Chapter 1
This episode of Hebrew Voices is one of the most exciting things I have ever discovered: A Hebrew Manuscript of the Book of Revelation! This 17th century manuscript in the British Library contains the name Yehovah with full vowels and refers to "Yehoshua Mashiach". Torah-loving Methodist pastor AJ Bernard and the mysterious "T-Bone" joined me for a lively discussion of the Hebrew text and English translation. We unpacked topics such as the "Aleph Tav", the Jewish understanding of the Messiah coming on the clouds, and the meaning of Yehovah's holy Name.
Benjamin Netanyahu: Le ma’an Zion lo ekhesheh, u’l’ma’an Yerushalayim lo eshkot. (For Zion’s sake I will not be silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest. Isaiah 62:1)
Nehemia: So, I’ve been waiting 14 years to see this manuscript, since around 2003, when I was kind of in the intensity of doing the research. I was looking for every Hebrew New Testament document I could find that was on record anywhere, and there’s more than you would think. Now, is this the original Hebrew that was written by John of Patmos? Or is this a translation from Greek or some other language? I don’t have the answer to that right now. But it’s still a fascinating text, and this is dated to the 17th century, possibly earlier, but at least the 17th century. It was purchased in 1753 by a collector named Sloane, and today it’s in the British Library, which is like their version of the Library of Congress, or the Smithsonian Institute. So, the British Library and the Sloane Collection manuscript 273, and anybody could go online and see this for yourself. It’s only eight pages long.
Shall we just start reading this manuscript? It’s incredible. So, what I did is I sat down, and I transcribed every jot and tittle, every letter, and this one has vowels in it. Let me jump to the middle, because the first thing I did when I saw this manuscript is there’s this passage about the Aleph and the Tav which of course, in the Greek is the alpha and the omega. And to me, what’s even more important is that it talks about “Lord God” as a phrase that’s used in a number of places. And I wish we had more of this, this only goes to 2:13. So, I immediately pulled up that passage to see, “Okay, what does it say?” And let me read that. It really is, to me, the most exciting.
There are three things in this manuscript that I find to be extremely exciting. And again, I don’t know, is this the original Book of Revelation that was written by John of Patmos or is this a translation? If it’s a translation from some other language into Hebrew, then it has some unique elements that aren’t found anywhere else. And by the way, I’m not so sure this is a unique element necessarily, but here, it’s chapter 1:8. It says in Hebrew, “Ani ha’Aleph ve haTav omer Yehovah, haElohim.” “‘I am the Aleph and the Tav,’ says Yehovah, the Elohim.” And what’s so powerful about that, to me, is that I’ve been hearing people for years speculating, “It says alpha and omega and originally, that was Aleph Tav.” Okay, that’s your opinion. Show me a manuscript where that’s the case. Now, is this the original manuscript? I don’t know. Even if it’s a translation from Greek or Latin or something like that, whoever read that said, “Well, obviously in Hebrew, alpha and omega can’t be alpha and omega, it would be Aleph and Tav.” And that’s what we have here.
And then it says, “Yehovah haElohim, Yehovah…” and when you add hey at the beginning of Elohim it means “the God” with a capital G. Hebrew doesn’t have capital letters. So, “I am,” or “Says Yehovah, ‘the Elohim,’ the God, the one, true God.” And there, Yehovah has the full vowels!
One of the really interesting things about this manuscript is that it has not a full set, but it has selective accent marks, what we call the “trop” or the cantillation marks, which you find in the Bible in the Old Testament in the Masoretic manuscripts. Occasionally, you’ll find it in the Mishna, believe it or not. In other words, the scribes who copied the Mishna also had some form of cantillating. If you’ve ever been to a synagogue, you’ll know what I’m talking about, where they’ll read it with a tune
Now let’s start from the beginning
“Chazon Yochanan hakodesh, hamedaber el meshulach u’mevasser.” This is the title. “The Holy revelation of Yochanan who is speaking to the one who is sent and announcing good news.” And what’s interesting here is that the word “who is speaking to”, that’s my translation. But you could also translate it – perhaps you should translate it as – “The one whom God is speaking, or God’s speaking to the one who’s sent,” but then we’re missing the word “to.” And that’s where things get a bit complicated. In Hebrew, the word “el” with a segel is to, and with a tzeirei is God. And here, it’s written with a tzeirei. It’s written “the one who is speaking, God” as a single word, “hamedaber el,” which I’ve never seen that in the history of the Hebrew language. This is very interesting, and with a shva underneath the Reish, its very interesting little things going on there.
What probably happened here is it said, “God speaking to the one who is sent,” and so you had “el el, God to,” and one of those dropped off in the copying. They call it “haplography”. But I’m speculating there. Really what it literally says, I guess, is “God speaking sent,” and announcing the good news, “mevasser,” which is the word for like “gospels,” meaning “and announcing the gospel,”
It’s the title. And we don’t know, is the title put in there by the copyist? That’s always a question, right? We never know that. So, let’s go on.
This is chapter 1 verse 1, and maybe I’ll read a few verses. Let’s just start. “Chazon Yehoshua Mashiach she natano haElohim leharot avadav asher hutzrach lihiyot beshetzef, vehora shole’ach beyad hamalacho le’avdo Yochanan.” “The vision of Yehoshua Mashiach that the Elohim gave him to show His servants that which was necessary to be with wrath, and He taught sending by the hand of His angels to His servant, Yochanan
The English standard version. “The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to Him to show His servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending His angels to His servant, John.” And that’s verse 1.
What’s interesting here is we have the word “vehora”, which means, “and He taught”, and it’s from the same root as the word “Torah.” So, you could translate that, and it sometimes is translated as, “And He taught Torah, sending in the hand of His angel to His servant, John,”
That’s the kind of thing that could easily be lost in translation, because you have this term which is charged with meaning. It’s the same word as in Isaiah 2, where they’re talking about going to Jerusalem.
Isaiah 2 verse 3, “And many people shall come and say, ‘Come, let us go to the mountain of the LORD - YEHOVAH, to the house of the God of Jacob, that He may teach us His ways and that we may walk in His paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the LORD - YEHOVAH from Jerusalem. Hallelujah.’”
So, it says in Hebrew, “Vehalchu amim rabbim ve’amru lechu vena’aleh le har Yehovah el beit Elohei Yaakov,” “And many nations shall go and they shall say, ‘Let’s go and go up to the mountain of Yehovah, to the house of the God of Jacob.” “Veyoreinu midrachav,” “And He will Torah us, He will teach us from His ways.” Same word that is up here in this Hebrew version, which is interesting, it’s not from the Greek. The Greek doesn’t have that. So, where did he get that? And again, I don’t know. Is this a translation from Greek or from some other version? But it has something here that we’re not finding in the Greek. It’s just very interesting. It has this root to teach Torah in 1 verse 1.
Let’s go on, verse 2, “Asher he’id hadavar haElohim veha’eidat Yehoshua Mashiach asher khazar veshehena veshutsrach la’asot acharei zot.” “He testified the word of the Elohim and the witness of Yehoshua Mashiach which he saw and that are here, and that which was necessary to do after this.”
If you were translating this from Greek, what I would expect is that it would say, “Yesus Christos” or “Yeshua haMashiach”. And what we have here is something a little different.
The first thing that struck me when I saw this was that it had the full name of Yehoshua.
There were some manuscripts of the Hebrew Matthew that had the full name, but the copy I have always has “Yeshua”. I found that was interesting when I first saw this.
It’s so interesting. In the Old Testament, in the Tanakh, the name “Yeshua” is an abbreviation for Yehoshua, which means, “Yehovah yoshia,” Yehovah will save. And by Second Temple times, anybody named Yehoshua was called Yeshua, and you have, for example, the High Priest, Yehoshua, the son of Jehozadak. And it’s kind of like if someone was named Michael, you’d call him Mike. But here, it is the original full form of Yehoshua.
So, that’s this equivalent here of Yehoshua, which is interesting, like this is totally unexpected. Let’s say this is translated from Greek - why would he write “Yehoshua” instead of “Yeshua”, which is more common? And look, if this was a Rabbi writing this, there’s no question that he would have written “Yeshu”, which is an even more abbreviated form.
Actually, what the Greek says is, “Esu”. It doesn’t even have the whole Esuas, it’s just Esu.
The first thing my eye went to was “Yehovah”, and the next thing was “Yehoshua”.
Verse 3, “Ashrei ha’ish asher koreh vehashom’im hadivrei hanevua umeshamrim hena asher baketuvot, ki ha’et karov.” “Happy is the man who reads and the one who hears the words of the prophesy and guards here,” or “they guard here, those that are written in it, for the time is near.” And that word “here”, “hena” keeps appearing. My guess is that it means “these” but that’s not what it means, but that might be what this text uses it as, in other words, so it probably means “and guard these”. But it’s interesting.
So, for those who are Hebrew speakers, one of the things that will sound very unusual here, we have this very wide use of the Hey hayedi’a of the Hey meaning “the” in places that are totally unexpected in the Hebrew language. And I know there’s going to be some people who are going to say, “Well, this is translated from Greek or some other language by somebody who didn’t know Hebrew well enough.” You could think that’s a possibility. I don’t know that it proves it, but it’s very strange. You have here, “divrei hanevua”, “the words of the prophesy”, and it has, “ha divrei hanevua”, the words of the prophesy.” And that first Hey is completely not only extraneous, contrary to certainly the standard rules of the Hebrew grammar. You wouldn’t expect that.
And we have the structure in Hebrew called “semichut” or the construct case. It’s kind of where one noun leans upon another noun. And in those situations, the first noun never gets Hey, although I guess it doesn’t matter in Hebrew. You wouldn’t expect that, but it’s a quirk of this text. It appears quite consistently throughout the text.
In the Greek, there are grammatical quirks in the Revelation that cause Christian scholars to balk at it. At one point, in fact, they believed that it was written in what they called “Holy Ghost Greek”. It wasn’t a common language at all, but rather something that the Spirit made up to teach the Church. The problem is that Revelation is 404 verses which contain over 800 references or allusions to the Old Testament. So, John will frequently insert a quote from the Old Testament in an odd place, and it sounds difficult to our American ears, or to a Greek speaker, but it’s making a reference to something else that is much more familiar.
Something known from the culture. There are scholars that say that John is full of Hebrewisms. Some of them are obvious, even if you don’t know Hebrew, like “Avadon” for “abanon” and “Armageddon”, which is “Har Megiddo”, those are straight out Hebrew phrases that were in the Greek. And then you have more subtle things which you’d only know if you were a Greek scholar, like “kai genito”, which is, “and it came to pass”, but literally a translation of “vayehi”, and he was.
So, even without this Hebrew text you have signs that point it to be possibly of a Hebrew source. Anyway, let’s read verse 4. “Yochanan leshiva makalelim, hem b’asya, chen lachem veshalom mimenu hoyeh vayihiyeh vesheyavo umisheva haneshamot shenegged hakis’o.” “Yochanan to the seven congregations that are in Asia, grace to you and shalom from Him who is and who will be, and who will come and from the seven souls that are opposite His throne.”
First, we have “makelim”, which is very interesting. I would expect if someone were translating this from Greek they’d have “knessiot”, which are “churches.” Makelim is from the word “kahal” a congregation. It’s very interesting. So you have this phrase that appears a number of times in this text, which is, “He that is, He that will be, and He that is to come,” which is what we would find certainly in more common Hebrew texts as haya, hoveh, ihiyeh, He was, He is, He is to come. And I wonder if that’s not what he means here.
We have that, of course, in the Greek version, “haya, hovey, ihiyeh
Note that there’s the idiom of the seven ‘souls’. In the Greek it says, “Before His throne.” The Greek word there, it gets used in the Septuagint to translate, “lepnei”, “in the face of”. So, I was wondering about the word “opposite” here. “Negged” just means if I’m standing and you’re standing in front of me, that’s negged. That’s opposite. They’re facing him, is what it means.
The translation says “souls”, and I don’t see “ruach”, but the Greek has it as “spirit”.
So “ruach” is spirit, and the place we have “neshamot” in the Tanakh is where God blows “nishmat ruach hachayim”. Let me pull that up. It is usually translated as something like “the breath of life”. So, it’s Genesis 2:7, “Vayipach b’apav nishmat chayim,” “And He breathed or blew into his nose, his nostrils, the neshama of life.” Then Genesis 7:22 talks about God destroying all that has “nishmat ruach chayim,” “all that has the breath of life, and here it’s both, “the breath of the spirit of life.” So basically, “neshama” is the life force.
So, these ‘souls’ are, I guess they’re seven life forces, meaning neshama is the life force that is breathed into a human being. And then a human being can then be referred to as a neshama. In Deuteronomy 20 verse 6 it says, “You shall not save a life kol neshama, any neshama,” meaning a living person. Are these seven living people that are in front of the throne, or are they seven life forces? In basic terms, it could be seven angels.
Presumably, the significance of the seven here is the seven congregations, Okay, so verse 5, is that where we’re in, verse 5?
By the way, we’re now on page 2, meaning that was one page. It’s a very spacious text. And by the way, it ends at 2:13, like it ends, I think it’s even the middle of a verse. We’ll get to it, but what’s interesting is often when something ends in the middle, so you’ll say, “Okay, that’s the last page of the manuscript.” This is a 32-page manuscript, and it only takes up 8 pages, this text. So, what happened is they had like a notebook, and somebody was copying this into the notebook; basically it was a codex; and he’s like, “Okay, I’m out of text. My source only goes this far,” and so he has a whole bunch of, I guess it was 32 minus 8, he has 26 empty pages. It’s very interesting.
Verse 5, “Vemi Yehoshua Mashiach she’ed hane’eman habachor min hametim vehasar ha melachim ha’aretz asher ahavanu veyitpoleinu michata’einu badamo.” And from Yehoshua Mashiach who is the faithful witness, the firstborn of the men and the prince of the kings of the earth, who loved us and baptized us from our sins with His blood.”
And here, we have a major difference from the Greek and that major difference is expressed in the vowels.
The Greek says, “The firstborn of the dead.”
So, in Hebrew, the dead would be “hameitim” and with a tzeirei under the mem. And here, it has a shva under the mem, which is “hametim”. And when I first translated this, I translated it as “the dead”, even though that’s not what it said. And I thought, “You know what? I don’t need to give my opinion. Let’s translate what it says.” So, “metim” is men, and you could say, “Hey, it means ‘dead’ and the vowels are wrong here.” You could say that, but the way the vowels read is “hametim”, “the men”. So, it’s weird. It could also be “people,” not just men.
Let’s keep reading
“Ve’asanu et malchut vekhohanim le’Elohim ve Avihu lo kavod vehashilton ad olmei ad, amen.” “And he made us a kingdom and priests to Elohim and His Father, to Him His glory and dominion forever, Amen.” I thought it was very interesting, here - we have “to Elohim and His Father”. And what does the Greek have? It has something slightly different.
“To His God and Father.”
Right, so the word “His” there is distributive, meaning it’s both “to His Elohim” and “to His Father”, they’re the same. And here it’s not so clear that they’re the same. They could be two different entities, “Elohim and His Father”. The King James does translate it that way in some cases. I would simply say that they’re referring to the same being. “To Elohim, His Father.” So, if that Vav wasn’t there it would just be “Elohim, His Father”.
But the Vav is there. And look, I mean, in Hebrew you have a concept called “hendiadys”, “two that are one”, and it’s very common, if I want to say one thing, I say it twice. The most common, it’ll be “chessed ve’emet”, which is “righteousness and truth.” And what you mean is “true righteousness”, and that’s an extremely common form. And then, the other one it’ll say in Jericho, “sogeret umisogeret”, which basically means “closed and closed in”, and it’s the same thing. It just amplifies it.
So, you could say from a Hebrew perspective, this is hendiadys, the two that are one; meaning, “His Father, God”, You could translate it that way.
Verse 7, “Hineh ba im ha’anan vekhazahu kol ayin. Veha’eleh she bidcuhu vesafdu alav kol hashivtei ha’aretz gam amen.” “Behold, He has come with the cloud and every eye saw Him and these that stabbed Him, and they will mourn Him all the tribes of the earth. Also, amen.” I think that’s cute, in Hebrew it says, “Also, amen.”
The thing that I noticed when I read through this was the tense change.
In the Greek it says, “Behold, He is coming with the clouds and every eye will see Him.”
So, in Hebrew we have a concept called “prophetic past”. It’s extremely common. You won’t see it often in your English because you’ll see it in the future, but in the Hebrew, prophesies are often versed in the past, and the idea is that this is so certain it’s going to happen that I refer to it as if it’s something that already happened.
And we have an example in modern Hebrew. If we’re really in a hurry and I want us to go, I say, “zaznu”, which means, “we have moved”. It’s almost like in English, “we’re out of here”. Well, you’re not out of here, you’re still standing here. And in that case, it’s certain. “We’re leaving this second.” I suppose it’s a cohortative, it’s more like wishful thinking, in the case of zaznu, right? Like, “I’m telling you we need to leave,” so I say, “zaznu”.
In this case, presumably I think what’s being described is the man is seeing a vision, and in his vision, that thing has already taken place. And that’s the idea where you find it in Isaiah and Jeremiah, is Jeremiah is standing in the throne room of God and he describes something that he sees as an accomplished fact, but it is something that from our perspective is going to be in the future.
A great example, by the way, is at the end of Deuteronomy it says, “There was no prophet in Israel like Moses.” So, most Jewish commentators understand that as prophetic past, not that when Joshua wrote it 30 days later, there was no prophet like Moses. Like, “Okay.” That’s not as impressive as, “No, there isn’t going to be a prophet like Moses.” It’s stated in the past tense to express its certainty. And of course, presumably this passage is a reference to Zacharia, or part of it is…
There’s the “Even those who pierced Him,” which is the reference to Zacharia 12:10, as well as the Daniel 7, “coming with the clouds,” and then “every eye will see Him.”
What’s interesting is, last night I read through Daniel 7 in the original; not in the original Hebrew, because Daniel 7’s written in Aramaic; I read it in the original Aramaic, and then I read the Hebrew and then I read the English. And then I looked at what the commentators say, and it’s very interesting. It talks there about a bar enosh, a son of man, coming on a cloud. And he’s contrasted there with the “ancient of days”, who has the white hair. And all the Jewish commentators I read, that I was able to find, understand the “ancient of days” as referring either to God or what they call the “Shekhinah”, which Christians would call “Shekinah”, I guess, the Holy Spirit that is representing God, and that the “bar enosh” was either Israel collectively, or the Messiah. And the Jewish commentators were divided on that, but that’s very interesting that you have the Messiah coming riding on a cloud in the Book of Daniel, according to many commentators, and according to the other Jewish commentators it’s Israel collectively riding on a cloud, and in that case, maybe it’s not literally a cloud. I don’t know.
And another interesting thing about this coming on the clouds is that Yeshua references this in Mark chapter 14 in a passage beginning around verse 60 when he’s standing before the High Priest.
Verse 8: “‘Ani ha’aleph vehatav’ omer Yehovah, haElohim. Hoyeh vayihyeh vesheyavo haShaddai.” “‘I am the Aleph and the Tav,’ says Yehovah, the Elohim. He that is and He that will be, and He that will come, the Shaddai.’”
Wow, there’s so much to unpack here. If we’re translating from Greek, you could write the alpha and the omega. Alpha and the omega obviously are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. Aleph and Tav are the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and He says, “Yehovah Elohim,” and Yehovah has full vowels in this 17th century manuscript… this is incredible! It’s incredible.
We looked at two different Hebrew versions of the Book of Revelation that everyone agrees are translated from Greek. And we all agree they’re translated from Greek because we know who translated them and when.
The first one is from a guy named Franz Delitzsch and the other is from a man named Salkinsohn. Salkinsohn was a Jewish convert to Christianity, Delitzsch was a Christian who was involved in proselytizing Jews, and they both translated the New Testament into Hebrew from Greek, and they both independently translate this as “I am the Aleph and the Tav,” and have Yehovah there.
So, if this is a translation from Greek… meaning, you can’t take this and say, “Well, this proves it’s from Hebrew,” you actually can’t say that, because those two men clearly translated it like they admit they’re translating it from Greek. However, let’s say this is a translation from Greek. So, we have three independent translations from Greek from three different people. One is a Jew, one is a Christian, and we don’t know who translated this one, and they’re spanning hundreds of years, right, going back to at least the 17th century, possibly earlier, all the way to the 19th century. So, over a period of 400 plus years, you have three different people translating this as “Aleph and Tav” and “Yehovah”.
What that tells me is that anybody reading the Greek can reasonably understand and independently arrive at the conclusion that alpha and omega in Hebrew would be Aleph Tav, and that when it talks here about in the Greek “Lord”, what’s the exact phrase in the Greek, there? Kurios Deos.
Kurios Deos, which is “Lord, God”, that when you see that phrase “Kurios hotheos”, that would be the conclusion. That it’s “Lord, God”. Interestingly, I see the Textus Receptus only has Kurios but then the GNT28, the Nestle-Aland 28 has “Kurios hotheos”, which is “Lord, the God,” which is “Yehovah haElohim”, and here in the Peshitta it has “Maria elaha”, I mean, this is powerful stuff.
It’s incredible. And again, I want to be careful here, I don’t want people to say, “Nehemia says this is the original letter-for-letter transcribed by John from a 2nd century manuscript.” I’m not claiming that. I’m claiming here, we’ve got some interesting things that make you go, “Ooh.”
Whether it’s from Greek or the original Hebrew, this is clearly bringing us back to the original Hebrew. And this is a third witness in addition to Salkinsohn and Delitzsch, that this is what the Hebrew had to read. I mean, that is powerful stuff.
Now I am going to go into some stuff that I try to stay out of, which is the phrase, “Hoyeh veyihyeh vesheyavo”, “He that is, and He that will be, and He that is to come.” It’s the breakdown of the name of God.
What Kabbalah teaches, or the key teaching of Kabbalah, is that the true God is unknowable, He’s infinite and us finite humans can’t know Him, and that infinite deity is called “Ein sof”, which means literally “no end”, and that what we experience are 10 emanations that come out of God, like light from the candle. That’s the basic teaching of Kabbalah.
The name “Yehovah” is a contraction of “Haya, Hoveh, and Yihiyeh”, which means, “was” as in “forever was”, “is” and “will be” as in “forever will be”.
People ask me all the time, “What does Yehovah mean?” And it’s obvious to the Jewish ear that Yehovah, the meaning is explained in Exodus 3:14, where it says, “Ehiyeh asher Ehiyeh”, which is, “I am that which I am” or “I will be that which I will be”, and actually, they’re both true there in the nuance, meaning you had this repetitive action in the Hebrew imperfect. “I am now and will continue to be in the future” is really what it means. And so, that’s clearly the explanation of Yud-Hey-Vav-Hey, which comes from that root, “Haya, Hoveh, Yihiyeh”, meaning He says, “I am now, and I will continue to be in the future.”
When we speak of Yehovah, we speak of Him as we put that Yud in front which means, “He will be,” and it becomes, “Haya, Hovey, Yihiyeh, He was…” meaning, “He always has been”, “Hoveh”, “He is now”, “veYihyeh”, “and He will continue to be in the future, always.” And it’s just obvious to the Hebrew ear, maybe it’s partially obvious because I grew up singing in the synagogue a song, “Vehu Haya, vehu Hoveh, vehu Yihiyeh betifara,” which is, “He was, He is, and He will be in glory.”
And I did an interview recently with a Samaritan leader, and he says to me, “Do you know what it means?” and I say, “Well, I know what the name Yud-Hey-Vav-hey means, but you tell me what you believe it means.” He says, “What it means is, ‘Haya, Hoveh, Yihiyeh.’”
So, we’ve got it from the Jews. We got it from the Samaritans, and we have it in the Book of Revelation and even in the Greek it uses, “Him who is and who was, and who is to come.”
It appears a number of times in the Greek version of the New Testament, it’s pretty powerful stuff. And then, at the end here we have “Shaddai”, Shaddai is often translated as “Almighty”. This is extremely controversial, what I’m about to say, but it’s quite clear to me that the word “Shaddai” comes from the word “shed”. In the Tanakh, “shed” means spirit, and the context is it says, “Don’t sacrifice to shedim,” so they translate it as, “Don’t sacrifice to spirits.”
And Shaddai has what we call the “majestic plural.” You could literally translate it as “My spirits”, but it’s understood this majestic plural as indicating something great. It’s the same form as “Adonai” or “Elohai”, meaning “Adonai” literally is “my Lords,” but we translate it as “my Lord” with a capital L or “my great Lord”, and Elohai is “my God” with a capital G, “my great God”, and here, it’s “my great spirit”. That’s clear to me what Shaddai means.
Verse 9: “Ani Yochanan achichem vechaver batzara uvemalkut u’vetochelet beMashiach Yehoshua. Hayiti ba’ee shenikra Patmos.” And here, I’m going to have to read into the next page… “ba’avur hadvar haElohim u’vavur ha’eidut Yehoshua Mashiach.” “I am Yochanan your brother and a participant in the suffering and in the kingdom and in the hope in Mashiach Yehoshua. I was on the island that is called Patmos, for the word of the Elohim and for the testimony of Yehoshua Mashiach.”
Verse 10: “Hayiti beruach baYom Adoni’i veshamati kol gadol acharai kemo chatzotzra.” “I was in the spirit on the Lordly Day, and I heard a great voice behind me like a trumpet.” I know in the English they usually say, “The Lord’s Day”, which is understood as Sunday.
What I think is interesting is this phrase, “The Lordly Day”, and you would expect this to say, “beYom Adonai,” or “beYom Adon,” and it says, “beYom Adoni’ee”, and Adoni’ee has been turned into an adjective. We’re going to see a similar adjective later with the word “Yehudi’im”, which is very interesting.
So, what does he mean here by “the Lord’s Day” or “the Lordly Day”? Do you think he means Sunday? It could mean, “I was in the spirit on the great and terrible day of the Lord” that Joel speaks of. So, God takes John out of his time in Patmos in like 95 AD and moves him forward in time to see these things that he’s about to do.
If I was going to say, “Yom Yehovah” and you’re right, it could be thee eschatological end times day or it could just be Shabbat. Okay, let’s go on.
Verse 1:11: “Ha’omer shechozeh ata khtov basefer ushlach el shiva hamakelim el Ephesus v’el Smyrna ve’el Pergamus ve’el Tyatira v’el Sardis v’el Philadelphia v’el Lardekea.” That says …meaning this is the voice he heard saying, that says, “That which you see write in the book and send it to seven congregations to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamus and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Larodicea.”
I’m going to read verses 12, 13: “Vesham paniti lehabit hakol asher diber iti, u’fneh ani ra’iti et menorot hazahav sheva. U’vekerev hasheva menorot mimshal leven adam lavush im ktonet ad reglayim ve’afud el hashodim in khagorat hazahav
“And there I turned to look at the voice that spoke with me, and I was turning and saw seven lamps. And in the middle of the seven lamps the minion for the son of man, dressed with a tunic to the legs and girded to the chest with a golden belt.”
Note: He uses the word “menorot” from menorah.
Yeah, menorot, which are lamps. And it doesn’t mean necessarily seven, meaning, you could think of this as a menorah has seven branches and this is seven times seven which is 49, that’s possible that’s what he saw. Or maybe he saw one menorah with seven little menorot on it, meaning seven lamps at the top.
Verse 14: “Veha’orsho vehasa’arot levanot ketzemer tzakhar kemo shaleg ve’einav kelahav esh.” “And his head in the hairs are white like bright wool, like snow in his eyes, like a flame of fire.”
Let’s finish the description, “Uregalav mimshalim min’choshet kalal ka’asher lohatim bekhur vekolo kekol hatsulah.” “And his feet are likened to polished copper when glowing in the furnace and his voice is like the sound of the deep sea.”
Feet glowing in a furnace because Yeshua is the sin-offering sacrifice in Christian theology.
Note: In Hebrew the word “nechoshet” can mean copper, bronze or brass. Meaning, it’s all nechoshet. And bronze and brass are copper alloys, they’re like, I think, 90-something percent copper with some tin thrown in to strengthen it.
When we say “polished copper” we’re guessing. We don’t really know what kalal means. It appears twice in the Tanakh, and one is something Ezekiel saw, one is something Daniel saw. So, we don’t really know. It’s copper. It could be molten copper. I mean, who’s to say? It could be nechoshet kalal could be the Hebrew phrase for brass versus bronze.
So here, what we have to do is, we’ve got to put an English word in there, and we don’t want to say kalal “copper” so we say polished copper. But that’s a guess from the context of Daniel and Ezekiel.
Verse 16: “Ve’ochez beyad yemino kekhochavim shiv’a umin hapiv holech kherev piyot ufanav kashemesh, orim ba’uzo.” “And he [Yehshua] is holding in his right hand seven stars, and from his mouth goes forth a double-edged sword. And his face is like the light of the sun in its strength.”
Note: The phrase, “double-edged sword”, is the phrase that appears in Psalms, and the word is “herev pifiyot”, it’s in Psalm 149 verse 6, and that is translated in the original King James translated by Moses. “Let the high praises of God be in their mouth and a two-edged sword in their hand.”
Ephesians 6 verse 17 where Paul is talking about the “armor of God”, and he says, “Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” And I found it interesting that the sword of the Spirit proceeds out of the mouth; that is, the word of God proceeds out of the mouth. And then, later in the Revelation, where it talks about “those who overcome do so by the word of their testimony.”
It is our only weapon; our only offensive weapon is the word of our testimony. We preach the word of God, and that’s how we overcome.
Verse 17: “Vekha’asher ra’iti oto nafalti el raglav kemet, ve sam hayad yemino alai. Vayomer, ‘Al tira. Ani harishon veha’acharon.’” “And when I saw Him, I fell to His feet like a dead person. And He put His right hand on me, and He said, ‘Do not be afraid. I am the first and the last.’”
The Aleph and the Tav. Here it says, “Ha rishon veha’acharon,” the first and the last.
Verse 18: “Ve hachai vehayiti met, vehinei chai ani l’olmei olamim, amen. Veyesh li et hamasmerim hamavet vehaSheol.” “And the one who lives, and I was dead, and behold, I live forever and ever, amen. And I have the nails of death and Sheol.”
The “nails of death”. And in the Greek, it doesn’t say “nails”, in the Greek it says, “the keys of death and hades”. Hades presumably is a Greek concept that’s parallel to Sheol except obviously, it’s somewhat different. But if you’re translating it into Greek, I don’t know how else you’d translate it. So, “nails”. So, if this is translated from Greek, which it might be, where did they get the nails from? And the word “nails” is masmerim and keys are maftechot. So they both have a Mem in them, but many Hebrew nouns begin with a Mem. They don’t sound similar at all. The Greek word here is “kleis” or “klace” which means alternatively, “key” and “to shut”.
Now, where you could say they’re similar is that a key is made of usually iron in ancient times, and it has the shape of a nail, and that is not a coincidence. I investigated this, and I’m like, “This is probably the most significant difference from the Greek text.” And I couldn’t find any Greek text from what I was able to check, or even Aramaic. I looked everywhere. I couldn’t find anybody who has anything other than “key”, that has “nails”.
So, I looked at this word “nails”. It appears four times in the Tanakh, and it’s often related to doors. We have this expression in English, “dead as a doornail”. So, what is a doornail? So originally, a door was made of a series of planks, and you’d have a crossbar that would hold them together with nails. And then in later doors, the nail just became a decoration. In fact, I Googled “doornail” and I found modern doornails that are used as decorations. Like apparently, this is still a thing - a doornail. So, I think that’s interesting, that he’s talking about keys in the Greek, and in every other version and in Hebrew there’s a nail, and a nail can be associated with the door. But it doesn’t end there. So, in the Tanakh it’s related to doors.
The interesting thing is, when I looked up “masmer” in Jastrow, that’s the dictionary of post-Biblical Hebrew, he has two fascinating references. What Jastrow does is he doesn’t just tell you what it means, he says, “Well, here are the texts the word is used in.” And that’s how we know what it means. We’re not telling the text what it means, we’re deriving the meaning from these Jewish texts.
So, the first text is the Mishna, and the Mishna in the tractate of Shabbat, it’s talking about Rabbinical law, you’re not allowed to carry something outside on the Sabbath. It’s considered work by the Mishna to carry something outside on the Sabbath, and they say, “Well, what about carrying the nail of a crucifixion victim?” I mean, isn’t it incredible? They’re talking in the Mishna that this was a thing!
People walked around carrying the nail of a crucifixion victim. The assumption by most people who read this is that it imparted them with protection or luck. But maybe these were Jews who believed in Yeshua because we’re talking in the 2nd century, you know how many Christians would walk around wearing a cross? Maybe they walked around carrying a crucifixion nail in their pocket because they believed in Yeshua. I don’t know. Isn’t that incredible?
Now, there’s also the verse in Isaiah 22:23, “I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David. He shall open and none shall shut. He shall shut and none shall open.” This verse is linked to Matthew 16:18 and 19. “I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
So, this can’t be a coincidence. We have a passage here where Yeshua’s talking about keys, and it’s immediately after talking about the gates of hell. It’s the keys of the kingdom and the gates of hell, and those keys open a door that lets you into the kingdom, presumably. So, that connection to the gates of hell is very interesting, and I think it ties into Revelation, where he says, “I have the keys of death and Sheol.” So, maybe those are, at least from the Greek, the keys that maybe get you out of Sheol and death
Like that’s the contextual, literal meaning of the Greek. You’re going to be in Sheol, which is the place in the Tanakh where you sleep after you’re dead, and I’ve got keys that you can get out of there. I think that’s what it’s saying in the Greek. And here in the Hebrew it’s the nails. So, what’s your immediate association when you hear a figure that presumably is Yeshua, he says, “I was dead and now I’m alive,” and he has nails; what’s the immediate association, without overthinking this?
The cross, the nails of the cross.
The nails of the crucifixion. In fact, I looked up the word “nails” in the New Testament, and I believe the only passage it appears is in John, at least in the plural.
John 20:25: “So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see in His hands the marks of the nails and place my finger in the marks of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.’” This is Thomas speaking.
The word there is “eilon”. We have a related word in Colossians 2:14: “Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross.” And the word there is “proseluses,” which is the verb form of nail, just like in the English. So, we have those two references to nails in the New Testament and they’re both related to the cross, and here, suddenly in a third place in Revelation, in Hebrew we have Yeshua showing up and saying, “Hey, I’ve got the nails to death and Sheol.”
But how do you get from nails to key or from keys to nail? I didn’t know until I was looking in Jastrow. So, check this out - another reference he brings is to a passage in the Tosefta, which is around the same period as the Mishna, meaning around 200 AD, and it talks about various laws of ritual purity, and one of the questions the Rabbis discuss there is they say, “Well, what about a nail that’s bent to open and lock doors?” Meaning a nail that’s turned into a key.
Like, that was a think in this period. So, you have Jews walking around carrying nails from a crucifixion victim, and then you have nails that are used as keys. This can’t be a coincidence. There are too many cultural connections going on here.
Something is going on here. This is fascinating. Yeshua shows up with the nails of death and Sheol in the Hebrew, and in the Greek it’s the keys, and nails are turned into keys, and Jews are walking around carrying nails. I’m not entirely sure what to make of this, but this is huge. There’s something going on here.
And let’s state the obvious. Yeshua comes and He says, “I have the nails of death and Sheol.” And you have Jews walking around with nails from a crucifixion, interesting.
Verse 19-20: “Lachen ktov she ra’ita veshehena veshutzrach la’asot acharei zot. Ha sod hashiv’a cochavim she’ra’ita beyad yemini vasheva menorot hazahav hashiva cochavim malachim. Hashiva makelim heima, vehasheva menorot shera’ita shiva makelim hena.” In English, “Therefore, write that which you saw and that are here, and that which is necessary to do after this. The secret of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and the seven golden lamps, the seven stars are angels of the seven congregations and the seven lamps that you saw are the seven congregations.”
I’m reading here my translation. Normally, what happens in scholarship is we’ll discover a text like this, and we’ll work on it for 10 years, and then we’ll release the official authoritative translation and text. And I knew about the text 14 years ago, but I saw this text for the first time 3 days ago. So please; what I’m reading is not the last word. This is the beginning of study and research, and I’m hoping people will go to this text and they’ll do research, and they’ll say, “Nehemia was wrong. Here’s this other information that within three days he didn’t pick up on,” which is entirely possible. I mean, I think this text is worthy of study
Now for some there is the issue of the angels of these churches, and does that refer to the divine heavenly beings, or does “angel” simply refer to messenger? Could it be the pastor or a prophetic figure?
The word in Greek? Angelos. So, “angelos” means “messenger”, and it’s just as ambiguous as Hebrew. In other words, in the Tanakh, “mal’ach” can be both a human or a spirit messenger, and there’s no way to know except the context. And in Greek as well, “angelos” is just “messenger”. So, a human messenger is also called “angelos” in Greek. So, it’s ambiguous; meaning, whenever you see the word “angel”, know that word can be a human messenger as well. And that’s in the Tanakh, that’s in the New Testament, that’s everywhere that both Hebrew and Greek have this word that has this ambiguity.
In fact, “malachai” means “my messenger, my angel”. It’s “malachi”, “my main angel”. And he’s referred as his “mal’achut”, his messengership, meaning referring to malachi. And then the King Balak sends messengers, which are also called angel, “malach”. So, it’s only from the context you could know whether it’s angel or messenger. It’s the same in Hebrew and Greek.
Now, does that share the root with “melech” meaning “king?”
No, absolutely not. Melech, the root is Mem-Lamed-Khaf. Noun, adjective and verb in the Hebrew language is based on a three-letter root. This is the most basic concept; literally, the most basic concept. It’s the root concept of the Hebrew language, that every word has a three-letter root. It doesn’t apply to prepositions and things, but every adjective, noun and verb has a three-letter root. And the root of “melech”, king is Mem-Lamed-Khaf. The root of angel, “mal’ach,” is Lamed-Aleph-Kaf. And “la’achah” means “to send, to send somebody to do something.” So, mal’ach is “the one who is sent”, that’s the literal translation.
SHAPTER 2
Chapter 2:1: “Lemal’ach hamakel ve’Efesus ktov hena. Omer she’okhez hashiva hakochavim beyad yemino sheholech betoch hasheva menorot hazahav.” “To the angel of the congregation of Ephesus write here. The one who is holding the seven stars in his right hand and that walks in the middle of the seven golden lamps says,”
Verse 2: “Yode’a ani hamal’achotecha vaheyagi’ah ve’ha’erech apecha. Vekhilo tuchal laset ra’im u’bechantaha. Omrim lihiyotam meshulachim ve lo hema, umetzatam kozvim.” “I know your labours and toil and abundant patience that you are not able to bear evil ones. And you tested it, those who say that they are sent and they are not. And you found them to be liars.”
Verse 3: “Venatalta u’lecha erech apayim ba’avur shmi, velo chalita.” “And you took, and you have abundant patience for my namesake and you have not perished.” “Ki’im li me’um alecha ki azavta ha’avcha harishon.” “But I have something against you. You left your first love.” “Uzechor me’ayin nirbateta, vehinachem ve’aseh harishonim ma’asim. Ve’im lo avor lecha pitom peta, ve’azua hamenora mimkomo lulei tinachem.” “And remember from where you were thrown down and repent and do the first deeds. And if not, I will come to you as a sudden surprise and I will shake your lamp from its place if you do not repent.” “Ki im lecha zot ki sotem atah hama’aseh nikola’itim shehsotem gam ani.” “But you have this that you hate the deeds of Nicolaitans that I also hate.” “Ve’asher ozen yishma ma haru’ach omeret lemakelim.” “He who has an ear will hear what the spirit says to the congregations.”
Let me just finish this verse. “Lamenatze’ach eten le’echol min ha’etz hachayim asher betoch hapardes haElohi.” “I will let the victorious eat of the tree of life which is in the Divine orchard.” Wow, that’s a lot! I don’t know if I can cover all of it, but what are the key things in these seven verses? And by the way, the Hebrew has verse numbers, but they’re slightly different than the Greek and the English. Of course, verse numbers were added much later.
The Greek orchard portion: So, the word there is “pardes”, and in the Greek I believe it says “paradise” or “paradisos”, which is simply a transliteration of the word “pardes”. Now, scholars say the word “pardes” is not a Hebrew word originally, that originally it is the Persian word for an orchard. Whether that is true or not is an interesting question. That’s beyond the scope of this discussion. But we do have the word “pardes” in the Tanakh. It appears three times, and each time it is referring to a literal area where fruit trees are planted, meaning an orchard.
So, for example, Ecclesiastes 2:5, “I made me gardens and orchards and I planted trees in them of all kinds of fruits.” And the word is “pardesim”, orchards. Of course, the word “paradise” in English implies not just any orchard, but the Garden of Eden, meaning it’s a specific orchard, a holy orchard. And here it says, “pardes haElohi”, the Divine orchard. What’s interesting is we have a reference in the Talmud to four men who entered the pardes, and it’s this mystical orchard. Let me just pull this up and read it, because it’s quite interesting, the reference to pardes in the Rabbinical text. And this is a very famous story, it’s Arba Nichnesu Lepardes, the Four Who Entered the Orchard.
So, it’s in Chagiga 14:B, which is in the Talmud, but it’s quoting an earlier Mishnaic period source called a Baraita. It says, “Four entered the pardes, and these are they: Ben Aza and Ben Zoma, one they call Acher,” the other one, they won’t even say his name, “and Rabbi Akiva.” It’s a fascinating story. And basically, what comes out of this story is that one of the guys who went into the pardes died. Another one went crazy. And the third one became an apostate, and that’s why they call him Acher, they won’t even say his name. And of the four that entered, only Rabbi Akiva came out unscathed.
So, what is this pardes that they’re talking about, this mystical orchard, and what happened in the pardes? Now is that connected here to what Revelation is talking about, both in the Greek and the Hebrew, because they have the same word? Presumably it’s connected to this idea of the Garden of Elohim, the Gan Eden, the Garden of Eden, which was an orchard, right? It had at least two fruit trees in it, probably many more. I guess it had lots of fruit trees because they ate from it.
So, we think of it as the “Garden of Eden”, but actually, it’s the “Orchard of Eden”. It doesn’t sound as poetic in English.
But it’s the pardes of Eden. And by the way, we do know the name of the man who became an apostate. His name was Elisha ben Abuyah, but he’s usually referred to as Acher, the other one, who entered the pardes and became a heretic.” I wonder what he saw there.
Let’s look at the word Nicolaitans, because it comes from the Greek, it’s a transliteration of the Greek. I looked in the Hebrew text, and it had the transliteration there. The Greek word: a couple of ideas of where it may come from: One, a conjugation of “nicai’o” which means “to rule over” from the Greek god Nike, and the word that becomes “laity”. So, it’s to Nike over laity, to be victorious over the laity. To rule over the people. And I’ve heard people say that this talks about the idea of the clergy, the professional clergy, lording their religion over the people.
Right, and that kind of ties into Matthew 23, “Call no man Rabbi, call no man father.” That’s way off track, but yeah. It is interesting that you have a Greek word here in the Hebrew. I should point out that in this period, when Hebrew was heavily influenced by both Greek and Aramaic, for example, there are two key concepts in Rabbinical literature from this period, one will be probably very well-known to many members of the audience, it’s the word “gematria.” Gematria is simply the Greek word for “mathematics”, but it appears all over Hebrew literature, both Hebrew and Aramaic literature of Jewish sources.
Gematria is where you take words and you turn them into numbers, and then find other words that have the same number. And that is a Greek concept, that they would take Alpha, Beta and Gamma and turn them into numbers. It came from the Greek schools of Alexandria.
And then the other word you have, which probably isn’t going to be too familiar to anybody but Hebrew scholars, is the word “notarikon”, which is another Greek word that you find all over Rabbinical literature in Hebrew and in Aramaic. And it’s another method of interpretation that comes out of the Greek schools of Alexandria. Notarikon makes a lot more sense in Greek than it does in Hebrew, because it’s identifying compound words. Hebrew doesn’t really have so many compound words, it’s quite rare. But in Greek, “Nicolaitans” is an example of a compound word. It’s the word “nicao”, victory and laity, right? So, compound words are much more natural in Greek.
So, you do have Greek words in Hebrew of this period. You have Aramaic words. We just saw a Persian word that goes back to the time of King Solomon, right, because he’s writing in Ecclesiastes, assuming he wrote Ecclesiastes. So, you do have foreign loaned words occasionally. They tend to be rare, depending on your period you might have more. So yeah, you have all kinds of Greek words in Hebrew sources of this period. You have “famalia” which is the word “family”, but it means an “entourage” or a “royal entourage”. You have “palatin” which is a word that appears all over the Rabbinical writings in Hebrew of this period. “Palatin” is the word “palatine” and it means “palace”. It’s the source of the word “palace”.
In other words, the original Hebrew, whether this is the original Hebrew or not I don’t know, but it’s very possible the original Hebrew did have the word “Nicolaitim” or something like it, Nicolaitans. It’s very possible.
I think it’s interesting, this word the “victorious”. Is there something different in the Greek there? “I will let the victorious eat of the tree of life.” Just the tree of life is an amazing concept. We just talked about a pardes, a holy orchard, and in that orchard, there are two trees, the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden. And we were never forbidden from eating of the tree of life, we were only forbidden to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. If we had only just not eaten from the tree we were forbidden to eat from and eaten from the tree where we were allowed to eat from, we would have had eternal life, but because we disobeyed God, that was taken away from us.
And then you have this concept, especially in Proverbs, “Eitz chaim hi lemachazikim ba.” “The Torah is a tree of life for those who grab hold of it.” The Tanakh concept is that through the Torah, we get a second crack at eating of the tree of life, the one that we gave up that opportunity when we ate of the tree of knowledge. Now we have a second chance to eat of that tree of life, and get eternal life.
In the terms of the Tanakh. I do think it’s interesting the victorious, because the words “lamenatze’ach” could also mean “the conductor”, that is, the conductor of a choir. And remember, I mentioned that “makelim”, which is congregations, could also be translated as “choir”. I just realized that. Maybe there’s play on words there.
The Greek word “victorious” here gets translated in English as “conquers”, is actually “nikamti”, which comes Nike.
So, we may have a word pun in the Greek connecting Nicolaitans with the victorious.
So there are the ones who conquer the laity, “We don’t like that. We hate that,” meaning whoever’s speaking here, but for the ones who are victorious in something else, maybe victorious in the Spirit, because the Spirit is talking? But there’s this other group that are victorious without being victorious over the laity, victorious in the word, victorious in the Torah or whatever it is, they’re going to get to eat of the tree of life.
Look, that might be an argument for a Greek original, at least, of that passage. It’s hard to deny that there’s a connection there in the Greek. But maybe the Greek translator from the original Hebrew wove that in. Maybe there was something in the Hebrew that’s not lost. In other words, maybe the original Hebrew said something like, “I hate the actions of the menatzchei ha’am, the ones victorious over the people.” But lamenatze’ach, the conductor of the choir, the one who is victorious in Torah, he’s going to get to eat of the tree of life.
Now we’re going to get to one of the most exciting verses in the whole thing. I’m going to read to the end, but then we’ll go back and discuss it.
Verse 9: “U’chtov lemal’ach hamakel beSmyrna, veheina omer harishon veha’acharon shehaya met vechaya “And right for the angel of the congregation of Smyrna and hear say the first and the last that was dead and lives [Yeshua].”
Let’s understand what the text says in its own terms. He goes on, “Yode’ah ani hamasecha vehatzara vehadalah ki’im kaved ata. Vehanatzat hamedabrim Yehudi’im lihiyot, ve’lo hema, ki im knesset hasatan…” Here’s the English translation: “I know your deeds and the suffering and the poverty, but you are rich, and the despising of those who speak to be Judaic, and they are not, but rather the Synagogue of Satan.”
So, first, talk to me in verse 8 about this phrase, “the first and the last that was dead and now lives,” because in chapter 1:8 we said, “Well, it’s ambiguous. When he says the Aleph and the Tav, that could be Yehovah speaking.” It says, “omer Yehovah”, it must be Yehovah speaking, but here I don’t think anybody can dispute that presumably, Yehovah has never been dead. So presumably this is not Him speaking. So, what does Yeshua mean when He says, “I am the first and the last?”
All right, so when I say, “Yehovah” I mean what Christian’s call “the Father”. So, Yehovah Elohim - God, the Elohim - God is speaking in 1:8, we all agree on that, because it says, “Yehovah Elohim”, at least in the Hebrew. And let’s go back to 1:8 quick. Okay, so you’re saying it could be that Yeshua’s speaking even in 1:8? Clearly Yeshua, because he was dead and is now alive.
He’s calling Himself “the first and the last”. Verse 9 is much more interesting to me, because it talks about the “despising of those who speak to the Yehudi’im”. “I know your tribulation, your poverty, but you are rich.” There’s a parenthetical remark there. “And the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not but are a Synagogue of Satan.”
Note: “those who say they are Jews but they are not,” and so that would be in Hebrew, “Yehudim”. But instead of Yehudim it has “Yehudi’im”, which is the adjective form. You could almost translate it as “Jewish-like”, or I translated here as “Judaic”. It’s not the same as Jew or Jews. And I looked this up because I thought, “Okay, so what is the difference between Jews and Judaic? Isn’t that the same thing?” And I found this amazing text, Genesis Rabbah section 97. And there, it’s speaking about how Judah, back in the time of the forefathers, was able to keep the tribes from sinning by killing Joseph. Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out so well for Joseph, but at least he wasn’t killed.
And then they say here, “Also in this world, you will be honoured that all the tribes will call themselves Yehudi’im just as you are called Yehudah.” And the semantic distinction that’s created here in Genesis Rabbah 97 is between Jews and those who are of the tribes and call themselves “Yehudi’im” rather than “Yehudim”. And Yehudi’im are people basically from the 10 lost tribes who will be called “Yehudi’im”. That’s an incredible concept here. Where are these Ten Tribes?
And so, if that’s the meaning; and I don’t know if it is; but if that’s the meaning, if either the translator or the writer was familiar with that semantic distinction, the explanation of Revelation 2:9 from this Hebrew text is that there are people who are going to call themselves “Yehudi’im”, meaning they’re going to be from the Ten Tribes and they’re going to say, “Look, we’re not Jews but we’re Judaic,” and they’re not Judaic, they’re a Synagogue of Satan.
Yeshua teaches in a couple of parables about corruption within the Church, and that the Church is going to grow into something that it shouldn’t, that it’s a perverted version of what He wants it to be. I don’t know if that’s the meaning here.
We’ve established what the text says, now the interpretation is less clear.
Genesis Rabbah is a Midrash, and it dates to around the year 500, but it contains much earlier material. That’s something you’ll often hear in early Rabbinical literature, “It’s from the year 200 but it contains much earlier material,” and it’s true. So, for example, other people who are much greater experts in Genesis Rabbah than I have pointed out that there are three clear connections between the Epistles of Paul and Genesis Rabbah. For example, where he talks about the Torah being a teacher, that is based on a sermon in Genesis Rabbah, in this Midrash.
And what this Midrash does is, it’s basically a series of interpretations of the Book of Genesis and other books when there’s some association, that are in the Midrashic method; which means, they’re not necessarily saying, “Okay, if we read this text, what meaning will we derive from it?” But there’s an association we can create from this text, and if we want to give a sermon in the synagogue, we could build it around this text. And that’s called the “Midrashic method of interpretation”, it’s sometimes described as reading meaning into the text instead of deriving meaning from the text, but often the Rabbis have a certain concept, and they want to teach that concept, so they hang it on some verse from which you’d never get it from that verse alone, but they already have the concept and they want to teach it.
And there are three very clear connections between the Epistles of Paul and Genesis Rabbah which show you that that material goes back to the time when Paul, according to his description, was sitting under Gamaliel and teaching. So, even though it was written down in 500, it contains much, much earlier material that goes back to the 1st century, and probably earlier than that.
So when there’s this teaching that there’ll be people from the Ten Tribes’ I guess, 11 Tribes; who will call themselves “Yehudi’im”, that could be from 500, it could be from 500 BC. We don’t know. Probably not from 500 BC, right? But it probably does go back to Second Temple times. Is this a reference to that here, that there are people who claim to be from the Ten Tribes and to be Judaic and they’re not? They’re the Synagogue of Satan? I mean, what on earth…? I mean, the first thought I had is, this is a reference to replacement theology, where the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church say that they are the new Israel. The old Israel’s done away with. They are the new Jews. The old Jews are done away with. I don’t know if that’s what this is talking about. I’m going to leave that for the listeners to search it out for yourself and pray about it, because it’s a very fascinating passage.
I’d like to explore the Synagogue of Satan. So, it literally says, “Knesset haSatan”, which if we want to be technical is “the knesset of the Satan”. that’s without translating it. And the word for synagogue is beit knesset, the house of the gathering. And knesset is gathering, so it’s the gathering of the Satan. Satan really shouldn’t have a capital S. In fact, let’s change it right now and make it “the satan” with a small S, because if you say “the” in Hebrew, then it’s not a name. Then again, this is kind of a strange text where he adds “the” to almost everything, so maybe it is a name here. But normally in Hebrew if you have a “the” in front of a word it’s “the satan, the elohim.” Elohim then isn’t a name.
So, this is a big concept. What is the “knesset of the satan”? Is it necessarily a synagogue? So, for example, Israel’s parliament is called “the Knesset” and where that comes from is not the word “synagogue” but an earlier concept that there’s something called “the men of the Great Assembly, haKnesset haGdola, the Great Knesset”. And that dates back to around 400 BC. Supposedly Chaggai, Zecharia and Malachi or Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi were members of the Knesset haGdola.
So, knesset without the word “beit” in front of it, arguably is not synagogue. It could be some kind of what I think the call in Greek a “synod”, that is a counsel. And it’s interesting, because we have the word “congregation” here and it’s makelim, But with this word “synagogue”, so basically it’s the “counsel of the satan”, I mean, satan means “enemy”, but where you see about “hasatan” in the Tanakh it’s a type of angel, or perhaps a single angel, that’s arguable. So, we have this “counsel of the satan?
So, read us the Greek, that phrase. “Synagogue tau Satana”. So, it’s the “counsel of the satan, gathering of the satan”. I don’t know what that is. Maybe it’s some counsel that took place in the 1st century that John of Patmos is saying, “This counsel, that’s the side of a certain thing. They’re way off.” I have no idea. Or maybe it’s an enemy counsel, I don’t know. Presumably then, it would be a counsel that’s in Smyrna, which is what we were talking about. Those that are of the Synagogue of Satan are the Yehudi’im. They’re the ones who claim to be Jews but they’re not. In fact, they claim to be Judaic.
They’re from the Ten Tribes and claim to be Judaic, but they’re not. And it’s not clear, are they not from the Ten Tribes, or are they from the Ten Tribes but not Judaic? Maybe they’re from the Ten Tribes and they claim to be Judaic, but they don’t follow the Torah and therefore they’re not. I mean, I don’t know. We’re trying to figure out what a text said both in Greek and in Hebrew. Yeah, I don’t know. I think whole books have been written about this.
To me, this is one of the three big pearls in this passage, one of the three golden nuggets. You’ve got Yehovah with the vowels in chapter 1 verse 8, you’ve got the nails, and you have this reference to Yehudi’im versus Yehudim. I don’t know if this is a translation from some lost Greek or Latin version, or if it is just the original Hebrew, I have no idea. But there’s something really fascinating about this text. Let’s read on.
Verse 10: “Al tira shehutzrach unot vehinei ha’avadon yiten mikem el beit hasohar lenasotchem. Velachem tzara asar yamim. Heyeh ne’eman ad mavet venatati lecha ateret hachayim.” “Do not be afraid for suffering was necessary. And behold destruction…” which is Avadon, or Abaddon, “will give some of you to the prison to test you. And you will have suffering for 10 days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.”
Meaning, “avadon” is destruction. It certainly is not a pleasant experience, whatever it is. And the Book of Revelation in 9:11: They have as king over the them the angel of the bottomless pit. His name in Hebrew is Abadbon, and in Greek he is called ‘Apollyon.’”
This is one of the signs that at least this has Hebrew sources, and his name is “Avadon”, “Destruction” and in the Greek the “v” becomes a “b”, Abadon. There’s no “v” in Greek. So, Avadon, Destruction is mentioned again, but you wouldn’t know that from the Greek of Revelation 2:10, but in the Hebrew here it’s “Avadon is going to give you over to the prison.”
So, there’s “Diabolos”, which is “the Devil”. You don’t even need to speak Spanish to know Diabolos is the devil, meaning something like Satan or maybe it’s “a diabolos”, “a devil”. So, there’s another thing where you have to say, “Why on earth, if he’s translating this from Greek, why would he translate “Diabolos” as “Avadon” I wish we had Revelation 9 of this Hebrew text.
Verse 11: “L’asher ozen yishma mah haruach omeret lamakelim hagover lo yenugam min hamavet hasheini.” “He who has an ear will hear what the Spirit says to the congregations, the one who overcomes will not be smitten by the second death.”
The common Christian interpretation of this is simply that the first death is the death of the body. The second death is the eternal death in the lake of Fire.
Jews, I think, have the same understanding, and that comes from Daniel 12 verse 2, where it talks about “Many of those sleep in the dust of the earth shall arise, some for eternal life and some for eternal derision and shame.” And the understanding there is that “eternal derision and shame” is, if you’re not judged for eternal life, you just die, and it’s a permanent death. That’s a common Jewish understanding. But that this is something that’ll happen at the time of the resurrection, at least based on Daniel 12:2, and Isaiah 66 also discusses that.
In the Tanakh it’s never called the “second death”, but it’s understood.
Verse 12-13: “Velamal’ach hamakel bePergamos ktov heina omer, ‘la’asher hakerev pipiyot, yodea ani et ma’asecha ve’eifo yoshev eh hamoshav haSatan.” “And to the angel of the congregation of Pergamos write here saying, ‘He who has the double-edged sword, I know your deeds and where he is sitting, where the seat of Satan is.’”
And by the way, that’s the end of the manuscript, or I should say, it’s the end of the text - the manuscript goes on for another 20 or so pages. And that’s the middle of verse 13, right? So, it ends in the middle of the verse, and presumably, the source this was based on was just a fragment, and when he copied it there was nothing more to copy.
The Greek word “Pergamos” comes from “gami”, meaning marriage. The Church at Pergamum is the Church that marries the world. So, this is one of the seven letters about which there’s nothing good said.
A Hebrew Manuscript of the Book of Revelation British Library, MS Sloane 273:
https://audio.nehemiaswall.com/Downloads/A-Hebrew-Manuscript-of-the-Book-of-Revelation-British-Library-Sloane-273.pdf
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