Did Matthew Create a Verse Out of Whole Cloth?

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Before we open up the Scriptures in the Gospel of Matthew and ask the question, did Matthew create a verse out of whole cloth, which many counter-missionaries would claim is the case. Before we look at that, just want to remind you that now is a great time to register for our trip to Israel next year. After we had to postpone, postpone, postpone, and finally cancel the last trip because of COVID, I thought, you know, I'm kind of done with this. We've done a number of tours. They've been wonderful.

I've thoroughly enjoyed them. The people on the tours have been deeply, wonderfully impacted. I'll run into folks as I'm out preaching, and they'll say, I was on a tour with you three years ago, and they're still glowing about it.

They're still talking about it. So not because of me, but because of the land of Israel, because of the tour, the quality of it. But I thought, you know, if I go to Israel, I'll just minister there and concentrate on that.

I think I'm done with tours. Now, when I happened to mention that in Nancy, she didn't tell me at that moment, but in her view, that was stupid. That's what she told me subsequently.

She thought it was stupid when I said it, but that's how I felt at that time. Well, my colleague, Dr. Mark Stengler, one of the sponsors of the, only a business sponsor of our ministry here, in terms of being on radio sponsoring us, things like that. Dr. Stengler texted me one night and said, hey, are you doing any tours to Israel? Let us know, because my family wants to go. He's been to Israel before, but wanted to go. And I thought, yeah, you know, I feel like I should do this again.

Suddenly I got the desire again. And then out of the blue, probably three or four different people, quite out of the blue, some remarkably out of the blue, even a stranger that recognized me. Do you do tours to Israel? When's your next tour? So we're really excited about this, but because we have a limited number of people that we take there, there's some really big ministries and they'll bring hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people, and that's how they do it. And it's a great tour, but it's different than how we'll do it. Some take 10 or 12, we'll take between 50 and 100, and that's it. So we have certain limitations. If we get slightly over 50, we kind of close it there.

If it's more, then we'll take a second bus. So let us know if you're going, askdrbrown.org. If you have questions about details, there's a contact info there, askdrbrown.org.

You'll find it right on the homepage. Okay, so in Matthew, the second chapter, it talks about Joseph taking his family to Egypt because of the threat of Herod wanting to kill all the baby boys that were born in Bethlehem. And then coming back from Egypt, when Herod's dead, he receives further warning and concerns. So having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee and he went. So Joseph went and lived in a town called Nazareth.

So this is Joseph with his wife Miriam, Mary, and Yeshua, the child. And he went and lived in a town called Nazareth, so was fulfilled what was said through the prophets that he would be called a Nazarene. Now, I just read it as translated in the NIV. So it was fulfilled what was said through the prophets that he would be called a Nazarene. However, if I look in, oh, let's just say a couple of other English translations, say the New King James, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophets, comma, quotes, he shall be called a Nazarene.

It's a quote, all right? NASB, quotes, he shall be called a Nazarene. So an LT, he quotes, he will be called a Nazarene.

NRSV, quotes, he will be called a Nazarene. So that would give you the impression that there is a specific quote being used. The problem is there is no such specific quote in the Old Testament. That has led counter missionaries to say, Matthew just made it up.

When he didn't have something that suited his narrative, he made it up. Now, logic would tell you there are some major issues with that claim of counter missionaries, just logic before we show that it's a myth. But logic would raise questions about that. First, what would be the point in manufacturing something that either everyone would know immediately because they'd have a lot of the scripture memorized or at least the educated would know immediately was being manufactured? What would be the use of that?

How would that help your cause? It's one thing in a live debate, if you're trying to shoot someone down and you throw something out that's not accurate and afterwards people find out, at least at that moment you say, okay, it's still a bad strategy. It's still self-defeating. But think of what Matthew did. Immediately as Jesus began teaching, certainly his teachings were being circulated orally. It was an oral culture, right? So you had things in writing, but mainly things were taught orally. So immediately you're passing on his teachings, you're passing on the accounts of the miracles, word of mouth and all of that, right?

So the oral traditions developed, they're being passed down over a number of years. Then Matthew, over a period of several decades, compiles what we have as the Gospel of Matthew, either writing it shortly before the temple was destroyed or shortly after the temple was destroyed in the year 70. So this is several decades, 40, 50 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus that he's now putting all this out in writing, okay? So he takes all this time to do it.

You're gonna demolish it in a few hours then. If this is a moment that begins to circulate, it's like, wait, that's not in the Bible. That's not in the Hebrew Bible. That's not in our scriptures. He made it up. So the idea he'd spend all this time and then make up a verse, he might as well made up verses all over the place, okay?

So people said, well, he took him out of context. Oh, that's a whole other subject and we've discussed it many times and happy to discuss it again if you have any questions. But the logic of it really, really doesn't work. Why spend so much time, all right, and then manufacture a verse that doesn't exist so all your work goes up in smoke momentarily after you put it out and not only that, why do you need it? You got enough other stuff fulfilled and the miracle of who Jesus was and the miracles that he performed and his death and his resurrection and ascension and the sending of the Spirit, that speaks for itself.

You don't need to add this in. So why does Matthew quote it? What is he actually saying? Ah, very, very simple. Notice that only here out of all of the times that it speaks of fulfilling something that was spoken or something that was written, this is the only time that it says through the prophets plural, not through the prophet, as it's said by Isaiah or it was said by Jeremiah, no, no, no. This says the prophets plural. So Matthew is not quoting from one particular verse. That's the first thing.

Check it out. Check out the word fulfilled, play raw o in Greek and go through every single reference in Matthew. You'll find this is the only one where he says as was spoken or written by and now it's prophets plural.

So that's the first thing. It could be a theme. It could be a theme of the Messiah's lowliness of his being rejected because Nazareth was a nowhere place. Oh yeah, the Messiah's gonna come from Nazareth, sure. As it is written, the Messiah will come from Hoboken, New Jersey.

I'm not putting Hoboken down, but I'm saying it's not like, oh yeah, the major city in America. That's the place where it's gonna happen. Yeah, and as it is written, he shall come from Kalamazoo. All respect to Kalamazoo.

I think I'll go there later this year. But Nazareth was a backwards nowhere place, all right? And to say, oh, I'm from, where are you from? I'm from Jerusalem. Where are you from? I'm from Rome.

Where are you from? I'm from Nazareth. That's kind of the way it was. So it could just be a generalization, the Messiah lowly, the Messiah rejected. But there's more to it as scholars widely recognize that Matthew in this portion of scripture has before him, in Matthew one through four, he makes explicit reference to Isaiah 7, 14, the prophecy about Immanuel supernaturally born. He makes explicit reference to the beginning of the ninth chapter of Isaiah nine about the people living in darkness have seen a great light, which leads to the great messianic prophecy later in that chapter about the son that's born to us and this endless reign of peace and righteousness. And here, he's clearly making reference to Isaiah 11, one. So Matthew is seeing this whole messianic section, Isaiah seven, nine, 11, all in one.

He's recognizing the importance of it. And here he's making reference to the fact that the Messiah, the root that comes up from Jesse is called the Netzer, just a branch, just a shoot. Also speaking of his lowliness, so it's a play on words of Nazareth. It's a play on words, Nazareth, Nazareth, Netzer, branch. And the Messiah is elsewhere called the branch, the Tzemach, which also speaks of his lowliness and his natural weakness. So all of these images here come together for Matthew, the Messiah's lowliness, the Messiah being rejected, the Messiah being called Netzer. And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, Netzer, so that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, that he would be called the Nazarene.

And by the way, in terms of rabbinic literature and Jewish interpretation, plays like this are very common. You have it in the Old Testament, where it's not the actual etymology, but a play on words. Like you'll name the city, Babel, which we know comes from Babylonian, Bab-elu, the gate of the gods. You'll name the city, Babel, because God will ba-lal, confuse the languages and tongues. Or Jacob will be called Yaakov, which probably goes back to Semitic root, meaning to protect, hence, God will protect. And instead he's gonna be named Yaakov because he's grabbed the ache of the heel. No, no, because he's a deceiver.

So this is perfectly normal biblical Jewish interpretation, a rich treasure that Matthew's given us, rather than manufacturing a verse. We come back and go straight to your calls. You can't resist us. This is how we rise up. 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 is Dr. Michael Brown. Call me a fanatic. Ha-va Nagila, Ha-va Nagila, Ha-va Welcome back to Thoroughly Jewish Thursday. Ha-va Nagila, come let us rejoice and be glad. If you've got a Jewish related question for me, 866-34-TRUTH, hey, a special shout out to all of my Jewish listeners who do not believe in Yeshua, who believe that I'm wrong or misguided in my beliefs, but who listen regularly either to critique, which is wonderful, I'm glad you're here, or because you enjoy other aspects of the broadcast, or you just like to listen to different perspectives, or you just like to get stirred up. Either way, I'm glad that you're here. I do see some of your posts on YouTube.

I'm sure there are many comments that I miss, but glad you're here, glad you get to weigh in. And if you're ever able to call in and share your differences or raise your questions, or maybe just take one issue up with me, great. Let's do it, 866-348-7884. With that, we go to the phones.

We'll start with Brandon in Texas. Welcome to the line of fire. Hi. Hello. Yeah, my question, can you hear me?

Yes, loud and clear. All right, my question is about Ezekiel and the prince. What is the Jewish understanding of the prince? Is this someone that they think is going to be Messiah? Is it a resurrected David, as I have heard others mention before? And if it is the Messiah, what does that mean for us as Christians who see Jesus as not, or being sinless, and the prince offering, offerings for himself and the people, and also it seems like he has sons that he gives part of his inheritance for their portion?

Right, so there is not one Jewish understanding only of texts, but generally speaking, Ezekiel 40 through 48 in traditional Jewish thought is looked at as messianic, that one of the things that the Messiah will do will be to build the temple. That's how the Jewish people will recognize that he's the Messiah. He'll regather the exiles, he'll fight the wars of the Lord, he will speak prophetically, he'll rebuild the temple, and this will be the proof that he is the Messiah. And while there are some Jewish traditions that would see the Messiah as the, as David raised from the dead, that's a rarer viewpoint. If he's called David, it would be that the same spark of the Messiah or soul of the Messiah that was in David is now in the Messiah himself, but he will be a distinct person, and in Jewish teaching, he will be immortal. So he will be greatly gifted and greatly anointed, but he will be immortal, and amortal as opposed to immortal, so he will be a human being just like us, and in that sense, there's no reason why he wouldn't be married and have children and things like that.

So that would be a very different picture. My view is that the prince in Ezekiel 40 through 48, if this is literally fulfilled in the millennial kingdom, that the prince that's mentioned there will be a Davidic leader over the nation, but not the Messiah who will be ruling and reigning out of Jerusalem, and the fact that it does associate the prince with sin on any level would indicate that it cannot be Jesus the Messiah. So this would simply underscore that there are two distinct views of the Messiah, those of us who see Jesus as the Messiah and traditional Jews who do not, that we would see him as divine as the word made flesh, and traditional Jews would not see the Messiah in that way. Again, he's a highly exalted person, but he is nonetheless a fully human being according to Jewish tradition, and therefore the prince will commonly be seen as the Messiah in Jewish interpretation. Okay, thank you very much, sir.

You are very welcome. Yeah, the larger questions, of course, Brandon, of how we sort this out, will there be a future temple? Will there be sacrifices in a future temple?

How does that work out with the cross? Those are a whole set of other questions, which of course are important as well, but I'm just answering your more specific one here. 866, three-four truth. By the way, I do want to share a little bit about Israeli elections and what's coming next in the land. So we'll come to that during the broadcast as well. All right, let us go over to Jonathan in Howe, Indiana. Welcome to the line of fire. Hi, first, very respectfully, I'd like to say mega dittos to you, Dr. Brown, I love the show.

Ah, I'll take those, thank you so much, I appreciate it. My question is about Jewish fathers, both now and historically, to set this up. I've heard that the reason that Jews around the world seem to thrive, no matter the circumstances, that they find themselves in, is because of the blessing pronounced on them by their fathers throughout their childhood, and as a father of three myself, I have a four-year-old son, a two-year-old son, and unborn child through next year, next February. What are the typical blessings that Jewish fathers would repeat over their children, and is it a profitable practice for a Gentile or non-Jew believer as myself? Yeah, so that's a very interesting perspective in terms of the reason for the blessing, the prosperity, the success, the educational acumen, whatever areas of achievement there have been in the Jewish community.

Let me first say, the theory is certainly possible, right? But I would just say the psychology behind it also makes very good sense. By which I mean that if you are speaking positive things over your children and bringing them in an environment where God is central, that's gonna be massive in general, just those elements, and then having fathers centrally involved in the education of his children is going to be massive. But more broadly, on the Sabbath, right? So when you're sitting down for a Sabbath dinner, you are, the husband will speak, the virtuous wife, virtuous woman, passage from Proverbs, the 31st chapter.

He'll speak that over his wife over the Sabbath. Or there are verses in the Psalms, say Psalm 127, Psalm 128, that talk about the blessing that sons are, the blessings that children are. So passages like that are regularly recited. And then as a foundational element in Judaism, when you're saying the Shema every day, so the confession of God being one, you are then reading on the verses that follow, which urge the fathers to diligently impress these things on their children and to speak about them. So there is, in religious Jewish homes, this constant speaking about the word of God, and obviously in the light of Jewish tradition, that's the way a Jewish family would do it. Fathers educating their children, especially sons, using scripture and speaking them over family. Yeah, there's something very rich and powerful about that, and certainly will have a positive impact on the joke level. I think it was Tony Campolo many years ago, as an Italian, was joking and saying, you go to your Italian home and you ask the parents, oh, those are your kids? Yeah, that's Tony, he's a good for nothing, and that's Gino, he's always lazy. And then you go to the Jewish home, and yeah, that's my son David, he's gonna be a doctor. Yeah, and that's his brother Jacob, who's gonna be a neurosurgeon.

You know, so again, that's on the stereotype joke level. But those types of things do make a positive difference, and by all means, we as followers of Jesus should be using all of the word, and taking the promises that God's given us in scripture, and repeating those, reciting those, reminding the Lord about them, speaking them over our families, speaking them over ourselves, absolutely, it should be done. And what you might do is just go through a Jewish prayer book, get a copy of a siddur, S-I-D-D-U-R, and just read through it, you'll get it Hebrew and English, and you'll see the various prayers that are prayed, and the various things that are recited. So a lot of scripture is incorporated into Jewish liturgy, and then traditional Jews have a system of doing things. It's not like spontaneous prayer as the main aspect of prayer in a traditional Jew. It's that at this time of the day you say this, and you repeat these words, so that's how it gets built into the system, if that makes sense to you. And certainly, many Christians do this as well, not in the same systematic way, but they take promises that God's given, or things that God says like, I mentioned Psalm 127, Psalm 128, and things like that, or maybe a couple's unable to have children, the wife can't conceive, so you read verses from Psalm 113 about God taking the barren woman, and establishing her in home, the mother of children. And you say, Lord, your promises, I believe your word, and you speak those things out, so it renews how you see things, it renews how, it changes how others see themselves. And then in the midst of it, of course, you bring the necessary correction, and deal with reality as it is. Hey, thank you for the call and the question, very much appreciated.

866-348-7884. Remember, you can pre-order a signed, numbered copy of the political seduction of the church. I wrote it to help. I didn't write it to criticize. I wrote it to help. When you read it, it's like, ah, yes, the light will go on. I believe you'll see things so much more clearly, and realize, wow, this is how we get it done. This is how we're involved. This is how we make a difference. This is how we got off track. Here's how we stay on track. So you can order that on our website, askdrbrown.org.

We'll be right back. This is the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the line of fire by calling 866-344-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Well, it's a day early, but it's preparation for the Sabbath, Shabbat Shalom, Sabbath of peace. Friends, don't forget that we've got a whole website just devoted to Jewish seekers, and those wanting to grow in their understanding of Jesus being the Messiah of Israel.

It's realmessiah.com, realmessiah.com. If you're talking to a Jewish friend about Yeshua, or some of you just meet, and well, Jews don't believe in Jesus, yeah, but I heard this. Well, if Jesus was really the Messiah, how come there's not peace on earth? No, you Christians believe in three gods. We believe in only, wow, New Testament, they just, the authors just misquoted things about Jesus.

Oh, no, it's not true. Ah, just say, check out realmessiah.com. You can watch debates I've had with rabbis, with rabbinic scholars, Orthodox rabbis, others. You can watch those debates for free on the site, yeah. You could watch videos that we've put together specifically to demolish some of the misinformation from some counter missionaries, and I deal with counter missionary rabbis on a regular basis, and have great respect for a number of them that we've interacted with, and we've gone back and forth, and endless dialogue, and written dialogue, and things like that. There are others with more widespread information online that just, the misinformation needs to be exposed and demolished, so we've got a whole series of videos. We continue to put out more of those that are available. Our Think It Through TV series for two years, that was an inspiration network, with fascinating Jewish outreach topics for the general, the larger Jewish population, not necessarily religious, but larger Jewish population, so those are all there.

Answers to the most common objections, the 100 most common objections that you hear, written answers, video answers, all there at realmessiah.com, realmessiah.com, so be sure to check it out and avail yourself of that. All right, going back to the phones momentarily, but just wanna talk to you briefly about the Israeli elections. We are now scheduled to go to election number five since 2019.

You say, how can that be? Well, because the results were not decisive. Remember, there are 120 seats in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. Remember that there are multiple parties running. You can have over 20 different parties run, and maybe 10, 12, 13 different parties actually get enough votes to get over the minimum threshold, so you get four votes, four seats in the Knesset. That's the minimum threshold. So you've got all these different players. That means that no one group is gonna have the 61 seats needed to form a majority government.

That's the way it works there, all right? So you make a coalition. I've got 35 seats.

You've got 10. You've got four, and you piece it together. Well, we won't join unless you give in on this. No, that's a deal breaker. No, okay, we'll bend a little here, and now if you take them and we leave, so it becomes very, very dicey. All right, you've got your 35-seat majority, but you can't form a coalition to get you over the 61-seat threshold. Now let's go to the next party.

Okay, you got 30. Can you put something together? You try, and so what happened was this very tenuous coalition with Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett and their parties came together and remarkably put something together, and it barely had the threshold, and then very quickly it went from 62 to 61. One of the Knesset members resigned from the coalition withdrew. Then another did. In other words, we're going back or we're siding with this other one, and now finally another, so they don't have a majority anymore.

They don't even have 60-60. So there will be elections held. It could be in November, it could be earlier. Last I saw was November, but I just saw a poll now that indicated that Netanyahu far and away would be the biggest vote-getter as the leader of Likud, that he would be the single best, that he would best Yair Lapid, of course best Naftali Bennett, would best Benny Gantz. He would best all of them, and according to this, that he would be able to put together a coalition of 62. Now having Netanyahu in power, he's already led Israel for 12 years.

They call him Melech, they call him King. He's the longest-running prime minister in Israel's history, and you don't have the term limit issue the same as you have in America. On the one hand, he's a strong leader. He's very strong internationally. He's strong in security.

There are other things that are excellent. Let's put Assad in charges of corruption against him. Just put a question mark next to those, but in order to form his coalition, he will then reach out to the religious right, and the problem with that is that makes it a lot worse for messianic Jews in the land.

There are crackdowns in different ways and restrictions of Jewish citizenship and things like that, and other things in the general population that can be a bit oppressive. So there's a mix. It's not a simple, oh, this is the good one, this is the bad one.

So continue to pray for God's will, for God's best. All right, let us go to Tom in Melbrook, Ohio. Welcome to the line of fire.

Yeah, hi, Dr. Brown. I have a question for you that I've wondered about for some time here. The story of the tearing of the veil in the temple at the point of Jesus completing the sacrifice, it brings such a dramatic picture to mind, and my question is, during this very busy time of the year, the Passover and then the feast week coming up, what would have been happening in the temple at the time that that took place? I gotta believe there were many witnesses to that, with the preparations for certain things taking place, or what would have been going on? Right, it's a great question, and specifically, you have to realize when it's talking about the tearing of the veil, right? So this is the innermost veil of the temple, right? You don't have any account outside of the gospels. You do have an account about the gates of the temple not closing in rabbinic literature, and then another leader has to rebuke them, and then they close, and some have associated that, that say that's the rabbinic memory of what happened, of the gates not closing, being jarred open. So that would be the only apparent parallel, otherwise what we have is recorded in the gospels themselves, and those would be the closest contemporary witnesses outside of Josephus, but you didn't have the high priest bringing in incense, like on the Day of Atonement, or, excuse me, bringing in the blood to the most holy place at that time.

This would be another time of the year. In other words, during the Passover, you would not have had people going in through that veil. The high priest would not have gone in at that time. So the amount of witnesses would be fairly limited.

It was not a busy place where you had people going in and out. So how do we know it happened? Number one, the witness of the New Testament, you say, well, how do we know where they got the information?

Well, we don't. In other words, it could have been by revelation that God told them that this is what happened, or it could have been that there were witnesses to it that recounted it. But you have to remember, we don't have a lot of sources.

The only rough contemporary source we have is Josephus writing decades later and writing in a way that's trying to make things look more favorable to Rome, and that's just this one person. The closest eyewitness accounts that you're gonna have are the New Testament writers who were there when these things were happening. So the only other thing I can say, and you don't have cell phones, you don't have any of that, so the idea that you're gonna have a lot of accounts, the accounts we have from this period of time are from the New Testament authors, and then from Josephus, who's writing many, many years later, but the ones that are the eyewitnesses, those are the New Testament writers.

So that's our best source of information. It's very different than today, sir. When if something happens somewhere, you're gonna have all kinds of cell phone reports and people texting about it. It's a totally different world. But I would say this. The idea that they would make a claim like this that everyone could say never happened is highly unlikely.

That's the flip side of it. To make such a claim when you had, as the New Testament documents are being first distributed orally, so before they're written documents, the traditions are being distributed orally and people are repeating them. So this is the kind of thing that's gonna get shot down very quickly or confirmed very quickly. The fact that it's so plainly recounted in the gospels historically gives you strong evidence to believe that it actually happened.

Of course, we accept the account of scripture, but even from a non-believing viewpoint, you say you're not just gonna create something like this that many could say never happened. Mm-hmm, sure. Okay, yeah, I was just wondering if there might be activity in the holy place, not in the most holy. Yeah, yeah. That's once a year, but it seems like it would be such a dramatic audible thing.

This curtain, I understand, was four inches thick roughly, so you would think it would attract some attention. Oh, yeah, yeah. And again, so every day you had certain things going on and there's interaction in the holy place. So you're gonna have witnesses either as it's happening or shortly after it happens, right? But the exact time of day that it's taking place, was there something not off the top of my head that I'd say, okay, at this time, this sacrifice is being offered, and therefore at that moment, so-and-so would have seen this and such.

No, can't place it on that level. But again, the fact that you have a rabbinic account, yeah, it's later. When I say the rabbinic accounts are not eyewitness, it's because they're written centuries and centuries later. But the fact that you have that account about the temple gates, the temple doors not closing, that's significant.

That could be a like memory. Hey, thank you for the call. All right, let us go to Elena. All right, hang on. Not sure, all right.

Truth Studio, if you could put Elena on in Alexandria, Virginia, welcome to the line of fire. All right, seems to be gone. Let's, all right, tell you what, just gotta reconnect something here that just dropped out on my terminal as we are doing this remotely. And here we are, we are back that quickly.

Okay, we go to Jay in Boise, Idaho. Welcome to the line of fire. Thanks for taking my call. You bet. So, my question is in regards to usage of the word et in Genesis four.

So, in Genesis one and one, right, it's a bereshit baralachim et ha'shamayim, so like a direct object marker, this is what's being created. I'll tell you what, I'm sorry, hang on. We'll come to your call on the other side of the break.

Sorry about that. We'll be right back. This is the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the line of fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us, friends, on Thoroughly Jewish Thursday. Michael Brown, delighted to be with you.

866-34-TRUTH. All right, Jay in Boise, Idaho. Sorry for that interruption. Back to your question about the direct object marker et in, I guess, Genesis four with the birth of Cain. Go ahead.

Thank you. So, when we see the usage of et, right, like for example, in Genesis one, it's the bereshit baralachim et bara is the create, right? And then et ha'shamayim means the heavens, right? The et is just sort of like saying, it's almost like an arrow pointing to the heavens. No, it's just, I mean, it's not like an arrow point. It's just the direct object marker that you can have exceptions in poetry, but before proper name or direct object. So, with definite article like Shammayim, heaven or earth, right, bereshit baralachim et shammayim et ha'aretz.

Right, so just the direct object marker. And that's the primary usage. It can also, it's also a preposition meaning with as the other usage of it in Hebrew. So, I recently watched a video from Anthony Rogers and I happened to be learning Hebrew myself, so I could verify what it was that he was saying. And he was talking about how that coupled with the peculiar nature of your desire shall be to your man and he shall rule over you, the Yishech, that he thought Genesis 4.1 was actually saying, I have acquired a man at the Lord, meaning the Lord, meaning that Eve maybe thought that there was a possibility she was giving birth to a divine Messiah in Cain.

I had two questions related to that. The first one is, is that viable at all? And the second one is, if that is viable, then is there any application that could be made there to the fact that Cain was not in fact Lord?

Right, no, it's not viable at all. It would be utterly bizarre that Eve would be thinking about at the very foundation of the human race here, would be thinking about giving birth to a divine Messiah as opposed to simply giving birth to a male child, someone who would grow up to be an ish, a man. And if someone knows Hebrew fluently enough, then they'll know that it simply means with, that the preposition et, to this day, I could say in Hebrew, et, with me, or otcha, you directly, or etcha, with you. So yeah, so et Adonai, so kaniti ish et Adonai means I have acquired a man with the help of Yahweh. So with Yahweh. And that's how the ancient versions understood it. For example, looking at the Aramaic, kaniti gavrim in kadam Adonai. So I've received, or acquired a man, a male from before the Lord, the Septuagint.

So she acquires an anthropon, a man, dia tutho, dia tutho, so by means of God. Yeah, so et there just simply means with, and nothing more to it, and to read more into it is really projecting things back very much. And by the way, yeah, let me just say this last thing. When, in English, we constantly recognize the difference in meaning of words. If I said, yeah, I went to the bank at the bank of the river, I'll just use bank two different ways. Well, we fully understand that. And if we say the tow truck ran over my toe, well, it's two different toes spelled two different ways, and we get that immediately. There's no mystery there. So someone reading this immediately would know what's being said.

It wouldn't be a mystery. I've acquired a man, I've gotten a man with the help of the Lord. So if I could have a brief follow on that, and I appreciate your answer, by the way, because I did suspect it might be reading a little bit too much into it.

I'm not fluent, I'm only a beginner, so it's always good to get secondary voices. Is there anything to be read into the fact that the word ish is used both in your husband, which is actually man shall rule over you, and also I have acquired a man from the Lord, or is that simply just referencing the fact that they're male? No, just the fact that they're male. The Hebrew ish can mean husband or man, just like the same with Greek, the words for woman and for man can be also used for husband or wife. So nothing more should be read into that. And she's referring to it being a male child.

She could have just said a yeled, which would be a boy, but saying ish is really making clear it's a male. I got a man here with the help of the Lord. So the video you mentioned is not the first one to try to read this into the text, but it's absolutely clearly not what it's saying. And there's no indication that this was a known theme right from Eden, that there would be a divine Messiah birthed to the human race.

These are things that were revealed over time. Hey, thank you for the call. Keep studying, keep learning. All right, let us go to David in Michigan. Welcome to the line of fire.

Thank you, Dr. Brown, I appreciate the call. I actually have two questions, but I have to, I'll be very brief, and I'll just stick with one for right now. I have been studying kings in ancient Israel, and I'm struggling with how to understand as a Gentile the importance of the Second Temple compared to the First Temple, and I'll be very brief. I understand that the Spirit has left the Ezekiel's vision. I understand that the Second Temple doesn't meet the dimensions of the First Temple. I understand that when the exiles returned, they were sad because the Spirit of God wasn't in the Second Temple foundations, and they didn't really finish it. I guess I'm just kind of struggling with how important is the Second Temple compared to the First Temple?

Well, it was of great importance, and I would say that certain things were overstated in your evaluation. They did rebuild the Temple at the same dimensions as Solomon's Temple, it had to be. That was their only option was to build according to that following the descriptions of the tabernacle, and it did not have the same glory at the outset that the First Temple did, so there was disappointment with that.

There wasn't the divine fire and presence there and things like that. When Ezekiel has the vision of it leaving, it's leaving the First Temple in Ezekiel the 10th chapter. That being said, there were prophecies that the glory of that Temple would be greater than the glory of the First Temple, and that God would appoint his shalom, his peace there. So that was the place to which the Messiah came. That was the place where the Holy Spirit was poured out after his resurrection, and that was also the place on the physical level that was massively beautified in a large complex by Herod. So it did receive both natural beauty as well as the presence of God, and was of great, massive importance to the world Jewish population, hence its destruction never to be rebuilt until now remains highly significant and has been part of the prayers of the Jewish people for almost 2,000 years now that the Temple would be rebuilt. So it was, even though it didn't have the Ark of the Covenant, even though it didn't have many of these other elements, and from later rabbinic tradition, it just mentioned there being a rock there that was in the holiest place and the blood would be poured out on the rock, so things were clearly missing.

There was something obviously not there. On the other hand, on the other hand for sure, there were some very, very important elements to it, and the Temple itself represented God's dwelling place for the nation, so it was massively important, yeah. So you mentioned the Ark part, and that was gonna be my next statement, and that makes sense. So when you read Ezekiel's vision of the Temple, it seems to me it doesn't match the dimensions of the Second Temple.

Is that accurate enough? You are 100% accurate, which creates problems for rabbinic Jews who say that a future temple must be built exactly according to the same specifications as the original tabernacle slash temple. So there's a rabbinic tradition that one rabbi spent endless nights, so just burned the midnight oil almost literally, and it just went through all this oil trying to reconcile Ezekiel's Temple with the Torah requirements, and he figured it all out, but we lost what he figured out, so it remains an issue. That's why some would say, well, it's gonna be something totally new and different, and it doesn't have to go to Torah specifications because we're in a new age, or others would say that indicates that it's just symbolic in its nature.

It's not something physically built, but something spiritual. But for sure, the picture that you get for sure, David, is that when Ezekiel, he was supposed to show it to the exiles, and they were supposed to see it and be ashamed, and realize, wow, we should have a temple built, and then he actually mentions Ezekiel participating in it as if this would happen with the return from exile, but it didn't. So there were promises that were yet to be fulfilled, hence the pointing to the Messiah visiting the Second Temple.

Hey, David, thank you very much for the call. Yeah, so going back to the previous call that ties in with this about the destruction of the Second Temple, there are rabbinic traditions that for 40 years before the temple was destroyed in the year 70, that the doors of the temple would swing open, and it had to be rebuked to be closed. One tradition would indicate this happening repeatedly. Again, was that God shouting out to the nation, atonement has been made.

Atonement has been made because Messiah, depending on exactly when you date the crucifixion, resurrection, Messiah dies for a sin roughly 40 years before the destruction of the temple. I do believe that there are Talmudic traditions that God in the sovereignty has planted there to say, hey, that is done. I've come up with a new and better way. He was getting the attention of the nation. Hey, back with you tomorrow. You've got questions, we've got answers, ready for your calls. God bless. Another program powered by the Truth Network.