to Hebrew Gospel Pearls, Episode 14. We are discussing today the biblical beatitudes. Our objective is to get through Matthew five verses one through 12 and in episode 13, we only got through verses one and two. The goal today will be to get through episode, get through verse three. You think we'll do it. Will we even get to verse 3, Keith?
Keith (01:13):
No, we won't because there's been, there's been something that's happened, you guys, and here's what's happened. Nehemia and I have been communicating back and forth and we realized that there are so many pearls within the biblical beatitudes that we're going to take our time and we really are going to take our time. So I consider last week an introduction to the introduction. This week, we're going to get into the actual first beatitude, Nehemia, which I'm really looking forward to. And I know that there's been, you sent me a lot of information. I have a lot of information and I really do think folks are going to be blessed by this. Folks, make sure that you, uh, get your Bibles out. Uh, come along with this. This is gonna, this is really going to be good.
Nehemia (01:47):
Okay. So let's, let's start with, um, I know I read it last week, but why don't I start by at least reading the first verse here.
Keith (01:53):
Please do.
Nehemia (01:54):
Uh, which is Matthew five, three. Remember this is the... We're looking at the Sermon on the Mount, which is Matthew chapters five through seven. There's a parallel, which is sometimes called the sermon on the plain, which is Luke chapter six. And we got through verses one through two where it just introduced it. And now verse three, (Hebrew) Blessed or happy are those, and it literally says low spirited or low in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The NRSV has blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Dalech has , (Hebrew). The poor of the spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Keith (02:42):
Tell him the significance of Dalech.
Nehemia (02:43):
So Dalech, which was a, a Christian scholar in the 19th century. And he translated the New Testament into Hebrew. And his objective - He was really a scholar of, of the Old Testament of, of biblical Hebrew. And his objective was to translate it in a style reminiscent of biblical Hebrew, uh, really that would appeal to a Jewish audience. And so he tried to translate it as closely as possible to the, to the Old Testament style. And, but he tells us straight up that he's translating from Greek. Sometimes I can see things there, like why did he choose the word (Hebrew) versus (Hebrew), right? And then why does Hebrew Matthew have (Hebrew). It's very interesting. It's a very, not expected verse or translation, rather, or version I should say. If, if Hebrew Matthew was translated from the Greek, I'm surprised he would translate (Hebrew) from the word (Hebrew) as opposed to (Hebrew), which is the way Dalech translated it. And that's the more expected translation. So, so, uh, you know, before we get into it, I want to take a slight detour, if you'll allow me? Would you give me a little bit of grace here?
Keith (03:53):
A hundred percent?
Nehemia (03:54):
Um, so last week we went through all these verses in Tanakh that have ashray, ashray. Blessed is, blessed is, blessed is. Or happy is, happy is, happy is. But we didn't say something which is, I think, kind of foundational. And this foundational background is that in biblical thought there's three types of information. And each type of information is taught, is really the realm of a different type of person or a different category of person. And specifically we have, uh, we see Tanakh in Hebrew. We call the Old Testament, we don't call it, um, Old Testament in Hebrew. Uh, in ancient Hebrew, you call it mikra, which is the, literally the reading, that which is read aloud in the synagogue. And then another name for it is tanakh. Uh, tanakh is an acronym for Torah. The instruction usually translated law. Neviim the prophets and ketuvim the writings. Now, if you're used to your English Bible, the King James version or something like that, the NRSV or the NIV or the NASB, you may open up a Hebrew Bible or even an English translation that follows the Hebrew style, like the JPS. And you'll say, where's Daniel? Why isn't Daniel among the prophets? Why is he in the writings? And you'll be looking for the category called historical books. We don't have that category in the, in, in, in the Hebrew, uh, tradition of the Tanakh. We have, um, like I said, the Torah, which is the five books of Moses. And then we have the prophets, the neviim, which are really eight books, or they're defined as eight books, even though in English they're far more than that. So what do we have in the prophets? We have, first are four historical type books, but they're part of the prophets. And they have a, they have a chronology from Joshua, from the entering of the land all the way into the exile. So it's Joshua Judges, Samuel and Kings. And you may say, wait a minute, Samuel is two books. First Samuel and second Samuel. Well not in the Hebrew. The, they were divided into Greek into First Kings - actually in Greek, they were divided the First king, Second Kings, Third Kings and Fourth Kings, right? Meaning Samuel was called First and Second Kings. What we call in Hebrew (Hebrew) Kings was called what was called in the Greek Third and Fourth Kings. So we have those four books - Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, and those are called the former prophets. And then we have what are called the latter prophets. Not that they were later, but they come later in the series of books as we arrange them on the shelf.
Nehemia (06:31):
So the latter prophets are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and then the 12 minor prophets. So there's four and four -12 minor prophets are considered a single book, even though obviously they're 12 small books. But because they were so small, it was, there was a concern the scroll would get lost if it was a separate scroll. So originally it was, um, or at some point in second temple times, it became a single scroll. So that's the prophets. Daniel isn't in there, right? But we have these historical books, right? So Kings is in there, but Daniel is not. And then we have the, the ketuvim, the writing tanakh. Ketuvim is the writings or the holy writings. Some people translate that the hagiographa the, um, the, which means the holy writings. Uh, the holy writings are, begin with Psalms, although in some manuscripts that begins with Chronicles, actually. So you have, you have what are called the books of truth. (Hebrew) and that's an acronym. The acronym is for Job, Proverbs and Psalms, although not in that order. Uh, that spells (Hebrew) and are special books because they actually have their own accent system, right? Every, every word or every, um, phrase, I should sayin the tanakh has an accent associated with it. Um, every unit of speech has an accent, uh, as Hebrew defines it, associated with it. But then the three truth books (Hebrew), they have their own accent system. And then you have the five scrolls - the five scrolls are, and they have different orders, even in different Hebrew Bibles. So they are Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Esther, Lamentation, and Ruth. And then you have, at the end, you have Ezra/Nehemia, which is one book. You have Daniel, which is obviously one book.
Nehemia (08:14):
And then you have Chronicles, which is one book. And altogether that's 24 books. That's the Tanakh. Now, why do I bring that up? Because that division into three is something that's already mentioned in the tanakh. It's also mentioned in the New Testament, which then we'll get to. But just to bring a verse in tanakh that reflects this - Jeremiah 18:18. And can I ask you to read that Keith Jeremiah 18?
Keith (08:39):
Absolutely. So I'm reading from the NASB Jeremiah 18:18. Then they said, come and let us devise plans against Jeremiah. Surely the law is not going to be lost to the priest nor counsel to the sage, nor the divine word to the prophet. Come on and let us strike at him with our tongue and let us give no heed to any of his words.
Nehemia (09:05):
So what happened is Jeremiah warned the people. He said, this religious system, this religion that you've created is going to be destroyed. The Babylonians are going to conquer the land and send you an exile and the false Torah that you get from the priest and the false wisdom that you get from the Sage and the false prophets you get from the prophet - those will be destroyed, there'll be lost. And he comes along and says, uh, or the, the, these false people come along and say, no, these things won't. So let's just kill Jeremiah. And that will invalidate his prophecy and we'll be able to continue in our false religion. But what we see is in the, in the mind of the ancient Israelite, there's three realms of information. There's Torah taught by a cohen, a priest. There's wisdom or counsel in this case, advice really, it could be translated as well, taught by a Sage, a wise person, a haham. And there is word, literally word from the prophet. And why is this important? Because in Matthew chapter one through four, we talked about how Yeshua was being presented as a prophet. In Matthew five through seven, he's being presented as a wise man, as a sage, right? We have those three realms of information - Torah, prophets, writings, and writings really is the wisdom. What do we have in the writings? We have Proverbs, we have Ecclesiastes. We have Daniel. Look at Daniel in the first chapter. It talks about how he was a wise man, how he was trained in wisdom. That's what he's doing in the writings. So we have this division into three in the tanakh, um, in ancient Israel rather. And the Tanakh itself is divided along that. And then now we see in, in Matthew one through four, and, and I think, especially in like four, we saw he's being presented as a prophet.
Nehemia (10:47):
And now he's being presented as the wise man, as the, as the, hakham, according to that same division. Ezekiel 7:26 is another one. It says, and they will seek a vision from the prophet. Yes. And Torah will be lost from the Cohen, from the priest, the instruction from the priest and advice or counsel from the elders. So elder is another term for a sage, cause often those who are old have wisdom. Sometimes young people have wisdom. So you see this division into three and whenever you see a phrase like ashrey as a wisdom saying. Right. So right from the bat, people standing and hearing issue, a preach would hear ashrey, ashrey, ashrey and they knew, okay, this is a sage who's speaking to us wisdom. These are a typical wisdom saying, there's a very cool thing I can do on my computer and in my tap tap program in Accordance. I go to the tanakh and I type in the word ashrey, let's do it. And I do a search and I get ashrey, blessed is and appears in the tanakh, it appears 44 times in 41 verses. And then I can do a thing where it does analysis. And it tells me, um, or sorry, I do a thing where it says, um, let's see hits graph, and it shows me how many hits. Just like, you know, you do hits and like, uh, well, back in the old days, when they had search engines, that would tell you how many hits you got. So how many hits are here? So if you look at the graph, you'll see there's, uh, almost all of the, um, or a very large percentage of the ashrey statements are in Psalms and Proverbs.
Nehemia (12:25):
Now, what does Psalms have to do with wisdom? So wisdom encompasses things like songs and praise. That's in that realm of wisdom. And then you have a reference of that division of three in Luke 24:44. So this is when they're walking on the road to a Emmaus, then he said to them, these are my words that I spoke with you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Torah of Moses, the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. Does he just mean the book of Psalms? I don't think so. I think he means Torah, neviim and ketuvim. And the first book in the ketuvim is the Psalms, right? It's the beginning of the wisdom section, which, uh, is, is the Psalms. Uh, Ben Sira, who it was written around 200 BC and then translated about 25 years later by his grandson. And he mentions, many great teachings have been given to us through the law and the prophets and the others that followed them. They don't mean people that followed the prophets here. What he means is the books that follow in the order, Torah, prophets, and writings, right? When you have them arranged on a shelf it's Torah, prophets and writings, right? They weren't bound necessarily into a single scroll. They may have been, I suppose, but, but, uh, they definitely were, were arranged in that order. And he says, my grandfather, his grandfather's name was Yeshua, incidentally (this is Ben Sierra, 175 BC) who had devoted himself especially to the reading of the law and the prophets and the other books of our ancestors. That's the writings or the wisdom books. So here we are now in Matthew, we've reached the wisdom sayings. And that's really how I think we have to look at all of Matthew chapter five through seven. It's a series of teaching of wisdom sayings.
Keith (14:03):
And in the beginning when you saw the word ashrey, when you first saw that in Matthew chapter five verses one (which was going to be one episode) but verses verses three to 12, the beattitudes, did you think.... It seems to me, Nehemia, that what really caught your attention. Why we couldn't go any further is because that word caused you to slow down - the word itself?
Nehemia (14:27):
Oh, absolutely. I want to look at every place in the tanakh where we have this wor., Not just in the tanakh, you know, we won't, we won't get to it probably in the series, but I spent, uh, a very long time going through all the ashrey statements in the writings of the ancient rabbis. Right? It's it, you know, just as Yeshua taught ashrey statements, blessed is the man, blessed is the person who does XYZ. They have many of their own statements. And I think it's important to get that historical context, that cultural context. Now Yeshua is coming as a sage teaching wisdom.
Keith (14:58):
Excellent. Excellent. So they're like wisdom sayings. I mean, eventually he opens up with this and they stop and they say, okay, these are the wisdom sayings. Excellent.
Nehemia (15:06):
Now give me some grace here.
Keith (15:09):
Uh, more grace you want in now.
Nehemia (15:11):
So you know what, I'm going to save it, I'm going to save it for later. Let's jump into Matthew chapter five verse three, because this is now our first wisdom saying that we have here.
Keith (15:19):
I would like permission to get grace from you for something before we get started. Um, is that one of the things, the reason that I like to call this, the biblical beatitudes is because I'm always asking myself this question and really this started, Nehemia, when you and I started studying together. What opened my eyes, having been a person who would start with the New Testament and then try to figure out what was going on in Tanakh, was I switched my thinking and my thinking was if I saw it in the New Testament, um, I'm assuming, and I use that word very carefully, that somehow it came from the Tanakh. So when I know we're going to get to 5:3, but I want to read one verse and I just want your response to this. Okay? We're going to read 5:3 in my English Bible. It says blessed is, uh, the poor in spirit, I think is what it says in the NASB. Um, there's a verse I want to read. And I want to ask you, if you think it's possible, this verse or verses like this, would have been in the mind of Yeshua in the wisdom sayings. The first one is in first Samuel chapter two, verse eight. It says this, He raises the poor from the dust. He lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with nobles and inherit a seat of honor, for the pillars of the earth are Yehovah's, and he set the world on them. That is First Samuel 2:8. Then Psalms 51:17, last one. And I think this is the key. The sacrifices of God (in the NASB) are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Are these things background as he opens up this first verse?
Nehemia (16:48):
So they're definitely background. The question is, does that apply to this verse, right? Um, in Psalm 51:17, I think you have a much greater, stronger case than First Samuel 2:8. Um, so, so here, here's the interesting thing. So in the English, based on the Greek, we have a poor in spirit. Um, and I was speaking to some people, it was some, some Christians, regular Sunday Christians. I said, what does it mean to be poor in spirit? And this, uh, person named Jimmy, he says poor in spirit are those who don't know about God. Is what he told me. So is, now you immediately jumped to financially poor, which is I Samuel. And that's definitely something the tahakh talks about. First Samuel 2, those, those who were impoverished, those who are financially poor. What does it mean to be poor in spirit? Is that the same thing as being poor? Uh, and so the Greek has the word (Greek), and this is very cool thing I can do with my, um, with, with Accordance. Now, uh, in fact, I want to see if we can actually do a share screen and show it to the people. Um, ah, we're gonna choose the Septuagint, right? So what am I searching? I'm not searching the, um, the Greek New Testament. I'm searching the Greek Old Testament. And why am I doing that? Because the, uh, the, um, the approach of many scholars is to say when they translated, um, the, uh, Septuagint, what they did is they took specific Hebrew words and they would repeatedly translate it that way almost mechanically.
Nehemia (18:37):
And so you have what are called equivalents. So there's an equivalent that, and I'm looking for the Hebrew equivalent (Greek). So we could look in the Greek dictionary and that's valuable, right? We can look in the Greek dictionary. So for example, if we go back to this window here and we look up and we'll look in little Scott, right? Uh, LSJ little S uh, this is the big dictionary of little Scott, and it brings you here is how it's used. And, you know, it could be beggarly, um, in these different Greek texts, right? So this is (Greek), and we have Aristophanes. So we have different ways that Greeks use these words and that's important. But we should also look and see when the Greek Old Testament uses that. What word does it translate in the tanakh? What words? And so here I have a verse Exodus 23:11, it translates the word Evion.
Nehemia (19:31):
Evion is a poor person. That's a new thing, Keith. I used to have to do this by hand. I would pull up the Greek and I would try to figure out, okay, what word is it translating in the Hebrew? Okay, I see that word. Here it actually directly searches for you. The word ani, ani with an ion which is poor. And then here's a really beautiful thing here. So I can do analysis. It gives me a list of words that are translated. One time it's the word Tov, which is good. Okay, well, there may be a paraphrase or something, but the words that are common as (Hebrew), which is a needy person, a poor person, doll, 20 times, poor person, and then ani with ion, poor afflicted, 38 times. And roche, roche with a vav, which is, um, uh, impoverished.
Nehemia (20:19):
So we have these different words for, really four different words that are translating the word. And what we do, what we can do with this method is find out what's the Hebrew behind the Greek. So the Hebrew behind the Greek is, is financially poor. Exactly what you said. But then it adds another word, poor in spirit. Right? So, so then, then I've got to ask the question, why didn't Shem Tov... Let's assume Shem Tov isn't from the first century, original, original, but it's a translation, right? Which is what most scholars think. Why didn't Shem Tov translate at something like ani or doll or roche, or (Hebrew)? Why do you translate it (Hebrew). And what does (Hebrew) mean? Is, is, is really another question. All right. So we have two questions here. What is the Greek mean when it says poor in spirit? Does it mean they're, they're uneducated. Could mean that, right? Like what Jimmy said. Or is it possible that it means something different and maybe, um, maybe the answer is in Shem Tov's Hebrew Matthew, where it's (Hebrew) and they're there, it's a different connotation altogether.
Keith (21:26):
I definitely think it's in Hebrew.
Nehemia (21:29):
So what do you got, tell me what, what are your thoughts on this first?
Keith (21:32):
So the thing that hit me was, Nehemia, and again, I've been asking a question and as we go through the biblical beatitudes, I'm going to bring a couple of examples where I left the farm and asked other people that were people you always talk about. And I talked to the Christians and the Christians had this thought. So what I did is I went to some other Jewish people, people who have some understanding of the biblical text and ask them what some of these phrases meant apart from them being from Yeshua. And we're going to get to those as we move on the biblical beatitudes. But Nehemia, I wanted to just, and then we tried to do this last week. I want to bring this one, a statement from your cousin, and I want you to respond to it because...
Nehemia (22:10):
Remind people about my cousin, who that is.
Keith (22:12):
You, I want you to tell him that because you do such a better job.
Nehemia (22:16):
Okay? So we, we, uh, as we were starting, this somebody said, you should look at the Hebrew context of the gospels. You should look at this commentary by a Rabbi Soloveitchik. I hear the name Soloveitchik, I know that's a distant cousin of mine. And it turns out he's literally, I think it's fifth cousin, two times removed or something. I don't remember. Maybe the second cousin, 5,000 years. It's been a while since I looked at it. But he's a distant cousin from the 19th century. And he wrote what is considered to be the first Jewish commentary on the New Testament, where it wasn't an attack on the New Testament, but an actual commentary where he's trying to understand what it says. And he's not a Jew converted to Christianity. He is actually an ultra Orthodox Jew of the 19th century.
Nehemia (22:59):
So, and it's been now translated into English. So, yes, my cousin.
Keith (23:02):
So this is really powerful. So this is an example where I'm going to someone who's not from the tradition that I would have, like, I've got my evangelical, uh, commentary here. I've looked at that and get a little disappointed at times. But when I looked at his statement, I wanted you to give a response to this. He says, for this, uh, for this particular verse, he says, oh the gladness, we could stop right there. That's his, that's his translation for ashrey, oh the gladness of the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. So I thought to myself, he says, poor in spirit. What is he looking at? Now, we talked about this just a little bit in the, in the previous episode. So what is he looking at? I know this is an English translation, but what do you believe in his mind, he would see as poor in spirit. What do you, what do you think he...
Nehemia (23:48):
So, first of all, as far as we know, he wasn't a Greek scholar. And from what we're told in the introduction to the English translation is he was, he was reading it from a French translation. Um, and in that case, maybe that's what it said in the French. That's a possibility. However, I actually have here in front of me, I have a Hebrew version.
Keith (24:12):
Amen.
Nehemia (24:13):
And it's, uh, it's really incredible. I actually had, and this was done before the pandemic started or before it was in full, I think there was actually a law in the pandemic. And I asked someone to go to the national library of Israel. No, it was last year before the pandemic. I asked someone to go to the national library of Israel and scan this for me. As far as I know, there's one copy in the world. It's in Paris. In Jerusalem they have a photocopy. And, uh, then that photocopy, um, I think is in, uh, was made into a microfilm. And so I had somebody, uh, scan the microfilm for me. So now I'm looking for Matthew chapter five, verse three. It's definitely a microfilm. I can see little, um, there's little like, uh, uh, things on the page where there was a spot on the microfoam reader, like little, um, uh, dirt. So, uh, (Hebrew) he has here. So, okay, so that's important all of a sudden or not all of a sudden, that that's important. So this is, this is very significant. So he has two things on the page in the Hebrew. He has the Hebrew text and below there's a line and below the line, he has the commentary. So it says, (Hebrew). This is, this is my cousin, Rabbi Soloveitchik's book called koray. This is the translation. Then I have to assume, I don't know, but I imagine he translated this from French. And it came to pass when he saw the multitudes and he went up the mountain (Hebrew) - and he sat down and they went to him, his disciples, (Hebrew) and he opens his mouth b(Hebrew) and he taught them saying.
Keith (25:55):
Drum roll, please. Stop.
Nehemia (25:55):
Can I read it? Blessed are those who are poor in spirit. And that's a very literal translation from some other language, because he should have said (Hebrew) if it was a Hebrew, uh, if it was the Hebrew style. (Hebrew) for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. So that's his Hebrew text. Now let's see his commentary, because maybe there is where he puts in oh, the gladness, right. Or maybe that's just the translator. I honestly don't know. So, so what was the process of the translator, uh, who produced this book, The Bible, the Talmud and the New Testament? So we're looking at, um, what page are we on, what page are you on there, Keith?
Keith (26:42):
It's page 98. Okay.
Nehemia (26:45):
So page 98 of the English. So he has, oh, the gladness of the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. So as far as I can tell that doesn't appear anywhere in, um, in the Hebrew version. Let me show you the Hebrew version here.
Keith (27:06):
This is, go ahead.
Nehemia (27:08):
Yeah, go ahead with, this is what?
Keith (27:09):
No, so this is... Folks, I want to say this while Nehemia is doing this. Uh, last week I thought we were going to get to this, but here's the good news. We're going to get to everything that we want to get to, and we're going to take our time doing it. And this is an example where we're not just looking at here's the English, which many of you bought the book by the way. It's a great book. My simple question was what do we think that Nehemia's cousin was looking at?
Nehemia (27:32):
So, so here's what he has in the Hebrew text (Hebrew). Blessed are or happy are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And then when we go over to the English translation - oh, the gladness of the poor in spirit, that is the translator, uh, who is translating his Hebrew text, as far as I can tell. Now, now maybe there's something different in the French version. I don't have the French version. Right? So let's be careful here, right?
Keith (28:01):
Yeah. Here's why I wanted to get to this because what your cousin does is something really, really powerful when he talks about what... Forget about the translation that we see the poor in spirit, when he talks about what Yeshua a meant, he immediately goes to something that I think when you see that verse you might go to. And certainly after I studied it, I went to. Can I just read one line from him? He says, when Yeshua said, oh the gladness of the poor in spirit, he meant the man, that man should be incredibly humble. Now, when you hear poor in spirit, Nehemia, do you think poor in spirit, the financial, the destitute, or do you think in terms of humility. I'm just off the top of your head when you first read the verse.
Nehemia (28:45):
By the way, down here is the commentary and, um, yeah. So, so it doesn't have that, oh, the happy thing.
Keith (28:54):
Right.
Nehemia (28:55):
So, all right. So do I hear that?
Keith (28:58):
Do you hear humility or do you hear something else?
Nehemia (29:03):
Um, I don't know. So here's the truth that when I, the more I studied this, the less I realized I knew, right? When I started out looking at it originally, I'm like, okay, poor in spirit. Those are, um, is that similar to the meek in verse five? Or is it something completely different? And my takeaway was okay, well, so the Hebrew has the phrase (Hebrew), which is low spirited. And if we want to know what it means, at least in Hebrew Matthew, we can't assume we know it's (Hebrew). That's a phrase that appears, and we have to see what in different sources. And we have to see what it means.
Keith (29:41):
And this is the, this is the part Nehemia where it gets so exciting. This is the part that I yearned for is when you begin to find out what that phrase means. Now, how much time do we have? Do we, I mean, we're getting... I think we're going to have to....
Nehemia (29:55):
I think we should. I think we should switch over to the plus section here. We're just getting rolling.
Keith (29:59):
Absolutely. Absolutely. No, this is where we can get into to this phrase. And I want to say something to people that are listening. I really, I really want to say this. This wasn't intentional. We didn't intentionally think we were going to go word by word in this situation. Actually episode 14 was going to be the entire beatitudes. Okay. Last week was an introduction. This week, we're looking at the first one and it's worth it for you to come with us to the plus section. Go ahead Nehemia, continue.
Nehemia (30:26):
I want us to take our time here. So I really think to do, to do justice to this, we have to save this for the plus section. But when we look at (Hebrew), we're going to see it, this, this low spirited. We'll see what it means in the Tanahk. And we'll see what it means in rabbinical literature. And that's important because you know, Hebrew was a spoken language in the time of Yeshua. We have Jews who spoke Hebrew, and this is an idiom - (Hebrew). It's an idiom. It's a figure of speech. The example I've given in the past is, you know, I had a friend who was in China and this fiancé of his would always say to him in Chinese. He didn't speak a word of English. She would just blurt out, uh, play piano, cow, play piano, cow. And he's like, I don't know what you're saying. And then months later, I think after he married her, he found out that this is a Chinese idiom. That means I'm wasting my time talking to you. It's like playing piano to a cow that doesn't appreciate it. So (Hebrew) low spirit is a Hebrew idiom. And if we don't get into how it's used in ancient Hebrew sources, we'll never understand what it means in its historical context.
Keith (31:28):
Amen. Amen.
Nehemia (31:29):
All right. So I want to end with a prayer. I'm going to go first and you pray and then, and then we'll, um, and then we'll continue into the plus section.
Keith (31:36):
So Nehemia, I know that you know, that you're assuming everyone knows about the plus section that's going to happen. It's going to be on your site. Can you just tell them about that? So they understand before we break.
Nehemia (31:43):
So what we decided to do is to, uh, we're going to make the series and we'll make the, I call them the main episodes or the public episodes for anybody who wants to listen. Subscribe on iTunes and whatever, wherever you get your podcasts. Come to the website Nehemiaswall.com or BFAinternational.com. And then we're going to go deeper for each episode, and share those with, in my case, people who support my ministry and in your case people who become members of BFA International. And so those are, we call those the plus episodes where we get to go a little bit deeper. And I know I get people who write to me and say Nehemia, I skipped the public episode. I go straight for the plus episode. No, no, no. The public episode is just as important as the plus. They both have information. And I would highly recommend people, listen to both of them. First, listen to the public one, then listen to the plus one and it allows us to do what we're doing. Right? It enables us to continue to be able to do this, to continue, to be able to share this information, to do the research, to take the time to pay the editors and all the producers and everything.
Nehemia (32:54):
Yehovah (Hebrew), Yehovah, our father in heaven. Yehovah, bless all those who have supported what we're doing with ashrey, With happiness. And all those who love you and call upon your name, bless them with ashrey, with happiness. And, Yehovah, all those who are lost. All those who are searching, all those who are in pain out there. Maybe don't know you, but they want to find truth. They want to find the way that you've given to mankind. Please bless them with ashrey. Bless them with happiness. And let us continue to follow in (Hebrew), in your ways. Amen
Keith (33:35):
Father, thank you so much for the sources. Thank you for the language, the history, the context. Thank you that we get to dive into these important words that were spoken 2000 years ago that are still good today. Help us to not only find out what it means, help us to find out how we can apply it into our lives. We thank you in advance for the series, what has happened, what is, and what will happen. We give it all over to you. In your name. Amen.
Narrator (33:59):
You have been listening to Hebrew Gospel Pearls with Nehemia Gordon and Keith Johnson. For a more in-depth study, check out Hebrew Gospel Pearls plus at nehemiaswall.com and BFAinternational.com. Thank you for your support.