-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Isaiah 63:11-12.
- Thread starter John D. Brey
- Start date
IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
CNN has always done this. As I said, ALL media do this. It's not new, nor is it shocking.
GoodAttention
Well-Known Member
God’s salvation specifically is it not?
IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
We were discussing how media, even though they are factually correct in their news, still show bias in that they choose which stories make it to the paper or screen. All media do this.
dybmh
ויהי מבדיל בין מים למים
dybmh
ויהי מבדיל בין מים למים
John D. Brey
Well-Known Member
Fwiw, I've hit the CNN website regularly for decades. But I don't remember ever having tried to read an article, only to be told I have to be a registered user, until just the last few months?
John
John D. Brey
Well-Known Member
There are strengths and weaknesses to the kind of communicating we do in a forum like this. Without non-verbal ques (tone of voice, facial expressions, etc.), it can often be difficult to know whether a person is being facetious or making a serious point. Since you and I've never spoken face to face, we're always grappling, to some extent, with the true tenor of the messages we share. We don't have a template, from oral conversations, to know precisely how each of us use words.
I'm not completely sure what you're implying with the statements above and the Hebrew it's a response to from your other message?
John
John D. Brey
Well-Known Member
Which is why an objective observer of the news should probably examine a wide swath of opinions. Every single day I peruse BBC, CNN, FOX, The Wall Street Journal; and I usually include Reuters, Bloomberg, while hitting RealClearPolitics, for a mixed-bag of content. I respect the biases on both sides of the isle. But I want to make my own opinion after hearing both sides.
Which is similar to how I feel about Judaism and Christianity.
John
John D. Brey
Well-Known Member
The staff becomes a nachash נחש.
The root-word for "leprous" is the same as for a "flying-serpent" (that is, a "hornet"). The three-consonant root צרע (zara) means to strike down, or a scourge (Gesenius). With a heh-suffix, the word means a hornet, while with a tav-suffix, it means leprous. If you replace the ayin ע, in the word for leprous, with a peh פ, you get the word for molten metal, or melting metal צרף (zarap). All of these things are realted to Moses' staff and its later appellation as Nehushtan. "Bronze" itself is נחשת, which is to say "serpent" נחש, with a tav-suffix.
When, as noted earlier in the thread, we appreciate that God specifically and literally says he is going to make Moses an avatar of himself (Moses is going to represent God to Israel, and Aaron is going to represent the mouthpiece God originally intended Moses to be, until Moses wigged out), we have all the pieces necessary to obtain a bird's eye (or hornet's eye) view of the evolution of Moses' staff as that evolution occurs throughout the Tanakh. First it turns into a serpent-rod (Exodus 4:3). Next, when placed in God's bosom (John 1:18, Exodus 4:6), which is to say Moses' bosom (since God is using Moses as an avatar of God), it turns leprous (צרעת).
As the Jewish sages educate us, the Torah text is always logical but not necessarily chronological. Moses placing the serpent-rod in his bosom (on Sinai) ritualizes and condenses events that occur some time later, which is to say in Numbers chapter 21 (which is where Nehushtan is constructed by embellishing Moses' original staff with a bronze serpent as a fore-skene). Which segues back to the Hebrew grammar that started the message, since "Nehush-tan" is the combination of nachash נחש, (what Moses serpent-rod is initially called in the text), and tan תן (which means "dragon" or "flying-serpent"). Grammatically, "Nehush-tan" means "serpent-dragon," or "flying-serpent," such that when 1 Kings 18:4 tells us Moses flying-serpent-imbellished rod is called "Nehush-tan," we're not too surprised since then name "Nehush-tan" נחש–תן is "serpent" נחש and "dragon," תן.
What might be more surprizing is that the event narrated in Numbers chapter 21 (Moses manufacturing Nehush-tan) relates directly to Moses' staff being placed in God's bosom (which typologically speaking is Moses' bosom). The creation of Nehushtan is the actual event symbolized typologically (not chronologically) in Exodus 4:6, when the text says that by placing his hand, God's right hand (which in type is Moses' right hand) in his bosom, God's right hand (i.e., Moses' right hand grasping the serpent-rod), becomes "leprous." The molten-metal, bronze נחשת, as it were and was, represents the transformation of Moses' original staff, making it "leprous" צרעת (Exodus 4:6, Numbers 21:9), which is to say embellished with "molten-metal" צרף. The molten-metal is the fore-skene of the original staff or rod that must be removed (the fore-skene must be removed) for Israel to see the nazar-ene beneath: "nazar" נצר, being the Hebrew word for the "branch," or staff, of Moses.
Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, Upon the son of man whom though madest strong for thyself.
Psalms 80:17.
No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.
John 1:18.
Why withdrawest thou thy hand, even thy right hand? Pluck it out of thy
bosom.
Psalms 74:11.
In Psalms 74:11, Asaph is requesting that the inactivity of God's right hand, due to its leprosy, be removed so that Israel can be saved by the healing of the leprosy (the healing of the branch or nazar-ene in the bosom of God, John 1:18).
And it shall come to pass if they will not believe thee, neither hearken to the voice of the first sign [the serpent rod becoming leprous, that is to say, being embellished with molten metal צרף], they will believe the voice of the latter sign [when God's right hand man is healed of leprosy and the fore-skene covering him is removed].
Exodus 4:8.
What's the latter sign Israel will believe the voice of? The leprous (molten metal צרף) embellished serpent-rod in God's/Moses' bosom, being healed of leprosy, the molten flying-seraph (שרף instead of צרף), being removed so that the Branch, or shoot, from dry ground (Isaiah 53:2), i.e., the Nazar-ene, is cured of being the Leper-Messiah, and is then finally received by Israel simply as the Nazar-ene become King-Messiah.
Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, Upon the son of man whom though madest strong for thyself.
Psalms 80:17.
No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.
John 1:18.
Why withdrawest thou thy hand, even thy right hand? Pluck it out of thy
bosom.
Psalms 74:11.
John
Last edited:
IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
Yeah, unfortunately this is the way things in general seem to be going. In the past, most newspapers and other media simply used ads on the page to finance themselves. But they seem to be moving in the direction of subscriptions. When that happens, I just tell Google to stop sending me links to those sites.
dybmh
ויהי מבדיל בין מים למים
I'm not implying anything. I'm genuinely curious.
1) What do you think of the Hebrew? Exodus 14:13-14?
2) Did you see that post? Did it get lost in the shuffle?
3) If I were a Christian, and I knew Hebrew, it's exciting? Right? It's what you're looking for? Yeshua is right there. Literally. In the text.
4) I'm laying out the Hebrew. Let's do this. Let's swing for the fences, and knock it out of the park.
John, why use kabalah? There's no need. It's right there, in the Hebrew.
Question: If you value Hebrew, if the Hebrew text is authoritative, why aren't you looking at Exo 14:13-14 to answer the questions you're asking?
GoodAttention
Well-Known Member
Why did I think you were an NPR man?
John D. Brey
Well-Known Member
I listen to NPR religiously. But I only hit their website infrequently in order to listen to reruns of Terry Gross interviews. Used to love Car Talk on Saturday mornings. Still love Jazz and Blues on Sunday night.
John
John D. Brey
Well-Known Member
If we're willing to interpret ישועה as Jesus (and I'm not saying we're not), we're gonna find him popping up in all kinds of places throughout the Tanakh. One place very similar to Exodus 14:13-14, is Isaiah 52:10:
The Lord hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the goyim; all the ends of the earth shall see the Yeshua ישועה of our God.
Isaiah 52:10 is peculiar in that read literally, the Jewish prophet says "Yeshua" is going to be seen by the eyes of the nations from every corner of the earth. The nations will see the Yeshua of Israel's God. Which seems to segue into the question in Isaiah 53:1 about to whom, precisely, the arm of the Lord will be revealed? Isaiah 52:10 answers that he will be revealed to the Gentiles all over the earth.
One of those Gentiles from all over the earth might ask how Isaiah 52:10 could be answering a question asked in Isaiah 53:1 since the former comes before the latter. The typical Gentile doesn't necessarily know that the Jewish exegetes tell us the narratives will be logical (to some degree) but not necessarily chronological. The arrow of time sometimes gets skewed in the text; such as how in Exodus 4:6, Moses is said to make his serpent-rod leprous by placing it in his bosom when the actual making of his rod leprous doesn't actually occur until Numbers chapter 21.
John
Last edited:
dybmh
ויהי מבדיל בין מים למים
You're not looking for Jesus popping up in the Exodus story?
If your interest is not Jesus, what is it?
Once we find Jesus, isn't that most important?
Why focus on the staff, when Jesus is right there?
GoodAttention
Well-Known Member
My understanding of the term tzaraat is that “leprous” is an English mistranslation of the Greek translation, and that the true meaning in Hebrew is up to interpretation.
I believe the point isn’t that it was “diseased”, but the more specific description “white as snow”. The metaphor before the literal clarifying phrase.
The sign, however, is that Moses hand doesn’t remain changed, but was changed and then reverts back. It is to say, that he (and by extension the Hebrew people) were afflicted, that their cries had been heard, and Moses was there to lead the out so they will be afflicted no longer.
But how do the Hebrews know he is there for them, the Hebrews? The final sign explains this by the taking of the river water to become blood, telling that he is their kin, brother of Aaron, and a son of Levi.
John D. Brey
Well-Known Member
That's passe for me. Old hat.
For my first forty-years on this planet I devoured the greatest Christian teaching there has ever been. For the last twenty-years I've mostly studied Jewish scripture, Jewish rabbis, Jewish professors, many of whom I respect as much or more than the Christian sages. Since I love and respect my Jewish mentors and teachers, I'm trying to fully understand their traditions and teachings through the lens of my Christian faith.
That depends on whether by finding him we mean we've used our traditional understanding to consider him thoroughly nailed down, or whether, having acknowledged we have him fully nailed down, we come to believe someone has since moved the stone, and thus the goal-post.
John
dybmh
ויהי מבדיל בין מים למים
That's passe for me. Old hat.
What are you looking for in the exodus story?
What are you looking for in Isa 63?
If it's not Jesus, what is it?
In order to fully understand: it must be done through the lens of THEIR faith, not yours.
In order to fully understand: it is absolutely necessary to isolate one's own expectations from the target of inquiry.
In order to fully understand: it is necessary to be rigid in regards to accuracy. No adding, removing, or changing the text.
A conclusion based on necessity.
Putting the cart before the horse.
"The text is wrong, because, it doesn't agree with what I hold as absolute Truth."
John D. Brey
Well-Known Member
In my opinion, the most important exegetical point in Exodus chapter 4 is mostly missed or ignored. It's verses 14-16 where, after Moses twice pleads with God to send someone else, the anger of the Lord kindles against Moses, culminating with God bending to Moses' plea by making Aaron the mouthpiece God wanted Moses to be, and instead using Moses as an avatar for God himself. Immediately after making Moses an avatar for God, we read in verse 17:
And thou shalt take this rod in thine hand wherewith thou shalt do signs.
Exodus 4:17.
Which segues into the foundational text:
FOR I LIFT UP MY HAND TO HEAVEN. By way of the plain meaning of Scripture this is an oath by His throne. He states I lift up, for whoever takes an oath raises his hand and touches the object by which he swears. And by way of the Truth [the mystic teachings of the Cabala], during the time of exile He hath cast down from heaven unto the earth the Beauty of Israel. 137 He, therefore states that now in an acceptable time 138 He will lift His hand to the highest heavens, the reference being to the great hand 139 that fights on behalf of Israel.
Ramban, Commentary on the Torah, Deuteronomy 32:40.
We have it on good word that Deuteronomy 32:40 is related to Exodus 4:1-7, where the rod of Moses represents the power of God's throne. The rod is the "beauty" תפארת of Israel, i.e., the "glorious arm, or right hand, of God." It's originally merely the staff of authority in God's right hand. But as Nachmanides say, it's eventually thrown down to earth during the exile, such that it must be lifted up again, from earth, at the time of the final redemption in the crosshairs of Isaiah 63. Concerning this casting down to earth, perhaps even to sheol, of the "arm of the Lord," i.e., the "glorious" תפארת arm of the Lord, prior to the final exile awaiting Israel's salvation, we have this:
No man has ascended up to heaven except he that came down from heaven, that is the Son of man which is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up that whoever believes on him will never perish but have eternal life.
John 3:13-14.
Jesus explicitly claims to be the personification of the rod in Moses' right hand. Jesus is claiming the role of the glorious arm of the Lord symbolized by the staff or rod in the right hand of God/Moses. Jesus claims he was at the right hand of the Father prior to being cast down earth (John 17:24; 1 Peter 1:20). Paralleling Deuteronomy 32:40, Jesus claims he will be lifted back to heaven at an acceptable time, i.e., the end of Israel's final exile. Nachmanides (Ramban) notes that this glorious arm of the Lord will be cast down to earth just prior to the final exile of the holy people Israel. That would make the casting down occur sometime in the first century of the current era by Nachmanides' accounting. Which, ironically, is the very time that John 3:13-14 was written. Jesus is saying, I am the glorious arm of the Lord cast down to earth and sheol just prior (40 years) to the final expursion of Israel from the holy land before the glorious regathering. He's adding, that not until Israel recognizes him as the glorious arm, the name, of the Lord, will thy see him as the personification of Deuteronomy 32:40.
Behold, your house is left unto you desolate: and verily I say unto you, Ye shall not see me, until the time come when ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.
Luke 13:35.
John
Last edited: