The Jewish Emphasis on Study

Why is it that traditional Judaism puts such an intense emphasis on study?

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. In Judaism, could you imagine as a Christian, maybe you're 80 years old and your spouse is 79 years old and your spouse becomes ill and you realize they're about to pass away that you want to get some books to start to study them about the laws of mourning and review those, how you are to mourn your spouse properly. Wouldn't really relate like that and yet that's what a traditional Jew might well do. Why?

Such emphasis on study. Welcome friends to Thoroughly Jewish Thursday on the Line of Fire. This is your Thoroughly Jewish host Michael Brown. Talking about our Thoroughly Jewish Messiah Jesus Yeshua. If you have a Jewish related question of any kind, it could be a Hebrew question, question about Jewish tradition, question about Israel today, question about Messianic prophecy, maybe you're a Jewish person that differs with me in my faith and would like to discuss it with me, 866-344-866-348-7884.

So as long as Jewish related phone lines will be wide open. So why does Judaism have this tremendous emphasis on study? Now Jews pray. The Jewish prayer book is filled with beauty and many prayers that you would pray and agree with and other prayers you'd say, well I believe you already have this in Jesus, I don't need to pray that prayer. But most of the prayers you'd affirm and especially from the perspective of a Jewish person, you'd see the importance of that. So Jewish people certainly believe in prayer. A traditional Jew will be praying three set times a day. A Jewish male is required to do that and will be going through a lot of pages in prayer and if it's high holy days and things like that, there's a lot that's prayed, there's a lot of material that you go through.

So the prayers are written out but you are praying, alright, you're not just studying, you're praying. But there's a tremendous emphasis that's put on study. If you're going to get married, you're a religious Jew, then you are going to review various laws about sexual contact, the woman during uncleanness, the monthly period and things like that.

Just understand, make sure you understand those laws and you've mastered them well. To become ordained as a rabbi in a religious Jewish setting requires a tremendous amount of learning and understanding of key texts. If you compare that to say what's required for someone to be ordained as a pastor in a very religious Christian group, it would be a tremendous emphasis on lifestyle and a practical wisdom relationship with God as well as some knowledge of scripture, right? But there'd be an emphasis on other things so Judaism of course requires character and believes in the importance of that but that's almost like, well, it's taken for granted, you know, let's see if you can pass this test here.

So why this tremendous emphasis on study, on learning? Let's take a look at Joshua chapter 1 verse 8. Joshua chapter 1 verse 8 and Joshua is now on his own. Moses is dead. The generation that rebelled died in the wilderness. Now Joshua is called to go into the land.

Joshua is called to lead the people, all right? And God says to him, lo yamush sefer Torah zemipichah, this book of teaching, the law we could say but it's a book of divine teaching instruction, this book will not depart from your mouth, all right? Notice that, from your mouth. So it's a book, it's something written but it won't depart from your mouth.

Why? Because you're going to memorize it, because you're going to repeat it. The hagita bo yomam v'lila. And you will recite it day and night.

That's the new JPS verse. You say, no, it says meditate. Meditate not in the way we use it today. I'm going to sit and close my eyes and just kind of think quietly.

That's fine to do that. Meditate on the word, meditate on who God is and so on. But the Hebrew is speaking of an actual utterance. The impression would be that you're reciting, repeating, reciting. You go into a synagogue, listen to the prayers or it's a place of Jewish study, you hear like this buzz. They're reciting things rapidly, all right?

So words are actually being uttered. The Hebrew with hagah means that. When I was first saved, I heard, yeah, the Hebrew word for meditate means it's like a cow chewing the cut.

To this day, I don't know where people got that from. It's got nothing to do with the Hebrew. Anyway, so you recite it, you repeat it day and night, lamat and tishmorla, sot k'cha k'tuvbo, in order that you can observe to do it, to do everything that's written. In other words, the reason you're going to have it on your mouth and be reciting it and keeping it in front of you all the time is that you can do what's written. It's not just magic words that you're reciting, but you keep it in front of you to do what's written, all right?

Ki'az tatzli acheter achecha ve'az tazkil. Because then, when you obey what's written, then you'll succeed in all your ways. All your ways will prosper, all right?

You'll be successful. Now, let's take a look in Psalm 1. Psalm 1 paints a similar picture.

Many of you are familiar with the words in Hebrew. It starts with, asrei ha'ish, asher lo, halach, v'dercha shayim. So, truly happy is the one who doesn't walk in the way of the wicket.

And it goes on from there. It doesn't sit in the seat of the scornful. It goes on with the progression of walk and sit, walk, sit, stand, sit, etc. So, asrei ha'ish, asher lo, halach, ba'ts, excuse me, I knew I said it wrong, ba'ts, asrei shayim, v'dercha t'im lo amal, v'nushav l'itzim lo yishav. So, truly happy, blessed is the man who doesn't walk in the counsel of the wicket, the ungodly, and doesn't stand in the way of sinners, and doesn't sit in the dwelling place of scorners, right?

But look at this, ki'im ba'torot ha'adana achepsu. But his delight is in the teaching, the Torah of the Lord, v'vatoratoye ge'yomam v'lila. And look at this, and he studies that teaching, or he recites that teaching day and night.

As a result, he's like a tree planted besides streams of water, which yields its fruit in season, its foliage never fades, and whatever it produces thrives. Here you have, again, reciting, repeating, speaking the word day and night, day and night, day and night. Where I'm explaining where the tradition comes from in Judaism. Alright, so let's step back and think about these texts and as they develop. So, you have over a period of time a body of literature written, laws that are written down by Moses, then further laws that are written down, then whole books that are written down. You end up having what we have as the Hebrew Scriptures, which Christians would refer to as the Old Testament and Jews would refer to as Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible. So, you have that body of literature, but that's just the beginning of the beginning in traditional Judaism. Because traditional Judaism believes that these laws were given interpretation by God to Moses orally and were then passed down and principles of interpretation were given and other information was given and then each generation they're making legal rulings. Right, every day the courts in America making the legal rulings. Think if you had to keep up with all those, right? If you're a judge, you have to keep up with many key rulings in certain areas, right?

So, this material is now developing and now you need to keep it before you. So, the body of literature is growing and growing to this day, growing and growing and growing, you know, massive amount of Jewish literature to the point that just to stay with it, just to understand it, it's not just like reading the Gospels or meditating on John 15 or learning the book of Romans. You're talking about a vast body of literature. It would be like for Christians learning all the commentaries and all the books about Paul and all the books about the Gospels and just everything that's being written and being written and being written and being written that everybody had to be a scholar on that level, all right? But for a traditional Jew, this is part of your life. This is because God gave his law and because it is his perfection and it reveals his character and his wisdom is revealed in it, then we give ourselves to it, right? And as we give ourselves to it, that's a form of worship of God. It would be like you are someone who studies jewels, but you're a believer and with each jewel you're examining, you're thinking of the handiwork of God and the more you examine those jewels, the more you're saying, wow, what a God we serve. So for a traditional Jew being absorbed in God's law and understanding his law is part of worship, is part of service. So the highest level, if you get into a very, very traditional Jewish society, yes, piety is considered important. Being godly is considered important. But when you read about the great rabbis, you always read about how much they know, how much they learned, how many hours a day they studied. It's not the way you think of, you know, if I ask you, hey, your favorite Bible teachers today or the Christian leaders who most impacted you over the years, yeah, you appreciate scholarship. But for the most part, it's this one's walk with God or this one's powerful teaching or how the anointing of the Spirit was on this one, you know, versus how much they knew.

That's just more like in the academia. But that's very much central in Judaism, this constant emphasis on study and learning. And this one was a prodigy at the age of eight, had mastered, you know, all this literature that had been beyond your average seminary and with a PhD and had mastered it at the age of eight. And they had memorized all this at this point that that these things that just in my mind, just because of human carnality, human beings being the way they are, that we then take our pride in this or measure this. And then it becomes all consuming to the point that, say, mastering the tractates of the Talmud, which for a Jewish person is a very spiritual thing to do. And as part of their relationship with God, that that actually displaces the idea of fellowship with him or intimacy with him or just worshiping in his presence and adoring him. So although there are Jews that that would say this is God's business, they're involved with twenty four seven in their day and night study and pursuit of these texts. And it's part of their worship of God. I would say that in many ways that it's taken something and gone too far with it.

But in any case, you understand some of why this giving you some hints why study is so important in Judaism, why it's been so much a part of Jewish life through the centuries. All right. We'll be right back. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural and spiritual revolution. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. It's like Misha gets to me. Morning Misha. Great prayers and blessings.

This is Michael Brown. Welcome to the line of fire. It is thoroughly Jewish Thursday. That means if you have a Jewish related question of any kind, this is your time to call an eight six six three four two eight six six three four eight seven eight eight four. That's the number to call. And let me go straight to the phones now.

We'll start with our friend James in Phoenix, Arizona. Welcome to the line of fire. Hello, Dr. Brown. Thanks for taking my call again. I got a question. I got a question for you first. You live in Arizona. Do you think there has been fraud in your state or no?

I don't I don't think it's been any fraud. It's been I've never seen so many Biden signs and flags everywhere. Isn't that interesting? Very, very interesting, because, you know, there was not a lot of outward Biden enthusiasm in a lot of the country. There is more, you know, hatred of Trump or we got to get rid of Trump than, you know, being pro Biden. And I've had people say, yeah, they were driving across country and they saw Trump signs everywhere and didn't see much by. But that's interesting. You've seen a lot of Biden signs in Arizona.

Yeah, everything like that democratic in Arizona in years. Interesting. Anyway. Yeah.

I mean, whatever you said, I was just asking for your personal opinion. I couldn't resist. Well, I could have resisted.

I chose not to. Your question. Yeah. I think I asked this question kind of before and I'm still kind of struggling on it, on the really on the prophetic perfect looking at, you know, numbers 24, 17. But the question I have there is why is the imperfect verbs, you know, you know, the I shall see why they translated as the past tense and most translations. And that kind of like leads me over into, you know, Isaiah 9 6, where, you know, a lot of rabbinical objections are, you know, that Christians are accused of making it a future tense when it's really a past tense, thinking about the child being born like that. Right.

OK, so let's take a look at numbers 24, 17. And let's first understand this concept of prophetic perfect. So perfect doesn't mean perfection. Perfect is the grammatical term for something that's that's happened. That's completed. Right. So why is it that the verb is past tense, but it's speaking about a future event? So I'm I'm going to I'm going to read this and translated this if I didn't know anything.

OK, I'm just translating the words. I see him, but not now. I behold him, but it's not near. A star has arisen from Jacob and and a a scepter has come forth from Israel and he has smashed the brow of Moab and the foundation of of all the children of of Seth.

All right. So if I didn't know any better, I'm reading this. So I'm seeing something.

It's it's it's near, but it's not it's not right here. So suddenly, obviously from the past, that happened, right? Because the verb Darach, which is coming to tread, but the concept would be putting your foot, stepping on a on a on a bow and pulling it back for an arrow. So so that concept is part of the language here. But Darach is past tense and calm rise. That's past tense.

But it's called the prophetic perfect because it's being understood that the prophet is seeing this before it happens, but as if it already happened. OK, so it's six months ago and I say I see it. I see it. The elections have been contested. I see it cries of voter fraud. I see it.

The nation divided over the outcome of the election. Well, I'm saying it is if it really happened because I'm I'm seeing it. I'm seeing these things. So it's called prophetic perfect because they're prophets using the past tense when they're speaking about sending a future tense. So if you look at the rabbinic commentaries there, they're all saying that this is a prophecy about David. And then when you read it again, say, oh, that's what he's saying. I see it, but it's not now.

I behold it, but it's not near. It's it's it's a ways down the line that this is going to happen. And now he's using the verbs as if it already happened in the same way the rabbinic interpreters and like the Targum that understand Isaiah nine six or nine five in Hebrew to be a messianic prophecy.

Right. So speaking about the birth of a future king and the Hebrews Kiela, you love on a bendy tunnel on a child is born to us. The son is given to us. So why is it past tense? Because the prophet is seeing it as if it already happened.

And you just have to determine this. You're talking about a historical event that has happened. Hey, a child has been born to us.

Let's rejoice. Or the birth of this child is like a a prototype of the Messiah or the prophet is rejoicing, having seen the future as if it's already happened. So does that explain the the language and how it's used?

Yeah, a little a little bit. So let me so let me get it a better understanding. So yeah, when when the first verb that says, you know, what is it? Erenu.

Erenu. Yeah, the first verb said Erenu. So we should look at the because he's a prophet and we should just say that, well, since he's seen this, we should translate it as he's seen it instead of he sells. No, no, no, no, it's not. No, he's saying I see it.

That's the right way to translate it. I see it. This is Balaam seeing in a vision. I see it, but it's not now. I behold it, Ashurenu, but it's not it's not near. But isn't Erenu in the imperfect?

Yeah, it is. But but imperfect can also mean be present in Hebrew. Imperfect is also used for present. Yeah, that's what you're missing.

Sorry, I could have solved that or easier for if I understood that. Yeah, so imperfect can mean I will see it, right? Or I'm seeing it. Yeah, it can also be used like that throughout the Hebrew Bible. Oh, okay.

Yeah, it's fun. That makes more sense. Yeah, Hebrew, the Hebrew verbs are used very differently than Greek. Greek everything is very precise. Hebrew is it can be used in these different ways.

Here, I give an example that you know, Exodus 3.14, when God reveals himself. I am who I am, but that's imperfect. And there it's often translated as I am. So that's that's your solution. All right. All right, got it. Yeah, I'm glad to glad to be here to answer your your good Hebrew questions.

866-34-TRUTH. Courtney on Facebook, when you say Hebrew doesn't have future tense, not in the strict way that we do in English. But yes, it has past, present, future aspects. And if you're learning Hebrew as a child today, then what we call the imperfect, you'd learn that it's future.

But it can also, especially in biblical Hebrew, be used for present. All right, let us go to Sacramento, California. Brandon, welcome to the line of fire. Shalom, doctor. Thank you for taking my call. You bet.

All right. So I just want to have a couple couple questions on the Messiah. So within Orthodox Judaism, the Messiah is is known as as David as David himself. And so rabbis and Orthodox Jews will use verses like Hosea three, five and six, or four, five, and Jeremiah 39, and Ezekiel 34, and 37. And especially Psalms 89, and all that stuff. So there's these, these, a lot of these messianic scriptures that talk about the resurrection of David, specifically in the latter days and being the one shepherd.

So my main question to you is, is why do rabbinical rabbis believe that it will not be the son of David that will be the Messiah, but actually David himself in the latter days? Where did you get the idea that they do believe that? So within within Hasidic Judaism, this is a common, have you ever heard of Gilgul Neshamot? I'm sure you've made videos on it.

I think I might have seen one from you. So Gilgul Neshamot is a concept within Hasidic Judaism, and it's actually very widespread within Orthodox Judaism today. And they do believe in in the resurrection of the Messiah. It's not the resurrection. No, no, no, there's yeah, there's a misunderstanding there. So the idea of Gilgul is is a similar concept to reincarnation, but not exactly the same. Yes. It's not a resurrection.

It's not the same. Right, but it's the soul. The belief would be that the soul of the Messiah is rebirthed. Yeah, so it gets in with the third day.

It comes on with the third day in Genesis 1, when it talks about how God made it. Right, the point is that Judaism almost universally refers to the Messiah as Ben David, the son of David, and believes that it will not be David physically raised from the dead. But some in mystical Judaism would argue that it's the soul of the Messiah.

And some don't think that that's David, by the way. The soul of the Messiah is something else. Yes, I mean, we can both pick rabbis like, oh, he believes this, and he believes this. And so I like the exegesis of the text, right?

Right, right, but hang on, yeah, hang on, just to be clear, and then we'll continue this on the other side of the break, so we'll take some time. Just to be clear, traditional Judaism does not teach that the Messiah will be David raised from the dead. There is some speculation, but traditional Judaism sees the Messiah as the son of David. In fact, it's one of his names, Ben David, the son of David.

And whether there is speculation that the soul of the Messiah was born at a certain point, and now his soul is rebirthed through the generations until the final, you know, manifestation, that's a separate thing. Just wanted to clarify. Also, you referenced Jeremiah 39.

Check that. I think that's a mistaken reference, unless I'm forgetting something. All right, I want to continue the conversation. We'll take our time on the other side of the break. Oh, and a rare thing on 30 Jewish Thursday, we've got some phone lines open if you want to call in with your Jewish-related question.

Now is a perfect time. We'll be right back. It's The Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome, welcome to The Line of Fire on 30 Jewish Thursday. Michael Brown, delighted to be with you.

All right, questions about Jewish views of the Messiah? Brandon and Sacramento. We don't have a break against us now, so back to you. Oh, cool, sorry. I think you misunderstand me.

It was Jeremiah 30 verse 9. I missed it. Ah, got it. You said it clearly in what you meant, and I heard it the other way, but we're good.

We're good. Oh, okay. Okay, yeah, so the concept in, I don't know, as we both know, there's different sects of Judaism, and it's been like that for 2,000 years, even in Yeshua's time. The Sadducees who didn't believe in the resurrection of the dead, the Pharisees who did. And so there's a concept within orthodox, ultra-orthodox Judaism, where they believe that it's King David as the Messiah himself. Many rabbis, actually, even today, that it's King David himself who will return in the latter days. And if, to refer to scriptures, it's like Hosea chapter 3. I'm sure you've read that, correct? Yep, sure.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, so the concept is the resurrection of David, and so much so to where the fulfilled prophecies of the one shepherd specifically. And so, with this being said, if there are Jews who do believe in prophets being resurrected, like when Jesus says, who do the people say that I am, the surrounding people believe that he was one of the prophets risen again, you know, i.e.

Luke chapter 9, verse 19. And so they believe that he was somebody from the past, come again. And everybody knew he didn't come out of the sky. They believed that he was born of a womb. So the point is, if reincarnation or Gilgo neshamot, or specifically, it's a certain type of reincarnation, which is reincarnation through your seed, and it's the concept of Deuteronomy 25, Genesis 38, Ruth 4, and actually Genesis 1, where it talks about how God, what God did on the third day.

And he made everything to bear seed with the seed in itself after it's kind, and it goes into the verse about being fruitful and multiplying and all that stuff. So my point is, is if the Jews believe that the Messiah is David, why does Jesus, why don't people believe that Jesus is David, and why does he call himself David? Right, okay, so number one, there's no evidence that in the first century there was a widespread belief that the Messiah was literally David.

That's the first thing. There is no evidence that the concept of Gilgul existed at that time. It's not found in the Talmud.

In the ninth century, the leading Jewish authority, Rav Sa'aja Gaon, referred to such a notion as foolishness. So this is something that only comes into the... Do you consider the New Testament to be like a proof text? That there was some belief in, that there could be, in other words, there were some beliefs that could be there, but any widespread belief in Gilgul does not seem to exist. No, I understand the point from...

But let me just finish though, okay? But the idea that the Messiah himself would be David, literally, risen from the dead, you cannot find in a widespread way in early Jewish sources. What you do find consistently is reference to the Messiah being the son of David, so a distinct being. Even the idea that it was the soul of David that was passed on through the generations, there is no evidence of that, and that would still be something different from someone being raised from the dead.

So what I'm saying is that there are later concepts, which especially come in with the mysticism of Isaac Luria in the 16th century, so Luria and Lurianic Kabbalah, that now develop and that are widespread, especially in Hasidic circles, that would have been virtually unknown in the first century that you really don't want to confuse with the question of Jeremiah, one of the prophets, or John the Immerser, risen from the dead. The other thing is that the Jewish view that's become codified, and you'll find it in the mission of Torah in Maimonides and Laws of Kings, the 11th chapter, that anyone that claims to be the Messiah and dies before completing their mission cannot be the Messiah. So the idea that, well, it was David, well, David didn't claim to be the Messiah, and it's not like he made proclamation and failed in his mission and now we have to wait for him to be raised from the dead, whereas the argument would be that the claims were made that Jesus was the Messiah and he failed in his mission and has died, therefore he can't be the Messiah. That would be the difference even if someone was accepting all the other parts of your argument. So I appreciate the lines of thinking, and you might be able to have a bridge, you know, talking to an ultra-orthodox Jew about it, but that would pretty much be their answer, that Jesus couldn't be the Messiah because he failed before completing his mission, whereas David would have been a prototype.

Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, my point with the orthodox Jew is that I tell them, you know, in Isaiah 55, there's an echoed statement where it says, you know, I'll give you the sure mercies of David, behold, I have made him a witness to the people and a people he shall call that he did not know and they shall serve him and obey him. And this is echoed through the words of David in the Psalm 18 and also in 2 Samuel 22, where he says that God has delivered him from the strivings of his people and a people which he did not know shall come running to him as soon as they hear about him.

Right? And so I want to emphasize, you know, I understand that you're— Listen, listen, if you're dealing with a traditional Jewish person who has a lot of these assumptions and beliefs, right, and you are using this as a bridge to get him to consider the messianic realities of Yeshua, obviously it's going to break down in a bunch of points, but just like I've used concepts of Shekhinah or Memra or Spherot to try to help a traditional Jew understand God's complex unity or how Yeshua is the Word made flesh, where you're trying to get him to think and then the role of David and the parallels, like Isaiah 55, these other things, there's something to that. In other words, who David is in Scripture and what he represents, and there are even scholars that refer to, in Latin, David redivivus, you know, David risen from the dead as the Messiah, you know, and was that what they were expecting based on the language? And then have you gone to rabbinic tradition about Psalm 16?

Have you ever gone there, Brandon? Oh, yeah, yeah, that you'll not suffer your holy one to see corruption, absolutely. And that's the tradition that there are seven people that never physically saw corruption, David being one of them, right?

Right, right, right. Well, the biggest verse I have a question for you, maybe you can answer, is in Psalms 89, verse 27, what is your understanding of that? Especially, it's a whole chapter, really, but it's specifically from verse 20 to 27, and I would love to hear your understanding of what is the writer of the Psalm trying to tell us.

Right, so, in volume two of Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, I get into the way that the Son of David or the Davidic King is described in Scripture as the Son of God, as the most exalted, and I basically parallel that many of the things that are said about God, that He's to be praised, that He's highly exalted, are said about the Davidic King, so how can you accuse us of idolatry for holding to these very things? So, yeah, so this would be one of the examples I use, verse 27 in English, I'll also make Him my firstborn, greatest of the kings of the earth, so just like in Exodus 4, God says about Israel, B'ni b'chori Yisrael, Israel is my son, my firstborn, right, there among the nations, so the firstborn meaning the preeminent one, just like the Messiah is called the firstborn of all creation, right, in Colossians and in Revelation, so, yeah, I'll always preserve my faithful love for him, my covenant with him will endure, I'll establish this line forever, his throne as long as heaven lasts. Well, specifically verse 20, verse 19 and 20 gets where he talks about how I've revealed in a vision, and he talks about how I revealed in a vision, and I have said, I have chosen one out of the people, I have chosen David, and I have anointed him with my holy oil, basically saying David's the Messiah in Hebrew, if you read this text in Hebrew, it says David is Hamashiach, right, so here's where I would just push back on that, the high priest was HaKohane Hamashiach, in other words, yeah, there was many messiahs, right, the ha, the main guy, the one, right, right, yeah, I'm just saying that, that, yeah, so it's verse, it'd be verse 21 in Hebrew, correct, in verse 19. Right, right, and in, so it says, I have laid upon one, and in it, that whenever it refers to the one in verse 27, you have to refer to verse 20 or 21. Right, right, but in Hebrew, right, but in Hebrew it just says Messiah's teeth. So it says, I'm going to make David, I'm going to make David my firstborn. Right, right, but what that means, again, is the preeminent one, the firstborn, so he would be the preeminent of all the kings, kings of the earth, and Brandon, the best thing to do in looking at this is, again, these are bridges to help and understanding, and check out volume two of answering Jewish objections to Jesus, it's going to be probably objection 3.3, somewhere around there, but in any, in any case, key, key thing is that you don't want to push too far, in other words, there were many anointed ones, you wouldn't want to call them messiahs, so David is now the one through whom the messianic line will come, the chosen king who was anointed, and the language, not just for him, but for the Davidic king and future generations, you look at Psalm 2, the prayers for Solomon, right, that this was now to be the pattern, and then it finds its fulfillment, the only one who fully lives up to this is the Messiah himself, hey, I appreciate the study you're doing, and the call, very much, eager to hear from you again, all right, 866-34-TRUTH, and obviously, we could talk for hours on these kinds of things, any of you that have really dug in and studied, we could, and you call them, we could talk for hours, but I want to give others a chance as well, we'll go over to Fort Worth, Texas, Debbie, welcome to the line of fire, hello Dr. Brown, how are you?

It's fine, thank you. Hey, about a month and a half ago, you did a little teaching about the festival of tabernacles, or maybe the Jewish New Year, that it wasn't, hasn't been taught historically, that Jesus would come back, or that it would start the new millennium, I believe, is that right? I'm not sure exactly what you'd be referring to, I mean, we often go through the history of the biblical calendar, the high holy days, and the prophetic meaning, we know that Passover finds its fulfillment in Messiah's crucifixion, firstfruits in his resurrection, Pentecost, Shavuot, the outpouring of the Spirit, and then that the final fulfillment of the Feast of Trumpets will be his return, final fulfillment of Day of Atonement will be the national cleansing of Israel, final fulfillment of Tabernacles will be the nations of the world streaming to Jerusalem to worship the God of Israel, the question is, he literally died at the time of Passover and fulfilled these other prophecies on schedule, will he literally return at that time of the year, the first day of the seventh month, which in Jewish tradition is Rosh Hashanah, the New Year, that's the question, so we'll come back and discuss that, stay right here. It's The Line of Fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian, Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Get into The Line of Fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome, welcome to Thoroughly Jewish Thursday. Everyone that is scheduled to be going to Israel with us, very beginning of March, right at the end of February, beginning of March, we are still waiting and hoping that things will sufficiently open up in Israel for the tour to go on as scheduled, so you'll know as soon as we know, and the plan is to be there. If there are delays, some have been waiting since May, you signed up for May of this year, so we've all been waiting and our team shifting things and working with the team that books everything in Israel and get all the hotels and the seats and then delayed, we delayed from May to October, now from October to early March, late February, early March, but hopefully we'll know soon.

I know people make plans and all this, we all do, especially with everything we have to coordinate with the ministry, but when it's right and safe to go and the tour can be conducted fully, we will be there, God willing. All right, 866-34-TRUTH if you have a Jewish-related question. So Debbie, did my little explanation about what I understand, did that help sharpen the question you wanted to ask? It did, but I remember it was the show that you were doing, Internet Myths, and where Jesus folded the hankie, you know, in the tomb, and so you had said something about Jesus coming back, and you did tell me what I needed to know. It's a progression that we can follow since we see that Jesus came back, I mean, died at Passover. Right, and what clues us in on the rest, Debbie, and then I'll get back to the myth, I think, that you're talking about.

In fact, I'm going to have Kai and Chris, let's see if you can research this on the fly. No one knows the day or the hour and the Feast of Trumpets. See what you come up with online, guys, and send me, like, no one knows the day or the hour and the Feast of Trumpets.

That's the myth thing that we'll get into in a moment. But the reason that we think this way, in terms of, okay, we have the spring feasts that had to do with his death and resurrection and the outpouring of the Spirit, the Pentecost, now we have the fall feasts. It would be logical that they are for the rest of his mission, but if you think of it, Matthew 24, 1 Corinthians 15, 1 Thessalonians 4, the Messiah comes back with the sounds of the trumpet, the trumpet blast. Well, wow, that seems to tie in directly with this idea of the coming in conjunction with Feast of Trumpets. And then what happens with that is cleansing for Israel, so the next event, Day of Atonement, and then what follows that is the nations coming to Jerusalem to worship God, the survivors of the nations that attacked Jerusalem. So where do you have that? Zechariah 12, his return, Zechariah 13, national cleansing for Israel, Zechariah 14, the survivors of the nations that attacked Jerusalem coming to worship.

So you have that progression there. The problem is that some have thought, well, that's literally when he's coming, that that's specifically the time when he's coming, in which case we would know the day, right? Once we figured out it's this year that, you know, this must be the year, then we would know that specific day.

All right, so you got videos our guys have found, but not specific websites. Rosh Hashanah and its hidden secret. Yeah, no man knows the day or the hour.

So here's the argument, and I reject this. This is, according to everything I know, an internet myth, that Jesus was not saying that we wouldn't know the day or the hour, but that he was saying that it's just like Rosh Hashanah when you don't know the day or the hour, meaning because that's the one feast that falls on the first day of the month, and the first day of the month is only confirmed when you have witnesses seeing the new moon, and therefore you can't exactly know which day it's going to be, that that's all that that means. That Jesus didn't really mean you won't know the day or the hour.

What he meant was it's just going to be like the Feast of Trumpets, which in Jewish tradition becomes the New Year. So it's an interesting concept. You know, I'd never heard it before I heard it online. So that makes you suspicious at first. You know, you're like, hmm, there we go. There's a web. Good job, bossy.

I knew they could do it. Day or hour is only code for the day of trumpets and not a limit on knowing when. A more recent interpretation getting popularity comes from the Messianic and Hebrew roots movement. It correctly teaches how we know from other passages that Jesus comes for the rapture on the last trumpet or the seventh trumpet or the day of trumpets. This is the same day known today in Judaism as Rosh Hashanah or in the Bible Yom Teruah. The Day of Trumpets is unique among the holidays in the Bible in that it's the only one which arrives on the first day of the Hebrew lunar month. The difficulty with a feast celebration coming on that day is that it may follow the 29th or the 30th of the previous month, depending on whether the moon is sighted on the 29th or not. For this reason is supposedly even referred to as the feast that no man knows the day or the hour or the hidden feast. Given this one Hebrew roots teacher compared Jesus' day or hour statement to someone in America saying, I'm not telling you when I'm showing up, but gobble, gobble, gobble inferring turkey day or feast of Thanksgiving. All right. So that website lays it out. Obviously, it doesn't agree with.

So here's here's the problem, Debbie. I had been studying the Bible for many years, decades, and I heard this like I never heard that before. So first thing you do is, OK, let's look at all the major commentaries on the words of Jesus here in Matthew and elsewhere where he says this, especially the ones that are strong in Jewish background, especially ones like I have a multi volume German commentary that the whole thing it does is give Jewish background. That's it. And I never found it anywhere.

I never found anywhere, anywhere, anywhere that the Feast of Trumpets was known as the feast where no one knows the day or the hour. So then I went into rabbinic study. Now, the reason I went to the commentaries first, because that's easier.

Where am I going to look in rabbinic literature? I mean, it's so vast and massive. We're going to find this reference.

But I I searched every way that I could. Then I asked some traditional rabbis who've been learning this stuff their entire lives and who know the material inside out cold. I mean, brilliant guys. I said, have you ever heard that Yom Teruah Feast of Trumpets or what later becomes the Jewish New Year Rosh Hashanah? Have you ever heard that that is known as the feast where no one knows the day or the hour or this idea of the feast of the first day of the month that no one knows the day or the hour? And they said, no, never once heard it. So somebody came up with it. I don't know who.

I don't know how. But it's an Internet myth. And that's the myth that we were dispelling. Now, will he actually come back on that day that literally corresponds to the Feast of Trumpets? Could be there was he could come any day potentially. But it would be interesting because that would be the one that would be predicted. The fellow who wrote 88 reasons why Jesus is coming in 88. That book was coming out, like predicted Jesus was coming, whatever it was, September 12th of 1988.

And one more research assignment for Chris and Kai. When was Rosh Hashanah in 1988? So so anyway, Debbie, someone asked me, let's say it was September 12th, 1988. Jesus is coming back, according to this book. Why?

Because that's Feast of Trumpets that year. And we know he's coming back on that day. Someone asked me, you're going to read the book. I said, I'll read it on September 13th, at which point we would have allegedly been raptured and been out of here. And my point my point was, it's not going to happen.

I can guarantee you these predictions are not real. So September 13th, I'll read it, at which point it won't be relevant anymore. 1988, boys. 1988. The book was 88 reasons why Jesus is coming in 1988. The very sincere gentleman who wrote it then put out a new edition in 1989.

89 reasons why he's coming in 89. Seriously. And then thankfully, I come up with another edition after that. Anyway, Debbie, glad to answer your question.

God bless and thank you for the call. Yes. So when was it? Rosh Hashanah, 1988. And let's just see. See if I get it before. No, I'll let them do it. Whatever it is in my in my memory, it was September 12th or 13th.

The reason I remember that is not because I remember when it fell each day of the year, but because I was asked about that. So let's just see here. OK, you got to make it really big, guys, on my screen. Oh, come on. Did I let you down or not? No, I did not.

The memory is still working. Yes, September 12th. He predicted that Jesus was coming back September 12th of 1988. And by the way, that book sold by hundreds of thousands. And I remember the guy who wrote it lived in Little Rock, Arkansas, and he said there are prophetic words about Little Rock and the significance. So somebody in Little Rock had figured it out.

Very sincere. I honestly I don't know the guy at all. Don't know what happened to him, but I don't think he did it as a money making ploy. I think he literally thought he figured it out. And that's why when I was asked, are you going to read the book? Eighty eight reasons why Jesus coming in 1988, I said, I'll read it on September 13th, because that was one day after his prediction. You know, when I was first saved and after a few years and I saw a lot of the prophetic speculation, I said, you know, someone's going to write a book, you know, why Jesus is coming in the 1970s and then they're going to have to put out the second edition, why he's coming in the 1980s and then the third edition, why he's coming in the 1990s. I mean, I joked about it because I saw the prophetic speculation. I've told people for many years, if you're going to keep a prophetic calendar, keep it in pencil. Someone wrote to me this week, a solid pastor, and said, this brother's got great prophetic insight. He believes we've just answered now the 70th week of Daniel. We've got seven years left in world history and said, I'm not going to even watch a half second of it.

Not possibility for many reasons. So I understand scripture in any case. As we do get closer, we will know the times and the seasons. And Paul says in first Thessalonians five, because we're children of the light that day will not overtake us as a thief. Here we go. Truth triumphs right here on the line of fire.