SEEING THE BIBLE THROUGH JEWISH EYES

Looking at the Good News through Jewish eyes, opens up a whole gamut of new interpretations of what Yeshua said and did, as fulfillment of Torah down to the least detail of His life. The original stories all originated in a Hebrew context, in a Hebrew culture. Me and the Israeli flag here is just a small symbol that what God set in place thousands of years ago still flies as a banner of the fullness of His intentions to redeem the earth. He does so by fulfilling every prophetic word in both the New and Older Bibles. So it is important that we understand just what was being said, wouldn't you think?

So we have a bit of a problem here. Our English translations are based on a translation and even yet a previous translations of that one and in the process, some misperceptions of what God intended have arisen.  Words in Hebrew often have various meanings. For instance, Bayt  can mean house, family, synagogue, school or just a building. Translators much choose one word out of several available and in doing so, often lose a wider and deeper message that is meant in Hebrew.  The results of some of these choices of words has led to misrepresentations even of God Himself as we will see.  

True meanings do not have to be a mystery to you. You can google the Hebrew meaning of almost any word and find it’s true significance.  Or go to “Ask.com” and ask there.  You can also look up the meanings of words in various study materials available [1] and see for yourself what the wider significance of what might catch your interest could be.  

Understanding the words of Yeshua, and then of Paul, from a Hebrew perspective, clears up a lot of confusing verses that, if truth be told, make little sense to us and seem a bit mysterious.  The fact is, the original gospel was communicated in Hebrew, and spoken in terms that would have been familiar to Hebrew speakers that don’t translate well. Translators sought to present the text word by word, but the problem was that there are many Hebrew idioms which word-by-word translations make Yeshua sound, well, weird.  Imagine trying to translate some of our own English idioms literally – such as “It’s killing me,” or “Eat your heart out,” or "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse” or “it’s raining cats and dogs.” What might translators think those statements, if taken literally, would seem to indicate about the culture?  You get the idea.   

The entire New Testament can really only fully be understood when we see it as coming from a Hebrew perspective.  Both the OT and the NT are highly Hebraic. Even where parts of the NT was expressed in Greek, the background is entirely Hebrew.   Take a look at how Hebrew the bible really is: 

The OT comprises approximately 78% of the entire Biblical text, more than ¾. The NT comprises only 22%.  When we add the highly Hebraic portions of the original bible material in Matthew, Mark, Luke and Acts 1:!-15:35, which is approximately 43% of the NT, to the OT, the percentage of biblical material originally written in Hebrew rises to 88%.  Or 87% if we leave out the portions of Ezra and Daniel, less than 1% of the OT, composed in Aramaic.  There are 176 OT quotations in the New Testament writings (14 OT quotations from John and 162 from Acts 15:36 to the end of the NT). To sum it up, originally the percentage of the Bible that was composed in Hebrew rises to over 90%.[2]

The assumption that the entire NT was originally communicated in Greek has led to considerable misunderstandings.  But today, scholars and pastors alike are realizing that the key to fully understand what Yeshua is saying is that Israel is that key.  Greek doesn’t get us to the true Hebrew meanings. Happily, there is quite a shift today to the study of Hebrew history and culture which is providing great insights into what the Brit Hadashah, the New Covenant, has to say.  

The gospel, like everything else, is explained in words.They define how we see everything. Our primary concern in our relationship with God is with “salvation,” isn’t it?  In Hebrew there are many synonyms for “salvation.”  The word salvation itself is little used. Only 7 times actually.  Other words express it even more powerfully, such as  “Righteousness,” one of the synonyms for “salvation.”  Zion is called “The city of righteousness" (Isaiah. 1:10).  When we are aware that the devil is behind all the persecution against Israel, and specifically against “Zionism” (which under Arab influence  regards Zionism as a hate crime according to the UN!), we can see why the enemy of God keeps trying to do away with Zion, "the city of righteousness.”  

Zion is a synonym for Jerusalem, just as righteousness is a synonym for salvation; they go together as is God's apparent intention. And the devil wants to destroy both. All that God has promised and His call for righteousness has its roots in Zion. Consider how much of the bible is centered around what took place in or around Jerusalem. Even the place where Abraham was to sacrifice his son Isaac was the location of where Jerusalem would one day stand.  As we know, God's word is immutable and the ultimate establishment of Zion in righteousness means the devil's demise, which is why he works so hard to 'inspire' antagonism against her. 

We must be careful to stand with Israel for the reason that God’s name and His calling is upon her.  Stand with Israel and you stand with God.  We are told to “pray for the peace of Jerusalem; they will prosper who love her” (Psalm 122:6).  That doesn’t mean to pray for peace with her Arab neighbors or in the eyes of the world; it means to pray for peace with God to come to every Israeli for each one to realize that the church’s persecution of Israel which has taken place, as has been inspired by the devil, is NOT the heart of God toward Israel or the Jews. The church is to make Israel, whether they are living in the land or elsewhere, jealous of their relationship with Israel's own God. And thank God, that’s  beginning to happen. Will you take a few moments each day to be one of those who pray for her?  How about now?

When we see the word righteousness, read it as also meaning salvation. .Jesus exhorts his disciples to “seek first the kingdom of heaven and His (God’s) righteousness” (Matt 6:33). Those who “hunger and thirst for righteousness are blessed" (Matt 5:6), literally, "Of such people the Kingdom is made up." (See Matthew 12:18; Isaiah 42:1). Notice the change in your thinking if you replace “Salvation” where “righteousness” is mentioned. This brings up another point of concern. We have an erroneous idea, many of us, that we say a prayer and we  are “saved.” That a one time verbal expression brings us salvation that seals us in. Period.  But when we think of "seeking righteousness" we realize that it is a life-long   sanctification process. it is a situation-by-situation decision to walk with God regardless of what it is or costs us; it is a way of life, not a one-time recitation.  

Consider  the Hebrew word “judgment” or “justice” which  can also mean “salvation. A judge declares, with the bang of a gavel,whether a person is “Not guilty” as well as “Guilty.” In the same way, the verb “judge” often means “save” or even “rescue.”  When David is in trouble he cries out, “Judge me, O God.”  (Psalm 43:1). He's calling for rescue according to how he's sought to live before God. The judges of the OT were saviors or deliverers of the people, not judges in the modern sense of the word which we often think of as those who bring sentence to people who have violated the law.   

For one thing, as hopefully you are aware, the English usage of the word “law” for the “teachings” or “Instructions” in the Torah (books of Moses), is not found in all of the OT.  There is no Hebrew idea of “law” in all of Torah.  To think of the word as “law” is to make us think of God as Judge just waiting for someone to make a mistake.  How misjudged the Judge has been!   And to take it further, many think that Jesus came to save us from the wrath of Israel's God whose main activity is to always be looking for our mistakes. But.... 

Didn’t Yeshua say He came not to “judge’ the world but to save it. Not to condemn, to bring accusation, but to reveal forgiveness in the heart of His Father.  Isn’t He the exact representation according to Hebrew 1:3 of God the Father, "being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person"?  Could God be an angry wrathful God and Yeshua represent Him as gentle, compassionate, merciful and a God of covenant love and, yes, salvation?  This inconsistency has its roots in the translations that are now being rectified, thank God.

God is called “the Judge” (Judges 11:27; Is 33:22) or “the judge of all the earth” (Gen 18:25; Psalm 94:2).  “Righteousness and Judgment” are the foundations of His throne” (Psalm 89:14).  Rachel named the son that Bilhah bore Jacob “Dan” meaning “He judged” because she said, “God has judged me” (Gen 30:6), meaning God has decided in her favor, He has acted on her behalf.  Over and over the Prophet Isaiah uses judgment as a synonym for salvation and righteousness interchangeably: “Therefore judgment is far from us and righteousness does not reach us. We look for judgment but there is none. For salvation, but it is far from us…. Judgment is turned back, and righteousness stands at a distance” (Isaiah 59:9, 11, 14). It is judgement on their behalf that he was longing for.

Jesus promised his disciples that they would sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Matt 19:28, Luke 22:30).  Are the disciples at some future time to sit as judges meting out punishment to members of the tribes of Israel?  No, they are to be meting out deliverance as saviors. We look forward to, as the Bible describes, “the city of salvation” – Jerusalem – as the city to which the tribes of Israel will go up, and there thrones (plural) of judgment (i.e. salvation) will be set up when Yeshua returns to establish the Kingdom – “in Zion!” 

Judgment  is not always a synonym for salvation in the bible.  It can mean “destruction “or damnation.  Summing this up, we must be aware that the text is a translation from Hebrew words and concepts which may not exist in English.  Knowing this, we can decide on the basis of context which meaning of “judgment,” for instance, is meant. (See Acts 3:22, 23 and Deut.18:15, 18, 19). Make this a study of your own and see if it adjusts your understanding of how you see God. Knowing this can impact how we have unconsciously interpreted His character and nature and His ‘doings’ among men, and even in your own life. We might need to reevaluate when we see God as harsh and demanding toward Israel when when really He was Israel’s savior all along – and still is.     

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[1]  For helpful study helps, The standard look-up of definitions is the Strongs Concordance in which you can look up words in English and follow the number listed either in Hebrew (OT) or Greek (NT), even though it is somewhat cumbersome.  The best tool I have found for finding immediate definitions is the NASB Key Word Hebrew-Greek Study Bible. (It may possibly be available in NKJV.) It also has very insightful footnotes.  The One New Man Bible: Revealing Jewish Roots and Power has good footnotes and a Glossary that is extremely helpful.  And The Complete Jewish Bible, presents the Scriptures with Jewish insights and a very valuable Introduction that clears up many of the misunderstandings that English translations lean toward.   

[2]  See Understanding the Difficult Words of Jesus: New Insights from a Hebraic Perspective by David Biven and Roy Blizzard, Jr.

God Is In The Visuals

A friend and I were having an e-chat about how we each “see” God. I asked her how she imagined or pictured the Lord. I’m a pretty visual person. I have to kind of picture things to process them. God is in the visuals for me, though not exclusively of course. I do see God all around me. His fingerprints are everywhere. He’s in the harmonies of colors and the way shapes fit together. He’s in the ripples and the reflections in a pond or a puddle as they shine back the heavens above them. He’s in the flight of the herons that frequent our pond lifting undulating wings majestically while flying down stream. At times they seem to reveal God's smile at all the beauty He's created.

He’s in the pebbles on the path, each little one -- How did it get there? What made it that shape? Did God design each one specifically to His liking? I see the Hand of the Sculptor in them. I see the twist of several kinds of vines wrapping themselves around each other, reminding me of the way our lives weave in and out of each others’, and the reaching out of the tendrils to grasp hold of something other than itself for support. My eyes go to the grey-green-brown varied textures in each tree bark reminding me of the varied textures of experiences in our lives that serve to enable us to stand upright and strong as we grow in the Lord.

And that’s just what happens three times a day while walking my dog, Lizzie, in whose little face, when she looks into my eyes with her faithful devotion and unconditional love, is as the affection of God to me. What wonder. Part of my gratefulness to God continually is for eyes that see.

But I also picture Yeshua (Jesus). All the time. In my imagination. The stories about Him in the Bible are real life experiences to me. I go with Him in them. I figure God gave us imagination and then tells us stories for the very purpose of having us picture what took place in them and who was involved so we can project ourselves into the stories and respond to them, even internalize them. Not all, but many. Yesterday I read, “Jesus, perceiving that they were intending to come and take Him by force to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain by Himself alone” (John 6:15). “Lord,” I said, “Take me with You.” I want to go and be with Him, I want to see Him when He’s alone with His Father, when no one else is around, to know Him that way too.

I can’t tell you I was granted a visual of this, at least not yet, but I did ask Him, “Lord, were you transfigured when you were alone with your Father so that you were in touch with Your glory? Did that only happen once or did it happen often? Or were you confined to Your humanity, humble before Abba, even stretched out and face down?”

As I ask these questions, I can “see” Him, humbling Himself before Abba, prostrate before Him. Even envisioning this again now humbles me. Makes me be still inside as if I’m in the presence of holiness. Then, as much as I am able, I try to picture Him glorified: “And He was transfigured before them; and His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as light” (Matthew 17:2). But I realize I’m incapable of seeing Him this way, with His Face as bright as the sun which we cannot endure looking at directly. His whole being emanating pure light! I cannot see this as it must have been, but I can surely feel the Holy Spirit within me responding to my even wanting to, as silent worship wells up within me.

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There's Glory in the Zoo

I spent the day at the Zoo today with some friends. Forty-something of them, actually. It was a congregation outing. What fun. The Zoo in Jacksonville is arranged so that if one has enough of an imagination, one can pretend you are in Africa. You know, the peaceful yet exciting African trip, like you imagined as a kid when Africa seemed so romantic in those movies of years ago (make that decades.) Jax being semi-tropical and it being close to summer, it rained off and on today. Poured! We ran for and huddled under a grove of trees with a thatched roof covering one might hope to find in a jungle.(We're pretending, remember.) The animals lumbered or hopped or scampered or flew for cover in the downpour as we did. Fifteen minutes later the sun came out and so did we all. We looked at the animals. They mostly ignored us. But we were fascinated.

The apes look just a bit too human for comfort and its easy to see why some could consider that humans came from apes. I held hands with a chimp once. It felt so human it was a bit disconcerting. Seeing them brought to mind a story of my daughter Ellen when in 3rd grade was being taught something about evolution. She indignantly stood up in class, as the teacher later told me, shook her little curly blond head and with her arms folded to make the point announced, "God made man in His own image and God is not an ape!"

Some animals are just strange looking and do make you want to ask, "Lord, whatever were you thinking when you made this one?" One extremely loud and gutsy bird that stood about two feet high with a voice that far exceeded his size ran back and forth with one of our boys like he was playing tag with him. Was it fun for him too? The Giraffes were clearly a close-knit family. One of the giraffes, who is evidently named Naomi (Does she know that?)would eat leaves from your hand. Flamingos are that color pink even when they're not plastic. Lemurs seem to have more fun than anybody. The big cats are majestic. See a male lion and you know why he's king. And you know why Yeshua (Jesus) is the Lion of Judah! We got closer to the Leopards though. Magnificent animals. Regal. Assured. Confident. You don't want to mess with a Leopard. Elephants are....well, big. And baby elephants do hold their mommy's tail with their little trunks, like we hold hands. Little, of course, is a relative term. We are talking elephants here. The snakes? Creepy. Big Anacondias do bring up a picture of one chatting with Eve, while plotting the destruction of the world. You can see where this big dude might be convincing.

We saw the largest rodent in the world. If no one had told me this was a rodent, I might have even though he was cute. Sort of. But that rodent title ruined it. Yuck. He was in the recreated river scene with the ant eater. A vacuum cleaner with fur. It was interesting to see what kinds of animals live side-by-side with other species and pretty much ignore each other, or at least aren't antagonistic. Some are even symbiotic, like birds that ride on hippos or water buffaloes - what they eat keeps the buffaloes clean. Works for them. Then there were the fleet-of-feet (not that they had anywhere to go) elks and ibexes (ibexi?) that appear to be growing shofars on their heads. Some might call them antlers.

All in all, being with the animals revealed anew how vastly creative our God is. I became aware of how He's made more kinds and variations of animals and birds than I was aware of. Some are rarely seen by man unless in captivity. He creates them just for His own pleasure, it would seem. All this takes you outside of yourself. It's so easy to get pigeon-holed (no pun intended, though we might note that there were no pigeons in this zoo, unlike, say, the Philadephia Zoo which is replete with them) in your own mind and emotions so that all that we're aware of is is our own little lives and what concerns us. We city-folk who are largely detached from the world of raw nature and animals and birds of all kinds, except for our domesticated and civilized pets, can easily loose sight of how small our lives are in the vast scheme of God's enormous plan in the earth.

Being in that environment, even imagining we were in the rain forests of Africa or South America and being with what is indigenous there, gave me the sense that this world is so much bigger and more beautiful and more unique than I have been imagining in my tunnel vision and self-focus. God is so big and so in control of all these extraordinary manifestations of His power and beauty. The sounds of the voices calling for their same-species mates are distinguished to the ears of the summoned lovers from all the other voices in the forest. They come together and soon babies of the uniquely beautiful perfect replica of their parents is born. Each new little one looks and acts just like it's parents, without deviation in the patterns and colors of feather or fur, and its instinctual nature.

We saw a big tree full of storks with a plethora of nests. My friend Bonnie said it looked like a high rise apartment building for storks. A loud humming noise came from the tree and then we realized we were hearing baby storks in the nests. Lord knows how many of them. A whole society of storks was happening right there in front of us. Now, I'm pretty sure that God isn't as concerned about their society as He is about ours, at least I think so. You know, that "Aren't you worth more than a sparrow" comment made by the Lord, comes to mind (Matthew 10:31). But God is not just concerned with our problems, with keeping us protected and with helping us, by any means. He's running the universe. And if He can do all that so perfectly and beautifully, then surely He can take care of me. Surely if He can take care of the world, He can even take care of our country.

Taking a trip to the Zoo was a heart and mind expanding journey. God was everywhere. Not that He's not anyway, but sometimes something lifts your chin to Him and your eyes open and you feel yourself smile. That's what happens when your heart awakens again or to something new of God and His goodness. There's such an order to His creation. It's all so beautiful. If that's how beautiful the creation is, how beautiful must the Creator be?!

Along with the animal life the plants and vegetation is beyond beautiful and exceedingly well landscaped to look authentically African or Australian, etc. On our way out, we noticed some richly darkish purple flowers blooming happily next to what can only be called bright chartreuse leaves. You would never paint your living room those colors, but when God does it -- magnifico!

Our trip to the Zoo today brought a deeper rest to my soul. God is so much bigger to me tonight than He was this morning. I am so much more aware of how attentive to detail He is in His commitment to bring beauty and symmetry and order to the world. He is so faithful to keep it all going.And all this continues beside or despite the goings on in mankind and our societal ills. We are part of a vast scenario of beauty, for His pleasure. In Him we ALL live and move, whether we fly, crawl or lumber, hop, swim or slither. In Him we all exist. His diversity awakes within me an awareness that there is so much more available in God to me, and to whomever will look to Him for it, than I have partaken of, or trusted Him for. His evident Lordship over it all in its order and beauty brings me to a new awareness of His glory and His beauty all around us. It's not just in the zoo.

About Challenging God

I met a delightful man recently, a doctor, who was raised in a church denomination not known for its power or sense of the presence of the Lord, at least not since the 1500’s. He goes to church occasionally but boasted that “I don’t make a habit of it.” The only thing he makes a habit of, he said, was “being good.” He had enough church-going in him from his childhood that his idea of being a Christian was that of “being good.”

As our conversation continued I spoke about knowing God while he talked of church and how his family is active in church. “But what about you?” I asked. He then voiced some very real questions about God as to why suffering exists in the world. He is a doctor, after all, in order to help alleviate suffering. “When I meet God,” he stated emphatically, seemingly assured that he would and that he’d have opportunity to speak his mind to Him about why He allows suffering, “I’ve got some things I intend to say to Him,” he said meaning he’d like to tell God that he doesn’t like the way He is running the world.

Many years ago a friend of mine was involved in what she identified as a “philosophically based prison program.” The premise was based upon an eclectic blend of “isms,” of different Eastern philosophies and ideas of god (small ‘g’) which provided prisoners with a new sense of self-identity and of reality that would sensitize them to goodness. Again, the concept of “being good” was presumably the solution, in this case to the criminal mind. She was, with genuine altruistic intent, going into prisons to teach and impart this philosophy.

I had recently become a Believer in Jesus having had my own sense of reality greatly altered when I “met God.” He was nothing of what I thought He might be. As a Jew for one thing, I never expected Jesus to be God! But I also knew I met with a power for “goodness” that was emphatically beyond any ability of my own to “be good.” Upon sharing my new-found faith with this friend, she told me, “If I ever meet Jesus Christ there are some serious things I have to say to Him, eye to eye, on equal footing.” I knew she meant the suffering the Jews have endured in His name, but also of why evil exists at all. But I also knew there would be no “eye to eye” encounter where she would “mouth off” to Him, nor opportunity to let Him know how she felt about Him. She assumed He was no more than a person, albeit one of great influence, than she or anyone else. Where or how she would meet Him wasn’t addressed.

I took her to see the movie called “The Hiding Place” which is the story of Corrie Ten Boom’s life in which she and her sister Betsy are arrested by the Nazis for hiding Jews during WWII. They are sent to a concentration camp where Betsy becomes very ill and eventually dies. Before she dies she affirms her love for Jesus and with His love she forgives the Nazis who have tortured her and so many around her, and for all the evil they were perpetrating, and encourages Corrie to forgive them as well. She forgave them! My friend, who is also Jewish, could not get past that. Knowing that six million of our Jewish people and millions of others suffered unimaginably horrible tortures, and died equally cruel deaths at the hands of the Nazis, how could she possibly forgive them? This was where her “philosophically based program” fell apart for it provided no escape from the impotent rage against such injustice.

We returned to my home after the movie as she and her daughter would be spending the night at our house. I took the babysitter home and then found my friend sitting on the back fence of my house overlooking a pasture. It was quiet, peaceful and safe out there in the early summer evening, quite unlike what we had just witnessed in the movie. In the moonlight I could see she was pensive and deeply moved. All she could say to me was, “I know that in order for Betsy to forgive the Nazis there had to be a power beyond anything I have ever known.” I had shared with her before this evening of the forgiveness and pardon Yeshua offers to us through allowing Himself to be sentenced to death in order to satisfy the penalty for our sins. Those are prison terms she would understand. Until this night it was all meaningless to her because her idea of herself was that of “being good.” What was there to forgive? The next morning she told me she had turned her life over to the Lord. That was thirty-four years ago. She has remained a faithful follower of Yeshua since.

Several assumptions present themselves through these two scenarios of wanting to meet the Lord “face to face” to challenge Him. The first is that God “is,” that He exists, and then that He is approachable, and that we will be able to have an audience with Him. It also assumes that we would have the freedom to speak our minds and to demand of Him an explanation, a defense, if you will, for why He allows evil to exist, or is possibly even the cause of it, considering how much suffering is done in His name, though let it be known that such suffering is far from anything He would do or ever sanction. It is a tragedy that the only picture of Yeshua that some people have is of how others have misrepresented Him.

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