An Interesting Aspect of Old Testament Prophecy

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. I'm going to tell you about an interesting phenomenon called the prophetic perfect that we find in the Hebrew Bible. It's time for the Line of Fire with your host, biblical scholar and cultural commentator, Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice for moral sanity and spiritual clarity. Call 866-34-TRUTH to get on the Line of Fire. And now, here's your host, Dr. Michael Brown.

Hey friends, Michael Brown here, back on the mainland Lynchburg, Virginia. It is Thoroughly Jewish Thursday. I'm going to dig into the Hebrew Scriptures today, then I'm going to answer a bunch of your Jewish related questions. Okay, so when we read prophecy, like Isaiah the 53rd chapter, we recognize that Isaiah wrote this hundreds of years before the time of Jesus, right? Critical dating would put it at 500, roughly 550 years before Jesus, somewhere around there. Conservative dating would put it over 700 years before the time of Yeshua. But everybody agrees, written hundreds and hundreds of years before the time of Jesus.

There's no discussion, debate, question about that with any bonafide scholar on the planet. Okay, but it's in the past tense, right? There's the future promise of exaltation in 5213, but as we would translate into English, it's a different term in Hebrew, but as we would translate it into English, we would say, yeah, this is past tense. So Isaiah 53, 1, who has believed our report and on whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed, right? Past tense.

When did that happen? Or all of us have gone astray like sheep, right? Isaiah 53, 6, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all that it already happened. But we understand that as we apply this to a prophecy of Jesus, Yeshua, as rabbis apply it to the nation of Israel or the righteous remnant or in some cases the Messiah, as they apply it, they're all saying that Isaiah is talking about what is still future as if it already happened. It would be like me a week before the final game of the World Series saying, did you see that last game of the World Series? Did you see?

Did you see what happened in that last game? But the game hasn't been played yet. Oh, oh, but I already saw it in advance. I already saw it in advance in the Spirit. So the prophets would see things before they happened and then would talk about them sometimes as if they were happening in front of their eyes. The city is on fire. The enemy's coming.

They're at the gates. Well, that was 10 years down the line or 20 or 50 or 100, but they saw it as if it was already there, right? You can picture that, right? You have a dream and the building you're in is on fire and you jump up in a start.

Well, picture the prophets and not necessarily your dream, although it happens sometimes in dreams. Picture them as they are seeing something in a vision in front of their eyes as if it is present tense happening. They're seeing it in front of their eyes and they're declaring it just in the present tense. The city's on fire. They're coming in over the walls. They're raping the women.

It's horrible. Oh, no, and they're weeping, but it's something future. In the same way, they could see something and report on it as if it already happened, right? So that is called the prophetic perfect. Perfect, the Hebrew-Semitic language is often used for something that we would often refer to as in the past or past tense, a little different in Hebrew, but that's called perfect. So this is, I'm going to kind of mix terms here, the prophetic past tense. Does that make sense?

All right, so let me say it once more. I can say that rather than saying I'm looking into the future and this is what I see, I say this, he was terribly mistreated. He was beaten. He was bruised.

For what? We thought it was for his sin, only realized it was for our sin. So rabbinic commentaries that understand Isaiah 53 to be speaking of something still future, rabbinic commentaries that understand it speaking of the fate of Israel or the righteous remnant or somewhat understand it in a messianic way, they're saying it's being reported as if it was already past even though it is still future. So the same thing occurs, for example, in Numbers chapter 24. Numbers chapter 24 and it's a prophecy there about the coming king and Balaam, the false prophet, is being moved on by God and God is speaking through him. So it says this, I see him, but not now. I behold him, but not near.

Now there's some interpreters that say I see him, but not now. It's talking about David, I see him, but not now, future Messiah. I behold him, David, but not near, future Messiah. It's more natural to see the whole passage as speaking about the Messiah. I see him, but not now.

I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob. A scepter will rise out of Israel. He will crush the foreheads of Moab, the skulls of all the people of Sheit, and it goes on from there.

But hang on. The Hebrew translated here, a star will come out of Jacob. The Hebrew is literally a star came out of Jacob. Past tense. That's exactly what it is grammatically. There's no ambiguity here. A star comes forth, arises from Jacob, but the Hebrew Darach is past tense.

So what's the point? Balaam uses the past to speak about the future because he sees it as if already happened. So now the debate is, do you translate it as past or future? Do you say a star has arisen out of Jacob? Or do you say will arise because you understand what's happening there? This is exactly what, I hope I'm not confusing you. For those who understand this, the moment I mention it, you're already familiar with it, you're like, Mike, I got this. I know it.

But I know that's not the vast majority that are listening, so I want to take the time to make sure that everybody's with me on this, right? The Hebrew is literally a star came forth, a star rose out of Jacob, but it's referring to something in the future. So most translations say a star will rise because it's speaking about something that will still happen in the future. It's exactly why Christian translations translate the perfect tense or the past as we're explaining it.

Again, it's not the exact Hebrew term. It's why they translate this as future in Isaiah 9-6. Many English translations will say to us a child will be born, to us a son will be given, and the government will be on his shoulders and he'll be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Heaven. You may see counter missionary rabbis attacking and say, look, the Christians, they've just changed the Bible to make it fit. They've changed that to make it be a messianic prophecy, et cetera.

Well, here's what's interesting. There are rabbinic commentaries and even the Targum, the Aramaic translation, it understands this to be a messianic prophecy. So even though the Hebrew is speaking of something that has already happened, a child has been born to us, a son has been given to us, even so, there are rabbinic interpreters that say it's speaking about the future, meaning not a child who was already born then, but a child still to be born. So here's a Jewish translation, a new Jewish publication society translation for a child has been born to us, a son has been given to us. The NIV translates it for to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. So it's is born, is given, it's here, and this is what's going to happen in the future.

Others would speak of a child will be born, a son will be given. You say, well, that's twisting the word. No, it is understanding, this is a future prophecy spoken as if it already happened.

It's not twisting, it's not perverting, it's not changing, it is simply speaking of something as if it already happened. Now, when I came to faith in 1971, many of you know my story, heroin shooting, LSD using, hippie rock drummer, Jewish kid, very little background in Hebrew, the little Hebrew I'd learned at my bar mitzvah, I'd forgotten, to get ready for my bar mitzvah, I'd forgotten a lot of it. I didn't understand Hebrew if I read it, if someone spoke to me, maybe a couple of words, I knew that was it.

I had not read the Bible at all. I remember one day before I was a believer, taking the Bible I had received when I was bar mitzvahed, it was an English Bible, a 1917 JPS translation, so the old JPS, and I remember, thought, the Bible, wow, I'm going to read it. I read a few verses, that was it. So now I come to faith, I have no background here.

I don't know the material. I don't know the Old Testament, I don't know the New Testament. I read to the New Testament, it was an adventure. Here's the blindness, Jesus is going to heal the blind man, he's going to raise someone from the dead.

I mean, it was all, wow, I didn't know any of it. Now the local rabbi lovingly challenges me, my dad asks me questions, okay, where are these prophecies, et cetera, and when I would come with the answers, you know, and here's a little track I got, or ask somebody, nobody really could answer the rabbis among my friends, everything I presented got shot down, shot down, shot down, shot down, and then when I met with other rabbis, I said, the Hebrew, you got to use the Hebrew, your English translations are terrible, and they were very sincere guys and very devout, studied and prayed hours every day, and you know, I knew that Jesus had dramatically, radically changed my life and my relationship with God was very real, but these were genuine questions. I thought, I'm going to study, and I remember an agony of soul telling God, I just want to be a loyal Jew and honor you, whatever that means, whatever the consequences, whatever the implications, whoever rejects me, whether church rejects me or my Jewish community rejects me, I have to follow you and your truth, but the more I studied, the more I dug, the more I learned, the more I understood, and remember, all my private studies with rabbis, so these were people that did not affirm my faith, and if they were studying with me, their whole goal was to change my heart, to pull me out, and then all my studies at Queens College and NYU were all with people who believed differently than me, a few hostile, but all of them believed differently than what I did, so I was never in a sympathetic academic environment or advanced Jewish studies environment.

The more I studied, the more I learned, the more I earnestly sought God, the more I found there were answers to every objection, that's why I wrote five volumes of Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, and you get a summary of the top hundred objections and answers on our Real Messiah website, all for free, realmessiah.com, you've never been there, go there, realmessiah.com, it's right on your app as well, if you scroll down, the S. Dr. C. Real Messiah dot com, you can watch debates about the rabbis, see for yourself, who is on this side of the cliff, its been a wonderful journey, the Mark Steady and the Mark Shanley guide will been through over years of communication withaj d cheating. What a gift from Christ, Chronic inflammation is the greatest health threat to humanity. infections, injuries, toxins, poor diet, and chronic stress can attack your immune system and lead to chronic inflammation.

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Again 800-771-5584. The Truth Network presents Life 101, the basic rules for getting by and moving ahead in life. We've all faced times in life where we are completely overwhelmed with just two months to do. This is usually due to our own false beliefs that we actually have to do all the things that we're doing. In reality, some of the things we're doing or committed to are simply due to careless over-commitment. So how do you reverse it and find spare time? Start with only one thing. Jesus said there's plenty of time in one day to worry about the things for that day.

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Get on The Line of Fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome. Welcome to Thoroughly Here's Thursday. I'm going to dive into a bunch of really interesting, beautiful related questions that I've got before me from a wide range of listeners and viewers. I want to get to those in a little while, but first a couple more Israel related reflections. We've been looking at the Hebrew Scriptures.

I want to look at the nation of Israel for a moment. So less than a month from now, leading our tour group in Israel. Can't wait. I believe it's finally upon us.

We had to cancel the last plan trips because of COVID. So excited to be bringing your group back to the land, but it's the 75th anniversary of Israel. Now, I throw that out for a couple of reasons. For those that saw no future for Israel and no possible regathering, and especially with the devastation of the Holocaust, this seemed completely impossible, and yet 75 years, extraordinary. For those that were setting dates, I was in California doing an end times conference, which I think whatever your perspective was, you would have been edified because it wasn't date setting or sensationalistic, it was practical.

But one older brother came up to me, he said, oh yeah. He said, we knew Jesus had to come by in 1981, that was the year, because Israel reestablished 1948, and this generation sees these things, they'll see his return. So that many generation, 40 years, 1988, and because pre-trip rapture then had to be seven years earlier, 1981, hey, who was saying 75 years Israel's back in the land, and the Lord still hasn't returned. So let's be a little more careful with our date setting, let's be a little more careful with our speculating, because this much we know. Everyone that guessed a date thus far, he's going to come by this year.

Everyone that guessed that so far has been wrong. At the same time, every human being who's lived thus far, except for Jesus being resurrected and Enoch and Elijah being translated, every other human being who's lived has died. So we all live in readiness to meet the Lord at death, but we do not know the day of his return. We know that we should live with urgency, we know that we should live with purpose, we know that we should live with dedication, we know even holy living, 2 Peter 3, can speed the day of his coming, we know fulfilling the Great Commission is important, we know that the climax of the ages is the fulfilling of the Great Commission and the salvation of Israel.

Amen to all that, those are things I fundamentally believe and that drive me in a good and holy way every day of my life, yet no date setting, let's use wisdom here. Also I'm going to be speaking with Pastor Mike Bickel, should be recording tomorrow on Friday and then we'll air some of the interview next week. He is part of what, as far as we all know, will be the largest prayer initiative in history for Israel.

At this point, joining different intercessory groups around the world, they are looking for 100 million people to be joining it together. This is not exaggerated, this is not hype, literally looking for 100 million people, I should say expecting, many will be fasting from May 7th to May 28th for the salvation of Israel, the climactic day, the 28th will be a time when everyone is asked to fast that day even if they haven't been along the way, everyone is being asked to spend an hour a day in prayer for Israel, so this is momentous. God has been moving through the prayers of his people for decades and for centuries and now this is something momentous, so I just want to bring that to your attention as it is Thoroughly Jewish Thursday. Let me get to a bunch of questions here, Saloli asks, love to hear a Jewish understanding of ground in the early chapters of Genesis in a statement by God in Genesis 8 21, I will never again curse the ground with reference to other passages in Genesis or point me to a good Jewish commentary on this topic. Well, Adamah, as Adamah is ground, earth, Adam, human beings, mankind, it comes out of the Adamah hence the name, it is distinct from Eretz which can mean land in general, it can mean the whole world or it can mean land is in the land of Israel, Adamah is the physical substance of land, beyond that though, if you want to see Jewish commentaries go to sefaria.com, then look at the biblical text, there is all rabbinic literature there, the whole library of rabbinic literature is basically there of the key books. Look for the biblical text you are interested in, put it so you can see it in Hebrew and in English, there is just different settings there and then click on the verse itself or the number and then different commentaries will tell you are available, now many of them are only in Hebrew but others are translated into English, so that will give you good insight.

If you just want a good general scholarly Jewish commentary on Genesis, get the commentary of Nachum Sarna, S-A-R-N-A, his Genesis commentary in the Jewish publication society commentary series. Kevin, in the Shema, meaning hero Israel, Shema in Hebrew is imperative here, hero Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one or hero Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone. Kevin asks, in the Shema it is said that God is oneness, echad, meaning the trinity is implied there, however, Maimonides tends to interpret it as absolute single, yachid, is yachid the same as the Islamic tahid, is the current Judaism influenced by Islam. Number one, echad simply means one, it doesn't mean compound unity, it doesn't mean absolute singularity, just like the English word one. So you have in Genesis 1, 6, evening, light, darkness, so day, night, one day, yom echad, just one. You have in Genesis 2, 24, the man and the woman become basar echad, one flesh. So it just means one.

Can it include the corporate, as in the man and the woman, the day and the night, etc. But the word itself just means one. Maimonides originally writing in Arabic and then in Hebrew, yes, he does say yachid, and that is absolute singularity. And traditional Jews have pointed to that and said yes, that's what we believe. Not your trinity, but yachid. Islam is then based on Judaism, it's not the reverse. And yes, yachid would be similar to tawhid, emphasizing Allah's oneness. It's likely that Muhammad understood the trinity to be father, son and Mary, based on the imagery, the iconography, the things he saw in churches and things. I remember being in Italy with our granddaughter and her cousin, and we were going through one church building and the iconography was such, you would think that the trinity was father, son and Mary. Muhammad may have understood it in those terms, many believe that he did. In any case, Islam, following suit with Judaism, rejects the trinity and emphasizes God's absolute oneness.

I would say it's indisputable in scripture that he's one, and that should be our great emphasis, but he is complex in his unity, as we understand, revealed through the rest of scripture. homosexual, I listened to, I heard grace and truth together, I was changed. We hear from pastors who say, thank you for speaking with compassion but giving us backbone and courage, and we know across America so many believers are getting healthy and strong through listening to the broadcast, through listening to these messages as we tackle the controversies, the most difficult issues of the day.

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Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks friends for joining us on the line of fire. Michael Brown, it is thoroughly Jewish Thursday. So a quick story, then I'm gonna get back to some of your Jewish related questions. And again, a shout out to our supporters, to those helping us broadcast the line of fire around America and around the world and getting the message out of Israel's salvation as well. Thank you for standing with us, partnering with us, your prayers, your giving, your steadfastness are making a difference. As I travel the world and meet people who've been blessed by this ministry, I always think of those who stand together with us because this is a joint effort, friends.

So just a quick little story here. So I'm scheduled to speak in a few hours at the Liberty Campus on what's called the Academic Lawn. So Liberty University, everyone listen to our great Lynchburg station, it's open to the public, seven o'clock tonight, so just be there. Say where's the Academic Lawn? And they'll point you over, you'll see a meeting taking place. I know it's a big campus. But when our granddaughter Eliana went here four years ago, so she's graduating now in May, this is the end of her fourth year, I said, hey, I will speak there. I guarantee you, I will speak on the campus while you're there. So she said, you better, Grandpa.

It's like, it's gonna happen. And one of my dear friends was close with the Falwell family. I thought, hey, he'd gladly encourage them to have me in. Other folks there, I had other professor friends that were there and they would have gladly had me come up to do a class and then while there do some kind of event. And then COVID happened and then of course, there were changes at the leadership of the university. And I have another colleague friends with the current provost. And I said, listen, I've never invited myself anywhere to speak, but I'm inviting myself here because I promised my granddaughter I'd get there. I mean, I'd love to minister to students, of course. So it just, things dragged on and different things. And then they wanted me to come, but scheduling this department or that, maybe it would be next semester.

They could do a more proper event or something. And I just said to the students that were seeking to get me in, I said, just get me in. It turns out there, the students that were working on this, I just found out when they got me at the airport today that they were, they're all gonna be leaving Liberty at the end of the semester as well. So this is our one time. So it's the Israel group prayed fast, it got me in and bringing a message on what kind of church will provoke Israel to envy.

So for those who have a heart for Israel, it'd be helpful for those that just wanna see the church healthy, it'll be a challenging message. But I'm just thrilled to be here. So to get here, let's see, I left Kona. It would have been nine in the evening, Eastern time, but three in the afternoon, Hawaii time. I flew from there to LA and then had a layover there for about 45 minutes. Then from LA to Charlotte, layover a couple hours in Charlotte, and then from Charlotte, the 28 minute flight to Lynchburg. So three flights flew through the night and doing great, just blessed and excited to be here.

And of course, to be on the air with each of you. Erin asked, do you view the Sabbath and the Lord's day as two different days, or do you think they would be the same day? This question isn't really dependent on whether or not we should observe the Sabbath, but I'm still curious how you view it. I have never landed with a certain position about the Lord's day in Revelation 1. So John says, he's on the Island of Patmos in Excel because of the word of God. He was in the spirit on the Lord's day.

So there's three different ways of reading that. The Lord's day simply being generic for a day when God moved. This was a day of the Lord's moving, hence, quote, the Lord's day as he's visited by God.

That would maybe be the least likely. The next view is the one that most Christians would think, which is the Lord's day means Sunday, because that's what they've grown up with. And that's how it's been understood through much of church history, the day when the Lord rose from the dead, the day when his resurrection is celebrated, the Lord's day. Samuel Baciocci, who studied in Rome with Catholic scholars and was a top seventh-day Adventist scholar, wrote the main book that challenges that and says, no, the Lord's day was the way they spoke of the seventh-day Sabbath. And I have not devoted sufficient time to land on a position, but it would either be Sunday being the Lord's day, the day of his resurrection, and the day that we know fairly early on in church history is now celebrated as a special time, or the Sabbath as the Lord's day.

And there are arguments both ways, and I do not have a clear conclusion about it. Stephen, in the Bible or Jewish tradition, is there any precedent for praying all at the same time corporately? And with Paul's principle of not being able to give the amen, modify any of it, 1 Corinthians 14, 16, in other words, if you don't understand what's being said, then how can you say amen to it? There was not a Jewish tradition of, okay, there were times when everyone could cry out together. There were, you know, in the Old Testament, you have it, right, where the people would cry out and wail and cry out to God together. But as far as actual temple praying, it was ritual. Synagogal praying, it was ritual, so they would pray prayers together. It was liturgical, so it would not just be a matter of everyone crying out, as we might be used to in some of our Pentecostal or Charismatic circles. That would not have been the Jewish custom.

It would have been more like what you'd see in a liturgical church, where someone would say one line, others would respond, everyone would say a prayer together, like the Lord's prayer or something like that. Israel, are there clearly understood meanings behind numbers in the Bible, so where do we get those interpretations? A lot of times, it's debatable. In other words, someone says, this is the number of that, that's the number for that.

It's like, well, based on what? You know, five is the number of mercy, why? Well, there are five holes when the Lord was pierced for us and so on, and think, okay, is that clear in the Bible? There are other things like 12 being a number for government.

That does seem clear. Do you just look at the 12 tribes, the 12 apostles, et cetera, or 10 as the number of testing? You see that quite often from the Israelites testing God 10 times in the wilderness, Job saying, you've tested me 10 times, Daniel saying to the palace guards, test us for 10 days, Revelation 2, Church of Smyrna, you'll be tested 10 days, so 10 commandments, et cetera.

So certain numbers, you just see a repeated use, seven being a cycle of completeness and things like that, but it has to be derived from scripture. In other words, as we see scriptural usage based on that, we come to certain conclusions. Jewels, were there many Judaism's in the first century? Yes, in the same way that there are today, meaning there's a vast difference between ultra-Orthodox Judaism and Reform Judaism, a massive difference, and yet we refer to them just as branches of Judaism.

The same way there were different expressions of Judaism in the first century that may not have been as extreme as the difference between Reform and ultra-Orthodox today, but they were certainly even more diverse in terms of an Essene expression versus a Pharisaical expression versus a Sadduceean expression. So that's why scholars like Jacob Neusner and others would refer to Judaism's, first century Judaism's plural. But again, what if someone was analyzing Judaism today, would they make that same statement that there are Judaism's today? Ask it like this, are there Christianities?

Are there different Christianities? The way you answer that is the way you'd answer the question about different Judaism's. Jesus is the Truth asks, Orthodox Jews in my neighborhood do trillin' on Fridays publicly. They ask people if they are Jewish and would like to do this prayer. Is there any scripture to support the practice of praying with a leather strap and box? What does this mean?

Thanks, Dr. Brown, love you. All right, so these are not just Orthodox Jews. These are Lubavitch Chassidim. These are ultra-Orthodox Jews of the Lubavitch sect, many of whom believe that their Grand Rabbi, the Hebe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who died in 1994 at the age of 92, many of them still believe that he was the Messiah. They are the most active religious Jewish group doing outreach.

Rather than just doing in-reach and trying to strengthen their own communities, which they do, they also do outreach. And they believe, based on the teaching of the Rebbe and previous Jewish teachers and mystics, that within every Jew is a certain spark. And if that spark can be rekindled, then that Jew will become fully observant to the Torah and hasten the redemption.

So for a man, if you can get him to put on phylacteries, trillin', then that will help ignite that spark. For a woman to light the Sabbath candles would help ignite it. So they have campaigns to do this, and they will go out on the streets.

So if you live in Brooklyn or different parts of the world, you'll see them out on the streets. And here, in your case, you're saying on Friday, so before Shabbat. So it's based on a few passages in the Torah. If you start in Deuteronomy, the sixth chapter, where, this is not the first in order, but the most famous. So here, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might, take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day, impress them on your children, recite them when you stay at home, when you are away, when you lie down and you get up, bind them as a sign in your hand, and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead, inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. So a traditional Jew takes these literally. A traditional Jew believes that the exact dimensions of these boxes, they contain scripture verses here and elsewhere from Exodus related verses. They're similar verses.

They take this literally. They believe the dimensions of these things were revealed on Mount Sinai to Moses, even inscribing them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, that's the mezuzah. So you'll see that slanted, that thin rectangular box on the inside of a door as you go into a Jewish home on the right side. Traditional Jew will touch his fingers through his lips, kiss it, and that's the symbolic kissing. He will touch his lips, touch the mezuzah, and within it are various, on a tiny little scroll, some of these very passages.

So this is the constant reminder to a traditional Jewish person to observe the commandments. All right, we got a break coming up momentarily, but when I was at YWAM teaching one day, so in Kona, I said to everybody, all right, listen, let's get our blood pumping a little. Those that can do it, let's do 100 jumping jacks, and then my goal after that was to go 100 jumping jacks, and it was no big deal, but then straight into teaching, just get my breath, but not be out of breath, go straight into teaching. So I just had fun doing those things, encouraging folks, but hey, I travel everywhere I go. My healthy diet, everyone knows, they have it ready for me. Same here, folks picked me up at Lynchburg, my salad and all that, and I do travel, honestly, with my Travita products, and I don't miss, I am enhanced and helped by them, and it's a way that you can support our ministry too. So check it out, call 800-771-5584. Say, hey, I want to do what Dr. Brown does. 800-771-5584, remember, 100% of your first order will support the Line of Fire outreach, and learn the tithe of your subsequent orders as well.

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Go to triveda.com or call 800-771-5584. Again, 800-771-5584. This is how we rise up. It's the Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the Line of Fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again, it's Dr. Michael Brown. All right, if this music tells you it is clearly Jewish Thursday, Michael Brown, thanks for joining us.

Let me get to a few more questions. Remember our Real Messiah website. If you have the app, Ask Dr. Brown Ministries app, A.S.K.

D.R. Brown Ministries, just scroll down. You'll see right on the homepage of the app Real Messiah. Check that out, answers to common Jewish objections, full debates with rabbis. You can watch videos demolishing the misinformation of counter missionary Rabbi Tovia Singer.

Other materials are Think It Through series, which was a TV Jewish outreach series we did. All there for you, all free. And those who want to participate with us in reaching the Jewish people and help fulfill the calling to the Jew first and help as we equip believers in Israel as our materials get out in Hebrew, we're working on another important book to get out in Hebrew just interacting with a publisher earlier this week. Right there, you can click to give.

Right on the app, just click give. And then best of all, donate monthly support and we will pour back into you as you've heard earlier in the broadcast in many, many different ways. And together, friends together, we will see Israel saved. All right, but again, explore the Real Messiah website if you never have everything there is free. You say, how can you put everything there free? Because of supporters like you and many others. That's how we're able to do it.

You enable us to bless others. All right, let's go back to questions. Baxter, why is the book of Maccabees not included in Jewish scriptures? I can't give you a technical answer other than when final decisions were made according to rabbinic literature at the end of the first century that Maccabees was simply not included. But the larger answer would be that it seemed that the period of revelation of God speaking and acting came to a halt in terms of that which was considered scripture. Maccabees, we do not have original copies in Hebrew either. And therefore, literature in Greek would not have been part of it. I mean, there are several different reasons, but it's not like, well, it doesn't fit for this or that. It's just later history. And it's important reading, but it never became part of the rabbinic canon of Talmudic literature, nor did it become part of scripture.

Others that believe in a canonical process that's more organized would have a little different answer than that. Maria, I suspect to have Sephardic ancestry. I'm from Spain. Can you recommend the best DNA test to find out, please? I don't know that there's one that's best. MyAncestry or ancestry.com is a widely used one. I think I have, mine was My23, was that it?

I think so. But in any case, yeah, if you just check, I don't know that there's one that's considered to be the best, but you can check it out just to ask, write online, best Jewish DNA test. And when I checked earlier, just to answer your question best, it was the ones I was familiar with. It wasn't like one stood out. Scott, is the Hebrew word yom followed by a number necessarily indicative of 24-hour period what is the ancient Hebrew word for long period of time, for example? Well, a long period of time, so olam, which could mean eternity, or it could mean olam just for a long period of time, you would not use in the context of day or a fixed period of time or anything like that.

And you wouldn't number it. You don't have one olam, two olams, things like that. Yom in and of itself means day, just like the English word.

It's that simple. Yom means day, just like the English word means day. So right within the first chapter and then the four verses of the second chapter in Genesis, you have three different usages of yom. You have yom meaning day as opposed to night. You have yom meaning the full sequence of day and night. And you have yom in the second chapter in the phrase beom, which just means when. Now people say, but if you say day and night, it always means a 24 hour period. Yes, that's because throughout the rest of the Bible, that's what you have, a day is 24 hours. But in the creation account, it need not be that. Now it could be, I'm not arguing against young creation or for young earth or against it. I'm not arguing either way, for or against. But to me, it's not a compelling argument that every single time in the Bible, when you have day and night, it means 24 hour period because that's all you have is 24 hour periods.

It's thereafter, but within creation, it doesn't have to be a 24 hour period in my view. Lamassu, do you think the text of Zechariah three, as it is, requires the rock to be the Messiah? Could it point to his divinity given the seven eyes on it, which appear to refer to omniscience? You can make a good case for it referring to the Messiah, but you can't be dogmatic about it or argue that it's pointing to divinity because seven eyes point to omniscience.

That's beautiful, it may be true, but that's reading too much into it to argue it. Asif, what was binitarian belief? It is said that there were many and that Yahweh and Moses were also worshiped as one form of binitarianism, do you agree? Or does this mean Trinity didn't exist at the time as Christians preached from Genesis?

Okay, a binary or a binitarian belief would say that you have God and the Messiah, you have God and another power, you have God, an exalted angel that can be worshiped, et cetera, but you do not have three, you have two versus three. There's no question that there is a strong emphasis throughout the New Testament on the worship of father and son. One God, one Lord, that is very clear and indisputable. At the same time, you have the formula, for example, in Matthew 28, 19, baptized in the name of the, 19 into 20, baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

You have the benediction in 2 Corinthians 13, 14, the love of God, the grace of the Lord Jesus, and the fellowship of the Spirit be with you. You have in 1 Corinthians 12, speaking of the operation of the gifts, one God, one Lord, one Spirit. So the basis for God's triune nature is seen there. And in the Hebrew Bible, you can make a case for God's triune nature and that there is the invisible God who is worshiped but not seen. There is the God who reveals himself and there is the Spirit who works among us and teaches and leads, et cetera. And from there, we can deduce a father, son, spirit based on how God reveals himself through the rest of scripture. That being said, the whole idea of two powers in heaven in early Judaism, there are arguments that there were other exalted beings. Daniel 7 would be a passage that you've got the Ancient of Days and the Son of Man, and they're both worshiped, et cetera, or all worship is directed to the Son of Man, this exalted figure. The angelic being, Metatron, was considered as Yahweh was.

He was representing him in those ways. So were there traditions in Judaism by which there would be the worship of two powers? It's possible, but you have to have it in a certain context that Judaism was also staunchly monotheistic.

And we don't wanna go too far on that. To me, we have to see God's triunity within monotheism. That, to me, is the better way to look at it. Abdullah, how come we have monarchy in Deuteronomy 17, 15 when scholars say it came 200 years later and Saul was the first king of Israel? 1 Samuel 8, 4, 3, 7 talks about the elders of Israel asking for a king, so wouldn't Deuteronomy 17, 15 be talking about the brothers within the elders of Israel, Sanhedrin?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. The phrase, mikar avachecha, from within your brothers is explicit, not a foreigner, not a foreigner. That's what it means. It's repeated in Deuteronomy 18 as well, Deuteronomy 18, 18, emphasizing that the prophet, like Moses, must be a fellow Israelite. I've been amazed at this Muslim attack now, trying to say, well, this is Deuteronomy 18, mikar av, from the mikir b'cha, from the midst of you, it's later edition, and it's so explicit in Deuteronomy 18 that the prophet, like Moses, has to be a fellow Israelite, just like the king in Deuteronomy 17 has to be. You can understand psalm tasim, the Hebrew there, as not explicitly saying you must set up a king, but you may set up a king. So there is permission within the Torah to do it, but not requirement. When it came time to do it, Samuel took it as a rejection of the kingship of Yahweh, and the Lord knew why Israel wanted to do it, the motivation was not right. However, there is no contradiction whatsoever, and Deuteronomy precedes Samuel by more than 200 years.

Let's just see here, all right, see if there are any other questions I can get to. Ah, Brian, as a premillennialist, what would you say Israel's role is in the millennium? To fulfill the purposes for which God brought Israel into the world, to be a light to the nations that will come in the millennial kingdom, and to reveal the God of Israel to them, obviously through the Messiah still being central. There may be other purposes beyond that, but that's certainly what is promised. Okay, so I promised Eliana, our eldest grandchild, that before she graduated Liberty, I'd speak here, thinking hey, probably in the first year we'll get it set up, no problem.

So now I do it one month before she graduates, but it was important, and I'm blessed by the students inviting me, and it was important to me to do it because I gave her my word. Well, God gave Israel his word and promised certain things, the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, covering the earth as the waters cover the seas, et cetera, et cetera. And God will do exactly as he promised.

God will absolutely keep his word, fulfill his purposes through Israel, which will function as a priestly nation, and then the whole world rebelling against God, to me, is a final manifestation of human wickedness, even in a world where God himself is Lord, right in the midst of the human race, people will still rebel. Hey, be blessed, and take your calls back from our home studio tomorrow, and look forward to talking with you then. You're around at Lynchburg, Virginia. I'll see you at Liberty tonight. Another program powered by the Truth Network.