Prophet Pearls #45 -Vaetchanan-Isaiah 40:1-26

This week’s Prophet reading—traditionally called the Haftorah—is Isaiah 40:1–26. It accompanies the Torah portion Vaetchanan (Deuteronomy 3:23–7:11).

In this Haftorah Isaiah conveys powerful promises of God’s restored blessings and presence among His people. He will come in might and care for His people as a shepherd cares for his flock. The passage concludes with a declaration of the incomparable power and majesty of the Almighty. Listen to Keith Johnson and Nehemia Gordon as they discover priceless gems in this installment of Prophet Pearls: Exploring Biblical Prophecy for Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow.

If you would like to listen to Keith and Nehemia discuss the Torah portions that correlate to the Prophet portions here are the original Torah Pearls programs recorded in 2011-2012.

Transcript

Prophet Pearls #45 - Va'etchanan (Isaiah 40:1-26)

You are listening to Prophet Pearls with Nehemia Gordon and Keith Johnson. Exploring biblical prophesy for yesterday, today and tomorrow.

Nehemia: Shalom, and welcome to Prophet Pearls, from the city of truth, the faithful metropolis, the eternal capital of Israel and the Jewish people, this is Nehemia Gordon with Keith Johnson, down in the sub-basement of the safehouse in Jerusalem, unpacking the prophets who preached at the very place where we are recording this program. Shalom.

Keith: Impressive! “Unpacking the prophets who preached this message in the very place,” did you do that on purpose? I love that, you sound like Isaiah.

Nehemia: Do what on purpose?

Keith: The “P P P P P.”

Nehemia: Oh, alliteration, yeah.

Keith: No, no, that’s hot. [laughing] Hey, Maccabees, you’re on again, thank you so much.

Nehemia: Toda, Maccabees.

Keith: Folks, I’m telling you something - we need more people like the Maccabees that will say, “Hey, whatever it takes, we’re going to help you to be able to get this message out.”

Nehemia: Amen.

Keith: And so we want to thank them, we want to thank everybody that’s actually helped us, and we’re actually in what I call the Prophet Series, I’m sorry, The Isaiah Series in the Prophet Pearls. That’s just what I call it, because I like it, because we’re in Isaiah from now to just about the end of our deal. But Nehemia, what do you think of this? You know, this is Isaiah 40 verse… is it true? Is it 40 verse 1?

Nehemia: 40 verse 1?

Keith: Do you know what happened about this? No, folks, I don’t know if you know this or not, I got so frustrated. About the third Prophet Pearls, we had to do Isaiah 40 verse 27, and we did the end, and I was so frustrated, and you said, “It’s ok, eventually we’re going to get to Isaiah 40 verse 1,” and so now literally we did the second half of this episode 3, I believe it was, correct me if I’m wrong.

Nehemia: Go on.

Keith: Let’s see, it was episode…

Nehemia: Episode 3 was 40:27 through 41:16.

Keith: Exactly, so basically, we, in episode 3 of Prophet Pearls, for those who didn’t hear it, click back…

Nehemia: Previously on Prophet Pearls…

Keith: … we did 27, and I was frustrated, I’m like, “What kind of deal is this? What do you have me doing? “We’ve got to do this section, it’s connected.” What’s the section that we’re connected to in the Torah Pearls? That’s the question.

Nehemia: Yeah, so it’s the section Va’etkhanan, now here is a little bit of…

Keith: People don’t know what that is, Nehemia. Tell them it’s Deuteronomy 3…

Nehemia: Alright, so it’s Deuteronomy… hold on a second, let me pull this out.

Keith: 3:23 through 7:11.

Nehemia: There it is, you got it from Keith Johnson first. Alright, and it’s chapter 40 verses 1 to 26. Now, here’s where things get a little complicated. This is episode 45, or it’s the 45th section.

Keith: I don't want to hear about the numbers, I’m confused.

Nehemia: No, that’s important. So for the first 44 sections of the Prophets, of the haftara, there was something in the portion which corresponded to something in the Prophets. In other words…

Keith: Don’t tell me you’re changing…

Nehemia: There was something, let’s say, I don’t know, in the portion of…

Keith: Pinkhas…

Nehemia: Pinkhas, and there was some association, they had some word, some concept, some commandment that was found in the Prophets, that connected to the Torah portion. So, for seven sections that is not the case.

Keith: So you’re telling me that if I’m listening to the Original Torah Pearls, and I get to this section, and I want to go to the haftara section, it’s going to be about like as the previous 44, you’re telling me there’s nothing there.

Nehemia: Well, no. So there’s a haftara section, there’s a Prophet section, but it’s not associated with the Torah portion.

Keith: I understand, and why is this?

Nehemia: So there are seven haftarot, or seven Prophet Portions, which are called “the sections of comfort”. And it begins with this section, chapter 40 verse 1, which starts, “Nakhamu, nakhamu ami,” “‘Comfort O comfort My people,’ says your God.” And why are these the seven sections of comfort? Because in the traditional reading cycle in the Rabbinical synagogues, these are the seven Prophets Portions read from Tisha B’av to Rosh Hashana. That means the 9th day of the fifth Hebrew month, which the rabbis call Tisha, ninth, of Av, they call it by the Babylonian name Av, ninth of Av, until Yom Tru’a, which they call Rosh Hashana, the day of shouting or trumpets, they call it “the head of the year”.

So why do you have seven sessions between the 9th of Av and Rosh Hashana? Because according to Rabbinical tradition, the Temple was destroyed on the 9th of Av in the year 70 AD. Both the First and Second Temples were destroyed on the 9th of Av. The first one in… well they give a different date. But historians say 586 BCE and 70 AD for the Second Temple. Now, I say by tradition, because in the Tanakh we’re actually told that the city of Jerusalem burned from the 7th to the 10th for four days in the First Temple, and then Josephus tells us it actually burned on the 10th. But whatever, the 9th is close enough. So the 9th of Av is…

Keith: You’re telling me the tradition is not one hundred-percent right?

Nehemia: Well, it’s interesting. So what happened on the 9th of Av that actually happened was the defeat of the Bar Kokhva uprising in 135 AD, so the rabbis said, Oh, that’s the 9th of Av, these other things are like the 7th, the 10th, we’re just going to…”

Keith: Backtrack that…

Nehemia: Backtrack that and keep a straight line and come up with a bunch of things that happened on the 9th of Av, even though they were the 10th or the 7th. You know, what’s a few days between me and you? As Abraham said to Ephron. [laughing]

Keith: Look, was it the 4th of July or not? You’re going to take away the 4th of July?

Nehemia: Maybe it was the 3rd of July, or the 6th of July, or… come on, you know…?

Keith: Okay.

Nehemia: Anyway, so long story short, 9th of Av is by tradition when the Temples were destroyed and the Bar Kokhva revolt was put down et cetera, and a bunch of other things. And so from the 9th of Av, every Shabbat from the 9th of Av until Rosh Hashana they read seven haftarot, seven Prophets sections which are from the comfort portions of Isaiah, chapters 40 through 66. Remember we talked about Isaiah having 3 sections.

There is the rebuke, there is the warning if you don’t obey the rebuke and there is the comfort. And really the concept here is we’re going from destruction, which is represented by the 9th of Av, to Rosh Hashana, or The Day of the Trumpets, when we blow the shofar for the redemption. And so these prophecies are getting us from the destruction of the Temple through the exile to the final redemption, symbolically. And so this annual reading of the cycle, in the Rabbinical tradition, echoes the patterns of prophetic history. That’s the idea.

Keith: Okay, awesome. Well, I would like to read the first verse like this, if it’s okay.

Nehemia: Sure.

Keith: “‘Nehemia! Nehemia! My people,’ says your God.” [laughing] No, I’m telling you, folks, I want to read it that way. Nehemia, if I wanted to create something like that, if I wanted to, how close would I be? Those first two words, how close is it to your name?

Nehemia: Ok, so my name is Nechemia, which means “Yah comforts,” Yehovah comforts. And this is the Word of the Week, obviously, nakhamu.

Keith: What do you mean, “obviously”?

Nehemia: It has to be. This and the next 6 portions after are based on this word.

Keith: Yeah.

Nehemia: “Nakhamu” means “comfort”, and technically it’s what we call an imperative. It’s like, go, walk, sit - you know, a command. And so nakhamu is the plural, it really is “comfort ye,” you know, y’all. Comfort, all y’all. Comfort all y’all. “‘Comfort all y’all, My people,’ says your God.”

Keith: So you’re supposed to be walking in your name. You’re supposed to be a guy of comfort. I’m sitting down here in the sub-basement…

Nehemia: And you’re not comfortable. [laughing]

Keith: No, I’m not comfortable. I’m not comfortable at all, Nehemia!

Nehemia: Well, I want to comfort people with the word of God, and sometimes giving them the word of God makes them uncomfortable. And that’s okay, because in the end it will comfort them if they embrace it.

Keith: So it kind of fits, we’re doing the word of God in an uncomfortable room.

Nehemia: The word is Nun Khet Mem, as in Nechemia, or nakhamu. “Comfort ye comfort ye, My people.” And I don’t know if you know this, but this is actually a really important verse. First of all, it’s the opening of chapters 40 through 66. But this is actually one of my favorite verses in the Tanakh. I know you make fun of me, but really this is in the top 50 favorite verses.

Keith: It’s got to be, your name is twice.

Nehemia: Not just because of my name. So I want to share a very interesting event in Jewish history that happened related to this verse. May I do that?

Keith: Please do.

Nehemia: Okay. This is something that happened on July 31, 1920. Now, between 1517 and 1917 the Turks rule Israel. 1917, the British fight the Turks, and they gradually drive the Turks out. Finally, in 1920 they appoint the first British High Commissioner, what’s called the first High Commissioner of Palestine, under the British. Now, when they’re saying “Palestine” they’re not thinking “Palestinian Arabs,” what they’re thinking is… the Romans called Judea, in 135 AD they renamed it “Palestina” in Latin, and then the Arabs called it “Philsatine,” and now the British are calling it “Palestine.” Palestinians at this point of history are Jews who live in Palestine.

So the first high Commissioner of Palestine under the British rule, his name was Herbert Samuel, and He was a Jew, he was a British Jew. And this was considered a really big deal, because Herbert Samuel was the first Jewish ruler over Israel in 2,000 years. And you say, “Oh, he wasn’t very Jewish, I mean, he was Jewish, but he was British, right?” But think about the man I’m named after, Nechemia, he was the guy who held the cup for the king of Persia. So he was a Persian governor, the Nechemia I’m named after. He was a Persian royal official. And so Herbert Samuel is seen as a latter day Nehemiah. A latter day Zerubavel, as well, who was also a Persian official.

So Herbert Samuel comes to Israel, and within a week of arriving in Israel he does something really radical; he comes to the Hurva Synagogue in the Old City of Jerusalem, and they say, “Oh, you’re the High Commissioner of Palestine, you represent the British, but you’re a Jew. Would you honor us by reading the haftara portion?” And he comes and he stands up on the platform, the bima, and he begins to read, “Nakhamu, nakhamu ami,” [laughing] “Be comforted, be comforted My people.” And imagine this… this is the…

Keith: No, no, no. Where is that synagogue?

Nehemia: What do you mean? This is the central synagogue in the Old City of Jerusalem, in the Jewish Quarter. You look at the Old City of Jerusalem from any angle and you see the Jewish Quarter, and the first thing you see is the Hurva Synagogue, it is the heart of the synagogues in the Old… obviously the heart of the Old City is the Western Wall, but in the Jewish Quarter, which is up on a hill above the Western Wall, the heart of the Jewish Quarter is the Hurva Synagogue to this very day.

Keith: Wow.

Nehemia: It was actually destroyed by the Jordanians, they recently rebuilt it, and you see this dome from everywhere you see the Old City. So imagine that. So Herbert Samuel comes and he reads this, can you imagine this? Imagine you’re a Jew and you’re sitting in the audience and you’ve been living in Israel for years and you’re ruled by these Turks who treat you like a second-class citizen. By law - as a Jew, you are a second-class citizen under the Muslims. There’s a tragic account about this Muslim ruler over there, where he sentences one of his people to death for breaking the law, and somebody comes before the sultan and says, “But that Jew did the same thing,” and he said, “Oh, well let’s kill the Jew then, we don’t want to kill one of our own. We’ve got to make an example of somebody, let’s kill the Jew.” That’s what it was like under Muslim rule, and now all of a sudden there is a Jew who’s the first governor of Israel in 2,000 years and he comes and he reads, “Be comforted, be comforted My people.” This is no small thing. There was a man who was present, named Eliezer Ben Yehuda.

Keith: No, he wasn’t there.

Nehemia: He was there in the synagogue.

Keith: No!

Nehemia: He was there in the synagogue! [laughing]

Keith: Hold on, you can’t tell this without telling me first. No, this is golden! What are you talking about?

Nehemia: Eliezer Ben Yehuda is the Jew who almost single handedly revived the Hebrew language.

Keith: Absolutely.

Nehemia: He arrived in Israel in 1880, and he started speaking Hebrew, and people thought he was crazy.

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: This was the language of synagogue, it was the language when you would study Torah, you wouldn’t speak it in the street. And actually, his son was the first native Hebrew speaker in over a thousand years, or something like a thousand years, and by 1920 there is an entire generation who is raised up speaking Hebrew. And he came to the synagogue.

Now, you have to understand something about Ben Yehuda. He was a secular Jew; in fact he was excommunicated by the rabbis, which is a really big deal. The rabbis don’t… I haven’t even been excommunicated yet. [laughing] It’s like you getting kicked out of the Methodist church.

Keith: Hey, leave that alone.

Nehemia: No, so they actually formally excommunicated Eliezer Ben Yehuda.

Keith: Lama?

Nehemia: He wasn’t just secular, he was antireligious.

Keith: Okay.

Nehemia: He said, “You religious people kept us in exile for 2,000 years, it’s time to throw off the shackles of the exile and return to our homeland and speak our language,” and they said, “Heretic. We must speak the language we spoke in exile.” And there were Jews in Israel who were speaking Yiddish, which is a dialect of German, and other Jews who were speaking Arabic, and other Jews who were speaking Turkish. They said, “We’ll speak any language but not Hebrew.” Eliezer Ben Yehuda changed it.

So he shows up at the synagogue, and this is the first time he’d been at synagogue in years, and why was he there? Because he knew the High Commissioner was coming there, and it was the first Shabbat after Herbert Samuel arrived, and here is what he wrote to his wife, whose name was Biti. Biti was actually her loving nickname, it means “my daughter,” or “my lady.” He says, “Our friend the High Commissioner read from the Torah, Biti. He read those lines from Isaiah ‘Comfort ye, comfort ye My people.’ As he read them I could not control myself. I cried, Biti, and I guess people saw me, I’m sure they wondered why I was there. For nearly 40 years I have been working to separate religion from state, haven’t I?” This is Eliezer Ben Yehuda writing. “I did it because I wanted Israel to be able to develop freely, so that those who are Orthodox and those who are free thinkers could join in the resurrection of Israel. Only in that way could our new state ever be strong.” And he goes on, “I suppose some people will think that now I am a traitor to my own ideas, they are always accusing me of that. I still believe we must keep our religion and our state apart. But Biti, it is so good a thing to see a British High Commissioner standing in the synagogue reading from the Torah.”

Keith: Wow.

Nehemia: Wow. Now, this is… I can’t emphasize how huge this was. You know, Herbert Samuel’s reading in this particular… of all the prophecies, he just happened to show up in Israel, in Palestine, in Jerusalem that week! And this is the first week he comes to the synagogue, and it was quite literally seen as the official pronouncement of the end of the third exile, him reading these words in the synagogue. We had three exiles; 400 years in Egypt, 70 years in Babylon, 1,850 years at the hands of Rome. This is how the Jews of the time described it. And Ben Yehuda, the secular anti-religious Jew, his reacting so strongly was seen as a confirmation of the gravity of this event. And here’s a witness who was there in the synagogue who wrote his followers. He says, “I was in the Hurva synagogue the day the end of the third…” I can’t even read this… and he said, “I was in the Hurva synagogue the day the end of the third exile was officially pronounced.”

Again, people, this is July 31, 1920, Shabbat, the Old City of Jerusalem, the British High Commissioner is reading “Comfort ye, comfort ye My people.” He says, “Ben Yehuda was also there,” this is a witness who saw him, “I was near enough to him so I could see the tears streaming down his face. I saw the look in his eyes, I knew then what I had always suspected - down underneath it all Ben Yehuda had a deeply religious soul. He has fought superstition and bigotry and fanaticism, but that does not mean he is not a good and humble man.”

Wow. This is a big deal. This prophecy for 2,000 years kept Jews… gave them some sense of hope, and then for this to be read… and imagine the hopes around this. We’ve been ruled by the Muslims for a thousand years, we had the crusaders and the Muslims and the Turks, and then the British came, and you remember the background of the British here, of invading Israel, is they made the Balfour Declaration, in which they declared that Palestine would be the homeland of the Jewish people. They recognized what God had already commanded. And then during the negotiations with the League of Nations, which gave the British official international recognition over so-called Palestine, the purpose of the Palestine Mandate was to establish a Jewish home in Israel.

And the first commissioner is a Jew, and he’s reading in the synagogue, and even this anti-religious Jew, his heart is just stirred up by these words: “Be comforted, be comforted My people,” coming from the first Jewish ruler in 2,000 years.

Keith: You know, it’s interesting too, because now we’re talking about that, which is real history, you know, this is a prophecy for yesterday, today and tomorrow. I really appreciate you sharing that story, Nehemia, because there are so many levels that are amazing, but the other thing that’s amazing is that we’ve had this idea in the seminaries, we’ve taught in the seminaries that there are two Isaiahs. That the one that we talked about in the first part is different than this one, because this one is just too… as we called him, Nehemia, “the eagle-eye prophet”. He sees too clear. For him to be able to be prophesying now in 40 verse 1 about the future, and then you bring that story. I mean, is that what Isaiah saw? Did he see that plus other things? I mean, it’s like…

Nehemia: And could I tell you how this is seen even to this day by many Jews? So I actually grew up being taught that we were in a period of history called “atkhalta de’geh’ula,” “the beginning of the redemption.” And you could argue whether it began in 1917 with the invasion of the British, or it began on July 31, 1920 with the reading of this prophecy.

Keith: Some time in that period...

Nehemia: But many Jews believe that the redemption, and it’s described in a number of places in prophecy, as the birth pangs. It talks about a woman in travail, giving birth, and if you think about birth pangs - and you’ve had three sons - I don’t know, were you in the room or were you hiding?

Keith: I was absolutely in the room.

Nehemia: Okay, so if you think about birth pangs, it’s a process. The baby doesn’t get born in one second, right? I mean, it could be many hours, depending on the woman. And so many Jews look at this and say, “We are currently in the birth pangs of the Messiah,” that’s what it’s called. The birth pangs of the Messiah, I’ve talked about that before, I think, and we look and we say, “Oh, you know, wait a minute, after this there was the Holocaust. Yeah, it hurts. There’s war, there’s pain. This is the birth pangs of the Messiah.”

Keith: Well, I’m down here in this sub-basement folks, you know, Nehemia leaves me here by myself. I sometimes sneak out and catch him, but while I’ve been here, I’ve been looking at history. And you know, we’ve prepared our Prophet Pearls, this is the third time through, and so I was doing some research just about this issue, the Palestinian issue and Palestine, and you hit the nail right on the head, Nehemia, as far as the naming of Palestine and what presently they call the Palestinians, but what’s so powerful to me is when verse 2 says, if I can please…

Nehemia: Please, oh my gosh, I’ll try not to cry.

Keith: No, please, cry as much as you want. This is beautiful.

Nehemia: “Speak to the heart of Jerusalem…”

Keith: Let me, okay…

Nehemia: “...proclaim to her.” Go on, you read it.

Keith: No, no, I’m trying to get it, you’ll start weeping again.

Nehemia: Go on.

Keith: This is a really special time. “And call out to her that her…” and here is the word that they’re using here “tzeva’a,” which you know, we use it in “tzeva’ot.” But it says that “her warfare has ended”. Now, think about this. So Isaiah is there, and you know, they say it’s too clear. It’s too straightforward. It’s too prophetic for him, it’s got to be a different Isaiah for him to say that. And you just brought this example, and what was going on in 1917, 1920 going on into Israel declaring itself as… war, war, war, war…

Nehemia: And war is still going on.

Keith: Yeah, and war is still going on.

Nehemia: That’s why it’s the beginning.

Keith: It goes from warfare to, “that her iniquity has been removed”. And then it goes on to say, and you know, you talked about birth pangs, that she has received of Yehovah’s hand, and I don’t know, can this be correct? That she has received dual or double…?

Nehemia: Double, for all her sins.

Keith: Man, oh man.

Nehemia: And that of course references Exodus 22:7 verse 6 in the Hebrew, where if you steal you actually have to pay back double. And that’s that, metaphorically now, Israel is being paid back double for her iniquities. It’s… wow, isn’t that the truth? Look at the Holocaust, look at all the suffering that we’ve gone through, you know?

And can I just say something here about verse 2? So you translated it as “her iniquity has been removed,” and I’m wondering, are there other translations? Because I didn’t even look in the English, let’s see if… because that’s not what it says in Hebrew. I love when this happens. JPS has, “that her iniquity is expiated.” I love that word, expiated. So vague, who knows what it means? “Her iniquity is pardoned,” in King James Version. NRSV has “her penalty is paid.” Can I tell you what it says in the Hebrew?

Keith: What is it, like, “make amends” or “restore”?

Nehemia: The word is “nirtza,” which means “accepted”. I think we had this as a Word of the Week, maybe, or we definitely talked about it.

Keith: I don’t know if we did.

Nehemia: “Ratza” in biblical Hebrew means “to be accepted,” a sacrifice being accepted, and if I had to translate this without any kind of agenda I’d say, “her iniquity offering has been accepted”. Wow.

Keith: Wow.

Nehemia: Her sin offering, or literally, her iniquity has been accepted.

Keith: Well she’s received double from Yehovah’s hand for all of her sins.

Nehemia: Wow.

Keith: Nehemia, the thing is, if we were to talk about the section that’s coming…

Nehemia: Wait, go on…

Keith: No, no, go ahead.

Nehemia: I’ve got to offer my drash. My homiletical interpretation of this, the deeper meaning. So here we’ve got this commandment of Exodus 22:7 in the English, verse 6 in the Hebrew. “If a man shall deliver unto his neighbor money or stuff to keep and it be stolen out of the man’s house, if the thief be found let him pay double.” So why do we have to pay double for our sins? And I’m just thinking out loud here, this is me going off the reservation. Israel was entrusted to guard the Torah and we let it get stolen, and now we had to pay double. Move on.

Keith: And what do we pay for that?

Nehemia: What do you mean?

Keith: Just your opinion on that.

Nehemia: 2,000 years of suffering in exile.

Keith: No, no, I’m saying, this is your… you thought about that.

Nehemia: That’s my thought, yeah. Well, that’s why I said we had to pay double.

Keith: Okay.

Nehemia: Maybe, I don’t know. It’s just a thought.

Keith: Okay.

Nehemia: Now this is a verse you wanted to get to.

Keith: No, I wouldn’t say I wanted to get to, because it’s interesting. You know, when I read this verse I keep asking myself… here’s what the issue is. So there are some verses that for me in my heritage and my background, that when I hear the verse I don’t think of where it came from, the concept. And there are times now where I am actually confused. I want to make a confession. I’m sitting here right now and I’m like, “A voice is calling, clear the way of Yehovah in the wilderness, make smooth in the desert a highway for our God. Let every valley be lifted up and every mountain and hill be made low, and let rough ground become a plane and the rugged terrain a broad valley.”

Let me stop there. So I’m thinking, “a voice is calling, clear the way…” and I’m thinking now, “Did I first hear that at the end of the book? Did I hear that in the New Testament first? Or was that something I first learned in Isaiah?” And I guarantee you I didn’t first get it in Isaiah, meaning, I’m talking about in my tradition.

Nehemia: Right.

Keith: And that’s where there has been a bit of a shift with me.

Nehemia: Yeah.

Keith: Where I’ve had to ask myself, when I read something, or I’ve read something, I’ve actually been forced now, Nehemia, to say, “Where does it come from and what was its original context? And then going back and saying, “Okay, so what does it mean there?”

Nehemia: So let me… can I explain what the real issue is here? So I’m going to read Matthew chapter 3 verse 3. It’s speaking about John the Baptist, it says, “For this is he that was spoken of through Isaiah the prophet, saying, ‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness, make ye ready the way of the Lord, make his path straight.’” And the issue here is really where we put the comma. Because when we read it in the Hebrew what we read is…

For example, the New Revised Standard Version, which is a Christian translation but still gets it right based on the Hebrew, “A voice cries out, ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord (in Hebrew, Yehovah), make straight in the desert a highway for our God.’ ” And again, this is an image we’ve seen or maybe will get to more, where we see Yehovah coming from the desert, that’s the image, you know, Yehovah comes from the desert of the south, from Sinai, from Horev, from Se’ir, and that’s the image here. God’s coming, we better get ready, we better prepare the way for Him.

And what’s interesting here is the voice crying out, comma, “in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,” or, is the voice crying out, in the wilderness, comma, “prepare the way of the Lord.” And this is really interesting to me, because I’ve actually read scholarly discussions about this that said Matthew took it out of context and misunderstood it. He thought the voice was in the wilderness and John the Baptist is the voice, and so John the Baptist is saying “Prepare the way of the Lord,” as opposed to the voice is crying out, “Prepare the way of the Lord in the wilderness.”

And I looked back in the Greek of the Septuagint and the Greek of Matthew, and it’s not so clear that the Greek got it wrong. In other words, you could legitimately translate even the Greek of Matthew as, “A voice cries out ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,’” meaning there are no commas in the Greek.

Keith: Right.

Nehemia: So isn’t that interesting? They said, “Oh, here is what the Hebrew means in context, no question about that, here is what the Greek of the New Testament means in context, the New Testament got it wrong,” but actually I think they’re saying the same thing. I don’t see any difference reading it in the Greek. And I’ve spoken to a Greek expert about this, and he said, “Yeah, you could read it either way, there are no commas in the Greek.” [laughing]

Keith: And I think that’s the part that I said where I first would hear something, because it’s like this element, please bear with me, be patient with me.

Nehemia: Yeah.

Keith: So you hear “Comfort, comfort My people.”

Nehemia: Yeah.

Keith: Then in 1920, this man stands up and he says that text, “Comfort, comfort My people” and if you’re sitting there you’re interpreting and you’re saying, “Okay, was this the act that Isaiah was talking about?” In other words, was that the act that Isaiah was talking about? Or is it something that’s continued? And then when I get to Matthew and I hear that, so then I just ask myself, “So what is…” And again, we’re not talking about the New Testament right here, we’re talking about Isaiah in its original language, history and context, but it causes me to ask, “So what was the interpretation?” I appreciate the fact that you brought that up, it’s just one of those issues…

Nehemia: And verse 5 is the key verse for understanding the original context, can you read me verse 5?

Keith: Yeah. Okay, so I already mentioned “every hill lifted up” et cetera.

Nehemia: So we’re preparing the way, and now what happens after we prepared the way?

Keith: Yeah, yeah, yeah. “Then the glory of Yehovah will be revealed.”

Nehemia: Amen! That’s the point. “And…”

Keith: “And all flesh will see it together, for the mouth of Yehovah has spoken.”

Nehemia: Alright. Now, so there you could say, “Well, Matthew took it out of context, because not all flesh was revealed then,” but he actually didn’t quote that part of the prophecy.

Keith: No, he didn’t.

Nehemia: He’s taking this particular verse and saying, “Okay, here’s an application of that.” Not that necessarily that’s what Isaiah was always talking about, because the key in Isaiah is verse 5. And by the way, this is a single prophecy, verses 3 through 5. We have little spaces in Hebrew to see that that’s a separate prophecy, verse 6 is already another prophecy, if I’m not mistaken.

And what does it mean “a voice crying out, ‘In the wilderness prepare a way to the Lord?’” So Isaiah is in a vision, and he sees something, and what does he see? He actually doesn’t see anything, he hears.

Keith: That’s right.

Nehemia: A voice crying out! And what does the voice cry out?

Keith: Make way.

Nehemia: “In the wilderness prepare a way for Yehovah! Make straight in the Arava a highway for our God.” Okay, beseder. That’s actually this classic image of Yehovah coming from the desert of the south, from Sinai.

Keith: Wow. And then it says again, though…

Nehemia: Verse 6. A voice crying out.

Keith: A voice says again, “Call out!” Is that what it’s saying?

Nehemia: Yeah. The voice says to him, “call out”. And he said, “What shall I call out?” This reminds me of where he says, “Read? I can’t read, I don’t know how to read.” And the other guy says, “Well, I can’t read because it’s sealed.” Remember that? In Isaiah?

Keith: Exactly. “All flesh is grass and its loveliness is like the flower of the field,” that’s what you’re going to cry out. “The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of Yehovah blows upon it, surely the people are grass, it doesn’t last for long. It withers, the flower fades…” this is a pick and choose time folks, pick and choose.

Nehemia: Pick and choose, what does that mean? Oh, we don’t have time…

Keith: No, we can’t do the whole thing, but I love the last part of this phrase in Isaiah 40 verse 8, and I just want to look at it here. “And the word of Yehovah stands (or rises) for…” I could say just for a thousand years, no, “le’olam,” it stands forever. His word stands forever, and so what a great thing to invest in. When I say by our time, our energy, and I dare say even our resources, where we can do everything we can to try to understand what the word of God says, what it means, how it can apply in our life, because that’s something that stands forever. In other words, He didn’t speak it and say, “Now it’s done.” But He spoke it, it’s written, it’s for us and we can understand it in its language, history and context.

Nehemia: Wow.

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: Verses 9 to 11 is the next prophecy, can we just read that as a unit? I love this passage.

Keith: Please, you read this one.

Nehemia: No, you read it, please.

Keith: No, no, no, you’re going to do it.

Nehemia: I’m going to read verse 9. “Upon a high mountain go up for yourself, oh herald of Zion,” is that what you have? “Harimi bako’akh kolekh,” “Raise up in strength your voice O announcer of good tidings of Jerusalem, raise up, do not be afraid, say to the cities of Judah, ‘Hineh Elo’heykhem’, ‘Behold your God.’”

Keith: No, no, no, I let you read it because you didn’t want to say this, “Get yourself up on a high mountain O Zion, bearer of good news, lift up your voice mightily O Jerusalem bearer of good news, lift it up, do not fear, say to the cities of Judah, ‘Here is your God.’” Now when they say twice in the NASB, “good news” twice...

Nehemia: Yeah, “good news.” It’s a good translation, because the word is “mevaseret.” Now, “mevaseret” means “announcer” or “announcer of good news”.

Keith: So where were you reading?

Nehemia: I was reading from the Hebrew.

Keith: You decided you didn’t want to do “mevaseret”.

Nehemia: Well it’s announcer, the announcer of good news. But it could also be announcer of bad news, by the way.

Keith: Do you remember when we were in Mevaseret…

Nehemia: Mevaseret is a name of a city today, or a town.

Keith: Yeah, do you remember when we went there?

Nehemia: No, when did we go there?

Keith: You don’t? You forget all these…

Nehemia: I’ve been there many times.

Keith: You know, it’s funny…

Nehemia: You were there once, I’ve been there a hundred times! [laughing]

Keith: I’ll be honest with you, sometimes I had really significant things, and I’ll say, “Do you remember?” And you’ll say, “No, I don’t know what…”

Nehemia: What happened in Mevaseret?

Keith: We had radio interviews over there with…

Nehemia: Oh right, yeah, yeah, yeah! That was Mevaseret? Oh, you’re right, okay, beseder. I’ve been there lots of times, like I said, you’ve been there once, it’s a big deal for you.

Keith: You know, I want to stop, folks. I want to tell you something that happens sometimes. It always happens with the husband and the wife, they’ll forget certain things and the husband will say, “Do you remember when?” or the wife will say, “Do you remember when?” and he’ll say, “No”. And sometimes, Nehemia, you don’t remember really important things, and I want you to remember these kinds of…

Nehemia: You mean things that are important to you.

Keith: The reason that I said it was important, let me just tell you. Because it was the first time that I had ever heard good news in English, which had a certain image in my mind, and then this word “mevaseret”. And then we were in this place, and for me, you have to understand, it was like a really big deal, because it was like, wow, how is this word used, and how is it translated and how did we get to good news in English, like in here in Isaiah in NASB? What was the process? And again, like I say, it’s just another one of those examples where I’m in the Land of Israel at the actual place that’s named that, so that the town in English, I could’ve said the town is named “Good News”.

Nehemia: Announcer of good news.

Keith: Announcer of good news.

Nehemia: Mevaseret is announcer of good news. And you studied at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, right?

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: You’ve got your masters, in Divinity or something like that.

Keith: Cum laude, are you kidding me?

Nehemia: Cum laude. So, do you remember what the Greek word for “gospel” is? Evangelion, right?

Keith: Evangelion, yes.

Nehemia: Evangelion is “gospel”, and so here is the interesting thing. I looked in the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of Isaiah in this case, and the Greek translation of mevaseret, announcer of good news, is evengalizomonos, which means, someone who announces good news. And you could translate it literally as, “evangelist”. So now can you read me the verse with evangelist?

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: Read it now, the verse with evangelist in it…

Keith: You mean evangelist, so, in other words…

Nehemia: Because that’s the Greek word, evengalizomonos. What verse are we in? 40 verse 9. “Get you up to a high mountain O Zion, evangelist of good tidings, lift up your voice with strength O Jerusalem, evangelist of good tidings. Lift it up, do not fear, say to the cities of Judah, ‘Here is your God.’”

Now, here is why this is interesting to me. Not because of the connection with evangelist. That is interesting, and actually that is… you know, obviously evangelion in the New Testament context means the good news, right? Is that known to the Christian world?

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: Okay. So here this word “announcer of good tidings,” “announcer of good news” is in the feminine. It’s a woman who announces it. It’s a female evangelist. Isn’t that interesting?

Keith: You’re getting better, Nehemia.

Nehemia: No, this is part of your feminist agenda. But this is a fact, it’s in the feminine. It says mevaseret Tzion, and you could say in Hebrew mevaser Tzion, a male who announces the good news. Why is it that the woman is announcing good news? Because this was a role that people had, you know? They didn’t internet, they didn’t have CNN, they didn’t have Twitter. If there was news that needed to be spread, there was a woman who would travel on that round and say, did you hear the good news? We defeated the Babylonians. Did you hear the good news? There’s a new king and he’s been anointed in Jerusalem at the Gihon Spring. Did you hear the good news? The king now has 400 chariots. And this was a job of certain women that would go around, and they would go to the city and they would raise up their voice at the top of their lungs and they would say, “Solomon has been anointed king! Solomon is the mashiakh!” And they would announce this to the cities of Jerusalem, and what the prophet is talking about is something everybody knew from daily life. There were women who travelled around and they would announce news. And in this particular case, the woman comes around and she says, “Hineh Elo’hekhem”, “behold your God”, “Hineh Adonay Yehovah”, “behold Lord Yehovah”, “Bekhazak yavo uzro’o moshla lo”, “He will come in strength, and His arm will be mighty and rule....” This is beautiful. You get the image of what’s happening, the woman she’s going around she’s standing in the public square and saying, “Behold!” She’s the evangelist.

Keith: [laughing] This is impressive. I really do love that. And you have any examples where we can read in Scripture where we see a woman going out and making those announcements?

Nehemia: Well, here is one right here.

Keith: Obviously, here, it’s saying this as in the feminine, but I’m talking about an example where it says, “and she came and she announced,” can you think of that? I wonder, for example, when the king…

Nehemia: I think about the woman from Tekoa.

Keith: Or when the king was anointed and she… I’m trying to think of an example like that, while you’re doing that. That was good stuff there. Can you think of that?

Nehemia: Yeah, I’m going to bring it here, hold on a second. You’re asking me to pull stuff out here. Okay. So there’s the woman from Tekoa who comes and makes the announcement, was it to king David or something? Wait, I’m only looking at Isaiah, hold on.

Here, this is in 2 Samuel chapter 14 verse 4, and this is a little different, because she was coming before the king and Joab sent her. It’s verse 4, it’s where he’s telling her to do it and when she actually does it is verse 9 or so, let me see. Okay. The king asked her, “What troubles you?” And she answered, “Alas, I am a widow, my husband is dead, your maidservant had two sons,” and she tells her whole story. So it’s not strange for him to have this woman who’s coming, and she says, “Look, I’ve got this issue I need to talk to you about.” But I don’t know, do you have an example of a woman coming to make an announcement?

Keith: No, I was trying to think, and actually I can’t think of it at the top of my head.

Nehemia: Does anything come to mind?

Keith: When the king was anointed and she came and said… but you know what? I’d have to check.

Nehemia: But what’s interesting is that in later Jewish tradition this reality continued - that women would make announcements and they would tell the news, but then we’ve turned this into a negative thing. We have in Jewish tradition, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard this, this figure of the yenta. The yenta is the woman gossiper who goes around telling the news, well, I think that’s part of this anti-women agenda. And that originally the woman who would be announcing, she was an evangelist, she was announcing the good news.

Keith: Amen.

Nehemia: She was the Twitter of her day.

Keith: Amen. Wow.

Nehemia: Yeah. Verse 12 is a new prophecy.

Keith: Verse 12 is a new prophecy; can I go to it?

Nehemia: Please.

Keith: “Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand?” We could have a revival off of that right there. “And marked the heavens by the span,” No…

Nehemia: Oh, no...

Keith: No, no, no.

Nehemia: Is that what you got?

Keith: No, it can’t be.

Nehemia: “He has measured the heavens with His pinky,” is what it says in Hebrew.

Keith: Yeah, it says… so beautiful.

Nehemia: Yeah.

Keith: “And calculated the dust of the earth by the measure and weighed the mountains in a balance and the hills on a pair of scales. Who has directed the spirit of Yehovah or as His counsellor has informed Him?”

Nehemia: Really? That’s what you have, “directed”?

Keith: That’s what it says, “directed.”

Nehemia: What? No, it’s the same word as in verse 12, where it says, “He has measured the heavens with His pinky.” And it literally means, “who has measured the spirit of Yehovah?” And the point is, the spirit of Yehovah is infinite, it can’t be measured.

Keith: Amen. Well, who has counselled Him?

Nehemia: Nobody.

Keith: Who set Him down and said…

Nehemia: Nobody, it’s a rhetorical question, the answer is, nobody.

Keith: Your approach that you’re taking right now with the nations is just not wise, let’s give You some advice. That just doesn’t happen.

Nehemia: Yeah. Now here is an interesting kind of tidbit. This is more for the advanced people. And that’s in verse 13 he says, “who has measured the spirit of Yehovah?” And the Masoretes, these were the scribes who preserved the Hebrew text, and they preserved the accents and the vowels, so they actually did something a little bit controversial here, and we have Jewish sources that point this out. The Masoretes, apparently, according to the Jewish sources, changed the accents in this verse, and instead of making it, “Who has measured the spirit of Yehovah?” You know, the accents have a number of functions, one of them is a series of commas and semicolons and pauses, so they changed the accents, according to the Jewish sources, to make the verse read, “Who has measured the ru'akh?” Which could mean the “wind” or the “spirit,” pause, “Yehovah.” That is, Yehovah is the one who has measured the spirit. That’s not what it says in the original [laughing] context obviously, but they were concerned…

Keith: You’re saying that they’ve made it as a pause pause before Yehovah?

Nehemia: Right, and why did they do that? They were nervous that someone would come along and say, “Oh, we don’t know what a rhetorical question is; there is an answer to this question.” And the answer, who has measured the spirit of Yehovah? I don’t know, the angel Metatron, or the angel Gabriel or something. You know, they were afraid of some heresy that might come along and actually give an answer to what is a rhetorical question.

And this reminds me of a verse, Proverbs 30 verse 4, which Jews also understand to be a rhetorical question, to which the answer is “nobody”.

Keith: And last question, you said they changed the vowels of which word?

Nehemia: The accents.

Keith: Oh, the accents.

Nehemia: And so what they did here, let me pull out the accents here, Proverbs 30…

Keith: Because I’m seeing….

Nehemia: What verse are we in?

Keith: 13.

Nehemia: 13. Sorry, I’m looking at three different bibles here. So we have here a tipkha, which is a minor pause. Actually, it’s a pretty big pause. “Mi tiken et ru’akh, Yehovah?” and what you should’ve had, probably, was something like a munakh in “ru’akh,” “Mi tiken, et ru’akh Yehovah?” Who has measured, the spirit of Yehovah? That’s what you would’ve expected.

Keith: Impressive.

Nehemia: Yeah. Anyway, that’s kind of a more advanced point for those who know about biblical accents. And this is actually brought as an exception to the rule where the accents don’t actually fit the text, and they were probably changed intentionally.

Keith: You heard it here first.

Nehemia: In Jewish sources – meaning, this isn’t some conspiracy theory of, “Oh, it’s Jews, they’re hiding it.” No, this is the Jews saying, “This is what we did.” This is what they did.

Keith: “With whom did He consult and who gave Him understanding? Who taught Him in the path of justice? Who taught Him knowledge?” You know it’s funny, as I’m reading this, I just have to be honest with you, as I read this section in Isaiah I always think about Job. More from the perspective of Yehovah coming to Job and saying, “Now, were you there when I did this and did you do this…?”

Nehemia: Oh absolutely, Job 38 through 40, please, that’s homework, go read those chapters.

Keith: Yes, you got to read those chapters.

Nehemia: It’s a series of rhetorical questions. “You want answers?” He’s saying to Job.

Keith: You want the truth?

Nehemia: “You want the truth? You can’t even understand the world around you, how can you understand Me, who is an eternal being?”

Keith: Man, oh man, that’s amazing. And again, that’s Yehovah speaking.

Nehemia: Job 38 through 40.

Keith: “Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket and are regarded as a speck.

Nehemia: I love that phrase, “drop in a bucket.” That’s an expression we have today.

Keith: Yeah, absolutely. So here is the question - for you, Nehemia, as you’re reading through this, what would be the part that you would say that would be a good challenge for people?

Nehemia: A challenge?

Keith: In other words, for me, for example, 21 is…

Nehemia: I have to talk about 18.

Keith: Yeah, go ahead.

Nehemia: It says, “Ve’el mi tedamyun El uma dmut ta’arkhu lo,” “to whom shall you compare God, and what is the image that you shall make like Him/assess Him/describe Him? And I think of Deuteronomy chapter 4 verses 15 to 16, and I should tell people, we’ve been putting out these Prophet Pearls, and we’ve asked people to contribute original artwork. And we’ve had some amazing artwork that people have submitted, but there have been a couple of them where I had to send it back to the people and say, “I can’t accept this, and the reason I can’t post this is because of Deuteronomy 4:15-16.” Let me read it.

It says, “You saw no form of any kind the day Yehovah spoke to you at Horev out of the fire. Therefore, watch yourselves very carefully so that you do not become corrupt, and make for yourself an idol, an image of any shape, whether formed like a man or a woman.” And so there have been people who were very well-meaning, they had nothing negative, they were really devout people, and they sent me an image and it had Yehovah represented as a man, and I said, “This is a beautiful work of art, but I can’t use this because this is a violation of Deuteronomy 4:15-16.” And they said, “Oh wow, I’m so glad you pointed that out, because I never thought of it that way.” But there it is.

Now here is the really interesting thing. And in this I’m going to challenge the Christians. You close your ears, Keith. Now, Christians of course will have… not in every church, but in many churches they’ll have some sort of image of Jesus, or Yeshua, who… in Christian doctrine you have the Trinity and they say is God. So if he’s God, how can we have an image of him? And this is a really interesting thing that I’ve encountered here in Israel. I’ve heard this from Christian tour guides and from people who have been on tours. This is a standard thing you’ll hear from many tour guides, speaking especially to Catholic groups, but not only. They’ll say, there’s a story of Matthew 15:22 where the Canaanite woman comes to Jesus and there’s that whole interaction, but here’s the part the tour guides add in, and they say this is tradition, I don’t know what the sources are, but they say that. They say that in Matthew 15:22 this Canaanite woman asked Jesus for permission to make a statue of him to worship. And that according to the tour guide legend, Jesus - this is how they say it - gave her permission, and this permission now extends to all icons and images of Christ. [laughing] This is how it’s described by tour guides. Now, of course this isn’t even in the New Testament, but it shows that people in the church are aware of the problem of these icons, of these images of what they say is God. And by the way, in the Greek Orthodox Church, there were these huge fights… did you learn about this in Trinity Evangelical Divinity School?

Keith: Do I open my ears yet?

Nehemia: You can listen now.

Keith: Okay.

Nehemia: And this is a real question, Keith. Did you learn in Trinity Evangelical Divinity School about the fight within the Greek Orthodox Church between the iconoclasts and the iconodules?

Keith: No, tell me about it.

Nehemia: Ok, so the iconoclasts were people who took Deuteronomy 4:15-16 very seriously and they said, “What have we been doing for hundreds of years having a statue of God? How can we do that? We come, we burn incense to a statue of God and we pray to a statue of God. What about Deuteronomy 4:15-16?” This is in the Greek Orthodox church.

And there were wars fought, literally wars and battles fought over the iconoclasts, who destroyed... and today “iconoclast” is an expression in English, but literally it meant they destroyed the icons. And the opposite group was called the iconodules, from the word “dula” or “dulos” in Greek, which means “a servant,” the slaves of the icons. And they call themselves that as a sign of honor. For example, in 730 AD there was a guy named Leo III the Isaurian, who was the emperor of the Byzantine Empire, that is the Eastern Roman Empire.

Keith: We know him.

Nehemia: You know Leo III the Isaurian?

Keith: Yeah. [laughing]

Nehemia: Okay. How do you know him? Oh, you’ve never heard of him, alright. He began the first iconoclast reformation to remove the idols from the Greek Orthodox church. The result were these violent clashes. The iconodules’ final victory was declared on March 11, 843 at something called the Synod of Constantinople - they don’t teach this at Trinity Evangelical? Synod of Constantinople declaring icons legitimate.

Now here is the really interesting thing. This event, the Synod of Constantinople on March 11, 843 AD, is celebrated to this day every year in the Greek Orthodox Church. It’s the first Sunday of Lent, and it’s called the Feast of Orthodoxy. And what all this tells me is, even in the Greek Orthodox world there were people who read this verse, Isaiah chapter 40 verse 18...

Keith: And tried to figure it out.

Nehemia: And Deuteronomy 4:15-16 and they said, “Wait a minute, what are we doing? We’ve got a statue of God? We’ve got a painting of God? We’ve got this golden image of God and we’re burning incense to Him and we’re praying to the idol, to the statue? What’s going on?

So this was an issue even within the church, and you know, the Tanakh is very clear. Don’t make an image of God, not a painting, doesn’t matter if it’s beautiful art, don’t do it! “There’s nothing that you can liken to Me,” He says. That’s the point of 40:18. There’s nothing like Him, no image, no likeness.

Keith: And I think that’s where, if I can say, the natural application continues, and Isaiah does a great job in this. He says, “As for the idol, a craftsman casts it,” we already talked about this before, “a goldsmith plates it with gold and a silversmith fashions chains of silver. He who is too impoverished for such an offering selects a tree that does not rot, he seeks out for himself a skillful craftsman to prepare an idol that will not totter.”

So before we get into the next phrase, application seems to be pretty clear. Don’t create these things that are…

Nehemia: Wait, no Christmas trees, is that where you’re going with this?

Keith: I’ve already talked about that. No idols, no gold, no silver, et cetera. It’s hard to be in Israel, I will tell you this, and you go into different churches, because depending on which church and which background the church is, we’ve been in places together where… I don’t know if people know that you’ve gone with me.

Nehemia: Yes, into some churches.

Keith: Yeah, you go in and you see it and it really is hard how people are treating… [laughing] and one of the struggles that I have is you go into one place they say, “Take your hat off.” You go into another place, they say, “Put your hat on.”

Nehemia: Literally. [laughing]

Keith: No, literally. Take your hat off, put your hat on. Oh my goodness.

Nehemia: [singing] “Tradition, tradition!”

Keith: Anyway, “but do you not know?” And actually, Nehemia, this is what we talked about later when we were in episode 3. “Do you not know, have you not heard?” This is actually in that section. “Do you not know, have you not heard? Has it not been declared to you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is He who sits above the circle of the earth.” What does that mean? Wow. “It is He who sits above the circle of the earth”?

Nehemia: What do you mean, “what does it mean”? You look up in the sky… if you’re on top of a hill and you look around you see 360 degrees; you see a circle.

Keith: “...and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers. Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain? And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.”

Nehemia: Mmm… grasshoppers… delicious. Wow, I’m done. [laughing] I’m ready to pray.

Keith: Are you really?

Nehemia: Oh, you’re praying.

Keith: No, no, no, it’s my turn but you know what? I want to ask people to do something, and I know we say this each week. We didn’t have our Ministry Minute, we didn’t have it last week, either. We didn’t talk about it last week, we didn’t talk about it this week.

Nehemia: Tell us about your ministry, Keith Johnson.

Keith: No, no, no, so what I wanted to do is this. What I love about the concept of going through this is that you can get so much depth from each word if you want to.

Nehemia: Oh my gosh, we can spend the whole time on the word “grasshopper”. I mean, I literally could spend 45 minutes on grasshoppers.

Keith: You really could.

Nehemia: They’re very delicious.

Keith: Oh my gosh. Or what we could do is, we first try to get the big picture, and then you start going, you know, step by step by step. I’m actually going to ask people to do me a favor. Because at this point, we’re into August, I believe, we’re just about at the end of July or the beginning of August, and by now we have many, many people…

Nehemia: August 1.

Keith: ...that are learning to take bite-sized pieces of Scripture and to learn it. I will say something really interesting. I’m here past time, so by the time you hear this, here is what will have happened. We will have created the entire curriculum and you’ll be looking at it, but we need your help. We need people to actually go through it and make it better, because soon at the end of Prophet Pearls, when we finish Prophet Pearls, and it’s time for the second cycle, we want to actually make this public for people so that they can just go in and start digging in themselves, and use Prophet Pearls and Torah Pearls and Scripture Bytes and all the series and all these things together so that when we start talking about something like, “This is what the grammatical structure is, and this is what the word is and this is what the vowels are,” a person can actually use the information to connect.

So go to BFAInternational.com, on the front page it will still be up. Scripture Bytes, it’s basically a biblical Hebrew audio course that’ll help you use some of that information to do what it is that Nehemia and I are doing. Not at the same level, because this guy… Nehemia, I don’t know how many years you’ve been involved…

Nehemia: Trinity Evangelical Divinity School you went to.

Keith: We’ve got all these things, but I want to say in humility, one of the things that’s a blessing for me is to continue to learn.

Nehemia: Yes. Amen.

Keith: And that’s part of the process.

Nehemia: It’s a lifelong process. And here is my Ministry Minute. Go over to nehemiaswall.com, go to this week’s episode, Isaiah 40:1-26, and post one comment. I don’t care if it’s a comment that somebody else has said. Read the passage, these 26 verses, pray about them and then post one impression, one thought, anything. So my Ministry Minute is for you to be part of the ministry, to come to the website and share your feelings, your thoughts, your impressions, whatever they are. Please, just come and be respectful of others, always, and share what you have, whether it’s one line or whether it’s the ten-page thing you want to post.

Keith: Amen.

Nehemia: Nehemiaswall.com. Also sign up for the free newsletter and become part of the Support Team. Get involved, be part of the ministry.

Keith: Let’s pray.

Nehemia: Amen.

Keith: “To whom then will you liken me?” This is what you say, Father, who can we liken to You? Who can be Your equal? There are none, for You are God and there is no other. You are the everything and so we come to You right now and we ask for Your humility to be people that would take Your word and apply it into our lives. We thank You so much for all the things that You’ve given to us and all those that You’ve sent to remind us of who You are. We pray for Your blessing and Your protection and Your diligence. We pray for diligence for those that are studying, that You give them diligence of heart and mind, and focus to be able to open Your word and to ask what it means for them. In Your precious name we thank You. Amen.

Nehemia: Amen.

Thank you for listening to Prophet Pearls with Nehemia Gordon and Keith Johnson. For more information, please visit BFAInternational .com.