[This is the concluding portion of a long article titled: Revisit: Q&A: “Israel prophecy” – “veiled in obscurity”? Admittedly, some of our articles are sooooo lonnnnggg that readers don’t make it all the way to the end and therefore miss some valuable insights! So once in a while, we feature the last portion of a long article, just as this one. Cutting up long articles help our readers focus on the concluding, often most important, portion that sums up all the points we make in those long articles. The thought progress here is complete in itself, that is why we can separate it from its original source, for our readers’ convenience.—Admin1]
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This is Sinai 6000’s position on Prophecy:
It is our understanding and reading of the Prophetic books — Neviim —that —
- there was no “new” vision and knowledge of God by the time of the Prophets—
- rather, there was a reiteration of all that the God on Sinai had already revealed to the first generation of Israelites and gentiles mixed among them,
- and reiterated to the 2nd generation that entered the Land.
What might have been “new” are the judgments that were to fall on Israel and Judah if they refused to obey . . . and worse, if they did not repent:
- judgments of being overtaken by gentile powers
- and being exiled to lands that practiced idolatry.
- In effect, ‘give them what they want’, the gods of the nations, but at what cost!
And it is not as though these warnings were not already embedded in the five books of Moses, reiterated just before the 2nd generation born in the wilderness were about to enter and conquer the Land with Joshua and Caleb, all repeated in Deuteronomy with new applications relating to living in the Land.
YHWH had revealed Himself and His Way of Life to Israel and repeatedly emphasized the importance of their keeping the Covenant and obeying His Torah.
For what? to keep this way of life and the Name of their God exclusively to themselves? No, on the contrary . . .
- to start the Torah movement . . .
- a way of living,
- YHWH’s guidelines for Israel and the nations.
But in His wisdom and knowing clueless humanity that was prone to worshipping man-made gods, He had to start with —
- an identifiable people
- who will be different,
- be ‘other’,
- be His ‘servant’,
- His ‘son’,
- be His model community
- where individuals are ‘other’-centered instead of ‘self’-centered.
And most of all, direct all nations to Himself, the One True God, the Self-revealing God on Sinai. That is the objective and purpose of having a ‘chosen’ among vast humanity.
Deuteronomy 28:9-10
YHWH will establish you to be a people holy to him,
as he swore to you,
when you keep the commandments of YHWH your God and walk in his ways.
10 And when all the peoples of the earth see
that the name of YHWH is proclaimed over you,
they will hold you in awe.
. . . 12 and by blessing all the doings of your hand;
you will lend to many nations.
After their dismal track record of repeated disobedience as their own Historical-Scriptures/Kings-Chronicles attest to, Israel’s Prophets were merely sent to redirect them back to YHWH and His Torah.
Like a firstborn son, Israel was taught from the start but unfortunately learned the hard way through disobedience and resulting judgment, “curses for disobedience”. Eventually, to recover and retain their Covenant legacy after they had lost their Land and Temple though not their God and His Torah, the religious remnant of Israel started over with a strict religion “Judaism.” Indeed the pendulum had swung the other way, perhaps to an extreme but indeed, ‘better safe than sorry’.
Deuteronomy 30:17-19
17 Now if your heart should face-about, and you do not hearken and you thrust-yourself-away and prostrate yourselves to other gods, and serve them,
18 I announce to you today
that perish you will perish,
you will not prolong days on the soil that you are crossing the Jordan to enter, to possess.
19 I call as witness against you today the heavens and the earth:
life and death I place before you blessing and curse;
now choose life, in order that you may stay alive, you and your seed,
20 by loving YHWH your God,
by hearkening to his voice and by cleaving to him,
for he is your life and the length of your days,
to be settled on the soil
that YHWH swore to your fathers, to Avraham, to Yitzhak and to Yaakov,
to give them!
Why do Christians call Israel’s strict observance of YHWH’s Torah as “legalism”? Because the Torah was “done away with”, as in they are “under grace and not law”? Really? Obedience to Torah is “legalism”? Is YHWH’s Torah a “burden,” a “load,” a “yoke” around one’s neck?
To the Christian, yes, because their NT scriptures had declared it thus. The culprit? ‘Thus saith Paul of Tarsus’ whose teachings in his epistles dominate Christian theology.
Where can one find ‘Thus Saith the LORD YHWH?’
Indeed, ‘to the Law and the Testimony!’
. . . if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.
Isaiah 8:
20 Should not a people inquire of their own God? . .
21 I swear by the Torah and the teaching. . .
What part of “HEAR”
don’t we still understand,
oh Jew, oh Gentile?
NSB@S6K
