Of Moses and America (Great Read)

boblonsberry.com ^ | 1/30/03 | Bob Lonsberry

[billbears]

Thank you for correcting me. I was mistaken. I knew of what you mentioned but I always assumed it was also for the murder of the Egyptian

[AnAmericanMother]

No problem.

Only reason I know is that I just finished helping my daughter study for her Old Testament exam which covered the Pentateuch. That was one of the study questions. My brain is currently full of all sorts of useful material like the names of all the Cities of Refuge and all the ceremonial items in the Temple and what Balaam said to Barak, and so on and so on.

The up side is that my daughter is reading the Bible closely for the first time, even learning memory verses . . . which really throws me off because I learned the King James version and her teacher is using RSV. Episcopalians are not big on Bible study although we do have three Scripture readings in the service . . . so this is a good thing.

[keats5]

That's right, American Mom. Those passages also indicate Moses appeared to give himself (and Aaron) the credit for the miracle, when the glory belonged soley to God.

However, the old testament is still full of examples of when God approved, and even commanded, war. The books of Joshua and Judges are such examples.

By the way, when speaking about Sarandon's "What did Iraq ever do to us" commercial, Bill Bennet said "What did the Nazi's ever do to us."?

[Tennessee_Bob]

Bump for a later read.

[RnMomof7]

Interesting..I think most of us think of the whole of Israel (offspring of Abraham) when we think of Israel..not a seperated people

[Ethan_Allen]

LINK: http://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/Num/Num020.html#7

God did let Moses see the promised land from a distance, though: http://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/Deu/Deu032.html#49 and http://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/Deu/Deu034.html#4

In Deuteronomy chapter 33, he lays out the future of the twelve tribes, and finally, the triumph of the Israel of God, (I Peter 2:6, Ephesians 2:20, Galatians 4:21-31, 6:15-16).

Deu 33:26 [There is] none like unto the God of Jeshurun, [who] rideth upon the heaven in thy help, and in his excellency on the sky.

Deu 33:27 The eternal God [is thy] refuge, and underneath [are] the everlasting arms: and he shall thrust out the enemy from before thee; and shall say, Destroy [them]. http://www.blueletterbible.org/tsk_b/Deu/33/27.html

Deu 33:28 Israel then shall dwell in safety alone: the fountain of Jacob [shall be] upon a land of corn and wine; also his heavens shall drop down dew.

Deu 33:29 Happy [art] thou, O Israel: who [is] like unto thee, O people saved by the LORD, the shield of thy help, and who [is] the sword of thy excellency! and thine enemies shall be found liars unto thee; and thou shalt tread upon their high places. http://www.blueletterbible.org/tsk_b/Deu/33/29.html

However, word to the wise: before Americans undertake anything else in the Middle East, it would behoove them to first understand who "Israel" is: http://preteristarchive.com/TrueHistory/index.html. (It's a covenant of grace, not race.) In Old Testament times, in order to be successful before they went into attack mode, the leaders sought God's will first. Otherwise, like Moses, they often got themselves into trouble.

doc: I agree, ethnic prejudice is out of bounds and is not of God, particulary in the New Covenant. Even in the O.T., God told the Israelites: Deu 23:7 Thou shalt not abhor an Edomite; for he [is] thy brother: thou shalt not abhor an Egyptian; because thou wast a stranger in his land. I often wonder if the "leaders" stepped out of the way and let just the people come to the peace table, if they wouldn't be able to work something out. Heck, Esau even forgave Jacob. I think most people just want to live in peace, whereas the leaders often have other agendas, and keep things stirred up in order to promote them.

[A.J.Armitage]

A fair number of Jewish folks are descended from proselytes anyway.

I think most of them are descended from both converts and the original Hebrews. David was.

[DensaMensa]

David was.

Funny, I thought David was an Israelite. Everyone else in his kingdom was.

[rdb3]

Here we go again. Looks like another LostTribe.

What's the over/under, 'Tooth?

T-minus 44 days until the girth of Tha SYNDICATE, the philosophical heir to William Lloyd Garrison.
101 things that the Mozilla browser can do that Internet Explorer cannot.

[El Gato]

And this guy deserves to be buried in the sand.

He does indeed, but I'd prefer to see him hanging upside down from a lamp post, with a brand new "smile". Failing that, he'll probably end up a crispy critter in one of his bunkers after the bunker busters arrive.

[the_doc]

The truth is, Israel was Jacob, and national Israel was all of his offspring.

But after the death of Solomon, national Israel was partitioned. Judah and Benjamin became formally known as "the Kingdom of Judah." The rest, i.e., the Ten Tribes, aka the Northern Kingdom, claimed the name "Kingdom of Israel" for themselves.

(Example: Ahab was King of Israel but not King of Judah.)

The upshot of this is that after the death of David's son--the King of all Israel--the Jews wound up separated from Israel.

Think of the prophetic/eschatological implications of this! It's especially interesting when we remember that the Ten Tribes, i.e, Israel, wound up in the Gentile nations!

(John realized this was significant when he heard the words of the High Priest about the looming death of Jesus Christ! John realized that the whole situation of the Diaspora was actually a weird typological picture in which the odd circumstances of [and changes involving] the elect nation of Israel were depicting a soteriological election involving a spiritual Israel of Gentiles!

In other words, the significance of Israel actually changed with the dispensational shift which occurred after the Cross-work of Christ. The Church became the spiritual entity in which the promises to national Israel were fulfilled. This agrees with what Paul says about the "seeds of Abraham" in Galatians! [It also fits Paul's statement that the Christians are actually the True Jews--i.e., the true heirs of all that Judaism itself signified!])

[A.J.Armitage]

You insist that only Judah and Benjamin (and, I would assume, the Levites from the Southern Kingdom) should be called Jews. Well, David was from Judah. Now you're changing your mind?

[the_doc]

See also my #31 for an odd little feature of OT history.

[the_doc]

Many probably were converts involving marriage arrangements. However, there are some historians who claim that a huge number of today's Jews are Slavic folks with no clear racial ties at all to Abraham.

(It doesn't really matter, since proselytism is not in and of itself illegitimate--and I am not sure how reliable the claims by the aforementioned historians are anyway. But they present an interesting scenario which I have not been able to debunk.)

[DensaMensa]

You insist that only Judah and Benjamin (and, I would assume, the Levites from the Southern
Kingdom) should be called Jews.

No, I don't believe I said that.  But the fact is only members of the Southern Kingdom (which was later called Judea) were ever called Jews (named after Judea), and that was many centuries later when they returned from Babylon.  David was long since dead since he ruled all the Israelites only before they split.

[A.J.Armitage]

However, there are some historians who claim that a huge number of today's Jews are Slavic folks with no clear racial ties at all to Abraham.

You're probably thinking of The 13th Tribe by Arthur Koestler. He said that the Ashkenazi, who are the Jews who came from European countries except Spain, are descendants of the Khazars, who converted en masse in the Middle Ages. Apparently, the king of the Khazars had a priest, a rabbi, and an imam, and asked them which of the other two religions were better. The priest and the imam both said Judaism, so that's what he had the Khazars convert to.

The thing is, they weren't actually Slavic, but Turkic, and it was only really the upper class that converted. I don't doubt most Ashkenazi are part-Khazar. But it's a small part. Ashkenazi Cohens match Sephardic Cohens, and they look Slavic, not Turkish.

I don't think there's any reason the variety of Jews needs a mass conversion or a serious break in continuity to explain it. A small proportion of converts per generation can eventually have a huge impact.

[Matchett-PI]

You wrote: "The Church became the spiritual entity in which the promises to national Israel were fulfilled. This agrees with what Paul says about the "seeds of Abraham" in Galatians! [It also fits Paul's statement that the Christians are actually the True Jews--i.e., the true heirs of all that Judaism itself signified!])"

Here's an interesting quote in light of what you wrote:

"... Background to what Jesus said [John 15: 1-8]: It's not nice imagery. It's not that Jesus said, "how can I say this in a way they will understand." Jesus was saying something very very profound, and especially for the Hebrew mind.

When Jesus said "I am the vine", those who listened thought of the older Testament of these words (and I could cite many more):

Psa 80:8 Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt: thou hast cast out the heathen, and planted it.

Psa 80:9 Thou preparedst [room] before it, and didst cause it to take deep root, and it filled the land.

Psa 80:10 The hills were covered with the shadow of it, and the boughs thereof [were like] the goodly cedars.

Psa 80:11 She sent out her boughs unto the sea, and her branches unto the river.

Isa 5:1 Now will I sing to my wellbeloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My wellbeloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill:

Isa 5:2 And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.

Isa 5:7 For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts [is] the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.

Jer 2:2 Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the LORD; I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land [that was] not sown.

Jer 2:21 Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me?

Eze 19:10 Thy mother [is] like a vine in thy blood, planted by the waters: she was fruitful and full of branches by reason of many waters.

Eze 19:11 And she had strong rods for the sceptres of them that bare rule, and her stature was exalted among the thick branches, and she appeared in her height with the multitude of her branches.

Eze 19:12 But she was plucked up in fury, she was cast down to the ground, and the east wind dried up her fruit: her strong rods were broken and withered; the fire consumed them.

Eze 19:13 And now she [is] planted in the wilderness, in a dry and thirsty ground.

Eze 19:14 And fire is gone out of a rod of her branches, [which] hath devoured her fruit, so that she hath no strong rod [to be] a sceptre to rule. This [is] a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation.

Hosa 10:1a Israel [is] an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself ..

When Jesus said, "I am the true vine", his Jewish hearers thought of the verses that I just read to you. During the Maccabean period, the coinage of God's people had a vine on it as a symbol of Isreal. If I am to tell you, "I am the Eagle", what would you think? If you're an American you would think that's arrogant, and that's presumptuous.

When Jesus said, "I am the vine", and listen very carefully, he was saying, "I am the essence of Isreal."

He was saying, "I am the prototype of which Isreal is the type."

He was saying, "I am the personification of everything God's people were ever meant to be."

He was saying, "I am the reality of all that God has ever proposed to do in the entire history of the human race." ~

Dr. Steve Brown http://www.keylife.org

[RnMomof7]

Not correct. It was for his disobedience in striking the rock when he was commanded to speak to it.

Correct.There is a lesson there for us..for the first time he was told to strike it (Exodus 17:6)..the second time to speak to it( numbers20)..But he was not obedient to the second command...Perhaps a sign of a change of a salvation of works to one of Grace..??

     Jhn 4:10   Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.

[RnMomof7]

Funny, I thought David was an Israelite. Everyone else in his kingdom was.

He had Ruth in his line...

[DensaMensa]

He had Ruth in his line...

You are correct. I was making the distinction between Israelites and Jews but should not have used the word "everyone".